Stuck in the past or favoring the old ways.

[Bird]

All I can say is that growing up with both new-fangled indoor plumbing and high class store bought milk I'm praying that a "cream separator" isn't a euphemism related to "honey buckets"

I have a nephew named Jeff and once when he was 10 or 12 years old, we were all visiting my parents in Oklahoma. They lived in a house that was built about 1921-22. Jeff started to the bathroom and it was occupied so he went in the kitchen and asked my mother, "Grandmother, where's the other bathroom?" She said, "Jeff, this house only has one bathroom." Jeff couldn't believe it, "Only one bathroom??" So Mother said, "When your mother was your age, we lived in a house that didn't have any bathroom." Now that was really unbelievable to someone his age and he thought she was kidding, and said, "Aww, Grandmother, all houses have a bathroom."

Of course, my nephew, Jeff, is almost 45 now and still gets kidded about that.

 

[PhilNH5]

Well,
I got some thoughtful answers. I loved the line about an "old fashioned palm pilot". I liked hearing how others use some "old ways".
Someone mentioned a corn cob pipe. That brought back memories. My father would buy a cheap one to use on vacations when I was a kid. The rest of the year he smoked cigs. But he like his pipe on vacation. Maybe easier to use and fish at the same time. And it was cheap. He threw it out at the end of the week!

Thanks for the replies.
Phil

 

[jinman]

Even though you try to keep the milk as clean as possible while milking the cow, it's possible to get something in the bucket that you didn't want (like a fly landing in the bucket), and the milk foams, too. So we always strained the milk from the bucket into a crock through a "cup towel" stretched over the lip of the bucket. (For those who didn't know it, a cup towel was a hemmed flour sack that was used for drying dishes and straining milk.

Bird, we had those cup towels, but they were the fancy ones. Old sheets cut and hemmed were just called "drying rags" in our house. Also, my mom always called a potholder a "liftin' rag." It didn't matter if it was a fancy store-bought one or home-made. You should have seen the puzzled look on Kathy's face when I asked her to hand me a liftin' rag one day.

We always strained our milk first-thing as we poured it out of the milk bucket. On a windy and dusty day, the milk would actually have a brown haze on top of it before getting the bucket to the house. We also were very accomplished at keeping the cows from dipping their tails into our milk bucket. When we sat down on the milking stool, we'd tuck the end of the cow's tail behind our left knee and hold the tail. If you didn't do that, you'd end up with a tail full of cockleburs slapped up beside your head. And of course, if the cow arched her back, you'd better grab the milk bucket and get going because there was about to be a big mess behind the cow.

We also didn't heat the bedrooms and shut off the main gas heater at night. I remember warming a towel in front of the heater before going to bed. I'd put the warm towel down by my feet so they wouldn't freeze when I got into bed. When I got my first electric blanket, I thought I was in heaven.

 

[Bird]

Yep, Jim, we had the same experiences with milking, holding the cow's tail, and getting out of the way if she humped her back.

But like Kathy, I don't recall potholders being called anything else.

And I've used a towel, but I acquired something even better (bigger anyway) and that was a baby blanket that I used to warm in front of the heater to wrap around my feet on cold nights. I can't remember who gave me that baby blanket, but I guess I was a bit like Linus with my blanket.

 

[tallyho8]

We had an old wood burning Franklin stove when I was about 5 and my parents would heat a brick on top then wrap it in a towel and put it by my feet in the bed to keep them warm. That felt so good! Amazing how you never forget some of those good old memories.

 

[Thomas]

When one gets little age on the ole bones comfort takes the place of speed more and more,and one reflects on the past...good times,more attendion to free things in life.

 

[Bird]

We had an old wood burning Franklin stove when I was about 5

When I was that age, I don't know the brand, but we had a "pot bellied" wood burning stove in the living room, set out a bit from the corner. But we never burned wood in it. There was a 2 x 4 wooden stand in the corner behind the stove and a (25 gallon, I think) barrel or drum on the stand with kerosene. There was a little petcock and then copper tubing from near the bottom of that little barrel into the top of the stove. So mother or dad would light a piece of paper in the stove, then open the petcock just enough for kerosene to drip into the fire; faster drips, bigger fire, slower drip, smaller fire.

My dad smoked cigarettes, but he also had a pipe that he smoked in the evening, and left the pipe in a big ashtray. Mother was in the habit of emptying the ashtray into the top of that stove, and one day she forget to take his pipe out of the ash tray before she dumped the contents in the fire. Dad was quite upset about that, but he never smoked a pipe again; just cigarettes.

And then one day, while I spending the weekend in town with my grandparents, a spark from that stove apparently went up the stovepipe and back down on the roof. So it burned right down through the middle of the roof. Fortunately, they realized the roof was on fire and got it put out before the damage was too severe.

When the repairs were finished, that old stove was gone and we had a brand new Dearborn butane space heater in the living room. We had already been cooking with butane; don't know why dad handn't got under the house and run a line to the living room for a space heater before that. Maybe because we were just renting that place, instead of buying it.

 

[Knotbored]

Do you realize we are the last generation that will have such memories of such inconveniences? Our kids and grandkids will brag about remembering "grandpaw" having an antique Commodore64" stored in the basement and driving a car without an auto-transmission. I think our memories are more dear then theirs will be because the "inconveniences" we had were sometimes so uncomfortable they hurt.
I doubt that I have recently met a teenager that felt real hunger or even felt real chill to the bone cold unless it was on purpose.
I love the history I remember but am glad for the conveniences I have now.

 

[2manyrocks]

A lot of people have more conveniences than ever before and appear to be ungrateful for those conveniences. One would think we'd be more appreciative for what we have.

I like a wood fire, but I appreciate having central HVAC in the house.

 

[Sigarms]

My wife thinks I'm stuck in my ways because if it were not for her, I'd end up wearing the same shirt and pants everyday.

She always tells me that her father and I are a lot alike.

I mention to her that she should be grateful in the fact that once I find something I like, I usually don't change