I remember...

[G R 'Scott' Cundiff]

Select as many as apply

[Greg Farra]

We didn't actually live in the house without indoor plumbing or central heat. My aunt did, though, and we spent a lot of time there. Several weekends a year plus spring break and at least two weeks in the summer. 10 kids and 5 adults in one house, but it was fun.

[David Parker]

I have clear memory of doing "air raid drills" in elementary school in Oklahoma in the early '60s. We would all sit at our desks and when the alarm sounded, we would dash under our desks as quickly as possible, close our eyes tight, and cover our heads with our arms. This of course made us feel very safe from Soviet nuclear attack. :ihe_cowboy:

[G R 'Scott' Cundiff]

Since it's my list, I'll tell you that I remember all that stuff. Let me add that I was raised on a farm that was off the beaten track and in a farmhouse that was 140 years old. In other words, we were somewhat behind the times.

[Greg Farra]

My dad's cousin owned a filling station or two in Parkersburg, WVA. He hired some attractive young women to pump the gas, check the oil and clean the windshields of cars. I don't remember if he did a lot more business than the other places, but it was interesting. I think he got out of the business after he got saved.

[Marsha Lynn]

I remember when my father installed indoor plumbing in my grandparents' home. And before that, of course, I remember their outhouse.

I remember having a party line.

I remember dialing four or five numbers for local calls.

I remember when I first got a phone calling card finding it almost impossible to punch the required 32 numbers without a mistake in order to use it.

How long has it been since you pulled a rotary phone dial around? Last time I did it, I was amazed by the undertow of time that action invoked. Almost as powerful as encountering a scent from the past.

[Cynthia Prentice]

I remember when school cafeterias served homemade food.

I remember when school ice cream and "Paid Assemblies" cost a dime.

I remember when the Wizard of Oz only came on TV once a year.

I remember Little Kiddles.

I remember when girls wore dresses to school.

I remember the first time I heard Bobby Sherman sing, "Julie Do Ya Love Me?" (2nd grade slumber party)

I remember McDonald's before the Egg McMuffin, the Happy Meal and Chicken McNuggets.

[Marsha Lynn]

I remember when school cafeterias served homemade food.

I remember when school ice cream and "Paid Assemblies" cost a dime.

I remember when the Wizard of Oz only came on TV once a year.

I remember Little Kiddles.

I remember when girls wore dresses to school.

I remember the first time I heard Bobby Sherman sing, "Julie Do Ya Love Me?" (2nd grade slumber party)

I remember McDonald's before the Egg McMuffin, the Happy Meal and Chicken McNuggets.

Ooh, good list, Cynthia.

I remember the first McDonald's that we passed with any frequency -- in Wabash, Indiana, if I'm expanding the mental snapshot accurately.

I remember the first time I went to a steak house and was asked what type of dressing I wanted on my salad. I had no idea what the choices were or that it was acceptable to not know the choices and ask. In my panic, I managed to remember what the person in front of me in line had said and repeat it. Fortunately, I like Thousand Island salad dressing well enough to not mind making it my only choice until I could better educate myself on such things.

[Tinker Boyd]

My hometown...

...we didn't have cable so what would be the point of getting a TV?

...my childhood home still doesn't have central air.

...we were still using the outhouse when I left for college.


Little towns can be a bit slow, but it sure was neat to call down to the store (using only the last four digits of the number) and without introducing yourself say, "Can you tell my dad to get some milk too?" and they knew exactly who you were and who your dad was.

[Glenda Harvey]

I checked owning a car without seat belts but it was actually my dad who owned it, I just rode in it. The first time I rode in a car with seat belts I was in second grade and my teacher gave me a ride home from school. It was still several years before my parents had a car with seat belts.

I remember visiting my aunt in Texas in 1958 and she still had an outhouse.

I remember party lines and my parents getting upset because one of the neighbors kept tying up the line.

I remember when movie theaters had two feature films with a cartoon in between and news reels.

I remember drive in theaters.

I remember when entrance to Knott's Berry Farm was free and when Disneyland had A through E tickets.

I remember when movies at the movie theater would sometimes be in black and white.

I remember my mom hanging clothes outside on the clothes line. (she didn't own a dryer until we were all grown and out of the house.

I remember TV dinners in aluminum trays.

I remember when we only had 6 television stations.

I remember when pong was considered a really neat video game.

I remember penny candy and nickel candy bars.

I remember ice cold soft drinks in glass bottles out of a soda machine.

[Jim Chabot]

Thanks Scott, that was neat, although I did get all but three, starting to feel old.

Our exchange was "Castle 2" I do remember also that in town calls only required 5 numbers.

Same as Dave, I remember the air raid drills. The duck and cover movies with the turtle. Back then we watched movies on 16mm film.

