I'm so old, I remember when...

[tjwash]

...there were 12 inch floppy drives, message boards were called "echo's", and 64KB of RAM was the norm.

How old are you?

[Shell Beau]

1. I'm so old that I remember metal lunchboxes!!

(even though I am only 27) :P

[tjwash]

8. I had a metal spiderman lunch box when I was a kid.

With one of those thermoses my mom would put hot soup in.

[Shell Beau]

10. My mom would put Spaghetti O's in mine!! Ah, memories!

[KitchenWitch]

2. I remember when there were no hard drives

programs were stored on cassette tapes.

and for larger computers....the punch cards.

[MissB]

6. .

Gawd, don't you hate that?

I'm so old, that I remember when computers weren't every-freakin-where. I have an old HP calculator stored around here somewhere that took punch cards (not mine, dh's).

[Call Me Wesley]

9. Awww,

Moon landing! I could play it for hours! (I always crashed.)

[merh]

40. LOL - I remember punch cards

In high school we had to write a computer program using punch cards. The program involved solving a mathematical problem. I did the work and prepared my punch card, fed it into the computer and the computer rejected it, spit it back out at me.

I fretted over my work, recalculated the equations and verified my punch card. Then I tried it again, fed that beige card with holes into the reader and it did it again.

This time the teacher verified my work, double checked my card and had be fed it into the machine. And again, the reader rejected it.

The teacher had me step away from the reader and the computer and got one of my classmates to fed my punchcard into the reader and it took it and the program worked.

I found out I have a unique magnetic/electrical current. To this day, most watches I wear stop working within weeks of ownership, I can't touch credit cards or debit cards too much or they stop working and, I promise you, I can go under street lights and make them turn off. :shrug:

[Kali]

67. heh - my husband has similar problems

I will never fly in a plane with him - ha ha

[merh]

70. Damn

I never thought of that. :scared:
No wonder flying has always made me uneasy.

Note to self: Never visit the cockpit of a plane or get too close to the pilot.

:hi:

[latebloomer]

92. Funny-- the street light thing affects my husband, too!

Airplanes, huh?-- something else to worry about?

Good thing we can't really afford to fly anywhere.

[merh]

115. Gosh, I am so glad that the lights happen to others.

It is such a weird feeling. At first you think it is a fluke, but then you realize it isn't.

How's he do in the winter on carpet? Do you just hate be touched by him or accidently touch him?

He must be sure to ground himself before he pumps gas.

And yes, I can't afford to fly either, so I just found my glass half full.

:hi:

[latebloomer]

125. Well, we live in Jersey, so we don't pump gas

No self-service here!

Electric shocks?-- hmm, I don't think that's been too much out of normal range. And we have rugs but no carpets. I'll have to pay more attention to that this winter.

But the streetlight thing-- he was getting a little paranoid and tinfoil-hattish about that for a while-- now he just accepts it. I've witnessed it many times walking with him.

Did you ever hear of "indigo children"? The streetlight thing is supposed to be one of their traits. It means you're very evolved spiritually, out of the mainstream,often don't fit in-- many "ADD-ers" among them-- and have been put here on earth to help enlighten us. I take it with a large grain of salt, but who knows?

[merh]

127. Indigo children?

I've never heard of that. Can I just do a google to learn more?

And what do you mean you don't pump your own gas in Jersey? Why, I never heard of such. I thought full service stations were just folklore.

I don't think I have seen a full service station in 5 years or more. :freak:

[latebloomer]

133. Yep, you can google it

It's more than a bit over the top, IMHO, but some of it makes sense.

And yes, in New Jersey there are NO self-service stations.

I blush to admit, I don't know HOW to pump gas. I tried it a couple of times and the gas oozed all over the place.

[merh]

135. I find that remarkable.

Now I want to go to New Jersey. It has been so long since I had someone pump my gas for me. It would be so special, as if I was royalty.

I'm looking at indigo children now. You are right, some of its over the top, but some of it is does make sense.

[newscott]

130. I am subject to static electric shocks just about anywhere anytime

It can be warm and sunny or cold and rainy.

I must have some attraction for electricy.

[merh]

131. Then take care when pumping gas, be sure to ground yourself

before you begin. And go indoors when the lightning begins.

You can never be too cautious.

A belated welcome to DU :hi:

[Sequoia]

199. Wow, that happens to me with watches and street lights

I have a real cheap watch on now and it doesn't seem to affect it though. The street light thing only seemed to happen when I'm in my car when I lived in Los Angeles. These things seemed to have weakened now.

Did you ever see that X Files episode about the guy who couldn't get near lights because they would always go off. One of my favorite!

[Neil Lisst]

220. And the "computer room" at big banks was more important

than the vault. It had to remain air conditioned 24/7, and the entire operation worked around this room full of computers, card punchers, and magnetic tapes. And the whole thing wouldn't do what your cell phone will now.

[Left Is Write]

3. I'm so old I remember collecting 45s.

To play on my turntable.

I'm so old, I know what "don't touch that dial" means.

I'm so old, I remember Halloween costume parades in school, rotary phones, television with only three or five channels, rabbit ears, real linoleum, pumping the gas pedal to get the car to turn over, and doubleknit polyester.

[Gormy Cuss]

31. That was a great trip down memory lane...

up to the point where you mentioned doubleknits.

I'm so old I remember when home record players were mostly High Fidelity and there were three speeds on the turntable (it was lots of fun playing that 45 at 78 RPM, too.)

Real linoleum is making a comeback although it's rather pricey and not exactly the same as the durable old stuff we had back then. I'm toying with replacing the vinyl flooring in my kitchen with the real thing. It's the routine waxing that gives me pause.

[Left Is Write]

35. LOL!

Doubleknit polyester should have been outlawed.

