I was at the local pub. And people were discussing age, the bartender asked my friend how old he was, I sprayed beer pretty much everywhere after hearing his answer. (he's actualy 85) "I'm old enough to remember when tennis balls were white. Cokes were a nickel. And if you were wearing earrings you damned well better be either a girl or a pirate."

Gas was .19 cents a gal. WhiteCastles were a .10 cents each. You could buy a coke for .20 cents.

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James L. "Jim" Rhiner

Coke & Pepsi was 5 cents. Gas was 25 cents a gallon & my model A Ford pickup cost 55 bucks. Car license was 7 bucks a year. And this was in Calif. in 1948.

When I became aware of prices of stuff, everything was a quarter, yup 25 cents. A gal of gas, a pack of smokes, a quart of milk, and a loaf of bread were all about a quarter in the mid-fifties.

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Bob in Indy

Cigarettes were $.25 a pack, gasoline $.25 a gallon, girls wore dress's to school, boys wore slacks and kept their shirt tails tucked in. After school jobs paid about $1.00 per hour. Military service started at about $96.00 per month ( 1966 ). I had an "I like Ike" button. The Beatles were a neatly dressed and groomed British singing group. Hoppy, Gene and Roy were popular as was the Lone Ranger. If you had a telephone it had a dial and possibly a party line.

Uncle Milty, Burns and Allen, Red Skelton, what was not to love.

The 1950's were a great time to be a child.

LTC

Wow! We got a bunch of youngsters on here!.

Bread was $10 per loaf. Ice was $.15 for a HUGE chunk for the ice box, Cigarettes were a dime. All soda pop was in an ICE cooled box. Bottle tops made excellent checkers for the bench outside the country store. You could make a meal with an RC Cola and a gingerbread Stageplank. After school work paid the handsome sum of $.16 per hour and was GLAD to get that. Picked cotton for $.15 for 100 pounds...to help you understand how much it takes to get to 100...imagine the little J&J cotton balls your wife uses with her make-up.

Overalls and flour sack shirts were the dress of the day. Fishing, hunting and having good CLEAN fun were the thing of the time....no drugs or other problems.

Shoes....NO in summer....Yes in winter.

Times were TOUGH growing up in the 1930's and 40's.

I would not swap it for ANYTHING I see around me today.

We had WORK ethic, PRIDE and COMPASSION for our friends and neighbors.

moma would send me to get a gal with a gal can and it wouldnt hold 50 cents dont remember what it was a gal, 50 cents worth of gas wouldnt even start my lawnmower now!

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WILL WORK FOR AMMO!

We could go the the movie on Saturday for 25 cents, admission was 9 cents you could get a candy bar a box of popcorn and a coke for the other 15 cents and have a penny left over. You would see 2 full length features 2 serials and 3 cartoons. First job I had was with Western Union peddling telegrams $2.25 per hour and worked 20 hours per week and got 25 cents bike allowance.

Not quite as old as you guys but: I picked up bottles along side ditches to take to the store for money to play pinball and get a soda. I was born 1960

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They hold no Quarter

While going to my last two years of high school I worked in a service(yes, you actually checked oil, tire pressure and washed car windows) station from 12-15 hours a day for $1.00. Gas tanks had the glass top and were filled with the hand pump. The year after I got out of high school we moved and I worked in another station for the same money and there had to deliver gas and kerosene to farmers. The bad part about that was they had elevated tanks and you had to climb ladders as you filled their tanks with 5 gal. buckets.

Gas was 10.5 cents for bronze(reg) and 11 cents for ethyl at the first station. Tom's candy was 5 cents and iced down pop was 5 cents. Now you know why I log on as ancient-one.

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Mighty 90's,Trying 4 a 100!

Gas was .27 per gallon, cigarettes were .25 cents. Cokes were .05 cents with a .02 cent deposit on the bottle.

