T-shirt suggests those who may be older than dirt (02/13/06)

Apparently I am now older than dirt. A few days ago I saw an ad for a T-shirt in a catalog. The front was emblazoned with the words, “You May Be Older Than Dirt If You …” Then it went on to list several things that indicated that you have reached old age if you remember them. I remembered all but two of the items.

First on the list was candy cigarettes. I used to love candy cigarettes as much as I detest the real thing now. Candy cigarettes were great even though they had all the taste of cardboard. We used to pretend we were so cool. Of course we also “burned” each other with the end that had been dipped in red food coloring. We would get the giggles when we crammed the whole pack into our mouths at once.

As far as I can tell playing with candy cigarettes didn’t lead to us torturing each other in real life or to smoking the real thing any more than playing with cap guns incited us to shoot each other. I wonder why cap guns weren’t on the list?

Other things mentioned were those little wax bottles filled with colored sugar water. I really liked those when I was a pre-schooler. We would bite off the tops, suck out the teaspoon or so of liquid then use the remaining wax bottles for chewing gum. It was terrible but we didn’t think so at the time.

Milkmen who left glass bottles of milk capped with cardboard were on the list. When we lived in Dayton, we had an insulated silver box that sat at the end of the sidewalk. We would leave a note for the milkman and he would leave milk, butter or other dairy products in the box.

We moved to the country when I was four years old. We lost a milkman but gained a bread man. The cheery blue and yellow Sunbeam truck came by once or twice a week. He sold bread, rolls and such. In the summer he also peddled the offerings from his garden and we often bought cantaloupe from him. Occasionally we traded the overflow from our garden for the extras from his.

Party lines are apparently another indicator of age. We always had a party line when I was growing up. The phone would ring once if it was for the neighbor, twice if it was for us and a combination of rings if it was for someone else. Today’s phones have a variation on that theme. My daughter’s phone has a different ring for each of the people who call her the most. If her phone plays, “Red, Red, Wine,” she knows it is her sister calling. I have never had the nerve to ask what my song is.

We also had a word for part of our phone number. The theory was that a word made the number easier to remember. It must be true as ours was Oslo-8-6628 or OS8-6628. I have no idea who that number belongs to now so please don’t call it!

S & H green stamps were another sign of age. Grocery stores and some gas stations would give out stamps with every purchase. We would paste the stamps into books and pore over the catalogs provided. When we had enough for the coveted item we would turn in our books and take our prize home.

I got my first set of dishes this way. I saved and saved and saved until I finally had enough to get the ones I wanted. When I got to the redemption center I found out that the pattern had been discontinued. They offered me the monetary equivalent and I promptly went to the store and bought them while they were still in stock. I still have them to this day.

I don’t feel like I am really older than dirt no matter what that T-shirt says. Well, maybe some days I do. The perception of age changes with time. Young is whatever age I am right now. Old is for people of my mother’s generation. Really old is my grandmother’s generation. Conversely, very young is anyone young enough to be my child and a kid is anyone less than half my age.

Just because I had a birthday Sunday it doesn’t make me older than dirt. It just makes me older than I was the day before.[[In-content Ad]]