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.
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.
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.
“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.
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.
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.
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??
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.
