I dunno how many of these have been said before. I’ll just dive in:
[ul][li]Over-the-counter medicine without child-proof caps.[/li][li]Records records records![/li][li]Toy guns that looked like guns.[/li][li]Reel-to-reel tape players.[/li][li]The Iran hostage crisis.[/li][li]Cartoons on Saturday morning. Remember when Saturday meant no less than 90 solid minutes of Bugs Bunny on ABC?[/li][li]Mount St. Helens blowing up.[/li][li]“Controversy” on TV meant Tom and Helen Willis on “The Jeffersons”.[/li][li]8-track tapes, with the hottest new stuff from Blondie and Queen.[/li][li]Travolta on “Welcome Back Kotter”.[/li]Disco.[/ul]
I remember my Dad getting his New 1940 Ford, which was just like my uncle’s 1939 Ford except the stick shift was on the steering column and not the floor. My grandfather’s Chevy had the starter on the floor and of course that was where the switch was to dim the lights. Automatic transmissions were only dreamed of in Detroit.
You went to movies, some which had ushers, and watched from the point you got there. You might get in and see the ending and then have to see the beginning to understand it. People would whisper “This is where we came in” and leave or maybe say “Wait I want to see the scene where …”. The only news you saw was at the movies. There was always a cartoon. All elevators had operators.
I remember turning back from a vacation because of a flat tire. Dad had to go home and get enough ration stamps from relatives for a new tire. My aunt scolded me for using too much sugar: it was rationed. Another aunt reading the censored letter from my uncle who was off to war in the South Pacific. It looked like someone was cutting out paper dolls (girls used to do that).
One cent postcards and people using them. Five cent cokes and candy bars. When bubble gum first came out. Plastic toys replacing metal toys, but Tonka making a name by sticking to metal. For that matter, I remember when plastic was something new and rubber still came from trees. I remember an aunt (I had lots of them) showing me a magazine with two men’s full page pictures and asking me who was going to be president. I picked Truman (Dewey looked crooked to me). I also remember FDR dying and later when the dime came out with his image promoting the March of Dimes. I remember using half dollars.
First TV was an older lady inviting us in to watch “Woodie Willow”, which was an Atlanta puppet show. Then a friend got a TV and once a week, I’d go watch The Lone Ranger who was sponsored by Marieta Bread. Dick Van Dyke having a local TV show (WAGA?) There was an Atlanta Journal and an Atlanta Constitution (2 newspapers). I remember watching the 1952 political conventions and being interested. Haven’t seen anything like them since. I remember seeing Jack Ruby getting shot on TV, which was probably the first live historical event to happen on TV.
I remember my sixth grade teacher saying she had learned of a young man, who was going to save the world. His name was Billy Graham. She only had one reservation, he’d been divorced. Another big name who came along just a little later, but wasn’t necessarily as popular at first: Martin Luther King.
In high school we could take a date to downtown Atlanta’s Fox Theatre (stars and moving clouds on the ceiling) and then go to the Varsity Drive In for an order of fries and two drinks all for $2.00. My folks paid for the gas, which was 28 cents a gallon. We listened to B.B. King, Little Richard, Ray Charles, Fats Domino, Clyde Mcphatter, Roy Hamilton and many others on the Black station, WAOK(everyday Piano Red sang “You’ve got the right string, baby, but the wrong yo yo.”) Then along came Elvis and Dick Clark started American Bandstand.
Just one more thing:
I, too, remember that day and that I was in Greenville, TN that day, so I called my wife. It was on a Sunday.
Not only that but it was at 10:56 P.M. EDT. Better pictures at night and a lighted face.
Just as memorable to me was on Dec. 21, 1968 when Frank Borman was circling the moon and sending back pictures. I could go out on the deck and look up at the moon and then go inside and see the surface up close moving across the TV screen. You had to live in the world before those two incidents to appreciate the experience.
I remember:
Getting to work or school in the worst of winter weather in vehicles that weighed no more than 2 tons , had bias-ply tires,
about 4’’ ground clearance, no antilock brakes, traction control or 4-wheel-drive. 2 1/2 to 3 ton SUVs with all the toys are for wussies!!!
Music on AM radio–not constant Rush, Rush wannabees and ads for snake oil cures for baldness and/or impotence.
Album-oriented rock FM stations.
Expensive name-brand bias-ply tires that didn’t last nearly as long or have near the traction of the cheapest private label radial you can buy today.
Car batteries that cost as much as they do now( actually more than they do now, since today’s dollar is inflated), and didn’t last half as long.
ALL automotive lubricants and chemicals were available only in difficult-to-open, difficult-to- handle, non re-closable containers.
Being able to satisfy my pyromaniac urges by legally burning trash, autumn leaves, the dried-up Christmas tree, etc. Now, I can only have a huge outdoor fire on those rare occasions when I can camp.
You mean, with a Hercules graphics card? 
I still own an original IBM PC, with original packaging.
Remember the AST Six-Pack card?
We had an eight party line. We were so excited when we got a two-party line.
Laugh - In and Flip Wilson… was he the first “prime time” cross dresser? Geraldine.
David Brinkley and Chet Huntley? Is that right? I was raised on NBC Nightly News.
I had a Monkeys Lunch Box.
Bye Bye Miss American Pie.
