Stuff the youngsters will scratch their heads over...

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
121

Also,

Remember when garter belts weren’t worn to be sexy, but to hold your stockings up because there were no (gasp!) pantyhose.

The Space Race. (And the Russians were winning)

18 year old drinking laws. (I must admit that as old as I am, that I feel that these laws are discrimitory. If you are considred an adult in ALL respects by this country, includeing voteing, contracts, crime, resposiblilities, the draft, etc., then you shouldn’t be bannned from one thing.)

“Long haired music” was classical.

The Beatles were this little band from Liverpool.

122

Whew! So much has been said already, but I’ll add a bit.

The Amana Radarange had its debut in 1967, but it was another 4 or 5 years before microwave ovens started showing up in convenience stores (that would sport little warning signs on the front door advising those with Pacemakers to be cautious). Nobody actually had a microwave at home for another few years.

Anybody else remember that, when cable tv started sweeping the nation (early to mid '70s) it was bikers who were the linemen who ran a lot of the cable? I knew a few who did that for years; it fit their gypsy lifestyle to live in Tulsa for 6-7 months and then roll up the road to do the same in Kansas City for a while. There were a lot of illegal hookups in those days.

Somebody mentioned Super Connies - beautiful airplanes. But I did fly across the Pacifac in them a few times and man that was a long trip (Pan Am had refueling stops at Midway and Wake Island).

International phone calls were a major production and there was a distinct lag in transmission. And you couldn’t even dream of making such a call without the assistance of a real live human operator (always female). Remember station-to-station v. person-to-person calls? Person-to-person calls were more expensive, but if your party wasn’t available, you didn’t have to pay. Telephones were pulse-dial, so you could sometimes make a call from a busted payphone.

Gumball machines on cop cars? Cops with neckties?

I never had a key to the house I where grew up until I left after high school - the door was always unlocked.

Rock ‘n’ roll bands would wear matching outfits - ah, the Electras in their metalflake blue tuxedos. The first rock ‘n’ roll concert I attended featured the Beach Boys on their Sloop John B. tour - they had less equipment on stage than my own garage band had just a few years later, and you couldn’t hear them at all because the girls just screamed through the whole thing.

Kids were pretty much on their own with their free time. My little brother and I played Life Raft a lot (top bunk bed) and later my friends and I roamed wide on our bikes. All we had to do was show up for dinner. Do things like rope swings over the bayou even exist anymore?

And finally, when long hair on guys became an issue, it didn’t really have to be very long at all (look at the Meet the Beatles album cover).

123

How about some now-defunct breakfast cereals: Quisp, Quake, Puffa Puffa Rice, Freakies, etc., etc.

And, a lot of the cereals that survive today used to have very different names, back when it was OK to say that it was loaded with sugar:
“Pops” used to be “Sugar Pops”
“Super Golden Crisp” used to be “Super Sugar Crisp”
“Smacks” (really the same cereal as Super Golden Crisp) used to be “Sugar Smacks”
“Frosted Flakes” used to be “Sugar Frosted Flakes”

124

Guess I may as well butt in.

Ten cent comic books. I really miss ten cent comic books. I remember how indignant I was when they went up to twelve cents.

Playing “Uganda” and “Star Trek” on a Honeywell 6040 mainframe computer while the boss thought I was working, circa 1975 or 76.

The Corvair.

The Apple II being the most popular home computer around. Still got mine, still use it.

“All in the Family” was “breakthrough” television.

A swimming hole. Meadows and woods to play in.

What I don’t miss: “White Only” and “Colored Only” signs on public drinking fountains and bathrooms.

The AMC Gremlin and Javelin.

6 1/2 ounce Cokes in glass bottles.

125

Watching the extensive coverage of the Apollo moon missions on TV. You always had Walter Cronkite (on CBS) or Frank McGee (on NBC) illustrating what was happening, using plastic models of the Lunar Module and Command Module.

Some of the first TV remote controls were sound-based, rather than infrared. You would push the button, it would make a “cla-chunk” sound, and the TV would change channels. I remember a friend who had one of these TVs, and it would change channels whenever his dog would shake his head (thereby jingling his dog-tags).

Even before Pong (which was around 1975 or so), there was a very primitive TV video game called Odyssey (probably around 1973). The graphics were very Pong-like, but it came with a set of colored cellophane overlays that you would put over your TV screen. Thus, you could play skiing, or tennis, or whatever, depending on which overlay you put on.

Something that’s been alluded to already: cigarette advertising on television. That vanished all of a sudden around 1971 or so.

The very first episode of “Sesame Street” was on NBC on a Saturday morning – I think they bought the time on a commercial network to gain some awareness.

Gas stations giving away gifts with fill-ups – a very, very common thing until the first oil crisis in '74.

Early electronic calculators, which had four functions (add, subtract, multiply, divide) and were as big as a hardcover book, yet cost over $100.

Boy, I loved the rear-facing “tail-gunner” seat in old station wagons. While we’re on that topic, station wagons frequently had the phony wood paneling on the sides.

