Things that younger DUers may not know

[SoCalDem]

ALL interest used to be deductible even if you did not itemize
There used to be a renter's deduction too
Social Security income used to be NON-taxable

Interest on a CD was 14.78% in 1981

Regular ole savings accounts used to pay 3-5% interest
(to be fair though, you did have to put down 20-30% to get a home loan and you DID have to meet with the "loan committee" before you were approved)

Banks had people who would CALL you if it looked like you MIGHT overdraw your account..so you could come down & make a deposit.

Banks used to give stuff away to get you to open a checking account..which was also FREE.. stuff like toaster ovens, blenders, toasters, luggage, cookware, dishes

Gas stations used to also give away stuff...like decks of cards, glassware, toy truck with their logos

Corporations used to GIVE you stuff with their logo in exchange for the free-advertising.

You could have a phone in your home for under $10 a month, and if it broke, they would replace it for FREE.

You could work part time during school, and then in the summers & had enough money to pay for college.

There used to be a 10% Luxury Tax (yup..just like in Monopoly) on furs, jewelry, leather goods, etc...even on costume jewelry & scarves

Drug stores used to deliver your meds..for free

Even small towns had several radio stations..all independently owned
..................................

please add your favorite "used-to-be"s

[bluestateguy]

1. I miss pump first gas stations

I know they still exist, but they are rare and harder to find.

[SoCalDem]

3. I miss the "ding-ding" hoses

:rofl:

[Jackpine Radical]

251. God, I had forgotten about them.

For the young'uns, there were air hoses laid across by the pumps to signal the arrival of a customer. Wen someone drove across a hose, it made a Ding-Ding sound.

[orleans]

274. and the gas station attendents would come out, fill 'er up,

check your oil and wiper fluid & water level, and clean your front and back window. free of charge--

this was at all the pumps--not at a "pay more for half assed service" pump like some stations have now.

[Frisbee]

324. Just like this...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EowJYai95k8

[MissDeeds]

366. And gas wars

I remember when I was in college, local gas stations competed for the lowest price for a gallon of gas. I once paid 23 cents a gallon. Oh, for the good old days.

[SoCalDem]

375. 19.9 was the lowest I ever saw it in gas wars

I could fill up my full sized dodge for a few bucks:)

[AlbertCat]

419. And gas wars

We still have gas wars!


Oh, you don't mean Iraq and Afghanistan....

[MissDeeds]

483. Good one!

:hi:

[JDPriestly]

410. There is no self-serve in Oregon. So, if you want that service, visit Oregon.

[obxhead]

479. Same for New Jersey

Although I don't recommend visiting there.

(Sorry Jersey people, had a lot of bad luck there)

[customerserviceguy]

481. NJ, too

I'd rather pump my own gas, and get back on the road again a bit quicker, but gas costs about 40-50 cents a gallon less in NJ.

[Joe Bacon]

272. I still remember the summer Gas Price Wars

Oil companies would have price wars to see who could drop their price the lowest from 29¢ to 14¢ a gallon...

[Mnemosyne]

308. Nine tenths of a cent still irritates the hell out of me. n/t

[Liberal Insights]

342. me too!

[Art_from_Ark]

322. I remember my grandmother getting upset

because just after she had filled up at Gas War Station #1 for 21 cents a gallon, a little down the road she passed by Gas War Station #2 that had a cardboard sign out front proclaiming 19 cents a gallon.

[SoCalDem]

426. My grandmother's "thing" was 5-cent a pound bananas

Every Sunday was Banana Cream Pie day, and if Weeks' Grocery store did not have nickel bananas she was seriously pissed.. They were usually 10cents a pound, but Sunday was markdown day (in anticipation of delivery day-Monday), so they marked down all the produce, but sometimes they ran out of bananas before she got there after mass:rofl:

[oldhippydude]

333. anybody remember S&H green stamps!!

i still have a couple of folding chairs, and a card table the folks got with trading stamps..

[sinkingfeeling]

341. I actually still have a couple of books of S&H stamps.

[calimary]

433. There were also Blue Chip stamps that were given out at the grocery store.

I remember the Green Stamps too.

I was the one who usually put them in the books. GREAT anal-compulsive activity - kept me busy for hours! :P

[eilen]

352. My Dad took us to Disney world on Raleigh cigarette coupons.

My grandparents also saved the coupons in the Winston cigarette packs for tv tray tables and stuff like that.

[SoCalDem]

379. I got stuff from Benson & Hedges in-pack coupons

:)

[Art_from_Ark]

530. I never cared much for Benson & Hedges' product

but their TV commercial that came out in 1967 or so was one of the coolest commercials ever.

That, and the Polaroid Swinger commercial of 1968 with Ali McGraw---

[bdamomma]

369. I do

my mother used to keep them in an old cigar box, that was a big thing back then. oof showing my age.:blush:

[musette_sf]

501. Some chains in NYC had King Korn stamps

[Frisbee]

509. I used to think it was a priviledge...

to paste them in the books for my Mom. Also, Eagle Stamps.

[Art_from_Ark]

528. I remember going with my parents to pick up a rocking chair

that was obtained with books of S&H Green Stamps back in '62, and finding my mom's cache of green stamp books and green stamp catalogue in the late '60s. I have no idea if those latter books of green stamps were ever redeemed, since the closest redemption center was 20 miles away.

[calimary]

409. And remember when they'd give you free ice tea glasses and coffee cups?

Hell you could get service for eight in no time at all.

And I remember when I could fill the tank of my little yellow used MG with a five-dollar bill, and get change.

[SoCalDem]

414. I have a 3 inch scar on my thumb from a B.C. glass from Marathon

:rofl:

[ChiciB1]

491. Me Too... And I Lived In TEXAS!! But Those Of Us Who Remember These Things

were the ones who REALLY howled when things went wrong. WE DID try to make changes, and THEY did listen! We at least "felt" we had a voice and we DID take to the streets!

NOW, the time has come for our CHILDREN and other YOUTH to rise up! Talking about REVOLUTION or even rising up in this country is met with so much push back by so many people, ALL THE TIME!

So, if NOT Revolution, then what??? They are skinning us alive!

[trackfan]

275. We used to jump on them when we passed a station walking home from school,

to the annoyance of the workers at the gas station.

[rasputin1952]

326. I recall a gas station on Long Island NY where the attendant was...

mentally challenged. A super nice guy, who would do the windshield, check the oil and chat amiably. His biggest draw though was that he had difficulty reading the numbers on the pump, (these were the pre-electronic things we have now). He would hop out of the station, smiling all of the time, and his first greeting was always, "Hello, how many dings do you want?"

When paying, it was always good to double check as this man might go either way when giving you change, sometimes shorting the station, sometimes shorting the customer. People came from some pretty good distances simply because this guy was so nice and amiable. This station also had an unused pump for "ethyl", the one where the fuel would enter a glass canister marked in gallons on top, before discharging into your gas tank. The price was still on the pump, 19.4 cents/gal for ethanol.

A pretty hefty Hershey bar was a nickle; a Coke, made from syrup w/carbonated water added by the counter man was a nickle; no one ever heard of High Fructose Corn Syrup as a replacement for sugar; saccharine was big. I can still recall dialing only 4 digits for local calls; phones that were nearly impossible to handle because they weighed a ton, but were impossible to break, if you "dialed" Operator, (no electronic beeps and buzzes or a button pad), you got a local operator that you invariably knew, (my aunt in Smithsburg, MD had a phone that you picked up and worked the lever to get a live operator, just like in Mayberry!).

People in general, even with the specter of nuclear annihilation hanging over our heads were generally congenial. Which bring me to the fact that a lot of fallout shelters were purchased during that time. Civil Defense shelters were prevalent, all stocked with various government issued provisions...even portable chemical toilets. "Duck and Cover" were the watchwords of the day...(something I questioned being in NYC, a prime target of the time, knowing full well that if for some reason I actually survived a nuclear blast, would I really want to be around for the carnage that followed?).

Road maps were free, asking directions cost only a bit of time, as people would tell you a story when they gave the directions. The biggest thing though, was that most people took the time to be courteous and genuinely cared for one another. There were good and bad times, but all things considered, we were on an upswing as a nation, so much so that it was no reason for concern that NYC subway cars went from wood to metal, and no one complained...:D

[Alameda]

500. Nice story, but I don't think it was as idealistic as you recall....

I think we are probably around the same age too. I do think much of it was cosmetic cover. I do strongly believe though the breakup of the family has caused a lot of societal breakdown and general disorientation, and I think it started in the 40s with our parents generation. There is little sense of loyalty now.

[SoCalDem]

503. Gas stations were often an entry-level into business ownership

In my hometown, there was a guy who owned 2 or 3 Vickers' Gas station, and of course he employed his own family members. One of them was a mentally handicapped young brother (could have been a cousin) He was friendly and helpful, but he was never there alone either, since he would sometimes forget to have people sign the charge slips or to collect the money. ..but it was a job for him, and in an environment that was "friendly" to him and to the customers who often reminded him :)

Small businesses like those probably don;t exist much anymore what with the extremely high franchise fees and the fact that many companies insist that THEY have to own the property, and you can only rent. It's probably hard now to start into businesses like that .

People started their business "empires" with gas stations, donut shops, dry cleaners, laundromats..small specialized places that they could easily run with family members for employees.

[rasputin1952]

510. Yes, this is very true...

many of those family members in such situations were treated much like slave labor, (the same thing happened on family farms). As soon as they could, many of them went on to different things, like higher education to gain skills they would need in an ever moving world.

I think one of the greatest "advances" was opening up higher education to individuals that could not have afforded it previously, and to women. knowledge is power...and that kind of power scares the paternalistic society to death.

[SoCalDem]

511. and in mnay cases it kept kids employed in a family business that they would sell

later, for a tidy profit, or continue to support their families with...nothing is "always" good or bad:)

[rasputin1952]

508. Some things were idealistic, others were not...

the break up of the family had a lot to do with some situations, but not others. During WWII there was a massive influx of women into the workforce, doing jobs that were traditionally male oriented. That created a renaissance as to how women were viewed in various aspects of society and changed fundamentally how we understand society today.

With this came a refreshed view on the accomplishments of women and their capabilities, (often far exceeding what their male counterparts were doing at the time). There was also a huge influx of disposable cash and ideas on how to deal with children/work/education/leisure...once women were unshackled from the notions of the previous 200 years, there was no holding them back. This in turn challenged the male dominance model, and many who returned from the war felt threatened at home. During a span, (The Baby Boom years), there was emphasis on women staying home to rear the children, but once those kids were of age to be in school, things changed once again as more women were going back into the workforce, if only on a limited basis. The contemporary family of the time began to break down as many could not find ways to compromise...most people suffered. The ball, once rolling was unstoppable.

There is more than just the breakdown of the family as we had known it. In a relatively short period of time, women made huge advances educationally; with knowledge comes power, and educated women are a force to be reckoned with.

As for cosmetic cover, yes, a lot of it was, and it still exists today. Loyalty, must be earned, and few companies today show any loyalty to their customers or even their own company, much less the nation. If an entity, regardless if a company, a municipality, a state or a nation does not show loyalty to those it depends on, then the individual of society will show little loyalty to the entity. The same thing happened in Japan, where workers were guaranteed "jobs for life", and then the economic rug was pulled from under them throwing the society into turmoil. In a sense, the same thing happened here.

A combination of incredible greed, falling value of the dollar, loss of faith in a government that can provide a safety net, and aging population that now considers 60 middle age and a host of other situations have enabled the breakdown of societal norms. We are still evolving as a society and often I have to wonder if we are capable of moving into the future as a nation or more like groups of cults. Tie will tell, but I can't go back to most of what are the called the "conservative ideals", that would would re-establish and strengthen the paternalistic society we we had known for 200 years, and bring disaster upon all of us.

[Alameda]

525. We are a revolutionary society. We revolt against everything

sometimes with little analysis of why things are the way the are. We throw the baby out with the water so to speak. I think the women's movement has a lot to do with things, but that actually started in the 19th Century. My grandmother was an educated woman who was born in the mid 1880s. She was trained to be able to have a career. She really didn't need to put up with any bull from a man and when her husband gave her a hard time she kicked him out. The repercussions of that action have reverberated down the generations.

I've seen the breakup of the home, the rise of fast food and TV dinners. It seems hardly anyone knows how to cook from scratch anymore. I mean from scratch, not adding prepackaged ingredients, and calling it home made. How many actually know how to make chicken broth, how many have it at home in their freezer? How many do? In so many recipe books I see the instructions....take a cube of chicken bullion....add tomato paste....a can of XXX....sorry...that is not home made. Most these products are not manufactured for our health. They are manufactured to make money for the company owners...or shareholders.

Homes are not places of peace love and sanctuary, they are investment opportunities. Kids are expected to get out and get their own place when they are 18. We see the ghettoizing of the ages. Adult communities, Senior centers, nursing homes.

I've been in places where all generations were together, and it was wonderful. It's nice for children to come home to homes with the fragrance of some wonderful foods being prepared, rather than warming up food in a microwave in an empty home. I was lucky to have been able to spend a lot of time with my grandmother. She taught me so much.

[rasputin1952]

539. My aunt and uncle in MD were amazing people...

they both begrudged what was happening, and often embraced it. Strange combination to be sure.

I can recall as a youngster, waking up in a huge bed with the window open and curtains blowing in with the warm morning breeze. Birds singing and I was ready to go! First thing I did was go out to the henhouse and gather some eggs, (not an easy chore for a youngster from NYC in the country for just 2 weeks every Summer...and my aunt Edith would prepare breakfast. She made pancakes from scratch, (not that hard to do), but after breakfast, she'd get out the bread she had prepared the day before and bake it...filling the entire house with that wonderful smell.

My uncle was a retired college professor, and owned a hardware store in Frederick; my aunt was a retired middle school teacher...both of them started out in one room schoolhouses. Both had a remarkable grasp of history, and would tell me all kinds of things. My aunt took me to Antietam, about a 15 minute drive away, and told the story of the battle as if she had been there. We went to Gettysburg, and again, she knew just about everything except the names of some of the soldiers. She recited the Gettysburg Address on the spot where Lincoln had delivered it...amazing people.

I grew up in Jamaica, Queens, NY, and our neighborhood had a lot of Holocaust survivors, amazingly industrious people that were closed about what had happened until they got to know me...then, they would open up and gaze out of the window describing just a few of the horrors they had been through, but only to a limit...it was very difficult for them to into detail, slowly, over the years, more would come out, but basically, they were glad to be alive and cared immensely for each other and their new community.

This nation has indeed revolted throughout it's history...we came through some amazing times, did some terrible things and somehow we have survived. i think a lot of that has to do with the spirit we were born in as a nation. It's good to question authority and to rattle the floorboards from time to time. Standing up when we or others are denigrated is a long time passion for Americans, but we've often found ourselves complacent about our Liberties. Far too often we wait until we're just about beaten into the ground before we get riled up enough to demand change...I think we are nearing that point again...at least I hope so. What the neo-cons have done to this nation is unforgivable, people have lost everything had through no fault of their own, and I can see a breath of fresh air stoking the coals of discontent...people are getting ticked off and that is often a good thing. I just don't want a full blown violent scenario...that costs lives and I don't want to see people hurt, I want them all to benefit. There will be pain, but I don't want to see violence.

[SoCalDem]

542. I have a confession to make.. I save & freeze "potato water"

whatever I have left after using most of it for gravy, I put the rest in a ziploc & save it for when I make soup:)

[Odin2005]

56. Every station here in Fargo is pump-first, then pay.

I thought that was the normal thing until I read a book recently called "How Fargo of You", by a guy who moved here from Arizona. He was shocked that the gas stations here were pump-first.

[MedicalAdmin]

112. Pump first is normal in Minnesota too.

Maybe we don't have so many gas and dash? Fewer crooks? (nope can't be that - Bachmann and Duhlenty are from here) Maybe we have a more civil society still and take care of our citizens a little better and so people don't need to gas and dash so much?


Heck, I'm clueless.

[Odin2005]

114. According to the book I mentioned it's both.

Fewer crooks and a more civil society where people are not assumed to be crooks.

[CLANG]

184. Wisconsin's the same way for the most part.

I think we do it only because there hasn't been enough crime to make it worthwhile for the business.

[dflprincess]

246. I don't know where you are in Minnesota but in the southern suburbs

if you're not using a credit or debit card to pay at the pump it's take your cash into the station, then pump.

[rbixby]

359. I guess I've been in Minneapolis too long

I can't remember the last time I pumped before I paid.

[Horse with no Name]

230. Some are pump and pay here and some are pay first

I frequent a locally owned gas station--it is pump and pay.
I didn't realize I had forgotten my checkbook one day and they told me just to drop the check by when I came back that way.
I was running short one week and I went in and only got like $10 of gas--when I normally fill up.
The guy commented about me not filling up...told him I was broke and laughed. He told me to go ahead and fill up and I could pay for it when I got paid.
There are lots of things I hate about small towns, but sometimes they are wonderful!

[Enthusiast]

293. Pay first sucks

on a motorcycle.

[kentuck]

103. And someone would wash your windows, front and back...

..and raise the hood and check the oil and all the fluids. You never had to get our of your car. They would bring your change.

[robdogbucky]

137. Thread-jacker, did you know Oregon is an attendant only state?

No self-service gas in Oregon




Carry on, regardless

[jkirch]

174. New Jersey, too.

[ManiacJoe]

290. Didn't Oregon change a few years back?

[quiller4]

534. Nope. The attempt to change OR law was defeated.

[Erose999]

338. Here in GA, drivers from OR have to take a test demonstrating that they can pump their own gas

before they can get a GA license.

