Call Time!

I remembered something the other day quite by accident.  My wife asked me what time it was from across the room.  Without even thinking about it, I said out loud "At the tone, the time will be 5:45 and 30 seconds... *beeeep*".

As soon as I was finished I blurted out, "Oh, my gosh - do you remember that?  Do you remember how we used to "call time"?  A wave of memories came over us as we recalled that this was something we all used to do.  You'd pick up the phone and "call time" to get the correct time, and a recorded woman's voice would recite the current time down to - It think - the 15 second mark.

As I thought it over, I figured out why it was so common that we did this back then.  We all had watches.  Most had to be wound, and those with batteries would start to slow down.  Wall clocks had batteries, most appliances didn't have batteries.  The big thing was that we didn't have computers or our phones that keep totally accurate time - ALL the time.  We also didn't have electronic readouts on every single appliance and electrical thing we owned.

The bottom line was that in order to make sure that our watches and clocks were accurate, we had to "call time" to check them.
Now days all of our electronic devices are totally accurate and even change to the correct time zones as you travel.

I found a great little article by a guy about it here:

http://littlenuances.blogspot.com/2010/09/remember-when-we-used-to-call-time.html

And apparently, the service just completely and officially ended in a few years back...

http://www.switched.com/2007/08/29/at-the-tone-the-time-will-be-up/

Wish I'd thought about about this before, I would have like to call and listen to the "time lady" one more time...

Confessions of a Negligent Blogger...

Hi... my name is Darryll and I'm a negligent blogger...

Everyone say in unison "Hi, Darryll"

I don't really know where / how it all started.  Oh - I do like to blog... I love to blog.  Really, I do!  At first it was easy when I skipped a few days.  It was easy to justify it:

"I'm too busy"
"I'm waiting for a really good topic to blog on"
"I'll get to it over the weekend"
"I've got too much other stuff going on"
"I need to wait to blog until I can take the time to explain why it's been so long since I've blogged"

I had as many excuses as there are days in the month.  It was easy to continue to run the same excuses in my head over and over.  As each day passed it was harder to face what I was doing, and easier to put it off.

I got way past feeling guilty and I got to where I didn't care.  There.  I said it.  I didn't care! *whew* It's hard to say it out loud.

Every now and then I would think about the friends I'd left behind.  The relationships that knew I was neglecting...

There's Darrin - my good friend doing "Dad's Dish Retro Blog".  This guy is incredibly persistent at digging up the old stuff - posting tons of great pictures and sharing awesome comments all about the great old stuff we all grew up with... I love reading his posts.

Gael Fashingbauer Cooper - She's actually a writer for MSNBC - she and I released our books at about the same time.  It's always great to read her posts on her blog "Pop Culture", and I enjoy reading her articles on the web.

And "Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing".  What great perspectives and insights she has on what it was like to grow up in the '70s.  It's always a joy to read her posts.

And Joe at "70s-Child" - Again - great memories and sharing about the life and times and fun and wonder of growing up in that great decade.  And Joe - he reached out to me.  In March - at the one year date of my having not blogged, he shared a simple yet poignant email reminding me that he had noticed I was not around.

And my brother, who actually faithfully reads my blog, sent me a happy anniversary card, or e-card, letting me know that it had been a year since I had done an entry.

Well - there it is - that's my story and my thoughts.

I have seen the error of my ways.  I am committing to restarting my blogging.  I have an idea for my first one - I WILL do it over this weekend.  I'm looking forward to hearing from all my friends - not just the ones Ive mentioned here, and I'm looking forward to starting to read their blogs again.

Flicks Candy

My friend Darrin over at Dad's Dish Retro Blog loves to go on little shopping sprees for cool retro stuff all the time.  Since I live in a small town I don't really have access to the type of stores that have the inventory that includes these great finds.  But - I do have memories and every now and then - something triggers one of them.  And - I have the internet that can instantly show me pictures to help with my memories.


Flicks!

I don't even know what it was that brought this memory back.  UPDATE:
My brother gave me a call this afternoon to say he had read my blog about Flicks.  He asked me what it was that reminded me of them.  I again asserted that I wasn't sure what had brought back the memory, at which point he pointedly reminded me the HE had called me and told me about a display of them he had seen in store just the other day!!  (Insert "getting old" jokes here).  Anyway - with his reminding me of these, I did have these great memories of Flicks.

I do know that I remember that there was nothing better than getting some Flicks and slowly eating the large chocolate chip shaped candy.  The shiny foil covered tubes were super cool looking and fit easily in your hand.

I've done some searching and found some places I can buy them.  Sounds like I'm planning ahead for stocking-stuffers for next Christmas!

Old Fashioned Treats

So - I had a memory pop into my head the other day, and it was like "No Way!  Was that right?"  I called my brother to verify I wasn't just making things up, and he confirmed it.  When we were kids, on hot summer days, we had a very special treat... ice cubes.

Yes, you read that right...

Ice cubes.

We'd be running around like little banshees and sweating up a storm.  Almost on cue, we'd run into the house and start whining at mom for some sort of cooling refreshment.  Well - this would have been a common occurrence on hot summer days - and I'm amazed at my moms resourcefulness.  At some point, she must have been out of anything else, so she opened the freezer and got out the ice trays.  And then, in a moment of sheer brilliance, she probably asked "Who wants an ice cube?!?"  Being dumb, hot kids, we all yelled, "I do!"

She grabbed some paper towels, wrapped them up and presented us with our "treats.  Ice cubes!  Wrapped in a paper towel so our hands didn't get cold and wet.  Knowing us - we probably spent as much time playing with them as sucking on them - but they definitely did the trick.

I tried to replicate this, but between my automatic ice cube maker's much smaller ice cubes, and the fact that I couldn't get the camera to focus right - you'll have to use your imagination. 

Suffice it to say - though it didn't look like much (and admittedly, it wasn't) it was a great treat for us.  And - we were dumb kids - it was all great to us. Kind of makes me wonder what kids today would do with such a "treat" presented to them.