Things we're old enough to remember! Yay!!!!!

[CBHagman]

All right, all right, enough of this business of stereotyping people by age. Let's work those birthdays, DUers!

What are you old enough to remember? Dish night at the movies? Drive-ins? Flat-top haircuts? Rationing?

And let's see how far we can go back. If I had a prize, I'd give it to the person who can swing a firsthand recollection of the first 30 years of the 20th century.

And this is not just for American DUers. Canadian, Irish, English, and other DUers are hereby solicited for memories.

I remember...

...the knife grinder coming through the neighborhood in a truck.

...home delivery of milk in glass bottles.

...Chet Huntley and David Brinkley.

...savings stamps.

...when it wasn't a given that you cleaned up after your dog (Yeah, disgusting, I know, but that's how we learned to watch our step :rofl:).

[Blue_In_AK]

1. I don't remember a knife grinder

but I remember the rest of that stuff. I don't consider it getting old -- I like to think of it as having a tack-sharp memory. :)

I also remember having no indoor plumbing and my grandpa shoveling coal into his furnace.

[CBHagman]

5. In Appalachia in the 1980s...

...some people still didn't have indoor plumbing. I didn't live there, only visited, so I don't know how widespread that was.

I had a friend from Scotland and one from Ireland who both reported that their families lived for a time without indoor plumbing. Imagine having infants and no sink or washer.

[Blue_In_AK]

24. I don't know how my mom did it.

She had a big washing machine with a wringer, but I never paid attention to how she filled it. I do remember taking baths in the sink. My mother would heat water on the stove and get it just the right temperature. I have old home movies showing my two older brothers taking a bath in a big old metal wash tub in the front yard. We didn't think anything of it because nobody we knew had indoor plumbing except my grandmother (the one with the coal furnace) and my aunt. I thought the bathrooms were amazing. :)

We lived in southwestern Ohio then, between Dayton and Cincinnati, not so far from Appalachia.

Something funny, though -- even though we had no indoor plumbing, we had a TV from the start. I think we got our first one around 1950. My dad was always big into gadgets.

[terrya]

2. Mine:

Green Stamps

Watching "The Ed Sullivan Show" Sunday nights

Drive-ins.

[Roon]

3. I remember when kids delivered the newspaper

like I did for so many cold winter months. They don't allow kids to deliver the paper anymore. It's all adults with cars.

[raccoon]

94. They used to allow students to drive school buses.

Which was a good thing for a responsible kid from a poor family. My best friend's brother was a school bus driver.

Because of liability, I'm sure, they don't allow that any more.

[NightWatcher]

4. I remember

Cassette tapes
.87 cent gas
OJ was a murderer not an author
Anna Nicole Smith was naked not dead, nor a mom

[Kat45]

21. I remember 39 cent gas.

I'm pretty sure I'm remembering correctly. It's when I was in high school. Gee, I must be old. :D

[qwlauren35]

47. My mom would shop around

for 28 cent gas. She thought 30 cents was outrageous.

I remember when my dad used to watch Star Trek prior to syndication.

I remember a time when it was okay to run back outside and play in your pajamas before you went to bed.

I remember a time when everyone hitch-hiked.

I remember when Spin the Bottle was about kissing.

[Kat45]

74. Me too -- I watched Star Trek when it was originally on.

I was a kid then and I loved the show.

[raccoon]

6. "Who do you think you are--President Eisenhower?"

As kids we used to say that to each other.

[CBHagman]

8. I missed that one.

Back in the '60s my father overheard a woman say to a kid, "Who do you think you are, Jack Benny?" The kid said, "Jack Benny? Who's Jack Benny?" My father said the woman looked at him as if to say, "What is the world coming to?" :rofl:

[raccoon]

11. Maybe the kid wanted to buy one gallon of gas, to mow the lawn? LOL nt

[Courtesy Flush]

18. Remember that commercial?

Won't you fill up, Jack Benny? Won't you fill up?

LOL. I was thinking of that just the other day.

I also remember gas stations giving away steak knives and glassware. My mom used those steak knives for thirty years!

[raccoon]

92. Remember when "gas war" meant filling stations lowering the price

of their gas, not the US attacking some ME country? LOL, or I should say :cry:


Yes, I remember the commercial. I really enjoyed Jack Benny--he was hysterical!

[Archae]

7. "Tricky Dicky!"

