Thinking Back

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Digger
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Thinking Back

Post by Digger »

With another circuit of the Sun it gives me pause to reflect back on the things I've seen in my life and it might amuse you to know of a few of them?
Over my 69 years much has changed and for the sake of nostalgia I might just take you back to my childhood a bit if I may?


How about having pens with steel nibs and ink pots at school? Being Ink Monitor, Blotter? Getting the strap for being bad at school (something I had plenty of experience with)

How about having the dunny down the back yard and the "Pan Man" coming and carrying the full pan out once a week and bringing in an empty one? No toilet paper or tissues then, just newspaper.

How about Coolgardie safes to keep your food in and which you put ice in as there was no refrigeration? No such things as ice creams then and us kids used to run after the ice man for chips of ice. He had a flat tray pulled by a draught horse.

No frozen foods, no ice cream unless you made it at home, no supermarkets. If you wanted a chicken dinner then you went down the back yard with an axe! Much more familiar with roast bunny than chicken in those days!

The early morning sound of the "Milko" and his draught horse and bottles clinking as he came down the street. Then the clinking as he put them on your doorstep. Coming out to find the magpies had pierced the foil caps on the bottles to drain off the cream on top of the milk. Free flavoured milk at first recess at primary school!

I remember when we got the telephone on for the first time, ditto TV. The phone had a rotary dial and was a shared "party line" and your neighbours could listen in. The phone numbers were much shorter then!

Watching this bloke called Elvis on TV (B&W) and being amazed at how he carried on!

Seeing aviation move through early stages of jet flight to satellites and space stations. I remember standing out under a cloudless sky at night and seeing "Sputnik" flying over for the first time and marvelling at that achievement and dreaming of things to come. There was nothing else in the sky then, except for stars.

Now I've got umpteen computers and smart phones, 14 devices on my wi-fi and plan holidays around phone and internet access.

Oh for simpler days....Sigh~
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Re: Thinking Back

Post by Seasherpa »

I grew up in the country Dig, and 30 years on some of those things still hadn't changed! That strawberry milk at school was a winner though. I have fun with my grade explaining things from the 'olden days'. I was telling them about when our house got internet. Dial up back then and you had to take the phone line out and plug it into the desktop. We used to cycle a few k's to catch the bus to school and if one of us had a flat tyre we'd have to ring home from the pay phone. Often we'd try to ring for a lift and just the the popping/ pinging noise that the Internet used to make. My grade wondered why I didn't just ring my dad on his mobile! :roll:
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Re: Thinking Back

Post by Digger »

FishnDive wrote:I grew up in the country Dig, and 30 years on some of those things still hadn't changed! That strawberry milk at school was a winner though. I have fun with my grade explaining things from the 'olden days'. I was telling them about when our house got internet. Dial up back then and you had to take the phone line out and plug it into the desktop. We used to cycle a few k's to catch the bus to school and if one of us had a flat tyre we'd have to ring home from the pay phone. Often we'd try to ring for a lift and just the the popping/ pinging noise that the Internet used to make. My grade wondered why I didn't just ring my dad on his mobile! :roll:
Yes Eion, mobiles came in only in time for my last job. I was a rep for a lot of my life and finding a working phonebox in the country was always a challenge, but then work couldn't find me that easily either!!

My experience with "dial up" went longer than for most and even now we have broadband it's slower than most people have. Never had mobile here (apart from Analogue years ago) until about 3 years ago and now we can send a text from the front window, or occasionally make a call from a mobile if the wind is in the right direction.

I'm afraid I'm a bit of an old geek as i love my technology though maybe it's starting to overtake me now and working through problems is becoming harder.
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Re: Thinking Back

Post by Steve_R »

More memories
Mass immunisation using a glass syringe - about 8 or more injections before the needle was changed - and the feeling of elation when it didn't hurt.
The relief at the introduction of the Sabin oral medicine instead of an injection.
Backyard burn-offs
Boiling sheets in a 'copper'.
Washing machines that had a mangle instead of spin dry.
Household waste water running into the vacant block next door via an open drain.
Talking with men who were forced to travelled the country to get 'susso' - sustenence allowance of tea, flour, etc
The knife sharpener who visited the houses and left knives blunter than when he started - mum took pity on him.
The town drunk who used to borrow 'a quid' of mum 'until payday'. He always repaid it and She'd say, "whose quid is this going back & forth, yours or mine".
Being sat next to a girl at school as punishment.
Being belted on the back of the knuckles with the thin end of the ruler for talking to the girl.
Time out locked inside the broom closet.
Having a teacher dig his fingers beneath the muscles at the top of the shoulders until on the knees in the front of the whole class.
No apology for the public humiliation above when innocence was established.
So many friends and acquaintenances killed in car crashes (still haunts me now).

Thinking back can teach us right now is the good days of your life.

