# Dad never let you leave the house without them.



## Earl of Ormonde (Sep 5, 2008)

Related to the penknives thread, but want to keep them separate for obvious reasons.

When you were a young men and under instruction from your father what items did you learn to never leave home without? 

For me it was, a comb, a clean white hankie, and a small penknife. He also made sure I had a watch on. And of course some loose change.

Knowing my father though, he'd rather I'd had a Bowie knife in a shoulder holster. My father was often tooled up when he went to the pub. And always tooled up at work.

Edit: I mean, of course, when going out in the evening.


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## WouldaShoulda (Aug 5, 2009)

Never play baseball without a cup!!


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## LanceW (Jun 2, 2009)

1 quarter and 3 dimes in case I needed to use a payphone.


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## Earl of Ormonde (Sep 5, 2008)

LanceW said:


> 1 quarter and 3 dimes in case I needed to use a payphone.


yea, same as my loose change, in the days before mobile phones.


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## Scotch&Cigars (Dec 27, 2009)

Me head.

I daresay I was not the most attentive child in the world...


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## MichaelS (Nov 14, 2005)

LanceW said:


> 1 quarter and 3 dimes in case I needed to use a payphone.


I'm showing my age. That would have got me a phone call, a hamburger and a coke, and a nickel in change.


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## Earl of Ormonde (Sep 5, 2008)

Scotch&Cigars said:


> Me head.
> 
> I daresay I was not the most attentive child in the world...


How many times have I heard my Irish mum say to me "sure you'd lose your head if it wasn't bolted on" :icon_smile_big:


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## Earl of Ormonde (Sep 5, 2008)

MichaelS said:


> I'm showing my age. That would have got me a phone call, a hamburger and a coke, and a nickel in change.


Ouch! Grandad!:icon_smile_big: A nickel and 3 dimes, what's that in total cents? Then I can relate it to the 2 shillings or 1 Florin (nowadays 10 pence) I used to get as pocket money in the early 70s. In old money 12 pennies = 1 shilling. 24 pennies = 2 shillings = 1 florin. You see, long long after decimalisation came to the UK, we still spoke in shillings and pennies. We even retained many of the old shilling and florin coins well into the 90s.


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## TMMKC (Aug 2, 2007)

Clean underware and socks...plus some change for a pay phone (showing my age too!).


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## MichaelS (Nov 14, 2005)

Earl of Ormonde said:


> Ouch! Grandad!:icon_smile_big: A nickel and 3 dimes, what's that in total cents? Then I can relate it to the 2 shillings or 1 Florin (nowadays 10 pence) I used to get as pocket money in the early 70s. In old money 12 pennies = 1 shilling. 24 pennies = 2 shillings = 1 florin. You see, long long after decimalisation came to the UK, we still spoke in shillings and pennies. We even retained many of the old shilling and florin coins well into the 90s.


(It was a quarter and three dimes: $0.55). I've got a bunch of the old English money which is I suppose pretty much worthless now except to the odd collector. I never did understand how they got the sort of base 12 monetary system. Any idea of the history of it?

In regards to pen knives, I've been carrying a swiss army pocket knife since I was 12. My teachers in school used to borrow it from me. A long cry from nowdays when I would be arressted and expelled from school. I'm traveling about monthly now and since I can no longer carry one a plane and never check my luggage, I go through a week of withdrawal every month.


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## Scotch&Cigars (Dec 27, 2009)

Earl of Ormonde said:


> How many times have I heard my Irish mum say to me "sure you'd lose your head if it wasn't bolted on" :icon_smile_big:


I almost managed to lose it, and it _was _bolted on :aportnoy:


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## Earl of Ormonde (Sep 5, 2008)

MichaelS said:


> I never did understand how they got the sort of base 12 monetary system. Any idea of the history of it?


Don't get me started, I could write a book on the subject. Just the odd seemingly unconnected letters for the old pounds (L), shillings (S) and pence (D) "LSD" are on their own very interesting.

