What do you miss these days?

[kennyb]

A REAL Coke.
That would be a 6-1/2 oz Coke, in a glass bottle, sweetened with SUGAR, with a crimped on cap you had to have an opener for. It cost 5 cents, unless you kept the bottle for 2 more cents.
Properly chilled, it was the embodiment of satisfaction.
Along about the late 50's, the King-sized Coke came out, and the slide to perdition and the end of the American Way of Life began.......

__________________________________________________

The Soda Fountain in a drug store- marble topped, with stools that swiveled.

i have a 1950 coke machine out in the garage...still works just fine...those small cokes can be hard to find and pricey when you do but so correct...they are great!i find them on occasion in the 6 1/2 oz.rarely...more likely in the 8oz.size

 

[roscoesheater]

Good manners, concern for your fellow man, responsibility for actions taken, 57 Chevy's and last of all, a cold RC in the bottle and a Moon Pie on a hot summer day.RH

 

[ladder13]

Yeah, plenty of Coke available in Mexico.........................so I've heard.

 

[feralmerril]

I was lucky. I was raised in a old fashion large country general store durring world war two. It was at auroaville wisconsin. Sat on a large mill pond with good fishing, a dam and the willow creek ran right behind the store. I knew everyone. Mom let me range a good mile at 5 to 6 years old. Showed the area to my wife and she could hardly belive it. Said my mom would be in jail in this day and age.
Now about coke. Yes I know they claim the cane surgar stuff from mexico is the same stuff as we had in the 40s and 50s. I bought a case or two of it recently. I DONT BELIVE IT! It is not the same! When I was a kid you couldnt hold it in your cheeks long without it stinging.
There use to be choclate covered marshmellow cups called mellow cups. A few years ago there was similar called cups of gold. Both are gone now.
We had the loafer benchs on the outside of the store in summer and in winter maybe 4 or 5 chairs around the stove on one end of the store.
In summertime one night a week we had a free show night. Some crippled guy would set up a screen in a empty lot and show old "B" westerns or whatever. They would pass a hat for him. Most villages also had similar once a week. Small towns like berlin would usualy have wrestling matchs at the eagles hall or whatever. They would (maybe still do) have fisherees on the ponds and rivers in winter.
In my case my folks would send me to bible camp a week every summer at spencer lake. Truth is I got in some pretty good scraps there!
It used to sound like a war durring duck season around that pond! Old harv dalton that ran the bar across the road from our store would put the juke box on large loudspeakers and we would serrinaded while we fished!
Friday nights all over wisconsin was fish fry night at every tavern.
There was no drug activity in those days, however there was A LOT of drinking and some pretty good fights.
There was usualy events as the weather changed all the time. Spring was carp spearing. Summer all kinds of events like corn roasts on the streets, maxwell street days, carnavals, fairs, fishing contests, boat races, tractor pulls, stock car races, winter was snow mobiling (I missed that), Deer hunting was the big thing, both bow and guns. There were trap shoots, field trials working your dog, turkey shoots. It seems I dont do much of any of that in my area now. Maybe they still do some of it back home.

 

[BLACKHAWKNJ]

Some of the old brands of soda I miss-from the Northeast, specifically NY and NJ, are Cott's, Hoffman's, White Rock, and here in Central NJ there was a local brand called E.L. Kerns-I can still see the elk they used as a logo. I still say soda tastes better in glass and I pour mine into a glass whenever I can.
Yes, the Good Old Days when you could roam your neighborhood without your elders searching the Internet for all the registered sex offenders.
When women didn't compete with men in being foulmouthed. When being foulmouthed at the very least marked you as an uncouth and uneducated individual and someone to be avoided.
When mental cases were locked up and not allowed to roam the streets
both for their protection and the protection of others.
When a girl who got pregnant in high school "went out of state to live with an aunt."
Holidays like Christmas that had a communal quality to them-even for those who didn't believe. And those who didn't believe didn't try to spoil it for others.
Parents that cared.

 

[NCTexan]

It might sound strange, but I kinda miss the Sinclair dinosaur.

 

[rlsbee]

Bonomo's Turkish Taffy..Vanilla, Chocolate, Strawberry, and Banana (my favorite). There is an imitation but it's not the same.

 

[HAWKEYE10]

I miss neighbors. Houses all around but no neighbors like we used to have. Don

 

[BLACKHAWKNJ]

I think TV, then airconditioning and now the Internet killed off neighbors.\
I like to sit in front of my apartment on a pleasant spring or summer eve, I see NO ONE else sitting on their front step.
I miss corporations that were run by people who knew what they were doing.

 

[jimmyj]

There was a cookie that came eight in a box. The cookie was two vanilla wafers with a mashmellow in the middle. Also grapeaid soda that came in a small hourglass shaped bottle. Jawbreakers and a pack of "Toms Toasted Peanuts" poured into a bottle of Nehi Orange Soda.

 

[Gutpile Charlie]

Like Handejector, I too miss the old, 6 oz. Cokes. I've tried the Mexican variety...and it's not the same. It's "better"...but not the same.

Ferrilmerril hit the jackpot again. He and I are about the same age, and through a long association with this forum have found that we have a number of things in common.

The "old" Coke would burn and sting so much you could not hold it in your mouth. The current stuff is nothing like that. I believe the old stuff would take the chrome off an automobile bumper..(back when they "had" chrome on them. See, showing my age again.)

