“…and only jazz musicians were smoking marijuana!”
Holy shit. A helmet on a Big Wheel? Is that really what we’ve come to? Might as well wear them walking now; a big wheel’s no faster, and half as far from the ground.
gas went above 30 cents a gallon
slide rulers were still used
LED watches became a hit
“Made in Japan” was a sign of cheapness and not quality
Planes flying with half the seats vacant
Grocery stores didn’t take credit cards
7-11s before Slurrpies and Big Gulps
Pagers were the big things
It seems like I’ve been on about as many empty planes as full ones. And I’ve flown a lot - it was free until I was 22, and I damn well took advantage of it. The only big differences I recall seeing in my lifetime is no more smoking on international flights (ended around 1997, IIRC - later than most people think), and people don’t dress nice to fly anymore.
I remember most of the things already mentioned but I can think of a few more:
- The day that JFK was shot and everywhere you looked people were crying
- Nuns moving TVs into all of the classrooms so that we could watch first man walk on the moon.
- When “Diner’s Club” was the only credit (charge?) card that could be used in more than one store.
- The first small cheap calculators
- The first ATM cards
- The first hippies and the Vietnam war protests
- Getting my mom to buy me a pair of wildly flowered bellbottoms
- Covering my room in Peter Max posters
- The deaths of Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison
- Communes
- Pot named “Panama Red” and “Acapulco Gold” that we thought was great but in retrospect was what we would consider to be crappy Mexican pot now
- The campy gothic soap opera “Dark Shadows”
- “Midnight Special” and Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert programs
- The first “Saturday Night Live” show
- When all computers were giant mainframes that took up several rooms
- Using paper tape, punch cards and teletype machines when programming
- Not being allowed to wear patent leather because the boys might look up our dresses.
- Rolling up the waistbands of our catholic school uniforms to make them look like miniskirts.
- What a huge improvement cassette tapes were over 8-tracks
- ‘Phonographs’ with nickels taped to the tone arm to keep the records from skipping. Playing my mom’s 78s.
- Bubble Gum pop music like “Chewy Chewy”, “Simon Says” and “Sugar Sugar”. (Those of you over 40 can thank me for the ear worm now.)
- When 'Brown Eyed Girl" first came out and we really did sing “Sha la la la la la la la la la la te da” for weeks on end.
- Buying my first albums - Rolling Stones ‘Hot Rocks’ and “Tommy”. Having to decide between 'Born to Run" and “Blood on the Tracks” because they both came out around the same time and I could only afford one of them.
- Sneaking into little clubs in the Village to see Springsteen before he got so famous
- When “Saturday Night Fever” hit the charts and the music world was suddenly divided between Disco Ducks and everyone else.
- FM radio
- Hearing ‘Layla’ for the first time on the radio and blasting it over and over until our neighbors called the cops.
Manual typewriters with moving carriages. I learned to touch type on one.
When 7-11 was open from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. and it was considered convenient. 24 hour stores did not exist.
I was beyond proud of my “Close and Play” record player. I carried it around the neighborhood like a briefcase and played 45s for my friends. http://www.feelingretro.com/toys/Misc-Toys/close-n-play-phonograph.php
The knife truck guy drove around the neighborhood sharpening kitchen utensils. The mail delivery guy would yell in a singsong, “Parcel Post” when we had a delivery.
I used to send and receive telegrams and Candygrams. They were a BIG deal to me.
I had a stingray, banana seat bike with a basket and tassles.
Archie http://www.archiecomics.com/index.html was my favorite comic book and we watched the cartoon premier in awe and discussed it for weeks.
Our family Doctor made house calls and didn’t overcharge for the service.
There was a meat market (sawdust on the floor), a shoe repair shop and a bakery within walking distance of home.
Fast food was a very special treat for our family. My mom or grandmom cooked a balanced meal every single night although my mom always worked full time.
Banks would give gifts for opening accounts. My dad scored a really nice toaster once. There were prizes of some sort in boxes of detergents (I remember some type of towel)
Gas station attendants wore uniforms and cleaned your windshield, checked the oil and tires on every visit.
We used to get dressed up to fly or go “to the city”. I lived in Queens and we called Manhattan “the city”.
I remember my dad stopping for a hitchhiker on the NJ Turnpike. He talked about WW2 with the young airman and dropped him off a Dover AFB. (I thought he was handsome and had a crush on him for days)
I remember my dad freaking out when CBS aired “Heidi” before the game was over. He SERIOUSLY freaked out. My sister and I were glad to see our show and didn’t understand the fuss since he was a Giants fan.
