I'm So Old That I Remember...

[Marlingardener]

I remember when newscasters just reported the news. They didn't indulge in chitchat, they had voices that didn't sound like Alvin and the Chipmunks, and they didn't giggle. Watching the local evening news is sometimes painful, always irritating.

 

[dragnlaw]

But they did have Ann Landers and Dear Abby!

and Miss Manners!

 

[Aunt Bea]

I remember when newscasters just reported the news. They didn't indulge in chitchat, they had voices that didn't sound like Alvin and the Chipmunks, and they didn't giggle. Watching the local evening news is sometimes painful, always irritating.

I liked them better before they were allowed to offer their opinion and interpretation of the news.

“And that's the way it is.” - Walter Cronkite

 

[GinnyPNW]

I liked them better before they were allowed to offer their opinion and interpretation of the news.

“And that's the way it is.” - Walter Cronkite

But, they would have the "Editorial" guy. What was his name....Bill Stout??? One of his "editorials" has stuck with me all these years. He was a tad upset with all the "Foreign" cars being brought to the U.S. The damage to our industry, and so on. He offered (seriously, I think), a solution. For every Japanese car they send us, we'll send them one of our Lawyers. Solve a couple of problems!

 

[Kathleen]

In America it really just depended on how rural you were. I had a few relatives who still did not have indoor plumbing or electricity in the 1970s because they just lived out in the middle of nowhere. They live like in the old west. It was strictly farmhouse cooking.

One of my uncles who only died in the last few years lived on his place his whole life and he had a real idyllic situation because he lived on a cold spring, so that was like a big walking refrigerator in the spring house over the cold spring. Those relatives in that area through their water out of a well with a bucket and had outhouses. The uncle with the nice spring eventually did get electricity and indoor plumbing sometime in the 1970s I believe. I'm really glad I got to experience that. I thought it was a great adventure.

I had family who lived like that with no electric or indoor plumbing. Spring houses were awesome. My great auntie was so excited to get indoor plumbing. Her husband ran a pipe from the well pump and it would drain in the sink! That's love.

My father was a milkman after my parents moved from the mountains into the big city of 60,000 population "up north." The local newspaper even wrote an article on him. Daddy was a bit of a character, and he loved being the local milkman. We loved the perks (ice cream, dips, cheese, etc.)

I liked them better before they were allowed to offer their opinion and interpretation of the news.

“And that's the way it is.” - Walter Cronkite

I miss the news back when.

I'm getting nervous because I am reminded of almost everything in everyone's post! And I thought that it was not the years but just the mileage!

 

[Aunt Bea]

My great auntie was so excited to get indoor plumbing. Her husband ran a pipe from the well pump and it would drain in the sink! That's love.

In the 70s we used to visit an old timer that had a similar setup.

In the winter he closed off the drafty old house and lived in the kitchen, heating and cooking on an old wood fired kitchen range.

He slept on a narrow ‘hired man’s’ bed next to the old soapstone sink. The spring water ran into an old bucket in the sink 24/7 and when he or the old dog needed a drink they just helped themselves. No worries over a couple of old friends swapping a little spit.

I’m thankful for so many of the little modern conveniences that make our lives more comfortable and blessed that I’ve always been in a position to afford the basics.

 

[Kathleen]

Closing off part of the house is pretty common in that neck of the woods in those days....and occasionally even today. This auntie had a pully-weighted porch fan and they slept on the porch during very hot months.

Love that the bucket was used by the entire family. I wonder whether the dog helped to clean dishes too.

I'm with you on that gratitude!

 

[msmofet]

Bill Beutel and Roger Grimsby​

 

[Cooking Goddess]

...My father was a milkman after my parents moved from the mountains into the big city of 60,000 population "up north." The local newspaper even wrote an article on him. Daddy was a bit of a character, and he loved being the local milkman. We loved the perks (ice cream, dips, cheese, etc.)...

