Nostaligia trip: rediscovering things from your childhood

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

For example, there was a book about dinosaurs that I (well ok, technically my sister) had as a child that I had long since forgotten what it was titled. When I tried to look it up recently a random search for dinosaur books failed to find it. Then just today a completely different search variation led me to an image that I said “that looks familiar!”. Thus I finally tracked down “The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs” by Anthony Ravielli 1963. (Not to be confused with a later identical title by Steve Brusatte).

This book was among the last of the “dinosaurs were huge lizards” school of paleontology, and the fact that it was written for juveniles means that the anthropomorphism is cranked up to 10. But as a young child I could empathize with the poor little opossum-rats scurrying for their lives as the giants went out on the march. :stuck_out_tongue:

So what trips down memory lane have you turned up?

2

I remember saving pennies and box-tops and all kinda crap to send away for a Sizzler car. Waited for what seemed like years for it to arrive, harassing my mom daily, “Is it here? Is it here?”.

Then one magical day, it appeared! It was a Blue Charger! Best Toy Ever. At least for a few days.

The other day, while driving to the store, saw a new Charger in the exact same shade of blue. Brought all that back.

3

A lot of my childhood memories involve early-mid sixties hot rod car culture. I was way too young to drive but was totally into Big Daddy Ed Roth, Rat Fink, model cars, surf culture (even though I lived in Ohio and had never been near the ocean). Also Universal Studios monster movies and sci-fi stuff. You can definitely go down a rabbit hole digging into that stuff on the internet.

See also: Stingray bikes.

4

Ha, thinking about this reminded me of two fads I remember from 3rd or 4th grade. One was “Tiki” head necklaces. Mind you this was in Ohio, far from any ocean, let alone the south seas. Another was the “surfer’s cross” which was just the WWII era Iron Cross, also usually seen as a necklace but also as a decal, stuck to various things. As kids we had no idea what the history of either thing was.

5

Sixties era Surfer’s Cross

6

I loved Tinkertoys and Highlights magazine. Possibly because they were in every Doctors office.
I tried to interest my kids in them. Nah. Didn’t work.

7

Same childhood. Me and my ‘gang’ had Stingrays long after everyone else had moved up to 10-speeds. We treated them like trick bikes. Built a lot of Big Daddy Roth model dragsters… and (you sitting down?) you’re in the presence of the [drum roll] Vice President of the Wauwatosa, Wisconsin Rat Fink Club! [hold for applause]

Imagine my nostalgia when one friend (who graduated to real dragsters) got to meet Ed “Big Daddy” Roth’s widow. She loved his Rat Fink stories from the old days.

8

i didn’t rediscover them my self cause I’ve never stopped playing them but much to the chagrin of my relatives my nephew loves the old "retro"video and arcade games as much I do … well almost of them anyways … there’s a few here and there he rolls his eyes at …

9

A few years back, I went to the Baltimore Museum of Industry. Many of the exhibits took me back to the 60s and my childhood. My husband was only mildly interested since he grew up in Indianapolis, but I had a blast remembering my childhood.

10

I do a lot of crossword puzzles and every time “tennis player Nastase” comes up I think of Dynamite magazine. It was a children’s magazine that we used to order through the school and I remember there was a small article about Ilie Nastase. There was a caricature of him and some joke that was a play on his last name - “Nasty”.
Boy, how I looked forward to those magazines. I think they came out quarterly.

11

I remember dynamite I even had a few issues … it was a cross between mad and people

12

As a nerdy kid born in the early 1970s in the Houston area, with grandparents who lived about 20 minutes south of Webster/Clear Lake, I was naturally totally taken by the space program, in particular the Apollo missions and the upcoming Space Shuttle missions. That stuff was my main interest from about 4-5 through about the time I was about 11 or so.

I was really pleasantly surprised when my oldest son has turned out to be equally interested in that stuff- it’s been a trip down memory lane in more than one way; apparently my mother had squirreled away all my old space books and toys in the attic or somewhere, and when my son mentioned his interest, she brought them all out. So I got to see my son play with my old space/Star Wars toys that I loved so much, and read the books I read so many times as a kid.

13

A brief tale:

When I was seven years old, a particular Holy Grail was the Aurora Frankenstein model kit. Wanted one of those with a desire so strong, it could throw its own shadow. And when we went to FedMart, when I was in town visiting my grandparents, they had a display, and I would go and pick up and lovingly caress the Frankenstein model kit. Sure, Dracula was okay, the Creature, Phantom of the Opera, but Frankenstein was the object of my desire.

Trouble is, Grandma didn’t much approve of Frankenstein, feeling that such things would cause nightmares and mental disturbances in a child. I’d already seen the movies, and hadn’t gone insane yet, but Grandma had her opinions. And while she could be a soft touch for GI Joe stuff and coins for gumball machines, she would not yield on the Frankenstein model kit.