Meant something different back when I was a kid. :D

[BOSSHOG]

9. Hot Ice being delivered to your Ice Box

- 8-track players
- transistor radios that only had AM
- 1964 and a half Mustang right off the lot
- A New VW Bug under two grand
- Typewriters
- Polio Vaccine in Sugar Cubes
- Clickety Clack trolley cars in Philadelphia
- Bottled Milk delivered right to your door
- Admission to the 75 Rose Bowl for 12-bucks (with free parking)

[acmavm]

10. Jewel Tea trucks coming around, the Omar Bread Man, milk

deliveries, doctors made housecalls (and they really gave a damn), black and white t.v., no air conditioning on hot summer days, poodle skirts, button down cardigan sweaters, argyle socks, the very first McDonalds that went up in town (on 76th & Dodge St).

edit: white socks during the 50s early 60s. Then no one but a greaser would be caught in white socks. The socks had to be coordinated with the rest of the outfit. Until everyone decided that fashion was such a 'sell out'.

[Arkansas Granny]

97. Do you remember the china that the Jewel Tea man sold?

I think everyone in our neighborhood had some.

[qwlauren35]

101. If you remember poodle skirts...

I'm going to guess that you are over 60 years old. Am I close?

[AlCzervik]

12. My Mom had the Marlo Thomas "that girl" flip hairdo, parents had saturday

night cocktail parties, we had a milkman that left milk in glass bottles, no shoulder belts in cars, Uncle Walter giving up on Viet nam, watching Nixon resign, Sonny and Cher, then just Cher, The Partridge family, Brady bunch and Lover American style all being on Saturday nights, also Emergency 4.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

13. Okay, here's what I remember

Pantry phones (I can't find a Google image, but they were a specific shape of wall phone)
Nylons with seams down the back worn with girdles and garters instead of pantyhose
Saddle shoes
Little girls wearing skirts with crinolines
Tank model bicycles with coaster brakes
Calling 3-speed bikes with handbrakes "English bikes"
Fizzies
Bosco
Fake plastic lips
Balsawood airplane kits
Betsy Wetsy dolls
TV dinners as new and exciting
Kids running freely all over the neighborhood, because they weren't scheduled from dawn till midnight and because parents were sensible enough to realize that kidnappings are actually quite rare
Dressing up to go to school: girls in dresses or skirts, boys in buttoned shirts and nice pants.
Married couples on TV sleeping in twin beds
Cinerama movies
Adults calling one another Mr. This or Mrs. That instead of by first names
Professors addressing college students as Mr. This or Miss That instead of by first names (this custom died out some time between my freshman year and my senior year)
78 RPM records
Milk and graham crackers in school every morning for 2 cents a day
Factory workers buying a house and car on one income
Most people being able to tell the difference between "lie" and "lay
No people of color appearing on TV except as servants or "savages"
Pizza was an exotic food
There were three locally-owned department stores in downtown Minneapolis

[CBHagman]

14. Ah, yes, the unsupervised childhood.

We roamed around on foot or by bike.

My parents sent me and my brother into Manhattan by bus and on our own. He was 13 and I was 11.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

16. I feel sorry for kids today

They're richer in material things, but they're subjected to a pernicious combination of over-protection and extreme pressure to succeed, the combination that creates the so-called "hikikomori," or young people who hole up in their rooms for years at a time, in Japan.

[AlCzervik]

15. oh hell yes--bosco!!

[Roon]

30. My grandparents used to have a phone

that they would share with the people next door. (they lived in a duplex) The hole is still there but it's been sealed up long by now. They shared a phone between the two residences and would holler at each other if the phone was for them! Crazy!!! How times have changed.

[GoneOffShore]

44. All of yours except

The department stores in Minneapolis. We lived in Wilmington Delaware.
I do remember
Wax lips
Sunday drives to Pusey Passmore's ice cream stand on Rt 202 for local black raspberry ice cream.
The Kiptopeake to Hampton Roads ferry.
Bus drivers who gave change.
The Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Leopold Stowkoski live on the radio on Sunday afternoon.
WinkyDink
Crusader Rabbit
Blackboards made out of real slate

[raccoon]

93. One definition of misery is wearing a girdle in a SC summer without air conditioning.

Thank goodness panty hose came into vogue very shortly after I started to wear nylons.


"Nylons with seams down the back worn with girdles and garters instead of pantyhose"

[ronnykmarshall]

17. Mine:

Blue Chip Stamps (we also had S&H Green stamps too)
Huge cash registers at the supermarket and the checker would call out the price of each item
UHF TV stations (we had three 17, 23 & 29)
45's and those little plastic things we had to put in the middle to play the record
Milk delivery
Vacuum tubes at department stores. The clerk would place a slip of paper and the money or check in the tube and it would go to their central cashier. The cashier would either send back the change to the sales clerk.
Gas station attendants filling up the car, cleaning the window and checking the oil.
TV programs being advertised with the phrase "IN COLOR".
Michael Jackson's original nose.

