# The way it was back then...



## clovis (May 13, 2002)

I've been thinking about life recently, and how much the world has changed.

1. Our local small town theater used to show second run films. Price was $1.50, and they always gave back a Kennedy half dollar in change.

2. Remember having to write a city's tourism bureau and asking for tourist information before you went on a vacation? I remember how excited we would be when the mailman delivered that package containing maps, brochures, and advertisements. 

3. Remember calling someone on their home phone and getting a busy signal?

4. When I was growing up, there wasn't a family gathering where the men didn't sit together and talk politics. While many of the nation's leaders were before my time, I don't recall a conversation where Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter and Reagan weren't hotly debated. And the one thing that sticks in my mind is that the Vietnam War always rose to the top of the conversation. As well, my grandfather loved and adored Franklin Roosevelt, but strongly distrusted Henry Kissenger and anyone else associated with Nixon. And you know what? No one back then had a cable TV station to tell them what to think or how to line up with their respective political parties.

5. Remember when getting the newspaper everyday was a highlight of your day? I still have a paper subscription, and I still get a small smile every morning when I see it laying on the front lawn, and I often smile again when I unroll that freshly printed Wall Street Journal. But, back in the day, getting a paper was such a bigger deal than it is today.

6. Back in my day, it seemed that everyone's grandfather was a World War II vet or was involved with the war effort, and everyone's parent had a Vietnam War story. I remember seeing all the twenty-something men of that era still wearing their military issued boots, and quite often, a fatigue coat or shirt, even though they'd been out of the military for years. As I walked along the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington DC last week, it dawned on me how much that war gripped our nation, and at the time, seemed to change it forever, but these days, it appears that everyone has forgotten those times, except for an occasional fellow wearing a 'Vietnam War Vet' hat. I wonder sometimes if we have forgotten those times, how it wrecked people's lives, and the sad lessons that we've drawn from it.

7. Remember how many depression era folks there used to be, and how many stories you would hear on a day to day basis? I'd love to go back and sit down with all of the old folk (Okay, they were _really_ old to me at the time.) and hear those stories again.

8. Lastly, I was trying to describe to my little one how it was to get a soft drink at a restaurant, back before there were unlimited free refills on drinks. She looked at me in bewilderment, probably the same way I looked at those depression era people when they were trying to teach me a lesson about life.

How was it back then, for you?


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## kasilofhome (Feb 10, 2005)

I remember school announcemts in the morning --the Pledge of Allegence, followed by a pray, everyone stood. When we sat down the news of the day --the headline of from the long gone local newspaper. 

I remember older people --the grandparents dealing with the issue of having to prove that they were born-- Many of the older people seem to have a need for a birth cert that never was created or existed on the day of their birth. Bibles and baptismal records from the church provided the info that many needed to travel back to Italy.

I remember waiting for the tv to not be a test pattern for Sat. morning cartoons. The the star spangle banner played before the test pattern returned at night.

I remember that a car loan was for 18 months. I hear that 7 years is now the norm.

Kids could work at any age providing mom and dad said ok--note mom and dad.

I remember mom making pop corn all day fill paper bags the grocer povided for the once a month movie at the church. Other moms might be in charge of baking brownies or cookies for the big event. The movie was always a Disney movie

Saturday night was for children to attend church bingo with grandparents. Mom's and Dad did a fish fry or spegettii and teenagers disapeared.

Out door "playthings" were sticks for weaponds or a shovel to dig a hole (why did we dig holes).

Teachers and other adults would often ask what do we want do do when we grow up.
police, priest, doctor, farmer for the boys and mom or first a teacher then a mom or first a nurse and then a mom or nun.

People might have neighbors that drove them nuts but no one ever demanded to control another person land.--- Yet, complaints of fireworks or a house painted purple.

And unless someone had live in the house for 30 years it was alway described as "old man Jennining place--the one with the grapes home"

Male teachers got gifts of pint bottles of booze from elementary students (provided by parents)--And lady teachers got perfume, or bakegoods or handcrafted items for christmas. How would that go over today.

There really was a villiage idiot--it was normally past down that --"no making fun of him. He comming over and he is going to be moving boxes, checking the basement for snakes, shoveling what ever--he was picked up, walked or rode a bike.--we overheard or were told that his mom had a bad delivery and he was a man child--he might do an adult job and then pay tag with us --It was not an insult it was a title --
There were dangerous people even then--the town drunk-- only drove a tractor--it was a real slow tractor --a turtle moved faster. There were house well out of my walking / bike riding range that were off limits --Everyone had the same houses to avoid. They were safe in the store but we never were to be alone there --no selling cookies or what ever. 

Looking back at it all that was missing from it being "leave it to Beaver" was June pearls


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## MushCreek (Jan 7, 2008)

I remember being able to safely ride my bike down town to get a haircut- when I was 8 years old. My parents gave me a little extra money for penny candy.

During hunting season, it was a common sight to see someone walking through town with a shotgun and a game bag.

I used to roll pennies to buy gasoline for my old VW Beetle.

You slipped the guy at the dump a bottle at Christmas to get picking rights for the year.

You couldn't get away with anything- somebody's Mom was always home and keeping an eye on things. The biggest fear of being caught by the cops? They would call your parents!


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## ginnie5 (Jul 15, 2003)

I remember being at my grandparents (truly the only "home" there ever was for me) and sleeping with the only the screen door shut. I remember sneaking across the highway to get penny candy and bubblegum for the old country store.
I even remember the "village idiot" ......he preached at the local Hardees. Which was the only fast food place around and they didn't do commercials that you'd be embarassed to watch with your preacher! 

Quite frankly.....I miss those days!


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## simi-steading (Sep 27, 2012)

So cool.. Forgot about the test patterns and Star Spangled Banner... those bring back memories...

I remember shotguns in the back windows of the trucks in the school parking lot.. especially the first day of deer season... if thy weren't playing hooky..

We had gun safety and target shooting in gym class using BB guns. ....mmmmm.. and then there were the BB gun wars we'd have after we got home from school... 

Your parents would let you take you fireworks out to shoot them off alone.... (OK, not mine, but a lot of other friends could...)

Us kids would run up to the bowling ally to buy cigarettes for our parents from the cigarette machine, and no one batted an eye..

Our chemistry sets had actual dangerous chemicals in them... and none of us died.

We were forced out the door in the morning,and told not to come back until dinner time... and you had better be there by then....

Emergency room waits weren't 6 hours

If you could ride a wheelie down the whole street and jump a ditch on your bike like Evil Knievel could, you had a cute girlfriend...

Advertisements for Christmas shopping didn't start until after Halloween..

Remember when parents let kids experiment with bobby pins and wall sockets? Experience was the best teacher...


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## SFM in KY (May 11, 2002)

I'm older than the majority of the people here, I think and was raised on a ranch in rural MT so even more 'backward' than most.

We did live in town for a couple of years before we moved out to my grandparent's ranch. My Dad worked as a bookkeeper at the local coal company while we built a cabin at the ranch. From those days I remember the iceman delivering a block of ice for the 'icebox' on the back porch ... and I remember watching the neighbor get coal delivered for the winter, with a wagon and team of black horses. I can also remember walking alone from home to the corner grocery store ( 4 blocks) to get milk or bread when I was 4 and 5.

We had no modern conveniences at the ranch, didn't get electricity until I was 10 or 12 and I remember going up to my grandparents' house in the evening to listen to maybe an hour of programs on the battery operated radio. I specifically remember Minnie Pearl and her "How -DEE" on Grand Ol' Oprey ... and all the clatter when Fibber McGee opened his closet door.

I remember going to town from the ranch, probably no more often than once a month in the summer, as it was 60 miles over gravel roads. But if we had cream to take to the creamery, I always got an ice cream cone there when we did, a big treat for me because without electricity we didn't have any way to keep ice cream and no ice to make home-made ice cream.

I can remember getting the Christmas catalogs from Sears and Montgomery Ward in the fall and going through them page by page almost daily, dreaming of all the things you could buy. I don't think I was a very typical girl-child however, the two things I remember the most clearly about those Christmas catalogs ... and I remember being fascinated by them for years ... were the train sets and the child-sized pony saddles.

I remember melting snow in a washtub on the coal cookstove for baths in the winter. I remember sitting on my grandmother's kitchen floor churning butter. I remember waiting for the weeks' baking to come out of the oven so I could get a cinnamon roll fresh out of the oven, as soon as it cooled enough to eat.

I remember helping my grandmother collect eggs and how I hated the hens because they would peck the back of my hand when I had to reach under them to get an egg. I remember learning to milk and learning to squirt milk in the mouth of the barn cat that was waiting for his share. I remember trying to ride one of the milk cow calves and getting bucked off.


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## DW (May 10, 2002)

I, too, remember the xmas catalogs! Friday night my Dad would go to a small bar & buy fish dinner for 35 cents. It was carp steaks, rye bread & something. It was on those cardboard type paper plates with one on the top as a cover. I also remember this old couple would drive thru our alley with a team of horses & wagon and pick thru trash. If anyone had something good, they would usually set it out for them.