My Dad delivered bread, so we would have all kinds of bread at home. I think yeast is in my blood - or at least breadcrumbs. Before that, he delivered coal in the winter and ice (cubed and blocks) in the summer. Dad got to be a model for new thermal bags from a regional manufacturer that carried 150 pounds of cubes. The photo is packed away somewhere...and danged if I can remember where. Daddy was such a hunk!

 

[Kathleen]

My Dad delivered bread, so we would have all kinds of bread at home. I think yeast is in my blood - or at least breadcrumbs. Before that, he delivered coal in the winter and ice (cubed and blocks) in the summer. Dad got to be a model for new thermal bags from a regional manufacturer that carried 150 pounds of cubes. The photo is packed away somewhere...and danged if I can remember where. Daddy was such a hunk!

The picture in the article above is of Dad. He was a cutie too with Paul Newman blue eyes. I sure do miss both parents.

 

[taxlady]

That reminds me of clip-on sunglasses. Somebody thinks they have a good idea and it gets marketed. Then people buy it. Then people hit themselves in the forehead, asking, "Why did I think this might be a good idea?"

Those clamp-on roller skates caused a lot of injuries, methinks. Of course, roller skating in general caused a lot of injuries.

I don't think those clamp on skates caused anymore injuries than any other kind of skates. Where you lived, were kids skating on the sidewalks using any other kind of skates, back in the day? I mean, roller blades hadn't been invented or if they were, the public wasn't seeing them. Sure, kids fell down and scraped their knees and sometimes broke a bone, but kids scrape their knees and break bones. It's part of growing up and learning what your body can and cannot do.

Your post reminded me of this old song from the early 1970s:

I did have parts of that song running through my head when I wrote the post about roller skates. I just couldn't remember enough of the song to even go hunting for it. Thanks for finding it.

 

[Texmex]

I had family who lived like that with no electric or indoor plumbing. Spring houses were awesome. My great auntie was so excited to get indoor plumbing. Her husband ran a pipe from the well pump and it would drain in the sink! That's love.

My father was a milkman after my parents moved from the mountains into the big city of 60,000 population "up north." The local newspaper even wrote an article on him. Daddy was a bit of a character, and he loved being the local milkman. We loved the perks (ice cream, dips, cheese, etc.)

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I miss the news back when.

I'm getting nervous because I am reminded of almost everything in everyone's post! And I thought that it was not the years but just the mileage!

We drank milk with every meal and ice cream pretty much every night. And yet I now have osteoporosis.

 

[Texmex]

I'm old enough to remember poke sallet or Polk salad. My mother taught me where to look for it so every now and then I would go find some. For anyone who's interested and despite what it says on the internet, it will grow right up next to an old rotting shed or in between two shed buildings. It is not a full sun type plant.

Something I never knew is that it says on the internet it is poisonous and has to be cooked twice before you eat it. My mother never told me that and I'm not sure she cooked it twice. I wish she was still alive and I could ask her. On the internet it says boiled twice then cooking bacon grease and at least the bacon grease part is correct. Greens got to have it.

 

[Texmex]

There are a number of dairies that still offer home delivery in the Greater Boston area: https://www.newenglanddairy.com/blog-post/national-milk-day/
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Hippy? Or Greaser? Then there was the one that had no cool nickname, collegiate.
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No fish, chicken, or sharpening guy. We did have someone with a pickup truck drive slowly down the street shouting "paper, ex". He was actually saying "paper, rags" but it didn't sound like that.
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Baseball cards clipped to the spokes of a bike. Horn with the rubber ball to make noise. Handlebar streamers.
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Line dried sheets and clothes. Boy, those dungarees were stiff.
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Going outside to watch for the Echo satellite cross overhead. One of the local Cleveland newspapers posted a chart showing which way to look at what time and direction whenever it would be visible in the area.

Shoot, until I got so limpy, I would still put some clothes out on the line or sheets.. now the only thing I put out there is the quilts. Now I hang the bird feeder on it.