[SeattleGirl]

118. Especially if it comes in turquoise!

:puke:

[Sequoia]

200. I did 4-H sewing with that slippery fabric.

A bright yellow pant suit, ugh. Back then, I thought I was pretty cool and groovy.

[liberalitch]

73. I still have a rotary phone..... the one that was in my bedroom at...

16 that is heavy enough to use as a blunt instrument.

[latebloomer]

93. What about princess phones?

I had a sky blue one.

[liberalitch]

161. Black for me!

Lit up green on the inside!

[serryjw]

137. I won a Hoola-Hoop contest

Gas for my corvair was only 18 cents/gallon

[Pithlet]

222. You mean, they don't do costume parades anymore?

I remember all that other stuff, too. I can remember whem my grandmother got a pushbutton phone, and wanting one for our own house so bad. I thought it was so cool how the little buttons lit up and made tones when you pushed them.

[kmla]

4. ....I would go to the 'cut-out' bin, and buy some bargain 8-tracks.

...and there were only 4 channels to watch on the TV - NBC, ABC, CBS, and the local independentt station.

And gas was $.29 a gallon...

[tjwash]

14. YES! 8 tracks! You can't tell me shit unless you owned an 8 track.

The whole tape had to be good, because you only got one shot to hear your favorite song. Then there was right in the middle of a great guitar riff, **click** and then change tracks...

[liberalitch]

71. Aren't there crazy people wandering the streets today....

talking to themselves about having invested in that technology.....

[KitchenWitch]

5. I remember black and white TV

No remote controls...

[Eugene]

146. I remember black and white TV without UHF.

We had to wait a minute or two for the TV set to warm
up before the sound and picture came on (vacuum tubes).

[Call Me Wesley]

7. Wow,

I remember all this too. Took forever to read a bulletin board ...

[indigo32]

11. I used to get pop rocks

as a kid.
watch the smurfs and play the original atari, not to mention pong.

[Metta]

12. Cigarettes and gas at 27 cents.

How's that?

[tjwash]

15. 35 cents a pack out of ther bowling alley machine.

That's how everyone starts smoking.

[Kali]

69. ha

oh yeah

smoking in the alley!

[Call Me Wesley]

41. Bad.

Cigarettes and gas are bad. ;)

[Metta]

77. Hello, W.

W. Sounds like a James Bond character. How's it going?

[Call Me Wesley]

157. W

with the license to post. ;)

I'm fine, and I hope the days find you in fine spirits as well. :hi:

[Metta]

172. Drifting and dreaming.

Hi, W. I'm feeling punky this morning. ... don't know if it's a spate of allergies or if I'm getting sick. I'll keep an eye on it. Meanwhile, I have good music, coffee, DU and the baby pandas so all is not so bad. Ciao. :toast:

[Call Me Wesley]

174. We're sending some good vibes.

What's the music? :hi:

[Metta]

175. Thanks for the vibes; I *am* feeling a little better.

Just finished listening to a Rosemary Clooney/ Duke Ellington collaboration for the first time and I'm going to try to figure out an Archie Roach song for someone else in the lounge. :)

[Call Me Wesley]

176. I think I crashed Google

trying to answer wildhorses' Archie Roach question. :shrug:

[Abelman]

13. Not that old

But I feel old since I work with kids - I'm only 23.

It is fun to tell them "I was playing video games before you were born," but I can only do that with the youngest. I work with the Teenagers.

I find it very odd they can remember stuff from my childhood when I was in 3rd grade. They would have been 3 or 4.

But, I still remember cassette tape computers (Hangman was the game!), life without the Internet, and cassette tapes instead of CDs.

When I was a youth, the big computer game at school was "Oregon Trail." No one could afford their own computer yet, so we all hurried to finish typing class so we could play it. It was some hard shit.

[Patiod]

16. The first year of Fed Ex, the first year of faxes

reports delivered to clients via US Mail! Those were the days ("it's in the mail") I really miss the slower pace of business!

[Left Is Write]

21. Remember when faxes were always on that shiny paper that curled up?

[Patiod]

58. My boss got a fax before anyone else

I used to tease her and ask her who she was going to send faxes to

[trackfan]

17. ...it was okay to take apples on Halloween

as well as loose, unwrapped candy.

...The Second Hundred Years (TV series)

...The Gypsy Rose Lee Show.

...The Seattle Pilots

..."Moms" Mably (sp?)

[skygazer]

18. I'm so old I remember cigarette commercials on TV

I remember only having to dial five numbers of a phone number (on a rotary phone). I remember 78 and 16 rpm records.

I remember Lyndon Johnson being President, I remember seeing young men in Army trucks driving by my house on their way to the airport to embark for Vietnam (we used to stand on the lawn and wave little flags for them).

I remember milkmen and egg deliveries. I remember "blue laws" when all the businesses were closed on Sundays.

I'm older than dirt.

[swag]

99. You must be 44 or 45.

[Dave Reynolds]

19. I remember hand chokes on cars,

for those cold weather starts. I remember how to work a "3 on the tree" transmission.

I remember FidoNet.

I remember being a co-SYSOP of a BBS.

[tjwash]

27. My first car, a 1963 Corvair.

[Kali]

78. I have my grandfather's 64 lakewood!

[skygazer]

30. I learned to drive on a three on the tree

Still prefer a manual transmission to an automatic. And I remember the chokes, too.

That's a walk down memory lane! :hi:

[bertha katzenengel]

20. you really DIALED a telephone, dashboards were metal, seat belts were

mom's arm, marijuana was the biggest drug problem, the space program was thoroughly exciting, Bob Griese and Kenny "the Snake" Stabler and Roger Staubach were the big quarterbacks . . .

[Left Is Write]

23. Along the lines of that last one...

I remember The Purple People Eaters.

[bertha katzenengel]

24. Yes, the Minnesota Vikings of -- '71?

I know 1972 was the Year of the Dolphin.

