What do you remember that your kids or grandkids would find strange?

Mostly just the video games and computer and phone systems have changed since I was a kid. We were watching a movie yesterday and a kid had to use a rotary phone and didn't know how.. I was laughing at that.

I remember my mother sprinkling clothes. I did it some last rear when ironing. My mom never boiled clothes though.

i don't really have any memories to tell my children like that. oh wait! i do remember being sick and my parents givings us herbs instead of regular medicine.

I think other than the records to play music, something my children would find strange is a black and white TV with only 3 channels to choose from, plus instead of playing 24/7, stations would have a sign off music followed by static for the rest of the night.

Oh, wash day at my grandmother's house! The big wash tub and wash board. The ringer she used to dry and rinse. And Napa soap. Can't even find it any more. I remember the bottle of bluing too. Sprinkling the clothes and rolling them up when we were ready to iron. And my idea of a good time was riding a broom handle around outside. That was my horse. My grandmother had all manner of broken toys and the kids didn't care. They were all good to play with even if a truck only had three wheels. And I had a nice wagon I would carry all my dolls and whatever I was playing with all over my grandmother's place. And my dog, Robin, the black and white cocker spaniel who was born on the same day I was and was my chum until she was 13. I would bug my grampa while he was out doing chores and make him mud pies for lunch. And the fruit I was able to eat all Summer. The raspberries, blackberries, and blackcaps, rhubarb, prunes, apricots, pie cherries, concord grapes, and gooseberries. Those were the days! Kids now days wouldn't have lasted a day!

I do not remember my association with my grand parents but my mother had her ways. Those days the iron had to be filled with burning charcoal as there was no electricity. Pickles and preserves was the order of the day which was a regular feature every year. Then she would stack up things for the rains - huge quantities of rice, onions, dry fish, jaggery...... Onions had to be plaited and hung up. The quantity was large which would last for months. There were two varieties pink and white.I have posted an image here. I could go on and on GG to show you how different life for my mother was and we were dragged in too, to help her out!

I remember all those things. I always enjoyed ironing day in the summer. We would be barefoot, the linoleum would be cool on our feet, the iced tea nearby and the radio playing all the good songs. I remember Grandma reading by the light of a kerosene lamp and I remember going to the ice house to get a block of ice for the ice box. Grandma had a flock of chickens and now and then she would wring the neck of an older hen or rooster and we'd have chicken. She never ate it because she said she didn't like it. I know better now. I remember running boards on the cars and trucks and I remember walking to Sunday School in my new white sandals and hearing them crunch on the gravel road. Mom had a washboard and a couple of wash tubs. We would carry a lot of water into the house on wash day before we went to school. In the evenings, we would carry in wood and water before supper. When we finally got a TV (I was a teenager), it was black and white and it was a piece of furniture - a far cry from a flat screen on the wall. When we finally got a phone, it was on a party line. Lots of things my grandkids think are very strange were just part of every day life back then.

I'm trying to think of something, but I'm drawing a blank.

I remember when you could get a block of ice and chip it with an ice pick. We had one of those sprinklers too. To tenderize meat you used the edge of a plate, instant mashed potatoes didn't exist, and milk was delivered in glass bottles to our door.

hi Farden Gerty I also re member my mom had a kerosene stove that she put this boiler thing on and heated the water and she was dipping clothes in it and wringing then out and I had no real idea why she was doing that til I was older. then I remember putting in this blue stuff in the water and wringing out the sheets. I was totally thrilled when we got electricity to our farm and she got a washer and a nice big refrigerator and no more ice chest. But she always refused to get a dryer as she loved to hang them outside in the sunshine to dry.oh and churning butter and eating real butter on baked potatoes oh and butter milk I always loved fresh buttermilk., I was never overweight as a kid as we all got lots of exercise and having a huge veggie garden took a lot of physical exercise but we always had the best veggies to eat too. and fruit apples plums strawberries, raspberries melons and watermelons . Those were the days during the recession that we lived really well on allh ome grown stuff milk eggs, beef, fruits and veggies homemade bread. wonderful to grow up on a farm.and we canned each fall too., sio had lots of jams and jellies too

Oh yes, I remember these things perfectly. At the age of about four I remember that my mother had a copper boiler. Basically a large cauldron over a gas fire and every week all the bed linens and white clothes would be washed, rinsed, then put in this cauldron to boil in soapy water. Then they were taken out with a wooden stick and dumped in cold water to rinse and rinse again before the clothes were put on the line to dry. In the winter it was he*l. Damp clothes everywhere and there was a pulley thingy with clothes lines that could lower from the kitchen ceiling and clothes would be put on this rack and then hoiseted up to the ceiling again to dry. The women had it so hard. All white clothes were starched and ironing was done on a Tuesday and Saturday, all white school shirts were ironed. Such a palavar. Housewives today really do have it easier and thank God for that!

