There was a time.. Let's tell the kids how life USED to be..

[SoCalDem]

It could either be a downer for them, or it could give them hope, that what we once had, we might have again.:)

I'll start..

The airline thread started my memory up..

There was a time when you could actually go ON the plane with people you were seeing off, and when it was about to take off, they would shoo you off the plane..

There was a time when 747s had a REAL piano in the REAL coach lounge..
There were "pong tables" too (you kids don't even know what a pong table is, do you???

There was a time when an 8 yr old could leave the house after lunch and ride bikes until dark, without the involvement of the FBI and "cadaver dogs"..

[BurtWorm]

1. I love that pickle too much to be able to concentrate!

What was the question? Oh yeah! How life used to be!

You used to be able to tell when a person was crazy because they'd be talking loudly to themselves. Now they're probably on the phone.

[scottcsmith]

2. Candy cigarettes

Ah...those were the days. If I'm not mistaken, the kid-friendly version of the lung-buster was gum or chocolate, and I think it may have been wrapped in paper, and it was covered with something like powdered sugar, so you could blow smoke. Apparently you can still buy them, although I haven't seen any at my local Safeway in like 20 years.

This site has what seems to be way more information on the subject than one would think would be available:

http://www.cardhouse.com/a/candy/candy.htm

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

3. There was a time when you could eat the homemade popcorn balls

in your trick or treat bag without dropping dead of convulsions due to cyanide poisoning. You could TP the neighborhood guy's house without his dad blowing your brains out with his 357 magnum he was saving for just the occasion to show his family how brave he is to protect them all.

[SoCalDem]

12. Yummm. My mouth is watering.. we had WARM popcorn balls

for trick or treat.. and real candy apples.. They would dip them when you came to the door or on the porch.. You could choose.. cinnamon flavored or caramel .. nuts or none:)

Now the kids just get some crappy individually wrapped lump of sugar :(

[7th_Sephiroth]

97. i had a neighbor when i was 8

my best friend's mom made me and the rest of our friends special treats, candy apples and popcorn balls, when evertone else got small chocolate bars

[ronnykmarshall]

4. There was a time ....

... when you played games you used your imagination and not some damn video machine.

[BurtWorm]

5. Every TV station used to go off sometime after midnight

and come on sometime before dawn. You'd get a picture of a test pattern accompanied by a high pitch tone. People did not watch TV in the middle of the night, as late as the 1970s, because there was no TV to watch.

[KansDem]

10. But not before the "signing off" featurettes...

The inspirational moment ("The Word Is... with Raymond Burr)
A recitation of "High Flight"
The National Anthem

[SoCalDem]

17. and then... Ta-daaaah.. I present...

[BurtWorm]

19. I know that pattern!

Thank you!

:toast:

[BrotherBuzz]

33. Oh! One of my favorite Saturday morning programs...

It was on just before Pow-Wow the Indian Boy, Crusader Rabbit, Colonel Bleep, and Brother Buzz. Mmmm, cold cereal, milk, and sugar! Boy, those were the daze!

[SoCalDem]

75. Here are more.. one even in color

http://www.farewellanalog.net/collection3.html

[KansDem]

35. Wait!!! You forgot...

"DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.................................."

[BiggJawn]

37. At either 440 hz or 1000 Hz.

I preferred 440.

[NoPasaran]

36. Ah, Monoscope!

King of the test patterns!

[BiggJawn]

38. We still have one here.

My boss clamped onto it. (he has more room in his office anyway)

[Maine-i-acs]

57. Yep! I remember that, and the Farm Report.

I used to wake up early enough to see one or the other. And remember the glee (circa 1969) when I stayed up late enough to watch the programming sign-off for the night.

[BurtWorm]

58. Which part of Maine are you from?

Remember Dave Astor? Captain Lloyd? Bob O'Wrill?

[Lungs]

88. What's with the Native American?

Why was he put on the test pattern?

