# Do you remember when...
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-remember-when/474893
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [November 29, 2008, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-remember-when/474893 "2008-11-29T06:03:40Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@SSG\_Schwartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SSG_Schwartz)
#### Post date: [November 29, 2008, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-remember-when/474893/1 "2008-11-29T06:03:40Z")
Gasoline (petrol) was less than a dollar a gallon?
You had to get up to change the channel?
You passed notes in class instead of IM or texting?
Sex was safe and skydiving was dangerous?
I am trying to make a new version of [pencil thin moustache](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tn7l0FJMQD0) and would appreciate anything you could contribute.
SSG Schwartz
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### Author:  [@Rigamarole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rigamarole)
#### Post date: [November 29, 2008, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-remember-when/474893/2 "2008-11-29T06:22:09Z")
In a past life maybe. Sorry I can’t help much. All I know is before the 1950’s, the world was black and white.
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### Author:  [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)
#### Post date: [November 29, 2008, 6:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-remember-when/474893/3 "2008-11-29T06:27:04Z")
I remember them times. I also remember a time before Youtube. My internet connection is from that time, hence I don’t know what you linked.
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### Author:  [@Oakminster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oakminster)
#### Post date: [November 29, 2008, 6:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-remember-when/474893/4 "2008-11-29T06:45:41Z")
I remember all of those things…well, except that IM/Text did not exist.
I remember phones with dials, not buttons.
Pay phones cost a dime.
A long distance call was a Big Deal.
When I was in first grade, candy bars cost a nickel. There was a huge one for a dime, but you almost never got that one.
And, BTW, Buffet gets cooler as the years go by. Yes, I am a pirate…200 years too late…
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### Author:  [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)
#### Post date: [November 29, 2008, 7:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-remember-when/474893/5 "2008-11-29T07:11:46Z")
I remember:
Penny candy,
Beat cops,
Pin setters (real people that reset the pins at bowling alleys),
When there was no 911,
Not eating meat on Fridays,
Double features,
Phone numbers with “exchanges”; i.e., GRanite (47),
Getting free glassware with gas purchases,
Gas stations that checked your oil and washed your windows,
Manual crank car windows
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### Author:  [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)
#### Post date: [November 29, 2008, 7:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-remember-when/474893/6 "2008-11-29T07:15:14Z")
> [@Oakminster](#):
>
> Pay phones cost a dime.
I remember that. Living in university dorms of one kind or another, usually with 19 meals a week included in the board plan, it’s amusing to recall how far a ten or twenty dollar bill went. During my junior year abroad in Germany, a half-litre beer at the pub, which was conveniently attached to the dorm complex in which I lived, cost one mark, which was about forty-five cents at the time.
> [@](#):
>
> A long distance call was a Big Deal.
Oh yeah. Again reverting to college life, a protest heard at least twice a week was, "Keep it down you guys, I’m talking _long DISTANCE_!
> [@](#):
>
> When I was in first grade, candy bars cost a nickel. There was a huge one for a dime, but you almost never got that one.
I’m too young to remember nickel candy bars, but I do remember individual bags of chips in liquor stores for a dime or less, and Saturday matinees, for kids, at less than a dollar.
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### Author:  [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)
#### Post date: [November 29, 2008, 7:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-remember-when/474893/7 "2008-11-29T07:17:14Z")
… We used to sing
Sha la la la la la la la la la la te da
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### Author:  [@Qwisp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qwisp)
#### Post date: [November 29, 2008, 7:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-remember-when/474893/8 "2008-11-29T07:21:44Z")
Green Stamps
Popsicles from the ice cream man for a dime, the good stuff was a quarter
McDonalds really did have Golden Arches on the sides of its building
Plastic on the good furniture
all laundry including sheets were ironed
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### Author:  [@SSG\_Schwartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SSG_Schwartz)
#### Post date: [November 29, 2008, 7:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-remember-when/474893/9 "2008-11-29T07:31:15Z")
> [@Qwisp](#):
>
> Green Stamps
We would take them to the store, and if mom had enough, we kids could pick out something.
The FM converter
Smoking on airplanes
Do people still catch fireflies?
