I remember all of these, you?

[5-Shot]

Guess I'm older than older than dirt. There were no coffee shops. The shop you described served Cokes. Our coal was burned in fireplaces and the outhouse was back on the hillside. To dial someone on the party line you just turned the crank to produce the appropriate number of rings. The operator was one ring. We were three. My aunt was two.

Ed

 

[DeadAye]

We lived 2 blocks from the largest volume Studebaker dealer in the USA.
Even with it RIGHT THERE people bought cars by Rambler, Desoto, Nash (remember the Metropolitan?), Henry J, Frazer, Kaiser, Willis, Crosley, and no doubt - others.

 

[charlie sherrill]

I remember all of the above. I also remember when we got our first rotary dial phone. Before that you picked up the receiver and the operator answered. You gave her the number you wanted to call (from one to four digits) and she hooked you up. There was no 911. If you had an emergency you dialed "0" and the operator hooked you up with the appropriate party. The ambulance service consisted of a hearse with a red light and siren provided by a local funeral home. There were no EMT's and most of the time the ambulance showed up with only the driver on board and a stretcher in the back. If you didn't survive the ride to the hospital you probably rode to the cemetery in the same vehicle. If you did survive the ride to the hospital there was no ER doctor. They called your family doctor and he took care of whatever the problem was. He also made house calls. The same doctor that brought me into this world also took out my tonsils when I was six and set my broken arm when I was eight. He also did major surgeries and I don't think anybody ever sued him.

 

[coltle6920]

I could list things most of you youngsters probably never heard of. They sure pre-dated that list.

If you can't post them they never happened!!

Where have I heard that before? LOL!

 

[timn8er]

I never realized that I didn't eat fast food till I was well into my teens. Like some have posted, it was at home or the whole family went to a restaurant. I remember when Micky D's came to town...I don't remember what the burger count was on the arches, but it was an actual number. It sat next to a drive in place called Jim's. They had a pretty good cheap little burger that as a teen you could buy four, get filled up, & get a little change back from a dollar. Anyway, you had to have a real good reason to miss dinner with the family!

 

[gunblade]

I remember all those plus electric buses that connected to overhead power lines.

 

[bgrafsr]

The first color tv I remember seeing was built from a Heathkit by a neighbor and his dad.They worked on that thing for months

Remember the piece of plastic sheet that went over the TV screen to make it look like it was in color when you watched a program.

 

[yogipogi]

Im 65 and got all 15
I remember walking along the road looking for bottles to turn in for penny candy at the country store too.
first fast food was an artic circle burger at about age 15
never went to a real retaurant until I was an adult

 

[snubbyfan]

You guys are making me feel old.
Cars with manual transmissions, non-power brakes and non-power steering. carburetors, points and condensers. No computer controlled electronic gadgets other that an AM radio.

 

[Jaysq]

I remember everything except the soldering gun heated by gas.

I am so old that when I was born, there were no antiques, everything was still new.

 

[Bkreutz]

I remember all those plus electric buses that connected to overhead power lines.

We still have them in Seattle

 

[Jessie]

You guys are making me feel old.
Cars with manual transmissions, non-power brakes and non-power steering. carburetors, points and condensers. No computer controlled electronic gadgets other that an AM radio.

Heck, they didn't have seatbelts. None!

 

[Lt JL]

Yep. Remembered all of them. Our first phone number was 8R5. You rang the magneto on the phone, and the operator, who was in the fire house, answered. She always knew where everyone was, so I only had to ,say, ask for my Aunt Nadine, and the operator would finde her.

 

[rburg]

Well, my memories are pretty similar. I'm 66 so the timing isn't different. I remember fast food from my youth. We had (still have) a chain of restaurants named Frisch's. It was a drive-in where the speakers were at the parking places. Most were under the awning. No girls on skates, I guess we were in an impoverished area and hadn't invented the wheel yet. Those burgers were so good I can't describe it. So thin you thought they only had one side. But with a pickle and a paper of salt folded into the paper. And you used every speck of it (salt tasted good). And even in high school I could buy a "big boy" fries and a coke for under a dollar (you got change back.) Our problem was there were two such restaurants in our side of town. None within walking distance. And the problem being foot travel was our main mode of transportation. Once for some reason a group of neighborhood kids (called a gang by our parents) got rich. We actually had enough money to take a "bicycle hike" to the nearest restaurant. It wasn't that far, maybe 3 miles each way and probably 1960. We left town! Good eats, good friends. Hot day.

I was kind of scared. I thought we were the poorest family in town and lived with the fear we'd end up someplace else. All the other kids were rich by comparison. Their families had new cars almost every year. Dad found a 4 year old car with low miles and then drove it for 4 more. Yeah, it was kind of painful to have the other kids point out the car dad was driving was the model they got rid of 6 years ago. It wasn't until college that I kind of figured things out. Dad owned our house, no mortgage, no payments missed ever. And Dad worked for GM. Never out of a job, never laid off. He was just cheap, a product of the depression. And we never moved. Lived there from 1950 until I got married, but mom and day stayed until 1978.

I've sought that same sort of stability. We've moved twice in the last 40 years. This last one probably doesn't count, we only moved out long enough to tear down the old house and build a new one.