[femrap]

236. I remember when all of that

stopped...and I thought, 'How the hell am I to know how my oil is doing?' Then all of those Jiffy Lubes, etc. sprang up.

And one's tires???? How the hell am I to fill the f*cking tires in high heels and good clothes on my way to/from what was 'work.'

Now that there is no work, I can wear sweats....but where the f*ck are the air pumps?

[Wednesdays]

336. There are plenty of air pumps...but they charge 25 or 50 cents

As far as getting your tires filled...you're on your own. And you have to bring your own tire gauge, too--the pumps don't have pressure meters on them like they used to.

[kskiska]

266. and they wore uniforms

with their names permanently stitched on the shirt. Most service people wore uniforms of one sort or another - hairdressers, waitresses, Good Humor men, soda jerks, elevator operators, nurses.

[eilen]

354. Nurses still wear uniforms-- at least where I work

Every nurse wears navy blue scrubs unless they work in the OR in which they wear OR scrubs. That is the trend for the hospitals country wide, the color of uniform may vary.

I wish they would improve on the color. White stained easily or yellowed. Navy picks up any stray dust, hair or lint.

[Maru Kitteh]

474. Nursing is profession.

Nursing is a profession, whereas the other things you listed are service occupations. The education and training necessary to become a nurse is demanding, rigorous, complex and not for the faint of heart.

[Angry Dragon]

107. Minnesota for the most part are pump first

[lonestarnot]

233. They used to wash your windows.

[Mnemosyne]

307. There is one here. Very nice to have when using a cane due to balance problem.

I'm always afraid I may lose balance and spew gas everywhere when pumping my own. :hi:

[rhett o rick]

406. They used to be called "service stations" because they gave you service.

Checked oil level, tire pressure, wash windows, etc.

[brewens]

411. I held out for as long as I could on that one. I would get back in

my truck and go to another station if I couldn't just fill up and go in and pay. If it's still possible where I live it's not practical.

[OxQQme]

533. 12 cents a gallon gasoline

I worked in a Gulf station in '64 across the street that's now Marina Del Rey and put that up on the reader board. It was a gas war against the competition down the boulevard.

Checked water/oil/battery water/air pressure in tires and washed all windows (meticulously on the front one for hot babes with short skirts).

I even remember clean air in the San Fernando Valley.

Mom and Dad had a three tone '56 Dodge station wagon.

Born in LA County General hospital for free in 1940.

Steam powered train locomotives.

[sylvi]

535. I worked at my uncle's Gulf station

I worked at my uncle's Gulf station part time all through high school. This was early '70s. Had two lift bays and a car wash bay and two pump islands, fairly large for a small town back in those days. It was the coolest place to be during the day because the older, cooler guys hung out there along with the hot rodders and assorted eccentric types. There always seemed to be some kind of shenanigans going on, practical jokes and the like. Gas was like 25 cents a gallon and it was the peak of the muscle car era so it was like teenage Nirvana.

We did the whole service thing too - wash windows, check fluid levels, even a free vacuum if requested. BTW, prior to it becoming common for cars to be carpeted, station attendants would sweep out the rubber-lined floors of customers' cars with little hand brooms without even having to ask.

God, I feel old.

[arbusto_baboso]

2. Tuition at UC and CS universities in California used to be free for residents.

[SoCalDem]

4. until Reagan

:(

[arbusto_baboso]

11. Yeah, interesting, isn't it?

How many things have fallen to complete shit after Ronnie Raygun got his hands on them? May he rot in the Hell he so richly deserves.

[Xenotime]

57. And President Obama wants to equate himself with that nut.

[arbusto_baboso]

67. That says a lot. And none of it good.

[Enthusiast]

303. It sure does. nt

[MedicalAdmin]

113. I had a vision once.

Of Raygun and Milton Friedman being slow roasted together on the same spit over a BBQ pit while being poked, turned and sauced up by the devil. It was a good vision.

[robdogbucky]

147. You mean like there weren't homeless people everywhere

before Reagan? "No, Jimmy, the only people sleeping in Golden Gate Park in '67 were hippies that had hitchhiked here from NYC."


I think he kicked off all the homelessness that is ubiquitous today by closing many state mental hospitals and releasing the patients.

That was just after Reagan teargassed the student infirmary on the Berkeley campus.

Now those were seminal teabagger moves, eh?

I am happy to be corrected if anyone can prove otherwise.



Carry on, regardless



rdb

[Enthusiast]

295. The difference was off the scale.

Or do you just automatically take the Republican side?

[robdogbucky]

Boy did you misread my intent

and then to blast me? My dog, I was pointing out that it was my direct experience that it was Reagan that commenced the influx of homelessness. What did you misread there? I was joking with the hippie answer see. That I suppose should have included the sarcasm emoticon I realize now. I am not a republican, just the opposite.

I was here for that, both, the migration of lots of hippies, sleeping in the parks, on beaches, etc. I was here in '67 and I was here in '69 when Reagan teargassed the student infirmary on the UC Campus, which I believe was the Poeples' Park demonstrations. Then I was here when the campus erupted after the Kent State killings in April, 1970.

That is not taking any republicans side. I just don't get where you derived any of that from my post.

Either you weren't alive then, or you completely misinterpreted my post.

Republican side. Man oh man. Get a grip.


Carry on, regardless

rdb

[ChiciB1]

494. I GOT IT... I Understood Exactly What You Were Saying! I Marched In D.C.

several times during Viet Nam and then again after Ronnie Rayguns got in office! After him, D.C. was LITTERED with homeless people sleeping on grates or where they could find warmth. Then, THEY STOPPED that too! They just kicked them and hid them, but the PROBLEM never went away!

I remember Abbe Hoffman fighting so hard, but then it finally got to him too!

And we call ourselves a DEMOCRACY! It's been a long time and people are just willing to let it keep getting worse. I HAVE tried many, many times to gather people together and take a stand. After a little while, I turn around and I'm standing alone!

[Enthusiast]

520. Sorry. I was wrong. nt

[Art_from_Ark]

325. Ronald Reagan was governor of California in 1967

Carry on, regardless

[baldguy]

311. It seems that after the USSR collapsed under it's own weight, the RW needed a new enemy.

Reagan pointed them toward the American middle-class.

[patrice]

22. You could pay $330. a semester at KU and take the maximum hours allowable, 18, I think it was.

[Seedersandleechers]

105. I remember my ex paying $250 for a semester at KU

That was 1971-1975.

[gblady]

401. '66-'70 Western Washington State College

$88/ quarter tuition...

my folks gave me $350 per quarter, which paid for room, board, tuition, books, clothes, entertainment, extras...
and I felt like I lived high on the hog...

When I first entered in '66, there was a strict dress code...gals had to wear skirts...could only wear pants if it snowed...
there were such huge social changes during those 4 years....I spent my last year in jeans and a tie-died t-shirt...with my hand
made love beads, of course, doing anti-Viet Nam protest signs and rallys, marching on the freeways...those were great days.
...ah, sweet nostalgia.

[SoCalDem]

404. Same era here.. From Bobbie Brooks twin sets to mocassins & bell-bottoms

water-buffalo sandals in the summer:)

[slackmaster]

25. Not quite. It was $158 per quarter for residents when I started at UCSD in the fall of 1975

It had already started rising steadily when the people voted in Proposition 13 in 1978.

[arbusto_baboso]

30. It was actually free prior to 1970. Look it up.

[slackmaster]

32. I don't doubt your word. It was free to the student, but not really free.

It was fully subsidized with tax money. By the time I started the subsidy was already shrinking, years before Proposition 13 took effect.

[SoCalDem]

34. which was "repaid" when those students started jobs

:) and contributed to the economy

[slackmaster]

37. That was the theory

Jobs were very scarce for the first few years after I finished my undergraduate degree.

[arbusto_baboso]

55. Well, it was still a far better system than federally backed student loans...

which the most economically advantaged seem to skip-out on with impunity, while the rest of us carry crushing debt. I could tell you the number of attorneys I know who basically ignore their student loan debts. But you wouldn't believe me.

[slackmaster]

59. Again I have no reason to doubt your word. I personally know people in their 50s...

...who have outstanding student loan debts.

[CreekDog]

86. Reagan was governor until 1974

care to restate your point?

[slackmaster]

96. My only "point" is that it's never been truly free, even when students paid zero tuition

It has always been subsidized.

[CreekDog]

185. When I went to UA in the mid-90s tuition was about $900/semester

It's now about $3000 per semester.

That's far outpacing inflation.

When you attended UCSD for $158 per quarter, what is that in today's dollars?

Shouldn't students there now have the benefit of paying the same level as you did?

I think students in Arizona should be paying the same or less than I paid back in the 90s.

Otherwise we become hypocrites, having accepted a deal that we were not responsible for, but that society provided for us, and now that we are voters and taxpayers, denying support for the same deal for students now.

[slackmaster]

196. I entered in the fall of '75 as I mentioned earlier, and I also said subsidies have been cut

Shouldn't students there now have the benefit of paying the same level as you did?

I don't know. There are a lot more of them now than there were then. A lot of things are different. Housing is much harder to afford. The middle class is getting squeezed on taxes. Fuel and food costs are going up quickly, and I just read that the price of cotton is skyrocketing.

We may all be running around nude in a few years.

Not that there's anything wrong with THAT.

[CreekDog]

216. well, when they all become voters, perhaps they'll eliminate whatever you're planning to retire on

:shrug:

[slackmaster]

372. They'll have to come and take it from me personally.

I'm putting much of my "retirement" into hard assets like my home, tools, optics, and my gun collection. If they come after my Social Security, they'll come after yours too.

[eilen]

357. The Baby Boomer generation was the largest by far than

the three that have followed. I believe that was your generation if you attended college in 1975.

[slackmaster]

371. Yes, I'm a Peak Boomer. State college and university enrollment has outpaced population growth.

The total student population of UCSD was about 10,000 when I started. It is now around 30,000.

Competition to get into a good school is far tougher than it was when I started. The grades, SAT scores, etc. that got me into UC in the mid-70s would not cut it today. (I could barely have qualified to get into UC Berkeley, but decided to stay closer to home.)

The state's population barely doubled from 1970 to 2010, and we have a higher portion of non-working people who need public assistance for housing and basic needs. Things like housing and food are less affordable now than they were 40 years ago. Obviously it would be a greater strain on working taxpayers now to fully subsidize college or university educations than it was when I was of college age.

[trackfan]

277. When I went, there was no tuition, but they did have a registration fee of $262

per quarter.

[kittykitty]

425. UC Berkeley was $75 a semester in 1961, and I was a resident n/t

[LiberalEsto]

575. I think in Pennsylvania too

and my tuition at Rutgers U. in New Jersey was $200 a semester in 1969.

[Jackpine Radical]

5. A bottle of Coke used to be a nickel.

Then it went up to a dime. But they were 7-oz. bottles, and we didn't suck down the huge quantities of it everyone drinks these days.

[Bluebear]

12. And you could look on the bottom of the bottle to see where it came from

We would get our Cokes and whoever had the bottle from the farthest got theirs free as the rest of us chipped in.

[Brother Buzz]

27. We used to play the braille game and try to guess where the bottle came from...

while we drank them.

[SoCalDem]

31. We had a 7UP bottling plant in my town & we used to collect them

& turn them in for money:) They would also give us each a cold bottle of 7UP for our trouble:)

[sylvi]

537. We used to do that

We called it playing "Traveler On The Bottle" and sometimes we'd bet a quarter or even a dollar before we pulled the bottle out of the machine.

[SoCalDem]

15. pay phones were also a nickel n/t

[arbusto_baboso]

16. And there actually WERE pay phones.

[SoCalDem]

17. A few years ago I needed to make a pay phone call, and I almost

could not figure out how to do it :rofl:

[arbusto_baboso]

20. Yeah, the only place to find pay phones now....

is in the very poorest areas of any city or town.

[MedicalAdmin]

116. And airports.

[madinmaryland]

74. You would use the payphone after getting a page on your beeper.

:P

[arbusto_baboso]

89. How else to keep in touch with the "client base"?

Jeez, cut me some slacks, why donctha?

[MedicalAdmin]

I don't miss Toyota sized cell phones.

[kittykitty]

434. And they were really booths where you could close the door AND sit down and

they were wood with glass panels half way up the bi-fold door. A light came on and the inside was a dark green kind of bumpy metal.

[hfojvt]

82. some of these comparisons are not fair though

a nickel was a lot more when people were only getting paid $1 a day :hide:

[MedicalAdmin]

118. A dollar a day?

I used to work for 3 months each summer and pay for tuition, fees, books, housing and food for the other 9. It's freaking impossible now.

And I didn't do it on $1 a day. How old do you think some of us are? 200?

[Jackpine Radical]

250. You bin had.

Although some Depression wages were about that low.

$2/hour was really TOP wages in the 50's. $1/hr was pretty common. In about 1960, minimum was $1/hr.

[SOS]

381. That 1960 $1/hour minimum wage, adjusted for inflation, would be $13 an hour today.

The minimum wage worker was much better off in 1960 than today.

[Arkansas Granny]

353. I never worked for a dollar a day, but I have worked for a dollar an hour.

When I graduated from high school, minimum wage was $1.25 per hour. The new Mustang came out the same year (1964) and the cost was $3,334.00.

[vanboggie]

441. A nickel was more in 1973

I was making $3/hr. as an executive secretary in '73 and could afford a decent apartment, nice clothes and my '70 Mach I (gas was still 33 cents a gallon).
Plus I could afford food, went out a lot and managed to save a few bucks. Kids don't have a chance these days.

[blondeatlast]

214. Pay phones?!

;)

[MedicalAdmin]

225. Dammit - get off my lawn.

(smiles)

[kskiska]

269. and they were in a comfy wooden booth

with glass folding doors that closed, a seat, and a fan. Nice and private.

[Art_from_Ark]

579. I don't remember pay phones ever being a nickel

But I do remember going down to Louisiana in 1979 and seeing stickers on the pay phones saying "Look! It now costs a dime to make a call."

[SoCalDem]

581. soft drinks & candy bars were also a nickel

of course the bottles were 6-8 oz:)

[Art_from_Ark]

582. I don't remember those prices, either

From the time I got my first allowance in 1965 or so, sodas (10 oz. bottles), candy bars, and telephone calls were all a dime through the rest of the decade in my little corner of the world in Arkansas. Once in a while, some store would have a sale of six candy bars for 50 cents or a dozen for a dollar. Lunch box-sized bags of potato and corn chips were 7 cents. The Frito Bandito was hawking his wares on TV commercials, and Frito-Lay was offering Frito Bandito pencil erasers inside specially-marked lunch box packs of chips. Double Bubble bubble gum was just a few cents a pack, and candy cigarettes were a dime a pack.

[deaniac21]

136. 6 oz bottles and it went from a nickel to 6 cents before it went to

a dime.

[kskiska]

267. Even the straws were skinny

and sometimes they'd come in a packet of two, which you'd use at the same time. Pepsi was the same price as Coke, but was 12 ounces. A good size candy bar was 5 cents, though Mounds was 10 cents.

[Robb]

6. Not a "favorite," exactly

...but younger people seem astounded that anyone paid an 18-19% rate on a home mortgage. A mere 30 years ago or so.

[SoCalDem]

10. We got a "bargain" rate of 16.5% on our Aurora, CO house

:grr:

[femrap]

238. I remember 'creative'

financing in the '80's. Owners would carry the loans at a much reduced rate...it was illegal, but who was going to stop people from selling/buying their homes?

It all ended with Raygun. I distinctly remember New Year's Eve 1979 and there was a complete PARADIGM SHIFT. On 1/1/80, I knew things were to be different....and along came Raygun.

And it has been downhill ever since. No wonder I'm depressed.

Our only hope is Mother Nature's revenge on the Corporate Plunders. Nothing is more powerful than her.

[Art_from_Ark]

585. It seems to me like there was a paradigm shift

between 1969 and 1970 as well.

[EC]

7. And a lot of this changed with

Reagan...

[Bluebear]

8. Marathon Gas gave away red Christmas candles every year :)

and

[safeinOhio]

9. Use to have this little crank thing

in cars that would roll up or down the windows.

HD was an antenna on the roof. the best the rest of us had was tin foil on the rabbit ears.

Kids played out side all day.

[SoCalDem]

14. The tv antenna for our B & W Sylvania? our neighbor's chain link fence

:rofl:

[Brother Buzz]

51. We lived in a valley and needed the roof antenna to reduce the ghost bounce off the hill

Remember ghosts?

[SoCalDem]

53. We had snow, static, voice-intrusion and ghosts

sometimes it was just a giant radio:rofl: with lousy reception

our first color tv took months of save up for Zenith in a walnut cabinet with chrome legs & a remote control with a CORD..our "ocd" dog used to dig on the carpet, run up to the tv legs & give her nose a shock..

[Brother Buzz]

235. Our TV was also a tachometer...

when the teenager across the road tried to tune his car. He spent countless hours trying to tune it.

[SoCalDem]

237. oooh. I remember that happening too

:) and if I fired up the vacuum cleaner it would stroke out with wavy lines:)

[Horse with no Name]

256. My uncle had one of the first remote control TV's

and the channel would change every time the dog walked by and wiped the screen with its tail!

[AnneD]

294. Our remote tv...

would change when you swept the floor or picked up the car keys and they jingled. We use to spend hours 'experimenting' to change channels. And who hasn't had to play with the rabbit ears only to have it change when you walked away.