[SoCalDem]

92. I really don't know

He just was always there:shrug:

[BurtWorm]

18. Do they still do the farm report in Kansas?

That used to be the very first thing they broadcast in Maine--the price of various commodities, weather, soil conditions...something like that.

[SoCalDem]

21. In 1978 the still did.. Remember Crick weather central on the radio

My oldest son would hear the tornado siren and yell.. "Mom ..turn on the cricket weather show".:) He was 4

[KansDem]

34. I don't think so...

But then, I've only been back here 24 years...

(I actually grew up in SoCal--Long Beach area)

[beyurslf]

51. I have lived in KS my whole life andhave never seen a farm report.

[cosmicdot]

82. we would get a black horizontal line requiring some adjustment

to keep it from rolling across the TV screen ... try moving the rabbit years to the right ... turn that horizontal knob ... think the antenna on the roof is OK?

A TV repairman came to our house if a tube burned out or the TV needed some minor fix.

Heck, the doctor who delivered me paid housecalls with his little black bag.

People used to trust one another pretty much.

[Atman]

6. Eastern Airlines, universal tickets...

When I was a kid, my parents divorced and us kids moved to Florida with Mom, Dad stayed in Boston. We used to hop from FL to MA regularly...Mom or Dad would take us to the airport, come on board with us and help us find seats, say goodbye, and off we'd go into the wild blue yonder. Acually, I did this by myself several times. By twelve, I'd flown "solo" so many times, it was second nature, like riding the bus to school.

Can you even put an unescorted 11 year old on a plane these days?

And also, remember when if you bought a ticket on Eastern or American airlines, you could use it on ANY airline?

Now, my kids won't walk a mile to school, or visit a friends' house without an appointment. We used to leave the doors unlocked, and neighbor kids would come and go as if it were their own home.

It really WAS a simpler time. And it wasn't all that long ago. What happened?

[KansDem]

7. There was a time when:

You could pull into a filling station, have your tank filled, have your water/oil checked, as well as the air in your tires, and NEVER GET OUT of the car.

[SoCalDem]

8. At Klepper's Gas , they would even bring you a coke or some cigs

and I could fill up my full sized Dodge sedan with $3.50..:)

[KansDem]

14. And the maps were free!! (nt)

[murphymom]

11. You can still do that in Oregon

No self-service gas stations here.

[NJCher]

13. you can still do that in NJ!

Cher

[Atman]

9. The only nudity on TV was in foreign films on PBS

And Monty Python.






I loved PBS when I was a kid! :-)

[BurtWorm]

59. It used to be called NET

National Educational Television.

[BurtWorm]

15. Once upon a time, there were no area codes to dial!

It wasn't all that long ago. After that, New York City had one area code, 212. Now it has at least four: 212, 718, 646, 917.

[KansDem]

22. Or you had the operator place long distance calls...

Then she would ring you when your party was on the line...

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

23. or party lines! Remember them?

[SoCalDem]

24. My mother's aunt was on a TEN-party line

They lived on a farm and it was the best they could get.. They still had the old wooden wind up phone too.. When we went there we kids did nothing but play with the phone and chase the chickens :)

[curse10]

25. My grandparents had a party line!

It was some crazy shit!

[BurtWorm]

27. Did you live in NY in the days when EXchanges meant something?

I know people who still say the exchanges when they give their home phone: CIrcle5-5555, or UNiversity6-6666.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

29. Yes until the 70's and when we moved to Cali, it was KEYSTONE 4

[trackfan]

47. Ours was CLinton - but this was toward the end of the

exchange era, and though we generally knew what an exchange meant, we only said the letters, C-L or A-T --- one exception was Television commercials where they would still say the exchange name, RIchmond-9...

I still remember what several of the exchanges were.... ATlantic, CApital, CItrus, AXminster, DUnkirk.

[woofless]

90. OLiver8-4722

Dad made a word game out of it so us kids would remember the number. "Ayliver ott- sore feven oot oot". Yeah, he was that kind of guy. Sure do miss him.

p.s. That was 45 years ago and it is still the only way I remember that number, but remember I do.