:hi: L-W

i gotta go home! 'night, all

[trackfan]

26. and the Fearsome Foursome n/t

[mzteris]

212. One-eyed, one-horned FLYING

Purple People Eaters!

:rofl:

How about "Alley Ooop"?

Or "Little Nash Rambler"?

[DainBramaged]

22. I'm so old AM pocket radios were the IPod's of my generation

[liberalitch]

72. Ah, the fights on car trips with my sister

[In_The_Wind]

25. I'm so old I remember when computers were huge!

[trackfan]

29. They would bring us on a field trip to some college

to see "the computer", and it took up an entire, huge room.

[SeattleGirl]

122. You and me both Joani!

First computer I dealt with took up an entire room. Now I'm typing on a laptop.....who'da thunk? :shrug:

[In_The_Wind]

145. 5 years ago I didn't own a computer ...

Now I seldom leave home for more than a few hours without it.

:hi::hug:

[gollygee]

28. My friend's dad worked with a computer that used little punch cards

that made a lot of paper waste. He'd bring homd old punch cards for us to draw on. Like it was good drawing paper. LOL

[Left Is Write]

34. My dad brought home stacks of used computer paper...

It was extra wide. It was light green on the front, where the printing was, and white on the back. We kids drew for hours and hours and hours on the back of that paper. That paper was from Univac in the late 60s and early/mid 70s.

[indigo32]

43. My Dad did the same thing

[snacker]

89. Yes, and computers took up whole rooms,

they were huge!

[snacker]

90. The grocery store in our small town...

where the clerks actually wrote out everything you bought (with carbon paper copies, of course) and then added it up themselves without an adding machine.

[latebloomer]

156. Ah, and do you remember when cash registers

didn't tell the clerk how much change you were supposed to get?

No wonder no one can do simple arithmetic today.

[obxhead]

32. I don't remember the 12", but I remeber when the 3 1/2 was

the hot new stuff.

I also remember my first "PC" that had a monochrome monitor 2 - 5 1/4 drives and no hard drive.

[tjwash]

50. The 12's were mostly used in old style PBX systems and held the OS

[Err]

33. I'm so old I remember when Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles...

was the most popular cartoon at the time. :D

[UncleSepp]

37. Yes, but do you remember the black and white comic book?

[Err]

39. No.

I never read TMNT comic books.

[sniffa]

36. i remember the bLizzard of '78

though just bareLy.

[Saphire]

38. Getting my first look at COLOR television.....wow.

[RevCheesehead]

42. My first crush was David Cassidy.

And Bobby Sherman.

* 7 cent postage stamps.
* Rotary phones with 3-prong adapters. Whoever was closest was the "answering machine."
* One TV in the house, with outside antenna. No such luxuries as a VCR, Cable, or Computer.
* The luxury of a second car. And I knew the difference between "regular," "premium," and "diesel."
* I bought an electric typewriter when I went to college.

* I remember the electric hot comb, hot curlers, and the miracle of the blow-drier. My mom used Dippity-Do, and curled her hair every Saturday night.

* And the women can relate to this: The Stayfree Pad was a miracle invention - good-bye, sanitary belts! OB tampons were invented when I was in high school, and Rely tampons were pulled off the market while I was in college.

I remember (and still have) numerous 78's. And I remember that my little record player had 4 speeds: 16, 33, 45, and 78.

I also remember how people were appalled at the invention of "disposables" - pens, razors, diapers, you name it.

I vividly remember the turmoil of the Vietnam war, and saw the blown-up remains of a building at the UW campus (Madison). And I remember the assassinations. :(

I had bell-bottoms and a really cool fringed suede vest... and the dorkiest glasses on the face of the earth. Oh, and hard contact lenses, and the terror scream of "Don't move!" when one popped out.

Most of all, I remember when LIBERAL was common, and there was no such thing as the Moral Majority.

[Left Is Write]

45. Remember when "regular" mean "containing lead"?

I really miss the basic Stayfree Mini pad. There is nothing like it in existence today.

My high school graduation gift was an electric typewriter, which I own to this day.

[CottonBear]

44. I remember Walter Cronkite on the news, Vietnam & the Moon Landing

along with cars without seatbelts, metal lunchboxes, and watching Laugh In on TV (broadcast not cable, no remote controls).

[progressoid]

214. I remember our entire elemetary school gathering to watch the moon

landing on B&W TVs.

Then recess.

[Orsino]

46. I'm so old I *don't* remember when. n/t

[Debi]

47. I'm so old, I remember the Wonder Twins

Moon Boots


Members Only jackets

And the Sugar Hill Gang

Ahhh, yes, Rapper's Delight!!!

[izzie]

48. I'm so old I recall the Italians in a prison camp in the next town

and falling in love with all the RAF and Canadian men in uniform in Canada.

[mikeargo]

49. I'm so old...

Long-time lurker (would you believe before the 2000 election?) trying my first post...I'm so old I remember when most televsion stations signed off before midnight with the national anthem.

[tjwash]

52. Welcome to DU!

I remember they began and ended the day with the national anthem, and there were only three stations on the dial.

[obxhead]

53. WOW...

All that time here and you never became enraged enough to bitch us out.

amazing.
well here's to the posting life
:toast:

[Crazy Guggenheim]

55. Welcome to DU!

[ScreamingMeemie]

81. No I would not believe..that would make you here longer than Skinner,

the guy who created the site. :hi: Welcome to DU.

[NV Whino]

86. Welcome to posting, lurker!

:hi:

[mwooldri]

121. I'm not that old, but BBC One still "signs off" with the National Anthem,

And then hands right over to its sister channel News 24 which is a satellite/digital only channel. I'm of course talking about life in the UK.

Oh, and the BBC's flagship domestic radio station, BBC Radio 4, signs off with the national anthem too (then switches over to World Service) and then signs on with a medley of national songs.

Still happens today.

Whatever happened to tradition in the USA?