I remember when school milk came in glass bottles with collectible cardboard cap inserts of the presidents. They were 2 cents and I think that the last one in the series was Johnson.

Before we got a color TV, we had bought a B&W TV that had UHF.

I remember checking the oil and washing windshields when I was in the Service Station business. We used squirt bottles and blue paper towels until they quit making them. You simply cannot wash a windshield properly with a squeegee!

[Marsha Lynn]

I checked owning a car without seat belts but it was actually my dad who owned it, I just rode in it. The first time I rode in a car with seat belts I was in second grade and my teacher gave me a ride home from school. It was still several years before my parents had a car with seat belts.

I remember the first time a passenger (not a regular companion) got in a car I was driving and put on their seat belt. It was in Canada in 1983 where seat belt use was required by law. Even though my husband and I always used them in our own vehicles in the States at that time, it seemed somehow too free a use of someone else's property to use them as a guest.

[G R 'Scott' Cundiff]

I remember checking the oil and washing windshields when I was in the Service Station business. We used squirt bottles and blue paper towels until they quit making them. You simply cannot wash a windshield properly with a squeegee!

One of our local gas station attendants kept a bucket of water filled with corn cobs. He would rub the corn cob over the windshield to get the bugs off and then proceed with the regular windshield cleaning. He swore by the corn cobs and I'm sure he was right. After all, he was a professional.

[Marsha Lynn]

I remember my mom hanging clothes outside on the clothes line. (she didn't own a dryer until we were all grown and out of the house.

Like this? I have an electric dryer, but the solar-powered version is so much better when the weather cooperates.

[Susan Unger]

Select as many as applyWhen the car only had AM radio. The rest were before my time. Although, I do remember visiting a family friend of my grandparents needing to use the bathroom and was absolutly HORRIFIED to see a chemical toilet in the pantry. That was it. Didn't use it...and the second we left I yelled really loud "GAS STATION NOW!"

[Susan Unger]

My hometown...

...we didn't have cable so what would be the point of getting a TV?

...my childhood home still doesn't have central air.

...we were still using the outhouse when I left for college.


Little towns can be a bit slow, but it sure was neat to call down to the store (using only the last four digits of the number) and without introducing yourself say, "Can you tell my dad to get some milk too?" and they knew exactly who you were and who your dad was.

Not quite like yours, but my childhood home never had central AC and people knew who my parents were in town. I do remember when tv Dishes were sold. My friends in the country had no cable so could only get one station. A friend's family got one of the first dishes and it was HUGE...I mean HUGE!

[Paul DeBaufer]

I remember staying in houses in Wisconsin that had outhouses and we had to pump the water with an old hand pump, some inside in the kitchen, some outside.

...cars that had an on and off key but a foot button to engage the starter. 3 on the tree manual transmissions. Wing windows and vents that opened up on the cowl just in front of the windshield (air conditioning of its day).

...bulk oil for cars that came in glass bottles with metal spouts that screwed on. (I know that there was a barrel that the station filled the bottles with)

... we had 4 TV stations, no 5 before UHF and TVs were huge pieces of furniture. I recall UHF converters to add on to your TV.

[Dennis M. Scott]

I remember when there were only three television stations.
. . . school milk was two cents, except that chocolate was three cents. I'll always believe the money was why mom said it wasn't good for me.
. . . when a single scoop ice cream cone was a nickel, and for a dime you could get three scoops stacked up.
. . . when McDonalds advertised you could get a hamburger, fries and a shake . . . and get two cents back from a dollar.
. . . when McDonalds raised their hamburger price from fifteen cents to eighteen cents, and everybody predicted it would be the end of McDonalds.
. . . when a package of two twinkles cost six cents.
. . . that my first real job was on a farm where the fuel pump for the tractor was a glass tank that revealed how much gas you let drain down and into the tank. The pump, of course, was hand operated, with no electricity.
. . . that the tractor on that farm had a hand crank start, and that the motor could backfire and make the crank reverse without warning. It could break your arm.
. . . when the newspaper was seven days a week, and cost eighteen cents . . . a week. I was the paperboy, and hoped that generous customers would give me a quarter and tell me to keep the change.

[Shea Zellweger]

I remember using an outhouse...

[Susan Unger]

I remember staying in houses in Wisconsin that had outhouses and we had to pump the water with an old hand pump, some inside in the kitchen, some outside.

...cars that had an on and off key but a foot button to engage the starter. 3 on the tree manual transmissions. Wing windows and vents that opened up on the cowl just in front of the windshield (air conditioning of its day).

...bulk oil for cars that came in glass bottles with metal spouts that screwed on. (I know that there was a barrel that the station filled the bottles with)

... we had 4 TV stations, no 5 before UHF and TVs were huge pieces of furniture. I recall UHF converters to add on to your TV.