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Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience - Greg King

It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows ― Epictetus


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Re: Thinking Back

Post by wacazac »

Digger wrote:With another circuit of the Sun it gives me pause to reflect back on the things I've seen in my life and it might amuse you to know of a few of them?
Over my 69 years much has changed and for the sake of nostalgia I might just take you back to my childhood a bit if I may?


How about having pens with steel nibs and ink pots at school? Being Ink Monitor, Blotter? Getting the strap for being bad at school (something I had plenty of experience with)

How about having the dunny down the back yard and the "Pan Man" coming and carrying the full pan out once a week and bringing in an empty one? No toilet paper or tissues then, just newspaper.

How about Coolgardie safes to keep your food in and which you put ice in as there was no refrigeration? No such things as ice creams then and us kids used to run after the ice man for chips of ice. He had a flat tray pulled by a draught horse.

No frozen foods, no ice cream unless you made it at home, no supermarkets. If you wanted a chicken dinner then you went down the back yard with an axe! Much more familiar with roast bunny than chicken in those days!

The early morning sound of the "Milko" and his draught horse and bottles clinking as he came down the street. Then the clinking as he put them on your doorstep. Coming out to find the magpies had pierced the foil caps on the bottles to drain off the cream on top of the milk. Free flavoured milk at first recess at primary school!

I remember when we got the telephone on for the first time, ditto TV. The phone had a rotary dial and was a shared "party line" and your neighbours could listen in. The phone numbers were much shorter then!

Watching this bloke called Elvis on TV (B&W) and being amazed at how he carried on!

Seeing aviation move through early stages of jet flight to satellites and space stations. I remember standing out under a cloudless sky at night and seeing "Sputnik" flying over for the first time and marvelling at that achievement and dreaming of things to come. There was nothing else in the sky then, except for stars.

Now I've got umpteen computers and smart phones, 14 devices on my wi-fi and plan holidays around phone and internet access.

Oh for simpler days....Sigh~
Geeze Dig, I'd forgotten a lot of those things :) My mum'ndad must have been a bit better off than I realised, we had a "kero fridge" :shock: and a dedicated phone line (coz of dads work) but I had to ask permission if I wanted to ring a mate :eh: but the innocents of the time is what I miss most now :cry: we could play out in the streets untill 10 pm and be perfectly safe :yahoo: not any more tho :cry:
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Re: Thinking Back

Post by yakhangger »

I came out to Australia back in '87 and got a job on a station in outback NSW...we still had a party line up there our number was Urisino 6r, we had no power and had to produce our own with an old water cooled Lister diesel, and each night when the boss shut it down it got sooooooo quite, we then only had 32v batteries power for lights, gas powered freezers, rain water tank, and I had a long drop unlike at the homestead where the boss had a flush dunny. I had to light a donkey every lunch time so I would have hot water at the end of the day, god how I miss that place. After moving to Broken Hill after 6 years on the station I brought a brick in a hand bag and felt to cool walking around town with it over my shoulder telling those who asked that it was a MOBILE phone !!!!

Growing up on a dairy farm in NZ we had the party line phone as well, walked the roads with a shot gun shooting rabbits, getting the riding crop on my butt for doing wrong at home and the cane at school more times than I can remember, being told to bugger off and find something to do and the only stipulation was to be back by dark, I had creeks full of massive eels to catch huge blocks of scrub to explore, set snares for rabbits and possums, build forts and tree houses, the good ole day's for sure and I would love to go back to a much simpler time
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Digger
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Re: Thinking Back

Post by Digger »

Us more mature gentlemen seem to be on a theme here...the good old days!

I remember having rabbit every way conceivable! Meat was expensive in those years after the war and dad would go shooting or fishing most weekends to keep us in protein. I got to hate rabbit!

Once I got a bike, that was my passport to freedom and i'd be out on it with my mates until dark, and often after. No lights, no perverts to worry about, just good clean fun.

Since then we seem to have an endless stream of laws and regulations which are, they say, designed to keep us from harming ourselves. Either that or a reason to have bigger bureaucracies and more coppers stopping you from doing more and more things, or costing you money to do them. I feel sorry for my grandkids and their kids really.

I remember that we struggled back then but life as a kid was awesome!


This sort of sums it up:
http://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&rct=j ... 7451,d.dGc
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Re: Thinking Back

Post by g factor »

Times were tough, I remember when we had colourless gameboy screens. It was horrible, but looking back it definitely made me a stronger man
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Re: Thinking Back

Post by Steve_R »

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Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience - Greg King

It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows ― Epictetus


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Re: Thinking Back

Post by sog »

Dad would make me sit in the kitchen when Number 96 was on
I'd bloody freeze watching it through the crack in the sliding door since the only heater in the house was the briquette fireplace in the lounge room
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