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

205. Errrrrr

DU did NOT exist before the 2000 election.

[mikeargo]

209. oops

Ive been lurking since 2003. My apologies. I'm still trying to get the hang of the mechanics of posting, but rest assured i'm not a Freeper or a Moran.

[jobycom]

51. I'm so old I remember New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast

:cry:

[Catfight]

54. I remember carbon paper was used for copies. nt

[Kali]

79. remember mimeographs? Dittos?

That smell? mmmmmmm

[likesmountains 52]

104. oh, I can still recall the smell of mimeographs! And I had forgotten

about the TV sign off to the national anthem. How'd I get to be so old?

[trackfan]

141. All us kids would be sniffing the mimeos when the teacher

handed them out

[SoCalDem]

189. The warm ones were the best ..:)

ahhh a warm mimeo :)

[tjwash]

195. Yes, that smelly ink. We loved it...nt

[trof]

56. I remember glass milk bottles, delivered by the milkman.

Listening to Sky King on the radio after school and sending off for a Sky King glow-in-the-dark ring.
I spent hours on the basement stairs watching it glow.

The local grocery store where I handed one of the clerks granny's shopping list and he filled it. No self-service back then.

I'm older than dirt.
;-)

[mwooldri]

116. Hey! They still deliver milk in glass bottles!

At least my granny does ;) (she lives in the UK - milkmen still exist there).

[Crazy Guggenheim]

57. Computers!?!?!?!? I remember when we had the Abucus! And we

were thankful!

[Zookeeper]

59. I remember that my mother had a car with....

a push-button transmission. I was a pre-schooler at the time and thought those buttons were great fun to play with whenever I was alone in the car.

And I remember *knobs*! I miss having knobs on radios and T.V.s instead of buttons, but I don't miss having the knobs go missing and have to change channels with a pair of pliers.

[Left Is Write]

62. Changing channels with a pliers! I remember doing that!

[benburch]

60. BZZZT! We Disrupt This Thread For An Important Announcement!

[edbermac]

61. So old I remember when Sigmund Freud was in med school...

:silly:

[Left Is Write]

63. That's old.

:P

[XemaSab]

64. I remember...

7.5" floppies (is that right? the big, flat ones?)

Pre-mouse computers

Black and white computers

Pac Man and Donkey Kong

Rotary Phones (no car phones, faxes, push-buttons, or any of that, and this was WAY before the internet)

Return of the Jedi in the theater

The TV had a knob and got Channel 2 (pre-FOX), NBC, CBS, ABC, PBS, channel 20 (pre-WB!) and channel 44 (pre-UPN!).

We got a VCR!!!!! (VHS dude, but my friend had BETA)

321 Contact!

That's about what I got...

[pdx_prog]

65. I'm so damn old....

I remember Sky King, air raid drills at school, party lines (my number was TU1-2904), push button gear selectors in cars, space food sticks, JFK assasination, Woodstock, Motown, Route 66, clomper stompers, S and H greenstamps, self service TV tube testing machines, Dick and Jane readers, Twiggy, "Black is Beautiful" buttons and stickers, Peter Max posters, aluminum Christmas trees, "Freak ins", "freak outs", flower power, Kent State, Flashbulbs, Josephine the plumber, Mr. Whipple, Madge the manicurist, "Grit" newspapers, and avocado kitchen appliances.

[DainBramaged]

68. Christ, want some of my Ben-Gay? Or Carter's Little Liver Pills?

I thought my knees were a knocking!!!


I hated going into my grammar school basement to "duck and cover" under the lunch tables. As if we would have walked out if the Russians had been able to get an A-Bomb to my school.

[pdx_prog]

179. It was a little freaky....

those air raid drills scared the bejeebies out of a lot of kids...

[Zookeeper]

74. I'd forgotten about S and H greenstamps!

But I remember that my mother smoked a brand of cigarettes that included coupons that could be redeemed for prizes. I sent them in for a cool mosaic ashtray and a Barbie doll. :smoke: "Wow! Thanks for smoking another pack of cigarettes, mom!" :smoke:

[SeattleGirl]

128. OMG! Those are my memories exactly!

We must be about the same age......

[pdx_prog]

178. I'll never tell....lol

Before 1960 anyway....lol

[DanCa]

66. I remember springsteen madonna way back before nirvanna

I have a commodore sixty four up in my attic along with my atari two hundred video pong game, and a beta max.

[CBHagman]

164. I had my first real job when Born to Run came out.

That means I've been employed, with a few months on and off here, for THIRTY YEARS! :cry:

[TallahasseeGrannie]

75. I remember when milk came in glass bottles and

was delivered on your doorstep
I remember when babies slept on their tummies
I remember wax sandwich bags
I remember record players
I remember black and white TV
I remember test patterns on TV after the 11 o'clock news
I remember imbedded commands in early word processors
I remember being a lot younger than today

[mzteris]

213. Using the wax paper

to "polish" the sliding board at school so you'd go faster??

[Mizmoon]

76. I'm so old I remember:

Honda Kick n Gos, rub-a-dub dolly, 4k computers, tape drives, dot matrix printers, word processors, "You Light Up My Life", Farrah, pet rocks, and:

Steve Austin, Astronaut.
Man barely alive.
We can rebuild him
We have the technology.
We can make him better than he was before.
Better. Stronger. Faster.

[Oeditpus Rex]

80. And when you called someone on your rotary phone

you thought "HArrison 2" or whatever your exchange prefix was.

Local exchanges when I was a kid were HArrison, FRontier and GLenview.

And when we called my aunt in Arkansas, everybody gathered around the phone (the only one in the house), and you had to call the operator and tell her (yes, her) you wanted to make a station-to-station call to Monticello, Arkansas — EM7...

[NV Whino]

87. Wait a minute, I remember FRontier

Was that Manhattan Beach?

