[billiardspoolnet]

From: FAST LARRY WHO ASKS: 20 pages 6-13-04
DO YOU REMEMBER WHEN...?
Playing pool in a top joint was 50 cents an hour. No bar, no pin ball, no bowing alley, just pool, mister, this is Millers. The desk man just wrote down on a piece of paper when you started or they stamped your time ticket in. You could play on credit and you paid your time debt off when you made a score. The balls were left on the table, nobody ripped things off then. The desk man handed you an ivory ball to play with and a phenolic ball to break with. The object balls were clay.

The joint was quite like a church. All you could hear was the click of the ivories coming from the many 3-cushion tables around you. There was no juke box playing rap at a db level equal to the space shuttle launch. The only noise was from behind the desk where the baseball game might be playing on the am radio. The old men are playing golf on the 6x12. There is no air conditioning so play slacks off in the summer and you hear the hum of fans running. A lot of the joints are in basements and they are dark and like caves. Smoke covers the ceiling like a cloud. Spittons were along the walls, players would spit a big mouth full of brown gue into the wall just above the spittoons and it would slime down the wall and drip into the can, it was enough to make a maggot puke.

You walk over to the pool section and open the door of a wood closet and hang up your jacket and hat. You hide your leather case and balabuska or Rambo inside and close the door. Then you only carried one cue and a thin case, a cue and a shaft, if you were serious you have two shafts. You broke with a house cue that hang on the wall and are free to use.

You pick out a nice house cue which in quality would be equal to a $500 custom cue today. You rub your hand on the new simonies #1 cloth which is like 760 today. They changed it every 90 days so it was fast, just like you played, fast and loose. You take out a lucky strike with no filter and light it up and lay it on the rail.
You went on time to practice and loosen up and you tossed some balls out on the 5x10’ pool table and began to shoot into the tight 4 l/2” pockets. You make a couple and shoot into a point to miss on purpose. You are fishing for a game. The sausages are all playing rotation which costs a dime to play. When they finish they quietly announce; rack please. The young rack boy or girl trots over and racks the balls for you and takes the dime payment. The usually wager among them is also a dime a game, maybe a quarter. A couple of better players are finishing up a game of cribbage and one has been watching you closely. He figures you are easy meat.

He walks up, wanna play? Sure you say. How about some Alabama 8 ball, 50 cents a game he asks? You say make it a buck and we are on, he says sure and the game begins. A buck then is $8 in today’s money and you lose and lose but just barely until the stakes begin to rise. Then somehow you find your game and the 8 ball begins to fall for you. Once you finish him off you have covered your nut for the day. Catch one or two like him your nuts is covered for the week.

The leather case only comes out later in the evening once your cover is blown and the top stick gets backed and comes for you. Then the main event takes place.

The game is 14.1 straight and you are going to be playing all night long. It will be an endurance test of will and strength. The one who has the most heart will prevail. You pop some speed to stay up and send out for a bottle of bourbon and some paper cups. You begin for $50 a game and hopefully if you play it right it will go up to a C note a game. You have three one thousand dollar bills in your sock and a carbuncle in your pocket big enough to choke a mule. You flash the cash, they want it and the hook is set. You are well healed and can stay the course. You don’t mess with backers and give away half what you make, you back your self and play on your own money. That has made you hard as steel. You are what they call a real pool player, a pool hustler. The game begins, you open the closet and put on your sport coat, you always play in a coat. Out comes your buska and you carefully chalk up.

Other things that went with those times were:

All the girls had ugly gym uniforms?

It took five minutes for the TV warm up? The screen was the size of a dinner plate and nobody has more than one TV. You sat right in front of it 3’ away and were lucky if you had 3 channels to watch. It was only black and white of course. You juggled the rabbit ears and the picture was awful. Uncle Miltie was the main show.

Nearly everyone's Mom was at home when the kids got home from school?

Nobody owned a purebred dog? Dogs ran the hood, there was no lease law. Everyone knew every dogs name and where they lived.
There was a least one big knock down drag out rumble dog fight over a female in heat once a week that everyone looked forward to and now and then you had to get the garden hose out when two dogs got stuck together.

When a quarter was a decent allowance? You had to cut the grass and the lawnmower had no motor, just blades you pushed through which took a lot of strength.

You'd reach into a muddy gutter for a penny? A penny bought a lot of stuff.