[SoCalDem]

93. TA5-5689

Taylor.. (the poor side of the tracks )

[BurtWorm]

32. There was a time...when phones actually RANG!

They had little bells inside them! And you actually DIALED them! They actually operated with rotary dials! Isn't that crazy?!

[BiggJawn]

39. I used to make those little bells.

From 1977 until 1982. So, if you have a "Trimline" or "Princess" phone from that era, think of me when it rings....

[BurtWorm]

41. Those used to be some solid bells.

Sounds dirty, somehow...

[BiggJawn]

48. Best bells in the best phones in the world.

We made one hell-for-tough telephone at Western Electric.
Not like that off-shore "ATT" shit they sell now.

I have a WECO "300" that was made at Hawthorne 5-41. Bet my granny heard about Pearl Harbour over it. Still works.

[trackfan]

64. What I wouldn't give for a Western Electric phone now

instead of the light, plastic, breaks-after-a-year-if-you're-lucky, pieces of crap they make now. We had the same phone for about 20 years. (It did weigh quite a bit, though!)

[ronnykmarshall]

80. I have a princess phone

and a 1940's - 50's style phone. Rings so loud it can wake the dead.

[BurtWorm]

102. I'll bet you stay forever on automated answering services!

;)

[curse10]

16. When I was a kid I could write bloody and gory murder stories

about my classmates, read them in front of the class, and NOT get arrested or expelled!

[SoCalDem]

20. In 5th grade, a classmate brought a japanese sword AND

a german luger to school when we were studying "the war".. No one called the swat team.. we all handled them and passed them around.. He actually took them to recess too..:)

[Nikia]

31. Yeah, I wrote a story in third grade like that

It wasn't gory, but it was about a girl who made cookies with poision and brought them to school for a treat to kill her classmates. If a third grader did that now, they'd probably be expelled. My teacher didn't even have a talk with me or send a note home. I got a good grade on the story.

[cmd]

26. Remember when live people waited on you in shoe stores?

They actually measured your feet and put the shoes on your feet while you sat in a chair!

Remember when you could go to the local store and put a dimes worth of penny candy on your father's bill.

Remember when you had three recesses every day!

Remember when people asked you to work for them and tried to outbid other employers for your services.

[KansDem]

28. Eating out was a REAL treat...

Maybe twice a month, my family went out to eat. Usually we went out on a Friday evening when my stepfather got home from work. But never during the week!!!

[trackfan]

40. That's right - it was the same with us,

maybe once or twice a month, on a Friday. Even having McDonalds was a big treat, at least until about the mid-70's.

[trackfan]

30. My uncle gave my cousin and me $2, and we had a BLAST

at the local bowling alley, playing games and buying candy from the machines.

[Dookus]

42. My highschool had a rifle range...

my friends and I tried out for the rifle team every year, just cuz we got to go down to the range and shoot.

Yes, we had a rifle team. At a public school.

[BurtWorm]

44. Now that is nuts!

I'm sorry! Some things do change for the better. But I do get the strange irony: back in the days of yore, school districts actually trusted teenagers to handle weapons on school property. Weird!

[Maeve]

43. Going shopping downtown meant getting dressed up

Mom might even wear gloves! The clerks knew the merchandise and, if you were a regular customer, might hold back a special treat just for you...

You could go to the grocery for Mom and they'd "put it on her bill". Shoot, they might even deliver it, if it was more than you could carry.

[KansDem]

45. "3-minute phone calls...?"

Did you have time limits on the phone calls you (rarely) made? We had a 3-minute hourglass that we were supposed to turn over when making a call. When the sand fell completely through, we were supposed to end our call. Rarely did I manage to get a call in within the 3-minute limit.

[Maeve]

46. Only for long-distance calls

But I remember the timers in all the catalogs! And only one phone per household, mind.

