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| FROM THE EMAIL= You gotta love these memories. Bring Back Real Black Mommas We need them now more than ever!!
OLD SCHOOL BLACK MOMMAS
There used to be a time when Black children were the best behaved children in the world, now look at them
Time out my foot!!!
1. Have you ever been called downstairs from upstairs or the back of the house, or from the front of the house to get the remote, change the channel, or bring her a glass of ice water?
2. Have you ever been hit with an extension cord, a switch, or the nearest shoe?
3. Have you ever had to pick your own switch off the tree and she sent you back because the one you picked was too little?
4. Have you ever been burned on your ear with a straightening comb?
5. Have you ever been hit in the head or knuckles with a comb or hair brush?
6. Have you ever been told to "Shut up or I'll give you something
to cry about while she beats you with a belt ~ pronouncing every syllable,
"Did-n't---I---tell----you---not---to-do--!--- That---no --- more?!"
7. Your ponytails or plaits were so tight, you got those little bumps around you scalp.
8. The white people in the school office (principal, secretary, etc) were afraid of her?
9. You were scared to go home when you had a bad report card?
10. Alcohol, peroxide, cocoa butter, and Vaseline were the main items in the bathroom cabinet. And that red hot water bottle hanging behind the bathroom door
11. You were never "on punishment" - just got whooping right out of the shower.
12. Have you ever been pinched for going to sleep in church?
13. She made you participate in every church activity (choir, Sunday school, Jr. Usher Board, Easter play, Christmas play, etc.)?
14. Has she ever come inside and picked you up from school dance in hair rollers and her gown or pajamas on under her coat?
15. When you ask her for something, her response was... "You got a job?"
16. Have you ever been beaten for something your brother or sister did just because you were around?
17. She vacuums everyday just so the carpet can have lines in it 18. Have you ever been told to turn off the TV, get off the phone, or sit down and be quiet when it's storming outside because the Lord was doing His work?
19. Friends, family and friends of the family try to keep you out of trouble because they know your mother and how she is?
20. You were afraid to call the child abuse hotline (because you weren't allowed to use the phone without her permission)?
21. She had to talk to God... "Lord, please don't let me hurt this child!!!" before she gives you a whipping.
22. You knew NOT to talk about what went on in your house with anybody (other family members, friends, school authority, etc), because you were told, "What goes on in this house, stays in this house!!!"
If you can relate to any of these things, then pass this on to ALL your friends and see if they can relate to "KNOWING THAT THEY HAD A
BEAUTIFUL BLACK MOTHER, WHO DIDN'T TAKE NO MESS WHEN THEY WERE GROWING UP!"
Here is More: Older 'n Dirt!!
"Hey Dad," one of my kids asked the other day, "What was your favorite 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 colored 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 bit 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 favorite customers were the ones who gave me 50 cents and told me to keep the change. My least favorite 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 bust 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.
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 colored 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.
Pass this along to all your really OLD friends....
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"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."
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| TO ALL THE KIDS
WHO SURVIVED the
1930's 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's !!
First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they were pregnant.
They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and didn't get tested for diabetes.
Then after that trauma, we were put to sleep on our tummies in baby cribs covered with bright colored lead-based paints.
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 infants & children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, booster seats, seat belts or air bags. Riding in the back of a pick up on a warm day was always a special treat.
We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle. We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this.
>> We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank koolade made with sugar, but we weren't overweight because .
WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!
We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.
No one was able to reach us all day.
And we were O.K.
We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride 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 did not have Playstations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 150 ch annels on cable, no video movies or DVD's, no surround-sound, CD's or Ipods! < B>, no cell! phones!, no personal computers , no Internet or chat rooms.......
WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!
We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.
We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.
We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays, made up games with sticks and tennis balls and, although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes.
We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house 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. Imagine that!!
The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!
These generations have produced some of the best risk-takers, 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!
If YOU are one of them . CONGRATULATIONS!
You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated so much of our lives for our own good
And while you are at it, forward it to your kids so they will know how brave (and lucky) their parents were.
Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn't it?!
The quote of the month is by Jay Leno:
With hurricanes, tornados, fires out of control, mud slides, flooding, severe thunderstorms tearing up the country from one end to another, and with the threat of bird flu and terrorist attacks,"Are we sure this is a good time to take God out of the Pledge of Allegiance?"