[terrya]

22. I'd completely forgotten about the gas station attendants.

Yep...fill the tank, wash your windows and checking the oil. AND you got Green Stamps with all of that.

And I remember Michael Jackson's original nose. His looks were still relatively normal at least when he was in "The Wiz" with what's her name.

[Roon]

103. There are some old motels around here

and some of them still have signs out that advertise COLOR TV!!!! :wow:

[johnnie]

19. A few things, I'm not that old

No disposable lighters (Bics and Crickets)
Milkmen (and milk chutes)
8 tracks
Black light posters
That "Keep On Truckin'" dude
The produce cart coming down the road, and all the women running to it to buy fresh produce
I lived on a red brick street. Not many of those left around here
Green stamps (saving stamps)
Regular gas (leaded) 37 cents a gallon
Banana seat bikes, sissy bars and welding multiple front forks together to make them look like a "chopper"
Homemade go-carts.
No AC on hot August nights a mile away from the stockyards..mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Bananas magazine at school
Bicentennial red white and blue every-friggin-thing in 1976
Fast food was something you got maybe once a month if you were lucky

[CBHagman]

25. And soda was a treat.

We had soda at parties and cookouts, and maybe if we got something from the deli, but we didn't keep soda at home. Milk was the drink of choice for kids.

But I still had a lot of cavities. :-(

On edit: I also remember using can openers to open soda. And I remember the politically incorrect names of Funny Face drink powders (Chinese Cherry, Injun Orange). :blush:

[Lydia Leftcoast]

31. Not to mention the "Chinese baby" Jello ads

:eyes:

[Left Is Write]

45. In the mimd-70s, my parents bought Holiday pop -

Holiday was a grocery store back then, not just a gas/convenience store (and regional also, so not everybody has heard of them). The cans were white with polka dots (green dots for lemon-lime, brown for root beer, red for cola, purple for grape, and so forth). They had not yet gone to pop tops, so we had to open them with a can opener. When we went up to the lake cabin for a week, Mom and Dad bought a couple case of Holiday pop. Each of us kids would get one can of pop per day of vacation. We could choose when to have it, even for breakfast, but we only got that one.

I usually saved mine for supper.

[Dora]

20. X-Rays at the Shoe Store! n/t

[trof]

41. And a generation of people with foot cancer.

Yeah, I remember the fluroscopes.
"Hey! I can see my toes wiggle!"

[Omphaloskepsis]

90. WTF...

That wasn't a joke?

[trof]

91. Oh yes it was!

[deepthought42]

23. Hmm... I remember...

*Strawberry Shortcake, Care Bears, Smurfs, Popples, Fraggle Rock, etc.
*Atari, Nintendo, Sega, etc.
*Saturday morning cartoons
*jellies (the shoes)
*scrunchies
*hi-tops
*cassette tapes
*when The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast were in theatres ^__^
*having children's stories on records (though I barely remember that)
*Windows 3.1, DOS, floppy disks
*running around the sprinkler outside during the summer
*those bracelets you had to slap onto your wrist (and not the cheap plastic ones...lol)
*when a Sony Walkman was the thing to have
*when CD players were hundreds of dollars

etc etc... I dare someone to guess in what decade I was a kid! :eyes:

[Blue_In_AK]

26. You're just a baby. :-)

[deepthought42]

27. Lol....well maybe a little older than that!

;)

But yeah...still a few months away from the quarter-century mark...lol

[Dervill Crow]

77. I know exactly how old you are.

I have daughters your age. :hi:

[deepthought42]

95. Lol...is it that obvious?

;)

:hi:

Still, I don't complain when people think I'm young enough to be in high school/undergrad college...lol

[Dervill Crow]

99. LOL - my girls don't complain either!

They love it when they get "carded." :) :beer:

[deepthought42]

102. Lol...I've had some humorous experiences with that...

getting carded while having dinner w/my parents...having my wine glass taken away at a restaurant (where they are already on the table when they seat you), but not my 20 yr. old Mormon roommate's... lol

These things amuse me greatly. :beer:

:hi:

[Aristus]

28. I'm old enough to remember three channels on VHF, and UHF spoken of in hushed

tones, as if it were a mythical, magical place like Atlantis or the Seven Cities of Cibola.

