This was probably mentioned before; or maybe not: all telephones were connected by cords and cables, to either a wall or a device. If you wanted to walk around a bit you got a longer cord and/or cable.
And, all telephones had dials on them.
I loved loved loved!! digging into a new box to pull out the prize!
It wasn’t “professional fighting.” It was theater.
Another thing, (maybe already mentioned)
Paper maps for road trips were required. You got them at gas stations or from AAA.
Yeah, I was trying to distinguish between today’s MMA fighting. We just saw guys box.
(I admittedly forgot about wrestling. I never liked it, so I never watched it. I agree that it’s more performance, but I get that this is up for some debate. I will say that even I knew who Hulk Hogan was)
I spent many hours at the high-end audio equipment store. They always had current music playing. The large speakers sounded terrific. They also sold records and browsing gave me a reason to hang around.
I haven’t seen a store like that in 15 years. They didn’t play music in the store. There were listening booths.
Life was much simpler without cell phones. I always carried dimes for pay phones.
The highlight of the week was meeting up with my friends at the bowling alley.
Gas was 75 cents a gallon. $10 would fill my tank.
A dollar would buy a Coke and candy bar.
I remember being less aware of the news. I heard about the major news events once. The news wasn’t pounded into my head constantly.
People didn’t go to so many stores, restaurants, etc. in their pajamas. I am not saying that you need to wear a tuxedo or dress to the grocery store, but being in pajamas or dirty “loungewear” would look out-of-place.
(deleted, point was already made)
And Major League Baseball truly consisted of two separate leagues: the National League and the American League. The leagues were legally separate entities, each had its own president, each had its own umpiring staff (with differing strike zones, at least in practice), only one league had the designated hitter, and the only interleague play was the World Series.
(My emphasis)
Prior to 1977, the umpires used different pads. National League umps wore padding underneath their jacket. American League umpires carried a large chest protector,
As a consequence, American League umpires couldn’t get as low, and so the strike zone in the American League was higher than in the National League.
https://www.bnd.com/living/liv-columns-blogs/answer-man/article27132223.html
a package of baseball cards was a nickel complete with dried broken “chewing gum”, comics a dime, and candy bars under a nickel
Or thin plastic records you played by putting them on top of a vinyl record on your turntable.
And even then people called gasoline “liquid gold” and complained about its cost.
And that didn’t happen until 1973. Until then, there was no such thing as a DH.
Ron Blomberg of the Yankees was the first DH on April 6, 1973. He drew a walk.
I have vivid memories of my father declaring that there was no way on God’s green earth that he would ever pay a dollar for a gallon of gas! The very idea was outrageous!
And ‘gas wars’ were a relatively common thing. One station would lower its price and competing stations on the same corner or down the street would have to do the same.
My grandma found out she was going blind. She got an audiobook player from the feds. It spun 16 rpm records instead of tapes. It also had an 8 rpm setting. The first sample package she got from the Braille Institute included the latest Braille copy of Playboy magazine- no pictures, just the articles! We grandkids thought that was a hoot.
The only 16 rpm record I have is from a Seeburg library set. Seeburg was a competitor to Muzak and provided record sets and players to places such as malls and department stores.
I’m 66, and I never knew about this. Thanks to all in this thread who’ve informed us.
I still have a hard time believing it was ever a common feature on non-police vehicles.
I’m not sure where @OttoDaFe grew up (or when), but I suppose I could see such spotlights possibly having been more common in rural areas without much street lighting…but that’s a WAG.
When I was a kid, candy bars were 15¢. And they were normal sized, not the humungo-mongo-behemoths they sell as candy bars today.
When I was a teenager I worked at McDonald’s for several years. In the late 1970s McDonald’s was fighting hard to keep the prices of their big burgers (Big Mac and QPC) to under $1. Their prices were pushing 95¢ and 97¢. Imagine that.
When I was a kid in the 60’s and 70’s there were pay telephones EVERYWHERE.
Even in the park.
A local call was a dime. No time limit.
And they had their own number and would accept incoming calls.