I'm so old I've...

My mom was a coffee addict, and whenever we went to the mall, the first thing she'd want to do would be to find a place where she could get a cup of coffee, which was usually Woolworths. I liked their hot dogs because they grilled the outside of the bun. One time we went to a Woolworths downtown, and I saw in the underwear aisle that besides white underwear, they had underwear that was dark green, dark blue, or burgundy. At the time it was unusual to see underwear that wasn't white. I asked my mom what's with the dark colored underwear, and she whispered to me that it was for black people, so it wouldn't show through their clothes so much.

does anyone remember seeing parakeets in an open box out in the middle of the floor at Woolworths? I could never understand why they did not fly away. We kids were always hanging around watching them.

Funny stuff, Kathy WI! :) Re: white undies, it's taken me the better part of my life to ease myself into buying coloured ones. Even then, I'm still partial to white.

Tenngal. What a mind-breaker your post is. :) I think I do, yet maybe the memories I have of parakeets stems from the pet departments I visited... However, the more I think about it, the more I can see parakeets out in the open. This one is definitely going to keep me thinking...

My Woolworth's had a pet department, but it contained dead/dying fish and sickly hamsters. And yes, I remember the fried food smells too. And the clanking of plates, so out of place in a store. I think my straws were plastic, not paper, so they lasted through my bubble-blowing.

Years ago it seems that stores like Woolworth's and S. Kline had fabric/sewing departments. Not many stores carry material anymore. Walmart is supposed to be phasing that out of their stores.

My mom and I used to shop at a McCrory's, which was similar to Woolworth's, without the cafe.

I got this little questionnaire sometime in 2000 ... just found it again, so I thought I'd pass it along:

How many of the following can you remember?
1) Blackjack chewing gum
2) Wax Coke-shaped bottles with colored sugar water inside
3) Candy cigarettes
4) Soda machines that dispensed bottles, not cans
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 for the 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 levers
18) Mimeograph paper
19) Blue flashbulbs
20) Beanie and Cecil
21) Roller skate keys
22) Cork popguns
23) Drive-ins
24) Studebakers
25) Wash tub ringers
26) Kukla, Fran, and Ollie

If you remembered 0- 5 -- you're still young
If you remembered 6-10 -- You're getting older
If you remembered 11-15 -- Don't tell your age
If you remembered 16-26 -- You're older than you know.

For me: #6 - home delivery of milk in glass bottles. I know some people had that but I don't remember much about it because we didn't.

#10 - Butch wax. My brother was 10 years older than I was, and he married and left home when I was 8, so had no boys around. I assume it's a wax for butch haircuts, which I do remember!

#7 and #11 - our first phone number was 971-W, a party line. Don't remember much about it. Later on we moved to a very small down and our number was 325-R, also a party line. Then we got a private line, 2585. You had to get the operator and tell her the number and she'd connect the call. It was such a small town that the operators knew everyone and you could ask them lots of questions. I used to get babysitting jobs from the operator -- people would ask her for recommendations if they didn't know any sitters, and sometimes she'd recommend me if I lived close to where they lived. Oh the joy of small towns! Later on we got dial phones and our number was WElls 5-1246, which changed to 935-1246.

#18 - Mimeograph paper, which I do remember, but the paper that smelled good wasn't mimeograph paper, it was ditto papers. Ditto was the purple "ink" that adhered to the back of the paper you drew or typed on, then put on a drum that had "spirit" inside that which "printed" the letters or pictures. It did smell good! Hand crank machines, as I recall. Mimeograph was the green fibrous masters that you typed on (not using the ribbon) which spread the fibers apart, then that was put on the mimeograph machine drum that forced the ink thru those parts. The ink was black and didn't smell good, but I don't really remember what it smelled like. They were electric.

#23 - Drive-ins! What fun! But we won't talk about that! :-D

#24 - Studebakers -- yeah, we had one.

So I guess, in one way or another, I remember all of these. Have fun with it!

Funny thread. I"m coming in late
Like an earlier poster I"m so old I remember the 'old currency' of pounds shillings and pence in the United Kingdom
I'm so old I had a 78 rpm record of Elvis Presley's "Blue Suede Shoes" that I used to dance to with my Auntie
I'm so old I remember not seeing TV until I was 5 yrs old because we didn't get one til then. And we were one of the early ones in the English town we lived in
I'm so old I remember men going by in horses and carts yelling "rag and bone"
I'm so old I remember brush salesmen coming to the door!
There's more but I don't want to be a bore!

I had completely forgotten the smell of the roasting nuts in the department store....Grants, I think for us, not Sears. When Sears came it, it was a big deal. The nuts were so delicious to smell but we hardly ever bought any (too expensive) but I do recollect my mother buying Spanish peanuts mixed with "chocolate babies." Odd as it sounds, it made a great combination.

Yum.

Serendipity:

My score was 22.
I still have an ice tray with a lever.
We did have home delivery of milk when I was little and my kids were little
I loved hanging out with my friends who had party lines because it was fun to eavesdrop
I have so many happy memories of coming home from school, and hearing The Platters and Johnny Mathis playing on my mother's HiFi
I also have happy memories of helping Mom put her green stamps in the books.
My phone number when I was young: TRinity 4-5668

Fun!

My score was only 5 and I'm 45!! Maybe I lead a sheltered life!

I got 10 and am now 68. Another sheltered life?