We’re talking about the 1960s, not the 960s. But whatever floats your boat (made of wood, of course).
Had to wait 45 minutes or so for TV dinners to cook in the oven.
TVs had antennas. If you were advanced, you’d have your antenna on top of a pole propped on the roof of your house, operated by a spin control that hummed while it was turning. Otherwise, you’d have to turn the antenna yourself while somebody else watched. “Keep going… keep going… stop! Oh wait, the position you had before was better.”
Air conditioning was rare. People either sat outside in the porch and fanned themselves or used electric fans. Oscillating fans always made a grinding sound whenever they pulled back from the side. The older the fan was, the more likely the blades would scrape the cage when started.
You never knew how some Saturday morning cartoons were racist until years later.
Curly phone cords would get tangled up in knots and could be used as weapons.
Drive-in theaters were parking lots with loudspeakers in each space that you pulled into your car. You eventually got used to hearing the words before the lips of the actors moved. If the wind picked up, the screen would start to warble. If it rained, movie over.
Trash cans were aluminum cylinders with lids you could bang like cymbals. They frequently got corroded and never lost the smell of death.
Electric fans were dangerous. They were made of metal, not plastic, and the cage enclosing the whirling blades had gaps that were easily large enough to stick a finger through.
Q. What did the firefly say when he backed into the electric fan?“I’m delighted to no end!”
Born in 1970, so this is the 70’s-early 80s…
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In 2nd grade, I went to a school across town. My grandma would walk me to the bus stop and wait with me, then I would take the public bus (not a dedicated school bus) to school. My friend Mindy rode the same bus, and got on one stop after me. I was probably 7, and nobody even considered that an adult should accompany me on the trip.
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I was a latchkey kid from 3rd grade on. Most of the kids I knew were, but that’s apparently not allowed now.
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We didn’t have a color TV until I was almost in high school (mid 80s). In this we were unusual - almost everyone else had one - but not horribly so.
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RE long distance charges - when a family member would drive down from NoCal to visit us, Grandma would have them call and have the phone ring twice, then hang up. That way they could let her know they’d arrived safely without incurring long distance charges.
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Cartoons, of course, were on on Saturday mornings only, with a few on Sundays and some after school M-F. You knew the cartoons were done for the day Sunday when all the channels started playing church sermons.
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I got yelled at for tying up the phone talking with my friends. No call waiting!
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I remember when Prop 13 was passed in California. From one year to the next, we went from a ton of summer school/after school activities to none. It was stark.
My folks could only afford retreads, and tires were never bought in a matching set of four. Yup, lots of time spent by the side of the road replacing blown-out radial retreads.
Do people even buy retreads anymore?
For cars I heard not that long ago that people were wearing their tires down to the point they couldn’t be retreaded, both for economic reasons and because the tires are so much better and less likely to blow out. So the supply of tires that could be retreaded is down. At the same time the economic wind blows both ways, if they make them somebody will want them. Used tires are still in demand because of the low price. I did know someone who was in that business about 10 years back, he collected them from tire stores for free because they didn’t want to deal with disposal. They could have been fine with some tread left or he might have had to fix a puncture. And possibly there are new regulations making any kind of used or retreads less likely to be found.
1970s (I was elementary school age)
TV: In the summer they would show failed pilot episodes when they weren’t showing limited run variety shows.
Restaurants: Only ethnic foods were Chinese, Mexican, and Italian. And there was no ethnic influence in the American restaurants. Nothing soy-glazed, no chipotle flavored, nothing curried.
I used to walk to school through the 60s and into the 70s. Even when a bus was available I preferred to walk. We could go home for lunch in elementary school.
We could go wherever we wanted for lunch or any time in high school, there’s a huge difference right there. We were going in and out of that place whenever we wanted. Very few windows on three of the four sides of the school, it had an open quad in the middle where most of the windows were. The fourth side was the from facing the parking lot and students were going in and out that way all day also. By the end of the 70s there was a fence around the whole place.
Another thing, I usually carried a knife to school starting in elementary school with a pocketknife. Now you can even bring in a plastic knife with your lunch.
By the end of high school there was a soda machine. Other than a milk machine I saw at some school I don’t recall any other vending machines. I think that’s gone up and down over the years.
In high school I got my first hands on experience with a computer, well remote hands on anyway, one of the teachers dragged in a teletype and acoustic coupler a couple of times and we got to enter a few commands in BASIC. Six years later they had teletypes at that school that my little brother got to use in a computer class.
Cars were way cooler. They didn’t last, they may as well have been propelled by shooting gasoline out the tail pipe, but the muscle cars were just way cooler than modern technological wonders. Maybe you’d have electric windows in the car, radios were the only electronics. They were like steampunk cars compared to today’s.