I also remember the Sign-Off Sermonette and the nightly broadcast sign-off.

That was TV's Paleolithic Era.

[cloudbase]

29. I can remember

a huckster selling vegetables from a horse-drawn cart back when I was really little. I remember getting into a Pirate game at Forbes Field for the princely sum of $1.00. Fifteen cent McDonald's burgers. Kruzshchev's motorcade moving down my street. The milkman giving us kids a ride around the block in his truck. And, like you, "Good night, David. Good night, Chet."

[Zoigal]

32. Anyone remember

food and gas rationing stamps during WWII?

movie admission was only a dime?

[Roon]

35. My Grandparents would

my Grandfather went overseas and left his bride (my grandmother) behind.

[Hangingon]

51. I remember the dime movies

[Yavin4]

33. I Remember Doctors Making House Calls, Non-Emergency House Calls

Yep. When I was a little kid, a doctor would come to our house from time to time to treat us for a cold or a flu, etc.

Top that!!!

[Javaman]

34. I remember when we had, what appeared to be, fair elections! nt

[Nicole]

36. Glasses or towels in boxes of laundry detergent.

That one recently cracked my kid up when I was reminiscing.

[Gormy Cuss]

37. Yep. My parents never bought drinking glasses or hand towels.

Whatever tumbled out of the box, we used.

[Nicole]

75. Same here. n/t

[Katina]

38. stay at home moms

wore dresses every day AT HOME!!! at least my mom and her friends did.

[CBHagman]

39. Just remembered another one.

In the last few days news outlets have reported the deaths of two more of the few remaining World War I veterans. Well, I remember when World War I veterans used to march through town in the Memorial Day parade.

As it happens, my grandfather was a World War I veteran (U.S. Army, sent to France).

[Bullwinkle925]

40. I remember ......

the Fuller Brush man coming around. My aunt getting her first tv and the excitement we all felt (we lived with her at the time). I remember when 'In Living Color' television first arrived on the scene. Penny candy actually being one penny. I remember watching "The Howdy Doody Show", "Rin Tin Tin", "The Roy Rogers Show", "Lassie", "The Life of Riley", "The Honeymooners". I remember going out on my bicycle and being gone most of the day - even riding on some of the country roads unattended. I remember the old Coke machines at the gas stations and how good those Cokes tasted! I remember the bell cords at the gas stations - I miss hearing those when pulling in to get gas. I remember going to the record shop and buying the newest hit for 99 cents.
Damn, but those WERE the good old days. Thaks for posting this - I've enjoyed my walk down 'memory lane'.

[Hangingon]

52. Collecting Coke bottles for the city names on the bottom

[mentalsolstice]

105. My FiL is a retired Fuller Brush man! n/t

[Bullwinkle925]

107. awwwwwww ......

I'm surprised that there are still some Fuller Men around. Tell him hi for me!!

[mentalsolstice]

108. Will do!

He used to service some of wealthy neighborhoods in the garden district in NOLA. Hey, I guess someone had to do it!

[idgiehkt]

42. life before remote control

and when there were only three tv stations and PBS. And when Beta Max was the neatest thing since sliced bread.

[CBHagman]

43. And even PBS was once "educational television."

Wikipedia article for those too young to remember:


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Educational_Television

[Dervill Crow]

78. When I was a kid, I was the remote control.

:rofl:

[SKKY]

46. Ok, I'm going to seriously date myself here, but here goes...

I remember:

1. Walking to the store to buy my Dad a pack of cigarettes with a dollar and getting 12 cents in change for candy. No one even
considered that a kid my age was smoking. Imagine doing that now?

2. When Phillip Drummond said the word "Damn" on TV, and everyone about shit themselves.

3. The shows "Love American Style" and "Soap".

4. Going to the movies to see Xanadu for the 12th time (I had a thing for miss Newton-John).

5. The restaurants "Burger Queen" and "Burger Chef".

6. The Cincinatti Bengals helmets that just had the word "BENGALS" on it.

7. Watching Barry Bonds play in the college world series for Arizona State.

[barb162]

110. I can beat that

I remember when they built the pyramids
Now that's old!
(Teehee)

Seriously I remember getting cigs for my dad too but I don't remember the prices anymore

[Maineiac]

48. All those things plus

gas is 20 cents a gallon. Give me a dollar's worth you tell them and they check your oil, air in your tires and wash the windshield.