[KansDem]

55. Yes, and you could call the operator after the LD call...

and find out what the charges were!!

[Bundbuster]

49. There was a time when

Most atheletes would actually play their entire careers for one team, and fans knew their uniform numbers, stats, and smiles instead of rap sheets and bloated salaries. A time when fans could watch their team's season opener and know the lineup almost like family members, never needing to check who'd demanded a trade or been bartered and auctioned off like so much livestock by power/greed-crazed owners. A time when I bought a right-field seat at Fenway Park for $1.50 and saw Ted Williams' final career swing launch a home run landing 20 feet away, having shared Ted's whole career right there in Fenway. A time when that ball was not auctioned off for $500,000. It was the best of times...

[cosmicdot]

72. having Dizzie Dean or Pee Wee Reese call a game

NOT scream a game to you like it seems done today along with swooshing graphics and lots of noise

[BurtWorm]

50. TV stations actually took it upon themselves to present educational

and cultural programming on Sundays. They actually set aside time for childrens' programming in the mornings and afternoons. They actually showed kids classic movies and cartoons in the afternoon. And creature features on Fridays and Saturdays.

Shows were actually dreamt up to be about original characters, or occasionally, even about characters from literature! They were not based on popular toys. The show actually came first, then came the toys!

[Maeve]

60. And there were LOCAL television shows

With clowns (Crusty was actually based on a much nicer guy named "Rusty Nails") or toyshop settings and they actually got good ratings. Of course, they also flacked for the toy companies during December, but most did not EVER have a line of action figures!

[BurtWorm]

62. Excellent point. I was referring to those local late afternoon movie shows

It's amazing when you think about it. I don't think they have those anywhere anymore. It's all canned. :cry:

[Maeve]

85. In Columbus, it was Flippo in the afternoons

And Lucy's Toyshop in the morning. Lucy died this year and all that is left is ONE show that was videotaped...out of over a decade of live tv. The television station released it on tape and DVD with proceeds going to charity and we watched it with the kids this week. Amazingly slow, silly and weird...but it was so fantastically popular!


To be fair, we only got three channels back then...

[baldguy]

71. I remember Rocketship 7

on WKBW TV in Buffalo. With Commander Tom and Promo the Robot.

and I saw this a few years ago:

[KansDem]

52. Remember "school nights" and "dinner hours?"

You couldn't play on "school nights"

You couldn't call a friend on a "school night" unless it was school related.

You couldn't call friends during the "dinner hour" as they would be eating dinner with their family.

Also on a related note:
You couldn't call or go to a friend's house on a holiday because that was family time...

(this is fun!)

[greatauntoftriplets]

105. Your post made me think of something that hasn't been on this thread yet.

In summer, we had to be home when the street lights came on. We even made up a song about it.

[Lisa]

53. ... when there were so few people on the Internet, that if you had e-mail

... it was from somebody whom you actually knew!


Of course, if you wanted to do something on the computer, you'd need to transcribe it on bubble cards first ...
(okay, so that was 1970s stuff ... but I know that in the late 1980s I wasn't getting any spam ...)



p.s. going further back, I remember going to the bank with my dad, prior to the introduction of ATMs. The real, live tellers would count the money we would be needing for the week into a little envelope and hand it over. The bank had high ceilings and beautiful marble panels, with brass fixtures that were kept brightly polished.

There were no "service charges" deducted from your account. The examples in math class ("if you had $100 in a chequing account compounded monthly at 7% interest, how much would you have in 15 years?") actually worked. You would have more money at the end of the period than when you started.

[booksenkatz]

54. We had to cuddle up next to the radio w/a cassette recorder

and wait forever for our favorite songs to come on so that we could record them... and you always felt INCREDIBLY lucky if you hit the "record" button and caught the beginning of the song! I still have such tapes in the basement... circa 1973, the end of the year Top 100 countdowns. Come and get me, RIAA.

[Maeve]

61. And a portable AM radio was a cool gift to get!

With its leatherette case.

[cosmicdot]

76. wish I still had the 'transistor' radio I got back in the early 60s

it seemed 'small' then

[Bucky]

56. I remember having a Bill of Rights that worked

I remember trusting my government. I remember Jimmy.

[BurtWorm]

103. There once was a time when they actually counted votes

to find out who won the election. :cry:

[NightTrain]

63. Why, when I was your age....

--the national debt was a measly $1 trillion.

--MTV ran music videos...all the time!

--only part of the ozone layer was gone.

--we only had 36 cable channels.

--only the rich and the geeky owned a personal computer.

--they hadn't yet discovered Alzheimer's Disease, so we all said that Reagan was "senile."

--AYDS was a diet candy. (And yes, it was spelled with a "Y.")

--you still heard the occasional power ballad that didn't suck.

--a joint was a place where you drank, not something you smoked.

--there were noticeable differences between the national leaders of the Democratic and Republican parties.

[Booberdawg]

65. I had to walk 3 miles to and from school, Uphill! Both ways!

Seriously. I lived a couple blocks away from the cutoff from getting a free bus ride for the over 3 mile limit from school.

It was never a problem, come to think of it. I had 2 girlfriends in the neighborhood and we just met every morning and walked to school and back home together. Took an extra hour or so every day but we just did it. I never questioned it.

[beyurslf]

66. Of course there was a time when you couldn't be friends with people

who weren't the same religion or color as you.

[SoCalDem]

67. Ponds and creeks had frogs with only 4 legs

not like the 6 legged , 3-eyed freaks today.. and there were salamanders and newts (not the Gingrich kind)..

There were millions of June bugs every summer and more fireflies than you could catch..

It was safe to eat fruit straight from the tree , and veggies from the garden ..

[Breezy du Nord]

68. Wow

To be fair, when I was 8 I stayed out pretty late.

[Red State Rebel]

69. Playground equipment was fun & dangerous and nobody got sued!

[SoCalDem]

70. A friend of mine got her long hair caught on a merrygoround

and was dragged for a long time.. We just tied up the hair that got yanked out with a piece of long grass and she took it to her mother.. After she quit screaming, we all laughed about the "bald" spot.. (the hair grew back :)

We were about 12 at the time :)

[terrya]

73. There was a time when you went grocery shopping and you got

something back with your groceries...Green Stamps! That's right, stamps.

You collected the Green Stamps and put them in books...and...you could get MERCHANDISE with those books of Green Stamps! Free! It was so cool...a sort of fringe benefit for going shopping...and getting your car filled with gas (Green Stamps were offered for that, also)

[SoCalDem]

77. My oldest got his first red wagon with S&H greenstamps

we also got some lamps, and a shower curtain, and a stepladder..

They even gave them out at gas stations..

There were also "Plaid stamps" but they did not have as much in their catalog

[terrya]

83. Mom got some applicances with Green Stamps.

I remember you could get television sets...stereos...all sorts of things with Green Stamps.

[Maeve]

86. I got stuff with stamps!

You could go to the local distribution center and choose just what you wanted...I had a collection of books from family and friends that helped me get a few "extras" when Hubby and I were first married.

[Lars39]

91. I still have some books of green stamps somewhere.

Probably all gummed together by now. I remember religiously saving 'em to stick onto the pages. Hardly ever got the big denomination ones. :crazy:

[RebelOne]

98. Oh yes, me, too. I know they are in boxes I packed away.

But I did get some good stuff with them.

[RebelOne]

100. Yes, all these posts bring back memories.

Which brings to mind the words to that song "Those were the days, my friend. I thought they'd never end." Don't remember who sang it.

[trackfan]

78. We had Blue Chip Stamps

and I swear half the stuff in our house came from the Blue Chip Stamp redemption store.

[ronnykmarshall]

81. and Blue Chips stamps!

[Lars39]

74. Ice cream cones.

:9

[Maeve]

87. My great-uncle ran a general store and dipped ice cream

He'd give the kids HUGE cones full for a nickel right up until the 1970's...hand-dipped from a big old freezer right out there in the store.