I didn't have a whole Coke or candy bar by myself until I went away to college. :rofl:

[snappyturtle]

257. YES! I had forgotten.

One of my earliest memories of teevee was watching a republican event (1952), I think a national convention. My mother served my twin sister and me sandwiches on a tray...my first meal in front of the box! Mom is still a rabid repuke....but it didn't take on me! Even from that age forward...lordy!

I degress! Thanks for the wavy line memory...it evoked more than I thought I could remember.

edit:spelling

[barbtries]

310. i remember ghosts

and periodically my father and brother getting up on the roof to adjust the set.

[Brother Buzz]

502. We spent more time adjusting the vertical hold

It always foretold of a pending vacuum tube failure. Inevitably it would fail on a weeknight and we had to wait until Saturday morning when Pops would pull all the tubes and visit the TV shack to have them tested. I have no idea why Pops pulled all of them when it was always the same tube that craped out. "Pops, buy two so we can have a spare and fix the TV on a Tuesday night".

[SoCalDem]

504. Rexall Drugs had tube testers .. battery testers too

[Brother Buzz]

514. In the early fifties the dwaft TV wizzard, Walt, had the only machine in town

The tube testers started appearing in our area in the late fifties. Heck, even the market down the road had one by 1960. I used that one for testing radio tubes.

I wasn't allowed to touch the TV because Pops says it stored high voltage, even when unplugged. I had to believe him because he was a Navy radar repairman during WWII and knew a bit about cathode ray tubes, plus our TV was a hand built custom-one-off prototype black and white remote control television his brother built in the forties; it had some seriously heavy coils of exposed copper wiring and was NOT an Underwriters Laboratories approved television.

[TriMera]

23. My car still has the little crank thing.

You should see how the mechanics laugh when I take it in for repairs (which is,surprisingly,not that often). I love my "little old lady car".:P

[safeinOhio]

35. Took my GFs grandkids for a ride

and asked one to roll up his window and he looked around and asked how. He is 15 and never saw a crank up window.

[TriMera]

45. Doesn't surprise me at all. n/t

[wryter2000]

374. My 96 Neon has crank-up windows

Love that little car.

[bdamomma]

how funny, that was a one way of getting exercise

instead of just touching and it goes up automatically, just think when there were no remotes for TV, you had to jump up to change the station, another form of exercise.

[YvonneCa]

505. Reminds me of the time I offered to drive my...

...brother's 1967 car home and my niece gave me directions on how to open the crank windows...just in case. :) It was all I could do to keep from laughing out loud. ;)

[handmade34]

65. I just bought a new car

that has crank windows...

[TriMera]

69. Really? I didn't know they still made them. n/t

[handmade34]

78. most of the low end cars

still make bare bones cars... I love bare bones!

[SoCalDem]

83. many pick up trucks offer crank windows even now.. n/t

[prairierose]

431. Me too..although, I am afraid that the poor thing..

is on its last legs. I was told the next time it has a major breakdown, they will not be able to fix it because they tried and could not. It is still running but who knows for how long.

[MedicalAdmin]

119. My truck still has those little crank down things for windows.

They work well no matter the state of the alternator or battery.

[Codeine]

171. My windows have cranks.

They even have the little knobs broken off to complete my Working Poor Chic look. ;)

[starroute]

191. And cars used to have wing windows in front of the roll-down one

In the summer, you could crack them to get a nice breeze that wouldn't blow your hair off the way the roll-down windows do. There was also a vent at the edge of the hood just in front of the windshield that you pulled a knob to raise and that would bring in fresh outside air without it getting heated up by passing through the engine compartment first.

I really miss both those things and wish I didn't have to run the air conditioner the moment it goes over 80.

[MedicalAdmin]

227. I miss those.

But they cost money so...

[Joe Fields]

394. Those were the greatest. I miss them too.

[kittykitty]

436. Me too. You could get a little ventilation with out opening the whole window

[ElsewheresDaughter]

422. they were great when it rained....and smokers

[happyslug]

496. My 1995 Jeep Wrangler has "Vent Windons"

Chrysler removed them for the 1997 model year (there was no 1996 Jeep Wrangler).

[femrap]

242. Now our cars are filled with

silicon chips....which, if needed, can be DEACTIVATED. This happened to my car....the tow dude said, "It happens sometimes when a fire or cop car interferes w/ the frequencies."

Then came "Cash for Clunkers"....and where did all those non-chip old cars go? Not to used car lots....it was MANDATORY that all the clunkers BE SHREDDED.

F*cking PTB.

I never wanted an 'automatic-everything' car....but you can't find one that isn't.

Give me my 1966 white Mustang back. I loved that car. That's what I learned to drive on...it was a magical carpet ride!!!

[Art_from_Ark]

586. I hate the new "all-automatic" cars, too

I really hate having to turn on the engine to roll the windows up, and I hate having a computer deciding how to control my steering wheel (and ending up conking out), when my old rack-and-pinion steering never failed me.

And that "kash 4 klunkers" krap-- what a krock that was.

[leftstreet]

13. To sum up: There used to be fewer impoverished people in the US

The middle class theory of social mobility is running smack into the reality of Capitalism

The brief periods of FDR programs and post WWII manufacturing are actually anomalies in the history of the US working class.

[Enthusiast]

304. We allowed the "airwaves"

to be entirely co-opted to serve only the interests of the military industrial complex and multinational corporations. The fairness doctrine protected us from a barrage of damaging propaganda. Now we have Fox News and the others working tirelessly against the interests of the American worker. As a result the concept of "general welfare" has been lost.

[spanone]

18. yesterday i drove past a bank, they were advertising on their marquee

high-interest rate checking account...0.60%

money market fund......1.00%



unbelievable

[Blue_Tires]

564. I'm in a credit union, and savings interest has dropped to .50%

In 1982 when I was six, my dad started a savings account in my name and showed me the little book and paperwork...Dad told me it paid 3.5 percent interest, and my reply was "Is that ALL??"

[patrice]

19. 2nd mortgages When that started, my 1st spouse, no wild-eyed liberal he, kept saying:"That's crazy!"

[SoCalDem]

21. and "equity lines of credit"

people financing yard work & pizzas for 30 years :rofl:

[slackmaster]

24. All interest rates were ridiculously high in the early '80s. I was working for a bank at the time.

I remember the CDs with rates of 14% and higher, and 30-year mortgages topping out around 18%. It was very hard to qualify for a home loan.

The interest on my first car loan was deductible when I bought the vehicle (a Nissan pickup), as was interest on revolving credit (credit cards). Elimination of those deductions hit a lot of people hard, and really changed the "product" mixes offered by banks.

There used to be a 10% Luxury Tax (yup..just like in Monopoly) on furs, jewelry, leather goods, etc.

That one had the unintended consequence of destroying the pleasure boat industry in the USA. Manufacturers pulled up their anchors and sailed to other countries.

I had my first experience of getting laid off of a job in 1981. The company I worked for closed our office and put about 150 people out of work. We found ourselves all standing in line at the Employment Development Department (unemployment) office in downtown San Diego the next morning, from the receptionist up to the executives who were resented and hated by most of us. I collected UI for a couple of months, then landed what turned out to be the worst job I've ever had - Writing maintenance comics for a small company, for the US Army.

All of the cars being manufactured in the USA at the time universally sucked. Quality control was in the ditch, and the Big 3 hadn't figured out that people wanted cars that got decent fuel mileage. General Motors had made some diesel cars that were probably the worst ever. Honda Civics and Accords ruled the highways, and there were long waits to get them.

There was a federal income tax form which I believe was called Schedule G - Income Averaging. If you experienced a sudden increase in earnings, income averaging could help you avoid the penalty for under-withholding. I took advantage of that one a couple of times. It was gone by about 1992.

[MedicalAdmin]

121. My truck is a 1985 toyota diesel with an inline 4 engine.

It gets about 40MPG, has 500,000 miles on it, still runs and was paid off 21 years ago. My insurance costs are about $140 per year.

On the other hand if it gets totalled I'll get bupkis.

[slackmaster]

156. My 1985 Nissan pickup was totalled TWICE during the time I owned it

I finally sold it for $300 in 2002, with 265,000 miles on it and a near-new set of Michelin tires.

The transmission, engine, and drive train were all original and had never needed any repairs.

[MedicalAdmin]

224. I need a new clutch and the main seals are going but...

I bought a few sets last time I bought when it was still a supported vehicle so I'll just pull as set out of storage this summer and get greasy....


I'll sell my truck only after it rusts out under me. It's like an old comfy pair of jeans - no longer my main vehicle but good to have around for projects and weekends and camping and...

[Retrograde]

456. We had a 12% variable rate mortgage in 1980

and felt lucky to get it - rates had been 17% earlier that year. And that was for 80% of the purchase price, the max banks would lend: we saved every bit of my take-home pay and a good part of Mr. Retrograde's to get that 20% together.

I remember $0.23 gas, but minimum wage was about $1.50 an hour then. I also remember the days when it was legal to have "Help Wanted-Male" and "Help Wanted - Female" ads.

[onestepforward]

26. Porches were built on the front of homes

and neighbors would often gather and visit with each other.

[SoCalDem]

29. and they even knew each other's names & their pets & kids too

:( not so much now:(

[onestepforward]

48. Neighbors were extended family members.

I miss it too.

[MedicalAdmin]

124. Oooooo - I got one. SIDEWALKS.

They stopped building them somewhere in the 80's I think. I miss sidewalks.

[SoCalDem]

141. Our sidewalk was brick..I used to have to go to my friend's house to roller skate

remember roller skate keys:) I still have one somewhere.. My son found it one day and said, what IS this thing?:)

[MedicalAdmin]

144. I had one too.

Next time a kid finds yours and asks what it is put on a stone face and say "it's the detonator pin for a bomb." If they ask you about it look furtive and tell them that you CAN'T talk about it.

[kittykitty]

437. Slate sidewalks were the best for roller skating!

[eridani]

278. And you were in for bad luck if you stepped on a segnemt with the contractor's imprint n/t

[Recursion]

368. That's what creeps me out about new suburbs

No sidewalks. It's just wrong.

[kskiska]

270. Some people even had signs in their yards

"The Wilsons Live Here" Nowadays everyone wants to remain anonymous.

[Kweli4Real]

130. This is something I immediately noticed ...

when I moved from the mid-west to Arizona. None (very few) of the houses had porches; but every house has a patio ... in the back of the house ... surrounded by a wall ... in a sub-division ... with CC&Rs that are down right punitive of any noise that might waft over said wall and could lead to expulsion should your child play in front of your house.

This set up doesn't exactly encourage neighborliness.

[robdogbucky]

155. Nor do western built homes usually have basements

They were slab construction,usually with just a crawl space. That was new to me from western states.

Some of the older homes have basements, like some of the great places in older residential like Oakland, CA but not many. There were framed with redwood timber though, termite resistent and so good that they are highly valued on the resale market in the demolition of any old home here that has them.


I'm happy to be corrected if you can prove me wrong.



Carry on, regardless

rdb

[SoCalDem]

157. I miss basements too. Like having a "double" house

unless it;s a smelly, wet basement:)

[eridani]

280. Very common in post WW II Midwest to dig a basement and put a temporary roof on it

Move the family in, and gradually work on building the upper part of the house yourself bit by bit.

[patrice]

28. I started working when I was 14. An expensive coat was $60.00, shoes $40.00.nt

[kentuck]

33. And you did not pay taxes on unemployment compensation....

until Reagan was in office. That was one of the tax increases he initiated.

[SoCalDem]

36. That's the singlemost atrocious thing ever..

talk about kicking someone when they are down:grr:

[femrap]

243. Right up there with

taxing wait staff's tips. Remember he demanded they pay taxes of 8% on the total amount of the meals?

My mom was working at a Truck Stop on Friday and Saturday nights 11:00 pm to 7:00 am so to recover from a divorce. I hate Raygun to this day. She was lucky to get 8%.

I'm angry all over again thinking about this.

[former9thward]

212. Unfortunately that was not Reagan. It started with Carter.

The Revenue Act of 1978 first made a portion of UC benefits taxable beginning January 1, 1979. Then Reagan signed a bill that Congress passed in 1986 that made all UC taxable.

[Enthusiast]

297. That was the beginning of

modern contempt for the American worker. This is why Reagan gets no positives in my book.

[patrice]

38. Pretend disembowlings were not SOLD as tv/movie/game entertainment.

[MedicalAdmin]

125. Maybe so, but John Wayne was sold as entertainment.

I'll take Freddy Kruger. He's done less harm.

[patrice]

139. Ahhh, don't get me goin' on "the Great Generation": Frank Sinatra??? Dean Martin??

Sufficient to each generation, the degeneration thereof.

I'm with you about John Wayne.

It's hard to understand why we make such idols out of people who don't really contribute THAT much and many of whom probably even started out down the particular career paths they chose because they were looking for a way to make a living without as much 9-5 work as the rest of us.

[Orrex]

334. Yes they were

In movies, at any rate. Brutal violence has been a big part of the film industry since the very beginning. Sure, the level of "realism" has changed over time, but this is due at least as much to advances in special effects technology as to any increase in societal bloodlust.

[Warren DeMontague]

547. Used to be, in many places, LYNCHINGS were sold as entertainment.

So, please, let's not hear how HALO has destroyed the moral fiber of America.

[Bluebear]

39. "Beautiful women kept youthful and slim by smoking cigarettes"

There was no stopping the tobacco companies in their quest for more addicts, including advertising like this!

[SoCalDem]

43. My husband was born in 1943, and when his Mom died & we went through her stuff

we found his little "baby progress" booklet where the doctor filled in his weight & stuff.. on 5 pages , there were ads for cigarettes, advising the new Mom how she could lose the baby weight by smoking Chesterfields, and another one telling her that if her baby was "lethargic" or fell asleep during nursing, she could smoke 2 cigarettes while nursing him:)

[forty6]

320. Yikes! I never heard of THAT before... and my mother was a

smoker. Hmmmm Maybe THAT's why I'm lethargic!!!

[sofa king]

240. ...and then along came cocaine.

[MiniMe]

40. Banks paid out high interest, but you paid high interest on loans too.

Car loans and mortgage loans were 10-12% during that time period, and that was with good credit rating. And credit card rates were somewhat reasonable.

[SoCalDem]

47. BUT, we did not LIVE on credit then.. we saved up

:)

[CreekDog]

92. More jobs paid enough to save up back then

:(

[ChiciB1]

498. I NEVER Got A Credit Card Until I Was In My Mid-30's! We Paid Cash

or if we didn't have enough... it was LAY AWAY! Yes, I'm a Boomer but we really had some GOOD GOING ON back then. We also had a lot of upheaval, but there was a feeling we could do something about CHANGE!

I also remember "green stamps" from the grocery stores! My mother was adamant that we get our stamps or we had to go back if we forgot!

[JDPriestly]

417. And people did not run up oppressive debts on credit cards.

High interest rates encourage saving and discourage excessive borrowing. I think high interest rates are a good thing because they bring stability to the economy.

[SoCalDem]

423. They couldn't, because credit card companies had LOW credit limits

Our first card (sent to us unsolicited) was BankAmericard and came with a $500 limit. It could only be raised by asking for an increase, and then waiting to hear back from them whether or not it was approved.

EVERY purchase was called in for an approval number, and all merchants used to have stacks of booklets with "bad card" numbers & a big ole pair of scissors (they cut up the card & got a "bounty" for mailing in the pieces to BankAmericard). My friend who was a bank teller made lots of money from cutting up bad cards from people who thought they could still get a cash advance on a "bad card".

[YvonneCa]

506. There were no 'liar loans' and loans weren't sliced and diced into...

...a product to sell.

[n2doc]

41. California houses could be had for 2-3x average annual salary

Although that may be returning. My mom bought her first house for 30 grand in 1976 there. North Bay Area.

It used to be that towns were distinctive entities with their own personalities there too. Now they are just one big development stretching as far as commuters will go.

[Graybeard]

42. My first job was delivering meds for the local druggist.

I was about 12 yrs old and the druggist was known by everybody as "Doc". After school I would go to see if Doc had any prescriptions to deliver and he would pay me by letting me take my choice of candy bar from the display by the register.

[patrice]

44. Making money on the name of the Lord was considered sacrilegeous

[nadinbrzezinski]

46. Medical care would not put you in the poor house

workers could afford to send their kids to college.

It was about WE, not me.

I could go on.

[SoCalDem]

50. When my grandmother died at Sacred Heart Hospital,

It was MONTHS before they even sent her final bill...which I think was a couple of hundred dollars..they DID send a sympathy card a few days after she died.

[peace frog]

133. As a child, when I was too sick to leave the house

the doctor would make a house call to examine me and treat the illness. That visit might include taking a throat culture, giving an injection, and leaving a sample bottle of the prescription medication so I could take my meds right away and my mother could fill the prescription from the pharmacy at her leisure. And he didn't charge more than a regular office visit!

This ain't your daddy's America anymore, Sonny.

[nadinbrzezinski]

146. I remember that too

even if that was in another country

[starroute]

200. Doctors used to have special "MD" license plates for making house calls

The idea was that they could park next to hydrants or even double park and they wouldn't get ticketed.

[Enthusiast]

299. Doctors still make

house calls in Germany. I swear.

[JDPriestly]

418. Yes, in Germany and Austria, they still make house calls especially

for children and the elderly. That's a form of single payer. Doctors get paid for sure. Here doctors get stiffed a lot.

[sinkingfeeling]

343. When you went to a doctor (now your PCP), he looked at the problem, talked to you, and

then either wrote a prescription for medicine or 'fixed' the problem. No sending you to a lab for more tests or referring you to somebody else. I used to pay $10 a visit to my family doctor, who handled things like my son's broken arm. Didn't need insurance except for extended hospital stays.

