Someone 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 'home,'' I explained. 'Mum cooked every day and when she 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 lad 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'd figured his system could have handled it:
Some parents NEVER owned their own house, wore jeans, set foot on a golf course, travelled out of the country or had a credit card. My parents never drove me to school … I had a bicycle that weighed probably 50 pounds, and only had one speed(slow). Before I had a bike I walked. We didn't have a television in our house until I was 7. It was, of course, black and white, and the station went off the air at 10 PM, after playing the national anthem and epilogue; it came back on the air at about 12 noon. 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, seven days a week I had to get up at5.30 every morningexcept Sunday when I had a lie-in until 6.30.
We had A&W root beer stand, Kip Burger, and something called Pigs , way back when. But my folks did not eat out except on rare occasions. We would go tho the A&W drive in , where there waitresses would skate to your car for your order. Most I ever remember was getting a root beer float . That was the occasional Saturday night fun thing at our house.
I remember all of those things very well..and I'm only just past 60.... My parents never went out for a meal ever, and my mother never once got any food from a take-away outlet for us... not that there was much choice in those days...fish and chips or Wimpey was just about all there was back then...but we never got it ..always home made food and not much of it, but we always had to set the table to eat even if it was only for a bowl of soup.. and we had to say grace, and we weren't allowed to start until my father had begun to eat, and then we had to ask for permission to leave the table, and were refused if we hadn't eaten everything....or face the severe consequences for wasting food On the odd occasion when I went shopping with my mother for shoes or school uniform she would take me into the Top Hat Cafe... , and I'd be allowed a coke or even a knickerbocker glory if she had a little bit of extra money, those trips were rare but I remember them with affection....ooooh how the world has changed in just a few decades..
Just remembered..once or twice dad took us to the All you can eat kitchen place...Full meal was a dollar! Per person.
Don't you think we were healthier then ...than say kids 2-25 today ? When I worked the younger ones called in sick a lot...and many proved to be ill. Thinking todays group eat out way to much!
I think allot of young ones in the age group you mentioned @Gloria Mitchell in Australia drink to much and eat far to many surgery stuff I'm away at the moment for a break from the cold state ( South Australia ) I live in ..Yep I know most of are boiling hot ..... where we are in winter here . We are in Queensland right now , where ( winter ) daytime temps are mid 20's c ..compared to where we live 10--14c day time temps ... Most people who live here in Qld reside in multi story units, in some cases the units don't even have a kitchen ,only a cupboard with doors on it to cover the microwave ,kettle and toaster ...it's the way of life here as you just don't cook you eat out ..including breakfast !! ( not for me ) We walked down the beachside side of the street yesterday at about 10 am and all of the eating places were full of people eating breakfasts , including the footpath We are lucky, the unit we in it has good cooking facilities ...and each year we come up here if the unit doesn't have what I need to cook us meals I useally look in opp shops to see if they have what I'm looking for ..if they do I buy and donate the item back to them on leaving
@Kate Ellery Cold? Where I grew up, daytime winter temps. often remained below freezing, sometimes for weeks on end! < 0` C. 20` C = what, perhaps 55` F? When temps. came back up into the 20s (C), folks went about as though it were "balmy" out, some in shirtsleeves! - 30 C was not unheard of a few times each winter. No, it was not at the North Pole! Frank
@Frank Sanoica I've never seen snow ...so it's never that cold in SA ....( we get fairly freezing cold winds ) the Adelaide Hills has been known to get a very light sprinkle The closest from where I live, to where we can see snow is Victoria about 1000 km away
@Kate Ellery Snow? My nephew living in Flagstaff, Arizona at 7,000 feet altitude looks forward to 150+ inches of snow per year! It's all about altitude in mountainous areas. We are at 550 feet alt., never see a good frost even. 170 miles from Flagstaff. Frank
I forgot about Pete's Drive in. They had the best hotdogs in the world. Their French fries were crispy and golden brown. Hamburgers thick and juicy with just a few onions. OMG, I'm drooling.