Apparently I a youngun of sorts.. Just had my 34th birthday 2 days ago... When I first became aware of prices of things in the mid eighties, the main thing I remember was gasoline.. Mom and Dad wouldn't buy at a station that charged more than $0.85 per gallon...And they threw a royal fit when it became the norm to see a whopping $0.90 per gallon!

I remember pitching a fit when name brand smokes hit $1.65 a pack..

I remember when my Grandfather spent more than $20k on a brand new full size 4x4 Chevy truck for the first time... 1988...Now you can hardly buy a good used 4x4 for that.....

Time just keeps going faster...

Nobody has said anything about walking 5 miles to school,

Uphill both ways.

In the snow.

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James L. "Jim" Rhiner

Comic books were 10 cents and we put baseball trading cards on our bicycles to make them sound like they had engines. 50 cents got you a double feature with popcorn and a large soda, newsreel and cartoons included. TV was black and white with three channels and you had to actually get up to change them.
DW

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"NUTS"

It used to make me feel old whenever I tried to explain what 8-tracks were. I don't feel so old now. Thanks, guys!

Rubbers were two dimes in the machine......
Don't ask how I know...........

I'm so old, I bought most of the items Gizamo posts when they were new.

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Thirty characters. Exactly...

I remember galoshes at a dollar a piece.

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Sure you did

Boys that played with dolls were sissies,Then came GI Joe. I didn't like GI Joe.
Home grown Spider bikes and a Rupp mini bike with a 3 horse Briggs.
Then came Kick *** Rock and Roll, Girls Guitars and Cars.

Yep. Life in the '60s and '70s sucked.

But at least I knew right from wrong.

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Dum vivo cano

Is that young Eisenhower boy still President?

They say you are as old as you feel. So some days I`m 18, and some days I`m 118.
Most days I`ll own up to being 54.

When I was young I only walked a couple of hundred yards to school. But it was uphill both ways. There was a low spot in the middle.

Two of the top 3 songs of the year I was born were by Elvis, the other by Pat Boone.

Chains and studded Snow Tires

Remember when a cross link would break and it would hit the fender every time the wheel went around.

Alcohol instead of Etheline Glycol and the alcohol would boil out. Steam.

Ration Books for food items and a Gas Stamp on the windshield during the WW 2 We had a A. 4 Gal a week

You have brought back many memories of the 40's and 50's.

When I was 19, gasoline at the Flying A Station was 32 cents a gallon.

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Doesn't hasta call me Johnson

I am old enough that I remember a Democratic President
who was a Life Member of the NRA

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Compact 9mm Just my $0.02

I was born in the same year that the man who discovered the Quantum Hall Effect won the Nobel Prize in Physics.

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- The Federalist #46 -

South Beach in the early '60s. Nice.

Hippies on Peach Tree St. Atlanta in the mid to late '60s. Interesting.

Stoner's everywhere in Fla. in the '70s. So what?

Cocaine cowboys in the '80s. Miami Vice.

Crack and AIDS in the '90s. Lot of fun I'm sure.

Fast forward a few years. I don't even care to know what the next trend might be. I gots bills.
I just want to wake up in the morning kiss my wife and play with my dogs.

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Dum vivo cano

I used to ride along with my old man when he drove his DeSoto down to the local Flying A station. Chet would fill it up "filterered" and bring Dad two packs of Camels. Dad would give Chet $2 and tell him to keep the change. Chet would be really greatful for the .22 cent tip!

This thread reminds me of of The Night Hank Williams Came to Town:

Johnny Cash- On The Night Hank Williams Came To Town - YouTube

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686-4 442-1

You mean Head Gaskets for Hot Rods?

When I was a kid, we could go to the movie for a dime and we would buy Dr Pepper bottles at the bottling plant for a nickle. We could ride our bikes away from home for the entire day without our mother getting freaked out. If she knew what we did sometimes, she would have. Charlie and my cousin liked to blow up stuff.

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Corripe Cervisiam

Today the school would see to it that I got therapy for doing some of the kid-stuff that was common then....

I bet Charlie and LeLand Ray skipped those sessions too...