There were no Wal-Mart’s or Kmart’s, you went into 5 and 10 stores where everything was for sale for 5 or 10 cents. Now this is the dollar store.

Your Mom wore nylons that came in two pieces?

All your male teachers wore neckties and female teachers had
their hair done every day and wore high heels? Women dressed up like going to church to go downtown on the street car to shop in the department stores, there were no malls to go to. When men went to a pool match or a champion came into town for an exhibition every one showed up in their Sunday go to meeting best suit and tie with their fedora hat. It was a thing of respect.

You got your windshield cleaned, oil checked, and gas pumped,
without asking, all for free, every time you drove into a gas station? Some times two or three people in uniforms descended on you car at once. The minute you stopped they had the hood up checking everything for you. It looked like a Indy pit stop. There were no locks on the hood or gas caps then.
And you didn't pay for air? And, you got trading stamps to boot? Gas was 25 cents a gallon. There were no interstate highways; route 66 was the road to vacation on.

Laundry detergent had free glasses, dishes or towels hidden inside the box?

It was considered a great privilege to be taken out to dinner
at a real restaurant with your parents?

They threatened to keep kids back a grade if they failed. . And they did? A lot of kids then were held back one grade. If you showed no respect to the teacher you went to the principles office and your parents gave permission for you to be paddled. They had this big board with holes in it and the spanked your butt hard and it hurt. You though twice about liping off the next time. If you were in Catholic school, you never got out of the class, the nun said put the wrist on the desk and she whacked it with this wood ruler, real pain. If a kid threw a fit in a store, the parent spanked him right there on the spot. The concept was spare the rod, spoil the child. Spank a kid in public today and you get 90 days in jail.

When a 57 Chevy was everyone's dream car...to cruise,
peel out, lay rubber or watch submarine races, and people went steady? You went to the drive in shows, with a 6 pack or pint of booze and if you got lucky you got into the back seat with your gal.
Cars did not have turn signals, you stuck your hand out the window straight to turn left, cocked it up to turn right, no emergency blinkers, you just waved both arms up and down. There were no seat belts, shoulder straps or air bags. When they came out we refused to wear them, laws and fines had to be passed to make us put them on.

No one ever asked where the car keys were
because they were always in the car,
in the ignition, and the doors were never locked?

Lying on your back in the grass with your friends
and saying things like, "That cloud looks like a ...” People took pic nics and seemed to have all the time in the world. Today, nobody seems to have time to do anything.

And playing baseball with no adults to help kids with the rules of the game? In November you wore a button that said I like Ike.

Stuff from the store came without safety caps and hermetic seals
because no one had yet tried to poison a perfect stranger? Your kids could go out and trick or treat on Holloween by themselves with no danger.

And with all our progress, don't you just wish, just once,
you could slip back in time and savor the slower pace,
and share it with the children of today?

When being sent to the principal's office was nothing
compared to the fate that awaited the student at home?
Basically we were in fear for our lives,
but it wasn't because of drive-by shootings, drugs, gangs, etc.

Our parents and grandparents were a much bigger threat!
But we survived because their love was greater than the threat.

Send this on to someone who can still remember
Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, Laurel and Hardy,
Howdy Dowdy and the Peanut Gallery,
the Lone Ranger, the Shadow Knows,
Nellie Bell, Roy and Dale, Trigger and Buttermilk. Every kid knew the names of the horses of their cowboy heroes. Tom Mix’s Tony the wonder horse. Hi oh Silver, away, the Lone Ranger, Roys trigger.

As well as summers filled with bike rides, baseball games,
Hula Hoops, bowling and visits to the pool,
and eating Kool-Aid powder with sugar.
Didn't that feel good, just to go back and say, "Yeah, I remember that"?



Subject: Over 35



People over 35 should be dead.

Here's why ............

According to today's regulators
and bureaucrats, those of us
who were kids in the 40's,
50's, 60's, or even maybe
the early 70's probably
shouldn't have survived.

Our baby cribs were covered
with bright colored lead-based
paint.

We had no childproof lids
on medicine bottles, doors
or cabinets, ... and when we
rode our bikes, we had no
helmets.
(Not to mention the risks
we took hitchhiking.)

As children, we would ride
in cars with no seatbelts
or air bags.

Riding in the back of a pickup
truck on a warm day was
always a special treat.

We drank water from the
garden hose and not from
a bottle.

Horrors!