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## Evons hubby (Oct 3, 2005)

Ahhh yes... the good old days... party lines, snowy reception on both tv stations when the weather wasnt just right, nickel ice cream cones, and for a dime you could get in the saturday matinee, watch two movies and the cartoons between them. I remember putting patches on the patches of an old bicycle innertube trying to get it to hold enough air to get to a service station to put more air in it, playing cards clamped in the spokes with clothes pins. Grammy sitting with a pile of socks in her lap, with a lightbulb stuck in one while darning it. Catching a ride in the back of a neighbors pickup to the little country store where I could buy 22 shells for 50 cents a box. (The trick was coming up with 50 cents) I remember having to wait for the radio to "warm up" before attempting to dial in a station, hoping to catch Marshal Dillon, or The Shadow or maybe Lom and Abner. Swimming in the irrigation canals on a hot summer day, snuggling up in old hand stitched quilts by the fire during the long winter nights. Castor oil cured nearly everything known to man, and if castor oil wouldnt do it, a jar of Vicks would. Yeppers, thems was the good ol days!

ETA: I dont remember when I learned it, might have just been born knowing it... but you dont ever use the glossy pages out of the Sears and Robucks catalogue, go straight for the plain pages.


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## Jan in CO (May 10, 2002)

So many of these are fond memories for me, too! I'm almost as old as you, SFM, and remember the catalogs, buying school clothes from them, even as we lived far from the city and Mom didn't drive.

Our parents let us go out to play having no idea where we were all day. Boys carried pocket knives and had rifles in gun racks in the back of their old pickups. No one locked the doors to thier homes or cars and NO ONE messed with them, either.

A fruit peddler came down our alley and sold produce on a certain day, and we used to hang out waiting for the ice man to pull his little wagon by with a block of ice for his ice chest and he would take out a pocket knive and chip off a piece for us. Never got poisoned by whatever was on that dirty knife, either.

We skated down the sloping sidewalk when we lived in town, on roller skates that were metal and attached to the bottom of your shoes--not tennis shoes--with a key. Heaven help you if you lost that key.

Going to the neighbors and learning to say 'Horses' ....' in Italian from their grandma, coming home and getting my mouth soaped out for saying it to Mom. Didn't even know what it was except we thought it sounded neat.

Sitting under a sheet with a metal electric vaporizer to help us with congestion when we had a cold. Mom would leave us there while she ironed or did the dishes. Could have scalded ourselves!

All the stores were closed on Sunday except one small market in our city. No stores stayed open late or on holidays. No gas stations were open, and when you did go to the station for gas, there was an attendant who filled the tank, washed your windows and checked your oil and water. No extra charge. Gas was like 25 cents a gallon. 

Summer vacations with the family in the car. with no air conditioning and no seatbelts. We stayed in a tent until we got to relatives homes where we could stay over night. 

Unwrapping all the Christmas gifts under the tree while Mom and Dad were doing the bi-weekly grocery shopping after Dad got home from work. I carefully put tape over the original tape and the folks never knew I'd peeked. Didn't get a ton of gifts, either. Mostly clothes and a couple larger things.

We lived my a small river when I was 9 and older, and we often went tubing with a group of kids although I could not swim. Was told not to go in over my knees, but of course we had to in certain spots and I almost drowned twice. Went fishing and bb gun shooting along that river often without any adult supervision. Hiked in the mountains and cooked half raw potatoes in an old stove in my friend's back yard. They were delicious and it's lucky we didn't burn down the forest. 

NEVER wore pants or jeans to school, only dresses. They weren't permitted even in high school, we'd change into 'nice' slacks to decorate the gym for dances and even the prom, then change back to dresses to catch the activity bus home. Prom didn't cost an arm and a leg and no one went in a limo, either.

Taking 'clinkers' from the old school or church furnace area and putting salt on them, I think, then food coloring to watch crystals grow on them.

The only thing I don't miss about the old days is the medical care. The diagnosis of cancer was not talked about as it was an automatic death sentence.

Grandparents often lived with their grown children's families or vice versa. Extended family got together on weekends usually Sunday for dinner and a visit. Houses were small, bedrooms were shared, and you had a small closet because you didn't have a lot of clothes. You changed out of 'good' clothes to 'play' clothes to keep them nice.


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## jwal10 (Jun 5, 2010)

My Grandfather was in WW1. My dad was 18 in 1918, didn't go. He was too old for WW2. I walked to town WITH my .22, picking up bottles so I could get shells at the Western Auto store. Pennies, nickle and dimes worth at a time. I listened to all the stories of the hard times of the depression. My Mom and Grandparents lived through the dirty 30's in Kansas on a farm. Fun for us 3 boys was a end of summer trip to the ocean. When Dad saw the ocean he would let us know he was ready to go back home. He grew up in Maine and saw the Atlantic all the time. Mom grew up in Kansas and didn't see the ocean until they came to Oregon in 1953. She loved the ocean and saw to it we got too also. The only other time we had any fun was when Mom had a New Years eve party and she invited other members of the Church over. She really looked forward to that. Dad was always worried about something and was usually all buisness. Mom had an old black radio on top of the refrigerator, usually religious or news on. We didn't have a TV. Mom went to town once a month for basic needs. We got a bathroom in 1964 after the dairy cows were sold. Mom and Dad sold the farm in 1980 and the place was really run down, everything was bulldozed except the small shop building and the silo. It still stands next to the road, no buildings around, kind of a sad landmark. We worked hard and played hard, we had a creek to play in, never learned to swim. Life wasn't much fun. I made a promise to never be that way, life is too short. I have always taken time for my family, being together is more important than money. Even now my kids will ask what I want for my birthday, be together and have a good meal. They understand the importance of family. We take at least one full weeks vacation together every year. Fun, food and family....James


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## Melissa (Apr 15, 2002)

Great memories everyone- thank you~


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## kasilofhome (Feb 10, 2005)

We were forced out the door in the morning,and told not to come back until dinner time... and you had better be there by then.... Yep this was important

I remember getting sick-I was the healthy one but Doc Joy came to the house.

a quart of milk was 25 cents and the stores were closed on Sundays but the gas station put in a coin machine with milk and eggs (just six in those packs) that was to get if you were out on Sunday.

We were newbies to the town we did not have family and we only spoke english-- The Italians, Germans, and Polish all had every member of their family at Grandma's place for Sunday dinner--We just went home alone after mass to a roast --Roast was Sunday fare and we saw that roast remade for the rest of the week.

There was a guy with suitcases--like boxes he was the Fuller Brush man.

There were other door to door men who had things to sell.

How many of us could spend the day with a pile of dirt and not be bored and the dirt hill with metal amry men conducted wars. 

Ice cream and potatoe chip were for when a cake with birthday candles were served.

My mom was the only female driver and she had a car durring the weekdays. She drove the nuns shopping--nuns did not drive. Mom drove most of the kid in the area to the emergency room. 

Dad worked in the office --he had a secretary and one day dad rushed home to have mom resew a button. Mom did and then she called his secretary and jokely came up with if Jack needs sewing during the office hours Katie would do it and mom would handle the repairs that happened after hours.---She even sent a sewing kit. ----------Can you see that happening today

Cars were fixed at home by fathers and sons on Saterday and almost ever family attended the baseball games at the field. Just this year the children (all fifty and above in years) were their for the decation of the baseball field -----------I just learned that it was NOT a park just part of an old corn field and the the long dead man who's very humble home that the bleacher butted up to the driveway with a grill that with the salems hotdogs were cooked by his family ---He just liked baseball--he built the bleachers-- he formed the teams--he built the baseball field it was all him. And now our town has the Don Meyers Mem baseball field. 

People had dreams and worked to make them real thru sweat not goverment grants.


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## SFM in KY (May 11, 2002)

What we used the most in the winter were horses when I was little. There were 3 miles of graveled private road from the county road (also gravel) up to the ranch. Nobody had big tractors and snowplows then, or 4 wheel drive vehicles, so you didn't go anyplace when there were bad snowstorms.

I remember the first Christmas at the ranch, neighbors we always had holiday dinner with were coming and my grandfather took the team and bobsled down to the county road to meet them and bring them up to the ranch house for Christmas dinner.

The mail was delivered three times a week to the mailbox at the county road but there were times when the only way we could pick up mail was by riding horseback to get it. 

I remember my Grandfather keeping the work horse bridles in the house during the coldest part of the winter so when he bridled the horses in the morning the iron bits wouldn't be cold and their lips and tongues wouldn't stick to the metal. The cattle were fed first thing in the morning, with the team and a hayrack on sled runners, no baled hay then, so the hay had to be pitched out of the haystacks onto the hayrack and then the horses pulled it to the feed ground. I remember getting to drive the team while my grandfather and father pitched the hay off to the cows ... I know now that the horses knew exactly where to go and my grandfather's voice commands told them what to do, but at the time I was sure proud of being able to help.