[remember2000forever]

49. You could get a job with a major company, join a Union,

get decent Health Insurance, Sick Days and Paid Vacations the very first year. These benefits accrued over the time you spent with the company. If there was a "beef" with your supervisor you had a Union Rep come with you to reply to the complaint.

[peace frog]

149. My friends and I all found decent jobs right out of high school

with major companies that were eager to not only hire but also train us. If we were reliable and did a good job, we were promoted and/or received regular pay raises and bonuses, and we were barely 18-19 years old! If we were careful with money it was a cinch to afford the cost of housing, marry and start a family, etc.

I grieve for my kids who had none of these advantages and will no doubt have to re-invent themselves several times over the course of their working lives, just to stay underemployed and living with Mom and Dad!

[eridani]

282. If you stayed at home and were not in college or trade school, you

--were expected to pay rent. No biggie--there were jobs with decent pay avaiable to young people who didn't want further education.

[mrmpa]

52. In mid '70's it cost $1800 per year for a private college education, that

included room and board

[Jackpine Radical]

54. The first telephone I remember at home was an oak box on the wall

with a microphone sticking out at you like a long nose between and below two dome-shaped bells. The earpiece hung by a switch-hook on the left side, and a crank stuck out the right side. You picked up the earpiece with one hand, so the hook/switch gizmo clicked up thereby connecting you to the line, and you used your other hand to ring with the crank on the right side. Our ring was 3-short. Other people on the party line had other codes. We all knew each other and each other's ring codes. If you wanted to call someone on your line, you rang their ring-code of long & short rings (like Morse letters). If you wanted the operator, you rang once & she (always she) would answer. You told her the number you wanted to call, and she would connect you & ring that number. You couldn't use the phone if someone else was on it. In case of an emergency, you would just break in on the ongoing call & tell them you had to make an urgent call. You could listen in on other people's calls. If people were listening in on you, your voice signal would get weaker & weaker depending on how many eavesdroppers had picked up on your call. You were always therefore very careful what you said on the phone.

[Paper Roses]

123. Geeze, I know how old you are. I remember the same phone---

and the number 422Ring 4. Party line. And we had a snoop who listened to everyone's conversation. This was back in the late 40's and early 50's. Lived in the sticks then. Now that same town has some of the most high priced real estate in the state. AND my old house is a funeral home. Sad.

[femrap]

245. Oh thank you for reminding me

about 'the party line.' I think they were mostly in rural areas.

You really had to watch what you said during your calls....but you could usually tell if anyone was listening.

[snappyturtle]

253. Hey, I had a party line in the 50's in a city of close to 100,000! It

was a hoot! It was like a game of chinese telephone...for real!

[SoCalDem]

365. SWhen we got married in 1970, we had to take a party line (4 people)

until a single line opened up for us.. It only took a few months, but it was so weird to hear the phone ring and have to wait to see if it was for you before you picked up..

This was in Michigan City Indiana (just a hop & a skip from Chicago)

[femrap]

376. I grew up in the country and I guess I

thought the city folk had it better. Oops! They were fun.

[prairierose]

439. Yes, I remember that phone in my grandmother's house...

However, it was the mid to late 1960's before she got a private line. They had a party line all those years.

[DemoTex]

58. Medical doctors made house calls.

Many small-town MDs practiced out of a room/rooms in their home. My wife's dad practiced medicine in the downstairs portion of their two-story home, and they lived upstairs.

[SoCalDem]

61. My aunt's doctor's office was in his solarium

on the lower level of his house. and he also made house calls.. I was told that when I was a baby, I had a febrile seizure & he came right over to take care of me..

[MedicalAdmin]

129. We make house calls at our clinic.

Not many, but we make them. We also open up "after hours" if we need to.

[Yavin4]

512. I Was Going To Add That One

I grew up in Washington, DC in the 1960s and 1970s, and I remember a doctor coming to my house to check up on me when I was sick.

There was a movie called, "House Calls"

http://www.imdb.com/media/rm2305137920/tt0077699

[eShirl]

60. Student smoking lounge in high school

also a covered wooden smoking porch out back for when the weather was pleasant

[Hello_Kitty]

63. Having the vice principal offer you a smoke in her office when you got sent there for an ass-chewing

Not that I'm speaking from personal experience or anything. :)

[Hello_Kitty]

62. TV programming ending every night at 11pm with the flag and national anthem. eom

[SoCalDem]

66. Do you remember the Indian head test pattern?

I do ..we would get up early and stare at that thing until cartoons came on
We had no TV (in Panama) and then were in Wyoming for 9 months or so before going back to Panama for another 6 years (no more tv)

tv was such a treat, that even the pattern was entertaining

[Hello_Kitty]

70. Yep. I remember the weirdest things from a very young age.

I was born in '68 and I know that they banned cigarette ads when I was a toddler. But I remember the "You've come a long way baby!" Virginia Slims ads with the sashaying models as clear as yesterday!

[SoCalDem]

76. yellow chiffon palazzo pants & a flowing long scarf

I remember them too:)..never liked those cigarettes though

[siligut]

470. The filter paper had little pastel flowers printed on them

So pretty :)

[bdamomma]

390. oh yea, Marlboro Man country was another cigarette ad.

[Graybeard]

71. The "News" was just 15 minutes.

When some stations decided to show old movies after 11pm they were called "The Late Show" and "The Late, Late Show".

[CreekDog]

95. Remember the "CBS Late Movie"?

And how Letterman would complain, "It's not really a movie".

[X_Digger]

122. I remember seeing the movie.. 'Gargoyles' on that.. scared the bejeesus out of me..

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068622/

http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BMTI3NzI1MTU1Ml5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwMTg2MjMyMQ@@._V1._SY317_CR5,0,214,317_.jpg

[enuegii]

264. I was about 12 at the time that movie came out...

I had a wicked crush on Jennifer Salt.

[handmade34]

73. OMG.. loved that

[Manifestor_of_Light]

168. The Carmen Dragon arrangement of "America the Beautiful", to be exact.

He was a wonderful man. I had the privilege of playing under him (first violin) at music camp at the University of Kansas in Lawrence in the summer of 1971. And yes, we DID play that fabulous arrangement of America the Beautiful.

He has a daughter who is a harpist, also named Carmen Dragon.

[IDemo]

211. Don't know if this was played everywhere,

but when I was a child in Southern California during the 60's, there was a great sign off - a jet fighter was shown close up, then pulling away, with this voice over:

High Flight
by John Gillespie Magee, Jr.

Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds...and done a hundred things

You have not dreamed of...wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew.
And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod

The high untrespassed sanctity of space
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

[Frank Cannon]

556. We had that same sign-off, too, up in rural Idaho.

Here's a link to the video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoL-KCFbIpA

And here's another classic sign-off that I'm sure a lot of people remember:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UReVVrbL8xs

[Blue_In_AK]

64. You're depressing me.

I remember all that stuff well.

[SoCalDem]

68. at least we got a chance to have it.. the younger ones here never had that chance

I'm not so sure that all the electronic goodies they have are a fair trade:(

[zalinda]

72. Let's see..........the 60's

Ice cream from the ice cream man was 10 cents for a creamsicle, and 5 cents for 1/2 a popsicle. Now the popsicle wasn't the ones that have the 2 sticks, these where the same size as a creamsicle, and there were 2 in a package. Our guy would split them for us.

Candy bars were a nickel and bigger than they are now. You really could split a 3 musketeer bar with 2 or your friends and each have about 4 bites of candy bar.

In elementary school, the snack bag of chips was a nickel, as was the small container of either chocolate or white milk. There were no vending machines.

In middle school I think the lunches were 35 cents and in high school they went up to 50 cents. And these were cooked on the premises, by people who knew how to cook. Pizza was rarely served, but there was meat loaf, fried chicken, mashed potatoes with real gravy, and our cook made the best home made rolls, they were so light and fluffy, and sometimes you even got them when they were still warm. Yum!

Hardly any one had a pure bred dog or cat, and it was almost unheard of to buy a cat or dog at the pet store.

A doctor's visit was $15. I'm not sure about the dentist, but few people ever got braces that I knew.

There were 5 and dime stores, and you could actually buy things in there for a nickel or a dime.

In the 60's and 70's, you could actually buy a brand new car for $3,000.

And one more thing, you actually thought highly of your elected officials.

zalinda

[SoCalDem]

80. and car loans lasted about 3 years w/payments under $100

even for spiffy cars:)

[sad sally]

101. In 1965, we had a baby. The doctor's total pregnancy bill

was $150, and another $12.50 for lab work. The hospital bill (3 days) was $144. We didn't have insurance, so had to pay all of it, but in those days both doctors and hospitals let you make small monthly payments - no interest charges either.

[robdogbucky]

169. 1967

Brand new Volvo: $1999


I'm happy to be corrected but that was in giant letters of the window of a car dealership on Van Ness Ave. I stared at it a lot from the bus stop, dreaming.



Carry on, regardless



rdb

[eilen]

360. I think my mother bought a new Volkswagon for $1888 or

something like that.

[SoCalDem]

392. My husband's '68 GTO cost $3100.00 @ $88 a month

That car now would be over $30K if we had not traded it in on a ...wait for it.....









Ford Maverick


Our oldest son has never forgiven us for that..

we traded the Goat and a ragtop Ford Falcon convertible in on that Maverick..(we desperately needed a 4 door car we could afford)

We kept that Maverick and our son got it for his first car.. (I was 4 months pregnant with him when we traded them in). Our son had that Maverick until just a few years ago when he finally had to let it go..but he would have much preferred to have had the GTO or the Falcon

[Vinca]

75. The Bond Bread Company used to deliver bread to my Grandma's

back door on a regular basis and the milkman left dairy products in an insulated container on the back stoop. There was a dry cleaning truck that made regular stops, too, but here's the real shocker. An insurance agent used to come to her house once a month to make a social visit and collect the insurance premium. This was the 1960's . . . what great memories.

[patrice]

88. Yes!!! Cold milk with cream on top, left near the front door, when my kids were less than 10 years

old. That would be just back in the late '70s.

[SoCalDem]

93. If you look through all these memories, you'll notice that ALL

of these tidbits from the past have PEOPLE doing jobs that left and are never coming back, but the people are still here..

I'm sure that progress has to happen, but when it happens too fast, and impoverishes people who are put out to pasture with nothing to fall back on, we end up where we are now..:(

Remember when you called a number on a bill, and a person answered? a person who could solve your problem within a few minutes? and you did not have to play phone-robot roulette for 30 minutes before finally getting cut off when the robot tries to transfer you?

[Vinca]

98. Did I mention my Gram called the bread man "Bondie?"

Nicknames for delivery people . . . imagine. Now we have phone robots. I was on with one last week and, for a second, couldn't tell the difference between the talking robot and the person I was being connected to. I thanked a robot.

[patrice]

99. Some of it relatively recently too. Not just change, but FAST change. Tuition at KU for example

that was when my daughter was 6 years old, so she went to school, so I could go to school too, so that would have been mid-late'70s.

[snappyturtle]

254. Tuition...my four year college education, room, board, tuition and books:

$10,000.00! Indiana University Bloomington,IN

Of course, we didn't have the internet :( but I loved the libraries and no hand held calculators! Slide rules! Hours! had to be in by 10pm or 11pm during the week and 1:00 am on Friday and Saturday nights. No co-ed living arrangements on campus maybe that's why there were lots of panty raids in the springtime! NOW, I know I'm old!!!

[MedicalAdmin]

135. Now Ima gonna cry.

I miss customer service. Employees with knowledge and enough years under their belts to actually know WTF they were doing and how things worked.

I talked to this dude from the Philipines yesterday ... not much help there although he was very pleasant and seemed to really want to help. I just think the current set up of customer service is modeled on health insurance companies, i.e. how many ways can we smile while not doing anything.

[sinkingfeeling]

346. Really, there's almost twice as many people here. And back then, you could actually see

and understand what a person was doing to make a living. A neighbor was a TV repairman (yes, kids, there was a time when broken things were fixed rather than dumped), another was a butcher, another taught school, and we all knew the name of the banker. Nobody was a 'venture capitalist' or making millions on ETFs.

[Paper Roses]

126. Did it ever freeze and the cover popped up?

The frozen cream was above the level of the milk bottle.

[peace frog]

152. In South Florida, you had to bring the milk in right away

If it sat on the doorstep for longer than a few minutes, it started getting hot. Dairy had to be tossed if left outside too long in the heat.

[peace frog]

154. Anybody here from South Florida remember Farm Stores?

They were all over the Miami suburbs when I was growing up. Farm Stores were small drive-through convenience stores that sold mostly staples like bread and dairy products. Farm Stores brand ice cream was to die for!

[SoCalDem]

159. I remember them from my visit to my cousin in 1964

waaaay better than our 7-11s:)

[peace frog]

170. Whereabouts did you visit?

I lived in a Southwest area neighborhood called "Westwood Lakes" as a kid. ETA: The "lakes" were actually canals that ran between the backyards of the homes; I remember the alligators climbing up to sun themselves in our back yard, LOL! Later the entire Southwest are would be called "Westchester", but in the early days each neighborhood was more or less distinct since the developments were little islands stuck here and there in the middle of tomato and strawberry fields.

[SoCalDem]

173. Miami.

I cannot recall the neighborhood. They were recent Cuban emigres so it was a downscale area, but still quite nice.. My cousin's boyfriend lived in Coral Gables, so we spent a good amount of time there..

[peace frog]

178. Both sets of grandparents lived in Coral Gables

and I remember well making the weekly trip to visit them after church on Sundays. We lived out Bird Road so as soon as I saw Allen's Drugstore on the corner of Red and Bird Roads, I knew we were almost there. Couldn't have been older than 3 or 4 but I can still see it all. Visiting my grandparents was a highlight of my life at that age; they were the most wonderful people and I miss them, may the gods bless them.

[remember2000forever]

550. Allen's Drug Store Was Still There Around 10 years Ago

Anybody know if it still is?

[CottonBear]

467. In the 60s & 70s in eastern TN we had Golden Gallon drive through convenience stores!

It was great! Mom got milk, bread and eggs and we kids got Icees!

[July]

356. Our house in South Buffalo had a "milk chute" on the driveway side.

Door for the milkman on the outside, door for us on the inside.

[kittykitty]

442. Yep, we did, too. House built in 1938

[DebJ]

544. I remember the insurance guy coming by once a week in

the 1960s, to pick up some grand sum like $2-$3 from Mom for $500 life insurance policies on each of her four children.

And the milk man, who brought bread also.

And the Fuller Brush man.

[Citizen Worker]

77. In the state where I live there was a 12% limit on interest rate charges on consumer loans. That

was eliminated when Ronnie Raygun came to power.

Consumer interest rate charges were tax deductible until the tax "reform" act of 1986.

[Chimichurri]

79. bank CDs used to be great.

[Octafish]

81. One job paid enough to raise an entire family.

The family would have a home of their own to live in, plenty to eat, and could set savings aside for college or that new car dad had been dreaming about. And after loyally serving the company for 20 years, the company would pay the retiree a pension that would help ensure a decent quality of life.



Times change. Often, in unimaginable ways.

[patrice]

91. We have a HUGE family & my mother was not employed until my baby brother was 13 years old. Never on

welfare either. Dad's Union helped us out with food for a while, when he had to have an operation for kidney stones.

[Mimosa]

260. I remember when families could get by. n/t

[JDPriestly]

421. And one salary, even a low one, could pay for a family vacation to visit

the grandparents each year. That's not so easy these days.

[madamesilverspurs]

84. Green stamps, party lines,

back yard trash incinerators, door-to-door encyclopedia salesmen, Karen and Cubby, TV lamps . . .

-

[jdlh8894]

117. door-to-door encyclopedia salesmen

Hey! I resemble that remark!

[Kip Humphrey]

317. Ha! My first job (lasted 2 weeks).

[Paper Roses]

127. The Fuller Brush man!

[X_Digger]

128. S&H Green Stamps.. my mother recently found an old catalog.

During the 1960s, the rewards catalog printed by the company was the largest publication in the United States and the company issued three times as many stamps as the U.S. Postal Service. Customers would receive stamps at the checkout counter of supermarkets, department stores, and gasoline stations among other retailers, which could be redeemed for products in the catalog.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%26H_Green_Stamps

[SoCalDem]

143. I still have a book of them.. That;s how we got a LOT of things as newlyweds

lamps, appliances, even a red wagon & tricycle for our oldest son.

[X_Digger]

222. I'm still using the silverware that my grandmother got with em. n/t

[Divernan]

464. Got a lovely brass lamp for S&H stamps in 1965.

It still works and now belongs to my daughter who was born in 1968.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

172. In Houston, we had Big Bonus Stamps.

They were pink with dark blue ink on them.
You could go to a store and redeem them for small appliances and stuff.

[TheCentepedeShoes]

219. Yes, green stamps

got lots of things with those
One could even get a waterpipe

[sufrommich]

85. I remember going to the Detroit Edison Store with my Mom

in Wayne,Mi.to exchange old burnt out lightbulbs for new ones.They were free.

[SoCalDem]

87. WOW.. I never knew that program existed:)

[sufrommich]

108. Great OP,SoCalDem. nt

[Mojeoux]

97. My exact same lightbulb memory in Michigan.

I was really small, but I remember the bin of broken bulbs.

[sufrommich]

100. I remember the big bin too. So much broken glass,of course

kids would be impressed!

[craigmatic]

90. This is old school right here. nt

[MedicalAdmin]

138. I remember schools having arts programs ...

etc...