We thought we were something when we got the Converse canvas Chucks.
Kyle Macey, Goose Giddens Rick Robey
The 280ZX was the car to have.
jackson9 Milton Berle was cross dressing on the Texaco Star Theater more than 10 years before Flip Wilson.
zenith Legally burning trash, weren’t those the days? Separate the garbage, mostly kitchen refuse-- from the trash. Throw the trash in a 55 gal drum out in the back yard, then set the contents on fire. There would usually be an aerosol can from the bathroom wastecan that would explode. The burning embers of tissues would slowly rise from the drum and be dispersed in the wind.
Could you imagine a nine year old being told to start a fire in the backyard today?
Mutual of Omahas Wild Kingdom
American Freedom Train during the bicentennial (1976)
Telling mom “I’m going out to play” with no other details as long as we were back by x time.
Feeling sorry for kids in day care after school because their moms had to work.
Goodyear was the only blimp.
Remote controls connected to the TV by a cord.
Being able to by gas if your license plate was odd or even on certain days because of the oil embargo.
Streaking
If we acted up in a store mom disciplined us then and there, then told us to wait until father gets home.
Von Erics wrestling dynasty at their height when all brothers were alive. (Dallas)
No wheelchair ramps, some places were just unaccessable for some.
New York City Blackout–My grandparents were there and told us about it.
TV show Soap listed as adult comedy. We snuck and watched it once and did not really understand what the big deal was with a “gay” character.
Captain Kagaroo.
Far Out Space Nuts.
3-Stooges cartoon.
Failed Iranian Hostage rescue attempt.
Pasting green stamps into the books for our mother then going to the S&H Green Stamps store.
Coors beer was sold only in a few areas, not nationally, so some relatives would plan trips (or make special trips) so they could get several cases of Coors to take home.
Seeing movies at a large one screen theater that had a balcony and a curtain that opened when the movie started.
Drive-In movie theaters. I only saw one movie. It was about my 10th birthday and Godzilla VS. Megalon was playing and I wanted to see it. My father tried to talk me out of it, but I stood firm. So we took our station wagon, parked backwards and sat on the tailgate and watched the movie. My parents just sat in the front and just put up with us moving around and asking for popcorn etc. Shortly after it went to porn then closed. Unfortunately that was before I realized or appreciated the “true” purpose of drive-ins.
gas at 23 cents/gallon
anything can happen day
electronic kits using tubes (valves)
(12AX7, 6L6, 5Y3, etc)
EICO, MITS, Heathkit
keypunch machines, FORTRAN
going door to door (like Halloween) asking
to watch TV (way after dark).
polio 
Salk 
FIZZIES! Tablets that you dropped in a glass of water that fizzed like Alka-Seltzer, only providing color, fizz, sugar and flavor for a do-it-yourself soda pop.
A similar product that was supposed to replace toothbrushing.
Only a few kids at school having TVs in their homes.
Being in grade school when the whole school was herded into the gymnasium to watch a single large TV set (large for the time, that is, probably a 27 inch model donated by the local TV retailer) broadcasting JFK’s inauguration, with Robert Frost reading a poem, and the small fire that started near the podium. The excitement of actually watching TV DURING SCHOOL.
My father’s 1940 Pontiac with the ropelike strap across the back of the front seat for back seat riders to hang on, plus side straps that hung down by the windows. It also had a humpback rear, running boards, and a classy stylized Indian face for the hood ornament.
Dad using a ceramic cup with brush soap in it and a beaver’s hair shaving brush to soap up. He didn’t use a straight razor, but grandpa did.
Saturday morning live action adventures - Rin Tin Tin; Fury - “the story of a horse and the boy who loved him;” Sky King zooming past, and the triangular Nabisco logo whirling around before coming to a stop in the center of the screen; Sgt. Preston of the Yukon; Tales of the Texas Rangers, where the show would alternate weeks between stories set in contemporary (early 1960s) time and the past; The Lone Ranger; Annie Oakley; Wild Bill Hickock with Andy Devine as Jingles - “Wait for me, Wild Bill!;” Cisco Kid; Range Rider, and many et ceteras
Adjusting horizontal and vertical hold knobs on the TV. Tuner knobs with only 13 channels on them and something mysterious called UHF. Dad getting up on the roof to adjust the antenna.
Beer bottles picked up out of ditches that could be redeemed for 2 cents each at the local grocery store. A six-pack could get you a new comic book, whose price had recently risen to 12 cents. (And then 15, and then…)
“Men’s magazines” on the newsstands like “True,” “Argosy” and “Stag” with lots of stories about hunting and World War II. Lots of cartoons, too.
Heck, mass circulation magazines like “Life,” “Look,” and “The Saturday Evening Post,” which bragged (spuriously, it turns out) of a connection with Benjamin Franklin.
When silver coins were the norm for dimes and above.
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horney toads
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driving along the interstate at night and every town along the way had a drive-in movie going
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bottle rockets
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swimming in clear rivers
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telephone numbers that started with letters
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the advent of plastic trash bags
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that newfangled “Weedeater”
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horney toads
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driving along the interstate at night and every town along the way had a drive-in movie going
-
bottle rockets
-
swimming in clear rivers
-
telephone numbers that started with letters
-
the advent of plastic trash bags
-
that newfangled “Weedeater”