Then we had to drive down to the creek and use axes to chop through the ice that had formed in the drinking holes overnight. By spring, the ice could be a foot or more thick, but that was the only water that was available. We had a well and hand pump on the back porch at the house, but there was no way to pump it down to the barn and corrals and with no electricity, no tank heaters to keep it from freezing like we have now.


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## Cindy in NY (May 10, 2002)

Remember the clink of the glass bottles in the Coca Cola machine! I don't think it's possible to get soda that cold anymore!

Drinking out of the hose.

You could go to the woods and build a fort or ride your bike all the way across town - without a helmet!

Changing the channel required getting up and then there were only 3 or 4 channels available.

We got gifts at Christmas and on our birthdays, not every time we went to the store and whined. That usually got you something else.


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## wally (Oct 9, 2007)

I totally forgot about western auto..and a trip to otasco..do any of you okies remember this one...Gibsons ????


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## where I want to (Oct 28, 2008)

I can remember when Mom wanted the car for something, she drove my father to work and picked him up. Otherwise he took the car (yes that's right -THE car.)
I can remember walking to school most of the years- or taking a bus when I went to high school and it was too far to walk. No parent ever drove their kids to school.
I don't remember ever seeing a teacher outside during recess. If you got a skinned knee, you went to the school nurse to have the gravel washed out and were lucky if she believed in mercurochrome intead of iodine. If you got a bloody nose from dodge ball, you got a kleenex and advice about dodging rather than ducking.
I can remember getting vaccinations in school. And stinky lunch boxes with tv stars on the front. And the tinkle of the broken thermos bottle that was your last one til next year.


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## Cindy in NY (May 10, 2002)

where I want to said:


> I can remember when Mom wanted the car for something, she drove my father to work and picked him up. Otherwise he took the car (yes that's right -THE car.)


When my sister flew off the swing and needed to go to the emergency room for stitches, Mama had to go to the neighbors to use the phone (we didn't have one) to call Daddy to bring the car home.


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## Ozarks Tom (May 27, 2011)

Playing baseball in the cemetery, I don't know why - but I remember Mr. McDonald was second base. Little League? What's that?

Delivering 2 paper routes, until the evening paper boss found out I was working for the competition in the mornings.

$5 worth of gas was nearly a full tank.

Walking/riding the roads looking for returnable bottles.

Learning nearly as much during the 2 hours of school bus ride as all day in school.

Leash laws? Dog license? Spay/Neuter? You've got to be kidding me.


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## Jan in CO (May 10, 2002)

Also, when I was very young and we lived in town, I remember the little corner stores. All of them had wood floors, an actual butcher who would cut and wrap your meat and give you a piece of cheese. Loved going to the store for mom. Once I was sent to get a can of 'spargus. Looked and looked and couldn't find it, so asked to use the phone at the butcher. Told Mom I could only find a can of Asparagus, and the picture looked right, so was that it? 

Later when we moved to a canyon and I was bussed to a little town to attend school, on bad weather days, we had PE in the basement, a dirt dug out under the school. There were such treasures in the little tunnels that led to rooms where the drama class costumes were stored, and old old yearbooks. Loved those days in the basement next to the janitor's room and the boiler room. Sometimes we'd 'accidentally' miss the bus and have to wait for the activity bus, so we'd go up in the area above the gym and climb around on the supports. Guess I wasn't much of a girly, girl, either! 

Once my friend and I used her father's rifles to shoot a rattlesnake and coiled it up on her porch step to scare her mom, a nurse who worked nights in the hospital psych ward. Found out years later the woman had a heart condition, and we could have killed her! We were never allowed to touch my father's guns, so friend's house was always a 'fun' place to go with no adults home. We spent many an hour looking through her mother's nursing books, looking at the naked people! We were so bad!

Not much on TV, so my family were all good readers. I loved to read and got books from the school library often. We only got to watch things on TV that my parents thought were worth watching and that wasn't much.

I brought home a clutch of duck eggs when I was in about the fifth grade, obtained from a classmate. Told Mom I was going to hatch me some ducks. She let me use a heating pad, and I faithfully turned them every day, even tho they were so hot I could barely hold on to them. After about two months, Mom insisted I take them out to the river and toss them. I was so disappointed!

It was great living in the mountains, we had wildlife walking through our yards, and once I went to step out of the garage and something was just outside the door in the dim light of evening. It waddled away and I told my father, who came out with his archery equipment and shot the porcupine that had been eating the bark off his newly planted fruit trees. The neighbor across our little road had been feeding them, bringing them down into the little grove we lived in, so there was quite a lot of to-do about it. 

We never had soda or even koolaid. We drank milk or water with our meals, roasted marshmallows in the fireplace and watched spiders spinning webs outside the living room windows. Thought that was great and we actually got to stay up a bit late for it. We sure were not bored as kids are today.

We had to eat what we were served and you'd better not complain. I spent several nights sitting in the dark kitchen with by-then cold creamed corn or canned peas on my plate, refusing to eat them. Still don't like either one. By bed time, parents gave up and let me go to bed. 

We only had a six party phone line and a nosy neighbor who listened to every phone call. You knew when to answer the phone by your family's 'ring', Ours was two long and one short ring. Best friend and I would make crank calls to people out of the phone book, asking if their refrigerator was running, etc. We'd be laughing so hard, we could hardly complete the call, telling them to go catch it! 

In High school, the local deputy sheriff would often stop and pick us up if we were waiting for the bus when he went by. I now wonder if the other students thought we were in detention or something, being delivered to school in a patrol car! At night he'd go screaming up the canyon with his lights and siren on, and everyone knew he was heading home to dinner. Try that today!


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## Hexe (Mar 8, 2007)

I grew up in Germany, in the 60's and 70's, some of the things I read ring true as well:

Leaving the house to go play and not coming back until dinner. Nobody knew where we were and there were no pedophiles. (There probably were, but back then "home justice" would have been doled out...)

We bicycled 5 miles one way to eat an ice cream cone. 

No phone in the house until the late 70's.

My grandparents place and quite a few other places still had outhouses back then. Running water for kitchen, bathing, etc. but no indoor toilet. 

TV was black and white, you had to get up to change the channels. Programs were available from 4:00 PM until 1:00 AM. 

We had to do chores. 

Children routinely bought beer and cigarettes for dad at the corner store, nobody thougt anything of it. 

People only bred purebred dogs back then, mix-breeds truly were accidents and you didn't pay money for one, that would have been foolish. 

None of my friends mothers had a drivers license, much less a car. None of my friends mothers worked outside the home either. 

School did not get canceled because it snowed. 

It was a big deal if the teacher called your parents, that was NEVER good news... and parents ALWAYS believed the teacher... 

We also built forts in the woods (we called them "castles") and boy, were we dirty at the end of the day. 

Doctors made housecalls. 

Roads in town were not plowed in the winter, every homeowner was responsible for their stretch of road. 

Children would get a sip of wine/champagne/etc. at family celebrations, nobody thought it necessary to call child protective services, EVERYBODY did it. 

There were NO ticks.

I could go on and on..


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## SFM in KY (May 11, 2002)

From the time I was 10 or so, I could saddle the horse in the morning and ride all day if I wanted to. The only two rules, I had to tell my parents which direction I was riding in and I had to be home by supper/ before dark.

We didn't have telephone service at the ranch so if someone needed to see a doctor, we simply drove to town and went in the office/waiting room. The doctor worked the person in to the schedule. Broken bones, rattlesnake bites went directly to the ER at the hospital but there was no ambulance service, family or neighbors got you there. If someone was seriously ill or injured and couldn't get their work done, the neighbors divided up the time and saw to it that hay got put up or the cows got fed in the winter, even if it went on for weeks.

We always had a family/community picnic on the 4th of July. That was always a treat because that was when we had the first watermelon of the year. The growing season was too short to raise them and we always considered them too expensive before then. 

Summers were busy for everyone, but the 4th was a 'day off' for everyone as was the first day of the rodeo in Sheridan, WY. We took that day off as well, went in to watch the parade, had a picnic lunch, usually at the park and then went to the rodeo in the afternoon.


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## Mainelyhappy (Jan 28, 2008)

Taking lunch to school in a brown paper bag, and leaving it to sit all day in the cubby over my coat hook. I never died from eating a meat sandwich with mayonnaise that had been had room temp for hours.I'd take a nickle to buy a little carton of milk. Speaking of milk, it was delivered twice a week by Mr. Kelloway in his pin striped overalls and left in the "milk box" by the door if we were not home. A man came every spring and had a station wagon full of wonderful bushes and small trees. My mother would buy rhododendrons and azaleas and my dad would plant them. They still bloom there where I grew up, and where my older sister now lives. Penny candy from the local store. It really cost a penny. Small town parades on Memorial Day and the 4th of July. My dad would march with the other veterans, and he still proudly fit in his WWII uniform. Church every Sunday,(my mother had a leather covered box in her bureau, and kept dressy gloves in it. She wore them to church, with a hat) and then a big "dinner" with my grandmother coming for the meal. It would be roast beef or chicken or pork, with all the "trimmings." Sunday night supper would be light, and then we'd all have a bath and put on our pajamas, then watch The Wonderful World of Disney. It was a family event. We rode our bikes for hours, then graduated to horses, (and then to BOYS!) I had a pocket knife and a BB gun and knew how to use them both. I respected my parents and all "elders." Riding in the car with no seat belts...oh! riding in the back of a pick up truck, never worrying about falling out or getting hurt. This is a fun thread, thanks for the stroll down memory lane.


