I remember when...a trip through the 20th Century

[ivylass]

I remember when:

Stamps were 15 cents, and then shortly after that they jumped to 17 cents.

My dad brought home this new fangled machine called a VCR, and we watched our first video...Alien.

We didn't have cable at our house because we lived too far out. We got four channels, including the PBS station, and we had to get up and change the channel.

My mother paid by credit card the clerk had to flip through a book to make sure her number wasn't On the List.

You could rent both VHS and Beta movies.

Happy Days and Laverne and Shirley aired back to back at 8pm (?) on ABC.

Challenger exploded.

Legwarmers were in style.

Girls used to clip feathers to their hair.

Teachers used to be able to paddle students for misbehaving.

Phys Ed was a class in high school.




Your turn. :)

[twickster]

The first time I saw a 6-cent stamp -- and thought, yikes, I didn't know they made them in such high numbers!

Beatlemania.

The New York World's Fair.

JFK's inauguration.

The first time I saw color TV.

Saying the Lord's Prayer in a public school; this was, of course, a couple of years before they actually integrated said school. :eek:

[kunilou]

Not being allowed to play with other kids because there was a polio epidemic.

Penny candy that actually cost a penny.

My sister's poodle skirt.

Howdy Doody

Ike

"Atomic bomb" drills

The seven Mercury astronauts. I can still name them.

Crosses burning in front of the school that was being integrated and "Colored Only" rest rooms.

[RunSilent]

Ike's first inaugeration on TV

first class postage going from 3 cents to 4 cents

Soviet invasion of Hungary

The Edsel

Testing of Nukes shown on TV

Howdy Doody

Beginnings of space exploration

Cuban Missle Crisis

JFK murdered

Vietnam War

Hippies

etc. etc. etc.

[BrotherCadfael]

I was born in 1957, and I remember when Italians, Greeks, Jews, Poles, and many other ethnicities were not considered "white", and therefore were second-class citizens. Blacks were, at best, third-class.

I've posted this before, but it just shocks me so much that I have to repeat it.

[Phlosphr]

I rmember when my dad brought home a video disk player (the disks looked like a record, but played movies, and were encased in a hard sheith)
We watched Krull.

Gremlins

GI Joe with Kung Foo Grip

Buster Brown Dress Slacks (uhhgg I hate that word)

Panama Jack

velcro fly

Varnet Sun Glasses

Big Hair

Rush and Cinderella at the Worchester Centrum.

Jean Jackets

Feathered Hair

[fishbicycle]

The seven TV stations we received on a rotating antenna signed on in the morning and off after The Late, Late Movie. In between, there was...nothing. And when you turned off the TV, the picture dissolved into a white horizontal line across the middle of the screen, that faded into a dot, then blackness.

TV Guides cost a dime.

A gallon of gas for the lawn mower was a quarter.

Not only penny candy, but candies that were 3 or 5 for a penny.

Coke in small, green glass bottles that cost 7 cents.

When Canada got its new Maple Leaf flag.

24/7 TV coverage of Gemini space missions where they floated around the earth.

One play for a dime, three for a quarter in the Rock-Ola juke box, that had remote units at your booth in the restaurant. You flipped the pages to see the titles of the records.

Pizza came in a box of ingredients. You made the dough and spread the sauce on it and baked it yourself. You couldn't buy a fresh, hot one anywhere, never mind have it delivered!

[Anaamika]

Not being allowed to play with other kids because there was a polio epidemic.



:eek: I work for...the March of Dimes, the charity that cured polio. We've got posters and books and stuff about all those days, and Salk, and the vaccines. I occasionally chat with people who lived through it, but...wow. Just wow.

[wasson]

My dad has polio. He's got a ton of stories. After hearing them you'd wonder how he's such a pleasant fellow.

I remember wanting an Inspector Gadget doll I saw at the toy store. My mom refused to spend the money on it. I recently bought the doll on eBay for $90.

I remember my BetaMax VCR with a remote attached with a 10' cord.

My Commodore 64 (I still use the monitor to watch DVDs on when I work out)

[Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor]

I remember Neil Armstrong, & that Giant Step.

I remember our family being the first ones in the neighborhood to own an automatic coffee maker. Everybody came over to see Mom, & everybody had a cup o joe. Come to think of it, we were the first kids on our street to be allowed to drink coffee on a regular basis. Everybody else was told it would stunt their growth.

[picker]

Commander Salamander skinny ties
Vans
Parachute Pants
Raybans
Modems that you stuck the phone handset into
Text Adventure
Apple IIe and TRS-80 games
Intellavision
Atari
Colecovision
Donkey Kong
Pac-Man
Defender
Pitfall
Sixteen Candles
Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure
Risky Business
Commando
Star Wars and GI Joe Action Figures.


Ah, to be a teenage boy in the mid-80s!

[tremorviolet]

I remember when all the kids in my neighborhood wanted to come over to see the "computer". Which was really a terminal hooked up to the university's mainframe through one of those old modems that had little rubber cups to hold the phone. And we could play Star Trek on it!

[Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor]

GI Joe was cool, but you should have seen Major Matt Mason (http://www.wildtoys.com/MMMPage/index.asp)

http://www.wildtoys.com/MMMPage/MMMplayers/Matt1.jpg

http://www.wildtoys.com/MMMPage/MattelPlaysets/6300_MMMFlightCardFront.asp

http://www.wildtoys.com/MMMPage/MattelPlaysets/6304_SpaceCrawlerSide1.asp

http://www.wildtoys.com/MMMPage/MMMplayers/stor1det.jpg

http://www.wildtoys.com/MMMPage/MMMplayers/callidet.jpg

http://www.wildtoys.com/MMMPage/MMMplayers/jef1det.jpg

A great page--

http://www.majormattmason.net/

[picker]

Thanks, Bosda - the site you linked also has a section for the Shogun Warriors (http://www.wildtoys.com/Shogun/index.asp) which were some of my favorite toys and of which I had entirely forgotten.

[Chefguy]

Duck and cover.
Collecting money for an iron lung for a schoolmate with polio (he died).
Weekly serials at the movie theater.
Bandstand.
Annette.
Hula Hoops.
'Warming up' the TV set/radio.

[Redwing]

The wall came down.

Mount St. Helens erupted.

"You sir, are no Jack Kennedy"

Amber Vision

"Luke, I am your father"

"Read my lips"

The Church Lady

The Miracle on Ice

Getting a brick from the floor of the Martin Bomber Building

Having a high-end computer: The Apple II+

[KRC]

I remember the RFK assassination and dial phones.

I also remember Iron Eyes Cody. As kids,when someone dropped litter on the ground, we'd scold the person by saying "You made the Indian cry!"

I remember when computers were these gigantic things that printed data on punch cards. Or were fed data on punch cards. Or something like that. You didn't have them in your house, unless you were doing something cool like combatting aliens or spies.

I remember when a friend was told by someone "Your father is a hippie!" The friend's father had taken part in an anti Vietnam War demonstration and been on the TV news.

[lieu]

I remember when . . .

I saw my first color TV,

they'd announce body counts from Viet Nam on the evening news,

Bobby Kennedy was assisinated,

getting a polio shot, everyone had that scar on their arm,

gas wars would frequently send the price to 24 cents,

muscle cars, and when

a lot of people used to hitchhike.

[ivylass]

Also...

skinny Little People toys.

Rick Springfield, Chicago, Hall & Oates

Driving a car that took leaded gas, which, as a poor college student, was a cheap fill-up

Having a pool in the backyard that wasn't enclosed with a security system

Taking art and music lessons in school

[Hypno-Toad]

I remember when knobs would come off the TV and you had to use a pair of wire pliers to change the channel (Ka-CHUNK, Ka-CHUNK, Ka-CHUNK). Not that that was a real hassle since you only had a few clicks to see every channel.

[Spectre of Pithecanthropus]

In no particular order:

Commercials for the IBM PC Junior PC, which you had to plug into your TV to use.

Did anyone actually ever buy and use one of those?

From around 1967, individual bags of chips costing only $.08 at the corner liquor store.

Same time, Revelle models cost only a dollar or two. I think a pair of Levis was only $9 or so.

From the same time, actually being able to get a buck or so on a couple of cases of bottles. That was a lot of money for a kid back then (see above).

Late '80s to early '90s: Videotheque video rental stores. They really had interesting stuff; modern chain stores don't compare.

Dressing up to fly, and flying seeming to be terribly exciting. When I was around 8 to go someplace on a plane was the most exciting thing ever.

"Me and Mr. Jones". For those living in my neighborhood who remember the Java Joe coffeehouse at Brockton and Santa Monica, the Counting Crows CD that contained that song was literally the soundtract of the closing party.

[Spectre of Pithecanthropus]

For those living in my neighborhood who remember the Java Joe coffeehouse at Brockton and Santa Monica, the Counting Crows CD that contained that song was literally the soundtract of the closing party.

Umm...that's soundtrack of course.

[LifeOnWry]

Lyndon Johnson's funeral.

"Houston, we have a problem."

Stories on the news about the Manson Family (I initially thought they were a band.)

Creature Features and Svengoolie. Equally regional, Larry Lujack and Li'l Snot-Nosed Tommy, Frasier Thomas, Ray Rayner.

"Up your nose with a rubber hose."

Girls having to wear skirts to school.

Not being allowed to watch Laugh-In because I was too young.

Odyssey. Pong. Intellivision.

Space Food Sticks.

Walking to the drugstore on the corner to get my Mom a pack of cigarettes - and it was OK, because I had a note.

[Craneop2]

Lieu Wasn't that big red scar on everyones arm a TB innoculation? I seem to remember we took the Polio vaccine on a sugar cube.

I can remember my dad built our first TV from a kit while he was taking a correspondence course on tv and radio repair. We were the first on the block with a TV and everyone came to our house to see Uncle Miltie!

I can remember getting to go to the drive-in movie because that was the only place to see the re-plays of all the important boxing matches.

I remember my dads best freind coming home from Korea, on crutches.

Those were the good old days? Except for technology, nothing really ever does change I reckon.

[ivylass]

Not being allowed to watch Laugh-In because I was too young.



For me, it was Dallas.

SuperFriends, with the Wonder Twins and the monkey. Getting mad after 12 noon on Saturdays because the cartoons were over.

The Iran hostages.

The Clarence Thomas hearings.

Lt. Col Oliver North

Refusing my first ATM card because it would have cost me $10 to get it and $1 every time I used it.

Riding in my boyfriend's new car...a Z28.

[Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor]

Same time, Revelle models cost only a dollar or two.


I remember those models!!

In the 70's, we'd go to Pewaukee Lake in the summers to swim, & Mom would buy me model kits to build. I built a WW2 cruiser, a WW2 Destroyer Escort, a 3 foot long copy of the battleship USS New Jersey, and models of Rodan and King Ghidera.
:D :cool:

[E. Thorp]

Phys Ed was a class in high school.
Is this no longer true?