One Christmas, though, I picked up and shook a package… and it made the exact same rattling sound that Frankenstein did when I picked up the box at FedMart. And I realized that the box was about the same size and shape. My heart grew WINGS! FRANKENSTEIN was HERE!

…and when I opened the box on Christmas morning? It was a model kit. A VW bug. And Grandma smiled and said, “Well, I knew you wanted a model kit, so we went out and got you one.”

I remember this, because the incident cut pretty deep. “Grandma, if you hate Frankenstein so much, fine. BUT DON’T PRETEND that a fraggin’ CAR MODEL is the SAME THING!” But I did not say this. I choked back my tears and solemnly thanked her for this lovely gift, just like Mom had taught me.

And one day, the display at FedMart was gone. No more Aurora monster model kits. Instead, they had the Prehistoric Scenes kits – dinosaurs, cavemen, and suchlike. And so flew another of childhood’s dreams. Later, even the Aurora Plastics Corporation went out of business, and I mourned a little, but I moved on with the rest of my life.

Many years later, though, Monogram reissued the original Aurora kits in translucent fluorescent plastic. Still remember the silly, ridiculous joy of running out and getting one of the damn things and assembling and painting it, far better than I could have when I was seven. I felt like a fool – I was a grown man, after all – but, dammit, I’d been UNJUSTLY DENIED when I was a young and sensitive sprog, and I figured ten bucks for a model kit was far more sensible than what SOME guys run out and do for love of their youth…

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Poor little Wang-ka, denied I tell you denied! I’m glad you finally got one.

Nice post!

15

I was a big pro wrestling fan when I was around 12 and I loved reading the magazines. Not long ago I found a few from that era online and ordered them. Very cool to hold them in my hands again, and I especially enjoyed the crazy ads.

As for toys, here’s a story from The Moth by Teller, of Penn & Teller. Apart from the novelty of hearing him speak, he tells a lovely story about his early love of magic and how he was reunited with some of his first props.

16

Not childhood - can I take a detour into young adulthood? The day we took Trep jr away to university. Stepping into a hall of residence for the first time in three decades - the same cramped stairwells, all the rooms off the long corridor, the incredible sense of excitement as the kids all met each other for the first time -* where you from? What course are you on?* Laughing and joking and loud. We carried the boxes up those stairs, Mrs Trep and I, watching all the old, bald and saggy parents huffing and puffing up them - which was funny until we realised they were looking at us and thinking the exact same thing. Thirty years? - Jesus.

We cooked chilli and rice in the shared kitchen for a dozen or so of the kids, so they would know how to make a quick cheap meal for many - but nobody really took any notice because they were all too excited and gabbling away with each other. And there was no doubt that Trep jr didn’t want us around after that, and I didn’t mind that at all. I remember feeling exactly the same way. We were definitely not the people he wanted to be talking to.

We left them to it and headed for the hotel, actually rather shaken by the experience - I had no idea that the sense of the moment would come flooding back so intensely. Its easy to forget how exciting those days were. And almost impossible to comprehend how long it is since we did all that ourselves.

j

17

You mean the ones that were written “kayfabe”? I was particularly moved by the saga of one wrestler who after a particularly vicious defeat spent two years in a coal mine in Canada rebuilding his shattered body.:smiley:

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Yes! Then there was Gorgeous Jimmy Garvin, who had to be a “valet for a day” for some other wrestler. There were photos of him digging fence posts and such.

Despite the kayfabe, there was another oddity of those magazines - they didn’t go by the “territory” system. At that time pro wrestling had distinct territories and three main governing bodies: the NWA, AWA and WWF (which would later become the WWE and eventually take over pretty much everything nationally). The magazines had stuff from everywhere, people I’d never heard of.

Growing up in New York I only knew the WWF and the stars of that era. When I began picking up those magazines I had no idea who Ric Flair or Nick Bockwinkel were, and didn’t understand why they were ranked as champions alongside Bob Backlund. I now wonder if it was the same for people who grew up in the midwest or the south, who would have thought Dusty Rhodes* or Harley Race were the only elite wrestlers. Later, when cable came in we started seeing Georgia Championship Wrestling on TBS, but my interest was waning by that time.

  • Dusty and many other wrestlers of the time were semi-itinerant. He had spent time in the WWF previously before becoming a fixture in the south. But I saw him once at MSG when he did a one-off appearance, and it was like, “Who’s that guy Why is he getting all this attention? I’ve never heard of him.”

There were also people like Bockwinkel who pretty much never left their territory. And others like Andre the Giant who went everywhere and didn’t have a “home” so to speak. I haven’t thought of this stuff in years.

19

Oh My God! Dynamite Magazine! I had the issue with Jaclyn Smith on the cover.

That’s all I’m gonna say.

20

Vice President?! I am impressed!