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## Debbie in Wa (Dec 28, 2007)

the good old days, wish we had them again. 

We were able to go to the movies for $2.00. That was the cost of your ticket, a soda, a bucket of popcorn, and two choices of candy. No parents were around but you had to make sure to listen to the movie attendant walking up the isle or you could not come back.

We had to walk to school every day unless it was raining hard. All the kids knew that at a set time we would all meet at our place and walk together. This was a normal thing for all of our schooling years.

Going down to the local mom and pop grocery store. Dad would head down to do the shopping at the butcher shop inside. He would place his order, and wait for it to be cut and paper wrapped. We only had one major grocery store in town, Mayflowers, and we didn't buy much from them. Once Dad was through with the grocery store we would head next door to Rexal Drugs to pick up what items were needed there.

Our choice of fast food came from a barrel. It was the Barrelitto. A little building shaped like a barrel standing on end and they served the best Mexican food ever. They knew you by name and what you usually ordered.

On Sundays, Dad and I would head down to Wenchel Donuts and a paper. We got to pick out what cake donuts we wanted and they got theirs. We sat around reading the paper and then Dad packed us up in the truck for a family drive.

On Saturdays, we would get up early and watch cartoons on CBS. We only got 4 channels and you had to get up to fine tune the pbs channel. Once cartoons were over with, we headed outside to play. By late afternoon, we had to be back in to head off to out grandparents house for the evening. We had supper there and afterwards sat down to watch Hee Haw, Saturday night wresting, and Roller Derby. I use to sit at my grandmothers feet and help her pull yarn from the skein and watch her crochet.

Every Holiday, the whole family would get together and eat. There was always the adult table and then two kids tables. There was always leftovers to take home.

When we went anywhere in Mom's car, a Chevy Impala, we seldom sat in the back seat. Most of the time we liked to ride up in the back window.

When ever a disaster struck around our area, we would all get together to pitch in to help. The local churches got together and gathered things that were needed. Food, clothing, shelter, places to house animals. Dad helped with people to rebuild small structures until they could afford to build bigger. I don't recall if there was home owners insurance in the 60's. The kids went through all their toys to see what they could part with. Mom and some of the other ladies would choose a family each and get measurements of the kids. She would sit down at night and sew up clothing for them. Shirts, shorts, pants and pj's.

We had a local swimming pool that we would often go to during the summer. It would cost a buck to get in and swim all day. Not many people could afford a pool and this was a great way to meet up with friends.

We had summer school that was for both fun and learning. If your grades were good, you could take any class that you wanted. They had arts and crafts, music, sports and numerous others to chose from. At the end you would get a certificate for completion.


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## kasilofhome (Feb 10, 2005)

Anyone remember getting a paycheck on friday just after the shift we would line up --pick it up and then we could go to a window right there and cash it in.


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## Shygal (May 26, 2003)

I grew up in the 60s and I still remember

The bread man, he would drive up the big truck and my mom would shop out of the back, bread and pies and cakes and all sorts of goodies

The milkman, leaving the glass bottles in the little aluminum box we kept out on the back porch.

Party line on the phone, 5 numbers for a phone number, I still remember our number was 4-4987
I remember when it went to the 7 numbers....733-5976. I cant remember my phone number today half the time though!

Riding bikes all over the place, to towns 8 miles away, and my parents didnt worry, no one worried.

Saturday morning cartoons, waiting through all the yucky ones for Bugs Bunny to come on.

Test patterns, the stations going off the air at night playing the Star Spangled Banner, and reading the High Flight poem

Drive In Movie night, my mother making a huge paper bag full of popcorn for us to bring, the speakers that you hung on your partially open window to hear the movie. It seemed even in the back seat, no one had a bad view of the movie

TV with 3 channels, if you were REALLY lucky you could get a PBS station

No seatbelts in the car, mom and dad both smoking in the car and choking in the smoke. 

Smoking in the HOSPITAL and I remember people being able to smoke in department stores!

Being able to go swimming at the swimming hole without wearing those "aqua shoes" in case some glass was in there

Going on picnics. Does anyone even do that anymore? It was so exciting to see mom packing the basket and finding out we were going on a picnic that day, even if it was just out to the back yard


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## Jokarva (Jan 17, 2010)

I remember jumping on my bike to ride behind the mosquito fogging truck....so it's probably a good thing I'm able to remember anything after doing that for years!

Also remember going to the skating rink as a young teen, and when the 'couples skate' came up the lights would dim and (hopefully!) a boy would come ask you to skate. Bliss


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## emdeengee (Apr 20, 2010)

I remember a lot of things from the past as being annoying and inconvenient. I used to have to line up for my paycheque and then drive to the bank and line up to cash or deposit it. What a waste of time. Today most paycheques are deposited automatically. I can spend that wasted time with my family. 

We had a party line just 12 years ago and one of the idiot members left their phone off the hook when they went away for the weekend so no one had a phone. Luckily there were no emergencies.

$5 did fill my gas tank but my total income for the month was $325 a month before taxes. And I had a well paid job.

We have kept the old things that we liked and embraced the new things we like. 

We have dinner at the table together every night. Our kids had a test pattern on the TV and waited for it to disappear to watch the shows that they were allowed. It was a black, blank screen. We have had only one car since 1985. Ice cream and cake and potato chips are served only for special occasions. The gkids play in the backyard and in the street and in good weather I don't expect to see them in the house. As when I was young mothers on the street take turns watching, the kids stick together in groups and don't talk to strangers - and nearly every family has a nanny dog. 

We can all still make choices.


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## MO_cows (Aug 14, 2010)

I remember when holidays were really holidays and not just a marketing ploy. Thanksgiving, Christmas, 4th of July, New Year's Day, etc. Nothing would be open except truck stops on the highway. All the other stores, restaurants, gas stations, etc. were closed. The people who worked there could actually be with their families for the holiday.

I remember when every place you went had an ashtray. Hospital, doctor's office, public buildings, you name it. More people smoked than didn't smoke. 

Most people didn't have health insurance, either. They could actually afford to pay their doctor out of pocket. Maybe you had a "hospitalization" insurance policy in case of something big or catastrophic. When I had to have my tonsils out, my dad made payments to the hospital. We didn't have "hospitalization". 

I remember when soda was a treat, people didn't drink it all day every day. We would get an 8-pack of returnable 20 oz glass bottles and that was a week's supply of soda for a family of 3. There were little plastic snap-on caps for the glass bottle in case you didn't finish it when the metal cap was removed. It would keep the "fizz" another day that way. And, soda in glass bottles tasted so much better than the cans or plastic. I remember getting a little 8 oz(?) bottle of Coke out of a vending machine. The glass was thick and it was so cold and so refreshing. 

I wonder what people will remember about today's times as the "good old days"?????


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## Ann-NWIowa (Sep 28, 2002)

Movies were 15Â¢ and popcorn 5Â¢ so I had 10Â¢ left from my allowance for Sunday School. We moved a lot. Sometimes we had indoor plumbing and sometimes not. I recall my 2 yo. cousin locking my 3 yo sister and me age 4 in the outhouse. He went back inside and was giggling and giggling and his dad knew he was up to something but it took awhile before we were missed. I started school in first grade because there was no kindergarten. 

Mom used to pull my sister and I in either our wagon or on our sled to the store once a week for groceries. We walked and the groceries rode home. Cookies were in bins not packages and were never bought by mom. The grocer used to give us a cookie but I never learned to appreciate store bought cookies. My mom was (and still is at 92!) a great baker.

We did not have a car until I was in 2nd or 3rd grade and then it was a coupe shared with my aunt and uncle. My aunt didn't drive so mom would take my aunt and 4 kids in the coupe to Chariton so they could buy us school clothes at JC Penneys. 

Life was family and friends. My parents were friends with 3 other couples each of which had 2 children about the same ages as my sister and me. They would play cards once a week while we kids played. They put us to bed with the girls crossways on the bed and the boys on the floor. We never went to sleep. Sundays after church were usually spent at my maternal grandparents along with various aunts, uncles and cousins. Grandparents had a large Victorian house with several porches and us kids had a grand time. Afternoons in the summer often ended with the men cranking homemade ice cream or cutting chilled watermelons. Grandpa had a filling station, tank wagon and ice delivery business so there was plenty of ice available. I count knowing my grandparents, aunts, uncles, great aunts and uncles, cousins, second cousins and other sundry relatives one of the richest blessings of my life.

