Yes, I had those too. And to make it easier to get the boots on, my mom put bread bags over our shoes.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kathy WI
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Yes, I had those too. And to make it easier to get the boots on, my mom put bread bags over our shoes.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kathy WI
I remember the colored toilet paper, too. And the cassette Walkman.
For Christmas my senior year in high school, in 1986, I got a 12" black and white TV to take with me to college. It was $70 at Kmart. I was just thrilled to have my own tv, and I remember doing homework to LA Law and Johnny Carson on the Tonight Show.
Can you imagine the reaction of a kid now to a black and white TV?!
The coloured toilet paper I don't remember, but that's because my mom was sooo thrifty and frugal. :) It was basic in our house. Everything was basic.
Anyhow, I'm going to have to put my thinking-cap on tonight over this one, but as for now I can't think of anymore. (That's because you guys stole all of mine)! http://th38.photobucket.com/albums/e...igglesmile.gif
Tradd. I can't imagine the stir an old black and white television would create with today's younger generation. Would be hilarious to set up an experiment just for laughs!
Some random thoughts - I am so old --- my first thought was "I am so old I am complaining about my aches and pains", but then I read the thread and see it was going a whole different direction!!
- In Oregon they experimented with milk in quart bags you set in a pitcher and snipped off a corner.
- Where I was standing in elementary school when Mr. Rogers announced President Kennedy was shot.
- I remember when my cousin Barry told me at lunch Walt Disney died - I didn't believe him - that was like saying Santa had died!
- Paper/wax drinking straws and cardboard tops on our milkshakes with a pull tab that you stuck your straw in.
- That we never locked our doors during the day - until a murder happened on our street and all innocence was lost.
- Only having to dial 4 numbers in town, having to go through an operator to call long distance, renting phones from Ma Bell.
- Reading the magazines "Look & Life", only getting two TV stations - and we had to get up to change the channel.
- Keeping ashtrays at our desks, parts counter, etc. for our customers who smoked.
- Car lots with strands of bulbs to light their lots at night.
- Going to the barber & getting a crew cut and him using "butch wax" in front to make my hair stand straight up!
- TV commerical - Dove dishing washing liquid that thinks it is a hand lotion - turns into Dove and flys upstairs!
- The small town I grew up in decorated city streets wires with real fir bows and christmas lights.
- Grocery stores that actually boxed your groceries and tied a string around the flaps to hold them up - and took them to your car.
Alaska had NO Tv in the 50s. I remember the first station and the wonder of it all. Old movies were a staple.
Hotdogs in cans with the bbq sauce in a little package in the center.
I still have a 1930s rotary phone in the bedroom. It works great.
I brought a black and white TV to college, and it had a VIDEO GAME on it! It was just a ping pong game and moved ever so slow. Maybe why I never got into video games even thought the graphics got way better than an ascii display. :)
I remember milking our entire herd of dairy cows by hand twice a day.
This thread has been cute to read bringing back a lot of memories. In 1954, we had one of those wooden box phones and you had to wind the little handle on the side 2-3 times to get an operator who would connect you with another party. They now sell these phones as decorative items; should have bought them all when they went out of use and made a million :-)
:) Yes, this.Quote:
Originally Posted by benhyr
I'm so old that when the browser first came out, I said why would I ever need such a thing, when I already have Archie and Veronica to find any files on the internet that I want.
I'm so old I've owned (new) clothes made in the US!
I’m so old I can remember doing my chemistry homework with a slide rule. I’m so old I remember tuning my Dad’s AMC Matador with a timing light and plug gapper. I’m so old I remember cigarette commercials featuring doctors. I’m so old I used to walk around with silver change in my pocket. I’m so old I joined the Air Force because I wanted to do something about the Soviet Union. I’m so old I can remember getting a transistor radio for my birthday. I’m so old I can remember learning the metric system because my teacher told us we’d be converting over in 1975. I’m so old I can remember worrying when Paul Ehrlich was on talk shows telling us about the food riots we could expect by 1980.
I remember getting free stuff at gas stations when you filled up your tank. Dishes in boxes of laundry detergent, etc.
Free maps at the gas station. S&H Green Stamps...licked many of them in my day for mom.
...the word "ditto" meant a machine, not the phrase "me too."
I'm so old, I've forgotten how old I am. OK, not quite, but I occationally have to think about it.
I've enjoyed reading through everything for sure. I can almost remember the smell of paper coming out of mimeograph machines, and associate it with grade school tests. I remember the teachers lounge was so thick with cigarette smoke you could about cut it with a knife. Remember when the drive-in movie speakers came out with little heaters on them so you could go to the drive-in in cold weather? Although I think I prefered another method to keep warm:) Wing windows were one of my favorites that's gone away. Men wearing hats instead of caps (and having the manners to take them off inside). Duckwalls and Woolworths. Free concerts in the park on Sunday evenings with brass bands. Fill 'er up and check the oil?
fender skirts.......seats that seemed to go on forever........clear vinyl car seat covers that had that wonderful (to a kid's nose) smell? My first car was a 1970 Opel GT, green and I spent hours washing and polishing that little car.
