Wow! lots of stuff I'd forgotten. Dimmer switches on the floor....totally had forgotten that. I recall the frustration when shifting gears and needing to dim the lights at the same time. crazy
My 1st recollections were of a house in S. Missouri on a dirt road (main road in the area) with the electricity in our front room provided by wiring with brown rough textured insulation (cloth?) mounted to the wall on white glass insulators with a rotary switch to turn the only light bulb in the room hanging in the center of the room on the same type of insulator. Water for the kitchen sink provided by a pitcher pump next to it on the counter... which drained out of the house by a pipe that just went outside to run away from the house in the yard. "Cabinets" were just fabric hung to cover the shelves. Outhouse in back. Only business in town was a combination gas station, feed store, post office, and had some groceries. Church next door where ladies organization had quilting bee's where they made quilts to help finance the church activities and my dad's salary(He did circuit of 3 small churches). Boxes full of rags/cloth they used were kept in the corner along with their quilting frames.
Don't recall our phone, but grandparents used a wall mounted crank type that as I recall had no dial....they had to tap the "speaker" hanger to get the operator so they could connect. Party line which confused me about why they didn't answer every time it rang. laugh Wood cook stove only heat in the house.
In HS gas was about 25 cents and gas wars would go down to 15cents. Buddy had a Mustang convertible 6 banger and the 4 of us all chipped in a quarter for gas and we could tool around all night. cool