We always walked to school unless we lived in the country and rode the school bus. Girls had to wear dresses. We'd wear snowpants under our dresses when we were little but as we got older we just froze our bums off. At our house dresses were sewn by mom on her treadle sewing machine. 

TV did not arrive for us until I was in 4th grade. We moved to near Ames which had a TV station and we lived about a mile from the tower. It was mostly test pattern and not very interesting. I recall Captain Video but not much else from those early days. I always found books more interesting and still do!

Probably the biggest event in my young life was when the men in the community worked together to put in a skating rink. We had to have good shoe skates with wooden or fiber wheels to use the rink, but it was free. We used to skate for hours every afternoon and as we got older in the evenings. I never learned to swim but got to be a very good skater. It was an outdoor rink and those men really knew what they were doing because the "rink" still exists. Its too cracked for skating, but kids play basketball on it today. 

One hugely negative childhood memory is polio. It affected our lives in that we never went anywhere in the summer except locally. A boy at church got polio so we no longer went to Sunday School. I did not go to an amusement park or the state fair until I was a teenager and after Sauk vaccine. Friends died or were terribly crippled. You'd go back to school in the fall and someone would be missing. The lucky ones would return a year later with crutches and in steel braces a year or two behind in classes.


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## emdeengee (Apr 20, 2010)

My Dad was gone for 6 months every year. Mail was only picked up and delivered once a month if that so we would get 30 letters at a time but the weeks without any news were long and tense. I have not been with my sister in 8 years because we live so far apart but I talk to her nearly every other day and I get to actually see her through the wonders of the computer. It is as if we have never been apart. I would not want the "good old days" of communication back again.


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## dkhern (Nov 30, 2012)

i remember alot of these 
.10 c coke colas 6oz
mile delivered to home
.18c gasoline
grand ole opery on sat nite
.02 c deposit on soda bottles
3 channels of tv
.10 therater movies
party lines
walking down highway with a gun going hunting
drive in movies sneaking a trunk full of people in without paying
turning the tv antenia for better reception
going to the feed store and picking out the pattern on the sack to match one you already had so mom could make pillow cases
hitchhikeing
picnics with egg salid sandwiches
telephone where you picked up and a voice came on and said operator and you gave her the number. or you said i want red. she said red who and you said red hot pepper dont that just burn you up?
bus stations
outhouses
grit news paper
fuller brush man
warming up the radio
cast iron irons wraped in rags used as foot warmers
xmas catalogs
xmas didnt start till after thanksgiving 
using a piece of rope and a stick or tree limb and playing all day long


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## airotciv (Mar 6, 2005)

Thanks for the memories. I remember party lines, Christmas catalogs, milk delivered in bottles and so many other things you have all bought up. My parents also would tell us kids to go out and play and be back by dinner, my Mom would pack us a lunch. We most likely would be out ridding the horses and they never had a clue where we were, we could have been up in the mountains or down at the lake. 

I remember my Grandparents black and white tv that had a bubble lens(?). My Dad listening to Baseball Games on the radio and he always went to sleep. My Uncle and Aunt, getting the very first Color TV in the nieghborhood. The whole nieghborhood would show up on Sunday nights for a pot luck and to watch Bonanza and The Wonderful World of Disney and the Peacock.


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## ldc (Oct 11, 2006)

While I'm "only" 58 now, I, like Ann-Iowa above - remember the cases of polio. In the early 60's my family lived in a small town in New Jersey with several theological seminaries. When missionaries came back from China or Africa, several families had either lost children to polio, or returned with a child in a wheelchair. I remember how scared and bad we all felt about that situation.There was also a grown handicapped man in a cart who sold candy to us kids; he had had polio as a child and had never been allowed to go to school, but he loved his job selling candy to kids and at the movie theatre.


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## KIT.S (Oct 8, 2008)

My friend was the town's telephone operator, and when I visited and she had to change the baby or whatever, I would answer and connect people. We knew all the local phone numbers, and there were only 5 digits to dial. 
When my son was in 6th grade, a teacher new to the area complained that he had seen my son walking along the road and get into a car that stopped for him. We didn't understand the problem until he explained he was worried that someone would harm or take the kid. We knew everyone and my kids didn't get away with much.
We had 1 and 2-halves TV stations: one station was on all the time, and the other would change to the 3rd channel at 9 pm, even if it was the middle of a movie!
Kit


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## clovis (May 13, 2002)

*Thank you* for all of the replies!!!!

I loved reading all of your stories, and want to thank you for sharing them.

I'd love to hear more if you have them!!!!


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## Cindy in NY (May 10, 2002)

Does anyone else remember going out and using a stick to poke the liquidy bubbles in the road tar? I guess they must have changed the mixture because I don't think it does that anymore!


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## clovis (May 13, 2002)

Cindy in NY said:


> Does anyone else remember going out and using a stick to poke the liquidy bubbles in the road tar? I guess they must have changed the mixture because I don't think it does that anymore!


No, but we spent hours riding our bikes over the tarred areas to try to get them to pop!!!


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## Cindy in NY (May 10, 2002)

clovis said:


> No, but we spent hours riding our bikes over the tarred areas to try to get them to pop!!!


My Mama would have had a fit if we had done that!!


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## grandma12703 (Jan 13, 2011)

wally said:


> I totally forgot about western auto..and a trip to otasco..do any of you okies remember this one...Gibsons ????


 
Actually, yes my mom and step-father (mom ran it mostly) owned a Western Auto store. My Grandparents had a small office supply (back then no computers, etc. just typewriters, adding machines, paper, pens, pencils, etc). The theater was in the middle of the two stores and on Sat. we could go to the Sat. matinee for $1.00. Fun while it lasted but then it was back home (about 15 miles) to the ranch to work. I was a child of Vietnam (father was KIA in 1968 in that place). It just wasn't talked about much. 

I remember in 1982 as a senior in HS we got the our first computer at the school. LOL thinking back now it was funny to watch everyone including the teacher try to figure it out.

Gibsons was the first place I ever saw a shoplifter. I think I was around 8 and I stood there and saw a man stick something in his pocket. It scared the carp out of me so I ran full speed back to my grandparents store to tell gpa. He took me back to the Gibson store and had me tell the manager what I had seen. Don't know what came of it but it was just something I had not realized happened. I remember when some folks came in our stores mom or my gp would watch them a little closer but I guess I was naive and didn't pay much attention.


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## mamita (May 19, 2008)

every Sat. afternoon we kids went to the movies. Mom gave us each 50 cents, 35 for the movies, but a stop across the street to Woolworths for a huge bag of fresh popcorn and a coke first with the other 15. cartoons and two movies, and nobody had a parent with them. my grandma never wore slacks, and we had to watch Gunsmoke on Sat. night when we stayed over. she had a little store near her and we could fill a little bag with penny candy for a dime. we played hopscotch and jumping rope was THE rage. my mom also sent us out to play for the day after chores. if we didn't go to the movies we went roller skating. all day for a dollar! I miss catching tadpoles in the spring. maybe I should go do that!  we had a milkman deliver, too, and he also had lots of goodies that we never bought. my mom loved the fuller brush man, and I remember thinking it was all really dumb stuff. lol if your tv broke, we had a repairman that came to the house with all those magical tubes. that's if and when monies were available to fix it. the tv always rolled, had tin foil on the antenna on top, and we were never allowed to watch anything but Disney on Sundays anyway.


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## Ann-NWIowa (Sep 28, 2002)

I don't recall tar bubbles to pop, but I do remember walking barefoot in the tar to coat the bottom of my feet. After that it was like having on shoes without the shoe! I'm sure mom wasn't happy about it although I don't think she was aware we did it on purpose!

In a small town if you misbehaved or were somewhere you weren't supposed to be you could be sure someone would call your mom and tell her. We learned to be very good or very sneaky when we weren't.
I learned early on never to include my sister in a lie because she always looked guilty if she lied. I, on the other hand, could look mom in the eye and tell a whopper with hardly the smallest twinge of guilt.

Phone numbers were 2 or 3 digits and party line.


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## Evons hubby (Oct 3, 2005)

And who besides me remembers putting a handful of peanuts in an ice cold RC? That was some yummy stuff right there!


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## Oggie (May 29, 2003)

I remember when folks said that if you make too many prank phone calls, the telephone company could trace the calls back to your house and a they would come to rip the phone right off your wall to just leave the wires dangling there. And we believed it.


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## Evons hubby (Oct 3, 2005)

Oggie said:


> I remember when folks said that if you make too many prank phone calls, the telephone company could trace the calls back to your house and a they would come to rip the phone right off your wall to just leave the wires dangling there. And we believed it.


Its amazing what kids will believe! To this day our boy (soon to be 20) still believes we bought him a hamster but it died before we could get it home from the pet shop.


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## mamita (May 19, 2008)

she's on to me now, but for years my DD believed there was this nice man that would drive by your house really slow playing fun music. just because. I did sometimes wonder why she didn't see all the ice-cream images all over the truck and wonder.


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## airotciv (Mar 6, 2005)

So many memories, love reading them all. Made me think about all the stories that Grandma told, she died at 103 in 1989. She went from horse and wagons, to cars and the moon landing to something called a computer. 

