Reply #14: I am dating myself by admitting I knew ONE store that sold penny candy.

[happyslug]

The other stores only had nickel candy bars by the late 1960s. Penny Candy was almost a thing of the past. One small store sold candy by the penny, those little bite size candy pieces which even as I child I did not view as anywhere near full size. My older siblings remember some other penny candy, but even by the mid 1960s such candy was slowly dieing. So quite dating yourself, just say all you remember is 50 cent candy bars and everyone will still think you 39 and holding.

Yes, I remember other prices from the 1960s, 25 cents bus ride tickets (plus 10 cents for a transfer, I had to switch buses to get where I had to go). Coca Cola from a machine for a dime (Again only one machine, and it dispersed glass bottles not cans). What about returning empty GLASS bottles (And ever so often getting a case of Coke with a Pepsi Bottle in it, with a Coke Crown and filled with Coke)?

One of the "biggest" thing I remember was the introduction of the original GLASS non-returnable Two Liter Coke Bottles. What I remember about them was every so often one would break do to the pressure inside the bottle. This would occur when such bottles were stored in sunlight (one of the small stores I went to in the 1970s kept their Coke bottles in the front Corner where the sun hit the bottles through the front window). Those Glass non-returnable two liter bottles would just shatter every so often. The Store owner would have to clean up the resulting mess. No one was ever hurt, but it speed up the replacement of Glass by Plastic by the early 1980s.

As I age, it is NOT the big things that I notice that has changed, but the small things, like Plastic for Glass, the use of Credit Cards to buy things instead of cash, The growing price of Candy and other items, etc. In the 1970s the Garbage men picked up the Garbage from the REAR of your home, you did NOT have to take it to the curb (And in Pittsburgh carried the garbage in huge burlap sacks NOT just throwing plastic bags into the back of the Truck). My Parents kept their garbage in 40 gallon cans that looked like oil drums (And may have been for all I know) NOT the plastic cans we use today.

The big things people make a big deal about are accepted quickly (often before there are even done, for example the people who moved from the Downtown to the Suburban malls even before the Malls were finished). Yes, I do miss the big Downtown Departments Stores, all had many more items then their successors in today's malls but you had to take a streetcar or bus to get to them instead of driving. In Pittsburgh Kauffman's was the Big Downtown Store (it is now Macy's in Pittsburgh). Today the Downtown store is a shadow of its former self in the 1970s. I remember when it had THREE bargain basements floors not just one AND the wooden escalators at the top of the store actually lead to additional areas to shop not just offices. I miss that store, as while as Gimbel's but hopefully things are changing for the better.