I remember so many of these--rotary phones (still have one somewhere, a heavy black one), mimeographs, manual typewriters (keys would jam if you typed too fast), reel to reel recorders.
My parents had an old Polaroid camera with a flash that would blind you. And an 8mm movie camera with a bright light...most of our Christmas morning movies are of my sister and I shielding our eyes from the blinding light.
Remember when you could buy cigarettes from a vending machine? And stamps? Those ashtrays that sat on a tall base so you didn't need a table? Those little AM radios shaped like a hoop or a ball (Loop a Loop or something like that)? Hot stinky yellow rubber raincoats with those metal clasps? Bubble umbrellas? Clip-on roller skates (always unclipped at the wrong time). Mutual of Omaha Wild Kingdom? The truck that would come and spray mosquito stuff through the neighborhood (the bug man's coming! Close the windows!)? Click Clacks? - OUCH! Sun In for orange hair. All old people had false teeth. Women in their 50s looked old. Those old belted sanitary pads were the size of surfboards! The boxy 126 cameras? Those round fur-covered cases to hold your 45rpm records? Ker Plunk and Tinkertoys?
It's sad that so many things are in the past---people being better dressed for all occasions, being safe playing outside in your neighborhood, having only one television for the whole family to watch together. However, I eat Maypo at least 2-3 times a week--it's still around.
Oh, if you're from the NJ area, remember the stores S. Klein, Two Guys (food, hh goods, appliances and a bowling alley), Korvettes? Highway circles? Action Park?
I'll stop now.
Korvette was in suburban Detroit, too!
How about Palisade Park?? I grew up in CT (live in NJ now), but our 8th grade graduation party was at Palisade Park--it was a BIG DEAL to go there! And I brought my new Polaroid Brownie camera to take pictures! I also remember when Newark was a small airport.Quote:
Originally Posted by pony mom
I'm so old I remember when gas station attendants wore snappy uniforms with bow ties and washed your windshield and checked your oil for you. So old I remember our fruit man was called a 'huckster' and sold produce from the back of a horse-drawn wagon. And we had a coal chute on the front of the house down which the coal delivery man ran a metal chute and rattled down the coal into our basement coal bin.
And my grandmother's ice box was just that--and the ice was delivered in big chunks, and the neighborhood grocery store had a huge wooden pickle barrel and it was a treat to get a pickle from it and eat it like an ice cream cone. And coming home from high school, we'd stop in the local Five and Dime that had an old-fashioned coffee shop with a fountain and we'd chow down on cherry and vanilla or chocolate cokes and French Fries.
And so old that my friends and I tried to get on Dick Clark's Bandstand but the regulars elbowed us out of camera range so we never got on camera.
And so very old that during the cold war we all learned how to duck and cover under our desks to protect ourselves from nuclear attacks and--lol--nuclear fall-out. And those attacks were very real if you're old like me and remember clearly the face-off with Russia and the Cuban Missile crisis!
One of my mother's wise pieces of fashion advice was, "If you wore it once, you can't wear it again" (meaning, if a trend comes around again, you look stupid if you wear it).
So, I'm so old I can no long wear:
--bell bottoms
--gauze shirts
--platform shoes
--miniskirts
--macrame purses
--heavy eyeliner paired with pale lipstick
I'm so old I remember actual film in cameras. And buying those disposable cameras were so cool and hip. I know this wasn't THAT long ago but my kids just got their hands on a disposable camera and I had to explain to them repeatedly that 'no, you CAN'T see the pic you just took' and 'no you only have 27 shots, after that it is over-you can't delete some and keep snapping' I had to explain how you take it into a camera store, they remove the film, develop it and we wait a week until we see anything. It is like bizarre-o world' to them
love beads............John Lennon eyeglasses
About 8 - 10 years ago, sister & I were in Newport, RI with a 10-year-old friend, and we somehow got talking about toys. We were astounded to learn that she didn't know what Colorforms were! We popped into a nearby toy store, and asked the teenage clerk if they had Colorforms, because "Can you believe Alissa has never even heard of them?!" The clerk asked, "Why, what are they?"
I have one of those typewriter erasers on my desk. I use it to get breadcrumbs and sesame seeds out of my PC keyboard. The brushes they make for cleaning keyboards aren't stiff enough.
And my 1995 Saturn has crank windows. They work just fine!
We were in Yosemite last week and took the valley tour. The ranger giving the tour talked about the Firefalls. I was the only one on the tram that had seen the Firefalls. They stopped them in 1968.
What a fantabulous thread!
I just couldn't resist adding, I'm so old that when I started school there was a boys side and a girls side as far as playground/school-grounds went. Imagine...
Quote:
Originally Posted by freein05
I saw them! I remember them. It's a very vivid memory of a very young child, but I remember them.
