Older Than Dirt Quiz: Count all the ones that you remember not the ones you were told about! Ratings at the bottom.

1. Blackjack chewing gum
2. Wax Coke-shaped bottles with colored sugar water
3. Candy cigarettes
4. Soda pop machines that dispensed bottles
5. Coffee shops with tableside jukeboxes
6. Home milk delivery in glass bottles with cardboard stoppers
7. Party lines
8. Newsreels before the movie
9. P.F. Flyers
10. Butch wax
11. Telephone numbers with a word prefix (Olive-6933)
12. Peashooters
13. Howdy Doody
14. 45 RPM records
15. S&H Green Stamps
16. Hi-fi's
17. Metal ice trays with lever
18. Mimeograph paper
19. Blue flashbulb
20. Packards
21. Roller skate keys
22. Cork popguns
23. Drive-ins
24. Studebakers
25. Wash tub wringers

If you remembered 0-5 = You're still young
If you remembered 6-10 = You are getting older
If you remembered 11-15 = Don't tell your age,
If you remembered 16-25 = You're older than dirt!

I remembered 9 but one of them doesn't count because we still have a drive-in here!

If dirt's the grading scale, dust me off, but I'm a YOUNG <50.

Luke

Vickie....if you posted this on the other thread, we'd have had a "hot" topic already....in just a few hours!

Shoot, Vickie, I vividly remember them all.

Ray

Let me advise thee not to talk of thyself as being old. There is something in Mind Cure, after all, and if thee continually talks of thyself as being old, thee may perhaps bring on some of the infirmities of age. At least I would not risk it if I were thee.
(Hannah Whitall Smith, 1907)

I remember 21. Yikes !!! I think my mother still uses those ice cube trays with the lever.

I remember 24. Never saw Howdy Dowdy. Grew up in Montana and only had 1 TV station. Next door neighbor had a wringer washer. Most people who take this quiz ask what Butch wax is.

Well...all I can say is my memory must have residuals from a previous life - I don't believe I'm THAT old! :ohmy:

I am only 48 - how do I remember all of them?

Did 23.....have no idea as to butch wax and B.F. flyers!!

Oh, Lord (again!)...21 for me....sigh...

I am sorry to say, no happy (since I can't do anything about it), with age comes wisdom! I remember all those things (I'm 58, so ChatKat Kathy, you're doing pretty well being 10 years behind!) aaannnthony, butch wax as I remember is what my brothers used to keep their "flat top" hairdo's on the vertical. P.F. flyers were tennis shoes. My mother had a wringer machine and told me all sorts of horrible stories to make sure I never got my hand near it and I feared being disfigured for life if I touched it. A Studebaker "Avanti" was the first car that my father and uncle bought for my older sister and cousin, and it stayed with us cousins for years! A local town legend of the 9 cousins living next door to each other sharing this funny looking green car that held the 7 oldest of us to get us to school in the morning!. The party line numbers shared by our households were 32W and 32J...we didn't even have dial, pick up the phone and there was the lady who said "Operator", it was the old switchboard thing! But I had heard about those bigger towns nearby who had those numbers that started with a name! Candy cigarettes were the beginning of my being a smoker, I am glad they don't make them anymore. Those waxy things I can still taste, disgustingly sweet colored sugar water. I wore my skate key on a string around my neck. This all makes me feel so old, but when I look at what these kids today will look back upon as "the good old days", somehow I feel comfortable with mine.

I remember using a wringer machine at summer camp....we used to put ketsup packets thru it...

They do make candy smokes, O. I'll send you some!

Do they still come in packaging resembling cigarette packs? That is horrible! What a good story about the ketchup and wringer machine. You are far too young to know about this!

15...
have to add one..
black and white tv sans remote control..as in get up off the couch.
<img border="0" alt="[naughty]" title="" src="graemlins/naughty.gif" /> <img border="0" alt="[naughty]" title="" src="graemlins/naughty.gif" />

I remember all but the P.F.flyer I am one of the oldest on the board. Why am I still working 45-50 hours a week? I guess it is because my husband has been retired for almost 10 years.

