What about the costs of things today? Terrible! I remember when Brenda just got her license to drive. You could get a learners permit at 13 then drive with a licensed driver for a while, I can't remember how long, then go in for a written exam and "Wala", suddenly you were a driver. Brenda got hers but I didn't get to do that because Daddy wanted to 'protect' me as he put it. I got to ride with Brenda though. "Protect"? I don't know about that.
25€ would buy enough gas to 'Cruise' all evening on Sunday. But get gas on Saturday because nothing was open Sunday. The fact that we had to stay on the dirt roads with dust flying didn't bother us much. Sometimes the dust got so thick that you couldn't see an approaching vehicle until it was going by. In rainy times it was mud that hindered a bit. I've seen ruts in that old dirt road deep as the tires almost. And don't ever try to get out of them just drive on till more solid ground was reached. Solid ground was hard to come by but the Denning hill was usually the closest. Everyone had better stay on their side of the road.
We could get a coke for four cents and a huge Baby Ruth candy bar for a nickel, a dress for five dollars, and a nice pair of shoes for four dollars. Brenda and I were the same size then so we shared our clothes, well I should say we shared when it struck our fancy to share. We had some gang- buster fights over our clothes.
We didn't have TV's in our rooms, in fact no TV in the house period. No radio or any of the fancy gadgets that kids carry around now. No cell phones, no phones at all. Heck we didn't have electricity until I was about 6 or 7 years old. We had outdoor toilets, I was married and out on my own before my Parents had running water and a bathroom in the house
Maybe we should have stayed the way it was when I was growing up. Work hard and play less. Raise the food we eat. Walk more places. When I was in school lunch was 10cents and was a good balanced meal. No junk food. Also we rode the school bus or walked. We would not have been allowed to drive a car to school even if we had one back then, maybe a bicycle. I remember when they first allowed students to drive a car to school I was way on up in senior high. Very few had a car to drive. Most families had only one car and Daddies had those at work.
Entertainment was all the kids gathering at someone's house for a fudge party. Grandma's and Mothers made our clothes out of pretty flour sacks you could buy at the local store there was also some pretty ones that Daddy got chicken feed in. Brenda and I loved going with our parents to pick out our patterns. We tried to get them alike.
Pollution had not even been invented yet. We breathed in clean air and ate undoctored food. Milked a cow, gathered the eggs, canned our own food we grew out in the garden. ect. I heard about a family getting picked on by the law for selling fresh cow's milk. It is supposed to be unhealthy. Come on now I was raised on fresh cow's milk after I was weaned off my Mama's breat milk. Fresh churned butter and oh the wonderful thick cream on a bowl of strawberries or blackberries. Yum Yum my mouth is watering. Fresh milk contaminated? Maybe, maybe not but just give me a big glass of it now and I'll drink it on down.
PROGRESS? Is that what they call it? Things are certainly not better to my way of thinking. Don't get me wrong, I have enjoyed all these modern conviences in the second part of my life. But do I miss the way it was? YOU JUST BETCHA!!!!!
Tags: Fresh Food Milk Gasoline Dirt Roads Dust Mudd
