Carrier built the first modern air conditioning unit in 1901, so grandpa is 120 years old.
How old is Grandpa?
- Thread starter Brian D
- Start date
I started driving in 1971 and I paid as little as 18 cents a gallon for regular gas in Dayton, OH. - Castrilper
I was just spinning tales with my grandkids (born early 2000s) about their Great/Great grand parents (born 1900s) and their Great grand parents (born 1930s) and our experiences (born 1950s).... They were very interactive, so it was a good thing for everyone.
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I remember milk in glass bottles delivered to Grandma’s house in Lansing, MI, by a man in horse drawn wagon, clip clopping by on the brick pavement. The farm fields around us on the north side of Hastings, MI, were plowed by a farmer with two beautiful Morgan horses. Our streets weren’t paved, and had no curbs or gutters. Mom used a wringer to squeeze the water out of clothes before she hung them up to dry.
Air conditioning may have been invented in 1901, but the first air conditioned residence I lived in was in 1972 in Columbus, Oh. Just because something was invented didn’t mean most of us had it!
As a little tyke, I do remember the ice box in the veterans student housing at Michigan State College in 1948.
Only one friend had his own car to drive in high school. Only the spectacularly rich guys had one in college.
Air conditioning may have been invented in 1901, but the first air conditioned residence I lived in was in 1972 in Columbus, Oh. Just because something was invented didn’t mean most of us had it!
As a little tyke, I do remember the ice box in the veterans student housing at Michigan State College in 1948.
Only one friend had his own car to drive in high school. Only the spectacularly rich guys had one in college.
My own kids can't remember a time before phones went with you in your pocket or the Internet could answer every question you had.
They do think old time days means flip phones and internet only on a computer and Nintendo 64 (Battle Toads)
-Will
They do think old time days means flip phones and internet only on a computer and Nintendo 64 (Battle Toads)
-Will
Here in Milton, MA we still get milk delivery in glass bottles. Thatcher Farms Dairy buys old glass bottles from other dairies that no longer use them. Our bottles have dairy names from all over. Driver has a truck and not a horse wagon, though. BTW, the milk tastes much better in glass. Even my grandchildren immediately notice the difference when they visit here. We can immediately taste the cardboard or plastic in store bought milk.
We have a dairy that still delivers too and they provide a porch box....
Oberweis Dairy
The best tasting milk from small family farms, small batch super premium ice cream available at our Ice Cream and Dairy Stores and the convenience of these great products available through old fashioned home delivery.
www.oberweis.com
Popping the cardboard plug from the top of the bottle and spooning out the cream that settled to the top of the milk. Those were the days!
jssailem
SBO Weather and Forecasting Forum Jim & John
- Oct 22, 2014
- 22,948
Nothing beats opening the Cooler Tank and skimming the fresh cream from a Guernsey cow when the milking is done.
My Father-In-Law (84 YO) tells me stories of how the iceman would cut huge chunks of ice out of the local lake (he was born in New Brunswick, Canada) and they would load it on a horse-drawn sleigh, and store it in a sawdust insulated barn all summer!
My own kids don’t really know what Cassette and VHS tapes are, party line phones, full-service gas stations, black and white TV (with no remote). Pop top rings on a Can of soda or beer… Ok, I also don’t remember some of those…i am only 60. ;-)
Greg
My own kids don’t really know what Cassette and VHS tapes are, party line phones, full-service gas stations, black and white TV (with no remote). Pop top rings on a Can of soda or beer… Ok, I also don’t remember some of those…i am only 60. ;-)
Greg
Made my memory flash to the milkman (milk transportation technician now I suppose) giving us kids a chunk of ice off the truck as a treat. Probably don't use ice anymore and kids aren't awake that early.
My aunt and uncle lived in a log cabin in Mountain, Wisconsin when I was a kid. Eventually they built a house on the property, and when my family would visit, we stayed in the log cabin…5 kids between my cousins and siblings. Aunty would tell us to all get 1 mitten and she would get us a special treat. She and my mom would go outside and break icicles off the cabin eaves and hand each kid an icicle?
Same cabin had no indoor plumbing, so we had to use the outhouse, except at night for a pee, we could use the “chamber pot”.
Greg
Reminded me of making butter in Grandma's kitchen.
Grandma's house had no plumbing. If you wanted a drink there was a hand pump on the well.