10. I'm from Japan though so I'm not familiar with all of your American ways ... ;)

Masaki

I remember only 6 but then agian my memory is shot! Macy

I remembered 13, the one about the studebaker brought back memories of my dad taking all of us (5 kids) to the drive-in and making as many of us as fit crawl from the back seat into the trunk to save on admission! (I think we moved the seat back cushion.) I never forgot the drive-in since that's where I saw What Ever Happened to Baby Jane, was terrifed, could never watch it again. (I must've been about 8.)

Oh, help....it's dirt for me! :ohmy:

Well, as long as we're all showing our age......anyone remember watching a tv show where you put a piece of plastic over the screen and figured out a secret mystery code?!

I remember doing that, but it is a dim memory. I think we used a marker on it? Or was that Romper Room?

I don't remember the mystery code. Hmmmmm.

Another couple of items. Sin Sin breath fresheners. Fresheners, my eye, they took your breath away totally.

Or how about buying a very small bottle of liquid cinnamon and then soaking tooth picks in it which you would later suck on.

Or getting ice shavings from the driver of a horsedrawn ice delivery truck. Remember iceboxes?

Or assembling a crystal radio set and being amazed at its far reaching reception.

Or following a roofing company that was applying tar to a roof. Kind of cool to chew warm roofing tar.

Oh and #4, buying a coke and weaving it thru the exit and then pouring in a handfull of spanish peanuts. Yummmmmmmmm.

Cheers! Ray
God gave us our memories so that we might have roses in December.
(J.M. Barrie)

OK Ray, everything was fine til I got to the part about chewing warm roofing tar! :hyper: Or maybe it was Winky Dink ;)

21 for me! Boy, is that depressing!! The YMCA had a wringer tub to wring out your wet bathing suit after swimming lessons. (Of course, the boys didn't have to wring out their suits, since they swam in the buff.) Blackjack gum was my favorite!

My mom owned 2 Studebakers when I was a kid. Our family took a 3 week trip out west on one of them. The back doors opened from the front side of the door, not from the rear. Very cool.

Great list -

Ginny

aannnthony: Butch wax was a necessary ingredient when you had a "flat-top" haircut or sometimes referred to as a "Butch" cut. Anyway, you dipped your fingers in what looked like petroleum jelly and applied it to the hair so the front would stand up tall.

Bebop bonnie: Chewing roofing tar. You had to have good timing as to how long you could chew it :D Plus, if you swiped a piece off the roof after the roofing crew left, then you had to be careful to secure a pebble free swatch.

I just got off the treadmill as I am trying to tune up my body to Greek god like status so Ngaire will be proud to have me as a client on our upcoming cruise, and while huffing and puffing, I thought of relatives that died on farms. You went to the farm house where the remains were viewed in a spare bedroom and after the funeral you stayed for a huge meal.

And, on the farm, baking ovens were fueled by shucked corncobs.

Cheers! Ray

I feel so nostolgic reading that list! I remember a LOT of them. And I still use metal ice cube trays with the lever, honest, don't know where they came from, but I have them.

Adding to the list, I think of my childhood days, bouncing a red/white/blue ball against a wall for hours on end, not a care in the world. And then those tiny little hard "superballs" came on the scene - what an invention, I thought! And pogo sticks, hula hoops, slinky's....things my 18 year olds have never seen (thanks to the internet, and endless, mindless t.v.) I don't think they have ever played a game of "Red Rover" (boy, that hurt when they crashed through your arms!!)

We were so easily amused back then, weren't we?

Charlene

Some additional things I remember---

--Froggy the Gremlin ("I'll be good, I will, I will".)

--Baseball cards w/clothespins on bikes

--Chocolate egg cream sodas

--As very young teens with hormones on overdrive, stuffing the ballot boxes (ALL over town) for the annual "Miss Rheingold" (almost always for the blonde)we wanted to win. (She never won)

--Toy plastic rocket ships you filled with water then pumped up with air.

--Midnight the Cat

--Punks (sticks you lit)

--Snakes (things you lit that created "snakes")

--Pez

--Pluto platters (early Frisbees)

--"Duck and cover"

--Ant farms


Bill

Just call me DirtBag, I remember all of them and Bonnie's plastic film on the television set. Our telephone number was 23 but we lived "in town" and had a private line.

