"You are officially old if.....

[Sandy]

Hhmmmm....did I detect a bit of dry humour there, Sandy?

Yes, dry ........if you're lucky.

[Brendan W]

You are old if you used a fountain pen in school.

We used to dream of fountain pens.
You're old if ink was mixed from concentrate in the outside toilets and kept in inkwells in your desk.
Posh types had penny nibs, the rest of us had halfpenny nibs that rusted out.
Some mornings the ink was frozen and the smoke from the coke stove kept you out in the playground until 10:30.

[argonsagas]

We used to dream of fountain pens.
You're old if ink was mixed from concentrate in the outside toilets and kept in inkwells in your desk.
Posh types had penny nibs, the rest of us had halfpenny nibs that rusted out.
Some mornings the ink was frozen and the smoke from the coke stove kept you out in the playground until 10:30.

Yup....school supplied pens and inkwells on the desks.
Ball-point pens were not allowed.
(just as well because they almost always leaked)

As to frozen....milk bottles were delivered very early...perhaps 4 or 5AM,
The milk was not homogenized, and it would freeze and expand while everyone slept, making a column of the cream rise and force the paper cap out of place. .....ready for little kids to eat it.

[Brendan W]

As to frozen....milk bottles were delivered very early...perhaps 4 or 5AM,
The milk was not homogenized, and it would freeze and expand while everyone slept, making a column of the cream rise and force the paper cap out of place. .....ready for little kids to eat it.

.. if the Magpies didn't beat you to it.
Some would leave a crate at the door that the milkman would cover the bottles with.

[argonsagas]

We do not have magpies here, but something else that did happen was many neighbourhoods were kept clean of litter as kids would collect all the empty bottles, cans and other miscellaneous things they found lying around and sell them to the sheeny who would come by on his horse-drawn wagon, ringing his bell and calling out "Rags, Bones."...and probably other things.

[rphillips]

Dang argon, sell them to the sheeny coming by on his horse-drawn wagon ringing his bell... Thanks for making me feel a little younger, I don't remember seeing the horse-drawn stuff on the roads, only horse-drawn I remember were working in the fields.

[Sandy]

.. if the Magpies didn't beat you to it.
Some would leave a crate at the door that the milkman would cover the bottles with.

Up here most houses had a small milk door on the side of the house with acees from outside and inside.

[rphillips]

Yep, a lot of folks still have them, only today they're called doggie doors.

[Brendan W]

We do not have magpies here, but something else that did happen was many neighbourhoods were kept clean of litter as kids would collect all the empty bottles, cans and other miscellaneous things they found lying around and sell them to the sheeny who would come by on his horse-drawn wagon, ringing his bell and calling out "Rags, Bones."...and probably other things.

There was a Mrs Connors around where I lived when I was eight. She was always meandering the streets collecting bottles in a hessian coal sack on her back to sell at my mother's grocery shop.
She was likely twenty years younger than she looked and almost certainly the rock of that family.
The horse and cart was un-pasteurised milk coming direct from the farms.
There was quite a demand for it. Some didn't like the processed stuff.

[Grimly]

We do not have magpies here, but something else that did happen was many neighbourhoods were kept clean of litter as kids would collect all the empty bottles, cans and other miscellaneous things they found lying around and sell them to the sheeny who would come by on his horse-drawn wagon, ringing his bell and calling out "Rags, Bones."...and probably other things.

Got replaced by ice cream vans selling tenner bags, amongst other things.

[argonsagas]

Up here most houses had a small milk door on the side of the house with acees from outside and inside.

I had almost forgotten that. It was a common practice in this area, too. I do not know when that practice started, but in Toronto area I am pretty sure new houses continued being built with milk boxes into the 1970s,. The house I have today was built in 1980's and does not have one.


There were also letter slots in the front doors of most houses, often with little boxes on the inside of the doors to receive mail.

Today, unless you live in an older part of town where personal mail delivery to the houses was a long-established practice, there is no personal delivery and your mail goes only to giant neighbourhood boxes.

[argonsagas]

We used to dream of fountain pens.
You're old if ink was mixed from concentrate in the outside toilets and kept in inkwells in your desk.
Posh types had penny nibs, the rest of us had halfpenny nibs that rusted out.
Some mornings the ink was frozen and the smoke from the coke stove kept you out in the playground until 10:30.

Outside toilets....privvies or outhouses...., were gone from Toronto and likely most cities before 1900, but remained in use in smaller towns and villages until well after that.

A friend of mine has a cottage that he inherited from his parents and while sewers are increasingly available in that area now, the cottage has its own well and his outhouse is still legal..

[argonsagas]

You are old if you remember coal being delivered to your house in burlap bags (aka hessian)..
There was a choice of at least two grades of coal, coke being the softest, cheapest but quickest to burn and anthracite, more expensive but lasting much longer.

[earlfor]

The least I ever paid for gasoline was 11 cents per gallon.

[Brendan W]

You are old if you remember coal being delivered to your house in burlap bags (aka hessian)..
There was a choice of at least two grades of coal, coke being the softest, cheapest but quickest to burn and anthracite, more expensive but lasting much longer.

My grandmother lived in a terraced house so the coal had to be carried through the house to the back yard.
Before he was allowed in the door, protection was laid on the floor and she would monitor his progress through the narrow passage like a hawk to make sure the sack didn't mark the walls or heaven forbid knock any of the religious icons to the floor.
Back then the sack was a hundredweight cwt or 112lbs. Now they are only 40kg.
We has a town gas company making gas from coal. The coke was almost a waste by-product but it burned hot. The potbelly stoves in school and the Scout hall were red.