Also, I knew how car engines worked back then, they were just bigger versions of lawn mower engines. There would be two wires going to the engine, one to the distributor and a ground wire. The only hoses were for fuel and coolant. And you could remove any part without having to disassemble anything else.
The rust was mentioned already, stock paint was pretty dull, poorly applied, and the metal was likely to be rusty under the paint. The earliest price I can remember for an Earl Scheib job was $39.95 but it started lower than that.
The only mini-vans came from VW. Beetles were everywhere, along with some Karrman Ghias. There were a lot of inexpensive used English sports cars available in the 70s, MGs, Austin Healeys, the Triumphs. Mostly pieces of crap (which is why they were being sold cheap), but still cool. There were station wagons, including That 70s Show Vista Cruiser types.
Pregnant teen girls had to live in shame. Off to a relative’s house, put the baby up for adoption, make up some story about a dead soldier fake husband. A girl who got mono and couldn’t go to school just had to be pregnant.
Men wore gold chains, unbuttoned their shirts (chest hair baby!) and had a comb in their pockets.
Bell bottoms were cool.
Boots had zippers on the side.
https://goo.gl/images/MDBp2T
You bought condoms from a restroom vending machine.
Passengers could enjoy a ice cold beer on the highway.
Another one that seems different than today: A smoking section outside at my high school, and it was for students.
I don’t know. The sixties brought us “Go Ask Alice” and Librium. I can remember the scare tactics and warnings. Especially about LSD and how you’d stare into the sun or walk off a building believing you could fly.
Playgrounds were dangerous. It just wasn’t a proper day at the park without a kid stumbling home bleeding and crying.
My high school had one too. You weren’t supposed to be able to smoke there unless you had a note on file from your parents giving you permission, and you were over 16 (it was so kids wouldn’t drop out just because they couldn’t smoke at school), but no administrator was ever out there with the stack of turned in smoking permission slips, checking names and ages.
Also, back then, there were all kinds of way for pretty young kids to earn money. I had a paper route when I was 11 & 12, and then I started getting people offering me babysitting jobs on my route. I eventually gave up the route because I wanted to do stuff after school, but I was making plenty of money babysitting.
When I was 17, I got a job running a film projector, and I did that as well as babysitting. So basically, I’ve worked since I was 11 years old. I never needed a permit, which kids under 18 need now, and that includes a stamp from the school in this state. I’m not sure if the stamp is just so the school keeps track of who is working, or if there is actually a GPA requirement for getting a permit.
You used to be able to get you learner’s permit when you were 15 & 9 months, and could take the driver’s test on your 16th birthday. If you passed, you could drive to your heart’s content. Now they have all sorts of rules and restrictions. I don’t think you can get a permit until your 16th birthday, and then you have to wait three months to take the test, and if you pass, there are still restrictions: you can’t have passengers under the age of 13, you can’t drive at night, and a few more. They go away after six months as long as your record is clean, or something like that-- it’s very complicated.
And there were kids there as young as three with the supervision of only an older sibling who might be seven or eight, and was mostly occupied with their own games.
Also, when you were pretty young, you could go to the movies alone. Sometimes you didn’t have pockets on your shorts, because they didn’t make pockets in little kids clothes, so you put your money in your sock.
Now, you can’t go alone, and it’s the theater’s rules as much as your parents’.
It’s funny reading this thread because everything is so true. All you folks could have been from my neighbourhood!
This just happened to me the other day. Some things never change…
I didn’t see mention of how dog poop used to turn white (though it’s been mentioned elsewhere before)
Girl Scouts used to go door to door instead of the parents extorting all their coworkers, or worse yet, accosting shoppers at the grocery store.
In middle school, girls took Home Ec and boys took Shop. Some girls also took Shop (I did) but not too many boys took Home Ec.
Wall to wall carpet was considered desirable.
Appliances were avocado. Stylin’ baby!!!
Born in 1964, but this is EXTREMELY similar to my youth:
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Also former “Latchkey Kid” from about 3rd grade on. Fortunately my elementary school was about a block and a half from my house. I never heard the term LKK until the early eighties (I think it was a promo for a TV documentary hosted by Christopher Reeve).
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My mother did buy a color TV around 1970 or so (when stations still identified programs as being IN COLOR!) but she got so sick of us three kids fighting over the TV that for Christmas '71 we each got our own B&W TV!
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Cartoons were also on weekday mornings. I spent my LKK mornings eating my cereal to the Filmation Superman-Batman-Aquaman cartoons and Warner Bros.
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I used to joke that my sister was the only person ever to get a tan from the light on her princess phone!
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My brother took some major high-tech classes in high school (electronics, plasma etch deposition, some serious stuff). Then Prop 13 happened.
Don’t know about girls taking Shop, but there was a lot of guys (myself included) who took Home Ec…because the teacher was hot.