We didn't have computers, but we had the Slide Rule, when I grew up.


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## Evons hubby (Oct 3, 2005)

airotciv said:


> So many memories, love reading them all. Made me think about all the stories that Grandma told, she died at 103 in 1989. She went from horse and wagons, to cars and the moon landing to something called a computer.
> 
> We didn't have computers, but we had the Slide Rule, when I grew up.


Yeppers, I remember the slide rule too... Always make sure the kid that went down before you has gotten outta the way so you dont land on him.


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## foxtrapper (Dec 23, 2003)

I remember milk being delivered to the box on the porch, and the produce being delivered. I remember when schools had smoking lounges for the students. I remember seeing Star Trek on a color TV and being surprised at the colors, I'd imagined them differently. I remember when climbing trees was easy. Not that trees have changed, but my knees sure have. I remember when I could eat the entire chocolate easter bunny, and not throw up. I remember going to the library to do research. I remember vert hold on the TV. And dad yelling not to spin the channel knob so fast.

But, it wasn't all sweetness. I remember when they would report a bomber down, and we'd all wonder who's daddy had just died. I remember burning crosses and sheets and those new neighbors who got burned out for not remembering their place. I remember newspapers publishing names of Runners. I remember the river burning. I remember my teachers face when she came back almost a year later after that car crash, back when seat belts weren't around. 

Some of the new stuff isn't bad. I remember first encountering a window air conditioner. Oh my! I remember getting the new washing machine, without a mangle. I remember being able to text that I was ok, when no calls were going through. I remember the first modem groups, where one could chat globally. I remember the first time I used Google Sky Map and could finally tell for sure which little spec of light was Mars, and Jupiter.


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## SFM in KY (May 11, 2002)

I remember watching a big thrashing machine that was set up at the 'middle' neighbor's fields on the creek where four families lived. We would come past in when they were working on our way home from school. The machine seemed huge to me and was stationary, of course ... I'm not even sure what powered it. All of the neighbors along the creek that had grain to harvest pitched in with their teams and hayracks, would bring the shocks of grain in from the field and toss them into the thrashing machine.

Some of the teams didn't like the noise and the machinery and were spooking the first day we watched but after that they got used to it. All four ranches used the thrashing machine, hauled their grain in ... some of them probably 2 miles or more ... and then I think they moved the machine to another location further down the creek.

Nearly everyone then (mid to late 40s) were still using draft horses for much, if not all, of the field work ... haying and any grain that was being raised. We had one team and another neighbor had two teams at the time.

I didn't see that kind of thing again until I was living in Spain and there I saw them actually winnowing grain using mules to pull sledges or rollers over the grain to beat the grain out of the heads. I never could get my ex to stop so I didn't see how they separated the grain from the chaff but I remember being so astonished that they were still harvesting with such primitive methods ... no machine power at all. And this was a huge field ... a big flat plateau between Madrid and Toledo ... went on it seemed for miles.


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## Classof66 (Jul 9, 2011)

The Fuller Brush man had wonderful samples. Little gold lipsticks, cologne, and vegetable brushes. I could never understand why my mom was not thrilled when he came around. Remember Puss and Boots cat food and Pamper shampoo? And Halo? Pamper was pink and the TV ads had a dancing lamb, Pamper, Pamper new shampoo, Gentle as a lamb so right for you...

My mom thought shampoo and hamburger buns were luxuries and really not necessary.

My dad had a sun visor on the 1950 Dodge Wayfarer. It did not have a radio.

Almost every yard in town had a cistern, although few used them. People used to throw tin cans down in them.

After another high school closed and was annexed to our high school in 1957, a beautiful new addition was built. Its a junior high now, but still beautiful. It cost a quarter of a million dollars, and my dad worried it would never get paid for.

In a small town, most mothers were home. They knew every dog in town and its name too. And the dogs knew which house might yield a scrap or two for them too.

It was not unusual for an elderly person to buy a car without a radio.

My mother avoided buying anything that was made in Japan, and thought anything plastic was trashy.


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## BurgerBoy (Mar 31, 2013)

I remember the old times this way:

Then: [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UWRypqz5-o[/ame]

Now: [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkUsnTZEGzk[/ame]


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## BurgerBoy (Mar 31, 2013)

I also still remember this very well too.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOfrnKqk3zw[/ame]


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## BurgerBoy (Mar 31, 2013)

You old timers remember these?

They were so much fun at the drag strips.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5fZadBIBrA[/ame]


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## BurgerBoy (Mar 31, 2013)

And this muscle car:

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XKPvKtxAhQ[/ame]


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## Jan in CO (May 10, 2002)

My 91 year old Mom remembers scooping up pieces of that bubbly tar and chewing it! That was the only 'gum' they had, as they were very poor.


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## grandma12703 (Jan 13, 2011)

Jan in CO said:


> My 91 year old Mom remembers scooping up pieces of that bubbly tar and chewing it! That was the only 'gum' they had, as they were very poor.


 
Hmmm...that sounds aweful. I remember using wheat right out of the back of the truck at harvest time for gum,but tar....ewwww


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## uncle Will in In. (May 11, 2002)

I chewed wheat right out of the wagon. Where elese would I get any. It wouldn't get chewey like gum. I also gave the hunks of tar that hung of the tar barrels the state road men stored on a little high spot down the road. You could chew up a storm on that crap, but I never developed a taste for it. Smoking corn silks was on the list for boys to do when they had friends and were lost in the out back where the old folks wouldn't catch them. Marvel cicaretts were only 10 cents a pack, but all of us together couldn't come up with 10 pennys. I had it worse tha that. When Dad shucked corn there wasn't enough silk left on the corn to roll a cigarette. My buddy and I stripped the dry seed off of sour dock, and rolled it in newspaper. Pretty hard to ever get addicted to anything that awful. My first car was a 1936 Ford coup (one seater) The car dealer that took my $50 bucks and let me drive it out of town should have done hard time for that. If you made a list of all the parts it took to build that old bugger and a list of all the defected parts on it, you would have the same list. It got 26 miles per gallon Of used oil. I used the old oil that we drained out of our tractor that was older than the car. We were homesteaders. Self sufficeient.. That's spelled close enough.. You knew what it was supposed to be didn't you UNK


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## emdeengee (Apr 20, 2010)

BurgerBoy said:


> I also still remember this very well too.
> 
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOfrnKqk3zw


Yes, we tend to remember the world through rose coloured glasses and forget the terrible hardships or injustices of the times. And those are the things that should not be forgotten or glossed over.


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## grandma12703 (Jan 13, 2011)

It has taken years to be acceptable to actually speak about some of those things. It still makes people uncomfortable for me to speak of Vietnam. I know I sometimes seem like a broken record making reference to being the child of a Marine who was killed in Vietnam, but I was in my late 20's before I was allowed to say anything and now that I have completely distanced myself from those who didn't allow us( my sister, mother, and myself) to have our heritage and be proud of it I will yell it from the rooftops. He was my father, he was killed in Vietnam, and I AM PROUD OF HIM and all of those men and women who fought in that unpopular war. 

Absolutely, we need to remember both the good and the bad. Learn the lessons from the bad and enjoy the good.


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## mozarkian (Dec 11, 2009)

Riding in the back of pick up trucks and on top of loads of hay.

Staying outside and barefoot all summer long, because that was what we did. 

Milking a cow before school, packing in wood after school, you didn't wait to be told--it was your job.

Dad would say "Sis, I would drink a cup of coffee if you would bring me one." after he got home from work, finished gardening and chores and took his boots off for the evening. And it made me feel good to do it for him. 

Collecting pop bottles to turn in for money and saving till I had enough to buy something I needed or wanted.

Mom's grocery budget for a week for 8 people was $10 and sometimes, if things were extra tough Dad would ask if she could cut a few things and try to get it down to $6 or $7. 

Bananas were like candy and us kids could share a bunch sometimes in the back of the pickup, on the 30 mile trip home from the grocery store where we went every Saturday when we could afford it. 

Seeing Mom come running in from the clothesline to grab the .22 so she could kill a couple squirrels for dinner or a copperhead snake by the cistern. 

Eating oven canned carp (it was our version of tuna)-- it was good and don't think it killed us either. 

Being taught to swim by having your older sisters husband throw you in the pond as many times as it took to get you to swim.

Picking up dried cow patties and putting them in burlap bags with my "city" aunt, so she could use them in her flower beds in town.

Cleaning out the shallow hand dug well every spring to keep the frog and snake population thinned out of it. Didn't have any fancy purification equipment either. 

Watching JFK's funeral on an old black and with tv. Dad would take it outside on Friday nights and rig it up somehow to get a little better reception so he could watch wrestling.

Learning to count before I was five by counting the stock every night before dark.

Making mud pies. 

Helping with the garden and butchering and smoking meat.

So many things that we don't think much about now, but it sure was a great way to grow up... Great thread!


