A Very Special Group

Forwarded message
From: Ken W
Date: Fri, 4 Oct 2019 at 13:22
Subject: Fwd: A Very Special Group

This might not strike home with all our correspondents but it is good solid information about a generation that will unlikely be repeated in the near future. "The Greatest Generation?" Maybe not forever but at least up until now.

We are a Very Special Group

Some Interesting Facts

Born in the 1930s to the mid 40s, we exist as a very special age group.

We are the smallest group of children born since the early 1900s.

We are the last generation, climbing out of the depression, who can remember the winds of war and the impact of a world at war which rattled the structure of our daily lives for years.

We are the last to remember ration books for everything from gas to sugar to shoes to stoves.

Wesaved string, tin foil and poured fat into tin cans.

We saw cars up on blocks because tires weren’t available.

We can remember milk being delivered to our house early in the morning and placed in the “milk box” on the porch.

We are the last to see the gold stars in the front windows of our grieving neighbors whose sons died in the War.

We saw the ‘boys’ home from the war, build their little houses.

We are the last generation who spent childhood without television; instead, we imagined what we heard on the radio.

As we all like to brag, with no TV, we spent our childhood "playing outside”.

There was no little league.

There was no city playground for kids.

The lack of television in our early years meant, for most of us, that we had little real understanding of what the world was like.

On Saturday afternoons, the movies gave us newsreels sandwiched in between westerns and cartoons.

Telephones were one to a house, often shared (party lines) and hung on the wall in the kitchen (no cares about privacy).

Computers were called calculators, they were hand cranked; typewriters were driven by pounding fingers, throwing the carriage, and changing the ribbon.

The ‘INTERNET’ and ‘GOOGLE’ were words that did not exist.

Newspapers and magazines were written for adults and the news was broadcast on our radio in the evening by
Gabriel Heatter, Lowell Thomas and later Paul Harvey.

As we grew up, the country was exploding with growth.

The G.I. Bill gave returning veterans the means to get an education and spurred colleges to grow.

VA loans fanned a housing boom.

Pent up demand coupled with new instalment payment plans opened many factories for work.

New highways would bring jobs and mobility.

The veterans joined civic clubs and became active in politics.

The radio network expanded from 3 stations to thousands.

Our parents were suddenly free from the confines of the depression and the war, and they threw themselves into exploring opportunities they had never imagined.

We weren’t neglected, but we weren’t today’s all-consuming family focus.

They were glad we played by ourselves until the street lights came on.

They were busy discovering the post war world.

We entered a world of overflowing plenty and opportunity; a world where we were welcomed, enjoyed ourselves and felt secure in our future though depression poverty was deeply remembered.

Polio was still a crippler.

We came of age in the 50s and 60s.

The Korean War was a dark passage in the early 50s and by mid-decade school children were ducking under desks for Air-Raid training.

Russia built the “Iron Curtain” and China became Red China ..

Eisenhower sent the first ‘Army Advisers’ to Vietnam.

Castro took over in Cuba and Khrushchevcame to power.

We are the last generation to experience an interlude when there were no threats to our homeland. The war was over and the cold war, terrorism, “global warming”, and perpetual economic insecurity had yet to haunt life with unease.

Only our generation can remember both a time of great war, and a time when our world was secure and full of bright promise and plenty. lived through both.

We grew up at the best possible time, a time when the world was getting better….

We are "The Last Ones"

More than 99 % of us are either retired or deceased, and we feel privileged to have “ lived in the best of times"!

Old Farts Only!!!

Forwarded message
From: Ken W
Sep 2019 at 00:49
Subject: Fwd: Old Farts Only!!!

From: Lou F

Date: Thu, Sep 5, 2019 at 3:15 PM
Subject: Old Farts Only!!!
To: F, Alfons

I THINK I FOUND MOST OF THESE IN MY CLOSET WHEN WE HAD TO PACK UP AND MOVE….

WARNING:?? If you are not a senior don’t bother

to look at these pictures because you will not understand

?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? </> ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ???? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ???? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? If you remember most of these?? ?? ?? ??? ?? ?? You (like me) must be really old?? . ?? ?? ?? ?? Spread the laughter, share the cheer,?? ?? Let’s be happy while we’re still here!!!

OUR CHILDHOOD IN PICTURES.

Forwarded message
From: Ken W
1 Sep 2019 at 20:37
Subject: Fwd: Fw: OUR CHILDHOOD IN PICTURES.
Forwarded message

From: Muriel E
Date: Mon, Sep 9, 2019 at 3:19 PM
Subject: Fw: OUR CHILDHOOD IN PICTURES.

Remember all except those we didn’t have in our

small town (a Woolworth’s, …). OMGoodness! 🙂
Linda

OUR CHILDHOOD IN PICTURES. p L

This will make u smile

Forwarded message
From: Ken W
Aug 2019 at 07:19
Subject: Fwd: This will make u smile

If you yelled for 8 years, 7 months and 6 days you would have produced enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee.