So much has been cut.

[peace frog]

166. And second-language classes in elementary school

Kindergarten was elective back in the day, so when I entered public school in first grade we had conversational Spanish classes first thing every morning. Those lessons had a huge impact and when we moved a year later I'm sorry to say my new school did not offer second language training. Had it continued through elementary school, all of us kids could have been bilingual without breaking a sweat. Lost opportunities.

[robdogbucky]

181. I remember old schools continued....

My grade school had us each in individual desks with inkwells. Inkwells because we had to learn longhand writing with a fountain pen before we learned anything else. Fountain pens, my dog, were they messy or what? Disasters waiting to happen to young boys' shirts.

The other things we all had in our desks were pencils, wooden rulers and a glass bottle of white paste that would harden if you didn't screw the lid tight enough. The paste was for art class. Art class used to be mandatory for everyone, just like all the other facets of the grade school curricula that made up our days. Report cards had two sections that were apart and the most important, those were: Conduct and Application. We usually had no type of bag for our books and it was a bitch if you had to go a long way with many of them aboard.

Longhand writing.

Snail mail with airmail stamps to distant places.

Lik-M-Ade

Cool Pops

Fudgecicles



Carry on, regardless


rdb

[SoCalDem]

190. these were my favorites

[peace frog]

204. Fizzies and Turkish Taffy

Loved the cherry fizzies but the root beer fizzies made me barf, lol.

Vanilla Turkish Taffy was my idea of heaven in a candy wrapper. Freeze it, smack it hard on the table, open and eat the frozen shards. BLISS.

[peace frog]

205. Double post

nothing to see here. ;)

[LibDemAlways]

373. There was a kid in my 2nd grade class who used to

sell pixy sticks at recess for a penny. She had lots of customers.

[eridani]

284. Remember when fountain pen cartridges came out?

Developing young sociopaths loved squirting them on the head of the kid in the seat in front of them. I remember when the policy change allowing ballpoint pens (provided they were of sufficiently high quality) could be used for homework assignmens.

[kittykitty]

446. But I remember 4th grade when everyone got an Esterbrook pen, and we filled them with ink from

the teacher's bottle of ink. It was a real "write" of passage to be able to use a fountain pen.

[blindpig]

94. Blue Cross Major Medical was part of your employment package

and it didn't cost a nickel.

AFSCME

[peace frog]

207. and employers competed (yes!) to offer the best benefits

with which to attract the best employees. Many employers took pride in providing the very best health, insurance and other benefits they could because they actually valued their workers. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Teabagger Chamber of Commerce.

[pacalo]

516. How about a 4-lane bowling alley, a cafeteria, yearly family picnics with a

merry-go-round & ice cream truck, yearly family Bingo night with great prizes, weekly movie nights for kids...seems like a dream today.

Chum gum, 2 slices per pack, was my favorite gum, until grape & cherry RainBlo gum came out when I was in elementary school. So did Lays barbeque potato chips & barbeque Fritos -- I'll never forget tasting them for the first time!

Playing jacks in groups at recess!

I love reading this thread. Wonderful memories.

[KamaAina]

102. You had to go down to Skid Row to find homeless people

Seriesly.

[peace frog]

210. You went to one corner of the industrial area to find day laborers

No more than a handful of them were waiting there, first thing in the morning, for someone to come by and offer them a day's pay for a day's work. And they could count on working, every work day!

[rucky]

104. Appliances lasted for years and years

People would actually repair TVs.

[SoCalDem]

110. Our oldest son LOVED when the TV guy came.. He had that spinny

wheel of fortune looking thing that he would set in front of the tv.. entertained my toddler the whole time he was there.. well worth the $25 it cost..

[jdlh8894]

132. People would actually repair TVs.

Some people still do.

[Mimosa]

263. Remember the little REPAIR SHOPS?

People didn't throw away TVs, toasters or washing machines. They got repaired at the local repair shop.

Now that was GREEN!

[bdamomma]

440. and just think all those repair shops had people who knew a trade.

not everyone is an academic.

[SoCalDem]

443. Shoe repair people were artists:)

My husband's favorite wingtips had so many re-soles & new heels. They are still wearable..(but he doesn't wear them now).. I think we bought them in about 1975
and his Destin boots have had many reincarnations & still look great:)

[Mimosa]

543. Fortunately there is a good shoe/luggage repair shop nearby

I've been impressed by the work done by a young Vietnamese American whose father started the business in sandy Springs on Roswell road, by Trader Joe's. No need to to get rid of shoes with holes in the soles, or purses with bad zippers. :)

[Warren DeMontague]

548. Actually, appliances still do last years and years.

Difference is, now, if you have a busted switch or water dispenser in the fridge and a DIY ethos, you can look on the internet, find out how to fix it yourself, and order the part direct instead of waiting a week to get someone out to the house to do it for $100.

[lildreamer316]

549. Sitting not five feet from me is a deep freezer bought in 1961

when my parents got married. Still working, WITH a small hole in the bottom front.

[kentuck]

106. Beer cans made out of tin instead of aluminum....

You needed a "church house key" (a beer opener) to open the cans. There were no pop tops.

[eridani]

285. The first poptops came totally away from the can and were left scattered everywhere

Later came the design that kept them attached to the can.

[kentuck]

328. That is true.

Some people made necklaces out of them. :-)

[Manifestor_of_Light]

571. Recycling beer cans!!

The Beer Can House:


www.beercanhouse.org

I have NO IDEA what this place means, but it's cool. :D

[WolverineDG]

109. Psst, you rented the phone from the phone company

you didn't own it.

dg

[SoCalDem]

111. Why would anyone want to own the phone?

No one I ever met wanted to own it.. It was a utility..we used it & forgot about it.. and it was indestructible too.. and a bargain:)

[deaniac21]

134. Renting the phone mean't it cost you a fortune over it lifetime.

[WolverineDG]

140. yeah, but you had to actually DIAL the number you wanted

the funniest scene for me in the movie "In & Out" was the supermodel girlfriend trying to figure out how to use a dial on the phone. :rofl:

dg

[Blue_Tires]

562. About 7 or 8 years ago there was this great news story

(Maybe I saw it on DU) about this elderly woman who had still had her original phone from circa 1980(?) and was still paying her "phone rental" each month (she was grandfathered in after deregulation, and for whatever reason never made the switch)...

My grandmother kept her rental well into the late 80s and it was a rotary dial...Fun times -- I've got to get one of those for myself...

[csziggy]

167. And you were not allowed to put your own equipment on the telephone line

You HAD to rent it from the phone company.

[SoCalDem]

175. equipment? whjat on earth were you trying to do to that poor little phone

:rofl:

[csziggy]

203. After all us kids left home, Dad wanted to put an answering machine on

And the phone company would not let him because it was a residential line and no residence needed an answering machine! He'd been using it as the business number for his independent consulting business for twenty years by then, so he did not want them checking it out and realizing that - though knowing that small town everybody already knew.

My parents had the same big ugly black phone until they moved out of that house in 1978. It had been installed and hard wired to the wall when the house was moved there in 1952. For all I know, that phone could still be wired into the wall in that house - no one else has lived there since they moved out.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

176. You had to take the ringer off your extra phones.

Because the phone company would detect the voltage drop when it rang. According to a friend of mine who had multiple phones.

Remember when the Princess Phone was a BFD because it had a LIGHTED DIAL??

[csziggy]

192. Oh - that was the secret? I remember how confused everybody was

When they were able to buy their own equipment. What should they get - what kind of plug? That is, IF your house or apartment was wired with outlets and not hard wired. The phone company here charged to change from hard wired phones to outlet, something like $25 per outlet. So as a student, I learned how to wire in the outlets I bought at Radio Shack. Everybody thought I was a genius for figuring out where to put those four little wires.

[IDemo]

217. Phone equipment was labeled with its "Ringer Equivalence Number"

If I recall, once your phones and answering machine added up to a 5, that was it for your household.

[TheCentepedeShoes]

220. I never had a princess

but thought my "trimline" was way cool

[SoCalDem]

232. we alwayd had the kitchen wall phone..and that was IT.. no extensions

with a small house it seemed wasteful to have extensions:)

[bdamomma]

444. I think I had one of those did the dial light up also?

[TheCentepedeShoes]

521. Yes the dial lit up

It was "my" first phone (not the parent's, not the dorm's)
Had it in an apartment after graduating college

[KoKo]

115. K&R...Ahh...the Good Old Days...we didn't know what was coming down the pike.

[MedicalAdmin]

142. AT least we got rid of these.

[KoKo]

164. LOL's ....but even that "Campy Stuff" is looking good compared to today...

Some Fun...Some Snark...Sometime when the "People Ruled" and could have fun...compared to the dark, controlling time we now live in.

Ahhhh DISCO! :D

[sinkingfeeling]

348. But, I loved disco dancing!! Great exercise!

[Kweli4Real]

120. There used-to-be ...

a time when (I know this is gonna take us wayyy back, but) a family could actually survive on just one income.

[deaniac21]

131. You must not remember this part...

[patrice]

145. All of which would mean a whole helluva lot more if the Jobless rates were further apart.

Not to mention that's probably the nominal rather than the actual rate in 2008.

[SoCalDem]

148. Lived it.. all things are relative.

We do adapt, even if grudgingly sometimes:hi:

Inflation is not the worst thing that can happen. What we have NOW is actually worse, because it's all fake.
and the whole game is rigged against us.:(

[deaniac21]

179. I remember getting quarterly raises and learned to forget the

credit card.

[LWolf]

226. I don't think she was referring specifically to the early 1980s.

I remember them well; I applied for a job as a kennel cleaner for minimum wage; something like 1.98. I showed up at 7:00 the morning the ad appeared in the classifieds. I was the 90th in line, and by the time I got half way there, they announced that they weren't taking any more applications.

Ronald Reagan was president.

I remember much of what the OP refers to from the PRE-Reagan years.

[JDPriestly]

424. What month in 2008 is that graph reflecting.

If you compared 1981 and 2009 or 2010, you would have a very different result. Especially if you included numbers of foreclosures. The inflation rate went up (although not steadily) beginning off and on in 1973-74 during the first oil crisis. There was a second oil crisis in Jimmy Carter's administration. That caused the inflation, jobless and prime rates to go up. It was a great time for people who had bothered to save money when times were good.

Here in California, oil prices are rising pretty quickly again.

I lived through the 40s 50s etc. The Viet Nam War was the turning point. It devastated our economy. Although our deficit history makes it look like we somehow paid for it, we really never recovered from that. The Viet Nam War was really the beginning of the privatization of government services with the privatization of military services and the involvement of Halliburton in our war-making leading the way.

We never really recovered from the Viet Nam War.

[defendandprotect]

150. Used to be usuary laws on interest rates -- 6% maximum --

Used to be time limit on Student Loans -- 6 years -- !!

[KillCapitalism]

151. I've seen that the unemployment rate in 1952 was 3.8%

That's amazing, I'm sure anyone who wanted a job was able to work.

[SoCalDem]

153. That rate is probably unrealistic though, because of segregation

unemployed black people were probably not counted in that statistic, and surely their unemployment rate was horrendous:( If they were lucky enough to live in certain areas, they had their own economy with businesses for their own community, but within the general workforce, there were places where they were never included..

[GreenStormCloud]

296. In 1952 the rest of the industrialized world was still recovering from WWII.

The U.S. had the only major industrial infastructure that wasn't devastated by the war. We had no international competitors.

[Enthusiast]

301. And the top marginal rate was 93%

How did we have any jobs at all with such an unfair tax burden on business? :sarcasm:

[GreenStormCloud]

380. It was Democrats that lowered that marginal rate.

JFK was president.

[Enthusiast]

398. To 70%

[slackmaster]

158. Oh yeah, I forgot one very important thing we had back then that you can't buy now

[SoCalDem]

161. I still HAVE mine.. they still have the $4.95 price sticker from Sears

[slackmaster]

162. My parents got a set in about 1968, in a box exactly like that!

Red ones and blue ones, with yellow Hula hoop targets.

Those were the days.

[SoCalDem]

165. A guy in the UK offered me $285.00 for the set, but my kids said NOOOOOO

I guess they all want it :) I guess I;ll draw straws & put it in the will:)

[Mnemosyne]

313. I once missed my Mom bythismuch with those things! I think it parted her hair. n/t

[MaeScott]

335. A gallon of gas in 1970 was a quarter...

I remember as a freshman in college being on E and only had thirty cents. Bought a gallon of gas and made it home.

[bdamomma]

449. I had those too, do they make them anymore. great fun!!

[SoCalDem]

455. they were banned when a kid was killed.

someone tossed one over a fence & a little kid in the yard was hit in the head :cry:

Demands Ban on Lawn Darts : Daughter's Death Spurs a Father's Sad Crusade
September 27, 1987|BOB BAKER | Times Staff Writer

David Snow didn't even want lawn darts when he went shopping last April. He wanted a volleyball set, but all the department store had was volleyball in a combo pack with two other games. Fine. He took it. The darts would stay in the box.

Then one Sunday, Snow's 9-year-old son, Paul, and some other children in the family's attractive Riverside neighborhood took the slender, metal-tipped, one-pound darts out of the garage and began playing with them in the back yard, trying to lob them into plastic rings on the ground. al Deaths

*
o
o

*
o
o
o

Demands Ban on Lawn Darts : Daughter's Death Spurs a Father's Sad Crusade
September 27, 1987|BOB BAKER | Times Staff Writer

David Snow didn't even want lawn darts when he went shopping last April. He wanted a volleyball set, but all the department store had was volleyball in a combo pack with two other games. Fine. He took it. The darts would stay in the box.

Then one Sunday, Snow's 9-year-old son, Paul, and some other children in the family's attractive Riverside neighborhood took the slender, metal-tipped, one-pound darts out of the garage and began playing with them in the back yard, trying to lob them into plastic rings on the ground.


One of the children threw one too high and too far. It sailed over the fence and came down in the front yard, where Snow's other child, Michelle, 7, was playing with her doll. With a force one researcher estimated at 23,000 pounds per cubic inch, the dart penetrated her skull. Within minutes she collapsed. Three days later doctors pronounced her clinically dead.

snip
http://articles.latimes.com/1987-09-27/news/mn-10632_1_lawn-dart

..............................
The danger presented by lawn darts is clear and evident - in comparing the issues lawn darts presents versus fireworks, there is no wonder possessing a jart is a criminal offense. Over a 10 year period Jarts accounted for 6,700 injuries and 3 deaths.
http://lessthancake.blogspot.com/2007/06/americas-secret-pastime-jarts-aka-lawn.html

[Frank Cannon]

557. Good Lord. I must have played a hundred games of Jarts, and I never dreamed...

they could present a serious hazard. I guess I always just assumed that they were used as directed, and that everyone playing was more or less aware of when a Jart was headed their way.

I wonder how many people have been clobbered by horseshoes, or if that's ever presented a problem.

[kittykitty]

450. Jarts

[SoCalDem]

452. mine

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=431222&mesg_id=432476

[kittykitty]

469. nice!

[kentuck]

160. I remember "Mr. Cola"...

:-)

Unlike Pepsi or Coke, which only had 10 or twelve ounces in them, Mr Cola had 16 big ounces. I don't know if they were nationwide or just in the mountains??

[SoCalDem]

163. That's a new one to me.. We had Crush & NeHi, but no Mr Cola n/t

[robdogbucky]

182. RCC is still around n/t

[Manifestor_of_Light]

187. Delaware Punch, anyone?

They sold concentrate in Texas and my sister loved the stuff.

Hawaiian Punch used to be ONLY in the red flavor and ONLY in concentrate.

[Horse with no Name]

231. LOVE that stuff! n/t

[DainBramaged]

177. All you needed was ExLax and a good night's sleep

not the thousands of drugs you can't live without now (so they say).

[DFab420]

180. So back in the day things weren't like they are now?

OMFG!! I had no idea!!!!

Did you know that back in the day, this one thing was different from the way it is now?

And that you can't get this product or service that was made almost 30 years ago! HAVE YOU ALL GONE MAD!


:yoiks:

[SoCalDem]

194. Well, YOU have a nice day too, hon

[DFab420]

197. Hahaha

love it!

Sometimes I can't help the snark. Sry

[kentuck]

183. One very important thing about work...

For several decades after the Great Depression, when companies grew by 5%, their workers got 5% increases in pay, in proportion to their productivity. It kept wages in the middle class. That also stopped during the Reagan years.

[SoCalDem]

195. I still remember when my husband started getting profit-sharing

we thought we were RICH.. and back then he had paid the limit into SS around september, so the last 3 months of the year were wonderful:)

[DFab420]

198. I am beginning to think

that ALL America stopped during the Reagan years...

The Madness of King Ron.

[Enthusiast]

302. That was the point in our history

when the American worker started to be seen as the enemy. The nation has never been the same. Nearly every bad thing appears to have built on that moment.

[cyberpj]

239. Big Business could actually have "losing quarters" as a normal part of doing business

and not drop dramatic stock points.

I know, I worked for DuPont, and before the 80's we had bad quarters for earnings and the sky didn't fall. Now there has to be profit profit profit at all costs at all times.

[sinkingfeeling]

349. That was before Wall Street became a casino. Remember when the 'worth' of the business and the

price of its stock were based on reality? My first share of IBM stock that I bought as an employee was $431.

[Exilednight]

186. Newspapers and candybars use to be a quarter. You would, also, get a piece of barely chewable

gum inside of a pack of baseball cards.

[piratefish08]

188. you could still grab a few gallons of gas with the change from under your carseats......