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| | CHICAGO MEMORIES 1950's /1960's |
Bollo Bats
Jacks
Root the Peg
Hopscotch
Ovaltine
Bosco
Lard
Fluffo
Jiffy Popcorn
Prima Beer
Falstaff Beer
Greyhound on 63rd Stony
Prince N Joy
Red Rooster Grocery
Jew Town chops & polish
Chili Cones on 41st
Chicken in the Box -43rd at South Park
Hot Dogs & Barrel Root Beer in Goldblatts Basement
The L stop basement Stores
Dino the Dinosaur
Elsie the Cow
Little Bill
Gas Station & Detergent
Promotions with glassware & towels
Fels Napca
Kirks Castile
Thebest Laundry
2 Gun Pete
The Black Lone Ranger
Gills Don’t go Flat Beer- 47th
Harold cooking in the kitchen on 47th & Kimbark
The Met Theater
Valentine Photographer on 46th & South Park
Robert Hall clothes
Smokey Joes
Ember Furniture
Mandle Brothers
The Fair
Long Distance operators
Party line telephone calls
Change taped to the back of the cigarette pack
| | MORE FROM THE WEB-: 1973: Long hair
2003: Longing for hair
1973: KEG
2003: EKG
1973: Acid rock
2003: Acid reflux
1973: Moving to California because it's cool
2003: Moving to California because it's warm
1973: Trying to look like Marlon Brando or Liz Taylor
2003: Trying NOT to look like Marlon Brando or Liz Taylor
1973: Seeds and stems
2003: Roughage
1973: Hoping for a BMW
2003: Hoping for a BM
1973: The Grateful Dead
2003: Dr. Kevorkian
1973: Going to a new, hip joint
2003: Receiving a new hip joint
1973: Rolling Stones
2003: Kidney Stones
1973: Being called into the principal's office
2003: Calling the principal's office
1973: Screw the system
2003: Upgrade the system
1973: Disco
2003: Costco
1973: Parents begging you to get your hair cut
2003: Children begging you to get their heads shaved
1973: Passing the drivers' test
2003: Passing the vision test
1973: Whatever
2003: Depends
Just in case you weren't feeling too old today, this will certainly change things. Each year the staff at Beloit College in Wisconsin
( http://www.beloit.edu/~pubaff/mindset/) puts together a list to try to give the faculty a sense of the mindset of this year's incoming freshmen. Here's this year's list:
The people who are starting college this fall across the nation were born in 1985. They are too young to remember the space shuttle blowing up.
Their lifetime has always included AIDS.
Bottle caps have always been screw off and plastic.
The CD was introduced the year they were born.
They have always had an answering machine.
They have always had cable.
They cannot fathom not having a remote control.
Jay Leno has always been on the Tonight Show.
Popcorn has always been cooked in the microwave.
They never took a swim and thought about Jaws.
They can't imagine what hard contact lenses are.
They don't know who Mork was or where he was from.
They never heard: "Where's the Beef?", "I'd walk a mile for a Camel",
or
"de plane Boss, de plane".
They do not care who shot J. R. and have no idea who J. R. even is.
McDonald's never came in Styrofoam containers.
They don't have a clue how to use a typewriter.
Do you feel old yet?
Let's Look At The 2008 List: The class of 2012 has grown up in an era where computers and rapid communication are the norm, and colleges no longer trumpet the fact that residence halls are “wired” and equipped with the latest hardware. These students will hardly recognize the availability of telephones in their rooms since they have seldom utilized landlines during their adolescence. They will continue to live on their cell phones and communicate via texting. Roommates, few of whom have ever shared a bedroom, have already checked out each other on Facebook where they have shared their most personal thoughts with the whole world. It is a multicultural, politically correct and “green” generation that has hardly noticed the threats to their privacy and has never feared the Russians and the Warsaw Pact.
Students entering college for the first time this fall were generally born in 1990. For these students, Sammy Davis Jr., Jim Henson, Ryan White, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Freddy Krueger have always been dead. Harry Potter could be a classmate, playing on their Quidditch team. Since they were in diapers, karaoke machines have been annoying people at parties. They have always been looking for Carmen Sandiego. GPS satellite navigation systems have always been available. Coke and Pepsi have always used recycled plastic bottles. Shampoo and conditioner have always been available in the same bottle. Gas stations have never fixed flats, but most serve cappuccino. Their parents may have dropped them in shock when they heard George Bush announce “tax revenue increases.” Electronic filing of tax returns has always been an option. Girls in head scarves have always been part of the school fashion scene. All have had a relative--or known about a friend's relative--who died comfortably at home with Hospice. As a precursor to “whatever,” they have recognized that some people “just don’t get it.” Universal Studios has always offered an alternative to Mickey in Orlando. Grandma has always had wheels on her walker. Martha Stewart Living has always been setting the style. Haagen-Dazs ice cream has always come in quarts. Club Med resorts have always been places to take the whole family. WWW has never stood for World Wide Wrestling. Films have never been X rated, only NC-17. The Warsaw Pact is as hazy for them as the League of Nations was for their parents. Students have always been "Rocking the Vote.” Clarence Thomas has always sat on the Supreme Court. Schools have always been concerned about multiculturalism. We have always known that “All I Ever