(Hardly seems worth it.)

The human heart creates enough pressure when it pumps out to the body to squirt blood 30 feet.

(O.M.G.!)

A pig’s orgasm lasts 30 minutes.

(In my next life, I want to be a pig.)

A cockroach will live nine days without its head before it starves to death. (Creepy.)

(I’m still not over the pig.)

Banging your head against a wall uses 150 calories an hour.

(Don’t try this at home,maybe at work.)

The male praying mantis cannot copulate while its head is attached to its body. The female initiates sex by ripping the male’s head off.

(Honey, I’m home. What the…?)

The flea can jump 350 times its body length. It’s like a human jumping the length of a football field.

(30 minutes. Lucky pig! Can you imagine?)

The catfish has over 27,000 taste buds.

(What could be so tasty on the bottom of a pond?)

Some lions mate over 50 times a day.

(I still want to be a pig in my next life, quality over quantity.)

Butterflies taste with their feet.

(Something I always wanted to know.)

The strongest muscle in the body is the tongue.

(Hmmmmmm…….)

Right-handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed people.

(If you’re ambidextrous, do you split the difference?)

Elephants are the only animals that cannot jump.

(Okay, so that would be a good thing.)

A cat’s urine glows under a black light.

(I wonder how much the government paid to figure that out.)

An ostrich’s eye is bigger than its brain.

(I know some people like that.)

Starfish have no brains.

(I know some people like that, too.)

Polar bears are left-handed.

(If they switch, they’ll live a lot longer.)

Humans and dolphins are the only species that have sex for pleasure.

(What about that pig? Do the dolphins know about the pig?)

Now that you’ve smiled at least once, it’s your turn to spread these crazy facts and send this to someone you want to bring a smile to,maybe even a chuckle.

In other words, send it to everyone!

Thanks,

Bill

_________ 50 years since man stepped on the moon! ________ ________________ How will YOU celebrate? ________________

Earthrise with moon horizon – Apollo 11 (20 July 1969)

On July 20, 1969, at 20:17 UTC Commander Neil Armstrong and lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin, both American, landed the Apollo Lunar Module Eagle on the moon. Armstrong became the first person to step onto the lunar surface six hours later on July 21 at 02:56:15 UTC; with the words “”That’s one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind.”  Aldrin joined him 19 minutes later.

Today. 20 July 2019 we celebrate the 50^th anniversary of that amazing event.  You no doubt either recall or have seen the grainy video of the step.  (If not check out the Google search, National Geographic, the History Channel or a cute Google Doodle.)

A great event it was, but something more amazing, awe-inspiring and humbling, was the view of the earth from the moon.  First captured when Apollo 8 was there.  The above is purported to be one from the Apollo 11 mission.  (In any case, there are 1000’s on file at Planetary.org.)

But HOW will you celebrate it?  We have watched NASA and space-related shows for weeks.

Then this came across our screen – A gift from a stranger tucked into a book sets off a chain of random acts of kindness.  Nothing to do with “a step on the moon” you say.  Yup!

But the earthrise (or “small blue marble”) got us to thinking about how small the earth is, and how much smaller we are, and ….

What makes a man great? What he DOES.  A step on the moon.  An act of kindness.  A “pay it forward” moment.

With all the “movements” and “causes” these days, how can anyone help?  EACH of us CAN help.  So we’re going to start (carry on actually, this is already going as you can see from the article) with regular random acts of kindness..  Will you start/carry on the random acts of kindness?  You can reply if you like.  You don’t need to.  If you have a great story to tell and you want to share.  Great.  Just ACT.

Warmest,
Larry & Colleen
2019JL20

Remember

Forwarded message
From: Kent W
Jun 2019 at 23:44
Subject: Fwd: FW: Remember

Remember Slow Food?

‘Someone asked the other day, ‘What was your favorite fast food when you were growing up?’

‘We didn’t have fast food when I was growing up,
I informed him.
‘All the food was slow.’

‘C’mon, seriously. Where did you eat?’

‘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, or sneakers, 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 11.

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 19 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 table side jukeboxes
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 (that was our hair product)
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 green stamps
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.

Don’t forget to pass this along!!
Especially to all your really good

O L D FRIENDS

A Nice bit of History (An oldie, but still a goodie)

Forwarded message
From: Ken W
Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2019 at 15:10
Subject: Fwd: Fw: A Nice bit of History (An oldie, but still a goodie)

Considering the events of the day, I thought this might be appropriate…

Frank Sinatra considered Kate Smith the best singer of her time, and said that when he and a million other guys first heard her sing "God Bless America" on the radio, they all pretended to have dust in their eyes as they wiped away a tear or two.