[BurnMeUp]

When the earth's crust cooled and solidified

the continental drift

learning how to make fire

[Lute Skywatcher]

Commercials for the IBM PC Junior PC, which you had to plug into your TV to use.

Did anyone actually ever buy and use one of those?Radio Shack sold them as the Tandy 1000. I bought one, not knowing what it really was.

[Spectre of Pithecanthropus]

Refusing my first ATM card because it would have cost me $10 to get it and $1 every time I used it.

.

That would have been your zeroth ATM card, not your first.

[Lumpy]

Comic books for fifteen cents.

Mel Brooks was funny. :p

"The 21st century" was synonomous with a Jetsons type high-tech future. Someday people would watch flat screen TVs, there'd be a tunnel under the English Channel, and everything would be run by computers. (But where's my moonbase??)

If you had only bills and no change, you couldn't get anything from a vending machine.

Halloween was a lighthearted children's holiday.

As late as 1970 the midsized city of Savannah GA (where I lived as a child) had no ABC affiliate tv station.

A "filling station" was a place where you bought gasoline for your car. Maybe cigarettes or a candy bar too, but that was it. A serviceman pumped it for you and might also check your oil, clean your windshield, or add air to your tires.

Schools still had an actual piece of flat polished black slate as the chalkboard.

You went downtown to go shopping.

Ice cream was the generic stuff sold by the quart in supermarkets. Premium ice cream like Hagen-Daz didn't appear until the late 1970s.

The microwave oven became a big success. Garbage compacters didn't.

[Agonist]

Lieu Wasn't that big red scar on everyones arm a TB innoculation? I seem to remember we took the Polio vaccine on a sugar cube.

That's a Smallpox vaccination. And if you were born after 1970 you don't have one. (I know because I was one of the last.)

[Agonist]

That's a Smallpox vaccination. And if you were born after 1970 you don't have one. (I know because I was one of the last.)

:smack: I mean the scar on your arm is a smallpox vaccination. Sorry to be unclear, there.

[Tapioca Dextrin]

I remember the days when household objects didn't vibrate randomly (toothbrushes, razor blades, phones etc. ). Those were the days.

[KRC]

I remember when my grandfather got his first microwave and my mother told my father he was crazy. After all, everyone knew that all those things were good for was causing poodles to explode. Of course a few years later we got one.

Speaking of poodles, I remember when MTV first aired and my sister fell in love with half the rock stars she saw on the channel. This caused an argument between my sister and her friend, who apparently had said that if Nick Rhodes of Duran Duran were a dog, he'd be a poodle.

I remember smallpox shots and having the mumps because there was no shot for it. I remember collecting for the March of Dimes--wasn't their campaign by the 70's "Help stamp out birth defects!" or something of that nature?

In my church youth group we also collected for UNICEF. Some people wouldn't donate because they believed it was a communist front group.

[ivylass]

That's a Smallpox vaccination. And if you were born after 1970 you don't have one. (I know because I was one of the last.)

I was born in 1967 and I don't have one. :confused:

To continue...

Debating in science class the metric system, and how easy it would be for everyone when the US switched over.

Going over to my friend's house to play this cool game called Pong on her Atari.

Flying with my mother and sitting in the no-smoking section of the plane.

E. Thorp, in my kids' school, PE is not a "class." The high school students are required to sign up for an extracurricular sport, but there is no daily dress-out for PE.

It could be different in other parts of the country.

[Alice The Goon]

Skylab. We lived in Flint, MI at the time and my dad took us to a parking garage and we sat there in the car all day.

Trucker songs being popular. Ten-four good buddy!

You used to be able to smoke in your hospital bed. (That one really trips me out now.)

The Miss America/Penthouse controversy.



In 1993 my then-husband told my sister-in-law that some day instead of having records or CDs, music would be stored on comuter chips and we'd listen to songs via hand-held comuter. She exclaimed that she couldn't even keep track of all her records and cassettes, how would she ever keep track of all those tiny little computer chips??

[racer72]

Stingray bikes with banana seats and hi-rise handlebars.

Skateboards with skinny metal wheels.

Leaving the house in the morning and be gone all day till dark and your parents didn't care.

Riding in the back of a pickup truck, leaning against the tailgate while my dad drove 75 mph down the freeway.

Riding your bike with your buddy to a housing development 10 miles away on Halloween so you could get more candy.

At 10 years old getting up at 5 in the morning to go catch a rickety old bus that would take you to a berry farm in the valley. Then pick strawberries or raspberries for 50 cents a flat. On a good day you could make $3.

Going to a drive in theatre with your family to watch a double bill. Half way through the second movie my brother and I would go look in the windows of cars parked in the last row of the theatre. I still remember some guy chasing us while trying to pull up his pants.

[ITR champion]

Inspector Gadget at 7:00, Loony Tunes at 7:30.

The Berlin wall coming down. I had relatives living in East Germany at the Time.

The opening of the Toyota plant in Frankfort, Kentucky. They gave tours.

Playing with Brio trains, which were made out of wood.

Nike pumps.

Trapper keepers.

Yes, I am a true child of the 80's.

[dwyr]

...
The opening of the Toyota plant in Frankfort, Kentucky. They gave tours. ....



Must have been some tour. The Toyota plant is in Georgetown. ;)


I remember having a party line (telephone).

When milk cost three cents a carton at school.

When a 16k computer hooked up to a b&w tv and a cassette tape player was the
coolest thing ever.





