… Tailfins
… Mamie Van Doren and Joi Lansing looking like they had tailfins
… Afternoon cartoon shows hosted by a clown, a cowboy or a jet pilot
… Subdivisions with signs that read "If you lived here you’d be home by now
… The Super Constellation – the most beautiful airplane ever built
… “Illegal” extension phones
… Eisenhower
… Afternoon newspapers
I remember when…
…you bought a new car and the heater was an optional extra
…hole-in-the-wall cash machines were new, and after you had used them once the machine kept the card and the bank posted it back to you
…there were power cuts because of the miners’ strike, and Mr. Heath put the country (UK) on a three-day week, and I had to do my school homework by candlelight. You couldn’t rely on anything. You could go for a dental appointment, and then suddenly all the power would go off and everyone would have to leave. Cinemas and theatres too.
…the first colour photos appeared in newspapers
…we all stayed up to watch Neil Armstrong walking on the moon, and pundit James Burke was seemingly on every TV channel every day talking about it
…every pop song had chords and a tune
…the electric guitar was featured on ‘Tomorrow’s World’
…the Guardian ran its famous April Fool’s Day spoof ‘Travel Section’ about the island of San Serif
…Leslie Judd took over from Val Singleton on ‘Blue Peter’
…record players that came with four speeds: 16, 33, 45, 78
…TV sets that took 2-3 minutes to warm up
…no-one I knew had ever eaten pasta at home or knew what a curry was
…some new brand of margerine had the selling point that it ‘spreads straight from the fridge’
…you could buy a house for 4000 pounds
…TV wasn’t full of crap
…my mail didn’t get lost
…we bought our first microwave
…we broke our first microwave
…i knew how to (properly) opperate my computer
now if only i could remember where my shoes are
egg
… those machines outside the grocery store took dimes, not quarters.
-premium leaded gas, which our '68 Toyota drank
-the Reggie candy “bar” (it was round)
-Pet Rocks
-Pop Rocks (the first time around)
-our family’s first computer: an Osborne “portable,” which my Dad described as “luggable.” It was a bit larger and heavier than a Singer sewing machine and had a 4" (diagonal!) screen.
-pre-DOS software (why we like that there’s a monopoly now!:D)
-my Six Million Dollar man doll-erm, “action figure,” with little clear plastic pieces that fit in his arms and legs
-one of my classmates complaining about having to miss “CHiPS” while we were on class trip to Williamsburg
-“And that’s the way it is, Tuesday, November __, 1980, the three hundred twenty-third day of the hostage crisis in Iran.”
-the early, expensive tape-recorders my grampa won as a premium at work and gave my parents. My mother recorded letters to send to her mother in Texas because long-distance was so expensive.
For Americans, this one’s a surprise since pasta’s been totally ordinary for generations here. My grandparents fondly reminisced about the spaghetti they used to get in Billings, Montana - in the 1930s!
A friend tells a story illustrating the point. This was in the mid-80s, and my friend was in college, standing in the cafeteria line. An English exchange student leans over to ask him,
“What are…erm…ray-vee-oh-lye?”
My friend about died. You see, ravioli are so familiar to Americans that they’re a kids’ food (well, in their canned, Chef Boyardee incarnation). The idea that you could become an adult and not know what they were - well, it’s like having to ask what a hamburger is.
I remember:
Gas Wars–lower than the already low prices.
Cost 3 cents to mail a letter–from the 30’s to the late 50’s, when it went up to…4cemts!
Twice-a-day mail delivery during the Christmas season. When did that end?
I got 20 cents a week allowance, and I could go to a show, or buy two comic books. Decisions, decisions.
When there was no “under God” in the pledge of allegiance. And the wonderful chaos of the recitation after it came in.
“If you go out in the woods today, you’re sure of a big surprise. If you go out in the woods today, you’ll never believe your eyes.
For every bear that ever there was, will gather there for certain, because today’s the day the teddy bears have their picnic.”–Big John and Sparky theme from Saturday morning RADIO.
Cigarettes costing $1.50 per CARTON at the PX–and I’m not talking WWII. And they were rationed. Normal price was only $2.50, I think. Did I mention that it was PER CARTON???
When it seemed that Westerns ‘owned’ the TV.
Helping mom make the margarine turn yellow by kneading a packet of coloring into the bag. The margarine was white, at first.
A five-minute cartoon called, “Crusader Rabbit.”
And there’s tons more…
Are these rare now? I live in a smaller place now, but when I was in Tucson there was the Arizona Daily Star (morning) and the Tucson Citizen (afternoon) and both are still around AFAIK
Yes, they are rare. Cities with more than one major newspaper are becoming rare.
DaToad, you must be about my age. I remember much the same. The pastery guy was from the Helms Company (at least in La Habra, Orange County). You put a big blue “H” in your window, and he stopped. Yummm…raspberry puffs…
I also remember my brother’s '56 Buick.
Shepard’s spacewalk.
and
Little Old TacoMaker and Mexicones!
Thanks for the memory brachy; I had a '55 Buick - a monster of a car.
And as soon as I hit submit I remembered the first space flight. All we did in school that day was watch a television. The school had decided us kiddies were going to absorb that historic day. I think they made a good call.
When Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon, I watched it on a television in a convenience store at the corner of Drexel and Westheimer where I was underage and buying beer. My friends out in the car couldn’t understand why I took so long.
Yes, yes, yes the original one. The remake from the nineties just sucked.
I heard about the remake but never actually saw it
3-cent stamps & penny postcards.
Getting a TV was a big deal
Missing Milton Berle on TV because our homework assignment was to watch Bishop Sheen
Hopalong Cassidy
The Army/McCarthy hearings
Coming home from school and finding my Mom watching the Kefauver hearings on TV
Amos 'n Andy on radio - ditto Fibber McGee and Molly; Duffy’s Tavern
How sexy the new GM cars looked with their wrap-around windshields
Going to the drugstore with a quarter to by cigarettes “for my dad” then going down to the creek with my friends to smoke.
“Your Hit Parade” with Snooky Lansen and others whose faces I remember but names I can’t.
The Chesterfield girls.
I LOVED Crusader Rabbit. Remember Dudley Nightshade?
This could go on forever!
The end of World War II
Gasoline for $0.17 per gallon at full service gas stations where the attendants wore uniforms
Soft drinks & candy bars for a nickel each
School lunches for a quarter
Swamp coolers
Flat head automobile engines
Gear shifts mounted on the steering column (stick shifts, not sissy automatics)
Push button starter switches in the dashboard
When “Cement Mixer,” “RagMop” and “Hadacol Boogie” were popular songs
Our first TV (1950, IIRC)
Our first airconditioner (window unit, not central)
Elvis’s first appearance on TV
And so on.
Hey, LouisB, swamp coolers are still the cat’s meow here in arid climates. Many homes here in Colorado have whole-house swamp coolers. I’d never heard of them untill I moved here.
Is a swamp cooler the same thing as the A/C we used to have down here, with the big wooden evaporator tower out behind the house?
Those old Buicks were real tanks, Ringo! I remember when my brother lost his muffler. We could hear him coming home a couple of blocks away. I think there was more room in the backseat than in my bathroom.
God OldBroad. I was beginning to think Crusader Rabbit was a figment of my imagination (seems like noone has ever heard of it). The tiger sidekick, the evil Simon Legree and yep, Dudley Nightshade. I can hear the theme music now. (On Sheriff John’s Lunch Brigade, along with Beany and Cecil - what sweet memories.)
Oh, I forgot: The Topper and Beezer were tabloid size, with no staples.