Here are the facts; The link at the bottom will take you to a video showing the very first public singing of "God Bless America." But before you watch it you should know the story behind the first public showing of the song.

The time was 1940. America was still in a terrible economic depression. Hitler was taking over Europe and Americans were afraid we’d have to go to war. It was a time of hardship and worry for most Americans

This was the era just before TV when radio shows were HUGE and American families sat around their radios in the evenings, listening to their favorite entertainers and no entertainer of that era was bigger than Kate Smith.

Kate was also large; plus size as we now say and the popular phrase still used today is in deference to her; "It ain’t over till the fat lady sings."

Kate Smith might not have made it big in the age of TV but with her voice coming over the radio, she was the biggest star of her time.

Kate was also patriotic. It hurt her to see Americans so depressed and afraid of what the next day would bring. She had hope for America, and faith in her fellow Americans. She wanted to do something to cheer them up, so she went to the famous American song-writer Irving Berlin (who also wrote White Christmas) and asked him to write a song that would make Americans feel good again about their country. When she described what she was looking for, he said he had just the song for her. He went to his files and found a song that he had written but never published, in 1917. He gave it to her and she worked on it with her studio orchestra. She and Irving Berlin were not sure how the song would be received by the public, but both agreed they would not take any profits from God Bless America. Any profits would go to the Boy Scouts of America. Over the years, the Boy Scouts have received millions of dollars in royalties from this song.

This video starts out with Kate Smith coming into the radio studio with the orchestra and an audience. She introduces the new song for the very first time and starts singing. After the first couple verses, with her voice in the background, scenes are shown from the 1940 movie, You’re In The Army Now. At the 4:20 mark of the video you see a young actor in the movie, sitting in an office, reading a paper; it’s Ronald Reagan. You will recognize other older stars, as I have, but have forgotten their names. You may remember George Murphy near the end, though.

To this day, God Bless America stirs our patriotic feelings and pride in our country. Back in 1940, when Kate Smith went looking for a song to raise the spirits of her fellow Americans, I doubt whether she realized just how successful the results would be for her fellow Americans during those years of hardship and worry… and for many generations of Americans to follow.

Now that you know the story of the song, I hope you’ll enjoy it.

Many people don’t know there’s a lead in to the song since it usually starts with God Bless America … So here’s the entire song as originally sung. Enjoy it! Click below:

Kate Smith introduces God Bless America – YouTube

Fw: PONDERISMS

Forwarded message
From: Kent W
Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2019 at 04:02
Subject: Fwd: FW: Fw: PONDERISMS

Why do peanuts float in a regular coke and sink in a diet coke?

Go ahead and try it.

I used to eat a lot of natural foods until I learned that most people die of natural causes.

Can you cry under water?

How important does a person have to be before they are considered assassinated instead of just murdered?

Why do you have to "put your two cents in"… but it’s only a "penny for your thoughts"? Where’s that extra penny going? (taxes)

Once you’re in heaven, do you get stuck wearing the clothes you were buried in for eternity?

What disease did cured ham actually have?

How is it that we put man on the moon before we figured out it would be a good idea to put wheels on luggage?

Why is it that people say they "slept like a baby" when babies wake up like every two hours?

If a deaf person has to go to court, is it still called a hearing?

Why are you IN a movie, but you’re ON TV?

Why do people pay to go up tall buildings and then put money in binoculars to look at things on the ground?

Why do doctors leave the room while you change? They’re going to see you naked anyway.

Why is “bra" singular and "panties" plural?

Why do toasters always have a setting that burns the toast to a horrible crisp, which no decent human being would eat?

Can a hearse carrying a corpse drive in the carpool lane?

If the professor on Gilligan’s Island can make a radio out of a coconut, why can’t he fix a hole in a boat?

If corn oil is made from corn, and vegetable oil is made from vegetables, what is baby oil made from?

If electricity comes from electrons, does morality come from morons?

Why do the Alphabet song and Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star have the same tune?

Why did you just try singing the two songs above?

Did you ever notice that when you blow in a dog’s face, he gets mad at you, but when you take him for a car ride, he sticks his head out the window?

HOW DID THE MAN WHO MADE THE FIRST CLOCK, KNOW WHAT TIME IT WAS?

How did he do that!? Great;;;;

GREAT way to start 2019. All the best of everything for your 2019.

Forwarded message
From: Kent W
Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2019 at 08:52
Subject: Fwd: How did he do that!? Great;;;;

Marc Spelmann is the kind of bloke who can enter a revolving door behind you and come out ahead!

ENJOY!!

https://1funny.com/amazing-heartwarming-magic/

Grins

Forwarded message
From: Kent W
Date: Sun, 4 Nov 2018 at 00:10
Subject: Fwd: Fw: Grins