[Maineiac]

49. How about family fall out shelters in your home?

If you can only make it two weeks in your basement after that nuclear war, everything will return to how it was before.

[wildhorses]

50. i remember banana seats and butterfly handlebars

watermelons were a dime

hand cranked ice cream

porch swings

bathing caps

[Hardrada]

53. Door to door book set salesmen

bicycles with front baskets or side baskets
running boards on cars
pharmacists making prescription pills etc. in a back room
old guys chewing snoose (snuff we called it, actually Copenhagen in cardboard containers)
cabooses on trains and railroad lanterns
teachers lifting up misbehaving students by the scruff of the neck
Latin masses
Church services in Norwegian or German (I was a Lutheran).
hand lawn mowers
listening to "Jack Benny Show" and "Suspense" on the radio
Saturday afternoon movie matinees
gathering milkweed for the war effort
functioning blacksmith shops
Vanilla cokes at the drug store counter.

[CraftyGal]

54. I remember when....

1) chocolate bars were a quarter.

2) When the guys wanted to be the Hardy Boys and the girls, Nancy Drew

3) Being outside from dawn to dusk everyday, rain, snow or shine.

4) Going trick-or-treating with 3 feet snow drifts.

5) When Beta's switched to VHS

6) When 8 track switched to cassette

7) The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

8) the original Star Trek series.

9) seeing all the original Stare Wars and Indiana Jones movies in the theaters.

10) When A & W was a drive-in

11) going to the drive-in with my sisters on a Friday night.

[LuckyLib]

55. A vague memory of getting a television, long after everyone else had one.

Watching “Fury – a boy and his horse” on Saturday mornings

My Mom putting her hair in pincurls during the day.

Cap guns

Filling a VW bug for $3

Roller skates with a key to tighten them

Once a month “hot-dog day” at school.

My first purchase at age 12 – a “transistor” radio, for $20. It was amazing!

Cracker jacks in huge boxes

Watching Bonanza on Sunday nights with the whole family!

[skygazer]

56. Black and white tv with rabbit ears

Party line telephones
My dad getting a dollar's worth of gas and being able to drive more than a mile on it
The Ed Sullivan Show
Having to wear a dress to school (dress codes)
Paperboys (and girls)
Bicycles with no gears
Three on the tree
The store in town that had a hitching post and the guy who drove around in his buggy
Computers that were the size of my bathroom
The moon landing
Egg deliveries

[book lady]

57. I remember penny candy stores...

there would always be a lot of kids and there was never a limit as to how many could be in the store at the same time...
I was the channel changer when we got our first TV :)
Listening to 45 records at the record store before buying them...
There used to be a rag man with his horse and wagon that came around our neighborhood...
I remember telephones with no dials, you had to tell the operator what number you wanted...
Going to the movies with my dad and seeing Rodan...

[TrogL]

58. OK, so I'm old

• inkwells
  
• punch cards (Hollerith) and paper tape
  
• teachers bemoaning ballpoint pens
  
• horse-drawn milk wagons
  
• farm kids riding horses to school
  
• "ditto" machines
  
• gas station attendants who would clean windows and check oil
  
• first cars with seatbelts (people refused to wear them because they thought they were dangerous)
  
• leaded gas
  
• huge uproar about jeans in school
  
• huge uproar about sex ed
  
• separate boys and girls entrances to school
  
• your wife and kids were supposed to have a black eye at least twice a year or you weren't doing your job as a husband/father
  

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

59. The Apollo missions on TV. Pelé playing in a World Cup.

The TV news sounding like this: "Blah blah Vietnam blah blah Vietnam blah blah blah blah Vietnam blah blah Vietnam..."

[Joe Fields]

60. I remember 19cent per gallon gasoline.

[Left Brain]

61. ...Chatty Cathy

...Brylcreem (a little dab'll do ya) and Dippity Do

...7-digit telephone numbers with LETTERS in them (AT7-6128)

...My Mother the Car (heh, short lived, that one)

[Saphire]

63. I had a Chatty Cathy....lol.

[Left Brain]

80. Me too

The sad thing is, I don't remember a single thing she said when you pulled the ring. :crazy:

[Arkansas Granny]

62. I can remember:

1. 3 cent postage stamps
2. Getting a coke and a candy bar for a dime
3. "I like Ike" buttons
4. Soap operas on the radio
5. Gas for 15 cents a gallon
6. Party line telephones (we had 8 on ours)
7. Dick and Jane readers
8. Watching Howdy Doody and Captain Kangaroo live

Does this mean I'm older than dirt?