Really Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.” There have always been gay rabbis. Wayne Newton has never had a mustache. College grads have always been able to Teach for America. IBM has never made typewriters. Roseanne Barr has never been invited to sing the National Anthem again. McDonald’s and Burger King have always used vegetable oil for cooking french fries. They have never been able to color a tree using a raw umber Crayola. There has always been Pearl Jam. The Tonight Show has always been hosted by Jay Leno and started at 11:35 EST. Pee-Wee has never been in his playhouse during the day. They never tasted Benefit Cereal with psyllium. They may have been given a Nintendo Game Boy to play with in the crib. Authorities have always been building a wall along the Mexican border. Lenin’s name has never been on a major city in Russia. Employers have always been able to do credit checks on employees. Balsamic vinegar has always been available in the U.S. Macaulay Culkin has always been Home Alone. Their parents may have watched The American Gladiators on TV the day they were born. Personal privacy has always been threatened. Caller ID has always been available on phones. Living wills have always been asked for at hospital check-ins. The Green Bay Packers (almost) always had the same starting quarterback. They never heard an attendant ask “Want me to check under the hood?” Iced tea has always come in cans and bottles. Soft drink refills have always been free. They have never known life without Seinfeld references from a show about “nothing.” Windows 3.0 operating system made IBM PCs user-friendly the year they were born. Muscovites have always been able to buy Big Macs. The Royal New Zealand Navy has never been permitted a daily ration of rum. The Hubble Space Telescope has always been eavesdropping on the heavens. 98.6 F or otherwise has always been confirmed in the ear. Michael Milken has always been a philanthropist promoting prostate cancer research. Off-shore oil drilling in the United States has always been prohibited. Radio stations have never been required to present both sides of public issues. There have always been charter schools. Students always had Goosebumps.
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| GREAT MEMORIES!!!!!!
>> (Under age 40? You won't understand.)
>
> You could hardly see for all the snow,
>
> Spread the rabbit ears as far as they go.
>
> Pull a chair up to the TV set,
>
> "Good Night, David. Good Night, Chet."
>
> My Mom used to cut chicken, chop eggs and spread mayo on the same cutting board with the same knife and no bleach, but we didn't seem to get food poisoning.
>
> My Mom used to defrost hamburger on the counter AND I used to eat it raw sometimes, too. Our school sandwiches were wrapped in wax paper in a brown paper bag, not in icepack coolers, but I can't remember getting e.coli
>
> Almost all of us would have rather gone swimming in the lake instead of a
pristine pool (talk about boring), no beach closures then.
>
> The term cell phone would have conjured up a phone in a jail cell, and a
> pager was the school PA system.
>
> We all took gym, not PE.. and risked permanent injury with a pair of high
top Ked's (only worn in gym) instead of having cross-training athletic shoes with air cushion soles and built in light reflectors. I can't recall any injuries but they must have happened because they tell us how much safer we are now.
>
> Flunking gym was not an option... even for stupid kids! I guess PE must be
much harder than gym.
>
> Speaking of school, we all said prayers and sang the national anthem, and
staying in detention after school caught all sorts of negative attention.
>
> We must have had horribly damaged psyches. What an archaic health system we had then. Remember school nurses? Ours wore a hat and everything.
>
> I thought that I was supposed to accomplish something before I was allowed to be proud of myself.
>
> I just can't recall how bored we were without computers, Play Station,
Nintendo, X-box or 270 digital TV cable stations.
>
> Oh yeah... and where was the Benadryl and sterilization kit when I got
that bee sting? I could have been killed!
>
> We played 'king of the hill' on piles of gravel left on vacant construction sites, and when we got hurt, Mom pulled out the 48-cent bottle of Mercurochrome (kids liked it better because it didn't sting like iodine did) and then we got our butt spanked.
>
> Now it's a trip to the emergency room, followed by a 10-day dose of a $49 bottle of antibiotics, and then Mom calls the attorney to sue the contractor for leaving a horribly vicious pile of gravel where it was such a threat.
>
> We didn't act up at the neighbor's house either because if we did, we got
our butt spanked there and then we got butt spanked again when we got
home.
>
> I recall Donny Reynolds from next door coming over and doing his tricks on
the front stoop, just before he fell off. Little did his Mom know that she
could have owned our house. Instead, she picked him up and swatted him for being such a goof. It was a neighborhood run amuck.
>
> To top it off, not a single person I knew had ever been told that they
were from a dysfunctional family. How could we possibly have known that?
>
> We needed to get into group therapy and anger management classes? We were obviously so duped by so many societal ills, that we didn't even notice
that the entire country wasn't taking Prozac! How did we ever survive?
>
> LOVE TO ALL OF US WHO SHARED THIS ERA, AND TO ALL WHO DIDN'T- SORRY FOR WHAT YOU MISSED. I WOULDN'T TRADE IT FOR ANYTHING
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