We ate cupcakes, bread and
butter, and drank soda pop
with sugar in it, but we were
never overweight because
we were always outside
playing.

We shared one soft drink
with four friends, from one
bottle, and no one actually
died from this.

We would spend hours building
our go-carts out of scraps
and then rode down the hill,
only to find out we forgot
the brakes.

After running into the bushes
a few times, we learned to
solve the problem.

We would leave home in the
morning and play all day,
as long as we were back
when the street lights
came on.

No one was able to
reach us all day.

NO CELL PHONES!!!!!

Unthinkable!

We did not have Playstations,
Nintendo 64, X-Boxes, no
video games at all, no 99
channels on cable, video
tape movies, surround
sound, personal cell phones,
personal computers, or Internet
chat rooms.

We had friends!

We went outside and found
them.

We played dodge ball, and
sometimes, the ball would
really hurt.

We fell out of trees, got
cut and broke bones and
teeth, and there were no
lawsuits from these accidents.

They were accidents.

No one was to blame but us.

Remember accidents?

We had fights and punched
each other and got black
and blue and learned to get
over it.

We made up games with
sticks and tennis balls and
ate worms, and although we
were told it would happen,
we did not put out very many
eyes, nor did the worms
live inside us forever.

We rode bikes or walked to
a friend's home and knocked
on the door, or rang the
bell or just walked in and
talked to them.

Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team.

Those who didn't had to
learn to deal with disappointment.

Some students weren't as
smart as others, so they
failed a grade and were
held back to repeat the
same grade.

Horrors!

Tests were not adjusted
for any reason.

Our actions were our own.

Consequences were expected.

The idea of a parent bailing
us out if we broke a law
was unheard of.

They actually sided
with the law.

Imagine that!

This generation has produced
some of the best risk-takers
and problem solvers and
inventors, ever.

The past 50 years have
been an explosion of
innovation and new
ideas.

We had freedom, failure,
success and responsibility,
and we learned how to deal
with it all.

And you're one of them!

Congratulations!


Not every thing then was perfect. Every summer Mom’s hated to let the kids out to the pools because fear of Polio. Every summer you had one or two of your pals become crippled. I know, it happened to me and I was stricken and my left leg withered to half the size of my right. It took me 8 years to build it back and recover. Others were less fortunate and were in iron lungs which were a living death. There was no vaccine then.

There were no automatic transmissions in cars and you had to use a clutch to drive. If you made $12,000 a year, you lived in a fine house, drove a Cadillac car and belonged to a country club.

I am sharing this with you today
because it ended with a double dog dare to pass it on.
To remember what a double dog dare is, read on.
And remember that the perfect age is somewhere between
old enough to know better and too young to care.

How many of these do you remember?
Candy cigarettes, LSMFT, Pall Malls, Old Gold.
Wax Coke-shaped bottles with colored sugar water inside
Soda pop machines that dispensed glass bottles
Coffee shops with tableside jukeboxes
Blackjack, Clove and Teaberry chewing gum
Home milk delivery in glass bottles with cardboard stoppers that was on your door step every morning at 5am sharp.
Newsreels before the movie
P.F. Fliers
Telephone numbers with a word prefix....(Raymond 4-601), or Butterfield 8.
Party lines, when the phone rang, 2 other people would sneak the phone off the hook and listen in. Every body then knew who was zooming who.
Peashooters
Howdy Dowdy
45 RPM records and 78’s, there were no 8 tracks or cassettes or CD’s, DVD’s, VCR’s, just a record player for 45’s, an am radio and a B&W TV.
Green Stamps
Hi-Fi's
Metal ice cubes trays with levers, or ice boxes, the ice man would come in to your home with a 50 lb block of ice on his back with a hook and it would go into the top of the ice box to cool your food in the bottom.
Mimeograph paper, no copy machines, you used carbon paper.
No computers, no email, you used stamps. You typed letters on a Royal manual typewriter. You punched in numbers on your calculator then pulled a lever handle to enter them. No cell phones, to make a call you put you finger in a hole and dialed the phone. Real people answered the phone at companies and took care of your needs and wants. No service calls were diverted to India and none of this dial 2 to speak English, every one spoke English. The guy who ran the Ice cream store was not from India and the guy who ran the gas station was not from Iran. The guy who sold you your milk or your pack of smokes was not from Somelia and could actually give you directions more than 1 block away. This was once a country of Christian anglo saxon white people who believed in God, wanted the 10 commandements in their court houses and had no problems with praying to their god in their school.
Beanie and Cecil
Roller-skate keys
Cork pop guns
Drive ins
Studebakers
Light bulbs were free and lasted for years. You went to the power company and bought your first set, then when they wore out you took them in and they exchanged them for free.
Washtub wringers
The Fuller Brush Man
Reel-To-Reel tape recorders
Tinker toys
Erector Sets
The Fort Apache Play Set
Lincoln Logs
15 cent McDonald hamburgers
The hula hoop you could keep on your hips for hours. Dancing the twist or going under a low bar to the limbo.
5 cent packs of baseball cards – with that awful pink slab of bubble gum, Joe D, Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Musial, Ted Williams & Mickey Mantle.
Penny candy
25 cent a gallon gasoline, you would drive up, 2 or 3 people would come running out, pop your hood, check your oil, transmission fluid, air in your tires, pump your gas, wipe your windshield clean perfectly. In 55, there would be gas wars where all over town every station would try and have the lowest prices and gas would go down to a dime a gallon.
Jiffy Pop popcorn
Eating TV dinners on a fold up tray in front of TV.
Do you remember a time when...
Decisions were made by going "eeny-meeny-miney-moe"?
Mistakes were corrected by simply exclaiming, "Do Over!"?
Nobody carried a gun and shot you if you looked at them wrong. Any real dispute was duked out like real men do.
"Race issue" meant arguing about who ran the fastest?
Catching the fireflies could happily occupy an entire evening?
It wasn't odd to have two or three "Best Friends"?