[StarburstClock]

189. Torture used to be a war crime

Now it's brushed aside along with 1000s of other types of crimes.

[DFab420]

193. Yea like women voting!

And people drinking alcohol!


The HORRORS!

[Enthusiast]

306. Other crimes like

stealing an election.

[Mnemosyne]

315. Amen. Welcome to DU, StarburstClock! n/t

[DFab420]

475. Yea welcome!

Though you shouldn't send ppl PMs calling them trolls and telling to "screw you"

Just fyi we look down on that here.

[Daphne08]

199. Property Lien Searches were once mandatory

I don't know that any institution would consider making a home loan until an attorney performed a search for a lien against the property and/or home.

[SoCalDem]

202. The bank I worked at had a "loan committee" for home loans.. We always called that room "Nuremburg"

6 very serious-faced people sitting at a table, and the would-be borrowers with stacks & stacks of paperwork ..all to prove that they WOULD be paying that money back:)

Then the committee would go into conference after the people left and their decision was final..

[Warren DeMontague]

201. I liked it when the internet was still made out of wood.

Oh, the good old days.

[JHB]

206. We still had rich people...

Somehow, despite our having "socialist/communist" tax rates that taxed income above what would be about # million today at over 90% (and if we were "socialist" and "communist" back then, what were the Russians?), we still had rich people. It's not like they died out or anything. it's just that they had more incentive to spread it around (dare I say "trickle down"?) gthan to make themselves more rich even faster.

[Shagbark Hickory]

208. People used to talk to one another.

[MichiganVote]

209. Once they sold us as "Consumers" we lost our role as "Customers"

CUSTOMER service was once free--no 888 #'s.

[kickysnana]

213. My 2 cents

"You could have a phone in your home for under $10 a month, and if it broke, they would replace it for FREE."

My tracfone is under $10 a month but you cannot hang on it for hours.

"Drug stores used to deliver your meds..for free"

Several drugstores in the Twin Cities still deliver in area for free.

But

Vo-techs were free and there was no separate English and Psychology classes.

You could work for a company and retire from there on a fair pension. Medical insurance was usually 20/80 but treatments were affordable.

Air travel was enjoyable.

That is all I can think of quickly.

[Kip Humphrey]

318. 2 cents actually bought something (candy)!

[Inchworm]

215. Sex wasn't always so worrisome

:hi:

[Obamanaut]

218. And 64K computers as recently as the 1980s. nt

[RagAss]

221. There were only 5 or 6 TV channels in most big cities....but everything was worth watching.

[peace frog]

223. Today we have hundreds of channels

and I find myself gravitating to classic TV channels anyway because, with a few notable exceptions, today's Reality TV and Infotainment pretty much SUCK.

[lonestarnot]

234. none of which are worth watching!

[peace frog]

289. Except for a few

channels offering vintage TV and movie viewing!

[totodeinhere]

486. And they keep repeating the same programs over again, sometimes several times in one day. n/t

[LWolf]

228. All in the Family. Laugh-In. nt

[SoCalDem]

229. Smothers Brothers.. n/t

[LWolf]

331. Schoolhouse Rock. Bugs Bunny. nt

[bdamomma]

458. Dean Martin and all those variety shows!!!

Jackie Gleason when he had his own show on Saturday nights, remember that? and not the Honeymooners.


also when air flight was considered fun, not so much now.

[Sisaruus]

583. And you got dressed up for that air travel.

And you could get direct flights that had plenty of empty seats.

[Kaleva]

244. I didn't care much for those soap operas all afternoon. And no tv after the late news.

[Frank Cannon]

558. It wasn't all soap operas. There were plenty of comedies available, as well.

I went through a long period of illness for a while, and when I wasn't watching game shows, I remember long stretches of the Brady Bunch, Gilligan's Island, The Andy Griffith Show, Gomer Pyle, and Hogan's Heroes.

[proud2BlibKansan]

241. And that phone WORKED for years!!

My grandmother had a phone that was still working 40 years after it was first installed. We had to disconnect it when she died.

When I was in college in the 70s and I was moving to a new apartment, the phone company told me I could keep my phone and move it to my new place or turn it in for a new one and $10 credit on my bill. So if I kept my phone it cost me $10. Or I could have a new one for free.

Almost immediately after the Bell breakup, we had cordless phones. But they didn't work worth a shit. I'll go back to one phone company anytime:)

[Kaleva]

247. What I remember about the good old days was being poor.

Most of my clothes were hand me downs from older cousins or what my mom picked out of the chairty boxes at church.

Our central heating was a big woodstove in the basement and there was no heat in the upstairs bedrooms. It was cold in the winter and hotter then hell in the summer.

We had no outlets in the bedrooms and the single light on the ceiling was a pull chain type.

There was one bathroom for a family of 8. Four of us kids slept in the largest bedroom, 2 in the smallest bedroom and my parents had their own bedroom.

Dad would routinely violate for deer to put meat on the table.

I didn't really care much for those good old days.

[no_hypocrisy]

248. When I was 5 years old, I could walk BY MYSELF 5 blocks to kindergarten and home again.

No carpool. No group of kids. No parents. No fear of kid abduction.

[Mimosa]

261. Did that all through elementary school. n/t

[Silent3]

271. I hope you realize that the world isn't really any more dangerous now...

...for kids or anyone else. People just act like it's more dangerous, and act like you're crazy and reckless if you aren't just as scared as everyone else.

[Posteritatis]

298. Yep. The opposite is more likely to be the case, actually.

I love that whole "crime is always always always going up" belief that just about everyone grimly clings onto.

[bdamomma]

463. me too, I remember walking to elementary, jr high and high school

I remember in elementary school when they let us home for lunch break and then walked back to school, that was when kids did exercise!!!

[Mabus]

249. I remember dad pulling vacuum tubes out of the television

and then mom would take them to the grocery store and test them. When she found out which was the "bad" tube, she could purchase one there. It was nice having dad being able to fix television.

[greyl]

279. Thanks for that reminder!

Holy crap, haven't thought about in sooo long - 1974 or so. I think it must have been an A&P store we went to that had that cool testing gadget. I may have never thought of it ever again...

[Luciferous]

252. I just want to say thanks to all of you for sharing your nice memories.

I enjoy reading about the way things used to be :)

[SoCalDem]

397. You are very welcome..

Many younger folks have no frame of reference because they only know what they grew up with.. I have always asked my sons to make note of things they are experiencing, because someday "those days" will be their good-old-days:)

Things change so gradually, and yet all of a sudden, it's 40 years later & you wrack your brain, trying to remember some little thing and then all the wacky little stuff comes flooding back too:)

I always like finding old records..like my grandfathers checkbook register from the 40's.. what an eye opener:)

My grown sons crack up at the things that were so
"normal" when we were young.. like drunk driving.. we ALL did it.. and if a cop stopped you, he would likely call your parents to come & pick you up..or maybe even drive you home.. no ticket..just a stern warning..

[bdamomma]

468. yes, SoCalDem, thanks for the thread

we have all lived in interesting times, but thinking back things were so innocent and fun.

[Horse with no Name]

255. Penny candy that was REALLY a penny!

I remember when I was a kid we would go around and collect pop bottles and take them to the U-Totem and cash in the deposits.
If we could score a couple of bottles that people had thrown out, we could generally get an icee and a few pieces of penny candy.
I LOVED THAT!

[glinda]

258. Doctors used to make house calls.

[bongbong]

453. They still do!

I had a house call by a doctor in 1999.

But it was in France when i got sick on vacation; the doctor came to the hotel on a Sunday night. The icing on the cake was: she was gorgeous. ;-) Fixed me right up, for basically lunch money.

The evils of socialized medicine.

[Mimosa]

259. K&R Best topic ever! Youngsters, it's all TRUE! n/t

[upi402]

262. Music from the soul, not the boardroom

Newspapers used to investigate the wrong-doings of firms - not just promote them and their agendas.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

265. In 1967, my family took a trip to Europe

All the airlines charged the same.

You bought a ticket to the most expensive city, and included in the price of the ticket were flights between other cities. Our route was New York--London--Oslo--Trondheim--Oslo--Copenhagen--Hannover (where we picked up a VW Microbus and drove around Germany and Austria)--Cologne--Paris--Amsterdam--New York. All for the price of a ticket from New York to Trondheim.

The hotels really did charge $5 a day or less per person, and the price included coffee or hot chocolate and wonderful bread and pastries. Our B&B in London was $1.96 a night, including enough breakfast to keep us fed all day.

When we were at Heathrow waiting to board our flight to Oslo, the gate attendant came out and apologized profusely because the flight was going to be two hours late. She led us to some sort of conference room where they had prepared a buffet of tea and sandwiches (not little tea sandwiches, real sandwiches on full slices of good bread).

Can you imagine? Feeding us lunch at no charge by way of apology for delaying the flight for TWO HOURS?

The seats in the plane were either four or five across, and we had plenty of leg room. I was as tall as I am now, and I found the seating very comfortable.

[Canuckistanian]

268. I remember those X-Ray machines at the shoe stores

I wonder how many people had to have legs amputated becuase of that.

[Iwillnevergiveup]

273. Well, this is fun!

Growing up in a small town along the Hudson River in N.Y., we had a dog named George. He had a leash even though no leash law existed, but mostly he hung out in the back yard or would go around visiting neighbors. Out neighbors across the street had a cherry tree which did initially cause problems. George would skarf down the cherries on the ground and sometimes leave a deposit on their lawn. Complete with pits. How was the problem solved? We kids would pick up the cherries on the ground and eat them or toss them. No mean looks or phone calls or threats of lawsuits from our neighbors. They liked my family and George, we liked them, and we continued to all get along.

Another poignant thing I remember that seems like a fantasy now: we had a dental office in my K - 12 school. Each new school year, every single kid got a free exam and fluoride treatment.

[SoCalDem]

387. and eye doctors came to school & gave free exams

they sent prescriptions for glasses home with the kids..to give to mom :)

[Lugnut]

276. We built a modest bungalow in 1966.

It was move-in ready when we got married that year. Our interest rate was 6% and our 20-year mortgage payment was $102.65. Our home was paid for in full in 1986. We raised two children in this house and we still live in it.

I remember getting glassware in large boxes of laundry detergent. Some laundry soaps had a free towel inside.

Gassing up at the local filling station got you a windshield, rear window and headlight wash. And you never got out of your car. Sometimes you even got free glassware with a fill-up. I also remember buying gas for a buck for 5 gals.

In '67 and '68 I worked as a bookkeeper at a local heating oil company. Heating oil was $.15 a gallon.

[grahamhgreen]

281. Car insurance was not mandatory and it was affordable. It covered uninsured drivers hitting you.

[grahamhgreen]

283. The "commies" were the "islamofascists" who were out to get us.

[canetoad]

286. Truly epic thread on this forum

Where old stoners pass on advice to younger ones.

http://forum.grasscity.com/seasoned-tokers/260861-unofficial-pass-some-advice-younger-stoner-thread-roast-post.html

[sakabatou]

287. In the 90s, kids shows were made of awesome

Now look at all the junk TV shows we have for kids.

[eridani]

288. Things I'm really glad are GONE now

Some kinds of love not daring to speak their names.
Help wanted--men and help wanted--women (women always got paid to supplement "his" salary, whether "he" existed or not)
Segregation
If your spouse beat you up, it was your fault and you should just STFU
Your neighbor having a miscarrieage bleeding to death on the table because the emergency room staff couldn't afford to be seen doing anything that may have abetted an abortion

[Capitalocracy]

291. That last one might make a comeback. nt

[Enthusiast]

292. It's those dang hippies I tells ya! nt

[JohnnyRingo]

300. We only had three channels on the TV

We used to have one of our kids get up and change the channel so we "could see what's on 8". It was "The Love Boat"

I guess it wasn't all roses.

[mntleo2]

427. Now we pay for hundreds that all air the same crap

....over and over and over ~ PLUS have to abide informercials, and massive ads every 10 minutes that now we PAY to have to watch while these corporations also subsidize most of those repetitive crap channels. I would rather have 3 DISTINCT channels and one public channel that play local and nationally distinctly different material. Programs that actually have at least 15 minute long sessions, rather than having to sacrifice my first born to get any information at all and forced to endure endless ads that often take more time than the damn program you are trying to watch.

In old TV you did not pay to watch them and it would have been an outrage if corps would so much as SUGGEST the viewer pay to watch their mindless advertising crap.

My 2 cents

Cat In Seattle

[Mnemosyne]

305. When you paid off credit, you weren't punished a year later by not being able to obtain credit.

This pisses me off so much. If you aren't paying interest monthly to some corp, you are punished.

[CottonBear]

309. There was a huge stack of empty returnable glass Coke bottles at the front of the grocery store.

In the South, we call everything Coke. For y'all in other parts of the USA, they would be called soda or pop bottles. ;)
Anyway, the bottles were returned to the bottling plant and reused.

[GreenStormCloud]

312. I DO NOT miss the so-called "Good Ole Days".

The only thing good about them was that I had the energy and health of a young person.

Color television in the 1950s cost hundreds of dollars and the color went out of adjustment in a couple of years. Only the wealthy had color TV. Today TV sets are cheap and rarely break down. I like being able to rent DVDs and watch what I want to watch at home. Back then I had to take what the networks offered or do without.

I do not miss having to tell a phone operator who I want to talk to. In the old phone systems when you picked up the phone an operator would ask you "Number please" and connect you with that number. In a small town she knew who was talking to whom. I LIKE having some privacy. I like being able to carry my phone in my pocket and talk from almost anywhere. I LIKE having voice-mail as part of the phone service. I LIKE having the phone store a record of calls. I LIKE being able to see that I missed a call and being able to return it. I LIKE having Caller-ID tell me who is calling before I answer. In the early days the ALCU was against Caller-ID.

I LIKE being able to make long distance calls for the same price as a local call. Back then to call long distance you had to tell the operator the number and where you wanted to talk to and wait while she found a route to that place. And it was hugely expensive. You only made long distance calls for extreme emergencies. To get a long distance call always meant bad news. Someone in the family had died or was about to die.

I do not miss out-of-date encyclopedias. I LOVE being able to search for and find up-to-date information on the internet.

I LIKE being able to do most of my banking online and NOT having to wait in line for a teller at a bank that opens at 9AM and closes at 2PM. I LIKE having direct deposit of my paycheck and my social security check. I like being able to check my bank account daily for balances and item clearances. I don't need somebody from the bank calling me about a problem with my account because since getting the ability to check the account daily I have been able to avoid such errors.

I LIKE having a debit card. I like not bothering with writing checks. I typically write about two or three check a month now instead of close to a hundred.

Modern cars last much longer than the old cars did. A 1960s car was pretty much used up when it had 100K miles on it.

A doctor making a house call is very efficient in his use of time. He isn't treating anybody when he is driving. And he can't bring the equipment in his clinic to your house. Modern doc-in-a-box clinics offer far superior medical service than a doctor coming to your house with a little black bag.

I do not miss having send or receive snail mail. Turn around time for a letter and a prompt response could take over a week. I LIKE email. I like being able to find old friends from high school on Classmates and Facebook.

I do NOT miss my Kodak Brownie or the Polaroid instant pictures and having to buy film. I LOVE my digital camera with the ability to store thousands of quality photos on a single chip. Back then it would have cost a fortune to have that much film developed. And I love being able to share the pictures instantly online.

I love being able to shop at Amazon. I don't have to waste gas driving around to different stores hunting for some hard to find item. Try to find a GasBGon Flatulent Absorbent Cushion with an activated charcoal filter at a store.

Back in the 50s home air conditioning was a rarity. Window units started to become common in the late 60s. I LIKE sleeping with air conditioning. In the 50s you just suffered in the summer.

I LOVE being able to pay bills online. Payments don't get lost in the mail and I have a confirmation number if I need to talk to the company.

I LIKE being able to have an inexpensive motion detector system for the house for protection against intruders. Not available at all in the 50s.

I strongly believe that if any of the people posting here had to actually go back to those Good-Ole-Days they would quickly start screaming to come back to modern times.

[PatSeg]

377. Those are all excellent points

and I must say I would be reluctant to give up any of those modern perks. I do, however, miss the fact that there was a time that pretty much anyone could work full-time at any job and afford basic food and shelter. A trip to the doctor or dentist was affordable for any working person whether they had insurance or not. No, I wouldn't want to go back to rabbit-ear antennas or partyline telephones. I like my computer, cable TV, DVDs, and cellphone, but I do think we've lost some things that were worth keeping.

[GreenStormCloud]

462. Thanks. I think that affordable medical care could be brought back.

First we must accept that most conditions don't need a doctor. We need to make many meds over-the-counter. Do away with the "War on Drugs" restrictions. Allow people to self-diagnose as long as they accept the responsibility for it. With the information that is available now most common conditiions can be home diagnosed and treated. Save the doctor's time for important, complicated stuff.

Allow lower level medical personnel to screen which cases need a doctor and which don't. Allow them to treat the lesser cases.

Reduce lawsuits by going to loser pays systems. Europe uses that system and nobody claims that they are legally oppressed.

Go to a Medicare for everybody system. But monitor it closely for fraud.

[PatSeg]

492. I have to agree with pretty much everything

you've said, and have said similar things myself. We also need stricter regulations on big pharma, who make up diseases to sell drugs at outrageous prices. There was a time when doctors, hospitals, and drug companies could not advertise. It was an ethics issue, something we see little of these days. Now everything is about profit, patients have become "consumers", and we all pay the price.

And yes, Medicare for everybody would have to be closely monitored for fraud. There will always be opportunists out there who will lie and cheat to make a buck at society's expense (then run for governor of Florida).

