What old customs do you remember from childhood that are gone today?

[Waitone]

Dad would occasionally mix stale cornbread in with cold buttermilk for a late night snack.

Going over to gramma's house for a big Sunday meal.  The males would retire to the front porch for a nice nap.  The ladies would talk.

If you took a green coke bottle (glass) and carefully shot a BB into the bottom of the bottle from the neck, you could bust out a wafer of green glass.  Great pride in doing it the first try.

Take a green coke bottle (glass) into a canoe and go out into deep water.  Drop the bottle straight down.  It would drop into the water, submerge, then pop right back out.  How many times could you do it before the bottle sank permanently?

Take a bath, don't dry off.  Put on PJ's and official Fess Parker Coonskin hat.  Run to the B&W TV and watch Daniel Boone on the Disney Show soaking wet.

[charby]

I'm 31 so my memories are different than yours.

Things I miss

Soda in Glass Bottles.

Riding my bike to Bud Mathes' filling station, soda was 25 cents for a 10oz bottle, if you left the place you had to leave a dime for deposit. Bud couldn't compete with the bigger stations so he closed up gas service about the time I graduated from high school, Not sure if he still does service or not.

Penny candy at Balbort's Confectionary. Store closed up a year before I left to the state univeristy.

Sunday drives with Dad to learn all the back roads of Des Moines County.

Family drives to see Christmas lights in Yarmouth Iowa.

Pinball at the Haller's Tap

Stores being closed on Sundays

Hungry Bear Ice Cream, I was home in August for a family reunion and I took SWMBO there for a ice cream cone, she raved how good it was.

Throwing rocks at coal cars as they passed by.

Family weiner roasts at county parks

Camping with Boy Scouts

Summer Camp

Hunting or fishing with Dad. We live 500 miles apart and it has been years since we fished together.

Finally being allowed to ride my bike unsupervised passed Seaman's Bushes.

The annual building of forts in the woods after the first frost to kill the poison ivy as my mother always warned about.

Dad comming home with a grocery bag full of wild mushrooms

My dad's fried catfish.

Oh so many more..

Charby

[DrAmazon]

Your neighbors "policed-up" their own neighborhood.  From an abusive husband to a misbehaving boy, the cops were called seldom.  Being on relief was rare and having a child out of wedlock was shameful.  Doctors DID make house calls!  The TV had rabbit ears and had to "warm-up" a while.  Arthur Godfrey on the radio and Art Linkletter on TV "Kids say the funniest things".  And lastly, military parades down main street.

I am using rabbit ears as we speak.  Too broke for cable.  Reception is poor enough that I'm watching much less TV.

I don't think I'm that old, but...

-actually talking with my parents in the car on the summer vacation, listening to their music, and sitting with the atlas in my lap so I could answer for myself "how much longer".  

-Dressing nice to travel.  Whenever we flew (rarely), I always had nice "travel clothes".  Mom always set out something for car trips too -nicer than play clothes but not quite Church clothes.

-for that matter, a difference between play clothes and church clothes!

-learning impeccable phone manners, in case Dad's clients called him at home

-The sound of a zippo lighter.  Dad quit smoking years ago, but I still think of him when I hear one flick open and closed.  Also Dad "entertaining" me by lighting his hand whenever he refilled the lighter.

-Wearing gun maker t-shirts to gym class and never getting any flack for it

-Being Mom and Dad's remote control "Turn it up a smidge. Change to channel 6".  Hard to believe that my Dad ever stayed on one channel for longer than 30 seconds.

[grampster]

Men and women getting dressed up in suit and tie, Sunday dress w/high heels and hat to go to the movies.

Latching on to the back bumper of a car in the winter time and street skiing to school.

Packing a lunch and getting on my bike and leaving home at sunup and not returning till dark or hopping freights and riding about 20 miles to a long curve.  We'd drop off, fish and swim in a gravel pit and then hop another freight back  home in the evening.

Building forts and rafts along the creek.  Sailing said rafts downstream to the river.
Pulling the support braces apart on rival rafts and securing them with string so they'd break apart in the creek dunking the neighbor kids.  Watching my Lab, Mike, picking up rocks in his mouth and trying to heave them across the creek by snapping his neck and releasing the rock.

[thorn]

Charby, im 32- and you reminded me opf something-
Penny candy at Balbort's Confectionary. Store closed up a year before I left to the state univeristy.

we had a peeny candy shoppe that closed when i was like 9. i used to love that place, Frances sweet shop

[charby]

one more thing I was thinking about eating lunch today.

