The following quiz is making the rounds, and it rang enough bells with me that I thought it would be fun to write about.<\/p>\n
Older Than Dirt Quiz
\nHow many of the following items can you remember? (From your own firsthand experience, that is. Things you remember being told about don’t count.)
\n1. Blackjack chewing gum
\n2. Wax Coke-shaped bottles with colored sugar water
\n3. Candy cigarettes
\n4. Soda pop machines that dispensed glass bottles
\n5. Coffee shops or diners with tableside juke boxes
\n6. Home milk delivery in glass bottles with cardboard stoppers
\n7. Party lines
\n8. Newsreels before the movie
\n9. P.F. Flyers
\n10. Butch wax
\n11. Telephone numbers with a word prefix (Olive-6933)
\n12. Peashooters
\n13. Howdy Doody
\n14. 78 rpm records
\n15. S&H Green Stamps
\n16. Hi-fis
\n17. Metal ice trays with levers
\n18. Mimeograph paper
\n19. Blue flashbulb
\n20. Packards
\n21. Roller skate keys
\n22. Cork popguns
\n23. Drive-ins
\n24. Studebakers
\n25. Washtub wringers
\nIf you remembered 0-5 = You’re still young
\nIf you remembered 6-10 = You are getting older
\nIf you remembered 11-15 = Don’t tell your age,
\nIf you remembered 16-25 = You’re older than dirt!<\/p><\/blockquote>\nSo what were my answers? Let’s start with a list of the things I don’t<\/span> remember:
\n<\/span>Blackjack chewing gum.<\/span> I’ve never heard of this before.
\nTableside jukeboxes.<\/span> Except in TV shows and movies, and some of the new retro-by-design restaurants.
\nNewsreels.<\/span> TV had killed these off by the time I was born.
\nButch wax.<\/span> Never heard of it.
\nPhone numbers with word prefixes.<\/span> No, I can still remember the phone number of the house I lived in when I was six, and it was just a string of seven digits.
\nPeashooters.<\/span> I’m not even sure what these are.
\nHowdy Doody.<\/span> No, that show ended when I was a baby.
\n78 rpm records.<\/span> When I was a kid, all the record players we had could be set to play at 78, but my family didn’t own any of those records.
\nHi-fis.<\/span> Those came before stereo sets, right?
\nMimeograph paper.<\/span> I almost said yes to this, because when I was a public-school student, the schools used what everyone called mimeograph machines to duplicate handouts and test papers. But I’ve since learned that these were actually spirit duplicators<\/a>. Mimeograph<\/a> was an even older technology that I’ve never encountered firsthand.
\nPackards and Studebakers.<\/span> I’m sure I’ve seen them on the roads, but I don’t think I ever rode in either one. Packard stopped making cars before I was born; Studebaker did likewise when I was in first grade.
\nWashtub wringers.<\/span> No, just clothes washers with spin-dry cycles. I don’t remember washboards either.
\nSo what do<\/span> I remember? That will have to wait for part 2.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The following quiz is making the rounds, and it rang enough bells with me that I thought it would be fun to write about. Older Than Dirt Quiz How many of the following items can you remember? (From your own … Continue reading