I remember the huge TV set and UHF.

[Scott Moseley]

ya'll are old. I don't remember any of that stuff except for leisure suits and white patten leather preacher shoes. (just kidding - I remember some of that stuff....

[Glenda Harvey]

Like this? I have an electric dryer, but the solar-powered version is so much better when the weather cooperates.

My mom always said she preferred the fresh smell of laundry when it had been hung outside to dry.

[David Graham]

I remember a time before traffic lights, when there was at times a policeman directing traffic. Ahhh, thems was the dayzzz.

[Charlotte 'Mercer' Burton]

I remember living in a house without central heat after living in a house with central heat.

[Dana Grant]

We didn't actually live in the house without indoor plumbing or central heat. My aunt did, though, and we spent a lot of time there. Several weekends a year plus spring break and at least two weeks in the summer. 10 kids and 5 adults in one house, but it was fun.

Yes, my grandparents had an outhouse until I was about 12 or so. I remember it well!!!

[Susan Unger]

white patten leather preacher shoes.....Poor preachers...

[Dennis M. Scott]

One of the first churches I was privileged to help start was in a barn, with a path out back to a little brown building. I don't think any of our regular attenders helped beat down the path, however. Our sole heat source was a cast iron wood stove. That was in the eighties. Nineteen eighties.

[Jon Twitchell]

Crank telephones?

Anyone?

My aunt lived in one of the last towns (if not the last town) to have crank telephones. I remember going over and seeing it... probably using it once or twice.

I also remember party lines and 4-digit calling.

I remember almost nothing in Scott's list, however... I have a vague recollection of the idea that you were supposed to check your oil whenever you filled your tank... but I've never driven a car that required that sort of maintenance.

[G R 'Scott' Cundiff]

. . . that the tractor on that farm had a hand crank start, and that the motor could backfire and make the crank reverse without warning. It could break your arm.

Oh memories! We had three farm tractors. One was an old Allis Chalmbers that was the crank start. My dad drove a truck and on Sunday afternoon before he left he would take me out to the fields and tell me what he needed me to have done by the time he got back on Friday. From the time I was 12 or so, that was part of my week. One time I was plowing a field with the old Allis and it stalled out. I knew all about the crank but it was all I could do to turn it, so as I was trying to get the tractor started I kept leaning in more and more as I spun it. When it fired off it spun the crank one time around, caught me on the inside of my leg and threw me about 3 rows over. I lay there a few seconds, checking to see if my shoulder and leg still worked. Then, since I was the only one out there, I got up, climbed back on the tractor and finished the field. As I recall, I had a pretty good bruise on my leg.

[Jim Franklin]

All of the above. You all expected me to say, "Bunch of kids?" How about cranking the car as well as the phone, cars without manually operated windshield wipers, slop jars or thunder mugs, basins with a pitcher of water for washing up, pumping water into buckets to have water in the house, it was something new when we actually had a pump next to the kitchen sink, churches had hooks on the side wall for the parishioners to hang their kerosene lanterns they had brought from home in order to have light for the evening services, hearing the next door smithie pounding on a horseshoe or some other piece or iron, hearing my first radio and record player, using kerosene lanterns at what was called the library table in our living room to study my school work, putting cardboard in our shoes when the soles wore out, knicker trousers, white corduroys were popular with the high school boys, boys boots with a pocket for a jack knife, 25 cent haircuts, the customer pumped gas up into a glass cylinder at the top of the pump where the gallons were calibrated to determine how much you had put in your tank by gravity flow costing 15 cents per gallon, teachers were expected to paddle kids who misbehaved and then you got another paddling from your folks when you got home, first woman I saw wearing anything but a dress such as slacks was absolutely scandalous, no amplification at public rallys the speaker just had to have a strong voice, meals of bread and milk or fried potatoe peelings, yes and that is how potatoe was spelled, preaching before lectionary, wooden orange and apple crates for shelves and cupboards, fancy houses had stand alone cupboards before the innovation of built in cupboards, street lights had to be changed by screwing in another incandescent bulb when the previous one burned out. milk came to the house by bucket before bottle delivery, testimony meetings in church, bread at 5 cents a loaf, milk at 15 cents a quart, keyboards which had a cents sign, hectographs for producing church bulletins before mimeographs, Victory gardens, penny post cards and regular 3 cent postage for letters, Civilian Conservation Corpsman in their uniforms, hobos coming to the preacher's house for a handout. parsonages with chicken coops on the property so that the parishioners could donate to the parson's larder, some folks had summer kitchens, riding on paved roads for the first time was so much different than gravel roads, tire patch kits were always carried in cars in case an inner tube had a blow out including a tire pump to reinflate the repaired innertube, parishoners getting so blessed that they shouted, waved hankerchiefs or ran the aisles praising God, seekers running to the altar for salvation, pump organs in churches, all business were closed on Sundays except the drug store and the gas station owners took turns as to which one would be open for an emergency need for gasoline. Realizing I have live much more than 1/4 of the nation's history. This is enough for now, I probably will think of some more. Is this what you had in mind for additions, Scott?