I remember going to sleep at 4 in the afternoon so that we would be allowed to get up later to watch Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella on TV. Our regular bedtime was 7:30 and mom didn’t play.
This has been fun. Thanks for this good idea.
I remember a Mad About You when Paul & Jamie were trying to get in touch with some friends and he told her “You go home in case they call.” She replied “What is this, the 1940’s. We have an answering machine.”
When was that, the 1980’s? Today they would have cell phones and textes.
I loved that movie too and it was always a big event when it was on. The same with Mary Martin’s Peter Pan. I bet that I still know all of the words to the songs. The Wizard of Oz was a big deal too. I remember being taken to the movies to see it because we only had a black and white TV and didn’t know what happened when Dorothy opened the door, and jumping up and down in the theater because I was so excited. Home movies were shown on big reel to reel projectors in black and white and the speed was always a bit off.
I remember going into Manhattan every Christmas Eve to see the tree and lights, amazing store window displays and smelling chestnuts roasting everywhere. It might still be that way but it seemed like magic as a child. I also remember those god-awful silver trees and the light wheel that made them change colors.
A set of free glasses with a fill up at the gas station.
Dad getting hugely upset when gas went to $0.30 per gallon
Dad getting up on the roof to fiddle with the TV antenna
Going to the movies meant putting the kids in their pajamas, popping a grocery bag of popcorn and taking the station wagon to the Dive-In to watch some gawd-awful “family” double feature.
Canasta parties
Grandpa taking super-8 movies of special family occasions
Donkey rides at Disneyland
Dorothy steps out of the farmhouse in Oz and everything magically stays in black-and-white.
My brother’s Major Matt Mason astronaut playset
Home-made halloween costumes, usually a gypsy, pirate, clown, or hobo
Buying 12-oz. glass bottles of Coke to go with lunch at school–for a quarter!
Those Texas Instruments calculators with the little red numbers, and learning how to spell “boobies,” “boobless,” “shell oil,” “hell,” and “hello” on them.
Typing:
10) Print "Chanteuse"
20) Go to 10
30) Run
into the computer so that you filled up the screen with your name.
And on that note, I remember “Abort/retry/fail?”
Evel Knievel action figures.
These football player figures that came with goalposts and you placed the ball on a tee and bopped the figure’s head and it kicked the ball through the posts.
Twist-a-Beads.
Knickers and argyle socks–for girls.
Cabinet stereos with the record player and 8-track player.
Walking all over town to go do anything–school, post office, library, whatever.
My “Donny and Marie” vinyl lunchbox with matching thermos!
…Rock was young?
I don’t mean the musical genre, I mean the physical substance. This would be just about the time the molten magma cooled off a bit. Those were the days…
The Big Bang was reality TV?
Haven’t seen these mentioned yet:
Pop beads
Popcorn socks
White bucks and saddle shoes and the x-ray machine in the shoe store
Circle pins (only virgins were supposed to wear them)
Evening in Paris and Ben Hur perfume
Dime stores
Drug stores with soda fountains
Paperback books on a rotating wire rack
Cigarettes at a quarter a pack, and only guys carried lighters and they had to be filled (Zippos, no Bics yet)
Scarves, mittens, and boots whenever the temp got below freezing
Roller skates that fit over your shoes
Mohair sweaters
And when everything you wore had to be ironed or dry-cleaned
I remember the Cold War–when Gorbachov took office. When Reagan told him to “tear down this wall!” I remember when the USS Vincennes shot down the Iranian airliner, and the USS Stark got hit. Basically, I remember when the Persian Gulf was just some backwater bay that a lot of local traffic and a handful of tankers floated through.
I remember the big stink was the Iran/Contra affair, thinking, “Wait, is that the same Contra I have to hit up-down-up-down-B-A-‘Start’ for?”
I remember Hulkamania ran wild all over the WWF. And Rowdy Roddy Piper, and the Ultimate Warrior and Sgt Slaughter, and the Iron Shiekh and Jimmy Superfly Snuka.
I remember when GI Joe was cool.
I remember when my kindergarten class ('82) was using textbooks and teaching aids that were made in the '50s. And I liked it too. . .