Most TV stations signed off around midnight or so (after Johnny Carson or Jack Paar was over), and didn’t come back on the air until 6 or 7 a.m.

“Made in Japan” was synonymous with very inferior quality.

BTW, the reason Betamax died out was that, for many years, Sony treated the format as proprietary technology, and wouldn’t let other manufacturers bring out Beta-format VCRs. JVC, which developed the VHS format, allowed other manufacturers to use the format.

126

Much as I can relate to so many items listed in this thread, I simply refuse to believe that I am old. Now, where is my Hollie Hobbie?

127

I am not sure about the spelling of this first one but here goes…

Shake-A-Pudding: Put it in the special Shake-A-Pudding container with milk, shake for 5 minutes and voila, instant pudding.

Fuzzy Wuzzy Soap: It was a bear shaped bar of soap, get it wet once and let it sit on the counter. Over the course of 5 or so days it grew hair. This soap also had a prize in the middle of it.

128

Sounds familiar. I have things in my refrigerator that do that sometimes. There’s an (unpleasant) surprise in the middle with them too, but I don’t go looking for it.

Anyone remember “Super Stuff”? It was sort of like do-it-yourself Gak™, except it was a bilious pink. It came in a small tub (like margarine) and you had to mix the powder in a packet with water and shake it up in the tub before you could play with it.

Anyone else remember when nature was the enemy and “Man’s Conquest of Nature” was always considered good news?

Oh, yes. White bread was the manna from the gods. It didn’t have that disgusting flavor or texture that whole wheat bread had. It was made with bleached flour, so it had to be sanitary!

~~Baloo

129

I remember nearly getting in trouble in high school for doing the arithmetic calculations in my algebra homework on a calculator: +,-,*,/. Calculators were new and exotic at the time, and for awhile we would refer to it as “the computer”. (This was before anyone had the science fiction conception of a PC!).

A couple of years ago I ended up substitute teaching in my old high school, teaching algebra. The students were required to have and know how to use a hewlett-packard graphing calculator. It was part of the course work.

I also remember when Elvis died, and when Space:1999 was a futuristic science fiction fantasy set on our technologically advanced moon base in the year 1999.

It’s pretty sad that so much of our commonalities consists of crappy old tv shows…

130

Padeye:

Let’s see, I remember the Uncle Al show in Cincinnati in the mid-late 70’s (that’s when I lived there) and some stupid martian puppet guy called “Bubba” on channel 46 in Atlanta in the early 80’s.

Anyone remember Crazy Foam? Did you ever draw on the continous-feed scrap computer paper that your dad brought home from work? It had green stripes on the front, but was solid white on the back.

131

How about 7 inch floppy disks – & I heard there were 10 inch too, but I never saw one.

The 7 inch jobs held a massive 140K or so, but that was fantastic compared to punched paper tape, and we only had 32K (that’s K not M) of RAM anyway.

132

Streetcars

TV Shows: Rocky King Private Detective; Sgt Preston of the Yukon; Captain Midnight; Beany and Cecil (the seasick sea serpent with villian Dishonest John}; Captain Kangaroo;
Tom Terrific; Mighty Mouse; Winky Dink (how many of you remember that one?); The Toast of the Town; The Hollywood Palace; Texaco Theatre; Four Star Playhouse; I could go on and on…being a really old fart

Remember when McDonalds hamburger cost a dime and there was no such thing as a Big Mac…Hamburgers, cheesburgers and french fries

Candies such a black jacks, licorice whips, baseball cards that came with bubble gum inside, penny candy that cost a penny

Time for me to shut up and let somebody else on.

133

Couple computer-related ones here:

When the statement “I built my computer” meant:

a)You bought a kit and soldered components together.
b)You literally designed one from scratch.

4K RAM was considered a lot.
Your output was a LED panel, or a teletype if you were lucky.
High-level programming like C was nearly unknown. Assembly or machine code was common.
It was cheaper to repair a computer mainboard by replacing individual components than to buy a new one.

And, a non-technological one:

Remember asbestos? That fire-retardant wonder cloth. Too bad it took 15-20 years to discover it caused scarring of the lungs.

134

What were those edible bugs you could make? There was an oven, and special molds that you put some sort of goop into. I remember edible goop, glow in the dark goop, and then a bunch of different colors. Can’t quite think of the name, was it Incredible Edibles? Creature Factory?

How about Hot Wheeels, and that orange track with the maroon connectors. I must have had a mile of that stuff!

135

Op-Yops and KaBongers.

Op-Yops were the two round plastic disks on two parallel strings - when you pulled the strings tightly together in rythymn, the disks ‘clacked’ together.

KaBongers were the two plactic balls on the end of strings tied to a small plastic ring. You put your finger through the ring, jerked it up and down, and the two balls made the most satisfying “clack-clack-clack-clack-clack…” as they bounced against each other. Of course, Mom never thought it was that satisfying. They took them off the market when the plastic balls kept exploding into shrapnel - kids today don’t know what they’re missing.

Star Trek on network television.

