just a passing thought as I head off to bed
Ditch-Runner
Member Posts: 25,226 ✭✭✭✭
I am sure many of you or at least some shared the experience of getting pocket money 😁 by rounding up pop bottles at 2 cents then 3 cents and a last I remember turning in any was a whole nickel woo hoo each the neighborhood and road sides were kept pop bottle free when we were kids .
can you image telling the kids now you want some money go pick up empty pop bottles or aluminum cans now I guess .
of course if the area was still a safe for them to walk the roads but that is a whole different story
I had neighbor kids who would mow laws for a dollar or two but we my family did not have a lawn mower so that was out for me.
some times and I mean rare happen some one may give us a dollar to wash their car but that was extremely rare
another way to make a dime or two a neighbor would have us go to the local store and buy a few things for them and we could keep the change 99% of the time if was just cigarettes we picked up for them
also remember no notes or ID just tell the clerk which brand
in the fall mom would give us 3 cents for each string of green beans we would string up to hang out to dry the strings were 2 to 3 feet long and a lot of needle holes in our fingers
and I hated the taste of them after they had dried out and then cooked later on in the winter I think they called them shuck beans ?
amazing what a little change in our pocket was like some times we would have it long enough 😁 to visit the candy counter at the 5 and dime I remember it looked like they had ever candy made in the center of the main aisle as we walked in
oh well no use to focus on the past but it was simple times for sure
Comments
All the above. I rode my bike miles to pick up bottles and the local grocer was happy to get them. I was a kid but my brothers would go out at night and get "drip" gas to mix with regular fuel. Don't know how all that worked out. I had a lawn route, Grit route and rode around the country delivering the Grits at a nickel profit. 😆 Yea, me and my retriever would go to town he running along side me for three miles and I got a 10 cent Coke and a 10 cent ice cream from the stand. Crazy times but remember them well.
pop bottles 2 cents turn them in the store would put them out back of store in the crates ,,we would visit the back of store for the next day turn ins 🙄
Mac, I did the same thing a time or two. I also would ride my bike to town every Saturday and wash sidewalks for 50 cents apiece. The money was spent on my model airplane hobby.
I did the pop bottle thing, then a small newspaper route. When I was thirteen, I was old enough to carry a golf bag or two. Made a lot of money during the summer doing that, until I enlisted in the Air Force in 1968..
We did the pop bottle thing all the time as kids. Usually we were after more baseball cards or a Matchbox car !!
My Grandma used to pay me a quarter for every mouse I caught in their garage or basement. I was 5 or 6 when that started. There was farm land across from her place so lots of mice. Once I got the hang of it without getting my fingers I did pretty well. One of the neighbors made the same deal with me.
A buck or two a week was a ton of money for a kid in 1964 or so !! Thanks for stirring some fun memories up for me !
Matchbox cars were a big deal tome I had some i even traded at school with the other boys as they were popular
Then hot wheels OMG so fast and better looking so started the same collecting and trading
When I left home I had suit case full but left at my parents but my younger brother lost broke sold anyway none were left
After the hot wheels HO gage slot cars were it a lot of kids took up the hobby trading racing hoping up
Now almost 60 yrs later I still have some of the slotcars plus many more about 20 yrs ago me and a coworker were talking a about slot cars
so we got back into slot cars ther is shows just for them a lot are reproduced so many cars and parts no room on here to ever bore others with The story
I did sell one of mine I had from back when I was a kid a purple charger a super rare color on ebay about 20 yrs ago wow got one thousand dollars for it
Any way some years ago I sold most of them but still have maye 30 to 50 cars
A lot of stories also
My father would not buy me a hunting license or shells when I was a kid. I use to trap muskrats, beaver and whatever else would fall into my traps. I had to skin them and dry them out. Then I would take them to Mr. Farace's hardware store, and turn them in for cash. I use to get anywhere from 5 to 75 cents for each pelt. Back then, I think my licenses was 2.10 and a box of shells was about three bucks. This was the early 70's. I also picked apples all summer long, for 10 cents a basket. That was back braking work for a ten year old. My dad would drop me off when he went to work and I would walk the five miles home each night. Well worth it come rabbit and deer season.
Besides collecting and cashing in pop bottles in my early years, extra money came in the springtime by cutting * willow shoots that were coming into bud. Sold them to the 2 floral shops that were in town for 10 cents a bunch. Also picked cherry's in the summer for school clothes money (50 cents a lug). All my earning for the picking went to my folks. It was a family affair.
When I was around 13 or 14, my best buddy and me would walk down to the pier on West Grand Traverse Bay in the fall and snag CoHo Salmon. (it was legal then) We filled several bushel baskets with these huge fish on each outing and sell the fish to this old guy who canned them. We would milk the eggs from the females and sell them to a nearby bait shop for 50 cents a pound. I will admit that when it comes to salmon, I cannot stand the stuff to this day! I had it coming out my ears back then and even being one who likes fish, salmon is YUK!
Nine holes, 75 cents.
I paid for my "big" bicycle (Schwinn two-speed!) by cutting sunflowers at a dime a dozen.
I remember as a kid (8 years old or so) asking my farmer dad when I could drive a tractor.
He said his dad had told him he needed to raise a garden first so he'd understand growing plants.
So the next spring I busily started a garden -- mostly corn and potatoes.
One day I went out to my garden and the taters were nothing but stubs -- worms had had a good time.
A few years later I also remember thinking about that garden. I was 15 and was sitting on a tractor at the end of a 14-hour day and I could see the lights of the baseball field in town where my best friend and the girl I thought of as "my girlfriend" were watching the games.
Be careful what you wish for -- you might get it!
We moved to a hobby farm when I was 5 years old. It had 5 or 6 old junk cars/trucks and a pit full of tossed appliances, etc. I would spend hours and hours stripping the copper from the vehicles and gathering wire, strip the copper cores from the radiators. The second year pops brought me and my 400 lbs of copper to a scrap dealer. Don’t remember the total, but it was more money than I had ever seen in my life.
Brad Steele