The Friday Five

and then some. Are you too young to remember these? Give yourself 1 point for each item you remember.

1. Blackjack chewing gum - I remember Bemens and Clove gum
2. Wax Coke-shaped bottles with colored sugar water - Yup.
3. Candy cigarettes - I only ate them and didn't inhale
4. Soda pop machines that dispensed glass bottles- and the machine had a bottle opener because the glass bottle didn't have a wussy twist off top. I had a temporary job at a Coca-Cola bottling plant after I got out of computer school. There was a Coke machine for employees that dispensed those sexy hour glass shaped bottles and we only had to pay 10 cents!
5. Coffee shops or diners with tableside juke boxes - yup
6. Home milk delivery in glass bottles with cardboard stoppers - and then Hood came out with a giant plastic milk container with a spigot. Ma stopped buying it after she found the fridge door open, spigot wide open and The Brother lying on the floor guzzling the milk as it streamed from the spigot.
7. Party lines - and you could never use the phone when you wanted because some old lady was always yapping on the phone.
8. Newsreels before the movie - Not sure I remember this. Might not have paid attention. Or maybe was too busy throwing popcorn at the organist. Yes, they still had an organist who played the organ during the intermission at the Seville in E. Boston.
9. P.F. Flyers - Mine were red with rubber toe caps, and I could run my fastest and jump my highest.
10. Butch wax - didn't need it as I didn't have a flat top.
11. Telephone numbers with a word prefix (OLive-6933) Our number began Olympic 3. Himself's number was Olympic 5.
12. Peashooters - yup.
13. Howdy Doody - I barely remember the show. I did work for a boss who was the spitting image of Howdy Doody minus the strings.
14. 45 RPM records - first one I bought was the song "Crystal Chandelier"  Flip side was "1-2-3 Like Taking Candy from a Baby"
15. S & H Green Stamps - I just found a wad of them while cleaning out my parents' house.
16 Hi-fi's and I played  45s, 78s, and LPs on it.
17. Metal ice trays with lever - and the lever always got frozen and you couldn't pull it up to release the ic
18. Mimeograph paper - ah the smell! and the clunk, clunk, as you spun the drum around making copies.
19  Blue flashbulb - and flash cubes!
20. Packards - nope, we had a see #24
21. Roller skate keys - I didn't have skates, Himself did. He would give me one skate, and he'd use the other. We'd adjust the skates with the key
22. Cork popguns - yup
23. Drive-ins - first double feature I saw at the drive-in was Tarzan's Three Chances and El Cid starring Charlton Heston.
24. Studebakers - we had a green Studebaker station wagon.
25. Wash tub wringers - wasn't used after Ma got the brand-new Maytag automatic washer. No more running the clothes through the wringer. Still hung the clothes on a clothesline, though.

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'm older than dirt. How'd you do?