When I was young

I couldn't wait to get older ..... duuuh!

(I used two fingers)

We learned what to do in case of a nuclear attack (basically amounted
to "kiss yer ass goodbye", though ne'er so well expressed).

There was a Fallout Shelter in the school basement.

There was a Nike missle station in Winthrop and F-86s based at Logan.

One time an F-86 could not gain altitude on take off and was headed
across the cove directly at a neighborhood. The pilot stayed with the
plane and directed it into an embankment at the water's edge. He died,
but saved who knows how many lives.

When I was young, I literally ironed my hair so it would be straight like Michelle Phillips in The Mamas & The Papas.

When I was young, my mother and I walked to the grocery store pulling a little red wagon to carry the groceries back in. We never had to lock it, it was always there when we came back out.

When I was young, my grandparents went to the Catskills for a month every summer and I went with them. It seemed like we ate 6 times a days.

When I was young, I remember my neighbor's oldest son coming back from Vietnam. We had a big block party to celebrate his safe return. I had a crush on him because he was so tall and lean with deep cheek bones and blue eyes. He danced with me and his little sister while the Rolling Stone's album "Beggar's Banquet" played on a pink record player. Two weeks later he killed himself in his family's basement. I cried for days.

When I was young, my friend and I spent hours in the meadows near our house. We crawled through the high grass building 'streets' and 'rooms'. My parents were at work and nobody ever looked for us.

I fell with the bicycle when I was around six. I hurt my knee really bad and didn't show it to anybody. I still have a big scar.

When I was around 13, my parents went on vacation one summer, leaving my brother (2 years older) and me at home. They left us money to buy food. We took the bus to the next bigger town where there was an ice cream place and we had big bowls of ice cream instead of lunch.

This may explain your musical quirks.

No ****. :wink:

When I was 16 I bought a '62 Ford Comet for $100. One day I was at a lake party at Silvermere Lake and parked it on the highway. My boyfriend's brother asked me if I wanted to go for a coffee, so I said sure. We drove from Mission to Kamloops, just for the hell of it. We stayed at his aunt's place (separate beds) for two weeks and when I wouldn't "come across", he left me there with $2 and an alarm clock. I had to get a job to pay my way home. My car, meanwhile, had been towed, of course. When I got back to town a year later, I offered it to a friend for the storage fee ($50). Ah, life in the fast lane, as MIL would say. Kerazy days.

oh, the fond memories of fallout shelters training! we had those too. our school had its own cement bunker. we also had military exercises, i was pretty good at throwing (rubber) hand grenades (yes, that's what we did in primary school), we were timed to put gas masks on and go hide, carrying wounded comrades and such. it was always a half a day ordeal in the woods somewhere. Fun though. All to be ready for the enemy - you people.

When I was young:

I had to be home at four o'clock every afternoon so that I could watch my favorite television show (no technology to record tv shows).

I could see a movie only if I went to the neighborhood movie theater.

I read biographies of baseball players as if I was reading the "Lives of the Saints".

St. Mary's School trained for the Bratislava landing, but it was cancelled
on account of rubber grenades.

When I was young ...

My dad (asked by my mother to give me a haircut) put bowl on my head and cut around it. I've always laughed with people as they tell that silly story but I cried for days because the fecker actually did it to me! and the haircut looked the worse for it. My mother chased him down the street.

I never swore in front of my mother until the age of 17 (when I left school). She ruled with an iron fist and I feared for my life.

Never drank soda except on special occasions (birthday) or sometimes with Sunday dinner.

I smoked on a plane. When you think back, even with all the non-smoking rules today, that was the stupidest thing ever! What a complete idiotic thing to allow. My friends and I were sitting at the back of an airplane, getting ready for takeoff. Friend dropped her cigarette between the seats and set the seat on fire! Other friend brushed too close to other girl and set her hair on fire. Didn't help that we were all drunk and laughing hysterically.

Worked as a telephone operator and we actually had phone numbers that had a name and number, such as Roscommon 23554 instead of area code.

First dance I went to, at the slow-set, if a guy asked you to dance, you could not refuse him!

Got beaten up by a boy and my mother chased him down with her sweeping brush and knocked him unconscious. She then went to his home and ripped his mother a new one and organized all the neighbourhood to ostracize them until he sincerely apologized to me and suffered his penance. Boy could that woman scare the crap out of not only me, but the local gangsters too! Even now, if I am visiting home and one of the local boyos tries a hassle I only have to mention I am her daughter and they back off.

I used to write when I was in school. I had a very vivid imagination. Loved to read a lot (still do) but I spent a few years entering writing competitions and such and loved it. Would like to get back into it some day. Am thinking about taking writing classes.

When I was young, these joke were popular:

Fero comes home, tired, hands aching. He sighs: "Gosh, we had to applaud so much at the meeting today".
"Daddy, are you a communist?" little Ferko asks.
"Don't you dare to say that anywhere!" Fero exclaims. "If grandpa would hear us, he'd be very angry. I am not a communist, I am only with communists."
"What is the difference, daddy?"
"It's a big difference! Look, your mom works with cows, right?"
"Right," says Ferko.
"There. That doesn't mean she is one!"

Man comes home to find his wife in bed with her lover. He gets livid: "You are fooling around here and they got bananas and oranges in the store!!!"


PERPETUUM MOBILE
who doesn't do anything, can't mess anything up.
who doesn't mess anything up, is awarded.
who is awarded, is promoted.
who is promoted, doesn't have to do anything.
who doesn't do anything.....

Grandma is asking a communist official: "Who invented communism: scientists or communists?"
"Of course communists, grandma!"
"I thought so. Scientists would first do animal testing."

When I was young, I ate raw sausages out of the fridge for a treat.

I drank malt vinegar straight from the bottle. I still love vinegar.

When I was young I used to watch "Discoteque Orfeón A-Go-Go"

Bleedin' hell that looks fuckin brilliant.

That's my kind of telly, that.

I need to see it.

When I was young, Tschernobyl haunted us for a long long time.

Tschernobyl, yes... I remember that Sunday. We were out and when we got home it started to rain. They said the rain was dangerous and we tried to get all our potted herbs inside without getting wet. Didn't work out...

We never had any of those drills when I was in school. Interesting that you had them in the US and also you had them, dag. But not in Germany...

WHEN I WAS YOUNG ... the year was 1932 and i was 2 years old .
we lived in the port of hamburg (see warehouse in the background) where dad was the "super" for an import/export company .
seems like we are having afternoon coffee in the garden - from left :
mom , hbg , dad and my older brother carl .
we lived there until the early 1950's .

this is a few years later .
the photographer (who was dad's senior clerk) took the photo and recorded all the details :
20 april 1935 - 11 o'clock - sunny skies
camera : maximum 9x12 , zeiss-dominar 4.5 lens
film : agfa isochrome 9X12 , speed 1/25 sec.

i'm sitting - somewhat disgrunteled it seems :wink: - on my dad's knees ,
granpa is standing at the back trying to cheer me up by whistling ,
with us are some of the senior employees working with dad .

even though i'm not very happy at that moment , i had a good time growing up with adults . being the "super's boy" , they always looked after me - even shared their lunches with me - much to mom's dismay -
i'd be called in for lunch and "was just not hungry" .