I'm So Old That I Remember When................................

 Now that I'm kicking in the door on 78 years on this earth I'm almost ready to believe that I'm old. I'm almost there, not quite mind you, but almost. Every so often, especially when I open my wallet, I'll think--I'm remember when a bottle of Coke costs a nickel and then I'll move on to buying my first packet of baseball cards(with that one piece of delicious Fleer(or Topps) bubblegum inside then dig down in my pants pocket and lay five cents on the counter. In case you're wondering my very first baseball card was a Billy Martin of the New York Yankees and I bought it at Shafer's Grocery Store on First Street in Boone, Iowa in '52. I saved baseball cards until I was eighteen years of age. The year was 1964 and I stupidly gave them away to the son of my high school baseball coach. There had to have been ten or twelve Mickey Mantle's in the bunch that today would have made me a multi-millionaire. Anyway, many years later, somewhere around forty, I was at the Iowa High School Hall of Fame ceremony in Des Moines for the induction of my coach and saw his now adult son; the beneficiary of the cards. He told me he, too, gave the cards away---and we laughed------sort of.

I'm so old I remember when doctors made house calls. Imagine. 

I'm so old I can recall when my family bought a television. It was in 1952 and the TV was so large it took up space larger than our garage. Not only was it a television but it was a combination record player(I pity you youngsters clueless about records) and radio. My very first .45 rpm record was sung by Bill Haley and the Comets and titled 'Rock Around The Clock'. The year was 1955 and it was expensive. The after tax price was 90 cents.

I'm so old I remember taking long trips and my parents smoked cigarettes for hours with the windows rolled up and we kids didn't once complain. 

I'm so old I remember getting my first ink pen AND a bottle of ink. I was in the 3rd grade at Sacred Heart. We boys spent most of the time 'accidentally spraying our hands with the blue liquid because, well, because we were boys. Does Sheaffer still make ink pens?

I'm so old I remember we kids would go to Bowman's Shoe Store after school. They had an X-ray machine and we'd put our feet in it and could actually see the bones of our feet. It was used to figure out you shoe size. Later on medical geniuses told us it wasn't healthy. It's not the last time medical folks fooled us, right?

I remember buying contact lenses in 1965. They were new on the market and mine were about the size of a quarter which caused me to tear up all the while I wore them. My parents let me spend money I made working in the summer to purchase them. The cost was $400. My folks should have said, "No" but they didn't. Eventually, I tired of the lenses being so uncomfortable and went back to glasses. It isn't the last time I've thrown money down the proverbial toilet.

I remember, in 1951, when my parents bought an electric washing machine. It had a ringer attached so when the clothes were clean my grandma, who lived with us, would shove the clothes through a wringer to dry them out. Then she carried the clothes outside to be hung on the clothesline pole. The sun and wind in the early 50's were the only clothes dryers known to mankind.

I'm so old I remember when we had a cold and stayed in bed the #1 elixir was that damn Vicks Vapo-Rub. There are certain smells one never forgets even if they live to be as old as Methuselah. 

I remember being so old I--------Oh, I forgot what I was thinking. Maybe that's because I'm-----. Nah! Couldn't be that.