Plastic paratroopers maybe 1.5" tall, had crappy film parachutes that never billowed like real parachutes do but I still bought them, tossed them up in the air and watched them plummet.
I loved those! Made sure my son had them when he was of age, just so I could play with them too!!
When I was a kid, friends and I would ride up to the airport, which was about a mile away, to watch the planes come in and go out. We also dared each other to climb the stairs to the tower! Nowadays…Not gonna happen!
We also went thru the airport checking candy machines and pay phones for change in the coin return, sometimes we found some.
We would watch the airport lounge where they served food and drink but we thought only adults were allowed in but we watched and wished we could go in. I love airports but I cant get in and do the things we used to do, mostly watch the planes come in and go out.
Wooden tops. I was a bit young when my siblings had them but I always tried to throw them. Those were the neatest things!
I imagine these were already mentioned but
Etch a sketch
rock em sock em robots
Easy bake oven, mine was a pastel green or aqua…I loved baking cakes and those little cake pans were the neatest!
Someone mentioned where 25 cents bought you a bag of 25 pieces of candy! You better believe it!
When we went to the grandparents house, grandpa would reach into his pockets and hand us all tons of change. There was a mom and pop grocery around the corner. That was the best part of going there aside from Christmas Eve. And of course going there anytime of day and grandma would give us a meal. Mostly it was snacks, ice cream with Hershey chocolate sauce. It was the first place where I became familiar with COKE! Those little coke bottles! She always tried to keep them stocked in the refrigerator. Sometimes it was RC
Well some memories go on forever but this post went too far!
The sound of the screen door opening and closing, usually slammed by we kids
Going into town to pick up the mail at the post office
the Avon lady and the Fuller brush man coming to the house
Sleeping porches
Big old elm trees that arched over the street and blocked out the light
Walking home from school at noon for lunch, the running back to not be late
The pain of putting on shoes every fall after going barefoot all summer
Summer rec in the park - making woven potholders and braided keychains
Slam books
Magic 8 balls
Leaving home on the weekend mornings, hopping on my bike to freedom!, and not having to come home or check in until it got dark
Lying flat, half asleep, on the backseat of the car, watching the stars and street lights out of the back window, during car trips
Taking the train from Chicago’s Union Station to visit my family two states away
Wearing gloves and hats to church
Playing in anyone’s yard up and down the block - no one cared or yelled at us
Playing bicycle hide-and-seek which we called “Ditch 'em”
Sailing leaf boats down the gutters after a rainstorm
Fabulous decorated department store windows at Christmas time - often with mechanical animated creatures
Soda fountains in drug stores
Buying a hamburger (15 cents) and fries (10 cents) at the old walk-up McDonald’s windows
The neighborhood bar, Pearl’s Tavern, where everyone (kids, too) would go and hang out on Friday nights - eating hot beef sandwiches and we kids drinking root beers
Here’s what you do. Your grandmother drops off 10 pounds of summer squash and zucchini. You have a giant string of Black Cat firecracks. With a ball-point pen, you bore a hole into each fruit and stuff a charge into it, light it, and toss it high in the air. BOOM - vegetable fragments everywhere.
All the kids in the neighborhood playing Kick the Can or Hide and Ssek on summer evenings.
Car windows that you had to manually roll up or down.
A glove compartment loaded with maps; GPS was unheard of.
“Flipping” baseball cards which came five to a pack with a piece of gum and cost all of 5 cents!
For that matter, candy bars for 5 cents.
No bicycle helmets.
I could go on, but I’m getting all misty-eyed!
triangular air vents on the leading edges of a car’s front side windows (I’m still noticing their absence in today’s cars)
most toys made of wood or metal
all-white mass media
death-death-death in Vietnam, Cambodia, Africa, latin America
wood house construction
firewood made from old torn down houses (good quality wood at that)
black and white movies about WW2, fencing, cowboys
black and white rom-coms
rotundas instead of underpasses and flyovers
clean air, open grassy areas, light traffic in the middle of the city
old men with retaining chains in their pockets
pocket watches
fountain pen repair shops
typewriter repair shops
boot black benches on the sidewalks
old silver coins
guns, lots of guns
delightful carinderias downtown where our mother would treat us to gigantic crushed ice snacks
wet markets with gigantic, scary-looking sea monsters, freshly landed
Streets still had a bare strip of soil where we can dig holes to play marbles.