136

It was “Incredible Edibles”. I forget what the inedible ones were called. Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

When I was in elementary school (4th grade, 1968), you just weren’t part of the “in crowd” unless you had a Festus. What’s a Festus? Well, I forget the commercial name, but they were these rubbery, wobbley, translucent, ugly insect-looking things about the size of a tennis ball (if you wadded it up). You’d use them to scare the girls (and you’d get a crush on the girls who weren’t scared) and they were great for playing catch.

One time my 3d grade class went on a field trip to a museum in San Francisco. The featured artist was Peter Max (is he still famous?) My mom and dad came along, and dad bought me a book of Peter Max paper airplanes – just cut, fold, and throw.

~~Baloo

137

Actually, this is Arken’s mother…

Collecting the foil from cigarette packages, forming them into a ball, and selling it to the “junk man” (does anybody remember them?) when the ball was as big as your head. You had to beg smokers you knew for the foil.

X-raying your feet in shoe stores with a flouroscope.

Before air conditioning, staying outside after midnight because it was too hot to sleep in the house.

Begging the people in the neighborhood who owned the first TVs to let you watch.

Movie gimmicks- door prizes, 3-D, cinemascope, smell-o-vision, ushers and matrons (who minded the children), balconies (you would throw peanuts on the people below when the matron wasn’t looking).

Paperback books cost $1.00 or less.

Candy stores (not Mr. Bulky’s) that sold newspapers, cigarettes, comic books, ice cream, soda and candy.

Evening newspapers.

Aspic- Non-sweet Jell-O with meat.

Beef for two or three meals a day! For $10.00 worth of groceries a week, a family could have 3 steak dinners.

From Arken-

Video Arcades with Pac-Man (or, if you were REALLY lucky, the video/pinball combo, Baby Pac-Man). No fighting games except Karate Champ. Rich kids had an Atari at home.

The Electric Company

45 records with a comic book (The Fantastic Four was my favourite).

Night Flight on the USA Network

Night Rider on a real network (I swear to God, that show was written well when I was a kid. They used some sort of special CGI to make it bad in re-runs.) EVERY kid wanted to own Kitt, or at least a car with that red light thing on the front.

The Dukes of Hazzard were upstanding citizens, not rejects from Deliverance.

Buying music at a RECORD store.

Jell-O 1-2-3 (WHERE IS IT NOW?!?!? It was the greatest invention mankind has ever devised!)

Boo-Berry Cereal

TV Stations that existed just to show you used car dealers and play Beverly Hillbillies re-runs (they were cheap, but now TV Land is a big-time channel.)

Staying up late to watch Saturday Night Live- and it was funny!

Not a nostalgic memory, but one of the strongest memories of my childhood is watching the Challenger explode on live TV while in school. I’ll never forget it.

138

We got our first TV in 1957 - it was the 3rd in the neighborhood and my parents got it partly so we wouldn’t spend all of our time down the street where they had a TV. Of course, they then decided to strictly limit our viewing time. By 1960 almost everybody had one.

Live television news was nonexistent until Hurrican Carla (which I sat through - 1960) brought Dan Rather to the fore. After that, we saw it a bit with the space shots, but JFK’s assassination changed all that. The TV networks were not actually on hand for the event, but they descended on Dallas in short order such that I was able to watch (I was in the hospital and thuus just watching TV all day) an historic first (I believe - straighten me out if you care to). I think television capturing the live assassination of Lee Harvey Oswald by Jack Ruby was the first (hmmm…, how do I put this) live capture of a spontaneous earth shaking event (i.e., even with Carla, and more so with the space shots, the TV crews involved had time to prepare).

It was about 1967 when FM radio started playing rock and it took a couple of years before most people actually had FM radios.

In Texas, cars were not required to have turn signals until 1960. How long has it been since you had a tube tire on your car? Oh yeah, I got my driver’s license when I was 14.

Most people just did not have credit cards before the late 1970s. Around the same time people started using credit cards, ATMs appeared. Prior to that you did all your banking in the bank’s lobby, with a teller or an officer. In Texas, branch banking was illegal, so your bank was a single location. And they were open from 9:00 AM until 2:00 PM, M-F; consequently, manny people did not have checking accounts.

When I was the right age for’em, skateboards had metal wheels; and surfboards were BIG.

And, come the Cuban Missile Crisis, we had to have a signed declaration from our parents on record with the school stating how many minutes notice of nuclear war the school was to release us for the dash home (everybody else had 20 to 30 minutes; my mom decided on 5 and I just knew I was gonna get my ass fried hauling butt down Kirby Drive).

Anybody (who didn’t go) remember their draft lottery number (mine was 52)?

139
  1. Can you say 2S? I THOUGHT you could. How long afterwards did you retain your 1H card before throwing it out or losing it? I kept mine in a succession of several wallets, finally losing it along with a wallet in the mid-80’s.
140

I was a 1S to begin with, then became a 1A right before Nixon (quite suddenly) cancelled the draft while they were sucking up my year (1953 babies were the last to get drafted). I had pretty much figured I was gonna get to play with some olive drab hardware, but it didn’t happen.