[Oeditpus Rex]

100. Nope... Salinas

HArrison 2 and 4 covered most of it. FRontier 9 was the north part and GLenview 5 the new residential area south of town.

That was in the mid-'60s. Now Salinas has 25 prefixes.

[NV Whino]

180. I think Manhattan Beach had FRontier also.

I can't remember the ones from Colorado, but I definitely remember a FRontier so it must have been MB.

This is actually somewhat ironic. I miss the old letter prefixes, but I bitch about the cute all letter designations that some businesses use today.

[snacker]

88. We shared a party-line with a neighbor...

if the phone rang once, it was a call for them; if the phone rang twice, it was our house......AND you could listen to their calls.

[Catfight]

162. We had a party line too. That sucked but I remember it. nt

[progressoid]

211. Ha - my grandmother used to pick up and listen to the neighbor's

convesations all the time. When we would catch her she would always have a lame excuse.

[trackfan]

142. Mine was (and still is) CLinton

in northeast Los Angeles, my grandparents' was CApitol, my aunt's was ATlantic, Glendale numbers were CItrus, and downtown LA was, of course, (and this brings back another slew of memories of TV commercials) RIchmond....RI9xxxx

[NV Whino]

82. 28 cents a gallon gas

I'm ancient.

[blockhead]

83. ......dirt was new!

eom

[Awsi Dooger]

84. 19 cents a gallon for diesel

We had a Mercedes 220D and one station down the street was 19.9 for diesel for quite a while.

A bit down the road was a Burger King and I remember the menu prices: 35 cents for a Whopper, 19 cents for regular hamburgers, 21 cents for fries and 25 cents for a milk shake.

[liberaltrucker]

85. Alan Sheppard went into space

and when JFK died. One happy, one tragic. I'm 51.

[latebloomer]

91. "Hey kids, what time is it?"

"It's Howdy Doody Time!"

I was a member of the Mickey Mouse Club, too.

And a Kukla, Fran and Ollie fan.

Anyone remember "Ding Dong School" with Miss Frances?-- she was kinda scary.

And Winky-Dink-- you were supposed to put a see-thru sheet on your TV and draw on it, but I remember (once!) coloring directly on the TV!

[Zookeeper]

103. Remember Soupy Sales?

He and Jonathon Winters bear at least a little responsibility for my warped sense of humor!


Edited for a warped sense of spelling.

[latebloomer]

106. Sure I do!

Was he nationwide, or just a NYC phenomenon?

And wasn't he the one who urged kids to take out those pieces of paper with the Presidents' pictures on them from their dads' wallets, and mail them to him?

[Zookeeper]

114. Yes, he did! And, if I remember correctly, he was taken off...

the air for that, at least temporarily.

As a kid, I thought he belonged to us (at the time) Detroiters, but Mr. Zookeeper is a Californian and watched him as well.

I've found a few videos of his shows, but I don't think many survived. I still miss White Fang and Black Tooth!

[latebloomer]

120. There was another kiddie show MC

a little before my time, who thought he was off-air and said, at the end, "That oughta satisfy the little bastards for today!"

Needless to say, that ended his on-air career.

[Zookeeper]

143. OK, Latebloomer, you'll love this....

So, I mentioned your post to my trivia-loving spousal unit, who said that the MC was a 1930's radio host. Mr. Zookeeper also said that he had heard a clip of it, but couldn't remember the host's name.

So, I started to respond to your post, then decided I could probably use Google to find the name. I ended up at snopes.com. It turns out that the story is an urban legend, AND that someone actually did record a "reenactment" which is what Mr. Zookeeper heard.

I love Snopes!

(I also used Snopes recently to reassure my daughter that the story she had just heard about tumors in fast food chicken sandwiches was false. You don't want to hear the details of that rumor!)

[latebloomer]

154. Oh, that's disappointing!

It was such a good story-- my dad told it to me.

[Zookeeper]

208. Ooops!

'Sorry, Latebloomer....:blush:

[Ptah]

94. I'm so old,

I remember milking by hand and the cranking
the seperator, butchering the chicken,
dipping it into the cream, then coating it with the
flour harvested in August, and frying it in a big
pot in the same room that Grandma had a gasoline powered
washing machine.

[Neil Lisst]

95. "Don't slam the screen door!"

that's how old I am

[Catfight]

163. ROFLMAO...I totally remember the "don't slam the screen door." nt

[Neil Lisst]

219. It was part of a sequence of events and sounds ...

It was usually yelled just as the kid was charging out the door in one uninterrupted motion, with said screen door flying open.

The screen door would either get stuck all the way open, OR, come back and slam, with the spring making a humming and whining noise on the way back.

Either way, Mom and Dad didn't like it.

That screen door made a distinctive slam when it came swinging back.

Oh the days before everyone had air conditioning.

[latebloomer]

96. Oh, and what about candy cigarettes?

And those wax bottles full of syrup?

And the necklaces made of candy that melted and got all sticky on your neck?

[swag]

97. I'm so old, I remember pulling 15 cent glass bottles of pop from machines

out front the gas station.

And I remember when LBJ was president.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

139. Fifteen cents? I remember ten cent bottles of pop

that stood in ice water and were held in place by metal "collars." Putting a dime in the machine let you slide a bottle out of its line to a place where you could pull it out.

[swag]

98. I'm so old, I remember duping the previous post.

I remember my President Nixon
the bills I have to pay
and even yesterday.

I remember the day my dad came home from the war in Vietnam.

[WCGreen]

105. You're so old... You truple clicked instead of double clicked...

:rofl:

I remember they use to stack them with vertically with the cap side showing out...

One night, me and my brother and Joey Bishop (real name) went up to the Sinclair (another hint as to how old I am) and took a bottle cap and a bucket...

We opened all the pop bottles and a lot of the pop drained into the bucket...

But the Joey and my brother got greedy and wanted to get all the pop...