[conscious evolution]

64. 6 Million Served

on the McDonalds sign.

I can remember taking a quarter to the store and guying a Coke,acandy bar,a comic book and a game of pinball.
If I skipped the comic book pinball games were three for a dime.

The first music I remember is the Beetle's A Hard Days Night.

MLK and RFK assasinations.

[tinfoilinfor2005]

65. Back in the mid fifties all the girls wore starched petticoats under

their skirts. The more petticoats, the better. I was a kid, and I remember going into the JCPenney store with my mom and walking past racks and racks and racks of these starched nylon petticoats of every imaginable color.

The following year they were all gone.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

81. I remember going with my grandparents to gatherings of

Latvian emigres, drinking tea with strawberry jam and listening to the singing. :-)

[Arkansas Granny]

96. I owned those in white, pink, red and black. You had to wear

another slip underneath them or the starched nylon would eat away at the backs of your legs.

[stlsaxman]

66. Soupy Sales' Show...

buying my mom cigarettes...
(a silly millimeter longer-101)

Fuller Brush man...

Meet The Beatles release and then on Ed Sullivan... (thanks Ed!)

Making snow angels and playing Fox And Geese in the snowy, snowy winters...

Twinkies were 12 cents and Fruit Pies 15... with a quarter you could get a soda, too...

John and Bobby Kennedy, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King assasinations... Malcolm too...

Watching the first moon walk in school as it happened...

Walking home from school in 8th grade and stopping to participate in the student anti-war demonstrations at the collage ROTC building...

Wanting to join the Black Panthers and realizing I never could because I was white...

Ernie Kovacs...

Abbie Hoffmann...

Wondering why Mr. Spock would write a book about babies...

Hearing Petroushka by Igor Stravinsky when i was 5 and knowing right then that I wanted to devote my life to music...

Nuns appearing in class for the first time out of habits...

My mom saying during Richard Nixon's "Checkers Speech" that if that man ever became president this country would be in deep shit...

The Kent State Massacre...

"Winston Tastes Good Like A Cigarette Should"...

[Auggie]

67. Free drinking glasses at the gas stations. Smoking in the movies.

Milk, egg and pastry delivery (early 1960s). Also diaper service and dry cleaners that picked up at your home.

[nytemare]

68. I remember smelling ditto copies at school

And plastic Halloween costumes!

[JohnnyLib2]

69. Getting 10 cents per gopher tail

from the local irrigation district.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

70. The Fuller Brush Man and the Avon Lady.

The milkman leaving glass bottles in a box on the back steps.

"Andy's Gang" on TV (Plunk your magic twanger, Froggy!).

A 1947 Plymouth with rear doors that opened forward, which I nearly fell out of.

Kids' radio shows.

78 rpm records.

"Dick and Jane books" in school.

Being sent to the bakery with a quarter to buy a loaf of bread.

The doctor coming to our house when I got scarlet fever.

Looking for Burma-Shave signs on car trips.

Sonic booms.



Yeah, I'm old.

[Connie_Corleone]

71. Original Easy Bake Oven

Weeble Wobbles (Weebles wobble but they don't fall down).

Ricky Schroeder doing the moonwalk on Silver Spoons.

Jelly shoes.

ViewMaster.

Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan debate on TV.

New Edition (teen singing group)

Dressing like Michael Jackson in the "Beat It" video was the "in" thing.

Valley talk (Like, gag me with a spoon. Like, totally.)

The Breakfast Club (favorite teen movie)

[mainegreen]

72. I remember it turning 1980.

:shrug:

[NewJeffCT]

73. Here are some of my memories

Coming home from school & having my afternoon cartoons interrupted by Watergate hearings (turned me off from Republicans forever!)

Reggie Jackson starring for the Oakland A's

The 6 Million Dollar Man and Happy Days on TV

Collecting comic books - especially Spider-Man

The milk man delivering, but only until I was around 3 or 4 when we moved from an apartment to a house

Barely seeing my father because he worked two full-time jobs so my mom could stay home and raise my brother & me.

Walter Cronkite

8 Track tapes

The peace sign (V with two fingers)

The big bicentennial celebration in '76

Star Trek re-runs on TV and adults confusing Mr. Spock with Dr. Spock

Kunta Kinte

Evel Knieval

[CBHagman]

82. Kid catastrophe: Anything interrupting regular programming.

A comedian (I forget who it was) put it best: If the president was on TV, you could kiss your favorite show goodbye. "And he's on every channel!"