L = Libra
S = Solidus
D = Denarius

https://www.retrowow.co.uk/retro_britain/old_money/old_money.html


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## agnash (Jul 24, 2006)

A little money that I had [email protected] well better have earned myself. :icon_smile:

If I didn't have that, then I didn't need to go out, and my dad had a pool for me to clean or a yard for me to mow.


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## Earl of Ormonde (Sep 5, 2008)

agnash said:


> A little money that I had [email protected] well better have earned myself. :icon_smile:
> 
> If I didn't have that, then I didn't need to go out, and my dad had a pool for me to clean or a yard for me to mow.


Goodbye Joe, me got to go me oh my oh, me got to go clean the pool down on the bayou :icon_smile_big: :icon_smile_big:

Grew up listening to the Man, my father listened to him every time he got drunk, my father that is, not Hank:icon_smile_wink: My father, born in 36, grew up in Ireland where country music has always been huge, but in the 40s with a radio appearing in every house it became gi-bloody-normous. Sweden adopted big band and jazz from the US, Ireland took it's own music back home in the shape of country and cajun. When I was a kid in London and Ireland, my parent's and the rest of that Irish generation didn't really differentiate much between Irish folk, country and cajun, because to them it was one. The music and stories of struggling and oppressed peoples. And I still listen to cajun, Aldous Rogers or Nathan Abshire and to Hank occasionally, when I'm having an uisce beatha or two!


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## Howard (Dec 7, 2004)

my house keys
my wallet
my cell phone
emergency money (just in case)


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## agnash (Jul 24, 2006)

Earl of Ormonde said:


> Goodbye Joe, me got to go me oh my oh, me got to go clean the pool down on the bayou :icon_smile_big: :icon_smile_big:
> 
> Grew up listening to the Man, my father listened to him every time he got drunk, my father that is, not Hank:icon_smile_wink: My father, born in 36, grew up in Ireland where country music has always been huge, but in the 40s with a radio appearing in every house it became gi-bloody-normous. Sweden adopted big band and jazz from the US, Ireland took it's own music back home in the shape of country and cajun. When I was a kid in London and Ireland, my parent's and the rest of that Irish generation didn't really differentiate much between Irish folk, country and cajun, because to them it was one. The music and stories of struggling and oppressed peoples. And I still listen to cajun, Aldous Rogers or Nathan Abshire and to Hank occasionally, when I'm having an uisce beatha or two!


When I was at university I knew a lot of students who wanted to embrace their Irish heritage, no matter how tenuous. Mainly they drank and listened to Irish folk music. I didn't have a problem with that, and enjoyed it quite a bit, but found it pathetic that most would turn their noses up at country music. I saw Johny Cash at the House of Blues in New Orleans in 1994, and most of the accents in the room were Irish, not Cajun or Southern drawls. Fantastic show, one of the three best I've ever seen. The other two were Willie Nelson and BB King.


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## Earl of Ormonde (Sep 5, 2008)

Howard said:


> my cell phone


How old are you that your dad could remind you of that when you were young?:icon_smile_wink:

"When you were a young men and under instruction from your father what items did you learn to never leave home without?"


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## Earl of Ormonde (Sep 5, 2008)

agnash said:


> but found it pathetic that most would turn their noses up at country music.


It's what I cal the Oirish Syndrome that a lot of the descendants of the diaspora suffer from i.e. total immersion in the culture not to be ruined by reality

Which is one of the big shocks lots of Americans get on arriving in Ireland that the pubs aren't full of people playing or dancing to Irish music, but rather to the same chart shite that every other European and American youngster is listening to. Or in pubs out of town, country music.

The other big shock is that the vast majority of people in Ireland and Northern Ireland are not Republicans and do not support the IRA as thousands of tasteless young American men in Boston seemed to do every weekend.

The third big shock is that Ireland is not full of redheads. The predominant hair colour in Ireland by a long way is black or very very dark brown. Red hair in Ireland and Scotland came from the invading vikings not from the Gaelic people's themselves, who have black or very very dark brown hair.