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## kasilofhome (Feb 10, 2005)

At the stationary store one side had Icc cream and coffee and a counter on the other side was another long counter and that back wall was a grid of items.

and up in the center of the building was maybe a loft of 12 by 12 and there was a tube for each side of the store. When you would pay it went into a tube with the order sheet and zap up to the person up there and down it came with the receipt and change.

THe shoe store and many place put money in the draw and the ordersheet thur a nail.


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## SFM in KY (May 11, 2002)

I can remember what a treat it was to get a letter from someone. My grandmother's side of the family (two brothers) were letter writers ... one brother lived/worked in exotic places when I was a child and we would get letters from him from China and other foreign countries, later New York and Bermuda. The other brother lived in Vancouver, WA, was an artist and used to send letters with a little sketch at the bottom. I still remember one I got for my birthday with two little rabbits, one crouched down and the other standing up on its' haunches.

We were too far from the county seat and the county library to go there often and couldn't get there at all during the winter but the county library had a program for ranch families. You could write and request books, by name or by 'type' and they would send you a cardboard box full of books you could keep for a month, then mail back to them. Some of my most memorable bedtime stories came from these books, I could read by then, but my mother would still read the more difficult ones to me at bedtime ... a lot of history, with knights on horseback, King Arthur and the Crusades, both favorites ... but I loved the Greek and Roman mythology stories.


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## clovis (May 13, 2002)

We mowed the lawn today, and I got to thinking about the days before weed eaters were around.

My dad used to trim the entire house, the back porch, the shed, and anything else around the yard with a pair of hand held grass clips.

These days, you can't hardly give a pair of grass clips away...and I know that for a fact. We flea market for a living, and it is very rare that someone will pay $2 for grass clips. Most often, they sit on the shelf and gather an inch of dust.


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## Jan in CO (May 10, 2002)

Oh, Clovis, that makes my back hurt to think about your Dad clipping all that grass! Now that I think about it, I suppose my Dad mowed and probably Mom had to do the fine clipping of the edges! We lived in the mountains and my folks were always trying to have a 'city yard' with flowers and fruit trees. 

Thanks for starting this post, it's a great walk down memory lane, and to remember some things even before my time!


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## SFM in KY (May 11, 2002)

We raised all of the vegetables we ate so gardening was a major effort at the ranch, not just 'women's work' but everyone helped. We had a 'kitchen garden' by the house where the early and 'summer eating' vegetables were planted. I can remember how we all watched the first lettuce and green onions come up and could hardly wait for the taste of fresh green vegetables in the spring. Fresh green lettuce with bacon bits and bacon grease as dressing ... and rhubarb shortcake ... were the first fresh food we had from the garden. 

The big garden was across from the corrals and creek, as was the big potato patch, because it could be watered from the creek. In MT you had to water everything for a good crop, there wasn't enough rain. In the evenings, after the field work, Dad and Grandpa would help hoe in the big garden and the potato patch. I can remember once, right after my Dad got false teeth, that he sneezed and sneezed his false teeth out in the potato patch and had to go wash them off in the creek. I was maybe 6 or 7 at the oldest and thought it was funny.

We had the 'canning vegetables' there in the big garden, corn, beans, beets, squash, cabbage, but there were a lot of things we couldn't grow as we could only depend on about a 90 day growing season. Everyone helped when we started canning. The big garden was probably at least 200' away from the house, so we'd pick whatever was to be canned and bring it up in bushel baskets. I can remember sitting on the back porch and shelling peas or breaking and stringing beans from the first summer we lived at the ranch, when I was six.

Our jelly and jam was mostly made from wild berries, we didn't grow berries ourselves and I'm not really sure why as I know some of the neighbors had strawberries at least. But we picked wild plums and chokecherries and made jelly from those. We also had family friends that had retired and moved to town that had apple trees and we would take in garden produce when we visited and they would send out apples with us. We canned the apples, desert during the winter months, also apple cobbler and some of them were made up into apple butter as well.


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## jwal10 (Jun 5, 2010)

Ann-NWIowa said:


> One hugely negative childhood memory is polio. It affected our lives in that we never went anywhere in the summer except locally. A boy at church got polio so we no longer went to Sunday School. I did not go to an amusement park or the state fair until I was a teenager and after Sauk vaccine. Friends died or were terribly crippled. You'd go back to school in the fall and someone would be missing. The lucky ones would return a year later with crutches and in steel braces a year or two behind in classes.


I was one of those kids. I missed a lot of school but didn't lose a grade. I was in an iron lung for 14 days, crutches and braces for 2 more. Mom and Dad got me 10 ewe lambs to take care of, the next year I ran all over the hill pasture at lambing time to take care of my sheep. It built up my leg muscles and I was able to get rid of my braces....James


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## Ardie/WI (May 10, 2002)

jwal10 said:


> I was one of those kids. I missed a lot of school but didn't lose a grade. I was in an iron lung for 14 days, crutches and braces for 2 more. Mom and Dad got me 10 ewe lambs to take care of, the next year I ran all over the hill pasture at lambing time to take care of my sheep. It built up my leg muscles and I was able to get rid of my braces....James


I also contracted polio only it was in 1946, before the epidemic. The family doctor expected me to die but I was a very stubborn child.

I vividly remember that, after we moved to Green Bay , in 1952, the neighbor children were not allowed contact with me......


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## jwal10 (Jun 5, 2010)

I grew up on a dirt poor 30 cow dairy farm. The cows were sold in 1963, Dad took heifer calves to raise as replacements. We got poorer every year. We had horses, huge garden patches, sheep and cattle. Made hay, no baler, just old silage chopper and wagon, the hay was chopped into the barn. Very dusty but needed walked on to pack it in, pitch fork to fill the corners. No TV, us kids didn't get to go to town, had to stay home to work. Dad was 56 when I was born so he was in his 60's when I was home. I had to shear sheep, beginning when I was 9-10, hard work. I left home at 12 and started farmng on my own. I lived in an 8'x12' chicken coop, no running water or electricity. I had a small team of horses and a Farmall B. Grew wheat, clover and hay. 60 acres, 60 sheep and 20 cows. I bought an old Chevy pickup when I was 14 and got a permit to drive to school and to get supplies. I still have it. Got a farm truck at 16 to haul my wheat to the elevator. I built a cabin, then got married at 18. Built the farm to 1000 acres, got electricity, bathroom and hot water the year after. It was a lot of hard work and not much fun when I was growing up. After we got married, things got easier. We always enjoyed ourselves, doing things and going places together. I have seen great changes over my lifetime and the conviences we enjoy today. I still like the peace and quiet of doing things by hand, walks in the woods and being away from the crowds and constant motion of modern life. I enjoy the old ways, hand tools and the slow pace of life....James


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## jwal10 (Jun 5, 2010)

Ardie/WI said:


> I also contracted polio only it was in 1946, before the epidemic. The family doctor expected me to die but I was a very stubborn child.
> 
> I vividly remember that, after we moved to Green Bay , in 1952, the neighbor children were not allowed contact with me......


My Mom said I was stubborn. I say I was determined. I almost died in the back of the County Sherriffs car. He sped all the way to the big hospital at Portland. I was blue before they got me in the iron lung. I was very bad but came around fairly quickly. I have had 2 bad relapses as an adult, one at 27 and another at 47. A lot of my health issues are attributed to it. Spinal curvature, brittle bones and teeth....James


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## Cindy in NY (May 10, 2002)

Clovis - I can remember crawling around on hands and knees clipping the grass edges with the hand clippers! That was my job. Then I was promoted to actual grass mower! I don't remember who took over the clipping but it was probably my next sister down.


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## Classof66 (Jul 9, 2011)

We lived across the street from the high school and athletic field in our small town. I can remember when the football program was started, and the field was built, and the day the bleachers were put up. This did bring back a memory, several of us would meet the day after a game and crawl around under the bleachers and look for money. We did find quite a bit, or at least for that time, when a nickel bought a lot. We also found cigarettes, lighters, lipsticks, pens, scarves and a lot of other good loot. The trash area behind the school also yielded goodies, especially during the summer when the janitors were cleaning. One time I brought home a big can of sugar that had a few mouse droppings in it. It did have a lid. My mom was thrilled, she sifted it good, and used it for pickles. My mom was pretty particular, but she could not see wasting that sugar, and we all lived. We got towels that kids left behind in the locker rooms, lost and found stuff, art supplies, stage props, sports equipment and even two kerosene lantern once.


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## Ardie/WI (May 10, 2002)

jwal10 said:


> My Mom said I was stubborn. I say I was determined. I almost died in the back of the County Sherriffs car. He sped all the way to the big hospital at Portland. I was blue before they got me in the iron lung. I was very bad but came around fairly quickly. I have had 2 bad relapses as an adult, one at 27 and another at 47. A lot of my health issues are attributed to it. Spinal curvature, brittle bones and teeth....James


I never went to the hospital.

And, now they call it Post Polio Syndrome to the surviving survivors!