Actually, the wringer washer was something my grandmother used only for her hand-made quilts, so I don't remember having clothes washed in one. But my dad worked in the oil fields of S. Arkansas, and I can remember my mother "boiling" his oily clothes in GASOLINE, on an outdoor FIRE! Geez!

I'm so glad you remember that show....I was beginning to think I had dreamt the whole thing! But, Pam....what was the name of that show? Winky, rinky, something dinky?! <img border="0" alt="[Hammer]" title="" src="graemlins/hammer.gif" />

It was called Winky Dink. I drew on our TV too!

And, Wednesdays on Micke Mouse Club was Spin and Marty day. Whoo-hoo!! I had a big crush on Spin. That Annette always had all the fun!

Hey, Donna, if you read my post on another thread you'll see you weren't the only one who had a thing for Spin! And, yup....in my dreams, I was Annette too! <img border="0" alt="[bounce]" title="" src="graemlins/ubbbounce2.gif" /> <img border="0" alt="[bounce]" title="" src="graemlins/ubbbounce2.gif" />

I thought I had read your post somewhere but couldn't find it quickly. Yeah, we were in the same fan club! Only, Spin was much too old for me <img border="0" alt="[naughty]" title="" src="graemlins/naughty.gif" />

It's depressing for me to say I do remember it all. Life was far less complicated when all these things existed. Therefore, it brings a smile to my face to recall it all with very fond memories.

I kept wanting to say that Wednesday was "Annette's" day, but I guess it was Spin and Marty! Wasn't that a ranch type theme?

Donna, thanks for the Winky Dink thing, as I remember the plastic cover. But what was the show?

It was about a summer camp (in the West I guess). The girl's camp had Annette and Doreen. The boy's camp had Spin and Marty. They would get together at dances. Spin and Marty would fight over Annette.

I don't remember the show's name about Winky Dink. I though that was the name of the show. After all, I was only 5!

Oh, Doreen, I did the same thing she did her hair in front of the pony tail! She was my idol, as I couldn't quite connect physically to the queen Annette!

Annettte didn't imitdate me! I loved all the songs they sang. I used to sit on the backyard swing set and sing as loud as I could. Silly me, I thought it would attract the boy up the street. What did I know!!

I too remember 24 out of 25. What were PF Flyers? We all wore Keds sneakers.
Speaking of 45 RPM records, I still have my collection of over 300 “oldies” R& B 45 records. What great sounds...”In the Still of the Night” sure beats “rap” any day of the week.
Some other items which I remember ( and others might also)
1. Movies that have “serials” before or after each movie ( Flash Gordon, Last of the Mohicans, etc.)
2. Mickey Mouse Club. Wasn’t Wednesday ( or was it Friday?) “Anything Can Happen Day”?
3. The great debate among New Yorkers as to who was the greatest centerfielder of the day: Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays or Duke Snider?
4. Collecting Tops baseball cards ( with one large stick of pink bubble gum inside) All of our mothers subsequently threw them all out and if they didn’t, we all would be multi-millionaires today.
5. 77 Sunset Strip- what a great series on early TV Remember the stars??
6. “Spaldeen”- this was the pink ball that we used for “stickball” and “punchball”
(actually this was probably a Spalding ball but no-one, I mean no-one, ever called it by that name)
7. Fleers Double Bubble Gum
8. Frigerators with the motor outside on the top
9. Hopalong Cassidy, the Lone Ranger, Gene Autrey, Roy Rogers, Ken Maynard
Remember the names of their horses? The gang that shot the Lone Ranger in the first episode when he was found by Tonto. The name of Roy Rogers dog?
10. Howdy Doody. Remember the name of the “Princess” on this show?
11. The Rootie Kazootie show. Remember the name of the pup?

Wow! we are really ancient if we can remember so many of these “goodies”. Kids today seem to take all of the rapidly expanding technology for granted. The only technological advances we had was the change from hi fi to stereo.

Princess SummerFallWinterSpring! <img border="0" alt="[bounce]" title="" src="graemlins/ubbbounce2.gif" />

Sunset Strip, starring Efraim Zimbalist Jr, and Edd Byrnes as "Kooky" - wow.
I got all 25 :ohmy: