re. hand signals...Had to use them, as well as electric directionals, during test for DL.
What, no 78s? Guy at music store would ask, “Big hole or small?”
All of them... And more...
Growing up, I think my neighborhood had an “Official” winter coat color....OD!
Church Keys, Floor starters, Car radios only received AM...
Remember everyone of them.
In our family dinner was at 6 and you had better be there. If you didn’t want what was served then it was put in the refrigerator and it was what you had when you got hungry later on.
No one left the table until everyone was done.
Brings back memories.
When I was a young lad, I had a fancy for the girl next door. She was cute and freckled and we had some good times holding hands and kissing. What makes me laugh now is recalling some of those times...she considered a really GOOD kiss to be what Wrangler Jane laid on Captain Wilton Parmenter from time to time. A long-mouth-closed-forceful kind of kiss. We were young. No tongue.
Those who watched F Troop will know of what I speak.
We didn’t have fast food when I was growing up,’
Things that have gone away...
Drive in movies.
Sunday drives
Picnics
Using any vacant lot as a playground
Not coming home until the street lights came on
Sex education
We played games to win not just participate
The families knew each other and if you did something wrong it got back to your parents before you did.
Taking public transportation from the time I was around 8, alone!
Walking to school (again alone)
Riding in the back of a pick up truck
It is a wonder we survived our childhood.
“You better be home before the street lights come on” was a brand new saying because your little town just got street lights. lol
IMHO it’s not about the era, it’s about the closeness of the family, the involvement and love of the parents for their children, and growing up in an environment in which children know they are valued and their parents have their best interests in mind - no matter how much they expect from them or how little they have.
Unfortunately, the above is hardly universal, in any era.
There were no fast food places growing up where I lived other than a mom and pop pizza place and a dairy queen. A Burger Chef was opened when I was a teen.
I grew up in the late 1960’s and 70’s.
We still had a milkman and a guy who would bring to the house a tray of breads and Hostess cakes.
It was not all innocent. When I was 10 or so I would play doctor to the same age girl down the road. That went on for about a year or so until her little sister snitched on us and hell was unleashed.
Just some random thoughts on my childhood...
I never saw my father in a pair of shorts and he only wore jeans when he was actually doing manual labor, like yard work or changing the oil in the car. Otherwise, even on weekends, he would wear dress slacks and shirts.
With yard work, he always had my brother and I out there with him and he worked us hard. When it snowed, it was our job to get everything shoveled. From the age of about 10, I know how to start up the car because it was my job to get it warmed up so I could scrape the ice off the windshield. By the time I was 12, I knew how to drive it too and my father would take me to empty parking lots and country back roads to practice.
During summer when school was out, we never sat inside and watched TV. If my mother saw us around the house, she'd put us to work on chore after chore. So we never hung around the house during the daytime. We all had bicycles and we went all over town. Our parents never asked where we went or what we did but they always seemed to know if we got into any trouble!
When were were in Little League, my brother and I walked to practice and back by ourselves. There were no parents sitting in lawn chairs with coolers and snacks at the ready like they do today. They might show up for an actual game or two however. Those practices were brutal too. The coaches would have us running laps, doing pushups and getting cursed out if we were too slow running to first base or not paying attention enough in the outfield.
We had an “ice box” when I was growing up. I tried to explain this to my grand kids one day. They couldn’t understand. They still think we used an igloo cooler.
Attending church EVERY Sunday, no matter what, unless extremely ill. I just found my “Sunday School pin” with a bar hanging down for each year of perfect attendance. Mine is 10 years.
Walking through town with guns to go out plinking.
1) Sweet cigarettes...In my neck of the woods it was Camels or Lucky Strike. Except for my dad’s Raleighs.
2) No coffee shops but there was a small restaurant that had a juke box in the corner. That restaurant had one side for working folks and another side for the well dressed town folks.
There was a pick up window in the back for blacks.
3) Having milk cows and 100 laying hens we delivered milk in quart jars, eggs by the dozen and home made butter by the pound. You ever candled eggs or churned butter?
4) Was it just us or did every party line have two women who stayed on the phone from sun up to sun down?
5) TV station sign off would be announced by a playing of My Country Tis Of Thee and sign on was announced by The Star Spangled Banner. The first show in our area was sponsored by the local Dr Pepper bottler. It was a farm show with weather and local news.
Yeah, I remember most of those things.
12 out of 14. I feel about 3 days older than dirt.
I remember! I remember playing outside on the Martian Colony surface with pressure suits and air-supplies. Remember how your intake hose always got kinked up and you’d be gasping for breath in seconds?
I remember when China was named the world governance nation, after they soundly defeated America and Russia in the Battle for Alaska and Siberia.
I remember when people actually were concerned about global warming! That was before the Maunder Minimum froze most northern regions solid. What fools they were!
I remember back when there were actually only two sexes, before genetic engineering created 10,178 sexes. Reproduction got tough!
Yeah, things were better way back in 2078.
When I was 3 almost 4 years old I was in my Grandmother’s basement and figured out how to turn on the Ringer to her old washing machine.
I was finding little pieces of paper to put through the Ringer.
One piece of paper I hung on to it with my 2 fingers as it got rolled in and didn’t let go in time.
Yep, sure enough, I got my arm stuck in the Ringer…….Grandma can bolting down and screamed something in Catholic (Mary, Joseph, Jesus or something) and pulled the plug.
I feel sorry for her. It must have looked awful.
I was banned from the basement.