The worst thing you could catch from the opposite sex was "cooties"?
Having a weapon in school meant being caught with a slingshot?
A foot of snow was a dream comes true?

Saturday morning cartoons weren't 30-minute commercials for action figures?
"Oly-oly-oxen-free" made perfect sense?
Spinning around, getting dizzy, and falling down was cause for giggles?

The worst embarrassment was being picked last for a team?
War was a card game?
Baseball cards in the spokes transformed any bike into a motorcycle? I like Ike and Tricky Dicky.
Taking drugs meant orange-flavored chewable aspirin? Coke you drank, weed you pulled from the yard.
Water balloons were the ultimate weapon?
Your first red rider BB gun

"Hey Dad," one of my kids asked the other day, "What
was your favourite fast food when you were growing up?"

"We didn't have fast food when I was growing up," I
informed him. "All the food was slow."

"C'mon, seriously. Where did you eat?"

"It was a place called 'at home,'" I explained.
"Grandma cooked every day and when Grandpa got home from
work, we sat down together at the dining room table, and if
I didn't like what she put on my plate I was allowed to sit
there until I did like it."

By this time, the kid was laughing so hard I was
afraid he was going to suffer serious internal damage, so I
didn't tell him the part about how I had to have permission
to leave the table. But here are some other things I would
have told him about my childhood if I figured his system
could have handled it:

Some parents NEVER owned their own house, wore
Levis, set foot on a golf course, traveled out of the
country or had a credit card. In their later years they had
something called a revolving charge card. The card was good
only at Sears Roebuck. Or maybe it was Sears AND Roebuck.
Either way, there is no Roebuck anymore. Maybe he died.

My parents never drove me to soccer practice. This
was mostly because we never had heard of soccer. I had a
bicycle that weighed probably 50 pounds, and only had one
speed, (slow). We didn't have a television in our house
until I was 11, but my grandparents had one before that. It
was, of course, black and white, but they bought a piece of
coloured plastic to cover the screen. The top third was
blue, like the sky, and the bottom third was green, like
grass. The middle third was red. It was perfect for programs
that had scenes of fire trucks riding across someone's lawn
on a sunny day. Some people had a lens taped to the front of
the TV to make the picture look larger.

I was 13 before I tasted my first pizza, it was
called "pizza pie." When I b it into it, I burned the roof
of my mouth and the cheese slid off, swung down, plastered
itself against my chin and burned that, too. It's still the
best pizza I ever had.

We didn't have a car until I was 15. Before that,
the only car in our family was my grandfather's Ford. He
called it a "machine."

I never had a telephone in my room. The only phone
in the house was in the living room and it was on a party
line. Before you could dial, you had to listen and make sure
some people you didn't know weren't already using the line.

Pizzas were not delivered to our home. But milk was.