They decided to tip the machine so that more pop would drain out of the machine....

Well, they tipped it to far the whole thing came crashing down....

All the fucking pop spilled out....

[swag]

108. You lived down the street and stole all the watermelons that one year.

I think that was you, anyway. Bad teenager.

They had chocolate pop once at the Sinclair in Cross Plains.

I think Ole was the guy who ran the Sinclair in Black Earth.

In 1966 or 1967, Sinclair sponsored this great exhibit of life-sized dinosaurs on the backs of flatbed trucks in the parking lot of the shopping mall in Madison. Life was so good!

Sorry about all the pop that spilled out. Was it all one pop in the bucket or was it a mishmash?

[WCGreen]

117. Mish MAsh....

And I remember the Sinclair travelin' show....

Damn, I had forgotten all about that till tonight...

They were i a church parking lot in Garfield Hts. Ohio...

Thanks for rejuventaing the memory...


As for the pop....

It was whatever was in their...

Frosty root beer was one such drink...

but Mostly coke and orange...

[flowomo]

101. when the lady on kids TV show drank a glass of milk to Eisenhower...

yep. They'd play "Hail to the Chief" every morning and she'd drink a milk toast to Ike. This was in the early 50's in the Boston area.

[DainBramaged]

110. I have an empty "I Like IKE" Cigarette pack from then

My parents talked about him like he was god, just like the fundies talk about Bishy Boy. I don't know how I got it, but I remember saving it when I was very small in my "stuff" box (which I still have, including some other interesting bits from my childhood and teenage years). It's red and white striped with a picture of Ike in blue.

[flowomo]

119. does it look like this:

[DainBramaged]

160. Exactly like that. Amazing what we save, without reason or forethought

[rurallib]

102. All phones were dial, we had a 3 digit phone number

and everyone was on a party line. Private lines way too expensive. Electric trams were the norm (midwest city) and of course the US was at war - this one in Korea.

[mwooldri]

124. Maybe my life is way too backward...

... I guess growing up in the UK might do it. In 1990, we moved, and as a consequence we changed our phone number to: 201. 200 was the Post Office, 202 was the village store. Why we had 201 I don't know. Phone numbers could only run from 200 to 899, as 100-199 and 900-999 was reserved for the phone company.

oh btw I'm only 31.

[brook]

107. So old I remember reading V-mails

from my various uncles in the service during WWII.

[swag]

109. I'm so old I remember when I got my first Hollywood Loaf while browsing

an issue of Police Gazette at the Circle K.

[WCGreen]

134. Mine was when my mother took me to the beauty shop

and I happened to see the provoctive drawings in the back of the fashion magazines....

Which is why, of course, I did not turn gay....

Not that there is anything wrong with that....

[alarimer]

111. I'm so old I remember UHF

We had three or four VHF channels plus maybe one UHF which was like channel 13 or 23 or something. I remember in the early days of cable when HBO only ran a few hours a night. My mom and her friends got mad when it cut of just as they were about to reveal who did on some murder movie (it was an Agatha Christie movie but I can't remember the name now).

[havocmom]

112. So old I remember my uncle's home build computer

and the stares of all the neighbor kids and their parents at his monster reel to reel machine in many large steel cases as big a our big fridges now but much bigger than what most had in their kitchens back then.

His home made home computer took up a third of his new fangled two car garage. All those spinning reels made me a bit dizzy.

Man o man, what he could have done with the toys we have today :D

[Guy Fawkes]

113. I remember Elizabeth I...

Those were the days.

[sakabatou]

123. I remember when TMNT was the coolest thing on earth

[erinlough]

126. I remember having the first Barbie doll,

a Chatty Kathy doll too. I remember "Ding Dong School" on our 12 inch TV. And one of the first slinky toys. I remember watching first runs of I Love Lucy and the Milton Berle show. I remember the Cuban Missle Crisis being the first political situation I was interested in and listened to my parents and Grandparents discuss. I remember when we had a milkman and a Fuller Brush salesman who made regular visits out in the country. I remember when we raised turkeys and it was profitable because there was no such thing as getting a frozen turkey from a Grocery store. I remember how hard canning your own food was.

[Zookeeper]

144. Chatty Kathy doll?

I'm embarrassed to admit that somewhere in a box in my garage I still have a rather grubby "Charmin' Chatty" doll. (I guess I'm waiting for it to become collectible....) She is skinny, wears a sailor suit, round glasses and straight blond hair with bangs. She hasn't talked since about 1966. I think Mattel made them right after Chatty Kathy.

[latebloomer]

159. I had an original Barbie, too

She had a platinum blonde "bubble cut" and blue eyes. My girlfriend's had an auburn ponytail.

We must have been 10 or 11 when we were playing with them. My daughter discarded hers at 5 or 6 for being too babyish.

[mwooldri]

129. From the UK perspective:

I remember:

It was the Post Office that operated the telephone service.
when Channel Four came on air.
when our ITV station changed hands.
FM radio was called VHF, and AM was medium wave.
when local Radio stations were started up.
My first computer: black and white and programs on cassette tape.
The death of 405 line black and white television.
when the bus service was de-nationalized.
Thatcher selling off all the utilities.
Thatcher selling off all the nationalized industries (coal, steel, car making, etc).
our first colour television.
paying for our television with a coin meter.
coin meters for the electricity.
the abolition of dog licences.
the scrapping of the pound note.
Thatcher coming to power.
Thatcher getting kicked out.
The Tory sleaze.
the Falklands conflict.
our school getting its first computer.
our school raising money for a VHS video recorder.
if you had prank calls you could have an operator intercept.

I'm sure there's more but that's all in this brainstorming period. I'm sleepy. Night y'all.

[ThatsMyBarack]

132. Lemme think.....

Oh, yeah! I'm sooooo old I remember:

1. Sesame Street without Elmo, and with characters such as Mr. Hooper, Herbert Birdsfoot, Harvey Kneeslapper, and Roosevelt Franklin.