I watch the INSP channel most of the time and am a Gunsmoke addict. The INSP channel is all westerns. So they're all taking place in the 1800s but yet I keep seeing water hand pumps over the sink, out on these houses on the prairie and the same hand pumps on the outside wells. Oh I can tell you is I knew a handful of families with no running water and none of them had a hand pump on anything. You went to the well and dipped the bucket down and reeled it back up. So it made me wonder if that was a regional thing. But Kansas which is where gun smokes supposedly takes place is right next to Missouri which is where everybody I know still had no hand pump in the 1970s. I mean they live so far out where would they get one.

 

[Rascal]

Shoot, until I got so limpy, I would still put some clothes out on the line or sheets.. now the only thing I put out there is the quilts. Now I hang the bird feeder on it.

I watch the INSP channel most of the time and am a Gunsmoke addict. The INSP channel is all westerns. So they're all taking place in the 1800s but yet I keep seeing water hand pumps over the sink, out on these houses on the prairie and the same hand pumps on the outside wells. Oh I can tell you is I knew a handful of families with no running water and none of them had a hand pump on anything. You went to the well and dipped the bucket down and reeled it back up. So it made me wonder if that was a regional thing. But Kansas which is where gun smokes supposedly takes place is right next to Missouri which is where everybody I know still had no hand pump in the 1970s. I mean they live so far out where would they get one.

I just finished watching a replay of gun smoke 15 mins ago

Russ

 

[blissful]

In the late 60's and early 70's we'd visit the grandparent's cottages (not main homes). We had hand pumps at both places. We'd have to prime the well with some water, and then pump and pump and pump until water came out. It was cold water! There were also waysides along the highways with hand pumps for people to fill their water jugs. (Minnesota and Wisconsin USA not Kansas or TX)
I can't recall how Little House on the Prairie got their water. There was a well or maybe a hand pump in the movie The Homesman, I don't recall which one.
At my parent's cottage, there was a creek below and we pumped water up into a cistern that held the water. Then that water was pumped to the kitchen and bathroom-by electric, in the 80's and 90's.
Our home has well water.

 

[blissful]

Mr bliss explained to me why in the northern US, we have the hand pumps and the lower US they have the wells to dip out of.
We had freezing weather in the north so they built pump houses, big or small, near the house, that was so they could get well water during winter. The pump houses insulated the well from the freezing weather. The southern US didn't need to insulate the well, so they could be open to dip from.

 

[Aunt Bea]

When my mother married my stepfather they bought a small bungalow, similar to this one.

It was an Aladdin Readi-cut mail order home that came precut and was assembled like a conventional stick built home.

The kitchen had a wall hung white porcelain sink with three faucets. Hot, cold, cistern. The cistern was a copper lined wooden tank in the attic that collected rainwater from the roof and gravity fed to the kitchen sink.

The tank had been stripped and sold for scrap by the time we came along and the faucet had been disconnected but not removed.

 

[Texmex]

I just finished watching a replay of gun smoke 15 mins ago

Russ

I've watched them all over and over except I don't like some of the older episodes. And there are a few hillbilly episodes that I just can't hardly stand to listen to while others don't bother me.

 

[Texmex]

In the late 60's and early 70's we'd visit the grandparent's cottages (not main homes). We had hand pumps at both places. We'd have to prime the well with some water, and then pump and pump and pump until water came out. It was cold water! There were also waysides along the highways with hand pumps for people to fill their water jugs. (Minnesota and Wisconsin USA not Kansas or TX)
I can't recall how Little House on the Prairie got their water. There was a well or maybe a hand pump in the movie The Homesman, I don't recall which one.
At my parent's cottage, there was a creek below and we pumped water up into a cistern that held the water. Then that water was pumped to the kitchen and bathroom-by electric, in the 80's and 90's.
Our home has well water.

Well that is interesting. Yeah that water is going to be cold coming out of the ground. I mean we had well water where I live growing up but it was somehow brought into the house. I guess I really don't even know how. I don't remember a pump.

I lived on an estate when I was a hippie that had a cistern, but I don't know how old that place was because to me it didn't look that old.