The Old Timers Club

[NorthWesterner]

I am certifiably older than dirt.

My mother had one of those sprinkle bottles. And my grandmother, when I used to visit her, still used an iron that she heated on her wood stove. Yep. She knew just how hot to get it. My parents gave her an electric iron, but she couldn't figure out how to work it to keep the temperature right, and it was too light, she said, to do a decent job of pressing the clothes. So she stuck to her old iron iron.

Not only did we have a party line, but when I was growing up we still had hand crank phones. They shut off when Mabel went to bed, which was somewhere between 9 and 11, whenever she got tired and headed off.

Once we got dial phones, our exchange was Elmwood. But before that, our number was eight ring two.

And in my first job I used a true telephone plug board. Real plugs and wires to connect all the extensions in the building.

Yes, I had skates with a skate key (and solid metal wheels, none of this nice quiet plastic wheels. And, of course, no helmets, knee pads, elbow pads, or whatever. When we fell down we got skinned knees or elbows. Helped you avoid falling down!

Here are a few more for you.

Toasters that had sides that opened up, only toasted one side at a time, and if you didn't watch it like a hawk (and even if you did), the toast burned.

Refrigerators with the open coil on top.

Rumble seats. Yep, I've ridden in them.

War bonds.

P.M. (the newspaper)

Norman Rockwell covers on the Saturday Evening Post -- when they came out originally, not just reprints.