2. The Ice Follies (with Sesame Street characters!) and the Ice Capades (with Hanna-Barbera characters and the Ice Cappettes!).

[tjwash]

136. **A Quinn Martin Production**

He ruled TV for a while there,,,

[Zookeeper]

147. "The FBI." n/t

[tjwash]

169. Cannon, Ironside, The streets of San Franciso, Mannix...

[marigold20]

215. The Fugitive

A Quinn Martin production

I was ready to battle all siblings for the TV set on Tuesday night - "but I have to watch the Fugitive!!!"

My brother and I were big "The Prisoner" fans too.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

138. I'm so old that I remember not having a TV, listening to stories on

the radio, and seeing pictures of Joseph McCarthy in Life Magazine.

The rest of you are YOUNG.

[foreigncorrespondent]

140. I'm so old...

...I remember when dinosaurs roamed the earth!!!

[NMMNG]

148. I remember 45" records and 25 cent candy bars

I also remember when there was no such thing as a "car seat" for a baby.

[Zookeeper]

150. I love your sig line...

My kids and I watched that episode. It completely freaked out all of us. I actually felt bad that I exposed them to that toxic woman (although I did point out that her problem was mental illness rather than Christianity).

The best part was the end. After all of her self-righteous hysterics....she took the money anyway.:rofl:

[NMMNG]

151. Of course she took the money

The fundies are at least 80% posturing and appearances. That's why when you scrape beneath the surface you find so many of them deeply involved with child molestation, rape, adultery, embezzlement and other crimes they denounce in public.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

149. My first computer was a Commodore 64.

And I'm so old I remember:

Eisenhower
"Duck and Cover"
Flying in a Convair
Garter belts
Wool snow suits
Kids' radio shows
Hula hoops (I had a red one)
Sonic booms
Slide rules

[Eyeball Kid]

152. I'm so old...

I remember when MTV played music videos.

[RebelOne]

153. I'm so old that I remember victory gardens.

I also remember when Pearl Harbor was bombed.

[tjwash]

168. My mother in law talks about victory gardens, and rationing.

It was not an easy time when she grew up...

[LynneSin]

155. I'm so old I remember having a 10meg HD and thinking....

damn, what am I going to do with all that free disk space

:crazy:

[malta blue]

158. The New York City Subway cost a quarter...

Cigarettes were under $1 and you could smoke at the doctor's office.

People screamed bloody murder when movie prices went up to $5.

Metal lunchboxes.

[MsAnthropy]

165. Our typing pool switched from IBM Selectrics to Wang!

Gawd I'm old

[Burma Jones]

166. Danger was all around

People smoked around their children
There were NO child seats
Almost nobody wore seat belts and there were no shoulder belts
We played outside without supervision
You could get severely burned by your Creepy Crawlers maker
Instead of flashing lights, you were warned around road hazards by kerosene lamps that looked like Bombs
You could catch fish in Rock Creek (Rockville, MD)
The idea that Ronald Reagan could be President was laughable
Most people had to GET UP to change the channel



AND neither Lawyers nor Drug Companies advertised.......

[Doc Sardonic]

173. Dad never got up, I was the remote control........nt

[tjwash]

167. I remember when people smoked in the grocery store and the office.

We could just walk into the grocery store and smoke while you walked around shopping. People would just throw their butts on the floor, and step them out when they were done. You would see the grocery store floor littered with thousands of cigarette butts throughout...

[mtnester]

170. One word - PONG . . . I thought it was the coolest thing ever, friends sat

around forever, hypnotized. And you had to be well off to afford one.

Funny, we still missed hitting the damn thing, which would be an EMBARRASSMENT to a young person now.

Oh, and the joys of Frogger, and PacMan, especially if they were played in a bar, at a table, looking DOWN. And My first Apple computer which boot off a 5 1/4" floppy.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

226. One URL:

http://www.mame.net

[chknltl]

171. I remember being very afraid of Sputnik

I kept looking up for it too. I was not sure what a "Sputnik" was but I knew that the Russians had launched it and that this was not a good thing for America. I was either 4 or 5 at the time.
c

[tjwash]

177. We were absolutely horrified of the Soviets.

As I'm sure they were of us.

[chknltl]

185. Do you remember the Sputnik fears?

I think my fears were coming off of my parents and their friends, I really was frightened and elected to play indoors for awhile because of this. When I went for a ride in my Grandmother's car I recall staring out the window up into the sky keeping an eye out for this thing. Today I look back and think, "How precious", but my fears as a young child were very real to me then.

[tjwash]

193. Yes I do.

I remember my dad, and how they had a block Civil Defense meeting right after it was announced on the news.

A couple of our neighbors had bomb shelters too.

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

181. I'm so old I remember 10 cent gasoline

Damn, I'm old.

[UrbScotty]

182. I remember whe Presidents were IMPEACHED for lying about STAINS! (nt)

[SharonRB]

183. I'm so old, I remember

45s, our first color TV, paying $.19 a gallon for gas when I first got married, Eisenhower as president, poodle skirts, dressing up to travel on an airplane or go "downtown."

[tjwash]

187. "I like Ike, you like Ike, everybody likes Ike"

That was a catchy little tune...

[SharonRB]

188. I was pretty young then (born in '49), but

he's the first president I remember.

[tjwash]

191. I think you have to go back to Ike...

...to find the last republican administration that didn't have tons of scandals attached to it at the end of their terms.

[SharonRB]

194. I think you're so right, tj

Nixon, Reagan, 41 and 43. Ford wasn't there long enough, so I don't even count him. Of course, we have the Nixon pardon.

[marigold20]

216. I remember having a shouting match with a fellow 4 year old

"We Like Ike"!!!