[Cynthia Prentice]

I love this thread...:smilies0195:

[Greg Farra]

I remember my first cell phone. It came in a bag. Also, the days before video games. My buddy had Pong. I hope these help the youngsters relate to us old fogies over 50!

[G R 'Scott' Cundiff]

I remember my first cell phone. It came in a bag. Also, the days before video games. My buddy had Pong. I hope these help the youngsters relate to us old fogies over 50!

Just wait - their day is coming - and sooner than they think.

[Glenda Harvey]

I remember a time before traffic lights, when there was at times a policeman directing traffic. Ahhh, thems was the dayzzz.

In the community where I live we only have one traffic light which was put in last summer and the community is still up in arms about it.

[Glenda Harvey]

I remember as a kid thinking that everything that could be invented had been invented already. Since then we have home computers, lap tops, cell phones, VCR's, DVD's, CD's, IPODS, IPads, Microwave ovens, the list goes on.

My parents never had a microwave or a dishwasher. I think they were out there but something for people who had more money than us. Now days they are considered necessities by a lot of people.

I remember the Helms bakery truck (for housewives to purchase bread, pastries, etc.

I remember milk being delivered to the house.

I remember having a ringer washing machine.

I remember when most families only had one car.

[David Parker]

I remember milk being delivered to the house.

And I remember that the 'milkman' would knock once, announce "MILKMAN" as he entered the house and put the milk bottles in the fridge.

Of course doors were never locked. It would have been perceived to be rude to lock your doors. Would have meant that you didn't trust your neighbors. I remember being sent in to neighbor's homes to borrow a stick of butter or something even when they weren't home. Of course everyone knew each other very well. In fact, our entire immediate neighborhood, everyone on our street, went to Arlington Nazarene. The parsonage was across the street.

[Jim Franklin]

Additiona and don't say I didn't warn you, Blackouts during WWII, searchlight trying to spot any planes flying over at night,nickle candy bars bigger than the 50-75 cents now, noon fire whistle blew so everyone in town could eat their lunch or reset their watch, alters lined with seekers, horse drawn milk wagons, twice a day postal delivery, lap robes for a car's back seat passengers because what archaic car heaters did not reach the back, rumble seats, basketball back boards of wood rather than steel or glass, old baseballs wrapped with electrician tape when the cover had worn out and come off, riding the city bus for a nickle, men wore swimming suits not just trunks which covered the chest and had straps over the shoulders,gathering eggs from the hen house, candling eggs to see if they were ok to eat or already fertilized, churning butter, irons that were heated on a wood stove, church bells rung by pulling on a rope, the iceman delivering ice before refrigerators, teams of horses used for farm work before the farmer could afford a tractor, tractors with iron wheels, riding passenger trains that included cattle cars, when dad was taking parishioners home after church I laid on the shelf in front of the back window so everyone else could be seated, it was safe to walk anywhere in town after dark, soldiers practicing marching passed our house from the near by base during WWII, most all elementary age girls wore braids, town baseball teams, band concerts in the band shell at the park, basketball player who wore shorts rather that something like culottes, ration stampsand blue and red points, synthetic rubber balls, babies wore cloth diapers and were wrapped in buntings in the cooler weather, baby boys wore dresses until they were potty trained so mom could change his diaper easier, swings and merry go rounds in parks or school playgrounds, screened porches,using ant infested flour to make baselines for our neighborhood ball field in the parsonage long back yard, going to the post office and hear a bunch of little chicks cheeping realizing someones order for new season of chicks had arrived and no that was not the new Freshman girls arriving at college, giving my 42 cents in tithe when I won $4.20 cents on the local radio program Kiddies' Quiz, my first buckle overshoes after the snap ones, Decoration Day on May 30th, Armistice Day on 11/11, Lincoln's Birthday Feb. 12 and Washington's Birthday on Feb. 22, My grandmother selling bouquets of flowers from her acre and a half flower garden for customers to put on their loved ones graves on Decoration getting her tubs of water out and cutting some of the bouquets at 5AM to make a little extra money, the plagues of grasshoppers, toads and frogs and bull snakes in South Dakota in the succeeding summers of 1940-41-42. brazen high school girls wearing bobby sox instead of long hose, tent revival meetings, Enough for now but there maybe more.

[Glenda Harvey]

I remember my mom collecting Blue Chip Stamps and Green Stamps, helping lick the stamps to put them in the book and pouring through the catalog & discussing what we were going to get with them.