All newspapers were delivered by boys and all boys
delivered newspapers. I delivered a newspaper, six days a
week. It cost 7 cents a paper, of which I got to keep 2
cents. I had to get up at 4 AM every morning. On Saturday, I
had to collect the 42 cents from my customers. My favourite
customers were the ones who gave me 50 cents and told me to
keep the change. My least favourite customers were the ones
who seemed to never be home on collection day.

Movie stars kissed with their mouths shut. At least,
they did in the movies. Touching someone else's tongue with
yours was called French kissing and they didn't do that in
movies. I don't know what they did in French movies. French
movies were dirty and we weren't allowed to see them.

If you grew up in a generation before there was fast
food, you may want to share some of these memories with your
children or grandchildren. Just don't blame me if they bus t
a gut laughing.

Growing up isn't what it used to be, is it?


MEMORIES from a friend:

My Dad is cleaning out my grandmother's house (she
died in December) and he brought me an old Royal Crown Cola
bottle. In the bottle top was a stopper with a bunch of
holes in it. I knew immediately what it was, but my daughter
had no idea. She thought they had tried to make it a salt
shaker or something! I knew it as the bottle that sat on the
end of the ironing board to "sprinkle" clothes with because
we didn't have steam irons. Man, I am old.

How many do you remember?

Head lights dimmer switches on the floor.
Ignition switches on the dashboard.
Heaters mounted on the inside of the fire wall.
Real ice boxes.
Pant leg clips for bicycles without chain guards.
Soldering irons you heat on a gas burner.
Using hand signals for cars without turn signals.
You said, whey a woman has her hand out the window all that means is the window is open. Your air conditioning in your car was called 4/40,4 windows down at 40mph. There was Spalding and the stick ball and fishing the sewers for a pinky.
Rubbing the fuzz off a tennis ball.. Hanging at the candy
store. Watching the Great one, Gleason & Sullivan, what a really big shew, and of course Uncle Miltie. My knuckles still hurt from the nuns. Did we ever pay at the emergency ward then. Pizza was $.15


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 coloured sugar water
3. Candy cigarettes
4. Soda pop machines that dispensed glass bottles
5. Coffee shops or diners with tableside juke boxes
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 might be older than dirt but those memories are

the best part of my life.

Don't forget to pass this along!!
Especially to all your really OLD friends....
=====
"Senility Prayer"...God grant me...
The senility to forget the people I never liked
The good fortune to run into the ones that I do
And the eyesight to tell the difference."
Have a great week!!!!!!


> > Stay with this -- the answer is at the end...
> >
> >
> > One evening a grandson was talking
> > to his grandmother about current events.
> > The grandson asked his grandmother
> > what she thought about the shootings at schools,
> > the computer age,and just things in general.
> >
> > The Grandma replied, "
> > Well, let me think a minute,
> > I was born, before television,
> > penicillin, polio shots, frozen foods,
> > Xerox, contact lenses, Frisbees and the
> > pill.
> >
> > There were no credit cards,
> > laser beams or ball-point pens.
> > Man had not invented pantyhose,
> > air conditioners, dishwashers, clothes
> > dryers,and the clothes were hung out to dry in
> > the fresh air and man had yet to walk on the moon.
> >
> > Your Grandfather and I got married first
> > and then lived together.
> > Every family had a father and a mother.
> >
> > Until I was 25, I called every man
> > older than I, "Sir"- - and after I
> > turned 25, I still called policemen and
> > every man with a title, "Sir".
> >
> > We were before computer-dating, dual careers,
> > daycare centers, and group therapy.
> >
> > Our lives were governed by the Ten Commandments,
> > good judgment, and common sense
> >
> > We were taught to know the difference
> > between right and wrong and to stand up and take
> > responsibility for our actions.
> >
> > Serving your country was a privilege;
> > living in this country was a bigger privilege.
> >
> > We thought fast food was what people ate during Lent.
> >
> > Having a meaningful relationship meant getting along with
> > your cousins.
> >
> > Draft dodgers were people who closed their front doors
> > when the evening breeze started.
> >
> > Time-sharing meant time the family spent together in the
> > evenings and weekends-- not purchasing condominiums.
> >
> > We never heard of FM radios, tape decks,
> > CDs, electric typewriters, yogurt, or guys wearing earrings.
> >
> > We listened to the Big Bands, Jack Benny,
> > and the President's speeches on our radios.
> >
> > And I don't ever remember any kid
> > blowing his brains out from listening to Tommy Dorsey.
> >
> > If you saw anything with 'Made in Japan' on it, it was junk.
> >
> > The term 'making out' referred to how you did on your school
> > exam.
> > Pizza Hut, McDonald's, and instant coffee were unheard of.
> >
> > We had 5 &10-cent store where you could
> > actually buy things for 5 and 10 cents.
> >
> > Ice-cream cones, phone calls,rides on a streetcar,
> > and a Pepsi were all a nickel.
> >
> > If you wanted to splurge, you could spend your nickel
> > on enough stamps to mail one letter and two postcards.
> >
> > You could buy a new Chevy Coupe
> > for $600 but who could afford one?
> > Too bad, because gas was 11 cents a gallon.
> >
> > In my day, "grass" was mowed,
> > "coke" was a cold drink,
> > "pot" was something your mother cooked in,
> > and "rock music" was your grandmother's lullaby.
> >
> > "Aids" were helpers in the Principal's office,
> > "chip" meant a piece of wood,
> > "hardware" was found in a hardware store,
> > and "software" wasn't even a word.
> >
> > And we were the last generation
> > to actually believe that a lady
> > needed a husband to have a baby.
> >
> > No wonder people call us"old and confused"
> > and say there is a generation gap.....
> >
> > and how old do you think I am ???.....
> >
> > Read on to see --
> > Pretty scary if you think about it, and rather sad at the
> > same time.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Grandma is Only 58.