With no shoes.

Pete

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Don't tread on me

Love this thread...and what? Tennis balls used to be white? LMAO. what a great line.

I was on the cusp of a lot of transitions from good old traditions and services being born in the later sixties. so I got a taste of the 60's 70s and 80s for my childhood. so I can relate to alot. the 50's sure sounded like a great time to be a kid I must say.

anyhow, also remember when phones had cords - if you wanted a private conversation that thing stretched across the room and under a closet door. there were no answering machines or voice mail, when you called it rang and rang and you hung up if they weren't home. Rotary dial phones too...(taken from Louis CK, but true), if the person you were calling had zeros in their number it sucked. LOL I'm sure some of you remember cranking a hand crank and speaking to the operator to connect you right? LOL.

There were no atms. If you needed money you went into a bank. When you were out of money that day, you were out of money.

TVs with 3 channels, and 25 channels of fuzz. The TV ended everyday with the national anthem at midnight or so. a dime went a loooong way in the candy store. You had a quarter and you were King Midas in there.

Doing a book report or paper meant going to the library and researching and reading...no cut and paste from the interwebs like these kids today. Writing in full sentences instead of 142 characters or less. People wrote letters to each other.

Milk got delivered to the house in bottles.

Record players gave us music on vinyl, no skipping ahead, fast forward or anything. and if you messed up the needle you were in big trouble.

we as kids were gone all day playing from dusk dill dawn - in fact parents expected it...be home when the street lights came on.

Kids sports actually ended with a clear winner and loser. Yes we kept score and some kids were actually NOT good enough to play and that's the way it was.

I remember when gas was cheap and then I remember the lines at the pumps too when it started to change.

Toys were made out of metal not plastic. Toy guns looked like real guns. They didn't break after 48 hours like my kids toys do.

Corner drug stores still had soda fountains in them. Pharmacy in the back.

You flew on a plane and the guy in front of you was smoking. You went into an office building and the guy in front of you was smoking. You went into the doctor's office and the physician just finished smoking. You went into...well you get the idea.

Women's curves were real.

And the village raised the kids and no one thought twice about that. If you messed up in front of someone else's parent and they knew you...you were in trouble. Nowadays, you can look to get sued keeping another family's kid in line.

where has the time gone...and today's kids are inundated with so much information so fast, they are growing up at light speed, and its not all good information. I often long for a slower simpler time, then at times I think how far we've come technologically and realize it too is a great time to be alive. I feel fortunate to have lived through the end of the 60s, 70s, 80s 90s till now...the sheer change over those decades is amazing...and what the heck were we wearing!!?!?!!!

Fridays and Saturday nights, a bunch of 12 year olds racing slot cars, Cox La Cucarachas with rewind motors, on a high banked figure 8, or stock cars on a 220' road course, listening to Steam on the Juke Box, Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye.

Well you have to grow up sometime I guess, I never new age 56 existed back then !

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Wayne

Ike was in his first term as President, and Smith & Wesson had not yet started stamping model #'s in the yoke area.

Chief38

It's amazing that any of us older folks survived our childhoods.

I remember rolling down the road standing up on the front seat next to my Dad in his / our 1955 Cadillac, which he bought used by the way.

I also remember playing with Mercury in school, moving it back & forth between hands. Now, if even a little bit gets spilled they evacuate the School.

Don't even get me started on eating lead paint chips & playing around in piles of asbestos while getting sprayed with DDT.

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Ogy

Could walk down to the woods carrying my 22 or shotgun on the street. Shoot a couple of squirrels or a rabbit if I got lucky. Drove a car with "three on the tree" after school to my job at the paint factory. Never spent more than $5.00 to fill the tank on my 62 Falcon. I always had a a "Barlow" in my pocket at school. I made a bet with my Dad that I could eat on $1.00 a day. I ate alot of canned tuna and fried eggs on white toast but I won the bet. I had to have my Mom sign for it but I bought my first pistol, a Ruger standard auto, for $49.00 at Western Auto.