I remember when gas stations gave out cups and dishes with each gas fill up.

I remember when gas wars meant that gas stations would lower their prices to beat the competition.

[Dennis M. Scott]

S & H Green Stamps - I actually have several books of those which we discovered.

[Gina Stevenson]

I have clear memory of doing "air raid drills" in elementary school in Oklahoma in the early '60s. We would all sit at our desks and when the alarm sounded, we would dash under our desks as quickly as possible, close our eyes tight, and cover our heads with our arms. This of course made us feel very safe from Soviet nuclear attack. :ihe_cowboy:

"Very safe," or maybe scared thinking that it might actually happen.


I remember my mom collecting Blue Chip Stamps and Green Stamps, helping lick the stamps to put them in the book and pouring through the catalog & discussing what we were going to get with them.

Do remember green stamps, but not blue chip ones; they must've been an out-west thing.


I remember when gas stations gave out cups and dishes with each gas fill up.

Not sure re dishes, but do remember getting drinking glasses of various sorts, so you might get gas at the same place several times to get a whole set. ;)

[Glenda Harvey]

And I remember that the 'milkman' would knock once, announce "MILKMAN" as he entered the house and put the milk bottles in the fridge.

Of course doors were never locked. It would have been perceived to be rude to lock your doors. Would have meant that you didn't trust your neighbors. I remember being sent in to neighbor's homes to borrow a stick of butter or something even when they weren't home. Of course everyone knew each other very well. In fact, our entire immediate neighborhood, everyone on our street, went to Arlington Nazarene. The parsonage was across the street.

Ours left the milk on the porch.

[G R 'Scott' Cundiff]

Since only a few of us remember getting a telephone I'll share a memory about getting a phone. Our area was about the last in that entire area to get a phone. The phone company came through signing people up and, of course, everyone did. We were on an 8 party line but the only rings we heard were our neighbors 1-ring and our 2-ring. As the phones were being installed, the telephone man (no women doing that kind of work in those days) would come to the house, run the wires in from the pole and then install the phone where the family wanted. It was hard wired to the jack, so it couldn't be moved around.

However, no one knew what phone number they would get at that point. You had a phone with a dial tone, but no one had a phone number. They wouldn't be assigned until everyone who wanted to had signed up. At some point we were told that our prefix would be PRescott 3-something. We school kids were dying to have a phone...so when you got a working phone you'd start dialing PR-3 numbers. When a person excitedly answered, you'd tell them what number you dialed. It was a glorious day when you knew your number.

At school, we were making our own phone books - and a big question was "Do you know your number yet?"

Finally, the phone company officially started service and everyone got their own phone book - of 20 or 30 pages. By then, though, all the kids at school already had a list of their friends' numbers!

Ah, memories!

[Susan Unger]

I remember the green stamps. I still have the lamp I got from the green stamp book.

I guess the equivalent today would be the points one racks up on credit cards. I am enjoying the MP3 player I got from the credit card points :)

[Gina Stevenson]

Cute, learning phone numbers by finding out who answered what you dialed. Good one, Scott! The only phone memories I have were the party lines, and also being one of the later folks to get a cell phone [mid-'02 before going X-country from AZ to MI].

Knowing most people I knew had them, I stood by the roadside one day when I had a vehicle problem, and cried, "I don't even have a phone to call someone about this trouble!" But then someone with a phone stopped and I used their phone. ;)

[Glenda Harvey]

I remember the green stamps. I still have the lamp I got from the green stamp book.

I guess the equivalent today would be the points one racks up on credit cards. I am enjoying the MP3 player I got from the credit card points :)

I think there is a Brady Bunch episode where they are deciding what to get with their green stamps.

[Glenda Harvey]

I remember television repairmen who did house calls.

[Steven Martinez]

Well, even though I am a young kid (born 1980 and all), I remember full service gasoline. In fact, when I was 4 I told my mom that I wanted to be a gas man when I grew up. She thought I meant that I wanted to drive the gas company's truck and check the house meters for leaks and what not. I told her no and that I wanted to be the guy at the gas station who had his name on his shirt which to me was the coolest thing in the world. I also remember TVs with UHF nobs on them as well.

[Glenda Harvey]

Well, even though I am a young kid (born 1980 and all), I remember full service gasoline. In fact, when I was 4 I told my mom that I wanted to be a gas man when I grew up. She thought I meant that I wanted to drive the gas company's truck and check the house meters for leaks and what not. I told her no and that I wanted to be the guy at the gas station who had his name on his shirt which to me was the coolest thing in the world. I also remember TVs with UHF nobs on them as well.

My brother wanted to be a garbage man.

