Unhappy People

smallfoot said:

If ya remember black and white TVs with small round screens you're probably an old fart...

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I don't remember our family having a black and white TV. I do remember we had a color TV but a lot of shows were still in black and white.

Does that make me an "almost old fart"?

I'll be turning 68 later this year.

When I was young our TV was a radio. We took our weekly baths in a galvanized wash tub set by the oil stove in the living room. Hot water from a kettle on the cook stove.

I am an old fart for sure.

i may not say much, but i hit this place several times a day. i would catch hell on a welding site as i'm a dinosaur, i'm a stick welder.

bob w said:

When I was young our TV was a radio. We took our weekly baths in a galvanized wash tub set by the oil stove in the living room. Hot water from a kettle on the cook stove.

I am an old fart for sure.

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We had the weekly baths in a galvanized tub, as you said, but in the kitchen. The rest of the time it hung on a hook on the outside of the house. Outhouse out back. Running water at the kitchen sink. Flip the switch under the sink for the cistern pump. All of our water was either caught off of the roof, or hauled from town in a stock tank that my grandpa's brother had made a sealed lid for. We'd go to the waterworks in the small town 3 1/2 miles north of us. It was a 3 story building, and the operator would let down a tin can on a string, you put in the 75 cents or whatever, and then he turned on the water. The house had a rain gutter downspout with a flipper valve in it, and after it had rained a bit, someone would run out & flip it over to go through the filter system. Grandpa had made that out of an old freezer tank, the old type that was steel with a ceramic baked on finish. It was divided into two sections, with charcoal & sand as the filter material. Then a pipe that fed it down into the cistern. Craziest thing I remember about that cistern was one time when Dad pushed the lid aside to see how much water was left, our cat made a flying leap, right into the cistern. Fortunately there wasn't a lot of water left, because it meant pumping it all to waste, and then washing it out yet. (The cat lived, but was not a favorite after that.)

We did have a "Stereophonic" record player, with a radio in it. It even had FM. No TV or telephone. Well, we DID have an old crank telephone that Grandpa had rigged up, with one at their house as well, a quarter mile away. That way, Mom could talk to Grandma (her Mom), across the fields.

I'm not as old as all of this probably makes it sound - just 68 -- 69 late this year. Those were simple times. Sometimes I think I'd like to go back to that type of life. [My wife & I also had it pretty simple while we lived in an Indian village in the Brazilian Amazon (17 years). No running water (except in the creek), but later we hand-drilled a well (80 feet down), and installed a hand pump. At least then I didn't need to carry water up from the creek anymore, just in from the pump, not far in front of the house. (That well served the entire village.) We had a gas refrigerator for a while, until it sprung a leak.]

Awesome story. Thanks for sharing. Jim

About the only thing I can remember that might qualify me for the old fart club is the big black and white TV we had when I was 3 in 62'. I remember the start of Gunsmoke. Today my favorite part of the reruns is that theme song in the beginning of each episode. In 68 my Dad brought home a Sharp brand color TV proclaiming they must be the best! He was a traveling salesman and said they were in many of the motel rooms he stayed in. I just turned 65

Tripper said:

My experience at KB was all it took! I said... "if I wanted to cuss & fight, I'd just go home to my wife"! Plus I prefer hanging around adults!

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I started on Killbillet. It was great for a while then went down hill fast

This forum is by far a better place. Glad we all come to play!!!

On the farm we had a hand pump in the kitchen, an outhouse out back and once a week we'd take a bath. The girls got to take hot baths in the kitchen and us fellas would hit the creek. The water was so cold in the creek the soap wouldn't even suds up.
Black and white TV till I was 17 then dad bought a RCA and I was the remote control. Three station is all we had and they went off at mid night but, not until they played the National Anthem.

We didn’t get a color TV until around 1973. Had to let the old b&w set die before they would buy another one. I knew of color tv because one of my uncles had one as long as I could remember.
My parents didn’t get AC until around 1980, two years after I married and moved out. I think the first car with AC was bought in 78, just after I moved out.
We had running water, a well with a 10 gallon tank. As soon as city water came through we got on it, the well would almost go dry in the heat of summer and was apparently right through a iron ore vein, it would put rust stains on your clothes and smelled and tasted awful. My wife’s folks did the same thing, but they’re water went through a sulfur coal vein, it was awful all the time!

offroadrolls said:

About the only thing I can remember that might qualify me for the old fart club is the big black and white TV we had when I was 3 in 62'. I remember the start of Gunsmoke. Today my favorite part of the reruns is that theme song in the beginning of each episode. In 68 my Dad brought home a Sharp brand color TV proclaiming they must be the best! He was a traveling salesman and said they were in many of the motel rooms he stayed in. I just turned 65

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In 63 or 64 the Beatles hit the stage on the Ed Sullivan Show. Black and white and mono couldn't even slow the madness down considering they really couldn't play...

smallfoot said:

In 63 or 64 the Beatles hit the stage on the Ed Sullivan Show. Black and white and mono couldn't even slow the madness down considering they really couldn't play...

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My dad got me and my sister out of bed to see that! He said to us, "this is history" I was so young I remember thinking what's history? lol

I remember my mother and my father too talking about growing up in the 1930s and how they didn't know they were poor as everyone around them had nothing...my dad would talk about getting used tires from the junk yard during the war because you could not find new ones...

So we lived pretty simple as a result of their growing up with nothing...3 TV stations and a wall phone...dad could fix anything too...we did not throw a lot of stuff out either...they would fix stuff instead of buying new...

So yuppers I am an old timer now...

So thankful I have gotten to this point in my life...so many I know have not...

MikeC