Charlie

Yeah, I've done that, too (yawn).

In many cases it probably wasn't as simple as we thought--it just seemed simple to us, because it was what we were familiar with.

They're lucky it didn't land on the roof.

Don't worry about what's in it--it will be after you are deceased.

Correct!

Remembering things.

Ad with photos that make me want to jerk off.

I would love to be able to play a musical instrument well, preferably the organ or the cello.

The last time I looked younger than I was, I was probably about 16. After that, I almost always looked older than I was, which was convenient, because I was often the youngest person in a group--when I started teaching, I was actually younger than many of my students, and I didn't want them to know my age. I didn't really notice how I old I was starting to look until I was about 75, but at that point what did it matter?

I worked in the main building, which certainly was much newer than the 1880s.

Although the chain went out of business in 1977, if I remember correctly, the flagship store on Market Street was no longer a full service department store in the mid-70s, certainly not competitive with Gimbel's, Wanamaker's and Strawbridge's any longer. My sense was that it had become more like a downtown competitor to K-Mart, but in a classic building.

It's still there. I used to work there, in the 1960s.

Dog. Unless the man is shivering because he's only wearing a jock strap.

Dog. Unless the man is shivering because he's only wearing a jock strap.

In fact, I have made arrangements for the unexpurgated copy to be held by a scholarly archive. They said they looked forward to having it for research purposes--after I am dead.

Lit's was gone by about 1970. However, Jacob Reed's lasted a long time; I am still wearing clothes I bought there.

I have one memory that my mother insists had to be when I was 18 mos. old, because the outfit I was wearing in the memory was from that age.

I used to visit my grandmother in the summer when I was a kid. She lived in an old house on the Hudson River near West Point, that had no electricity nor indoor plumbing except a hand pump in the kitchen sink. I don't remember what she did for heat, because I never went there in the winter. The only thing about being there that wasn't fun was having to use the outhouse at night with no light to see what was crawling around out there.

I knew one of my great-aunts, who was born during the Civil War. Both of my grandfathers could remember President Grant.

I remember having to buy a manual typewriter to take to college, after my high school guidance counselor explained to me that my professors probably would not take kindly to me turning in handwritten term papers. I still have never learned how to type.

My father would have celebrated his 115th birthday last week. My mother was two years older than he was. However, since I am a lot older than you are, they were not as old when I was born as yours were when you were born. The last birthday my mother celebrated was her 102nd.

Couch.

My spouse still calls the refrigerator "the icebox."

Like so many of the jobs described here, it was a summer job between high school graduation and leaving for college. My father pulled some strings to get me a job in a paper box factory, cleaning the huge printing machines. It wasn't that hard, but was incredibly dirty, and I had to take long showers when I got home. It also happened to be the first summer that I was sexually active, so I was super attentive to my grooming, and getting the ink off me wasn't always easy. The following summer my father got me the same kind of job in a different factory. The third summer I got my own job, and I made sure it was a clerical job in an office, but ironically it was in....a printing ink factory. However, the dirtiest job I ever experienced was not as a worker. When I was working in Czechoslovakia many years later, I was asked for advice about marketing coal by the manager of a coal mine. For some reason, he felt that we should see the full operation, so I spent one whole day underground, dressed like a miner and dragging around heavy equipment through the water and sludge and coal dust. I wasn't doing any mining myself, but I have never been more exhausted at the end of the day. It greatly increased my respect for what a coal miner endures to make a living.

All the relations that I felt close to--parents and grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins--are deceased. The few surviving cousins that I care about at all live far from me, and our only contacts are through occasional emails.