[Marsha Lynn]

[W]hen I was 4 I told my mom that I wanted to be a gas man when I grew up. She thought I meant that I wanted to drive the gas company's truck and check the house meters for leaks and what not. I told her no and that I wanted to be the guy at the gas station who had his name on his shirt which to me was the coolest thing in the world. I also remember TVs with UHF nobs on them as well.


My brother wanted to be a garbage man.

Well, these are the people in your neighborhood.

I remember Sesame Street as a mother, not as a child. It's a rather narrow demographic of parents who remember when Maria and Luis got married and when Maria had her baby -- mostly well-educated, stay-at-home moms in an era when that career path didn't get a lot of respect.

[David Graham]

In the community where I live we only have one traffic light which was put in last summer and the community is still up in arms about it.

In our little Town of Crow's Nest, we havn't any traffic lights (yet) and (all glory to God) no parking meters. A traffic jam is when you have one of the local farmers stopping in traffic to chat with one of his mates, and has a couple of cars banked up behind him..... but most people are very patient about such things. But then we only have about 4500 people in the district which includes the town. Things are not so serene in the nearby city of Toowoomba with about 140000 people.... consequently we don't go there very often.

[Glenda Harvey]

In our little Town of Crow's Nest, we havn't any traffic lights (yet) and (all glory to God) no parking meters. A traffic jam is when you have one of the local farmers stopping in traffic to chat with one of his mates, and has a couple of cars banked up behind him..... but most people are very patient about such things. But then we only have about 4500 people in the district which includes the town. Things are not so serene in the nearby city of Toowoomba with about 140000 people.... consequently we don't go there very often.

I can't say that we don't have traffic jams. We are a tourist community and with only one lane up and one lane down on most parts of the highway and with frequent road closures we sometimes have long lines of cars on the highway, especially during holiday weekends and ski season.

[Sue Pyles]

I remember Flicka, Fury, Sky King, Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, Little Rascals, Shirley Temple, Re Skelton, perry Como, Dinah Shore, Dean Martin and Jerry lewis, Bob Hope, Groucho Marx, ......just to name a few

[Glenda Harvey]

I remember Sheriff John, Hobo Kelly, Billy Barty, Romper Room, Tom Terrific, Captain Kangaroo, Mr. Green Jeans, The original Mickey Mouse Club and Sheri Lewis.

[Glenda Harvey]

Someone posted this on a local Web site called rimoftheworld.net I thought it applied to this discussion.

Sent: Friday, February 25, 2011 11:59 AM
Hilarious! Growing up without a cell phone

If you are 36, or older, you might think this is hilarious!

When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were. When they were growing up; what with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning.... Uphill... Barefoot... BOTH ways...yadda, yadda, yadda

And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on my kids about how hard I had it and how easy they've got it!

But now that I'm over the ripe old age of forty, I can't help but look around and notice the youth of today. You've got it so easy! I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in aUtopia! And I hate to say it, but you kids today, you don't know how good you've got it!

1) I mean, when I was a kid we didn't have the Internet. If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalog!!

2) There was no email!! We had to actually write somebody a letter - with a pen! Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox, and it would take like a week to get there! Stamps were 10 cents!

3) Child Protective Services didn't care if our parents beat us. As a matter of fact, the parents of all my friends also had permission to whip our butt, Nowhere was safe!

4) There were no MP3's or Napsters or iTunes! If you wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the record store and shoplift it yourself!

5) Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio, and the DJ would usually talk over the beginning and mess it all up! There were no CD players! We had tape decks in our car. We'd play our favorite tape and "eject" it when finished, and then the tape would come undone rendering it useless. Cause, hey, that's how we rolled, Baby! Dig?

6) We didn't have fancy crap like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called, they got a busy signal, that's it!

7) There weren't any freakin' cell phones either. If you left the house, you just didn't make a call or receive one. You actually had to be out of touch with your "friends". OH MY GOSH !!! Think of the horror... not being in touch with someone 24/7!!! And then there's TEXTING. Yeah, right. Please! You kids have no idea how annoying you are.
And we didn't have fancy Caller ID either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! It could be your school, your parents, your boss, the collection agent... you just didn't know!!! You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!

9) We didn't have any fancy PlayStation or Xbox video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games like 'Space Invaders' and 'Asteroids'. Your screen guy was a little square! You actually had to use your imagination!!! And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen.. Forever! And you could never win. The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died! Just like LIFE!

10) You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on! You were screwed when it came to channel surfing! You had to get off your fannie and walk over to the TV to change the channel!!! NO REMOTES!!! Oh, no, what's the world coming to?!?!

11) There was no Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons on Saturday Morning. Do you hear what I'm saying? We had to wait ALL WEEK for cartoons, you spoiled little brats!

12) And we didn't have microwaves. If we wanted to heat something up, we had to use the stove! Imagine that!

13) And our parents told us to stay outside and play... all day long. Oh, no, no electronics to soothe and comfort. And if you came back inside... you were doing chores!