Also, remember "special bulletin" for breaking news? Now CNN and MSNBC would probably do that for a car chase.

[Joe Fields]

76. I can remember when dirt was invented.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

79. I invented it.

It took me years of research.

[rug]

83. I remember the knifegrinder

but he used a horsecart not a truck.

[grannylib]

84. I was born in '59, so can't go all THAT far back, but I do remember

Huntley and Brinkley, and savings stamps, and there was still bottled milk delivery in my town until I was about 9 or 10.

I also remember the old phones in my auntie's little village: black models with no numbered dial, but just a little crank in the middle and you'd wind that baby up and get the operator and tell her who you wanted to talk to, and half the time the line would be in use, since most folks had party lines.

It fascinates me to talk to folks of my parents' era, who literally saw things go from outhouses and kerosene lanterns and little ledgers with pennies in and dollars out written in pencil, to the age of computers and cell phones and all that...to think that a Blackberry has more computing capability than the computers they were using at NASA when they did the Apollo thing, that's pretty wild.

[AshevilleGuy]

85. When you had to have an antenna for each TV station.

They were all different shapes, you had to point them towards the cities or transmitters. We had an Asheville antenna and a Charlotte antenna, so we got ABC and CBS, but not NBC until later.

[trackfan]

86. I remember when only "rich people" had color TVs

[grasswire]

87. I was just remembering...

...that we used to make four tuna sandwiches out of one can, and four servings of soup out of a can of Campbell's. And no one thought the servings were small!

A glass of juice was two or four ounces and sometimes it was watered down, even. School lunch was sometimes just a mayonnaise or mustard sandwich, or perhaps butter and sugar sandwich. Mom would boil eggs in the morning and slip one still hot in my coat pocket on a winter's morn to keep my hands warm on the way to school.

On Saturdays, the Metropolitan Opera on the radio, baseball in the afternoon, and "Hawaii Calls" on the radio at night.

Outings were usually to Grandma's big stone house where any assortment of my seventeen cousins would be ready to cheat at Monopoly or go to the basement to play the old discarded wind-up Victrola or pretend to put the youngest cousin down the laundry chute. Grandma was the quintessential grandmother, always sewing or baking or playing the piano. A block down the street was a penny candy store with a wooden floor and glass jars filled with jujubes and licorice babies and more. I now live just three dwellings away from that store, after living thousands of miles away for most of my adult life. The candy store is now a dwelling, and if it ever comes on the market again, I'm going to have it.

Life has never been as sweet as when I was in the bosom of that big family, at Grandma's house where giggling cousins, bustling aunties, New England grandparents and war-marked uncles all did the everyday things that families do.

What is that poem? "Backward, O Backward, time in your flight. Make me a child again, just for tonight."

[Hardrada]

88. We called the licorice babies something else

that we wouldn't say now And also:
Backward, turn backward, O time in your flight!
Bring back the saloon again! Bring it tonight!
O bring back the bum with his torpor and filth!
The pompous proprietor rolling in wealth;
The rum politician, the unfiltered talk;
The row of "dead beer kegs that cluttered the walk!
O bring back the jugs and the bottles to drain
And give us our bed in the gutter again!

[Awsi Dooger]

89. When the Gators weren't afraid to play the Canes annually in football

Now that's going waaaaaaay back...

Otherwise, I remember

* Dancer's Image being disqualified in the Kentucky Derby
* The first episode of Lost in Space
* Prior to that, the sci-fi TV show It's About Time
* The night I was in a store with my mom and they announced MLK had been killed
* Waking up and turning on my kid's shows only to see coverage of RFK shot hours earlier in Los Angeles
* Millions on the McDonald's sign
* 39 cent Whoppers, 19 cent burgers, 21 cent fries and 25 cent shakes at Burger King
* Buying diesel for our Mercedes at 18.9 cents per gallon
* Paying 15 cents for my lunch in elementary school
* The '68 Olympics with Foreman waving the little flag and the Black Power salute on the victory stand by Carlos and Smith, plus Beamon's amazing long jump
* Going to the Super Bowl with my family when Namath beat the Colts
* My grandfather doing so many great things for me before he had his stroke, which I was too young to understand

[Karenca]

98. Believe it or not:...the knife grinder

truck still stops in front of my building.

Or is it a scissor-sharpener truck? :shrug:

[TommyO]

100. Charles Chips home delivery!

We got two large tins every other week, one ridged and one barbecue.

