Age Is Relative

Ronald darling and I have both had birthdays recently. That's a good news and bad news event. Good news - we are no longer sitting on an age that ends in zero (the scary ones). Bad news - we are another year older (but not deeper in debt).* Good news - we are still on the right side of the dirt. Bad news - we are closer to the time that we will be on the wrong side of the dirt.

My daughter (one of the reasons I occasionally feel old) was talking about how old she feels. I understand how she feels. She mentioned some reasons she is feeling old. For instance, she remembers using a rotary dial phone. (Let me know if you need me to tell you what that is.) My first job? Switchboard operator for Ohio Bell, a now illegal monopoly telephone company. One ringy dingy, right?**

And look at the clothing the operator is wearing. When I graduated from high school young women were not permitted to wear trousers, pants or jeans to school. If our skirts didn't reach the floor when we were on our knees on the gym floor, we were sent home. Really.

Speaking of grade school, we didn't have tornado drills; we had atomic bomb drills. Run to the inside wall, crouch and cover your head. It was really going to help when we were within striking distance on a SAC base during the Cuban missile crisis.***
My first car? A 1966 Renault. It looked sort of like this only a solid blue.

You could go to the movies on Saturday, see a double feature, a cartoon and a newsreel.

Donna Reed, Harriet Nelson and Margaret Anderson were my idea of the perfect wife and mother.****

All flight attendants were good looking women called stewardesses.

Airplanes had propellers, not jet engines. Even the ones that flew for 18 hours to get you to Morrocco.

If you needed help in a math class you used a slide rule.*****

Milk in glass bottles (quarts), eggs and bread were delivered to the door. You put the empty milk bottles in the box on the porch to be picked up by the milkman. We didn't know we were recycling.

We drove cross country every year, but the road only had two lanes, one coming and one going.

When we were driving cross country, mom bought a loaf of bread and a pound of bologna for lunch. Fast food had not been invented.

*Did you catch the old song reference?

**Did you catch the old television show reference?

***I know, you never heard of a SAC base.

****Do I have to tell you everything?

*****I'd show you how to use it, but I forget.