Sounds like they knew more than the doctors!
Back then, it was doctors job to make insulin dosage decisions. The concept of basal, bolus was not used as far as I know. Goal was to keep you alive, and not pass out from lows.
But Erics story doesn’t fit this, and I think his parent were a big part of that!
Did you remember to vary your writing and make it look like you did it real time ? 
My recollection is 5 drops urine, 5 drops water into test tube, then drop in the tablet and watch it bubble up. But don’t touch bottom of tube, it gets HOT! Then compare color of liquid to chart, and log based on number of pluses on the closest color.
I guess I really missed something.
My doctor never even mentioned any protocol for diabetes when I was diagnosed or after. I figured out my dosages and meal times pretty much on my own.
It really was only after I started seeing an endo about 20 years later did a doctor ever take an active role in treating my diabetes.
not only did I remember to vary, I took the deception one step further: crafty as I am, I even used different pens with different colors! 
I do remember the test tube and a tablet to drop into the urine. I then graduated to Tes-tape which was easier to use in the mens room. If it stayed yellow I was fine, if it turned green, I took some regular insulin. Did that for 30/40 years until Dexcom came along.
@Cattell Welcome to FUD! Great to see another old timer.
Did taking R corrections (based on old data) on top of normal R and Lente or NPH cause a lot of lows for you? I only did that twice and both times wound up in the back of an ambulance.
I’m guessing that I was pretty high most of the time so was not bothered too much with lows. Hypos became more of a problem when cgm came along and I became more venturesome. I later became a single parent of four children and with my endo’s blessing aimed for 200 for many years.I do remember one time one of my sons called from college an hour and a half away. I was obviously low So he drove home gave me some orange juice, waited til I was ok and went back to college!
@docslotnick - I was never even told about the concept of corrections until I started going to the Diabetes clinic. Didn’t know about pre-bolusing either, or CGM and a whole host of other things. The PA and CDEs have been a wealth of knowledge and have helped me bring my a1C down from 8.6 to 6.5. They are awesome!
Mine was made by and called Clinitest.
Blue was Negative for glucose in urine, while various shades of Green ranged from “Trace, 1+, 2+, and 3+”.
4+ was bright orange. No telling what level of sugars we had then 
My recollection was that it was of some use because I was told to have a pee, have a drink, wait 20 minutes and then pee on stick or in tube.
This gave me one of 2 results I was high, over 180, at that moment or I was not. So I could make a treatment decision of sorts.
Now I just look at my watch, how far have we come?
Test-Tape was what it was called, yeller B 4 use. Now I DO RECALL; pale pea green, a little sweet, med green U were a little sweeter, and if N me peed turned it BLUE, WoW… having a Blue Grass Day!
All this faux painless testing BS, we, or at least I had true painless testing, back in my test tape days.
Gomer
Yep. That’s it
[docslotnick] Pee Tests: I remember the sticks and the test tape. It was used for testing for the amount of glucose in the urine. Of course if it indicated glucose that meant the BG level was over the renal threshold.
I used the test tape to check diet drinks for sugar. It was very helpful since there were many drinks that were not sugar free. Of course the test tape no longer exists. The sticks to exist and can be used for the same test.
By the way the test tape was made by Lilly. It was a lot less expensive than the sticks. Just a drop of fluid on the tape gave the indication. The yellow tape turned green if there was sugar in the drink or glucose in the urine.
I remember the pee strips well. Before they came along, you had to use a test tube and put some tablets into the tube and shake it. The top would sometimes come off getting pee onto the floor and maybe on you as well.
Were the strips useful? Yes, but only because that was all we had to give us any idea what our BGs were.
The problem with pee tests included:
1). It only indicated the average “spilled” BG since the last time you emptied your bladder. Therefore, you are integrating your “spilled” BG readings over a period of time wherein the BG may be going high or low.
2). Since it was only giving you an average over a long period of time (hours maybe), you BG reading using a pee strip could be way off.
3). It only read the amount of sugar “spilled” into your urine. My recollection was that most people spill glucose into their urine when the BG is above 180 mg/dl.
I recall drinking lots of liquid to try to pee more often and therefore improve the accuracy, especially when I felt like I was off.
Nevertheless, you could use it to tell you that your BG was off, particularly if it was high over longer periods of time. We would also use ketone strips more often then since if your BG was high, you needed to worry that you maybe in KA.
Keep in mind that not only were type 1s not able to closely monitor their BGs, but the insulins back then were also harder to deal with. They absorption curves that were much longer for the short acting insulins (eg R) and not very constant for the long acting insulins (eg NPH).
In short, the blood glucose strips were a G-d send.
It was a miracle any of us made it out of that period alive
Yes it is.
I wonder how many type-1’s died at an early age due to hypoglycemic events? The pee strips were useless for detecting low BG levels.
I had literally dozens of extreme hypos with convulsive episodes as a little gaffer (all at night thanks to Lente and / or NPH insulins).
These were brutal hypos, the type that often left me unable to speak or walk for 24 hours or longer.
I’m quite sure I wasn’t the only one going through this.
I believe that if I was over 250mg/dl my pee test, obtained by peeing into a glass and using a dropper to drop 5 drops onto a magic tablet with the required amount of water and into a small, provided, test tube would show that I had high blood sugar and it would do it in a matter of minutes. I also had a bottle of ketone test tablets; drop one drop of pee onto the tablet, wait, if it turned blue you had ketones.
At that time (early 70’s) the hospital doctors did have test strips available, but they were way to expensive to let patients have them.
So, I kind of agree - as a management technique absolutely useless, however as a way of judging sugar levels since I last pee’ed they were, I guess, sort-of-useful. Not that I ever took any notice; hypos were much more of an issue and clinitabs did not help for that.