[ashling]

104. .03 postage stamps

[AshevilleGuy]

109. Yes - the purple 3c Statue of Liberty.

I can barely remember seeing 3c Jeffersons as well.

[chaska]

106. Clackers! - the dangerous version.

[SaveElmer]

111. Milkman, Rambler, Ma Bell, Three Stooges shorts before the main feature...

One movie theater per building, ok to bring your own popcorn, color TV was a luxury, Foshay tower was the tallest building in downtown Minneapolis (for Minnesotans)...

[CBHagman]

112. Here are some more...

Cigarette commercials on TV -- Winston, Virginia Slims, etc.

Anti-smoking commercials on TV, which definitely played a role in my decision never to smoke.

Novelty songs.

Hip-huggers, the 1970s version of low-riders.

And while we're on the subject of clothing, it used to be regarded as tacky and humiliating to be seen in public with your underwear exposed (T-shirts excepted).

[qwertyMike]

113. I'm 62

S0 i have Mono records (Blonde on Blonde)

Watching the Sputnik out of my window

Cuban missile crisis

JFK - I was 16

The Queen's Coronation

Later - Van Morrison playitng with THEM in Belfast

Oh and food rationing


and the rest my remaining 3 brain cells forget

[CBHagman]

114. All right! We've got someone who remembers rationing!

I knew you were out there on DU somewhere. :hi:

[qwertyMike]

115. It was only sugar I rember

The Brits needed it for fuel.

Guess that's why I don't have a sweet tooth.

55 years ahead of their time in fuel saving?

[astral]

116. Don't they have sonic booms anymore?

I remember (I cheated by reading your posts for reminders!!!)
Bosco!
Mighty Mouse
The Mouseketeers
Sherman and Peabody
my 1st 78 record was The Woody Woodpecker Song (had my own record player too)

Superballs
Silly Putty
My first Barbie (before her waist could twist & turn, before her knees would bend!)
Seeing "Bonnie & Clyde" at the Drive - In (and snoozing through the whole thing til I heard the machine guns . . . very traumatizing at 4 years old!)

The milkman leaving us glass milk bottles
3 channels on our black & white TV
Party line telephone
At school, the girls wore dresses, never pants! The boys and girls played on separate parts of the playground.

My first favorite songs on the radio:
Everyday People -- Sly & The Family Stone
The Pied Piper -- (dunno who!)

Wanting a spider bike but my parents said those were for little kids >:(
Learning to read by PHONIX (Thank God!!!)
Not being allowed to bring a calculator to school for math
Hot lunch for 35 cents
Typewriters (with the "cent" sign on the keyboard above the number 6!)

The smell of fresh ditto paper tests! Loved that smell!
Hopscotch, Chinese Jumproap / regular jumpropes, and tetherball were the only playground games the girls played. Oh, and "four square!" With the big red ball and the four squares.

Earliest TV memories:
Romper Room
Wanda Wanda
JP Patches
Bugs Bunny
Hippety Cricket

And yes, I remember the first Lost in Space!

70's -- hitchhiking to town and back because there were no danged buses
buying 45's for $1
Wearing makeup to school and getting away with it
mini skirts
'coasty' jeans
waffle stomper shoes
mood rings
incense
black lights
and some other things . . . .

And to BLue in AK -- I also bathed in a galvanized tub, right there on the kitchen floor, during part of my life.

saddle shoes that always blistered my feet . . .
sloppy joes were my favorite dinner
and it was RARE we didn't eat a home-cooked meal for dinner!
At DINNERTIME. Every body ate the same thing at the same time together at dinner time.

Ah, the good ol' days . . .

[CBHagman]

118. And local hosts of kids' shows and horror movie shows.

In the Dayton/Cincinnati area, we had people like Uncle Al hosting kiddie programs and Dr. Creep hosting the Saturday night horror movies. Remember Saturday night horror movies?

And in the New York City/Northern New Jersey area, we watched Soupy Sales, Chuck McCann, Sandy Becker, Officer Joe Bolton, Captain Jack McCarthy, and various others.

Officer Joe Bolton, for the uninitiated:

http://www.tvparty.com/lostny2bolton.html

[sarge43]

117. I'm 64

I remember

No television

78 rpm records

Fuller Brushman

Newspapers delivered to the door

Long distance phone calls a BFD

Listening to radio series like the Shadow

The Truman/Dewey election

Life magazine

The full Saturday afternoon at the movie experience - News of the Day, two cartoons and a B western

Coal fueled furnaces

Palmer penmanship drills at school

No clothes dryers - laundry was hung outside or in the basement to dry