I think it's pretty neat, too, Mrs-M!Quote:
Originally Posted by Mrs-M
A few excerpts from my diary:
2/14/65: I went the shopping center and got 5 records and a magazine. I want to get a Granny dress. All the girls in England wear them. All the styles are going back to "granny's" age. No more high, teased hair. We now have long straight hair, with maybe a little curl at that ends and bangs. I'm still waiting for mine to get long. No more spiked heels and pointed toes. Now it is stacked heels about 1 to 1-1/2 inches and rounded toes, "granny" style.
1/17/65: Yesterday I went with Dad to see "That Darn Cat" with Hayley Mills & Dean Jones. It was hilarious!
2/1/66: "We Can Work It Out" has been No. 1 for six weeks! Isn't that fab?
2/10/66: Phooey! We Can Work It Out never made it to seven weeks. Rats!
2/11/66: Today in school, Sallie was putting the nurse's chart in the office when Jimmy walked up to her and said, "Wait! I have to write down somebody's phone no. first." He looked up MY number! The only trouble is, he wrote down my old number, TR4-7133.
3/27/66: My birthday came last night and I had a blast! I got $27 and apple seed beads, two records, a china doll that sings "I Could Have Danced All Night" Ben Franklin glasses, and a granny gown.
4/30/66: On Thursday went to the Post. Got "The Sonny Side of Cher" LP at Sabres. Good day. On Saturday, I went to N.Y. City. We climbed the Empire State Building. It was wicked!
6/14/66: For our class trip we were told we'd be going to Palisades Amusement Park. Of course, that "amused" everybody because Palisades is ONLY the biggest and greatest amusement park in the country!
Fun reliving those times--and that neat-o, wicked language we used!
Catherine, that is so neat (get the language LOL!) that you posted from your diary inserts - could have been mine in most places. I have diaries and journals going back to 1965. I may steal this idea and start a thread for people to post to from their old diaries, for those that have them. Maybe we could pick one day, say June 15, 1968 and have everyone post, (what they want to share only of course), what was going on in their lives that day. Or maybe we should make it a choice of 5 dates randomly scattered because not everyone would have entries on the same day due to age, not consistently making entries etc. What do you think?Quote:
Originally Posted by catherine
GREAT idea!! Maybe pick a day, and people could use the date that's closest to it. I love it!Quote:
Originally Posted by Shalom_Poet
Shalom poet that is a great idea. I would love to read that. June 15 1968 is 10 years before I was born but it would be interesting to read what people were doing.
It would be interesting to see what we were all doing on the same day! I will get the dates on here soon and let everyone choose one to share.Quote:
Originally Posted by Stella
Love the diary entries Catherine!
My mom learned how to drive in 1960 and the only unsmashed cars available for drivers ed had an automatic transmission! She never really learned how to drive a manual. There's a funny story of how, not long after they were married in 1965, my mom ended up leaving my dad's car at an intersection - in the middle of the road! - around the corner from their apartment as it stalled at a light and she couldn't get it going again!Quote:
Originally Posted by porcelain
In 1991, when I was a newly-minted newspaper reporter working on a small-town Michigan newspaper, the town of 12K's police department and fire department offices had to use rotary phones to communicate. I can remember being shocked - my parents had had a touch tone (not rotary) phone for longer than I could remember!Quote:
Originally Posted by Mrs-M
Love the great stories Tradd!!! :)
I'm so old I saw my first television when I was six years old. Aunt Jeannie had a crank-style telephone in her kitchen. In those days we not only had rotary phones, we had only one per home, and hard-wired into a central location with no privacy. We were on a party line. I can't get across to my (very bright) stepson what a party line was.
4 cent stamps; 31 cent a gallon gasoline. Cars with side vent/wing windows in front that could be broken into with a coat hanger. I locked myself out of my 70 Cutlass once and got back into it with a borrowed coat hanger.
The gas bill for my first apartment was $2.40 a month, electric $5. My entire college education including living expense cost $6,000, and it took me 12 years to pay it off.
Looking things up in a multi-volume hard copy encyclopedia, with no way to know what had changed since it came out, unless your folks subscribed to the yearbooks.
Schools with NO vending machines of any kind. Pay phones in booths that had a door on them.
I remember when all department stores like JCPenney and others had departments for everything like sporting goods, toys, hardware, fabric, bicycles, wedding dresses, cameras, electronics, pianos, etc. and a candy counter and sometimes a restaurant inside. Sometimes the clothing department was called "ready-to-wear". It seems like just recently that department stores no longer have a huge department for panty hose, and a large selection of slips in the lingerie department. Do they even make full slips anymore? I grew up in Cleveland and we sometimes went to Higbee's, the store shown in the movie "A Christmas Story" where the kid goes to see the mean Santa Claus in the store. I went to see Santa in a Higbee's that looked just like that.
I can remember our telephone number when we had a crank phone. It was short-short-long.
My first computer didn't have a hard drive, and operated on a cassette disk.