[jeanarrett]

184. I'm so old, I remember Burger Chef

and Jeff! And they were as popular at the time as Burger King and McD's.

[SoCalDem]

190. I still miss Burger Chef..

:(

[lpbk2713]

186. I remember when radios had the Conelrad symbol on the dial.

You were supposed to tune in to that station "if this were an actual emergency", as the announcer would say.

And I remember having to adjust the horizontal hold every time the channel was changed on the TV.

[raccoon]

192. I remember when Keith Richards looked like he was still alive. nt

[tjwash]

201. Then and now

Then


And now...

[raccoon]

202. Thanks for posting those. Gosh, the difference in his face boggles

the eyes.

[ET Awful]

196. I remember why TV remote controls are sometimes called clickers

because the darn things actually clicked in the beginning :) They were a box about 4 inches long by 3 inches wide by 3 inches thick and had a total of 5 buttons. On/Off, Channel Up, Channel Down, Vol Up and Vol Down. The TV still has manual fine-tuning for the channels and cable was a pipe dream. Aerial antennae were the big thing, and there was always a ladder right by the house so you could quickly get up on the roof and adjust the antenna when the reception was messing up on Thanksgiving day while grandpa was trying to watch the game. :)

[tjwash]

197. I also remember this...

[Sequoia]

198. Manual typewriters.

Carbon copies

Dial telephones

Black and white TV

45 records

Gas at 19 cents a gallon

"Colored" and "White" water fountains

[VaYallaDawg]

203. I'm so old I remember the '60s.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

204. 8-inch floppy era child here

Also:

- More incompatible personal computer architectures than you can shake a stick at;
- Pseudographics;
- CP/M;
- cassette being the storage medium of choice;
- Typing BASIC programs from sources printed in magazines;
- HP-41CV;
- Membrane keyboards, yecch;
- FORTRAN;
- ALGOL;
- Burroughs mainframes and CANDE;
- Punch cards;
- Waiting for the printout of your program's output;
- WordStar;
- VisiCalc;
- ...

[maveric]

206. Sonic Booms, Ted Mack's Original Amateur Hour, One phone per house,

Party lines, Cigs @ 27 cents a pack (35 from the machines).

[kick-ass-bob]

207. I remember putting in a tape to play a computer game on a

TRS 80.

[Seabiscuit]

210. One computer, with 0.00001% the capacity of mine filled a warehouse

and the only way to speak to someone long distance for free was by ham radio.

[sendero]

217. 12 Inch floppy drives?

Are you SURE? I don't think they ever made anything bigger than 8".

[rateyes]

218. I'm so old...

I can't remember what I can remember.

On edit: I remember the first "microwave ovens" that weren't really "microwave" but heated stuff by "radar." Radarange.

I remember that MLK, Jr. was assassinated on my 8th birthday--so, now you know how old I am, right?

[Seabiscuit]

224. I remember when "Give 'em hell, Harry" referred to Truman, not Reid.

I also remember Truman saying of Dewey: "The more he lies about me the more I'll tell the truth about him."

[Parrcrow]

221. when the song Yellow Submarine was all over the radio

AM Radio

[steely]

223. Retention drills anyone?

Slide rules,
10 cent comics
erector sets
lincoln logs
girders and panels
2 foot disk drives (digital {dec})
magnetic reed(?) memory

[Seabiscuit]

225. Five cent bottles of Coke

pasty white glue made from flour
Chutes and Ladders
The Magic Cottage
Kukla, Fran & Ollie
Milton Berle
air raid drills
Joltin' Joe DiMaggio
The "Kingfish" on AM radio

[kwassa]

227. "Duck and Cover" atomic attack drills, first transistor radios,

Transistor radios were the Ipods of their day. Everyone had one, and would take it with them everywhere.

The first man in space, Alan Shepherd.

Davy Crockett coonskin hats.

[tjwash]

231. Bomb Shelters, Civil Defense drills...

A couple people on our block had bomb shelters. I think they are living in the backwoods in Montana now.

[Bridget Burke]

228. I remember "The Lone Ranger" & "Inner Sanctum" on radio.

That was up in South Dakota. When we moved to Texas, there was TV! CBS & NBC--plus KUHT, the country's first educational station. I remember thinking that the Lone Ranger didn't look like I thought he would--a cowboys in a white suit?

And I wondered about that dull show on daytime TV--not Howdy Doody, Crusader Rabbit or even Miss Francis. Just men in suits sitting around desks & talking. Later, I realized it was the McCarthy hearings.

We finally got KTRK--our ABC affiliate. Kitirik, the mascot & hostess of a children's show, was a pretty lady in a cat suit. I think the boys remember her more than the girls.

Utah Carl, the Wanderer of the Wasteland was a local TV star. So were Curly Fox & Texas Ruby. One of Rodney Crowell's songs mentions a girlfriend who "makes Texas Ruby look like Sandra Dee." Rodney (The Houston Kid) also wrote of playing in the mist spewed by those trucks that came around on summer evenings--spraying DDT to fight mosquitos. I did that, too.

Then Fall came, heralded by the scent of the paper mill in Pasadena, borne on the wind from the North.

[jeanarrett]

229. I am so old I remember when

Twinkies actually tasted great!

[tjwash]

230. Suzie Q's, God forgive me but I love them.

Yep, nothing like a little sponge cake and whipped beef fat to drive that choesteral count down. :spank:

[Throckmorton]

232. There were only two dimensions. N/T

[Skittles]

233. sometimes when I hear a long song on the radio

I can mentally hear the "click" where it changed tracks mid-song on an 8 track :o

[tim2204]

234. So OLD

:rofl:

LMAO I am so Old that i remember Paladin(have gun will travel)
but remember i am 51 so i have been here a wile heck i can remember rotary phones,party lines ect...
and i have been told a few times that when i was young the wisconsin dells were new.

:wow:


Now that is old LOL