Pop sure doesn't taste the same as it used to. Every now and then I get this craving for Coke or Pepsi in the the NR 16oz bottles(the ones that came in the eight packs) over ice. I just used to love that initial sweet bitey taste and how the bubbles tickled your nose. There is a international store here in Ames that sells Coke and Pepsi in glass bottles from Mexico but just isn't the same as it was when I was a kid, is it because of the switch from cane sugar to corn sweetner?

Charby

[280plus]

Whiskey Sours, when the whole family was together out came the shaker...

HMMM, I wonder where that shaker got to anyways.

[duck hunt]

Sunday evening routine:

Take a bath and watch Disney.

Can't remember what night Wild Kingdom was on, but that was another favorite.

Wow, that brings back memories.  We never missed it!  After the bath and pajamas, you get the bedtime snack in front of the tv while Disney was on.

For some reason I want to say that Disney and Wild Kingdom may have alternated Sundays....possible?

[charby]

I remember one time my dad having to listen to the Superbowl on the radio because us three boys wanted to watch the Wondeful World of Disney. This was back when one TV per household was the norm and all your could get was ABC, NBC, CBS and PBS. I actually miss those days, didn't have 100 plus channels to flip through and so easy to find something else to do than watch TV. Plus my mother was a die hard Iowa Hawkeyes Basketball fan, when a game was televised she had the TV no if, ands, or buts about it.

Charby

[caseydog]

Mercurochrome was for WIMPS!  That was the pain free cut stuff.

You got that right ! the other option in our medicine chest was "tincture of Methiolate" yowzah ! that stuff burned the germs out, i'll take mercurochrome anyday.

Heck i'm only in my 40's but I got a few more from growing up rural.

There was so much writing on the blackboard in school that someone got to dust the erasers outside every day. First day of school in the early grades you got a new double ruled tablet and a pencil , that was for penmanship practice.

When you cut the grass there were no weedwackers , if there was trimming you used grass shears on your knees. If you were smart you edged the sidewalk with an axe , needed trimmed less then.

When you had a snow day from school you went around and shoveled all the older folks out (usually a gang of kids) you didn't charge , they paid in baked goods and hot Hersheys cocoa or Nestle's quik. Of course those folks usually sent Christmas and birthday cards to all the kids in the gang with a little something in them.

There weren't 48 kinds of cereal on the shelves , Wheaties , Corn Flakes , Cheerios and that was about it for brand name stuff, it was a real treat the first time I tried Rice Krispies, milk was on the porch first thing every morning , you could also order eggs , bread, butter, cheese and orange juice from the milkman , just leave a note in the milkbox the day before or catch him to get something off the truck. Mom and pop little grocery in town and a Ben Franklin , next town over had a McCrory's and an A&P - woohoo A&P was a big store.

Then there was the Fuller brush man and a few other traveling salesmen , going to the mall wasn't an option - no such thing for 100 miles in any direction, there were dept stores in the nearest big town/small city , but they were downtown , each in their own building, almost all of them had a cafeteria too. You parked the car and walked around , winter or not, driving two or three blocks was rediculous.

Ray

[Stickjockey]

Hand-cranked ice cream makers.

Granddad's Willys jeep. Can't remember if it was a CJ-2 or -3, but i do remember him and I packing a sack lunch and heading up into the mountains around Myrtle Creek just to get away for the day. I was about five or six. I'll always remember the "panic button" he'd stuck on the dash, and the fact that there'd always be a little something in the glove box "just in case"

Being able to open Dad's gun cabinet with a bent coat hanger. (shh!)

Sgt. Rock, G.I. Combat, and Haunted Tank comic books.

[mtnbkr]

I'll bet it's been awhile since anyone baked a loaf of bread starting with flour, yeast, salt, water, et cetera.

I made a batch of biscuits this morning.  My grandmother made two batches this past weekend (big family gathering and bbq).

Recipe:
self rising flour
lard
buttermilk

no measurements, mix by feel and experience.  That said, it's roughly 2cups flour, 1/2 cup lard, 1/2-3/4 cup buttermilk.  Don't mix too much though, just enough that the ingredients are mixed and dough is slightly tacky.  Break off golfball sized lumps, roll around a bit in your hand with a dusting of flour, put in pan (greased with lard) and press flat (about 1/2" thick).  Bake at 450 until bottoms are browning, then broil until tops are brown and crispy.  Total cook time is roughly 20 minutes.