SSG Schwartz
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### Author:  [@Oakminster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oakminster)
#### Post date: [November 29, 2008, 7:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-remember-when/474893/10 "2008-11-29T07:34:03Z")
> [@Qwisp](#):
>
> Green Stamps
I remember those. We got them at National and possibly at A&P (both grocery stores). Winn-Dixie (another grocery store) gave a different kind…maybe called TruValue? Something like that. They were yellow.
Also remember pasting the stamps into the books, and looking through the catalogues at all sorts of stuff you could get for umpteen books of stamps…
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### Author:  [@Myrrajh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Myrrajh)
#### Post date: [November 29, 2008, 7:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-remember-when/474893/11 "2008-11-29T07:37:37Z")
Getting a case of individual bottles of soft drinks from a store called The Pop Shoppe or Mister Soft Drink
A&W drive-ins with the frosted mugs of root beer
Big Macs were 25 cents
Everyone had clotheslines
Everyone smoked
Seat belts were stuffed in the cracks of the seats, and kids used to ride in the back of pick up trucks sitting on the edge of the truck box
Drive in theaters…none up here anymore.
3 channels on the TV, and if you spun the channel selector too fast you’d get yelled at
Green shag carpeting…I thought I saw that making a comeback on some design shows recently
No stores open on Sundays
You could only buy turkeys around Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter
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### Author:  [@Oakminster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oakminster)
#### Post date: [November 29, 2008, 7:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-remember-when/474893/12 "2008-11-29T07:41:00Z")
Remember picking up soda bottles to cash them in for the deposit?
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### Author:  [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)
#### Post date: [November 29, 2008, 7:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-remember-when/474893/13 "2008-11-29T07:51:44Z")
My earliest memories of this type are:
-Dial 0 (Operator) for emergency
-School lunch was .70 and a cookie was .10
-Cheapest gas I ever saw was in the $.89 range - but it got close to that in 2001 so anyone paying attention should remember that
-Ordering “cool” clothes out of catalogues in jr. high, because we didn’t live near a mall, and there was no e-commerce yet
-Atari. Pre-NES, unresponsive, indecipherable graphics, unbelievably captivating Atari.
-The principal digging a splinter out of my hand with his pocket knife. A splinter I got on the old wooden playground with tire swing, monkey bars, etc.
-EVERYBODY collected baseball cards
-There were only a few soft drinks in stores, and they all came in glass bottles (Gatorade was in a glass bottle until I was in high school)
-Lawn darts. The heavy, metal, deadly ones. Had 'em.
-People smoked EVERYWHERE
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### Author:  [@rolandgunslinger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rolandgunslinger)
#### Post date: [November 29, 2008, 8:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-remember-when/474893/14 "2008-11-29T08:10:17Z")
- Cashiers counted back your change
- Big wheels
- Collect phone calls
- shag carpets with special rake to “fluff” it up.
- “floating” a check at the store
- 8 track players ( had to wedge a matchbook between the 8track tape and the player to make it work right.)
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### Author:  [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)
#### Post date: [November 29, 2008, 8:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-remember-when/474893/15 "2008-11-29T08:15:07Z")
> [@](#):
>
> **Myrrajh** : Everyone had clotheslines.
In rural West Tennessee, we always had to clean ours with a wet rag before we hung out the clothes. When my mother went to visit my aunt in Arizona, the clotheslines stayed clean and didn’t have to be wiped down. We were amazed!
I remember delivering groceries for my father’s store.
Paying 12 cents to get into a movie as a child. The popcorn was a dime, but I couldn’t afford it.
I remember seeing a Pete Smith special, a newsreel, and a cartoon before the movie.
I remember a plane flying low enough over our house that the pilot waved.
I remember friends with flour sack dresses.
A weekly lunch ticket at school cost a dollar.
Long finger curls
Being the first one in my class to have a television
Poor reception on the TV every time the train came by
Having only one channel on the TV
Dave Garroway telling about a new program that was going to be on very early in the morning. It was going to be called TODAY. He talked about it on Howdy Doody, I think.
Dagmar
When Arnold Stang loved Maxine and it was “Bigger than both of us.”
