Paris High School - Paris, Texas

'It was a place called 'at home,'' I explained. !

'Mom cooked every day and when Dad got home from work, we sat down together at the dining room table, and if I didn't like what she put on my plate I was allowed to sit there until I did like it.'

By this time, the kid was laughing so hard I was afraid he was going to suffer serious internal damage, so I didn't tell him the part about how I had to have permission to leave the table.

But here are some other things I would have told him about my childhood if I figured his system could have handled it :

Some parents NEVER owned their own house, never wore Levis, never set foot on a golf course, never traveled out of the country or had a credit card.

In their later years they had something called a revolving charge card.. The card was good only at Sears Roebuck. Or maybe it was Sears & Roebuck.

Either way, there is no Roebuck anymore. Maybe he died.

My parents never drove me to soccer practice. This was mostly because we never had heard of soccer. I had a bicycle that weighed probably 50 pounds, and only had one speed, (slow)

We didn't have a television in our house until I was 9.

It was, of course, black and white, and the station went off the air at midnight, after playing the national anthem and a poem about God; it came back on the air at about 6 a..m.. and there was usually a locally produced news and farm show on, featuring local people.

I was 21 before I tasted my first pizza, it was called 'pizza pie.'

When I bit into it, I burned the roof of my mouth and the cheese slid off, swung down, plastered itself against my chin and burned that, too. It's still the best pizza I ever had.

I never had a telephone in my room.

The only phone in the house was in the living room and it was on a party line. Before you could dial, you had to listen and make sure some people you didn't know weren't already using the line.

Pizzas were not delivered to our home But milk was.

All newspapers were delivered by boys and all boys delivered newspapers --my brother delivered a newspaper, six days a week. It cost 7 cents a paper, of which he got to keep 2 cents. He had to get up at 6 AM every morning.

On Saturday, he had to collect the 42 cents from his customers. His favorite customers were the ones who gave him 50 cents and told him to keep the change. His least favorite customers were the ones who seemed to never be home on collection day.

Movie stars kissed with their mouths shut. At least, they did in the movies. There were no movie ratings because all movies were responsibly produced for everyone to enjoy viewing, without profanity or violence or most anything offensive.

If you grew up in a generation before there was fast food, you may want to share some of these memories with your children or grandchildren Just don't blame me if they bust a gut laughing.

Growing up isn't what it used to be, is it?

MEMORIES from a friend :

My Dad is cleaning out my grandmother's house (she died in December) and he brought me an old Royal Crown Cola bottle. In the bottle top was a stopper with a bunch of holes in it.. I knew immediately what it was, but my daughter had no idea. She thought they had tried to make it a salt shaker or something. I knew it as the bottle that sat on the end of the ironing board to 'sprinkle' clothes with because we didn't have steam irons. Man, I am old..

How many do you remember?

Head lights dimmer switches on the floor.
Ignition switches on the dashboard.
Heaters mounted on the inside of the fire wall.
Real ice boxes.
Pant leg clips for bicycles without chain guards. 
Soldering irons you heat on a gas burner.
Using hand signals for cars without turn signals. 

Older Than Dirt Quiz :

Count all the ones that you remember not the ones you were told about.

Ratings at the bottom.

1. Blackjack chewing gum
2.Wax Coke-shaped bottles with colored sugar water 
3. Candy cigarettes
4. Soda pop machines that dispensed glass bottles 
5. Coffee shops or diners with tableside juke boxes 
6. Home milk delivery in glass bottles with cardboard stoppers 
7. Party lines on the telephone
8 Newsreels before the movie 
9. P.F. Flyers
10. Butch wax 
11.. TV test patterns that came on at night after the last show and were there until TV shows started again in the morning. (there were only 3 channels...[if you were fortunate]) 
12. Peashooters 
13. Howdy Doody 
14. 45 RPM records 
15. S& H greenstamps 
16. Hi-fi's
17. Metal ice trays with lever 
18. Mimeograph paper
19. Blue flashbulb
20. Packards
21. Roller skate keys
22. Cork popguns 
23. Drive-ins
24. Studebakers
25. Wash tub wringers 

If you remembered 0-5 = You're still young
If you remembered 6-10 = You are getting older 
If you remembered 11-15 = Don't tell your age,
If you remembered 16-25 = You' re older than dirt!

I might be older than dirt but those memories are some of the best parts of my life. 

Sonic Blast!

 Sonic Drive-In has been a staple in Paris since Frank Homer moved his family here in 1964 and established the first Sonic in Texas. In 1993 he added a second location at 1603 N. Main, and in 1997 a third location in Reno. In 2007 the Sonic moved from its original location on Lamar in Paris to a new location a couple of blocks east.

How exciting that original Sonic on Lamar Avenue was to us Class of Sixty-Niners when we raced there every weekday for lunch and cruised and met there at night and on weekends!

 How about these?

_______________________________________________________

  Tidbits Submitted Anonymously
by One of Our Classmates...
July 16, 2010

It’s time to retire when . . .

• You start calling everyone “kids.”
• One day you notice everyone is dressed differently than you.
• You stop to think and sometimes forget to start again.
• It’s always cold at work, and you’re never quite comfortable without a jacket or sweater.
• Getting a little action means your prune juice is working.
• Everyone can operate all the new gadgets in the office but you.
• One entire drawer is given over to antacids, aspirin, vitamins and prescriptions.
• You are usually the only one sober enough to drive people home after office parties.
• You feel like the “morning after” and you can swear you haven’t been anywhere.
• Your kids are through college and may be even earning more than you.
• One day you suddenly realize everyone in the office is younger than you.
• You write notes on slips of paper and then forget where you put the slips.

 Slideshow from our April 2009 reunion