My cousin Liam toured Boston back in 1999 with a play presented by his Irish folk band playing and singing over a historical slide show about the Irish navvies who had built the canals and roads and railways of Ireland and Britain.
And inevitably being in Boston, at the end of the evening the IRA collection tin came round. My cousin Liam and the rest of the band told the collector to F*** off and cop onto himself, "We live in Ireland, and those terrorists are killing Irish people, so we won't donate to killing
ourselves and nor should ye"


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## 16412 (Apr 1, 2005)

Wearing clothes, which was also my requirement before leaving my bedroom or bathroom. When I finally got to have a pocket knife I took that most places, though not a requirement. Certainly no need for one when swimming.


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## Earl of Ormonde (Sep 5, 2008)

WA said:


> Certainly no need for one when swimming.


Well it's a good job Johnny Weissmuller didn't think like that :icon_smile_big:


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## 16412 (Apr 1, 2005)

Earl of Ormonde said:


> Well it's a good job Johnny Weissmuller didn't think like that :icon_smile_big:


There are exceptions.

Did you ever see the Bomba movie?


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## Earl of Ormonde (Sep 5, 2008)

WA said:


> There are exceptions.
> 
> Did you ever see the Bomba movie?


No I don't remember ever seing the film. But I do remember seeing the books in secondhand shops over the years, not that I read any of them. Also I remember seeing episodes of a US TV series, which I'm quite sure was called Bomba. Also of course the great B & W film about Rudyard Kipling's jungle boy Kim.

The oddest thing about seeing the Kim film for a lad growing up in 60s England was the supposedly British officers and soliders in India with American accents! :icon_smile_big:

In other films of the period, on similar British and pre-US subjects e.g. Privateers on the Spanish Main, at least Fairbanks and Flynn made an attempt not to sound altogether too American!:icon_smile_big:


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## eagle2250 (Mar 24, 2006)

My old man taught me absolutely nothing of value in life, except how to hate...primarily just him! He was a mean drunk, with a more than occasional capacity for viciousness, who abandoned my mother and three kids when I was five years old. On the other hand my Mom taught me most everything of enduring importance in my life; caring, integrity, honesty, courage (conquering our own fears), hard work and perseverance, a need for life long learning and last but, not least, the importance of family; which She insisted that I "not let me leave home without!"


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## PatentLawyerNYC (Sep 21, 2007)

eagle2250 said:


> My old man taught me absolutely nothing of value in life, except how to hate...primarily just him! He was a mean drunk, with a more than occasional capacity for viciousness, who abandoned my mother and three kids when I was five years old. On the other hand my Mom taught me most everything of enduring importance in my life; caring, integrity, honesty, courage (conquering our own fears), hard work and perseverance, a need for life long learning and last but, not least, the importance of family; which She insisted that I "not let me leave home without!"


It says volumes about you that you took something positive and lasting from those circumstances.

As for my answer, my father always worried that I didn't carry enough cash on me. I still don't; it's a terrible habit that now my wife hounds me about. :icon_smile:


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## sowilson (Jul 27, 2009)

Condom's. My dad didn't want to become a grandad before his time. He also told me to drink a glass of water for every drink I had (beer, mixed, whatever).


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## KenR (Jun 22, 2005)

Getting back to Ireland, I have friends of Irish descent who think the whole country is still supposed to be one big "Quiet Man" theme park. My wife, who is part Irish, is more rational, having gone college for a year there (St. Patrick's College, Maynooth) and has been to the Emerald Isle as recently as 5 years ago.


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## Howard (Dec 7, 2004)

Earl of Ormonde said:


> How old are you that your dad could remind you of that when you were young?:icon_smile_wink:
> 
> "When you were a young men and under instruction from your father what items did you learn to never leave home without?"


I'm 36.


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## Brooksfan (Jan 25, 2005)

Interesting thread. My father would have been 95 years old today. (2/23/15). He left us too soon at 70 (4 packs of Philip Morris Commanders daily will take their toll). Rather than not leaving home without something, his strong recommendation was that I leave the "chip on my shoulder" at home when I go out into the world. Had I listened better I think his advice would have served me well. 

Cheers to all and in my own way tonight I'll drink a toast to my father.


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## Earl of Ormonde (Sep 5, 2008)

Howard said:


> I'm 36.