Hiya GG, I was never in my Grandmother´s house that often to see how she washed but in our house the Gas Boiler came out of its place every week and the very soiled working clothes were put in there as they had that iron dust sticking to them all over the place so you had to boil them first before washing them. Then we had one of those washing machines with the roller in where you pressed the clothes through there but I always used a piece of wood to push the clothes through. That way the working clothes came up really clean. From a very early age I had to wash my own clothes and I did it very well without a washing machine as that only came out once a week for all the main stuff. Nice memories those we never used starch in our house though at all as both of them worked in places where the working clothes were black and navy blue.xxx

It sometimes amuses us to look back on how we washed clothes.It looked a bit primitive the way to wash clothes.Here,I remember people used washing club made of wood to beat clothes before the advent of washing machine.Some used Chinese honey locust instead of soap.

I am not sure if they would find anything I remember as being strange, but sometimes I say things when I shouldn't and that might be strange to them.

Putting clothes in the freezer? I can remember wringing out clothes with the old fashioned wringers and then hanging them to dry way back, but never heard of putting them in no refridgerator. But from time to time those of us in our 40s and 50s at work will get together and talk about things, and things we remember about life that was better back then. Like being able to go to your friends house til like 10 pm at night, and no one having to worry where you were, who you were with, and would you be safe, and we played real games instead of computer games back then.

When I was young we lived in Napa California. Our home rested on about an acre of land so it was perfect for my Mom to raise turkeys, ducks, chickens and a huge garden. We had our own phone because of father's business (he repaired television sets) and I still remember the phone number...it was Baldwin 40428..which was BA40428. I also remember Mom sprinkling the cotton clothes and rolling them up and putting them in the laundry basket waiting to be ironed. It also was a time where you knew your neighbors and were there to help them out. One particular day Mom had a formal event to attend, she had gone to the beauty shop and got her hair done. She came home and was changing her clothes when the phone rang. She grabbed it and suddenly her face went to bright red. She raced out the door, picked up a 6 foot 2X4 and raced off in her formal dress, heels, and rhinestone jewelry. Curious I went outside and stood in the front yard looking to see where Mom had gone. It didn't take long for her to reappear...she was running down the road, swinging the 2X4 wildly at...the flock of turkeys! The turkeys were running down the road, gobbling the whole trip, with Mom swinging the board at them to "encourage" them to return home. The neighbors were outside watching and laughing like crazy. I really wish we had had a movie camera, it would have been a priceless vision watching an elegantly attired woman running like a crazy person swinging a board at a dozen fully grown turkeys.

My grandmother did things like that. My mother didn't do a lot of creative things. She always had the most modern of conveniences, but she has told stories about when she was young and in order to curl her hair she would tie rags in it, rather than using curlers. She said a lot of girls did that when she was young. I do remember when I was little sitting with a hair dryer cap on, with this big box like machine with a hose that when in to the cap to dry your hair, and you would sit there with that cap on for about a half hour until your hair was all dry. I also remember that my mom used to darn socks. If a sock had a hole in it she had this thing that she would stick inside of it and then she would sew up the hole. In today's society we either wear the socks with the holes or throw them out and by new ones. I also used to walk to school alone even when I was like 6 years old. I would never let my kids do that now.

this makes me think of when i actually was teaching my 14 yrs.old gd, how to write cursive and how to tell time on a regular clock with hands on it. about 6yrs agom when i lived with them in florida. some things they dont even make them learn in school any more. she could not believe some of the things we used to do. i miss so much from then. when we saved energy, etc. most places dont even allow you to have a clothes line now to dry clothes.

We live in a place where it was mostly sunny when I was growing up. We didn't have dryers back then as most of our clothes were hanged outside in the sun. I remember times when my school uniform wasn't completely dry yet, and I would put them at the back of the fridge while I took a shower and got ready. I bet my kids would find that strange.

A couple of years ago when my granddaughter was 13 years old, she called me up and told me she had to write a composition. She had to write something that her grandparents did when they were her age. I told her the price of movies, what we did for entertainment. I told her we had no private telephone lines. We shared it with someone else. Sometimes we could hear their conversations. When I told her that we did not have television, she asked," did you have computers?"