- Telephones - Growing up we had dial phones and party lines. Most of you probably have at least seen a dial phone, but I'm sure not too many have experienced a party line. A party line meant that four people shared a single phone line. If any of the the four were using the phone, none of the other three could. AND you could listen in on any conversation going on by the other parties. If you could afford the extra cost, you could opt for a 2-party line. If we got bored as kids and if a parent was not around we would pass the time listening to others on the party line. The idea of cells phones was still out there in space somewhere.
- Furnaces - The furnace in our first home operated on coal. Each month a truck would deliver coal and the driver would shovel it through a basement window on to a shute that carried it into a a storage bin. The furnace was not just a small metal box that we see today but a large cement fire-burning oven that took up a whole small room in the basement. (I think it was cement. It could have been heavy metal of some sort) Dad would have to shovel the coal into the furnace morning and night where it would burn and heat would rise into vents that took it to rooms in the house. Before we moved from that house Dad had a stoker installed that automatically fed the coal in to the furnace. He then only had to fill the stoker with coal once or twice a week depending on how cold it was. Our next house was heated with oil instead of coal. I can't remember what that furnace even looked like. I only remember the oil truck delivering the oil each month.
- Washing machines - We've already talked about that.
- Automobiles - No automatic transmissions, push-button window openers, signal lights, seat belts, sun roofs, power steering or brakes (no power anything...not even the engines seemed very powerful.) The only car we ever had while I was growing up was that little ford club coupe that Dad bought from Uncle Ken.
- School Supplies and Dress - No computers, not even calculators. We were very good at doing math in our heads and very fast at using a pencil and paper to do problems. I can still do math as fast and more accurately on paper than with a calculator. We had no ball point pens, backpacks, tape recorders or players, memory sticks, i-pods, etc. etc. Girls only wore skirts to school. No pants were allowed. Boys wore jeans or slacks and nice shirts...no T- shirts.
Foods I never had at home (never even heard of some of them)
- Broccoli
- Artichokes
- Jicama
- Tortillas (actually not any kind of Mexican food)
- Fresh herbs
- Nectarines
- Leeks
- Squash of any kind
- Yogurt
- Romaine lettuce (or any other kind of lettuce except Iceberg)
- Parsnips - my mom loved them.
- Clabber milk (milk that is left out to sour until it actually thickens then sprinkled with sugar.
- Endive - a leafy vegetable (very bitter)
- Asparagus (You've probably have eaten this, but I gagged on it as a child. I still hate it.)
- Kippered herring - raw herring (a fish) in a milky white sauce. My dad loved it.
- Hutzpot - Potatoes, carrots, onions, and bacon pieces all mashed up together. My dad said that the Dutch people survived on this during the World War II. I guess you could say that we survived on it, too, since it was cheap and we had it real often. I have never made it during my married life and don't plan to (unless we're starving and had nothing to eat but potatoes, carrots, and onions.
- Lots of fried rabbit - I did like this. It was our usual Sunday dinner.
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