I also miss that grape soda called Grapette, it was from Camden, Arkansas and I don't know if it was national. It had a grape flavor that was like manna from heaven. I picked up a bottle of it at a Wally a couple of years ago...and it was not the same.

Why can't they just leave these things alone? They were great the way they were first conceived, then they try to "improve" it, and they screw the pooch.

Popsicles were another thing from the 40s that are just not the same today. The orange flavor original "Popsicle" was the benchmark from which all others should be judged. It's just not the same today.

Dentyne gum back then was better than it is today. It's like chewing a piece of plastic now!

What about BlackJack, Clove and Beeman gum. I believe they were made by a company named Adams. Recent replicas of these are produced periodically,....but again....not the same.

Remember the James and Triumph brit motorcycles back in the fifties? Yes, there are some hot bikes now....but none could bring a smile to your face like these old treasures.

How about those wonderful Mossberg .22 rifles from the 40s and 50s? These were just the greatest, went out of style for a while, and are now being appreciated again.

Last but not least, those post war, 1946 vintage Piper aircraft, the J3, PA11 and PA12 brought smiles to the faces of more fledgling aviators than anything before or since.

Ah, for the good old days.

 

[kraigwy]

I remember taking my lunch money (two bits) and walking down to the local Gas station, grocery store, that sold guns and bait. Buying a huge baloney sandwich, ( they sliced the baloney to your liking while you watched), a bottle of RC cola, and a sack of bull durhamn, and had change left to by 2 cent milk in the after noon.

We could smoke in school, that is if you were in 7th grade and above, 6th grade and below had to have parents permission.

Also took guns to school and worked on them in shop.

Somebody always managed to store a bullet or two in the furnace.

 

[truckemup97]

It might sound strange, but I kinda miss the Sinclair dinosaur.

I think there still is one in Oklahoma City, on I-35 around NE 50th.

I miss cheap ammo.

 

[labworm]

A REAL Coke.
That would be a 6-1/2 oz Coke, in a glass bottle, sweetened with SUGAR, with a crimped on cap you had to have an opener for. It cost 5 cents, unless you kept the bottle for 2 more cents.
Properly chilled, it was the embodiment of satisfaction.
Along about the late 50's, the King-sized Coke came out, and the slide to perdition and the end of the American Way of Life began.......

__________________________________________________

The Soda Fountain in a drug store- marble topped, with stools that swiveled.

Your bringing a tear to my eye
Just a little addition, as kids we discovered the RC Cola which came in a 16 oz bottle, more bang for the buck, then I believe Coke came out with there matching product.

Anybody remember Bireley's, Grape, Orange, Pineapple and Chocolate all non-carbonated, could be a East Coast only product.

 

[wuluf]

Looking down and seeing my feet......

 

[kleinkaliber]

Speaking of Cokes and "sodas" in general - we had a "gas station" about a block from where we lived. They had the glass bottles of soda stored in a rectangular cooler with cooled (refrigerated) water up to the neck. To buy one, you deposited your nickel or dime and slid the bootle of choice along the metal tracks that held them in place until you reached the end where you pulled it out to complete the purchase. I usually got an orange (being about 7-12 yrs old) but on occasion I pulled a "Moxie" to show I was a "man" and could drink a bitter tasting soft drink. You opened them with an opener mounted to the front.

A nickel bag of chips made everything perfect. Bad eating habits continue to this day

Those chest type soda machines were gone by my time. I remember the upright machines with the tall, narrow door which you would open and pull your soda out. As kids we would try and pull two out at once, although I don't remember that ever working.

 

[TennTony]

Campfire Marshmallows, in a box!

Heavy & chewy when 'raw'. But pure heaven when roasted over a family campfire.

Don't agree about most people speaking English. Where I grew up everybody spoke English but just about everyone's parents or grandparents spoke English and German, or Russian, or Polish, or Slovak, or Italian, or.....

At Christmas my Slovak grandmother would wish everyone "Merry Kreetsmoose".

My Italian grandfather never owned a car; it was his machine (I wish I could write his accent into that word). He would tell us to wait "While I getta the machine out of the garage." Turquoise '56 Chevy.

Uncles who played the accordion at family picnics.

As the old folks died I mentioned to my brothers & sisters how sad it was to have those wonderful accents disappear. Then I realized that 40 years from now Vietnamese, Mexican and who knows what else grown kids will be saying the same thing about their parents & grandparents.

 

[scorvers]

Toms'........My neighbors dad back in the early 70's drove a delivery route for Toms. Those peanut bars were the best!!!!!!!
I miss the diversity we had up till the early 80's. The "country" was somewhere we could have fun and the city was where my country cousins came on the weekend to go to the movies and the women would shop. Now strip malls and cookie cutter subdivisions are marring the landscape across America.
I miss real auto parts stores with real men behind the counter who knew their part numbers by heart.
I miss Blue laws.....Sunday was when we did family things. I know blue laws aren't right, but they had a purpose.
I miss 8oz beers. Just the ticket for these hot southern summers. larger beers get hot before you finish them.
I miss being able to go out on the water and enjoy a relaxing afternoon. Now every gold chain juice monkey has a 500hp 40ft boat flying down my once quiet rivers.

 

[doublesharp]

I remember and miss every thing you guys have already mentioned. I think the end of the good times began when cowboy shows were no longer on Saturday morning tv.

 

[ancient-one]

Gasoline at 10&1/2 cents for regular and 11&1/2 cents for eythl. Nehi chocolate pop. News reports containing facts in lieu of personal opinions and agendas.