I remember when all the “cool kids” were wearing Swatches and Benneton crap, and I couldn’t figure out what the hell was so cool about wearing overpriced, neon-colored crap. To this day, I still can’t. I’ll proudly wear jeans, good clean boots and a nice button-down shirt and tie to a dinner.
I remember .97-cent gasoline, and that was when I was in college!
Tripler
Heck, I remember the eighties.
??? You mean, all the the way back in 1999? It wasn’t all that long ago it was .65 here.
Now, the Made in Japan = cheap, that’s a good one.
Remember when: knowing how many transistors a radio had was important?
Coffee was brewed in an electric percolator, with the stem, basket and spreader plate ('cept we called those parts the “gizzards”).
Refrigerators had a latching door (and there were always tragic stories in the paper about some kid suffocating in an abandoned one).
Kyra, what Catholic school did you go to that was in session on Sunday, July 20, 1969?
Making kites out of newspaper and sticks (I HAD to mention kites somewhere)
Milk delivered in milk bottles to your doorstep
Prayers in public schools
Blue Laws
TV and radio stations signing-off every night
TV stations starting every broadcast day with the:
Test Pattern
Farm Report
National Anthem
Lots of truly LOCAL stuff (please add your own LOCAL):
(For me in western Washington state)–
(1) Kids’ shows:::
J.P. Patches
Captain Puget
Stan Boreson
Brakeman Bill
(2) Local Products and Firms & Events
Sunny Jim Jams and Jellies
Arden Ice Cream
Olympia Beer
Seattle World’s Fair (Century '21)
Plus LOTS more stuff that people in this thread have already mentioned!
Gasoline (petrol) was less than a dollar a gallon? 23¢/gallon for 100 octane
You had to get up to change the channel? Totally. Channel 6 or Channel 10? Either one, your pick!
You passed notes in class instead of IM or texting? of course
Sex was safe and skydiving was dangerous? sex was never safe, but I remember when it was unsafe for mostly different reasons.
the x-ray machine in the shoe store remember that, and the automatic mechanical thingamabob also that would squeeze up next to your foot longitudinally & latitudinally to get the measure. I always wondered “Gee what if it just kept going one day and squeezed someone’s foot to smithereens?”
Those Texas Instruments calculators with the little red numbers I’ve still got mine somewhere.
I remember a decent (not ritzy but not for roaches or hourly hooker traffic & bums either) motel sign advertising prices of less than $10 for a room with a double bed.
I remember taking the vacuum tubes out of the tv set and down to the local pharmacy where you’d plug them in one by one, set the dial so it knows the general tube type, and hit the Test switch.
OUr family had a reel to reel tape recorder with 3 speeds ( 7.5 IPS, 3.75 IPS, and 1.875 IPS), huge icecream-cone microphones with huge mono audio plugs to plug them in, all of which was one part of a big wooden hunk of furniture that also contained a record player (of course) and an AM/FM radio, and speakers down in the main wooden cabinet.
The record player could do 16 RPM and 78 RPM as well as the more standard 45 and 33.3 RPM. I have 78s as a kid (yeah, children’s records still came out on 78s for some reason) and we had a few books being read aloud by a narrator on 16 RPM disks.
Bicycles: if you backpedaled you came to a stop, that’s where the brakes were. Not in calipers. We all had one-speeds. The trendy kids had short little bikes that had banana seats and deep U-shaped handlebars, and their one gear was a low gear so they’d sprint out fast when we raced. I’d have to stand on the pedals to get my big old-fashioned bike moving then I’d fly past them once I’d built up some speed.
Go-Karts. Kids would take plywood and old lawnmower engines and make gasoline powered go-karts and run them up and down the road. Folks weren’t terribly safety-conscious or liability-conscious back then.
From WOI-TV in Ames on Saturday night, Gravesend Manor – local guy with a bald wig and an Igor sidekick – they showed all the 30’s Universal horror movies, over and over.
Ed Breen from Fort Dodge on the UHF channel (or was it VHF, whatever, you needed a special antenna) had a weekend show too, talk and talent (most country singers).
Ames also had a teen dance show on Saturday afternoons. I think it was called “Seventeen” but I’m not sure. The local dancers couldn’t hold a candle to the dancers on American Bandstand but it was fun watching your friends on TV. Which gives me fond memories of the days before reality shows made us weep for humanity.
My favorite Sunday show was Bishop Fulton J. Sheen. I thought he was the smartest man on TV.