You can't go back I guess but, everytime I see some guy holding his pants up with one hand so he can walk, I wish I could.

I'm old enough to remember being told to "be home when the street lights come on". I also remember sitting at a Spokane Indians baseball game and watching Echo 1 go over head. For those that may be a bit young (or their memory is a little fuzzy)...Project Echo - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Pay attention, life is a test

And of course drinking from the garden hose, riding in the back of a pickup truck and playing baseball in the street with a wooden bat until it was too dark to see. Oh yeah, looking at the girlie pictures in the sears and roebuck catalog, man we really lived on the line didn't we! LOL

In a couple weeks I'll be 455 in dog years. I attended a day long seminar 30 yrs ago held by a prof. from a Univ. in Colorado (I think). It was a mandatory company sponsored deal. It was titled something like "you are what you are because of the way things were then".
The jist of it was: Your base values for the rest of your life, are formed by age 10, and your environment in those 10 yrs is what shapes those values.
I really believe that concept. If that concept is in fact true we're repopulating this country with people that do not understand how to behave or much less take care of there offspring.
Again, if that concept is true children today are learning their values from a T.V..
One of the pre vaccine rumors was "drinking out of a garden hose might give you Polio" To this day, I avoid it.

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SOS USA

When a man who supported his family by manual labor was considered normal. One of the best compliments you could give a man was " he is a hard worker".

I was born in '53. I remember watching American Bandstand when the guys wore Brylcreem and the girls wore bobbi socks and poodle skirts. Jimmy Dean Show, Hollywood Palace, The Rat Pack. Milton Berle, Ed Sullivan, the list goes on. Reality was what happened from the time you got up in the morning until you turned on the tv at night. The tv was not turned on during the day except Sat. & Sun.(cartoons and Billy Graham)
I don't remember any of my friends parents being divorced, I know my mom and dad got along. We would have been considered poor now, but we didn't know it. It was a good life and there is such a contrast between now and then! If it sounds like I miss it...I do.
Mike

HUMMMM---
We didn't have any street lights, most of the roads were gravel or sand, first five years we had no indoor plumbing or electricity. The town was so small that three blocks from the court house was outside the city limits. I am 70.
Blessings

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TEXAS, by GOD

Well I guess I'm really a youngster. My first gal of gas was about 1.00 I think. That should tell you how much the price has went up in the last 11years. I also remember being on the way to my work study when 9/11 happened Senior year of high school.

Hey Batta, your here with what is generally pretty good people, your making some right choices !!!

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Wayne

Don't forget playing with some mercury if you found some !

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Wayne

My dad's car was a Desoto
Our neighbor had a Kaiser
My first car was a Nash and I longed for a Studebaker Golden Hawk

You had to wait for the other folks on the party line to finish before you could use the phone. THE phone sat on the phone desk and had a rotary dial and was make of Bakelite - You could kill someone if you hit them with it. The first 2 numbers of a phone number was a word - Ours was Turner (coincidentally, my dad was a Roll Turner which is where the name came from). If you wanted to make a Long Distance call you went through The Operator.
Remember The Operator?
One of my first girlfriend's older sister was an Operator - The only one I've ever met.

I remember the first TV in the neighbor hood - Your notebook computer has a larger screen and much clearer picture. There were 3 stations for a long time in the Chicago Area and then suddenly there were 6 (!) (2 UHF and Ch.11), however the UHF stations were like a joke till they started doing the Sox games on channel 44....

Almost everything I see in *Antique Stores* is the stuff that was new when I was a kid.....

As a pre-school kid I could walk to the park 4 blocks away with my little sister and play all day - And NOBODY would bother us.

Oh yeah - The largest Studebaker dealer in the USA was 2 blocks from our house @ 38th and Georgia.
The largest Chevy dealer in Indiana was 2 blocks from my GrandParent's house @ 35th and Broadway.

One more:
The United States of America was THEEEEEE BEST at EVERYTHING! What happened????

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In dog years I'm dead.