And car seats - oh, please! Mom threw you in the back seat and you hung on. If you were lucky, you got the "safety arm" across the chest at the last moment if she had to stop suddenly, and if your head hit the dashboard, well that was your fault for calling "shot gun" in the first place!

See! That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it too easy. You're spoiled rotten! You guys wouldn't have lasted five minutes back in 1970 or any time before!

Regards,
The Over 40 Crowd

[Glenda Harvey]

I remember when they didn't have vaccines for measles, mumps and chicken pox. If you were a kid you were just expected to get these illnesses and I got all three. (separately of course)

[Gina Stevenson]

I remember when they didn't have vaccines for measles, mumps and chicken pox. If you were a kid you were just expected to get these illnesses and I got all three. (separately of course)

Yup, all three. Mumps? Both sides at once, too! [lost 10# that week, tho' I didn't really need to when I was just 12] ;)

[Joanne Vergin]

The first dollar I ever made, I spent .99 of it at McDonald's. I got about 5 items, cheeseburger, small shake, cookies and maybe fries and an apple pie? It was a lot of food anyway. I do not remember if I ate it all or not.

[John Kennedy]

Don't remember the first phone - always lived in parsonages and they had 'em for obvious reasons. I remember everything on the list, with the possible exception of the outhouse. I have certainly made use of the '4 rooms and a path' facilities (even remember visiting a school with one (central GA in the late 40's) on a number of occasions.

I not only remember getting our first color TV, I remember getting our first b&w TV. In fact I remember one of my uncles in Atlanta describing TV to me in the late 40's and I found it inconceivable (still do).

Lived for years in a city that only had one TV channel (Austin, TX - it was owned by Ladybird Johnson). Remember both the S&H and Blue Chip stamps - when we lived in the San Bernardino we had some kind of red stamps given out by Sages (Glenda will undoubtedly remember Sages).

I remember Dad having a Texaco gas credit card that was, literally, a heavy-cardboard card. He handed it to a Texaco dealer in a country store in western SD - the dealer said he had 'heerd tella them things', but didn't know how to use it. He had a book of credit card slips and had Dad fill it out. This was probably in '53 or '54.

You hang around long enough and the list of 'firsts' gets incredibly long.

[John Kennedy]

Someone posted this on a local Web site called rimoftheworld.net I thought it applied to this discussion.

Sent: Friday, February 25, 2011 11:59 AM
Hilarious! Growing up without a cell phone

If you are 36, or older, you might think this is hilarious!

When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were. When they were growing up; what with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning.... Uphill... Barefoot... BOTH ways...yadda, yadda, yadda

And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on my kids about how hard I had it and how easy they've got it!

The Over 40 Crowd

Being able to lay a bunch of crap like that on the kids is one of the best reasons I know of for growing older.

[Jim Franklin]

John, the phone at the parsonage in Carthage when we were there from 1940-44 was the crank style. Was it still there or had they switched to a dial instrument?

[John Kennedy]

John, the phone at the parsonage in Carthage when we were there from 1940-44 was the crank style. Was it still there or had they switched to a dial instrument?

It was neither - you picked up the phone and the operator (who was, I think, in Howard) would ask for the number you wanted. I think they were either all 3 or 4 digits.

[Joanne Vergin]

Well, these are the people in your neighborhood.

I remember Sesame Street as a mother, not as a child. It's a rather narrow demographic of parents who remember when Maria and Luis got married and when Maria had her baby -- mostly well-educated, stay-at-home moms in an era when that career path didn't get a lot of respect.

Marsha,
Sesame Street debuted for my demographic, 4 year olds. I watched it on and off through the years. When I heard that Maria and Luis were going to be married, I taped that episode. It was good. I read about it in the TV guide and did not want to miss such a momentous occasion.

[Susan Unger]

Marsha,
Sesame Street debuted for my demographic, 4 year olds. I watched it on and off through the years. When I heard that Maria and Luis were going to be married, I taped that episode. It was good. I read about it in the TV guide and did not want to miss such a momentous occasion.

I was only a year and a half old when it debuted. I have fond memories of that show though missed them getting married cuz I was away at school at the time.

[Mark Metcalfe]

I remember missing a lot of good shows because they fell on Sunday or Wednesday nights. The special Christmas shows seemed to fall on those days, too. So, when I got sick on those days and had to stay home, it was almost like going to the theater!

I remember not going to the theater because we didn't.

I remember going to the theater once as a reward to paperboys and papergirls, and it was a terrible B sci-fi movie that I cannot remember.

I remember when Michael Jackson was a person of a different color, had a regular nose - and was alive.

I remember going on all-day bike rides on summer Saturdays, packing a couple of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches where the bread squished and the jelly almost seeped through the bread, but it still tasted good. I did NOT wear a helmet.