The outhouse was a two seater???? I never did get a straight answer to that. Grandma and Grandpa has passed away before I thought to ask.
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We had a cabin in UP Michigan… 2 seater outhouse (never made much sense to me…don’t recall ever sharing it except when my brother and I used it as a changing room to go swimming). We had 2 hand-driven wells op the property with hand pumps…one in the yard, and one we drove in the kitchen…well, my dad most of the work…I was a kid.
We would snowmobile into the cabin for 2 weeks at Christmas. It was magical!
Greg
jssailem
SBO Weather and Forecasting Forum Jim & John
- Oct 22, 2014
- 22,948
I do and I'm only 58 for a couple more months.
The other seat was a vent, depending on how big Thanksgiving dinner was the night before, you want to let that air go out when you are putting dinner in.
-Will
Didn't have a milkman - had 1 old cow. Dad and I milked it every day until it got to old, and then it becme hamburger and we bought a new "not as old" cow from the nearby dairy farm. Skimmed the cream off the raw milk and churned butter in a glass jar with wooden paddles and a hand crank. Milk was pasturized in a small machine that held about 1 gallon or so. Frozen meat was kept in town "at the Locker" where you rented a basket in a huge walk in freezer. Had pigs, chickens, horses, the old cow and coon dogs. Grew up coon hunting with my grandpa "Hank" (born in 1894) carrying a coal oil lamp turned way down low. We had a dog that would climb a tree if she could get on the lowest big limb and my job was to climb the tree and lower it down with a rope he carried when we went hunting with her. He was a "trader." Traded for anything and seemed to make a profit of some sort on every trade. We'd have a nice pinto pony and a few weeks later we'd have two coon dogs and a different horse and on it goes. Never traded "trixie" though (the dog that would climb a tree) although I found out 60 years later that he shot her after she bit me. I'm 70 now.
I trapped muskrat and mink for spending money, running the traps in the winter (trapping season in Indiana) twice a day, before school and after school. Muskrat brought $1.75 each and Mink brought $10. Gas was as low as $0.20 when there was a "gas war." I remember nickle cokes at the Mutt's bar where Grandpa Hank sat me on the corner of the bar while he warmed up with a whiskey. God, those were great memories. My grandkids can't even fathom that life just as I couldn't imagine Grandpa Hank's life when he was young.
I trapped muskrat and mink for spending money, running the traps in the winter (trapping season in Indiana) twice a day, before school and after school. Muskrat brought $1.75 each and Mink brought $10. Gas was as low as $0.20 when there was a "gas war." I remember nickle cokes at the Mutt's bar where Grandpa Hank sat me on the corner of the bar while he warmed up with a whiskey. God, those were great memories. My grandkids can't even fathom that life just as I couldn't imagine Grandpa Hank's life when he was young.
When I grew up one of my inventive friends came up with the idea of filing down a penny until it became a dime (at least the Pepsi machine at the gas station was fooled). We would file a bunch down, head to the gas station, each buy a Pepsi from the machine, carry off the empty bottles, and cash them in for two pennies each at the corner store. Two pennies were soon two dimes and the business grew. My friend should have been in government.
Very inventive! If you remember the old "horizontal" coke machines, you could put in your dime and two guys could grab 4 bottle necks and if your timing was good you could all pull at the same time and all 4 would release! Of course you could always just open the bottle with a church key and let it empty into a cup. Good thing the statute of limitations is well past.
This reminds me of my street in Grand Rapids, but we had pavement and sidewalks. The Sealtest milkman was named Sid and his horse knew the route as well as he. Sid would occasionally toss a block of ice onto the street and we would play with the ice chunks on a hot day.
There was the truck farmer with fresh fruit and vegetables who came down the street weekly, and the farmers markets weekly. The truck farms were common then, gone now because of urban sprawl.
We had the wringer washer and clothesline in the back yard…the frozen clothes n the line in the winter as flat as a board.
There was the hockey rink in the back yard, and nightly ice skating at the city parks.
I shoveled snow in winter, mowed lawns with a hand mower, and raked leaves in the fall for the neighbors in order to earn money.
We walked to school, 4 or five blocks, in elementary school and home for lunch. Never knew what a school. bus was. Junior high was a mile walk, high school was 1.8 miles. Kids today get a ride home from the school bus… and don’t even ask about any outdoor work for spending money.
Things were really different then compared to now for a lot of reasons.