Pass this to someone (over age 40, of course), and brighten
their day by helping them to remember that life's most simple pleasures are very often the best!

People over 30 should be dead.

Here's why ............

According to today's regulators
and bureaucrats, those of us
who were kids in the 40's,
50's, 60's, or even maybe
the early 70's probably
shouldn't have survived.

Our baby cribs were covered
with bright colored lead-based
paint.

We had no childproof lids
on medicine bottles, doors
or cabinets, ... and when we
rode our bikes, we had no
helmets.
(Not to mention the risks
we took hitchhiking.)

As children, we would ride
in cars with no seatbelts
or air bags.

Riding in the back of a pickup
truck on a warm day was
always a special treat.

We drank water from the
garden hose and not from
a bottle.

Horrors!

We ate cupcakes, bread and
butter, and drank soda pop
with sugar in it, but we were
never overweight because
we were always outside
playing.

We shared one soft drink
with four friends, from one
bottle, and no one actually
died from this.

We would spend hours building
our go-carts out of scraps
and then rode down the hill,
only to find out we forgot
the brakes.

After running into the bushes
a few times, we learned to
solve the problem.

We would leave home in the
morning and play all day,
as long as we were back
when the street lights
came on.

No one was able to
reach us all day.

NO CELL PHONES!!!!!

Unthinkable!

We did not have Playstations,
Nintendo 64, X-Boxes, no
video games at all, no 99
channels on cable, video
tape movies, surround
sound, personal cell phones,
personal computers, or Internet
chat rooms.

We had friends!

We went outside and found
them.

We played dodge ball, and
sometimes, the ball would
really hurt.

We fell out of trees, got
cut and broke bones and
teeth, and there were no
lawsuits from these accidents.

They were accidents.

No one was to blame but us.

Remember accidents?

We had fights and punched
each other and got black
and blue and learned to get
over it.

We made up games with
sticks and tennis balls and
ate worms, and although we
were told it would happen,
we did not put out very many
eyes, nor did the worms
live inside us forever.

We rode bikes or walked to
a friend's home and knocked
on the door, or rang the
bell or just walked in and
talked to them.

Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team.

Those who didn't had to
learn to deal with disappointment.

Some students weren't as
smart as others, so they
failed a grade and were
held back to repeat the
same grade.

Horrors!

Tests were not adjusted
for any reason.

Our actions were our own.

Consequences were expected.

The idea of a parent bailing
us out if we broke a law
was unheard of.

They actually sided
with the law.

Imagine that!

This generation has produced
some of the best risk-takers
and problem solvers and
inventors, ever.

The past 50 years have
been an explosion of
innovation and new
ideas.

We had freedom, failure,
success and responsibility,
and we learned how to deal
with it all.

Sometimes words get me to thinking, like ... "fender skirts."

What a great blast from the past! I hadn't thought about fender skirts in years. When I was a kid, I considered it such a funny term. Made me think of a car in a dress. Thinking about fender skirts started me thinking about other words that quietly disappear from our language with hardly a notice.