I remember plastic coverings on my grandparents' furniture, which I now see differently because I and my three brothers made four boys coming to visit.

I remember plastic Halloween masks that made your face wet with the steam from your breath, and when the rubberized ones came out, how scary they looked.

I remember eating ravioli from a can, because heating it on the stove took too long (meaning, I remember before there were microwaves). Cold ravioli isn't so bad.

I remember chicken fried in Crisco, and egg sandwiches after Sunday night church.

I remember my mother guffawing at All in the Family and the Carol Burnett Show.

I remember moving in the middle of the school year, twice, (and how difficult that is on a kid) because my Dad was a preacher. I remember that he almost moved to Fulton, NY, but then called them back to say he'd made a mistake. Some other guy (Dennis M. Scott) got that assignment instead and it snowed 80 inches that winter.

I remember my grandmothers' hats and gloves that they wore to church. My mother's mother had three minks biting each other's tail which she hung around her shoulders. Oh yes, "Sunday Best" meant that you dressed up for church. I remember that, too. (sigh)

I remember when Baptists weren't quite right, and Catholics had lost their way, and Jews were unaware that their Messiah had already come. I lived in a town that had a high population of Jews, so we got some of their holidays off from school. I didn't know about other religions at that time.

I remember when a Sugar Daddy pulled fillings out of my teeth.

I remember the day I want to the altar.

Mark

[Glenda Harvey]

I remember when my parents had a wringer washing machine.

[G R 'Scott' Cundiff]

Not many people can remember what night certain TV shows were on when they debuted 50 years ago, but I can tell you that the Beverly Hillbillies was on on Wednesday nights. All my friends at school were retelling the jokes but I didn't see it because it was aired on Wednesday nights and we were in prayer meeting. Bonanza was a Sunday night staple. Didn't see it either.

Then there were the rare Sunday mornings when, as a teen, I would be "left behind" because I was sick. Mom and sis headed for church, dad headed out to the fields. I'd be left at the house, piled up on the couch with tissues, etc. I didn't want to watch a TV preacher or the talking heads news shows. The only thing to watch wasn't great, but it was the best of the lot for a young teen. It was a show named "The Big Picture" that was put together by, I think, the Army. Each show told the story of a WWII military campaign.

Again, it wasn't great TV but it helped get me though the rare at home Sunday morning.

[Glenda Harvey]

Not many people can remember what night certain TV shows were on when they debuted 50 years ago, but I can tell you that the Beverly Hillbillies was on on Wednesday nights. All my friends at school were retelling the jokes but I didn't see it because it was aired on Wednesday nights and we were in prayer meeting. Bonanza was a Sunday night staple. Didn't see it either.
.

I think because we were in California the shows came on after we got home from Church so I didn't miss either of them.

[Susan Unger]

I think because we were in California the shows came on after we got home from Church so I didn't miss either of them.
I remember missing many of them

[David Parker]

I remember Bonanza and the Wonderful World of Disney came on Sunday nights. They were among the first shows broadcast in color. Since we were at church on Sunday nights, the only time I saw them was when sick. I remember them as rare treats.

My parents were somewhat open minded (for '60s Oklahoma Nazarenes) compared to some, so we would occasionally see a movie when on vacation out of town. I remember Camelot and How the West was Won on huge Cinerama screens in California while visiting grandparents. Literally took my breath away they were sooooo awesome.

But we never went to 'the show' where we lived. There was one theater and one drive-in. No doubt you would be recognized and your Christian witness compromised. I remember really feeling 'out of it' when I was a kid because all my friends at school would discuss the latest movie they saw over the weekend and of course I didn't have a clue. Nobody at my school attended our small church.

I remember buying candy cigarettes at the little corner store near my school. The owner knew who my dad was and shamed me. Seems like everyone knew who you were and all about your parents. Hard to get away with anything... :ihe_cowboy:

[Dennis M. Scott]

"I remember that he almost moved to Fulton, NY, but then called them back to say he'd made a mistake. Some other guy (Dennis M. Scott) got that assignment instead and it snowed 80 inches that winter." quote

Timing was a little different. Two other pastors separated those events. I became pastor there six years after your dad nearly did. We were there five winters, and averaged over 300 inches a year - I was younger then.

[Mark Metcalfe]

"I remember that he almost moved to Fulton, NY, but then called them back to say he'd made a mistake. Some other guy (Dennis M. Scott) got that assignment instead and it snowed 80 inches that winter." quote

Timing was a little different. Two other pastors separated those events. I became pastor there six years after your dad nearly did. We were there five winters, and averaged over 300 inches a year - I was younger then.

Thanks Dennis for this clarification. It shows how fragile (an inaccurate) a memory can be!