Remember when?....

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red

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Jan 20, 2007
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LaRue, Ohio
It was thinking about this today. do you remember when to you 50 was someone that had one foot in the grave & was ready for the nursing home? Now 50 is the new 30's!

Do you remember when it was routine to have supper all together & not a special occasion?

Do you remember when on Sunday your mom fixed a huge dinner just because?

Dressing up for church, a funeral or just a date was normal?

Do you remember when you didn't know anyone's parents that were divorced?

Red
 

oakview

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When I was 19, 50 seemed darn old.  Now, 85 must be darn old.  I suppose in 30 years 110 will seem darn old.  Or maybe I won't be able to tell the difference at 85.

Supper together in the old days was before satellite TV and the 'ballgame of the century' that happens every other day that we think we need to watch so we eat in the living room.

I would give about everything I have to be able to relive the Sunday afternoon dinners at Grandma and Grandpas, both sets.

We still dress up a little for church, but I haven't dated in years.  I do remember paying for everything when we dated.  I wonder if I'd have more money today if I had made my girlfriend pay.  I ended up marrying her, so I guess if she had paid her share back then she'd have less money today, so it doesn't make any difference in the long run.  If any of that makes sense to you, please make an appointment with your shrink ASAP.

I did not know any children when I was growing up that had divorced parents.  The only classmate I knew that was from a single parent family lost his father in a farming accident when we were in 7th grade.  Today, my grandchildren have more classmates from single parent families than what I used to consider traditional two biological parent homes.  My first grade teacher took us to her house for a picnic for our field trip.  I saw on TV the other night that a first grade teacher in San Francisco took her 1st grade class to witness her wedding to her girlfriend.

Progrees is good, isn't it?
 

Cattledog

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Mar 27, 2008
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red said:
Do you remember when it was routine to have supper all together & not a special occasion?


Red

My wife, since we just had our first child has reinstituted this.  No TV, just us eating and talking instead of tuning into the tv.  I think it is great!  How about this, remember when TV's weren't flat!  ;D
 

Dusty

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Feb 13, 2008
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I'm not that old and when i grew up our TV sat on the floor and weighed about as much as a mature cow.  I think it was in use for about 20 years before they finally got rid of it. 
 

knabe

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Hollister, CA
Dusty said:
I'm not that old and when i grew up our TV sat on the floor and weighed about as much as a mature cow.  I think it was in use for about 20 years before they finally got rid of it. 

dusty, you must have been rich, we had a 10" zenith black and white.  didn't care about color as a good % of shows were still in black and white, as well as most movies on saturday.  i'm 49.
 

dutch pride

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Didn't even have a TV until I was eight years old, I was soooooo deprived. Still get dressed up more for church than most over things I go out to but not suit and tie much any more. Meals are beginning to get less and less together now that kids are almost grown, only one home now and he is a senior in HS. Still try to have a Sunday meal together most weeks when the girls are home from colloge and not working. I too did not know any kids from divorced parents when I was younger and now I have a divorce and children born out of wedlock in my own family. Lots of changes but also lots of opportunities also. Only one parent went to High school but several of my siblings and I did. My Dad lived on a farm about 3 miles from town and went to town once a week if lucky and was never out of the county until he went overseas in the Army. Three of my kids have traveled abroad before they were 18 years old.
 

JbarL

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my daughter just coudnt believe that tv actually  went off at 11:30 pm.....nothing.... nada.......my parents had the same phone number there WHOLE adult life......and crack was something that got hooked on everyone.....butt we all tried to hide it......:D....jbarl
 

dutch pride

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JbarL said:
my parents had the same phone number there WHOLE adult life......:D....jbarl

My parents still have the same number as when I was born as well .When I was growing up it was a 8 party line. Can't imagine having to check to see if someone was on the line before making a call let alone be on dial up internet for hours at a time :). Also only had one phone in the house, now we have three plus cell phones for everone.

DLZ
 

BIGTEX

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We had a party line when I was a kid. It was hard trying to talk to a girl when your aunt or uncle would get on the line and ask when you were going to be done.

We have one person who wears a budweiser jacket to church. Getting dressed up is different for everyone I guess.
 

justintime

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May 26, 2007
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Saskatchewan Canada
Times certainly have changed since I was a kid. In many ways, I would love to go back to some of those days just as oakview mentioned.

I remember thinking my dad was old when I graduated from college. He was 42. I also remember the day that i realized that I was older than my dad was when I graduated from college, and I was devastated. I remember thinking that my life must be almost over.

