Stuff that was different in the 60s and 70s

In My Humble Opinion
1

This is not just for Reddy Mercury, but his curiosity is bringing up a lot of nostalgic memories. By the end of the 70s a lot had changed, but in the mean time…

F’rinstance, you had to be home to answer the telephone, and if you didn’t answer it the person calling you would eventually give up and the phone would stop ringing and you might never know who called or what they wanted.

You had to watch stuff on TV when it was on.

If you wanted to make popcorn you could have a special machine that popped corn, or you could scorch a pot. You could also buy Jiffy-Pop and shake it over a stove burner while wondering when the hell it was going to start popping.

You could get frozen food like TV dinners, all you had to do was put them in the oven and they’d be ready to eat some day.

2

“Gimme a buck’s worth of Regular.”

3

If you weren’t home, and needed to call someone, you would go to a phone booth. Sometimes you may have called collect and hoped the person on the other end accepted the charges especially if you didn’t have enough change.

When you wanted to listen to music, there were a select number of radio stations, or you put a vinyl on the turntable. I also used to enjoy a lot of cassette tapes.

4

The motel advertisement on the billboard aross the street from our school said a single would cost you $4 for a night, whereas if you wanted a double you’d have to fork over $6. But it came with air conditioning and a cOLOR TV. Which could pick up 3 channels, although the CBS channel (13) in our area was weak and might be fuzzy reception. The motel had its own aerial though, so at least you wouldn’t have to futz with rabbit ears.

5

…8-track tapes. FTFY. :slight_smile:

6

At the grocery, a customer selects a couple packs of cigarettes from an open rotating rack by the checkout.
Clerk: “You don’t look old enough to buy these”
14 year old customer: “I am”
Clerk: “OK, that’ll be a $1.20”

7

Things back in the sixties was so much bigger. People, buildings, cars, everything. Then the world gradually shrank until it reached its current size in the mid-seventies.

8

The motel advertisement on the billboard aross the street from our school said a single would cost you $4 for a night, whereas if you wanted a double you’d have to fork over $6. But it came with air conditioning and a COLOR TV. Which could pick up 3 channels, although the CBS channel (13) in our area was weak and might be fuzzy reception. The motel had its own aerial though, so at least you wouldn’t have to futz with rabbit ears.

9

We never saw, let alone wore, a bike helmet. Seat belts largely ignored too.

“Ethnic food” was Chinese or Italian. I never ate at a Mexican restaurant until college.

You had to drop off your film to get developed at wait at least two days

10

Ermm, not in the 60s and 70s.

65¢ for a pack in 1977. Some regional variations to be sure but $1.20 would be way out of range.

11

Calling long distance used to be a big deal because it was expensive.

In the early 60s, some people were still on party lines. You shared a phone line with several neighbors. Anyone on that line could listen to whatever call was in progress.

No remote controls.

No seatbelts. No child seats in cars.

12

I thought of another one.

Film strips in school

And they’d wheel a large back and white tv into the classroom to watch Apollo launches

13

I spent 1968 traveling Europe with a copy of Arthur Frommer’s “Europe on $5 a Day”. It could be done,even in Stockholm and Geneva. In many parts of Europe, it was easy on $2-3 a day.

14

I can remember buying a new paperback book for ninety-five cents. And comic books were twenty-five cents.

15

In general I think most people were a fair bit more formal, and respectful, to one another.

16

And once in a while, if we were really lucky and the teacher could figure out how to use the projector, we’d get to watch a movie in class! This would be a film reel shown with a 16mm projector (turn off the lights, pull the shades, and pull down the screen at the front of the room), and would usually be an educational film, though once in a great while we might get to watch a cartoon or something as a special treat.

17

I was ten years old in 1977.

Teens would spend hours on the phone, to the annoyance of their parents.

Making a “long distance” phone call was expensive. If you had to make one, you kept the conversation short.

If you lived in a northern state, your car wouldn’t start half the time in the winter. You would have to pop the hood and fiddle with the choke in order to get it to start.

It seemed everyone smoked cigarettes.

Traveling on a plane was considered luxurious. Only “rich” people flew.

Everyone got the newspaper.

Offices were very noisy, with women tapping away on typewriters.

Dictionaries and encyclopedias were commonplace.

Virtually no one carried a gun. (Well, except for criminals.) Legal concealed carry wasn’t a thing.

Cashiers had to enter the price of each item by hand. After a while they didn’t even have to look at the price tag; they knew the price of each item in the store. (Worked well until there was a price change.) Baggers put your groceries in paper bags and loaded them in your car.

No craft beer. And beer commercials were commonplace on TV. Collecting beer cans was a fun hobby for teens.

Driving to a new place? You used a paper map.

Soda/pop was sold in glass bottles, and you returned the (empty) bottles to the store. In many states the store paid you for each returned bottle. (In Ohio it was 10 cents per bottle.) Children would often go to construction sites with a wagon, collect discarded pop bottles, and then return them to the store for money.

Hitchhiking was commonplace.

People wore wrist watches.

Television sets were very expensive and very unreliable. Every town had a TV repair shop. When your TV wasn’t working right, you would call the “TV repair man.” He would come to your house and spend an hour or two working on your TV, replacing tubes, etc. These visits were not cheap.

18

I graduated from high school in 1968 and attended a state university. I applied to one school and was accepted, with little effort or fanfare. They wanted my high school transcript and SAT scores, but there was no requirement for essays or extra-curricular activities.

And it was inexpensive. My parents hadn’t saved for my college, but were easily able to pay for the first semester. After that I got scholarships and worked part-time and paid my own way. I was not in debt when I graduated.

19

In grade school, right before the Christmas break, we’d all gather for an assembly and watch a Disney film (16mm projected on a screen, obviously).
Not the good ones that are still remembered and watched today. Live action things like “Sammy the Way Out Seal”. I guess they were cheaper to rent.

20

And tube testers (with a stock of tubes) were in stores that had nothing to do with TVs so you could attempt a DYI repair.