On Stupid-bakers. Roger Corrado down the side street had one. His mother was an oddball. She cooked funny and the house smelled odd. She might have had mexican heritage. We didn't know about that stuff back then. But she had a B29 model that we could pack maybe 8 kids in. And she'd drive us places. Our mothers didn't drive back then. Think 1 car and dad drove it to work. So we were grateful. Later, like when we were in high school, we discovered she never had a drivers license. She didn't need no stinkin license. She didn't drive very fast.

And the Avanti. Fritz Kuhlman up on the hill has one. When it gets nice out, he'll come tooling past. It just eeked speed, but Fritz doesn't drive it fast. He enjoys the ride, not the speed.

Then the color TV thing. I even had a personal size TV when I went to college. Yes, it was black and white. Sure, I'd gone to the then new malls and seen color TVs in the stores. I figured it was some kind of gimmick. But then when the guy walked on the moon I went to my girlfriends house to see it. I'd watched a few minutes of it from time to time, but I was more interested in getting her out of the house. Yes, right after we got married we bought one of our own. My kids laughed at me about 1990 for having a tiny color TV we'd owned for a long time. So we went out and bought a huge 32" Sony. Just so our ungrateful kids would get off our case. Now I want a 70" one.

Oh, I remember all the 15 things on the list. I lived them, not just remembered them. But I don't remember real well when most went away. They did that because they were replaced by better methods and things.

 

[the ringo kid]

Im "only" 47... and I remember 11 of the numbered choices.

I also remember places like: Woolworths which had great lunch counters, neighborhood grocery stores like: Gaffords Grocery Store. They were located on the corner of Caesar and 14th Streets in Kingsville. They were about the size of a modern convience store without gas pumps. I also remember when all they had were brown paper bags. I remember when plastic bags were introduced--and I hated them then-still do now. I remember all trash cans were metal. I also remember when one could walk around with a rifle in hand, and nobody panicked and called out the SWAT Team. I remember cars w/o seat belts. I remember pints of oil--that came in cardboard cans. I remember lawnmowers with all metal parts-like gas tanks..........

I also remember Five and Dime Stores. We had two called: Winns. I also remember Burger Chef hamburgers. Every year they used to give away a Go-cart. I remember when Sonic Drive-In, used to give away good free toys like cap guns, cars and such.

 

[walkin jack]

I remembered all of them. I loved me some candy cigarettes. I could go through 4 or 5 packs a day. An old girl friend got all my 45 rpm records when I left for the Navy. I never got 'em back neither. My 3rd car was a 1951 studebaker. It wasn't the Golden Hawk or the Silver hawk neither I guess I'd have to call it a Studebeater!

 

[shouldazagged]

If you can't post them they never happened!!

Where have I heard that before? LOL!

Okay, here are a few:

Coal-burning fireplaces.

Factory whistles and lots of church bells.

Running boards on cars, being used to ride on.

Stores with overhead wires on which little baskets buzzed around, carrying small items, change, etc. The fancy stores went to pneumatic tubes.

Hand-cranked cash registers.

Most buildings, especially the many that were built of stone, almost black with coal soot.

All records were 78 rpm, thick and brittle.

Peddlers and junk men driving horse- or mule-drawn wagons, each with his distinctive holler.

Grocery stores that delivered your order and allowed you to run a tab.

Pressing irons that had to be heated on a stove.

Hideous massed electric curlers needed to achieve the Marcel wave for ladies.

Stone spring houses that were always cool enough that people kept homemade buttermilk in them in summer.

Twice-a-day mail delivery. Often you could mail a card or letter to a local address in the morning and it would be delivered the same afternoon.

Lumber yards smelling of creosote used to treat railway ties and fence posts--unforgettable aroma.

Solid steel fishing rods.

General stores where you could buy a shotgun, a pair of boots, stove polish, overalls, groceries, kerosene, ammunition and pocketknives.

I could go on, but time travel is fatiguing.

 

[HERMAN.40]

In 1970 my dad built his first color tv, Yep it was a heathkit. We had all the pieces set up on the ping pong table in the basement. He drove the hour to Benton Harbor Mi. to pick it up. I built a Heathkit portable radio for a 4-H project That same year. We not only had a milk truck, But also a bread truck too. Sunbeam bread. No Studebaker but we had an AMC Rambler.

 

[Oldiron]

Got a 15 on that list. But I ate plenty of fast food, rabbit and quail were the fastest things in the woods back then. I was about 3 when they ran power out our way. I have ate lots of meals cooked on a wood stove and melted lots of crayons on the old Warm Morning potbelly stove. Baths in the wash tub or creek. My Grandmother had a b/w TV set and on Sat. morning the first program was "Victory at Sea". Anyone else remember burning the wasp nests out from under the seat platform in the "2 holer".
Larry

 

[lhump1961]

You guys are making me feel old.
Cars with manual transmissions, non-power brakes and non-power steering. carburetors, points and condensers. No computer controlled electronic gadgets other that an AM radio.

58 step-side Chevy pickup...straight six, starter on the floor, three on the tree, crawl in the engine compartment to work on it, power nothing! Not only no seatbelts or (of course) airbags but it had a real springy seat to launch you into the solid metal dash! What a great truck...