I think I was about 5 when we got our first TV. It was a black and white ( of course) and many of the neighbours came over in the evening to see this new phenomenom. One thing my parents insisted on at every meal time, was that we were all seated at the table until everyone was finished eating. There was never an excuse for eating in front of the TV ( unless the World Series or the Flintstones was on). Meals were at 12 noon and 6 pm every day except during harvest. No other exceptions. And again, you were expected to be there on time and be sitting at the table. My uncle was the first in our commumity to get a colour TV. I can still remember dad hooking up the team of horses to a cutter and heading over the 2 miles to watch Bonanza on colour TV. We would sit there and watch TV until it went off the air at 1 AM, then bundle up and head home.

Sunday meals.... now that brings back many memories. My mother literally prepared a Christmas dinner every Sunday, or any other day that visitors were going to be here for a meal. We were expected to be at church  on time and we were expected to be dressed up.I have probably wore out more suits than some of today's kids have even seen in their lives.  Even when we had 1500 head here, we were expected to be at church ON TIME. To my parents, being late for church meant arriving and finding more than 3 cars in the parking lot. I used to hate Sundays, especially in the winter as it usually meant we had to be outside doing chores in the dark at  6 AM so that we could have the animals fed before we left for church. Usually , we made an effort to do as much as we could on Saturday to make our Sunday's a little easier.

We had a party line  until I was 15 years old. When we got a private line , we thought we had made the big times. Unlike some people on here, we had electricity here since 1927. My dad who is now 83 can not remember not having power. The farm home we live in was built in 1925 and it was wired for electricity, was plumbed for running water, and a sewer system was installed when the house was built. I think it was one of the only homes that had all these features at the time in the community. From 1927 to 1952, the farm had it's own power generating system and the power lines were brought into the yard in 1952.

Everyone on the farm, from a very early age, was expected to do their chores and there never was any questioning them. I used to think that my 3 sisters had it easier than I had, but looking back they all had enough to do as well. Our home is a huge old farm home as my grand parents had 12 children and there were always 2 or 3 hired men that  also had to someplace to sleep. I know that I never had to do much inside the house, and this place was always spotless when I growing up, so my sisters must have done more than I thought. There never was a day in my growing up years that the beds weren't made every morning, and the entire house wasn't vacuumed at least 3 times a week. Two of my sisters and myself all ended up in college at the same time, and I have no idea how my parents managed to put us through. Both my parents worked at a large local auction mart through those years for 2 or 3 days a week. My mother was the office manager for many years and every cheque had to be handwritten, as there were no such things as computers. Despite this, I never remember any dishes in the sink, or a bed unmade. I think I was blessed. My mom has not been gone for 15 years and if I have any regrets, it is that I took all she did for granted. My dad is now 83, going on 43, and still works on the farm almost every day. Some days he can still out work me ( which isn't saying much!!).

Despite all our work on the farm, we were expected to be involved in as many things as we could in the community. Our community was small, so we oftentimes needed every boy in the school to make a football or hockey team. We were all expected to have as many calves in 4-H as we could handle, and we all showed calves in 4-H until we went to college. Two of my sisters and myself showed in 4-H until we were 21. One of my sisters was still showing cattle when she was working as the Head Nurse in a major hospital 100 miles from home.

We were kept busy so we never had much time to get into trouble. Sometimes I wish I could go back to some of those days..............
 

justintime

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One of the jobs I forgot to mention that I was expected to do, occurred every fall after harvest and continued until well into winter. Our community had what was called " open herd law" which meant that everyone who had cattle would let them out and they would run freely over anyone's land and salvage what they could from the combined fields. Some farmers would turn their cows out and let them run freely for 6 or 8 weeks and then gather them up when it got too cold for them to graze anymore. We always tried to gather our cows up every evening and it was my job to saddle my horse and head out to find the cows as soon as I got off the school bus. Sometimes they would have gone 5 or 6 miles since they were let out in the morning, so I would ride until I found them and head them home. Sometimes they were mixed with cows from two or three neighbours, so I would try to sort them, and try to get as many as I could. I can remember riding in some rather nasty cold snow storms trying to find the cows and head them home. Many nights I probably rode close to 20 miles rounding up the cows. It was amazing how much weight the cows and calves would pack on once they were turned out onto the combined fields. Many times the calves were fat enough to be weaned and go directly to a show without ever being hand fed.
 
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