(Oh, re the smallpox vaccination scar-I had the shot but never developed a scar. I'm guessing not everyone ended up with one.)

[Torgo]

Hogan's Heroes. My earliest memory. Sad.

One of the moon shots.

Terrorism at the Munich Olympics.

Nixon resigns.

President Ford and his WIN (Whip Inflation Now) campaign.

Assassination attempts on Ford.

Bicentennial.

President Carter elected.

Iran hostage crisis.

[thirdwarning]

I remember having a party line (telephone).

(Oh, re the smallpox vaccination scar-I had the shot but never developed a scar. I'm guessing not everyone ended up with one.)

We were taught in first grade how to dial the phone and what to do if our call was an emergency and someone else was using the line.

I only needed to remember the last four digits of phone numbers because that was all I needed to dial. In fact, if I dialed all seven the call often didn't go through.

Lining up for the little paper cup with the sugar cube in it. (Polio vaccine) The whole family went, even my Nana. I was old enough to pick up on the fact that it was important, but I didn't really understand why.

The truck with the x-ray machine came to town about once a year and it was a smart thing to get the chest x-ray.

Oh, and that smallpox scar? I remember an episode of Love Boat where the "wild man" was discovered to be a hoax because he had the scar. You really wanted the vaccination to "take" the first time around, because otherwise you'd have to do it again.

Our doctor would stop in on his way home to check on us, if he knew we were sick. And there was always that bottle of white, chalky, nasty-minty medicine in the cabinet for when we threw up. (For years that was the smell of nausea for me.) We'd get it refilled at the doctor's office.

[eleanorigby]

Saturday night line-up on TV as follows:

Room 222
Mary Tyler Moore
Bob Newhart Show (the first one)
Carol Burnett Show
----news------(make popcorn here)
Love, American Style, then, a few years later:
Saturday Night Live!


Collecting for UNICEF with an orange box that we folded ourselves on Halloween.

Girl Scouts that actually camped--outside in tents.

Knee socks--we called them "opaques".

Disney matinees (Escape From Witch Mountain etc) cost $0.75

TAB was a very popular drink

Tang came on the market--with Spacesticks--yum!

Apollo landing at school--we got to watch TV at school! Very exciting.

Contact lenses were invented

StingRay bikes (Orange Crates et al)--Schwinn was THE name in bikes.....

Getting shot with the vaccine gun for polio, smallpox etc. Scared the hell outta me!

Turning out lights, conserving water, gas lines from the OPEC energy crisis

Finding out what MIA meant, after seeing my older sibs and their friends wearing bracelets.

Typing out every paper in college, all the different types of paper, white-out, erasable paper etc....

TouchTone was a brand--and we had dial at home. My kids didn't know how to use the old dial phone we ran across the other day(!)

Bang and Olufsen turntables, with Jensen speakers and ?

8 track tapes

[Marley23]

The annoying noise AOL modems used to make, and the horror of getting kicked offline by an incoming phone call. Then the thrill of getting a separate phone line.

Nickelodeon and Nick at Nite, which of course (commercials painstakingly explained to us) were the same channel, as opposed to a network of what, 300?

TVs with 13 channels, and cable when it was something not everybody had, and only a few channels.

[Paul in Qatar]

Milk in school cost a penny.
The brand-new 707.
Jack Kennedy's funeral on the brand-new color TV.
Dial telephones, made of metal.
My Dad wearing a hat to work in the morning.
My Mom's Chrysler Imperial with a push-button transmission.
Wondering what they would call the Phillips 66 gas station next year.
The first interstate highway near our house. Lots of scary 'Wrong Way' signs on exit ramps.
Skyjacking planes to Cuba to help Fidel with the sugar harvest.
The first moon landing in the middle of the night on the east coast.
The F-4 Phantom was a 'hot jet.'
Nixon's resignation on TV.
The Draft.
My first pair of green Army fatigues. (Permanent press combat uniforms?)
Army tanks with large white stars painted on them.

[Zoe]

Radio shows: One Man's Family, Baby Snooks, Gangbusters, Beulah, Arthur Godfrey, Grand Slam, Let's Pretend

Johnny Mercer's "Accentuate the Positive"

TV Shows: Pride of the Family, the Life of Riley, My Little Margie, I Remember Mama, Molly Goldberg, Pinky Lee, Molly Bee

Comic books: Millie the Model, A Date with Judy

Books: Wait for Marcy, Marcy Catches Up, A Man for Marcy, Double Date

Sleeping with a fan on and my head at the foot of the bed near the open window

babydoll pajamas

bunking parties, tacky parties, come-as-you-are parties

Avon perfumes: Daisies Won't Tell, Nearness, Occur, Here's My Heart, Cotillion, To a Wild Rose, Persian Wood

The McCarthy Hearings (That's when I first learned that adults outside of the family got mad at each other.)

Crying whenever I heard the seagulls at the beginning of Ebb Tide.

pinafores, princess slips, white gloves, polishing white shoes, checking that the seams in my hose were straight, veils on hats, orchids on my shoulder on Easter, red roses on my shoulder on Mother's Day, wearing rubberbands to keep by bobby socks up, spit curls, "your slip is showing."

seeing a satellite for the first time as it moved through the sky -- maybe it was Sputnik

Perry Como's sweaters

Music: The Platters' "Only You," Presley's "You're So Young and Beautiful," Johnny Mathis's "Wild is the Wind"

[kniz]

Stamps were 15 cents, and then shortly after that they jumped to 17 cents.
I remember 3 cent stamps and 1 cent postcards.
My dad brought home this new fangled machine called a VCR, and we watched our first video...Alien.
An old woman invited a bunch of us in to watch a 10" black and white TV. WOW!
We didn't have cable at our house because we lived too far out. We got four channels, including the PBS station, and we had to get up and change the channel.
I still live too far out for cable, but that's another thread. I remember listening to the radio and ordering rings from Sky King.
My mother paid by credit card the clerk had to flip through a book to make sure her number wasn't On the List.
I remember when credit cards came out. Diners Club was the first. I also remember getting S&H stamps for using a credit card or cash.
You could rent both VHS and Beta movies.
I remember when the only news you saw instead of read or heard was at the movies. I remember ticker tapes, but that isn't related.
Happy Days and Laverne and Shirley aired back to back at 8pm (?) on ABC.
I remember Uncle Miltie on TV, but before that Fibber McGee and Molly on the radio.
Challenger exploded.
I remember when the moon was made out of cheese. The more advanced idea was it depicted two lovers kissing.
Legwarmers were in style.
Bobby sox and men wore hats.
Girls used to clip feathers to their hair.
Girls wore scarfs tied under their chins.
Teachers used to be able to paddle students for misbehaving.
I remember being glad the teacher used a paddle, but promised not to tell my folks.
Phys Ed was a class in high school.
I remember when there wasn't any orginized sports before you got to high school.
Once they organized a father/son baseball game and I hated it. The fathers wanted to tell us how to play, which was dumb.
I remember WWII. We lived near Wright/Patterson Field (the Air Force was part of the Army) and we had to have practice blackouts. That wasn't too bad, since we were listening to the radio.
I remember when the atom bombs were dropped. I remember the sound barrier being broken and heard it happen soon afterward since Chuck was based at Wright/Patterson.
I remember the first ball-point pens and first calculators. Both cost much much more than you'd believe.
I remember Hi-Fi, but stereo soon made it obsolete. Oh, and the records that broke easily.
I remember when you could only get orange juice in season. People would come home from Florida with wild stories of getting all you could drink for 50 cents at roadside stands.
California was on the other side of the world. My grandmother took me there when I was seven. It took a week on the train to get there. I was the only kid I ever knew that had been there. My relatives would send us jelly from there on Christmas.
During Christmas vacation in college I worked for the US Post Office delivering mail. The regular carrier sorted the mail and I did his route 3 times every day except on Sunday for a week. I bet you didn't know people ever sent that many Christmas cards. I was glad when Christmas came because my feet hurt so bad.
In elementary school I rode my bike to school (over a mile), but in high school I was too old for a bike so I walked a little farther to high school. My senior year I drove a car to school, but only because I saved enough of my money to buy it, including the insurance.
That ain't all, but I'll quit there.

[KRC]

Mandatory VD education--back when they only discussed two kinds. And the teachers saying they would take us to the public health clinic themselves if any of us thought we had VD.

We didn't have nuclear war drills (though we had fire drills and tornado drills.) A kid in one of my classes stated that our town (Lexington, KY) was 50th on the list of towns Russia would bomb. He didn't say where he found this information, nor did any of the rest of us ask if he even knew what he was talking about.

My mother remembers nuke drills and my father remembers thinking his neighbor was a commy back during the Red Scare. He and his friends snuck over one night and searched the neighbor's garbage can for evidence. As far as I know they didn't find any.

[jabiru]

We didn't get television in Australia until 1956 and it was the highlight of our week to get into our PJs on Saturday night, after dinner, and troop down the street to the neighbour's house. We'd sit in rapt attention watching a 17" b & w screen. I can't remember what we watched but we were enthralled.

Public telephones had an ear thingy which was separate from the mouthpiece so us little children (no one was a 'kid' in those days' would have to climb onto the shelf next to the phone, put our four large, brown pennies onto the slot and twist our small bods around so we could talk into the mouthpiece.

One year Santa brought me a crystal set. What a magical invention that was. Last Christmas I got an MP3 player. :D

[Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor]

Skylab. We lived in Flint, MI at the time and my dad took us to a parking garage and we sat there in the car all day.


:confused: :confused: :confused: :confused: :confused:

the point of this was...?


:confused: :confused: :confused: :confused:

[ivylass]

Bosda, I think Skylab was the satellite that was falling out of the sky and they weren't sure where it would land. trublmakr's dad was probably trying to keep them safe?

And damn, kniz, you're old! ;)

I remember when Phil Collins was part of a group, and Wham!, and when the country group Alabama was huge.

I remember when AIDS first came out.

[davmilasav]

the point of this was...?



So Skylab didn't fall on him and kill him. :smack:

I grew up in the Pittsburgh area. I remember stuff like...

One For the Thumb in '81!!
The Terrible Towel
The Steel Curtain
Franco's Army

And more generically:

Farrah Fawcett-Majors (and her hair)
My Dorothy Hamill haircut
The Six Million Dollar Man/Bionic Woman dolls (I belonged to the Lindsay Wagner Fan Club.)
KISS was eeeeeeeeeee-ville
Not to mention Alice Cooper
The Muppet Show, guest starring the cast of Star Wars
Being allowed to stay up late to watch the 1976 Olympics
Nadia's perfect 10's
Le Car
The K Car
Going to the roller rink on Sundays after church
"This show brought to you...in COLOR" with the little peacock that would walk out and spread its tail.

And so much more
FWIW I have the vaccination scar, as do my mother and brother. He was born in 1974. Maybe my hometown was a backwater?

[Hypno-Toad]

I remember:

Unleaded gas and full service being the only way gas stations worked. I liked watching the guy squeegee the windshield.

Orange crush came in little brown bottles and had actual orange pulp.

The advent of the new, permanently attached pop-tops on soda cans. Too young to remember them appearing on beer cans.

Scratch n' Sniff stickers. What a stupid concept.

Godawful 70's fashions. The first time.

Loving my Atari 2600 and coveting my friends' Intelllivision.

Colecovision

Digital watches and adults moaning that kids would never be able to tell time on a regular clock.

That hot new singer, Madonna.

Hearing about Reagan getting shot while I was on my way home from school.

My Great Uncle asking me if I listened to "that jungle music." Man, was HE old.

The principal announcing the Challenger disaster during my 10th-grade science class.

[Mycroft H.]

In the 70's, we'd go to Pewaukee Lake in the summers to swim …

That’s a cool coincidence. I lived in ol’ Peeville from ‘69 to ‘73.

It is interesting to gauge how old the various Dopers are by their responses. There are a lot of memories being dredged up by this thread. Too many times I’ve thought “Wait, that’s not old enough to be mentioned in this thread” and then remembering it was 20 years ago. :(

Some random additions:

GI Joe

The thrill of the whole space race.

Seeing 2001: A Space Odyssey on the big screen movie theater (there weren’t any other kinds).

Going to Target in Duluth when there were only a few of them in the country, and all in Minnesota

In college typing out computer punch cards for batch programming in Fortran

[Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor]

That’s a cool coincidence. I lived in ol’ Peeville from ‘69 to ‘73.

It is interesting to gauge how old the various Dopers are by their responses. There are a lot of memories being dredged up by this thread. Too many times I’ve thought “Wait, that’s not old enough to be mentioned in this thread” and then remembering it was 20 years ago. :(

Some random additions:

GI Joe

The thrill of the whole space race.

Seeing 2001: A Space Odyssey on the big screen movie theater (there weren’t any other kinds).

Going to Target in Duluth when there were only a few of them in the country, and all in Minnesota

In college typing out computer punch cards for batch programming in Fortran

Did you attend the Episcopalian church? We might have met in Sunday school. I was one of the altarboys.

[MovieMogul]

I remember what an E-ticket ride was.

[ivylass]

Speaking of the Olympics...

I remember the track runner with her incredibly long fingernails, boycotting the event in Moscow, and Kerri Strug landing on her sprained ankle to nail the womens all-around in gymnastics and having to be carried to the podium by her coach.

I remember when there was only one 60 Minutes, the premier of Friends, and who shot J.R. I remember when Hugh Downs was on 20/20. I remember Tiannenmen (sp) Square, mainly because I worked at a CBS affiliate then and we had to screen calls from angry viewers upset that we interrupted Dallas. The people have no concept of "network" vs. "affiliate." IIRC, CBS did eventually re-air the last ten minutes of that particular episode.

[Sean Factotum]

I grew up in the Pittsburgh area. I remember stuff like...

One For the Thumb in '81!!
The Terrible Towel
The Steel Curtain
Franco's Army
Same here, but it seems a bit earlier. From home, I remember:
- Going to see baseball games at Forbes Field
- Attending the '71 World Series at the brand-new Three Rivers Stadium
- The US Steel building being built duntun
- seeing concerts at The Stanley Theater
- Little Jimmy Roach (solo) on WDVE in the afternoons
- pop music on KQV-AM, with the little weekly list of Top songs at National Record Marts (usually printed in hard-to-read type on orange paper)
- swimming at the city pool that was just outside the Western Penitentiary
- two of my friends on the front page of the Pittsburgh Press pointing at the ALCOSAN plant, saying "It just sticks."
- driving into the North Side on weekends to watch MTV at my friend Warno's house (driving a '70 Chevelle Malibu that had an FM converter and an 8-track player in the glove box)
- The Electric Banana
- Rocky Horror Picture Show at the King's Court in Oakland
- being lucky enough to catch the Iron City Houserockers and Donnie Iris at outdoor all-ages shows

[butler1850]

I remember:


Digital watches and adults moaning that kids would never be able to tell time on a regular clock.



Funny you should mention that... I have a niece that is 4 now. She asked what time it was, so I replied "Can you tell time?" She said "Yes!", so I showed her my watch... an analog watch (with hands), she just looked at me baffled.

My thoughts...

Dialup modems, at 300baud. Text only.

Internet at college, in the computer lab, lon the VAX system, text only.

1/2 the freshman engineering students, all taking Fortran, and waiting for access to the 10 workstations in the Nuclear Engineering building to compile, and turn in our programs.

Bringing my Apple IIe to college, and feeling pretty good, as I had hooked up my VCR as a tuner to the color monitor. (one of the few of both, VCR and color tv, on my dorm floor)

5 1/4" diskettes, no hard drive in that Apple IIe.

8" Floppy Disks on the Wang mini-frame computer in the high school computer lab. I was the only one in the school who had touched it in years, and likely the only one that knew anything about it, and that wasn't saying much.

Doing a report on blood in 1984, interviewing some folks at the hospital bloodbank, and finding out about HIV for the first time.

Having some *ahem* questionable relations in college, and not really worrying about any infections. :rolleyes: (Dumb, as things were "spreading" then)

My first cell phone (6 pounds, with a 1 pound battery). Wondering how I'd use 100 minutes a month!

[kunilou]

I remember Tiannenmen (sp) Square, mainly because I worked at a CBS affiliate then and we had to screen calls from angry viewers upset that we interrupted Dallas. The people have no concept of "network" vs. "affiliate."

The people have no concept of "nighttime soap opera that was already on its last legs" vs. "moment that will be in history books 100 years from now" either.

[Alice The Goon]

:confused: :confused: :confused: :confused: :confused:

the point of this was...?


:confused: :confused: :confused: :confused:


Oh. Well, excuse me, Bosda. I didn't realize I'd made a faux pas. Please forgive my ignorance.

[Alice The Goon]

Oh, I see. You meant the point of sitting in a parking garage. Yes, it wasn't clear where it would land.
I thought you meant the point of my post and I thought you were being cranky. Oops. I'll shut up now.

[voguevixen]

I remember banks were closed on weekends and there were no ATMs yet. If you didn't get to the bank for cash by 5 on Friday, you were SOL for cash that weekend.

I remember the only credit card you could use at Sears was the Sears card, then the were like the only place to take Discover for like 2 years. (My parents still say "do you take Discover?" at places. DUH!)

Visa and MasterCard used to be something like "MasterCharge and BankAmericard"

We also had one of the first VCRs with the long cord for the remote. The remote was a toggle switch: play/record and pause/stop. I remember actually staying up late to tape movies and pausing during the commercials, so you'd have a "commercial free" tape for later.

I remember when video stores started popping up everywhere. In people's garages, in gas stations, in old grocery stores and movie theaters. Each store might only have like 200 videos, and you had to have memberships at like 10 different stores because the first 9 might be out of everything on Saturday night, or only one had the music video you wanted.

I remember when wine coolers were cool the first time, and them being advertised by Ringo Starr and Bartles & Jaymes.

I remember my mom making my brother and I matching red, white, and blue striped outfits for the Bicentennial parade. I also had bicentennial "chuck taylor" style sneakers that had eagles on the toe, and a BigWheel knockoff that was bicentennial themed. I remember Big Wheels and Green Machines. (I was trying to describe these to my Niece and Nephew over xmas, and they had no idea what I was talking about.)

I remember those round Panasonic transistor radios on a long chain.

Crack'd magazine, Mad fold-ins, weird magazine ads for blacklight posters or disco necklaces that said "foxy lady" or "100% Bitch"

First crush: Shaun Cassidy, then Luke Skywalker

I remember my mom being really into the whole "Star Wars" thing and how the first was really the fourth and it was going to take all these years to make them. She said "Someday I'll be taking my grandkids to see the last Star Wars" and she might actually be right!

I remember how you had to rent or buy a phone from the phone company and it was insanely expensive. It was extra to have someone come in and install an extra line, and if you had one your family was probably rich. Moreso if one was "TouchTone" as already mentioned. Now every house comes with like 20 phone jacks and you can get phones by the truckload everywhere you shop.

[ivylass]

I remember when Roots came out, and what a media frenzy that was! The mini-series, the book, even our newspaper printed excerpts.

I remember taping The Thorn Birds so I could keep it (still have it) and talking about it with my friends at school the next day.

I remember Shogun and Omi-san peeing on Richard Chamberlain's back. That was huge.

I remember the final episode of MASH.

I remember my father getting me John Jakes series on the Kent family, and then later, the North and South trilogy.

I remember going to see Lewis Grizzard in person. That man's accent was so thick it was difficult to understand him at times.

[Spectre of Pithecanthropus]

Dialup modems, at 300baud. Text only.



We had those in the UCLA library school, 1982 - 84. There was a pair of circular rubber receptacles into which you had to shove the actual handset of the telephone.

We thought just being able to search a citation database was the hottest thing since sliced bread.

[Spectre of Pithecanthropus]

Anyone taking the time to read this thread will probably be interested in The Prelinger Archive (http://www.archive.org/movies/prelinger.php), a huge collection of ephemeral films and TV commercials.

Pau in Saudi, you should go there and check out the film 6 1/2 Magic Hours, a promotional film for the 707 depicting a jet light from Idyllwild to London.

[LucyInDisguise]

When the earth's crust cooled and solidified

the continental drift

learning how to make fire
I think we went to school together ... wasn't the secret "banging the rocks together" or something like that? I think I was absent that day ... but I certainly do remember walking to school. Uphill. In the snow. Make that 14" of snow. Every day. Did I mention that the uphill part was in both directions? :D

On the lighter side:

Standing out as the memory that most impacted my life:
I vividly remember sitting in the school lunchroom and watching the first 2 hours of news coverage before being sent home when JFK was assassinated. :(

Followed by the second:
Watching the first nationally televised murder (Oswald) :eek:

Can't forget the others: MLK, RFK :(

In no particular order:

Howdy Doody and Capt. Kangaroo
Anybody remember The Beach Boys?
A 9 Transister portable radio
$0.l9 for a gallon of gas during the Gas Wars of the early 70's
"One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind"
Pong
Laugh-in ("Wanna Walnetto?")
Tang
4 track tapes
8 track tapes
The Green Hornet
Illya Kuryakin
Bonanza
Mad Magazine
Family Shows about Family:
*The Addams Family
*The Partridge Family
*All in the Family
United Network Command for Law Enforcement vs. Technological Hierarchy for the Removal of Undesirables and the Subjugation of Humanity
The Day the Earth Stood Still
An actual play ground at the front of the Drive-in theater directly under the screen where no adult dared venture ...
The Draft Lottery -- Number 11 -- might as well voluteer ...
I'm still trying to figure out why Sony's Beta format didn't kick the VHS format's arse right out of the market place ...
Richard Milhous Nixon (IMHO, If he's just owned up to the break-in and given us a chance to forgive him, he wouldn't have had to resign -- it was the lie that got him canned ...)

