How Old AM I ? It's Starting to Scare Me

Tonight at work Barbara (the owner) was talking to our young bartender and I happened to walk by. She asked if I remembered Green Stamps and I immediately asked "S&H Green Stamps"? Barbara told Anna, the bartender "Back in the olden days we had Green Stamps." I told Barbara it wasn't the "Olden Days...it was my CHILDHOOD!" The bartender asked "Was it kind of like reward points?" JEEZ..I AM getting OLD!

When I was a kid S&H Green Stamps were a big, big deal. They gave them away with purchases at the A&P grocery store my Mother shopped at and my grandmother saved them for us as well. Actually my grandmother even saved us her Raleigh cigarette stamps too. I'm not sure if we ever got anything with the "Smokes Stamps" but she sure saved us a lot of them!

S&H was where I used to get all my Christmas presents. There was actually a redemption store on Sylvan Road we used to frequent.

My grandfather smoked King Edward cigars and gave us his empty boxes to save our S&H Green Stamps in.

Of course this was back when my Mother would drive me to the store and at the age of six send me inside the store to purchase her a carton of Kool Milds.

It bothered me that Barbara called it "The Olden Days."

Then I realized that to kids in their early twenties...those WERE the olden days! I guess being over fifty makes me an antique!

I picked Massey up from school today and told her Elizabeth Taylor died. Massey said "Who's that"? I told her it was the actress from Giant and Cleopatra to which she replied "Never seen emt".

Guess what movies I am renting for us to watch when she gets home from competition this weekend?

When I was a kid you went to the gas station and never even got out of the car. They would clean your windshield and some even vacuum out your car while the gas was pumping . They checked under your hood and if you were at a Gulf station gave you free dishes with a fill up. I still have some of the white octagon shaped plates and bowls that my Mother got filling up our fake wood paneled station wagon.

Some laundry detergents even had dishes inside or a dish towel attached to the side of the box...Barb reminded me of that one!

Seems like we got a LOT more for a lot LESS when I was a kid.

Massey leaves for Nashville tomorrow for a Guard competition. She has her ipod packed along with her cell phone and both chargers.

When I was a kid I had a string with a can on each end that ran from my bedroom window to the window of my friend that lived next door.

I am not kidding!

Of course we could have just hollered to each other but it was so cool to have our own little system of communication.

Cans on a string and a transistor radio were all you needed to stay in touch with the world when I was a kid.

Guess I AM getting old!

How much string would it take from Newnan to Nashville and how big would the cans have to be ?

Guess it's a good thing I paid the cell phone bill.

Kids are so spoiled these days. When I was a kid we thought you were spoiled if your house had a push button phone instead of rotary dial (which WE didn't until the seventies) or if your car had seat belts...which we didn't have either, but survived. When we got a car with air conditioning I thought we must be millionaires or at least really rich.

I grew up in a blue collar family.

I grew up in a house filled with love, laughter and clothes all sewn by my Mother. Thank God she was an excellent seamstress... she could sew clothes that looked just like they had come off the rack at "Lerner's" .

What scares me even more is what the FUTURE holds and how much THAT is going to cost!

Til next time..."Cave Woman Cotton"