They also did their own meat-cutting...and the thick slices of bolonga we could get!!!!!!!! Deli heaven before I'd ever heard of a "deli"!

[Lars39]

94. Yep, rag balogna and hoop cheese!

:9

[SoCalDem]

95. Our grocery store in Indiana made their own fresh kielbasa

and it was CHEAP.. Every place we have moved since, I try to find a sausage shop.. I found one recently and pay $7.50 a pound for that sausage and it's not as good.. close.. but not quite :(

[cosmicdot]

79. There was a time when we saw a double feature on Sat. for 35 cents

... and pushed through a turnstile to enter the theatre after paying ...

[CShine]

84. There was a time when girls didn't wear clothes that had the Playboy logo.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

89. There were real kids' clothes

Eight-year-old girls wore dresses that tied in the back or pants with tops that came all the way down to the waist, not imitations of the latest MTV star.

When it was cold, you wore snow pants (with your dress tucked in) and boots that fit over your shoes.

Kids walked to school, home for lunch, back to school, and then back home. The hyperactive ones ran.l No wonder there was so little childhood obesity and fewer problems with hyperactivity.

You could be out playing until bedtime, and as long as you stayed on the block, you wouldn't get into trouble.

There was a kind of pop machine that consisted of a cooler containing ice/water and 8-oz. bottles held in place by steel rods. Putting a dime into the machine let you slide a bottle out and up through a release lever.

There was nothing on TV that a grade school child couldn't watch.

Walgreen's had a lunch counter, and you could get turkey with mashed potatoes and peas for 69 cents.

Department stores sold everything, not just clothes: books, appliances, electronics, furniture, toys, even stamps and coins. The basement was where the sale merchandise was.

Sears catalogue sold even more things, including Shetland ponies. I was very disappointed that my parents never took advantage of this possibility.

Drive-in movies were favored by two groups: teenagers who wanted to make out or have sex, and parents who wanted to go to a movie without getting a sitter, so they put the kids in their pajamas and let them go to sleep in the back seat.

There were no seat belts, so if the car came to a sudden stop, the driver put his or her arm out in front of any children who were sitting in the front seat.

[Lars39]

96. My dad used to order his queen bees from Sears.

I'm within 30 minutes of 2 drive-ins; "closed for the season" now of course, but back open in the late spring.

Most families only had one car, if that. If mom needed the car, she'd have to drive dad to work. Yellow cabs used to have those little fold-down seats in the back.

[VelmaD]

99. Was talking to my 4 year old nephew...

about this very thing this morning. My brother had turned off the electricity to do some wiring work on my parents' house. The nephew couldn't believe it when I told him that when we were his age my brother and I didn't have a computer. When his nanna and papaw were his age they didn't have a tv. And when his great-nanna was his age she didn't even have electricity. It was neat. It took a while for him to really believe me and when he did the look of amazement on his face was priceless. Made him appreciate how much he has I think. And we had a lot of fun finding ways to amuse ourselves today that didn't involve electricity. We played with cars and ninja turtles and old Star Wars toys that my brother found when he was going through some stuff from up in the attic. We made up stories about them and wrestled a little bit and hit golf balls out in the backyard. It was good for him. :-)

[CoNnOc]

101. I hate old people stories!

Go back to your rockers and drink some egg nog! :)
-Young Whipper-snapper

[BurtWorm]

104. In my day we used to blend our own egg nog

And rockers were clash city rockers. Yep. We had it toof.

[CoNnOc]

106. Haha

Not only did you have to pop the egg out your arse because they didn't have chickens back then but you had to spit in a cup to mix with the egg because they didn't water back then either!
-Young'in

[Bombero1956]

107. my Dad

sent me to the corner store with 50 cents, 1 pack of Viceroy cigaretts and 10 cents worth of penny candy and my ole man got a nickle back as change.