[Lute Skywatcher]

(Oh, re the smallpox vaccination scar-I had the shot but never developed a scar. I'm guessing not everyone ended up with one.)Not everyone has them in the same place, either. Mine's on my right pectoral.

[Baker]

I remember the Beatles on Ed Sullivan-Third grade

The assasination and funeral of President Kennedy-Third grade

Watching "Lost In Space"

Watching the first season of Star Trek-TOS Sixth grade

Seeing men walk on the moon-Summer after eighth grade.

Polio vaccine, in a sugar cube-First grade

Watching Nixon resign the presidency-during Army basic training

[Can Handle the Truth]

Lost in Space

Hiding under your school desk from Russian A-Bombs

Aurora series of prehistoric plastic models (Cro-Magnon Woman!)

When our house was for sale, all our neighbors freaking out about the possibility that a black family might buy it.

Hippie school teachers

Singing Blowin' in the Wind and One Tin Soldier Rides Away at school

POW's coming home from Vietnam

7-11 Slurpies with collector cups

The Milkman

Planet of the Apes

[Ignatz]

Walking 200 yards to attend Kindergarten thru 5th grade at my "neighborhood" school where Miss "Smith" was the principal, then a half mile to 6th grade, then 1 mile to 7th thru 12th grade. Annual primary school class pictures, with a separate shoulder and head shot of each pupil, all on a 9 X 12 sheet (still have most of them).

The ice, milk, Cushman's Bakery, haberdasher, and Fuller Brush men's and family doctor's house calls. Backyard garbage and trash pickups, taken to the town dump and then to the incinerator.


Memorizing John Masefield's Sea Fever and The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner in Miss "Smith's" sister's 8th grade English class, the Declaration of Independence and Gettysburg Address in 10th grade and all of the US Presidents in the 11th grade (I can still recite them, at least thru Kennedy, after that my short term memory fades). Crushing a can with atmospheric pressure in Miss "Smith's" other sister's 8th grade science class. Oh, two other spinster sisters taught 8th grade math and 9th grade social studies.

Seeing Sputnik overfly my house, and later the US version-the big balloon orbiter.

Learning to drive my aunt's '50 Ford, in a cemetery and hearing the first playing of Elvis' Blue Suede Shoes while doing it.
Mad COMICS - still have several of the first 2 years' issues.
EC Comics - Tales from the Crypt, etc (still got them).

Revell plastic model planes for 29c- still have a couple dozen (all made) on top of my kitchen cabinets-retrived from Mom's attic.

My Marx and Lionel electric trains. A big Erector Set. Lincoln Logs (originals). Painting by number. Daisy Red Ryder bb gun.

Going to a neighbor's house to see the first tv in the neighborhood, to watch Jackie Gleason, Dagmar, Ed Sullivan,George Gobel. Later, the Cisco Kid and the Lone Ranger, Kukla, Fran & Ollie, Space Patrol, Tom Corbett-Space Cadet, Wally Cox as Mr. Peepers, on our set.

From the Earth to the Moon, Rocketship X-M (just bought the DVD pair--far out!), Don Winslow of the Navy and other Saturday matinee serials at the movies, at 5 cents per ticket. The Day the Earth Stood Still ("Gort- Klaatu, Barada, Nikto!")(Used later in Army of Darkness.) The Blackboard Jungle with Sidney Poitier in his 5th role, with its theme song, Bill Haley and the Comet's Rock Around the Clock.

Nash Metropolitans, Hudsons, Kaisers, Packards, Raymond Loewy's Studebaker, esp. the '53 (cars). President Eisenhower and his signing of the Highway Act to start the Interstate Highway System. Riding to/from Boston on the railroad train on snowy days before the highways put them out of business. The rr's ads said, "Will you like us in May like you did in December?" 20 cent per gallon gas.

The Really Good Old Days. But then there was

The Polio epidemic. Iron lungs. Hurricanes Carol and Edna. Having to put black window shades on all of the windows (in a seacoast town) so the German U-Boats would not be able to see silhouettes of our ships along the coast. Meat, gas and rubber tire rationing.

[leroy_the_mule]

"SixFinger! SixFinger! (http://www.samstoybox.com/toys/Sixfinger.html) , man alive! How’d I ever get along with five?”

Gas stations gave free glassware with every fill-up. We used those green bowls and glasses for a long time.

A milkman delivered milk in glass bottles to our door every day.

No metal detectors in airports.

Our mom saved S&H green stamps for several years before she cashed them in on a blender.

Cars did not come with seatbelts. Our dad was in the Air Force and got ahold of some airplane belts that he rigged into our Studebaker.

Vivid anti-drug movies in school showed nice kids puffing their first joint at a party, then: 1) going insane, possibly also followed by 2) running into traffic and getting killed. If they were at the marijuana party but did not smoke, they were still screwed because the cops would suddenly show up, arrest everybody and throw them in jail for a long time. Just the bad publicity from getting arrested ruined any chance for these kids to ever get a job or be loved by their parents again.

Five cents for a soft-serv cone at the ice cream stand.

Carnation instant breakfast. :smack:

Slide Rule class in high school. The first pocket calculator cost $200.