Again, keeping with the theme that things were generally worse back then, let’s not forget about “smear the queer”. I can’t imagine that kids play that game these days. And yes, I know that, theoretically, the “queer” in that game wasn’t considered to be gay, but we all knew exactly what the word meant.
Here’s one i encountered today, that was different AND BETTER in the 60s-70s. I needed air in one of my car tires, and my bike pump wouldn’t work. Have you tried to find a gas station with a WORKING air pump lately, not to mention a FREE one?! :mad:
Fill up your tank and the guy would do it for you. And check your oil, clean your windshield, give you a free map, and if you used a station credit card give you some free drinking glasses. Then you could go to the movies and get some free dishes. Oh wait, the last one is what my parents said was different in the old days.
But you could build up a set of Golden Wheat pattern dishes at the grocery store, one dish at a time.
Encyclopedias too.
I was born in 1964…
For us kids garage projects were common !
- We would take the front wheel off of our coaster bikes {Schwinn knock offs}.
- We would cut conduit to make a pair of 3 foot lengths.
- We would pound the last 2" of two ends flat and drill them out so our front tires fit.
- We would jam the open ends of the conduit firmly back onto the forks of our bikes.
End result: homemade choppers baby !!!
By the time I was 12 years old, I had come home with 3 broken arms…
My poor Mother !
.
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:eek:
Not on the same day, I hope. That would be difficult.
Maybe some of them weren’t his.
Sunny boys - a flavoured ice pyramid treat. I think it cost 15 cents. About 5 or 10 % of them had a little message on the inside of the wrapper that would get you another one free!
There were also suckers(similar to Charms Pops) that a few had a “winner” tag inside good for a free sucker.
In the states, those two beers were the expensive imports.
In the early 60s my family lived in a tiny Midwestern town. Occasionally we got to go into the nearest city, and while we were there, my mother would buy us a record – a 45 rpm “single” that had three hits on each side. The songs were not performed by the original artists, but to our untrained ears, sounded identical.
Within a few years, these disappeared, and it became unthinkable to purchase a hit by anyone other than the original artist. The Cult of Personality had begun. The artist was as important, or more so, as the song.
A few songs I remember being on these records:
- Alley Oop
- Running Bear
- You Talk Too Much
-
Wolverton Mountain
Another difference about that time was that many of the popular songs were novelty songs (and were really kind of stupid). We didn’t care.
Or even better, Harvest Gold. Parents had one Harvest Gold toilet, one Avocado.
This is where you get cats staring off into space with large, frightened eyes.
"You painted the kitchen blue? Good God, man, the refrigerator is avocado!
I just thought of something else. No buildings were wheelchair accessible. There were no ramps. There were no special bathroom stalls. There was nothing, and you never saw people in wheelchairs out in public, at all.
From stories my mom has told: Many public places had pay toilets. (Her mom would make her crawl under the stall door whenever possible.)
There were no UPCs and no grocery scanners and no self-serve checkouts. There were prices on every item and the cashier punched in each digit of the price on a huge register with lots of buttons, as well as the department- the big button for ordinary groceries, a green one for produce, a red one for meat, and an orange one for health and beauty aids. The cashiers got into an audible rhythm- click click whir, click click click whir… You got your trading stamps with every order and you saved them up to go shopping at the special store.
If you were a guy, you went to a barbershop with the striped barber pole on the outside and a man cut your hair. If you couldn’t quite describe what you wanted, there was a chart on the wall to help you out.
If you watched sports on television, you had to either keep track of the score yourself or wait for a commercial for them to show it.
Teams had one road uniform and one home uniform. Nothing special for holidays or whatever. You knew the players because they usually stayed with one team and there were only about half the current teams to learn all of their rosters.
Gas stations had cash giveaways and free items with fillups- things like glasses or towels or my personal favorite, the Sinclair soap dinosaur.
Cashiers knew how to make change. If the bill was $10.42, and the customer handed you a $20 bill, you gave them 3 pennies, a nickel, 2 quarters (or a 50-cent piece if there was one in the drawer), 4 $1 bills, and a $5 bill-- done quickly without thinking about it. The register didn’t tell you the change. Actually, we learned this in elementary school, so probably any fourth-grader could do it.
Now when the bill is $10.52, and I hand the cashier a $20 bill and 2 pennies s/he just stares at me.
Steak knives.
Even the jelly came in jars that were intended to later be used as glasses. MAN, folk just expected to live with a lot less pricey STUFF in those days.
Every blue kitchen I remember from back then (and there were many) had those orangey-brown (umber?) appliances. When we moved into our new home 4 years ago, it had a harvest gold fridge which is now in our daughter’s garage. (House also had love beads, an orange and turquoise tiki bar, multicolored ceiling lights in the rec room, and a mural of a parrot in the living room. It was STYLING! As the realtor walked us through, upon entering each room he said, “It’s a gutter!”) 
If you moved into an apartment that had recently been vacated by wannabe hippies, you might find a room painted completely black. :rolleyes: This drove landlords crazy.