[hugo_from_TN]

531. Higher cost for medical care equates to higher survival rates of many conditions.

If you're willing to die earlier we can easily reduce the costs. This is the elephant.

[JDPriestly]

428. Every age has its advantages, but it's fun to think about the good

things in the olden days. It's history that we lived.

[SoCalDem]

432. true.. and from what's portrayed in the movies, younger people get a skewed idea

of what it was really like.. and many don't always believe what their parents tell them.. Many young people today have little or no contact with older people outside their own families.. It's nice for us old timers to occasionally weigh in & compare tales, so that the younger people can get an idea of what was once possible, and might just be again..with some effort:)

Every era has good and bad, but it seems as if it all gets thrown out every few years and the "new", is often not all that good:(

There's a reason why people these days are frantically trying to "buy back" their childhoods on ebay:evilgrin:

[PatSeg]

493. That is what it is about,

it was OUR history and some day our children or grandchildren will look back at their youth in a similar manner. I remember the bad stuff too and I'm always grateful for how far we've come as far as civil rights and woman's rights. For all the fun memories, there are the other memories of intolerance, racism, sexism, and ignorance.

[PADemD]

314. Five large paper bags of groceries for $25

Being sent to the corner store with two quarters, one for a loaf of bread and one for a quart of milk.

[DawgHouse]

316. The Midnight Special

I miss Wolfman Jack.

[spinbaby]

319. Museums and parks used to be free

I spent many happy hours at the Carnegie in Pittsburgh as a child. When I learned to drive, I spent even more time there. It was free--you just walked in. Nowadays it costs more than a movie or you can buy a membership.

We went to a lot of national parks when I was a kid, too. Don't ever remember paying.

[Kip Humphrey]

321. EVERYBODY was vaccinated against polio for free (how SOCIALIST was that!)

[forty6]

323. And THAT was during the Eisenhower years! n/t

[kentuck]

327. It wasn't required to purchase auto insurance...

You could purchase it to protect yourself and your automobile but the insurance companies bought off all the state legislatures and it became law across the land.

[TBF]

329. Kind of like drug dealers giving "candy" to kids ... nt

[boomerbust]

330. When I first got my drivers license-1968

during the summer, I would cash my check from the canning factory on Friday and go to the Clark gas station and order 2 gallons of gas and a pack of smokes, while the man checks the oil and cleans your windows, hand him a dollar and get a few pennies in change. BWAAAAA

[Wednesdays]

332. In 1979 I overdrew my bank account...

and the next time I stopped in that bank, the teller said I had to make a deposit to make up the difference. (But that was the end of it...no fees, no charges.) Oh, and that checking account paid 2% interest.

In the late 70's, my university allowed each student to take out a loan--enough to buy textbooks or a weekend of fun. There was a limit as to the amount you could borrow, and you couldn't take out another loan until the first one was paid back. But you could get such a loan each semester, no questions asked--at zero interest.

I got the flu in 1978, and saw the doctor at the university health center. He quarantined me and had me stay in another wing of the health center, which was actually a very small full-service hospital with a 24-hour nurse on staff. I received a full battery of meds, and 3 square meals each day, and the doc gave me physical therapy (I breathed into a tube thingie twice a day for 15 minutes). I stayed there four days. The charge: nada. The state picked up the tab.

[JHB]

337. Paris Hilton...

...was a hotel in France.

[Historic NY]

339. Coke a cola tasted better...now you can buy Mexican Coke with real cane surgar....

people bought muscle cars and kids saved for their first car. Today if they buy somwething at all, its some clapped out import with a fart pipe.

The school bus stopped at a bus stop you walked to, sometimes people put up a little lean too for you to get out of the weather.

We didn't have cable tv, but some had electric antennas that spun aroun to get other channels.

We did have some asshats on the tube then too.

The News wasn't entertainment or opinionated...you really got the news of the day. They didn't go 24/7 and only commented again if there was a followup.

The Armed Forces wore solid colors not camo.

[Bragi]

340. One job per family could get you through

One "breadwinner" made enough to raise a family, go on vacations, pay for education, and retire with a good enough pension to get you by.

At the same time: the average square footage of a home was maybe 25-30 per cent of what it is now, families had one car at best, and people didn't buy mountains of crap they didn't need.

[NNN0LHI]

344. $500 application fee for a home mortgage too. Non-refundable

Didn't make it past the "loan committee", the $500 was gone.

Don

[snooper2]

345. You used to have points on your cars ignition...

now it's all digital electronic ignitions with EMS

:)

[justiceischeap]

347. I remember (from the 70s/80s)...

Woolworth's and Ben Franklin's stores

Penny candy actually cost a penny

Mom going to the Montgomery Ward Catalog counter to order my school clothes

Blue light specials at K-Mart

Cigarettes were 70 cents a pack (90 cents in a vending machine)

There were still Nehi/Pepsi/Coke (glass) bottle soda machines (the kind where you popped the lid off right on the machine)

It was "cool" to have a big old comb sticking out of your back pocket

8-tracks were groovy

The show "Night Flight" on USA (for those that don't know, it was like MTV before MTV came around)

You had to turn a dial and adjust the rabbit ears on all TVs

Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom every Sunday night was good programming (if I recall correctly it came on after football and before 60 minutes)

Most cars used leaded gas

Most cars were still made of steel (and in the USA)

There were no ATM machines, you had to go to the bank to get money or you could cash a check (made out to cash) at the grocery store

[druidqueen]

350. I'm still using the steak knives...

I got from our local Shell gas station in Sag Harbor, NY when I was first married (almost 44 years ago). Every time you spent more than $3 in gas, you got a steak knife.....I have a set of 8!!!! Still use them.....

AND the gas station attendant would not only pump your gas, but wash your windshield & check your oil too!

We have a full service gas station where I live in Maine....a mechanic on duty (he takes excellent care of my 17 year old Honda delSol), washes the windshield, no steak knives --- but you do get a FREE cup of coffee with a fill-up!!! Price per gallon is the same (& sometimes less) than the local pump it yourself Cumberland Farms... :bounce:

[Alcibiades]

351. Income used to be distributed differently

Average folks could lead a middle-class life.

The peak year for income for men without college degrees was 1979. It's gone down ever since in real terms. Women's wages have gone up during that time, but not because they are taking anything from men, but simply because they are simply working more hours than they had in the past--if you control for that, non-college educated women's incomes would also have declined.

Old folks used to be much poorer

Young folks used to complain about having to support their elderly family members: now it's the other way around. The income for young heads of household has declined remarkably over the course of the last 40 years, but income for the elderly has gone up. This has led to delayed family formation, especially for the working class, or forgoing marriage and or children for many people. Some folks have attributed the shift to more kids going to college and foregoing work, but this does not explain the data for heads of household. I rather think that young people are delaying or forgoing marriage and family life because they cannot afford it, in part because our economy now offers more of a premium for workers who are experienced, rather than young and strong.

[swilton]

355. Main Streets Were

Centers of communities where people walked to their family owned and operated - neighborhood run businesses.

[mntleo2]

358. Moms actually got to raise their own kids!

...even low income moms could be home with a supplement from the government for rent (even house ownership through Project 235), food, and medical care for the whole family, small as the supplement was. Her kids were actually seen as the key to our future and her job could be to raise them to take over when we were too old to do it. She could actually go back to college when her kids were in school with no giant student loans to pay off. If married, she could actually afford to work a part time job after her kids were in school, not two weeks after they are born! People actually believed she "did something important" instead of forcing her into a McJob and saying it was MUCH more important for our communities to say, "Do you want fries with that ..."

Yes there was job discrimination, (as there still is where women still make $.80 on the dollar), but at least she was respected and supported for actually BEING a mother. She was not considered her motherhood is just a hobby to raise the next generation to fight in our wars, maintain our infrastructure, and pay our Social Security while being forced into a workforce that doesn't even make enough to pay the rent so they can bring huge bonuses for entitled, already rich CEOs who make thousands of times more than she does.

My 2 cents

Cat in Seattle

[ehrnst]

361. You could support a family with one paycheck - in a median paying job. (nt)

[xchrom]

362. recommend

[Prophet 451]

363. There isn't much I miss

But I remember being told about times when it was possible to support a family in some kind of decent life on one blue-collar salary. Now, real wages have been stagnant for years.

Being told about a time when it's wasn't near-enough mandatory to drive and own a car; when the unemployed, sick and disabled were treated and talked about with more respect than child molesters; when doctors made house calls; when your utilities and phone didn't cost an arm and a leg (Thatcher killed that by selling everything off); when politicians at least made a pretence at serving the people; when TV wasn't wall-to-wall blocks of sodding reality shows.

And I'm only 34.

[uponit7771]

364. This is shocking....wow

[Recursion]

367. You also didn't own your phone

The Bell breakup was probably a good thing ultimately, though I wish we had kept the surcharge to fund Bell labs.

[SoCalDem]

385. I never knew anyone who WANTED to own the phone

:rofl:

[mntleo2]

420. Big Time, SoCal

...when your phone went out (which was rarely because they lasted forever), you simply got another one. In my area, you COULD own your own phone if you wanted to, but ... nobody wanted their own phone, because everyone knew that then, you had to fix and maintain it.

Cat in Seattle

[era veteran]

370. Tuition at UK $160.00 a semester

Good marijuana at 15.00 a lid.
Lid = 1 ounce and also the weight of the cut off lid of the most common #10 can.

"All this useless and pointless knowledge"

[DemoTex]

378. NBC's "Monday Night at the Movies" (1963) gradually became night-after-night at the movies.

The NBC Monday Movie was a television anthology series of films scheduled every Monday night from 1963 to 1999 on NBC. It was referred to in the early part of its run as NBC Monday Night at the Movies. The show moved to Wednesday nights in 1964 as NBC Wednesday Night at the Movies, and in 1965, the program moved to Tuesdays, under the title The NBC Tuesday Night Movie. The name would henceforth change depending on what night of the week the program was telecast. By 1968, there was once again a weekly NBC Monday Night Movie on the air.

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

[DemoTex]

382. "Monday Night Football (ABC - 1970) used to be on Mondays only.

Monday Night Football (MNF) is a live broadcast of the National Football League on ESPN. From 1970 to 2005 it aired on ABC. Monday Night Football was, along with Hallmark Hall of Fame, and the Walt Disney anthology television series, one of the longest running prime time commercial network television series ever, and one of the highest-rated, particularly among male viewers.

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

[postulater]

383. My mom would send me to the store to buy her cigarettes.

The carton cost two bucks and the store would give me a slip so she could pay the next time she came in.

I would get a nickel to buy either a banana popsicle or a fudgsicle with (it took me longer to decide which than it did to ride to the store and back, usually the fudgsicle won out).

[demigoddess]

384. assumable mortgages. They helped a lot of people buy their

own homes. In our first house, we put down a couple of thousand and assumed the loan. No closing costs, loan origination fees etc. We bought our first 3 or 4 houses that way. Did not have to qualify. We also bought our first house for 13 thousand and paid a hundred dollars a month as mortgage payment. We did not have empty houses in the neighborhood.

[SoCalDem]

391. We assumed a loan for our first house too.. 1977 Olathe Ks..39,900

a beautiful 1 yr old "model home" with all the upgrades.. That is still my "favorite house". It had a 12 x 12 redwood deck off the kitchen dining room, and all the back yards were unfenced then..made for a huge greenbelt where all the Moms could sit on the decks & watch all the neighborhood kids playing...and every weekend we had a roving "yard party" with everyone pitching in for booze & food..

We were worried sick that we would not be able to afford $351.07 a month for the PITI.. :rofl: until we bought that house, we had been paying $125 a month for an older 3 bedroom brick house with a 1 car garage...on an acre lot:rofl:

[JEB]

386. I remember the Doctor

stopping by our house to check on me when I had the mumps.

[GeorgeGist]

388. Milkmen used to deliver milk to your back door ...

and the Duncan Yo-Yo man would come to your school playground to demonstrate the latest tricks and yo-yos.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

396. Where I lived soda, chips and pretzels were also delivered.

[robdogbucky]

478. In Wisconsin in many places up to the mid-50s, beer was delivered like the milkman n/t

[Atman]

563. Our milkman just walked in and stocked the fridge.

Didn't even knock, because no one ever locked their doors, either.

[GreenStormCloud]

389. Mostly people who are posting are missing the personal touch.

The bank calling you to prevent an overdraft, the station attendant pumping your gas, the doctor coming to your house (That had already stopped in the 1950s where I lived), the telephone operator and so on all involved someone interacting with you personally and validating you as a person. Pumping your own gas and paying at the pump by swipping a card, using an ATM or online banking, shopping online are all much more efficient but all lack a personal touch.

People stayed outdoors in summer because it was too hot to stay inside. That promoted speaking to you neighbors.

Yes, we have lost some things with modern technology, but I am not ready to go back to the 1950s. I like my modern times more, even if I do have to put up with an older person's body surrounding a youthful mind.

[woo me with science]

399. This is a very, very important point.

When you worked for somebody, you usually knew them, or you had a connection to them. Now people are for the most part working for nameless, faceless overlords in huge conglomerates. Ditto when you must deal with red tape for insurance, banking, hospitals, purchases.

We used to be treated as valuable, paying customers, or valued employees. People competed for your business or your loyalty as a worker, and you were treated with respect.

We are no longer human beings. We are "human resources" being used by companies in the most lucrative way possible, and discarded when we are no longer of use.

[SoCalDem]

402. and in all but the largest of metro areas, the BOSS lived and worked alongside the employees

They lived in a bigger house & had a nicer car, but they shopped where everyone else did..they saw the community needs and their kids attended the same schools with their "underlings'" kids..

There was a kinship that no longer exists.

Borders is just another recent manifestation of this.. They bought up/forced out of business, MANY bookstores, and because they gambled , now they are going away too..

The same has happened to grocery stores, clothing stores, factories..you name it..

[DebJ]

545. This is even worse: "Human Capital". Baltimore City Schools

human 'resources' is referred to as 'human capital'. Ugh.

https://www.baltimorecityschools.org/21671011213230883/site/default.asp?

[Joe Fields]

393. I remember dime stores with candy counters and lunch counters.

[Jamastiene]

395. Real sugar in soft drinks.

You haven't lived until you have tasted a Dr Pepper with real sugar. :swoon:

I've adapted to the hi fructose crap, only because the only way to get real Dr Pepper nowadays is to pay out the ass for "Dublin Dr Pepper." To think, that used to be the regular Dr Pepper. Now, it's specialty and costs way way way too much.

I used to save up the bottles and carry them back to the store for another drink. It was my bonus drink.

[whathehell]

400. There used to be something called "The Fairness Doctrine" which ensured a "both sides" approach

There WERE no major "Right wing" radio shows or televison shows...It would have been illegal.

There were no major "left wing" shows either but it really wasn't needed, because prior to Reagan, under whom this law disappeared, BTW, this country

was essentially the country of "The New Deal" and leaned heavily towards the dems...It took Repukes FORTY YEARS to get a majority

in Congress.

[Dappleganger]

403. Atomic bomb shelters and duck and cover drills.

Did they *really* think that we could survive under our desks, lol??

[SoCalDem]

405. we laughed at them.. We were a stone's throw from the Panama Canal

A MAJOR target, to be sure..:)

[calimary]

407. ONE paycheck was enough to support an "average" family of four.

And unions and regulations against monopolies were valued.

[brewens]

408. In 1981 I could afford a one bedroom apartment, phone, cable

tv, my car payment and go out and get hammered on the weekends. I worked forty hours a week at just slightly over minimum wage.
My car and apartment weren't anything fancy but also not too bad. You couldn't even dream about doing that now.

[SoCalDem]

412. When I met my husband, he had a beautiful apartment- $65 a month

and a brand new '68 GTO $88 a month.. His utilities were about $45 a month (included cable)

We went out several times a week, and he always had plenty of money:)

He was a few years out of college and had ZERO college debt. and a Standard Oil credit card ..with a $200 limit & a Sears card with a $500 limit:)

[Bombero1956]

413. I remember "hot lunch" in school

My Mom paid $1.25 per week for a hot lunch and milk. She paid 15 cents for a week of mid morning milk. The food was really good and not that crap that comes out of vending machines. Soda in school was unheard of. I also remember that Tuesday was bank day. At the start of the school year the kids were encouraged to open a savings account with a local bank and Tuesday was the day you brought in your bankbook and money to deposit.

[robdogbucky]

477. Some of the goodies we had in our high school cafeteria included

Side dish of mashed potatoes/gravy = .10

Pizzaburger = .50

Fritos = .10

milk = .10


Yum, pizzaburgers and mashed potatoes.


Hands off my Social Security!
Hands off Latin America!


rdb

[SoCalDem]

480. Ours had:

every day:
home made chili
home made vegetable soup
home made chocolate cake
green salad
assorted jellos
little cuplets of choc or vanilla ice cream (with the little wooden spoon on top)
home made parkerhouse dinner rolls
hamburgers (not frozen & reheated)
hot dogs
cooked corn
green beans
scalloped potatoes
macaroni & cheese
small bags of chips
apples
oranges
peanut butter & jelly sandwiches
iced tea (unsweetened)..and there were no sugar packets, or salt & pepper on the tables
water
milk (no flavored milk)


and then every day there were a few "specials"
(some of the ones I remember)

lasagna
goulash (to DIE for)
sloppy joes
spaghetti
ham & beans
baked chicken
ham
roast beef
meatloaf

Our cafeteria was SO good, that we had three tables to one side that the people from nearby businesses used .. They paid $3.00 for lunch & augmented the lunch program.