Like "curb feelers" and "steering knobs." Since I'd been thinking of cars, my mind naturally went that direction first. You kids will probably have to find some elderly person over 50 to explain some of these terms to you.

Remember "Continental kits?" They were rear bumper extenders and spare tire covers that were supposed to make any car look as cool as a Lincoln Continental. But they never worked in my estimation.

When did we quit calling them "emergency brakes?" At some point "parking brake" became the proper term. But I miss the hint of drama that went with "emergency brake."

I'm sad, too, that almost all the old folks are gone who would call the accelerator the "foot feed."

Here's a phrase I heard all the time in my youth but never anymore -- "store bought." Of course, just about everything is store bought these days. But once it was bragging material to have a store-bought dress or a store-bought bag of candy.

"Coast to coast" is a phrase that once held all sorts of excitement and now means almost nothing. Now we take the term "worldwide" for granted.

This floors me on a smaller scale: "wall-to-wall" was once a magical term in our homes. In the '50s, everyone covered their hardwood floors with -- WOW!! -- wall-to-wall carpeting! Today, everyone replaces their wall-to-wall carpeting with hardwood floors. Go figure.

When's the last time you heard the quaint phrase "in a family way?" It's hard to imagine that the word "pregnant" was once considered a little too graphic, a little too clinical for use in polite company. So we had all that talk about "stork visits" and "being in a family way" or simply "expecting."

Apparently "brassiere" is a word no longer in usage. I said it the other day and my daughter was cracking up laughing. I guess it's just "bra" now. "Unmentionables" probably wouldn't be understood at all.

It's hard to recall that this word was once said in a whisper -- "divorce." And no one is called a "divorcee" anymore. And certainly not a "gay divorcee." Come to think of it, "confirmed bachelors" and "career girls" are long gone, too.

Most of these words go back to the '50s, but here's a pure '60s word I came across the other day: "rat fink." Ooh, what a nasty put-down!

Here's a word I miss -- "percolator." That was just a fun word to say. And what was it replaced with? "Coffeemaker." How dull. Mr. Coffee, I blame you for this.

I miss those made-up marketing words that were meant to sound so modern and are now so retro. Words like "DynaFlow" "ElectroLux" and "Introducing the 1963 Admiral TV, now with SpectraVision!"

Food for thought: Was there a telethon that wiped out lumbago? Nobody complains of that anymore. Maybe that's what castor oil cured because I never hear mothers threatening their kids with castor oil anymore either.

Some words aren't gone, but are definitely on the endangered list. The one that grieves me most: "supper."

Save a great word. Invite someone to supper. Discuss fender skirts.

If you can remember most or all of these, then you have lived!!!!!!!

Pass this on to anyone who may need a break from
their "grown-up" life . . . I double-dog-dare-ya!

 I know some of you are not old enough to remember, but believe it or
> not, the following were some comments made in the year 1957:
> (1) "I'll tell you one thing, if things keep going the way they are, its
> going to be impossible to buy a weeks groceries for $20.00."
> (2) "Have you seen the new cars coming out next year? It won't be long
> when $5,000 will only buy a used one."
> (3) "If cigarettes keep going up in price, I'm going to quit. A quarter
> a pack is ridiculous."
> (4) "Did you hear the post office is thinking about charging a dime just
> to mail a letter?"
> (5) "If they raise the minimum wage to $1.00, nobody will be able to
> hire outside help at the store."
> (6) "When I first started driving, who would have thought gas would
> someday cost 29 cents a gallon. Guess we'd be better off leaving the car
> in the garage."
> (7) "Kids today are impossible. Those ducktail hair cuts make it
> impossible to stay groomed. Next thing you know, boys will be wearing
> their hair as long as the girls,"
> (8) "I'm afraid to send my kids to the movies any more. Ever since they
> let Clark Gable get by with saying damn in "Gone With The Wind", it
> seems every new movie has either hell or damn in it."
> (9) "I read the other day where some scientist thinks it's possible to
> put a man on the moon by the end of the century. They even have some
> fellows they call astronauts preparing for it down in Texas."
> (10) "Did you see where some baseball player just signed a contract for
> $75,000 a year just to play ball? It wouldn't surprise me if someday
> that they will be making more than the President."
> (11) "I never thought I'd see the day all our kitchen appliances would
> be electric. They are even making electric typewriters now."
> (12) "It's too bad things are so tough nowadays. I see where a few
> married women are having to work to make ends meet."
> (13) "It won't be long before young couples are going to have to hire
> someone to watch their kids so they can both work."
> (15) "I'm just afraid the Volkswagen car is going to open the door to a
> whole lot of foreign business."
> (16) "Thank goodness I won't live to see the day when the Government
> takes half our income in taxes. I sometimes wonder if we are electing
> the best people to Congress."
> (17) "The drive-in restaurant is convenient in nice weather, but I
> seriously doubt they will ever catch on."
> (18) "I guess taking a vacation is out of the question now days. It
> costs nearly $15.00 a night to stay in a hotel."
> (19) "No one can afford to be sick any more, $35.00 a day in the
> hospital is too rich for my blood."