Bob Cummings as _My Hero_
Gale Storm as _My Little Margie_
The nicknames of the children on _Father Knows Best_ – Princess, Bud, and Kitten.
That big candy bar for a dime was Baby Ruth!
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### Author:  [@Rigamarole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rigamarole)
#### Post date: [November 29, 2008, 8:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-remember-when/474893/16 "2008-11-29T08:18:04Z")
> [@rolandgunslinger](#):
>
> - Cashiers counted back your change
> - Big wheels
> - Collect phone calls
Some cashiers count change. I witnessed it just the other day at Wal-Mart. You can still buy [Big Wheels](http://www.amazon.com/Big-Wheels-16-inch-Original/dp/B0001A866O), and you can still make collect calls.
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### Author:  [@Skylark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skylark)
#### Post date: [November 29, 2008, 8:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-remember-when/474893/17 "2008-11-29T08:25:19Z")
iPods? Bah. Remember Walkmen? And when the tape ran out you had to take it out and turn it over.
Cable in the Classroom? Spoiled. Remember when the teacher brought in the slide projector? Individual slides, sometimes with an audio on tape with a beep to let you know to change the slide.
Rabbit ears?
The school ‘computer lab’ had a half dozen old Apples. Monitors a desk deep but screens a third the size of a sheet of paper. Black screens with green text. Everything was green text. If you wanted to change what programs you were using you had to put in the right floppy disks.
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### Author:  [@rolandgunslinger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rolandgunslinger)
#### Post date: [November 29, 2008, 8:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-remember-when/474893/18 "2008-11-29T08:26:49Z")
> [@Rigamarole](#):
>
> Some cashiers count change. I witnessed it just the other day at Wal-Mart. You can still buy [Big Wheels](http://www.amazon.com/Big-Wheels-16-inch-Original/dp/B0001A866O), and you can still make collect calls.
Yeah and I still remember all of it.😉
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### Author:  [@chowder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chowder)
#### Post date: [November 29, 2008, 8:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-remember-when/474893/19 "2008-11-29T08:27:07Z")
Debbie Reynolds got to No.1 with _Tammy_
Sheesh
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### Author:  [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)
#### Post date: [November 29, 2008, 8:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-remember-when/474893/20 "2008-11-29T08:30:41Z")
“Party” phone lines
78s, then mono LPs
25-cent gas
25-cent double features
Driveways and playgrounds that were covered with sharp cinders
Getting four full shopping bags of candy for Halloween
The only department stores were downtown, and women got dressed up to go shopping.
Men almost always wore suits and hats.
People got dressed up to travel on a plane.
All planes were props.
All TVs were black-and-white, and had tiny screens. Ours was 12 inches and round.
Milk was delivered to your house by a truck that was cooled by a huge block of ice.
A male teacher or nurse or flight attendant was a rarity.
Tax stamps.
3 cents postage for a letter; 2 cents for a post card.
Blackboards were black.
No jeans or shorts to school. No patent leather shoes for girls.
T-shirts were always white, and were undershirts.
Boys had to swim naked in swimming class in school.
Some cars had a vertical division in the middle of the windshield.
You could still get Indian Head pennies and Buffalo nickels in change.
Gold was $44 an ounce . . . all the time.
You never heard about kids getting molested or abducted.
People didn’t lock their doors at night.
“Duck and cover” drills at school.
There was no fast food.
People burned their leaves in the fall.
Greyhound bus travel was common.
Juvenile delinquents.
Hair with a “DA” in the back.
Queen Elizabeth II having babies.
Divorce was scandalous, especially for women.
Girl groups.
Only wooden roller coasters.
No freeways.
Nothing was “sugar-free” or “fat-free.”
Nobody worked out; gyms were for bodybuilders.
48-star American flags; 49-star flags for one year.
No naked pictures, except for National Geographic.
No birth-control pill.
It was a really big deal to elect a Catholic president.
Cars with fins.
Edsels.
All TV was live; no reruns.
Cars had only AM radios, and no AC.
Paperbacks cost a dime.
You had to use a light meter with a camera.
People darned holes in socks.
No tennis shoes, except in gym class.
Only movie theaters had AC.
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