Chris

[280plus]

Wow, lard...

Grandma used to have one of those bottom refrigerator drawers FULL of lard. She'd just reach right in and scoop some out. I'd love to see the look on my doctor's face if I told him I was making biscuits with lard

That said, Thanx for the recipe

[mtnbkr]

I'd love to see the look on my doctor's face if I told him I was making biscuits with lard

This isn't a recipe that you eat constantly (unless you do hard labor every day).  That said, my grandmother tried to modify the recipe and use crisco or oil, but it never came out right.

Chris

[280plus]

my grandmother tried to modify the recipe and use crisco or oil, but it never came out right.

Yes lard adds a flavor all its own. I recall that before the big anti fat craze took hold McDonalds did ALL their frying in lard. We used to cut up 25 lb blocks of it with a coat hanger. When they changed to vegetable oil the flavor of their fries was forever altered.  

First I'd have to figure out WHERE to get some lard cause them biscuits sound delish!
 

[mtnbkr]

First I'd have to figure out WHERE to get some lard cause them biscuits sound delish!

I got it at the local grocery store, but it was hidden in the hispanic foods section.  

Chris

[...has left the building.]

I'm 23, so take it with a grain of salt. Here are a few quick examples of things I miss in no particular order:

-People getting fired up for deer season, groundhogs coming out, upland, etc.
-Doritos that didn't get friggin' CHEESIER every year
-Speaking English nearly everywhere in America
-McD's lard fries
-That terrorism was just something you heard about that happened in other countries.
-That you could fistfight at school and have them call your parents, not the NKVD.
-MTV airing things that actually relate to music.
-Black leather mini skirts, these used to be the shizz back in the mid-90s for a year or two...
-Pro boxers that I actually gave a crap about
-Gas that was $1.28-1.40 in today's dollars
-Rap that didn't always have to be about thugz

[DrAmazon]

one more thing I was thinking about eating lunch today.

Pop sure doesn't taste the same as it used to. Every now and then I get this craving for Coke or Pepsi in the the NR 16oz bottles(the ones that came in the eight packs) over ice. I just used to love that initial sweet bitey taste and how the bubbles tickled your nose. There is a international store here in Ames that sells Coke and Pepsi in glass bottles from Mexico but just isn't the same as it was when I was a kid, is it because of the switch from cane sugar to corn sweetner?

Charby

I've heard tell that during Passover you can get Kosher Coke that is made according to the original recipe using sugar, not corn syrup.

[K Frame]

Sitting on the front porch in the summer.

I grew up in a neighborhood of old victorian era homes which didn't have central air conditioning, but they all had wonderful front porches. The front porch on the house I grew up in was something like 12 feet deep, 32 feet across the front of the house, turned the corner, and went back another 15 or so feet. It was a porch made for sitting.

Before central air became almost mandatory, houses were built with spacious front porches for sitting in the evenings during the summer.

My Grandparents didn't have AC in the house (Mom's parents never had AC, Dad's had a window shaker) and the front porches were always occupied during the heat of the summer.

Now days, with central air, the front porch is almost non existent in new construction.

[Larry Ashcraft]

Sitting on the front porch in the summer.

We still do a lot of that here at Casa Ashcraft, every day in the summer, as a matter of fact.

But then, we're old fashioned.

[K Frame]

"I'll bet it's been awhile since anyone baked a loaf of bread starting with flour, yeast, salt, water, et cetera."

You talking about me?

I make bread regularly that way.

For several years I was buying my flour in 25 pound sacks.

I've cut back on the amount of bread that I make, but I still have all the fixings.

In fact, just 2 weeks ago I made a loaf of bread for the dinner I shared with Mtnbkr, his lovely wife, his felonious assault (on me) daughter, and his parents.

How was that bread, fatboy?

[K Frame]

Mickey D's never used lard in its fries.

They used beef tallow.

[mtnbkr]

How was that bread, fatboy?

It was tasty, even better toasted the next day.

Chris

[K Frame]

You've got the Kitchenaid, so get to work!

[280plus]

Mickey D's never used lard in its fries.

They used beef tallow.

Same Same?? Don't be gettin' all technical on me now there Mike...

Either way it was cool cutting up a 25 lb block of fat with a coat hanger! I highly recommend it.

The thing that really scared me though was the liquid coffee concentrate. I don't know how they do it now or in other places but in WPB FL in the mid 80s your Mcdonalds coffee wasn't made from ground beans brewed in the store.