The Fifties .
Were you a kid in the Fifties or so? Everybody makes fun of our childhood! Comedians joke. Grandkids snicker. Twenty-something's shudder and say "Eeeew!" But was our childhood really all that bad? Judge for yourself:In 1953 the US population was less than 150 million. Yet you knew more people then, and knew them better ... And that was good.
The average annual salary was under $3,000. Yet our parents could put some of it away for a rainy day and still live a decent life . And that was good. A loaf of bread cost about 15 cents ... But it was safe for a five-year-old to skate to the store and buy one ... And that was good. Prime-Time meant I Love Lucy, Ozzie and Harriet, Gunsmoke, and Lassie ... So nobody ever heard of ratings or filters ... And that was good. We didn't have air-conditioning ... So the windows stayed up and half a dozen mothers ran outside when you fell off your bike. And that was good.
Your teacher was either Miss Matthews or Mrs. Logan or Mr. Adkins ... But not Ms. Becky or Mr.Dan ... And that was good. The only hazardous material you knew about ... was a patch of grassburrs around the light pole at the corner .
And that was good.
You loved to climb into a fresh bed ... Because sheets were dried on the clothesline . And that was good. People generally lived in the same hometown with their relatives ... So "child care" meant grandparents or aunts and uncles ... And that was good. Parents were respected and their rules were law ... Children did not talk back ... And that was good.
TV was in black-and-white . But all outdoors was in glorious color ... And that was certainly good. Your Dad knew how to adjust everybody's carburetor ... And the Dad next door knew how to adjust all the TV knobs ..
And that was very good.
Your grandma grew snap beans in the back yard ... And chickens behind the garage ...And that was definitely good. And just when you were about to do something really bad ... Chances were you'd run into your Dad's high school coach ... Or the nosy old lady from up the street . Or your little sister's piano teacher ... Or somebody from church . ALL of whom knew your parents' phone number ... And YOUR first name .
And even THAT was good! ~~~~~ REMEMBER .
Send this on to someone who can still remember Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys, Laurel & Hardy, Abbott & Costello, Sky King, Little Lulu comics, Brenda Starr, Howdy Doody and The Peanut Gallery, The Lone Ranger, The Shadow Knows, Nellie Belle, Roy and Dale, Trigger and Buttermilk, as well as the sound of a reel mower on Saturday morning, and summers filled with bike rides, playing in cowboy land, playing hide and seek and kick-the-can and Simon Says, baseball games, amateur shows at the local theater before the Saturday matinee, bowling and visits to the pool...and eating Kool-Aid powder with sugar, and wax lips and bubblegum cigars ...

Didn't that feel good, just to go back and say, Yeah, I remember that! And was it really that long ago?

>

May God bless and peace be with you. May the wind be always on your back and
all 9 balls fall. VENI VIDI VICI, OMNIA VINCIT AMOR. “Fastus Maximus. “ Latin for “I came, I saw, I conquered, love conquerors all. Yes I really did do it all and you can believe it, or not. If you don’t believe it, C’est La Vie. A prophet is not recognized in his own land.
"All men, by their nature, desire to know." - Aristotle
"Know Thyself." - The First Delphic Precept

Rack em sausage, Go play fast and loose. Ride em hard, put em up wet, die free. In time, it’s all dust in the wind anyway. Email fastlarry@bellsouth.net The Power Source Traveling Pool School. To see my web page come alive click http://www.fastlarrypool.com “Fast Larry” Guninger

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The Power Source Traveling Pool School. to see my web page come alive click http://www.fastlarrypool.com