Our "lunch-ladies" showed up in three shifts:

the bakers & prep people showed up at 2:00AM and left around 7
the next shift showed up then, and cooked the main dishes..they left around 2
another shift showed up at 10AM and stayed for clean up ..left around 3PM

[madmax]

415. Thank YOU SoCalDem

A trip down memory lane. I'm 61 and wish we still had just a few - I miss a hardwired AT&T phone. I for one miss the hell out of MaBell!!

[Tribalceltic]

416. Operators

I was on my way home from college in 1980 and my car a 72 olds cutlass began to overheat in -20 degree weather. I tried to call my brother collect from a pay phone for advice and got the fast busy signal that meant the circuits were busy. I dialed "0" and explained the situation to the operator and she routed my call through three states on "emergency" lines to get my call through.

My wallet had a compartment for a spare key and a dime. The dime was for emergency phone calls.

In 1974 my lived in Delaware. Usually a trip to the beach was a time of joy. This time Dad was upset. He drove to the gas station and pointed at the signs that advertised gas for $0.329 and a pack of name brand cigarettes for $0.34. He told me that I would never see those prices again. Sadly he was right. At the beach he pulled out the binoculars and said look at that. Offshore the Ocean was filled with tankers of all sizes riding low in the water just outside the 3 mile limit. "They are waiting for the price of oil to go up before they will come unload" Dad told me. There was no oil shortage.

In 1981 I got married and a job in a factory for 3.45 an hour, taking home about $120 a week. My wife worked for a grocery store and made about the same. We were well off because we were working, but at our worst we could work temp jobs and get two or three days of work each week. Often temp jobs would last up to three months and the company would hire good workers on permanently.

[DemoTex]

430. I remember the non-dial phones .. and party lines.

No dial at all on the phone. You picked up the receiver to make a call and the operator said, "Number, please." I still remember my grandmother's phone number from those days: 1438-W.

[SoCalDem]

435. TAylor5-5689

my childhood phone number

and in Panama it was 3346

[AlbertCat]

429. Let's see....

I used to have to write reports in school on lined paper and copy them in ink. I got extra credit for cutting out pics from a magazine and pasting them into the hand written in ink report.

I used to get beaten up because I hated football and liked classical music. I lived in fear because I thought I was the only person around who was gay and I was afraid someone would find out and kill me.

There were 4 TV stations and I had to climb on the roof to adjust the antenna if the little directional thingie wasn't working.

Evalina, our maid, couldn't eat at the Woolworth's counter with me (I'm from Greensboro, NC. I've eaten at that famous counter)



I don't miss the "good ol' days".



Except that in the 60's & 70's Science RULED! I made a huge model of the Saturn 5 rocket complete with its stages that came apart and a Lunar Lander and Orbiter, that could dock.

Oh, and my father being a doctor, we had lots of free samples of Quaaludes.... but that wasn't a thing til I was in high school.

[white_wolf]

438. I am way too young for this thread

though I do remember the pump before you pay gas stations. They were still around in the 90's and my dad hated when they went to pre-pay because he said it made him feel like they were calling him a thief.

[WheelWalker]

445. A two by four use to be 2" x 4". No kidding, there really was a time - honestly !

[white_wolf]

447. I don't think I have ever seen a 2x4

that was actually 2x4. Granted I don't spend much time around construction and the term is thrown around as kind of a generic thing like "band-aid." but still.

[WheelWalker]

448. You'll find them when tearing down or remodeling old frame buildings.

[SoCalDem]

451. and they probably were not raggedy & bowed either

When my husband & son built a storage shed, they had a terrible time finding "good" 2x4s..at any price

some of them were so obviously "tweaked" I cannot believe they even tried to sell them

[Atman]

454. I miss feeling up Tania Wisenegger under the bleachers during HS football games.

Does that count? Those were some good times!

[SoCalDem]

457. of course that counts

:evilgrin:

it made you smile today, didn't it?

[Warren DeMontague]

568. So do I.

What, you thought you were the only one?

[kittykitty]

459. Sat. afternoons at the movies $0.09!

[SoCalDem]

460. wow..what a bargain.. ours were a quarter

:)

[WheelWalker]

465. A quarter for the double feature matinee on Saturdays....

I could take the bus downtown (Toledo), go to the double feature matinee, buy a soda and jujubes, return home, bicycle to the bowling alley, rent shoes and pay for three lines of bowling - all for my $1.00 weekly allowance. The round trip bus ride was a dime. Shoe rental was $.15, three lines of bowling, $.35

[AlbertCat]

466. wow..what a bargain.. ours were a quarter

Ours too.

You could go out and buy the latest Beatles album for $3.50. But if you only liked the song you heard on the radio, you could pick up the 45 of it for 75¢.

Alas, if you wanted to make a copy for someone, you'd have to lug out the reel to reel or the cassette tape machine, and hope the record didn't have any scratches. I remember my sister had "Abbey Road" on an 8 track. It switched tracks right in the middle of "She's so Heavy".

[white_wolf]

497. Lucky you

The cheapest I can remember was 5.00$ and that was matinee prices.

[DebJ]

546. I remember 45RPMs at 34 cents each or 3 for $1.00 n/t

[Kip Humphrey]

580. Meet the Beatles LP was $5.99 at our local record store when it came out.

[kittykitty]

461. Glasses and other smalls used to come in boxes of DUZ detergent.

[pinboy3niner]

471. That was my family's china, lol!

Remember the wheat-pattern plates from boxes of DUZ?

[Atman]

487. Our best glasses were Welch's jelly jars with the Flintstones on 'em!

But Salada Tea still includes the little ceramic animals!

[Manifestor_of_Light]

538. In Texas we call that stuff Bama Crystal.

Bama jelly jars used for drinking glasses.

:rofl:

I'm still using a large plastic beige and green pitcher that was part of a gas station freebie. There were tumblers with it as well. Maybe it was Exxon.

[kentuck]

472. When Levis were actually Levis....

They were much more heavier than today's Levi's. You could buy them 4 to 6 inches too long and a couple of sizes bigger because they were so long-lasting. And roll them up at the bottom with a large cuff. :-)

[SoCalDem]

473. I still remember when they started costing over $5 a pair and then they took away the leather patch

from the back of them:)



we were OUTRAGED :rofl:

[robdogbucky]

476. I remember when stretch levis came into vogue

and they were $7 a pair.

Talk about shrinkage after the washer/dryer, whoa.

They were defnitely ball-breakers.



Carry on, regardless


rdb

[benld74]

482. Drinkin outta the hose during Summer!

[bdamomma]

555. or running over the sprinkler in the summer!!!

or even sitting on top of it!!!! that was fun!!

[joquan]

484. very good

[totodeinhere]

485. Not everything was hunky dory back then. We tend to have selective memory and

only remember the good things. Remember when blacks in the South couldn't sit at lunch counters and had to ride at the back of the bus? Remember when many of our inner cities exploded in race riots in the 60's? Remember when Japanese Americans were placed in concentration camps? Remember when Joe McCarthy was finding a "Commie" under every rock and ruining the lives of many fine patriotic Americans? Remember when the environment was being indiscriminately poisoned with DDT? Yes, some things were better back then but some things were also much worse.

[SoCalDem]

488. Not the point of this thread, but thanks for participating. Start one about all the bad things

we remember. Those things are the things we usually are taught about in school, and I suspect that many (most?) younger people WILL know about them, and will agree with all of us, that they were indeed, horrible.

This thread is about the small things in life that older folks experienced as part of our daily lives..things that younger people never even had a chance to know about.;..and this stuff is NOT taught in schools:)

[totodeinhere]

495. Older folks also "experienced as part of our daily lives" many of those negative things as well.

And by the way, I think it's ageist to assume that younger people don't have a good knowledge of history, including both the good and bad aspects of life in America in days past. I am young and I know about all of those things and so do most of my friends.

[SoCalDem]

499. good for you.. nt

[Dawson Leery]

489. My parents never met the "loan committee" (late 70's) though

they did have to demonstrate they had a steady flow of income to pay the mortgage.

[SoCalDem]

490. There were differences in "qualifying" It probably had to do with the type of bank

We were a 'natl' bank and had a lot more rules that the 'state' bank across the street from us..and then there were also savings & loans too.. I'm sure their rules were different.

People would often shop around & get referrals from friends and since buying a house took a long time then, they would choose the place that was the best for them.

No matter where you ended up, you had to PROVE that you could afford the loan, and back then the wife's income was usually not even figured into affordability, because it was still assumed that she would quit her job when the babies came along.:(

[silverlib]

507. I remember buying my mom's cigarettes when I was seven...

and Humble Oil...when gas stations were owned by locals with a contract to sell a certain "brand."

[IHR]

513. Boarding a airplane

without any evasive search of your luggage or person. If someone was meeting you at the airport. They met you at the gate where the plane arrived. The passengers were usually well dressed and mannered when they flew. The stewardess were young, female, attractive and attentive to the passengers. If you were in the military they had a discount airfare. The only catch was you had to wear your dress uniform.

[Atman]

515. Buying an airplane ticket that you could use on any airline.

If you missed your Eastern flight (remember them?) you could just use it on the next departing plane (if there was a seat, which there always was).

And flying as a kid; my parents were divorced, Dad in Boston, Mom in Florida, so I "commuted" a lot. I'd just walk onto the plane as an "unescorted minor" and the stewardesses (that's what they were called then!) would set me up in the bulkhead seat, I'd get to go into the cockpit and talk to the pilot ("Atman, have you ever seen a gladiator movie?"), and then get all the snacks and stewardess lovin' they could throw at me. Then you got those cool wing badges -- real metal. Wow...no wonder they all went broke.

.

[TheCentepedeShoes]

523. I had a discount card

for air travel in college
Do not recall who issued it, but IIRC I used it for a $21.00 flight from Dallas to Tampa on Eastern

[Manifestor_of_Light]

572. Student discount fares on airlines.

My first year of college was 1972-3.

Southwest Airlines had just recently started and was intrastate - Texas only.

I flew home from college with my dirty laundry == San Antonio to Houston -- 200 miles, for $13 one way.
Regular fare was $15. The flight attendants wore orange hot pants and white knee length go go boots (like the girls wore on the TV show Hullabaloo!).

Mom was mad about me flying home with my dirty laundry. She said "You kids don't know what a bus is for."
I said, "That's right. Why should we spend four and a half hours on a bus when it's 40 minutes flying? Can't beat that. That's what jets are for."

:rofl:

[SoCalDem]

573. and super cheap stand-by fares.. Friends of mine traveled all over

that way.. They would go to an airport late at night and just stand by for the cheapest place & go for the weekend..

[SoCalDem]

524. In the early 70's it was called an "M.C.O." and you could designate ANY amount you wanted

Your Mom could got to a travel agent in her town, and order an MCO for you to pick up at YOUR airport...for any amount she wanted to send you..

You could just go to any airline counter and pick it up..It was good for travel or even cash if you needed to cash it in at say Delta, & use the money to buy a ticket on Eastern.

Hertz even accepted them in lieu of cash

*mco ///misc charges order

and tickets could be blank too, with just the amount & to and from filled in.. You filled in your name at the ticket counter or when you got the ticket in the mail..

[Atman]

526. You're right. I remember doing that many times.

My dad used to subscribe to The Airline Guide, or something like that. It was as thick as a NYC phone book, and listed every flight, every day, for the month. And it listed the price of the ticket. Period.

[Blue_Tires]

566. Do NOT get me started on air travel

First flew as a 6-year-old "unescorted minor" in '83...With Eastern that got you a little pair of wings, and Delta gave you wings AND a model B-727, iirc... The treatment and service I got as a kid then was better than what many "First Class" flyers are getting for their money now...

[Frank Cannon]

559. Ah, but airplane travel was much more fraught with danger.

And airsickness bags were mandatory equipment, because you had about a 30% chance of puking during the flight.

Over the past twenty years, I don't think I've used the airsickness bag for more than stuffing my peanut wrappers in.

[Blue_Tires]

567. Welcome to the site!

I grew up a short drive from the local airport (ORF) and even into the early 1990s, it was nothing for my parents or I to drive up to the airport at 11:40 for a noon flight (unless it was the holidays), give the bags to the SkyCap and walk to the gate...

[Spirochete]

517. Towels and drinking glasses

inside boxes of laundry detergent.
Sending in cereal boxtops to get toys.

[ScreamingMeemie]

518. The "phone in your home for 10 dollars a month" can bite you in the ass.

My grandparents had the same rotary dial from 1975, until she moved in with my mother in 2005. The phone company charged that lease until the day we turned off her phone. Sorry, that's not a sweet memory for me.

[kentuck]

519. Two theaters in my town in the 1950's...

One was 15 cents and the other was 25 cents.

The 15 cent movie would show old movies and westerns. That was my favorite.

The more expensive theater (25 cents) would have the more up-to-date movies.

Now it costs more than 50 times that much to get into a movie.

[Buns_of_Fire]

522. *sigh* *smiling wistfully* Ah, memories, memories... Young and innocent days...

Now GET OFF MY LAWN!

damned whippersnappers anyway just walk wherever they damned well please and i just put fresh seed in that area and look how they just let their damned dog crap all over the place and where is that damned repairman anyway and i know he's going to try to charge me too damned much and HEY! NO PARKING HERE! damned tourists think they own the damned place and mumble mumble mumble mumble.....

:hi:

[jillan]

527. There used to be a motto "The customer is always right" And people in stores and banks were actually

trained to know the business so they could assist you no matter what your concern was.

You weren't put on a phone to talk to someone in another country, they helped you right then and there.

[WheelWalker]

560. The banks opened at 10 a.m. and closed at 3 p.m. "Banker's Hours" nt

[Warren DeMontague]

569. Pie Chart on the subject:

[mediator]

529. Used to be...cops could beat the shit out of gay folks without any repercussion

and we gays had absolutely no recourse for any discrimination or brutality.

That's one I remember.

[BlackHoleSon]

532. Now the cops

can beat the crap out of ANYBODY and there not be any repercussions.
See ... progress.

[mediator]

570. I guess you have a point there. Dammit.

;-)

[sylvi]

536. When my buds and I were about to graduate HS

When my buds and I were about to graduate HS in 1974, we decided that if we could get a job clearing $100 a week, we'd be doing alright.

Nowadays it will barely buy two tanks of gas.

[JI7]

540. great threads, i wish there were pictures with some of the posts

to see what some of the things mentioned looked like.

i was born late 70s and it seems like some of the big changes happened around the Reagan years when i was a kid.

and of course the tech changes like wide use of internet and cell phones around late 90s on.

some of the things i remember are vhs, cassette tapes, pay phones.

[JI7]

541. at the airport Family and Friends could be together until time to board

now we have to be apart and wait for a long time. i understand security issues but i sometimes wonder how much of it is really needed.

one thing i remember as a kid was when some family boarded the plane me and the other kids would go to the window and wave goodbye wondering if they could see us.

[Sabriel]

551. You could have a family on one income

Here's what one teacher salary could do:

--support a partner and three children
--buy a decent house
--buy a new car
--contribute to savings

And that was as recently as 1975.

No longer.

[kentuck]

552. Bookmarked

Interesting read.

[Douglas Carpenter]

553. and even my little PA town of 8000 people had a number of locally owned factories

and most of the jobs were unionized. I also remember when the front page of the local newspaper announced that the local hospital was increasing its rate for a semi-private room to $21. per day. Then a trip to the physician or the dentist would run about $10. But most people had complete medical coverage from their employer for themselves and their family anyway.

Of course property prices and rental prices saw the most stunning increase. Even in Santa Cruz, California - a friend of mine bought his modest house in 1970 for $12,500 and sold it in 1979 for $70,000. The same house today would probably sell for around $450,000.

[Darth_Kitten]

554. When I was a young'un, there were no ipods, internet, and cellphones.

;)

[Curmudgeoness]

561. Helping my dad drive the car---sitting on his lap, no seat belts, boosters, back seat.

Of course that bit you in the ass when dad had to stop fast and your head met the dashboard. But I think dashboards were cushier then too.

[Blue_Tires]

565. You instantly knew a state from its area code

and many states only had a SINGLE area code for the ENTIRE STATE, and the middle digit was always 1 or 0

I'm just grateful that where I live still has 7-digit dialing, for the time being...

[LiberalEsto]

574. There used to be these things called newspapers

and there used to be several of them in most towns, independently owned and competing against one another. Journalists were supposed to have principles and ethics, although that wasn't always the case.

and, tell me if I'm wrong, but weren't people allowed to deduct the interest on car loans and other loans from their taxes?

[SoCalDem]

576. yup

ALL interest used to be deductible even if you did not itemize
There used to be a renter's deduction too
Social Security income used to be NON-taxable

my small-ish hometown had a morning AND an afternoon paper

[LiberalEsto]

578. And you could deduct your medical bills

I think they were deductible if they exceeded 4% of your income. They raised the percentage a couple of times to make it impossible for most people to deduct.

[RegieRocker]

577. When I first started driving gas was .19 cents a gallon

I could round up 9 soda bottles and get a gallon of gas. My second car was a 1966 Chevelle Super Sport 398 ci. I bought it for $1300 because there was a gas crises going on. Gas prices sky rocketed to 27 cents a gallon so the owner got rid of it. LOL

[callous taoboy]

584. Playing outside from morning until dinner time:

Central Texas during the 60's and 70's had tons of interesting creatures that we'd find as we'd roam all over the neighborhood and into the woods and down by the creek: Snakes, lizards, turtles, the horned lizard (horny toad), and all kinds of interesting bugs. Most of those creatures are no longer found there.