Fair enough, mobile phone it is then! :icon_smile_big: So you were 16 in 1990....jeez.
I was 16 in 77! :icon_smile_big:


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## The Dandy (Feb 7, 2010)

Well, first of all he always wanted me to have some money with me just in case, then of course my ID, and believe it or not, when i was out of the UK after my 16th birthday because we were in an unstable country a Walther P22 (Not a real one, the PAK version which only fires Blank bullets but looks and sounds like the real one, unless of course you are close enough to read the "P.A.K." inscription on the barrel... Or unless you know enough to recognize that a silver shell means that it is a blank bullet.) honestly i think that was a silly idea, what if i got arrested by a Police officer or something and he would think i had a gun? Or what if i really got into trouble? Would i just shoot blank rounds up in the air and hope to scare them off? Silly uh?


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## Earl of Ormonde (Sep 5, 2008)

KenR said:


> Getting back to Ireland, I have friends of Irish descent who think the whole country is still supposed to be one big "Quiet Man" theme park. My wife, who is part Irish, is more rational, having gone college for a year there (St. Patrick's College, Maynooth) and has been to the Emerald Isle as recently as 5 years ago.


Actually over in Mayo, in my mother's county, there is a "theme park" of sorts. It's a village/town based on what one would have looked like in about the 1930s-40s,50s replete with extras, wandering around. The headmaster is particulalry scary, screaming at everyone in Irish! 
Also, not far from said "themed village" is the village were the "Quiet Man" was filmed. And of course they know how to milk an idea! :icon_smile_big:

From a social point of view, my parents told me that Ireland really was like that in the 1940s and 1950s. Also a cousin of mine who was a lecturer at the American College in Merrion Square in Dublin in the early 90s, used to use the film as a double bluff. First he'd let the "sophisticated Europeanised" (in their own eyes) American students laugh at the Oirishness and the hookiness of it. And then he'd dleiver the bombshell and inform them that the film was to all intents and purposes quite an accurate record of Ireland in the 40s and 50s and that John Ford wasn't just romanticising when he made it. He knew exactly what he was doing.


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## Howard (Dec 7, 2004)

Earl of Ormonde said:


> Fair enough, mobile phone it is then! :icon_smile_big: So you were 16 in 1990....jeez.
> I was 16 in 77! :icon_smile_big:


In 1977 I was 3 years old.


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## Earl of Ormonde (Sep 5, 2008)

PatentLawyerNYC said:


> my father always worried that I didn't carry enough cash on me. I still don't; it's a terrible habit that now my wife hounds me about. :icon_smile:


You, me and the Queen hey? I rarely find myself in situtions nowadays where my debit card won't be accepted.

The only time I use make sure I've got cash is when going to a football or bandy match or to the pub.


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## Dhaller (Jan 20, 2008)

My father is extremely concerned with *preparedness*, but he never directly suggested I carry anything in particular. The only thing he was *very* adamant about when I was young was that I read all of Jack London's works - he just felt every boy should read them.

Perhaps that guided what my wife jokingly refers to nowadays as the "adventure kit" I always have at hand - knife, flashlight, lighter and a basic first aid kit (always in my glove box or in a pack when hiking )

DH


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## Howard (Dec 7, 2004)

My Father always tells me to bring lots of ID just in case something happens so people can identify you later.


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## WouldaShoulda (Aug 5, 2009)

Howard said:


> My Father always tells me to bring lots of ID just in case something happens so people can identify you later.


That's what fingerprints, dental records and DNA are for!!


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## Howard (Dec 7, 2004)

WouldaShoulda said:


> That's what fingerprints, dental records and DNA are for!!


But you also need a visual too,fingerprints,dental records and DNA might help but you need a picture as well.


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## ASK (Feb 27, 2010)

Haha, I never had advice on what to bring, but Im sure he assumed I would bring along a healthy dose of common sense.


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## Howard (Dec 7, 2004)

ASK said:


> Haha, I never had advice on what to bring, but Im sure he assumed I would bring along a healthy dose of common sense.


always bring common sense with you wherever you go.


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