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## Win07_351 (Dec 7, 2008)

I still remember when cashiers could make change without an electronic cash register.:bowtie:


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## emdeengee (Apr 20, 2010)

Long handled grass shears. When we were about 10 and 9 my sister and I saved for a whole year to buy these for our Dad for Father's Day. I don't think he was ever happier about a gift. I mowed the lawn but Dad was very particular about the trimming.


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## Classof66 (Jul 9, 2011)

A young mother in a nearby community contracted polio and needed an iron lung so she could be home with her family. The very small community school launched a campaign to earn one for her with Betty Crocker coupons. Evidently General Mills was agreeable to this and after a lot of support from the area, she received her lung. I believe it was set up in her dining room. I don't remember all the particulars any more, the lady did pass away later on, but it was a huge act of love by a determined little town of maybe 150 people.


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## fordy (Sep 13, 2003)

...............I grew up in Midland , tx........we moved there about 1952 . There was lots of sand storms blowing in from further west out around monahans and pecos , sometimes it was so bad when I was in grade school my mom would make me take a wash rag , and wet it down , put it over my nose when walking home from school . 
................I always liked building things , so I'd take old roller skates and bolt the front halves to a set of 2x4's , put a large bolt in the center so I could steer the scooter with my feet . It was shaped like an "I" , the center portion was made of doubled 2x6's with an old bicycle seat , and the back was 2x4's with the back set of skates bolted to it . Every kid on the block wanted a ride and we would take turns pushing each other up and down the sidewalks . No telling how many I built cause they didn't last very long . 
.................When I was about 12 or so I got a job selling Southern Maid donuts from a large basket hung around my neck , for 60 cents a dozen , they paid us a nickel for every dozen we sold . Our manager had a large station wagon and he would drop us off , one kid about every 2 blocks and then pick us up after we had covered both blocks ! 
..................I can remember gas being 15 to 25 cents a gallon and when I went to work at a grocery store I was only making a dollar something per hour . I suppose those were the "Good old Days" , but there was a lot of pain and suffering even back then . , fordy


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## Ruby (May 10, 2002)

When I was in the first grade, a well known evangelist came to town. The school let him setup his tent to hold a revival on the school property. Every afternoon for the week he was there he had an afternoon service and the whole school turned out for all the kids to here him.

I remember the old coco cola boxer where you put in a nickle and had to work the bottle down a slot then over to the opening that opened up when you put in your nickle.

I remember those little 8 oz. bottles of coco cola, we would take a couple sips out then empty a package of peanuts into them. Then have trouble get all the peanuts out when you finished the drink.

I remember standing with your hand over your heart and saying the pledge out by the flag pole.

I remember playing jacks, skipping rope, hop scotch, and many other games. One was red rover. 

Even after I married and was pregnant with my first baby we lived in the country with NO air conditioner. It was in the hot summer time and we would put our bed on the porch and sleep so we could take advantage of the cool air.

My mother in law didn't have a washing machine, my brother in law would haul water from the well and fill an iron wash pot in the yard and build a fire under it. She would boil the white bed linens and towels, then the mens work clothes. We would just use large tubs and a rub board for the thing that wern't that dirty.


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## Nancy_in_GA (Oct 20, 2004)

I remember "Spring Cleaning." And every other year or so my mom would make me help her actually wash down the walls and ceilings in the house with washcloths and a bucket. Probably because we had a coal furnace. I can live without that. Did anyone else do that, or was my mom just a clean freak?


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## Nevada (Sep 9, 2004)

This is a photo of me at about 5 years old, probably taken in the summer of 1955.










Most photos of that era are black & white, but this one was converted from a color slide made by a 35mm camera.

The Davey Crockett t-shirt illustrates the popularity of the TV miniseries of that time. I also had a coonskin cap, but wasn't wearing it that day.

TV was all black & white back then, since 1955 was at least 5 years before the first color TV hit the market. The TV screen viewing area was also pretty rounded. There were no portable TVs at that time, so the TV was an important piece of furniture in everybody's home.

There were cartoons (lots of Popeye & Woody Woodpecker), but also a lot of non-animated TV shows geared towards kids, mainly westerns. Sky King & Fury were big, as were Roy Rogers and Gene Autry. We all wanted to be cowboys when we grew up. I think I really believed that the old West still existed at that time.

The TV highlight of the week was the 1-hour Disney show on Sunday night. It was much more fun to watch than the more mundane Micky Mouse Club show during the week.


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## sugarspinner (May 12, 2002)

When I was in the 3rd grade, my teacher (Miss Polly) would give each student who made 100% on his Friday spelling test, the choice of either a token for an ice cream bar or popsickle from the ice cream man or a coupon for admittance to the local theater for the Saturday matinee, which was cartoons, newsreel, the next chapter of whatever serial was running at the time and a full-length movie. The movie and the ice cream were each just 5 cents. 

We didn't have to know everything immediately via TV or internet. My mother used to say that Roosevelt had been dead for 3 days before she even knew he'd died. She said (ala Hillary) "What difference did it make? Life went on." Of course, she didn't like him anyway. 

We kept frozen food at a locker plant in town, just getting it when we were in town for something else. I loved going in there on hot summer days!

We had "blackouts" at night during WWII, to keep the enemies from seeing where we lived (later, we learned that wasn't necessary, nor were the rationing of foods) Both of those things were just ways to condition the citizens for control by the government. Some things never change, do they? 

Each time Dad went to town for feed, he would be told which feed sack prints to get, so there'd be enough of that print to make a dress, or curtains or whatever.


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## Nevada (Sep 9, 2004)

sugarspinner said:


> We had "blackouts" at night during WWII, to keep the enemies from seeing where we lived (later, we learned that wasn't necessary, nor were the rationing of foods) Both of those things were just ways to condition the citizens for control by the government.


Actually, the purpose was not control, but morale. People wanted to be a part of the war, and things like rationing & civil defense exercises made people feel that they were doing their part.


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## fud2468 (Feb 4, 2006)

I'm also older than most here I guess..memories of the 1930's:
My father and mother had a creamery in a small CA coastal town and we lived on acreage 7 miles from town. After school I helped my father deliver milk and was paid 10 cents a day. That was enough to buy a cheap model airplane kit; the better models were called Comet Models and cost a quarter. Saturday movies, double feature, newsreel and cartoon was 10 cents for kids
My father sold a quart of milk for 12 cents. Gasoline was 13 cents a gallon. When we occasionally traveled to San Francisco, 120 miles, it took 5 hours on 2-lane roads which went through every town on the way, of course. It was common to see people who were driving long distances with their headlights on. Cars did not have voltage regulators so they put their lights on to keep from overcharging their batteries on trips.
No TV then, only radio, Amos & Andy, Lum & Abner, The Phantom Pilot, Little Orphan Annie, etc. 
I could go on, but --does anybody remember who Joe Corntassle was?
Ray Mac


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## Cash (Apr 24, 2007)

Reading the Grit newspaper and Boys Life magazine and getting the Saturday Evening Post on Saturday. Catching frogs down in the creek in the summer time. Playing in the fields and woods all day, if we werenât working around the farm. Cleaning out the chicken house and shoveling cow manure out of the barn. We had the first TV in the neighborhood back in the early 1950s, and all the neighbors came over to see it when Dad finally got the antenna on top of the roof adjusted. We ate out of the fields all summer â rhubarb and strawberries, raspberries and blackberries, then blueberries and apples. Collecting beer and soda bottles along the roads â one of each equaled five cents and a Hershey bar! Listening to the Lone Ranger on the radio and the Grand Ole Opry on Saturday nights.


Yeah, we were poor, but so was everyone else, so we didn't know the difference. The only time we realized we were different was the summer -- all the other kids went barefoot, but we wore sneakers.


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## Rainy (Jan 21, 2010)

I have so enjoyed reading this thread... sure has brought back some good memories... especially thinking about those Christmas catalog's... I remember looking at those over and over...knowing i couldn't have any of those things but they sure were neat...


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## BobDFL (Jul 7, 2006)

I remember when:

1) Milk was delivered to your door in the milk box at the front door
2) Soda was delivered to your door in returnable bottles
3) A fist fight was just that, and you settled things (not like now where your dragged into juvenile court)
4) Recess at school included playing outside and we actually played football and other sports, and actually got scrapes, cuts, and bruises and nobody sued the school. 
5) Gas stations gave away gifts for fill ups (I still remember get a number of Brontosaurus Banks from Sunoco / Phillips)
6) You expected to get a job mowing lawns in the summer, shoveling snow in the winter, or get the big job of delivering newspapers, when you turned 14.
7) The local theater played double features with cartoons, so you would arrive at 10:00 AM on a Saturday morning and get picked up at 3:00 in the afternoon.
8) If you weren't outside playing, you must have been sick.
9) We rode bikes without helmets
10) Rode in the back of pick ups or station wagons without seat belts
11) The local gas station would leave a can for your money when they were closed and they also ended up with extra in the morning.

There is a lot of other things but I'm starting to get depressed thinking of the things that we are missing now.


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## momof2birds (Aug 14, 2010)

I grew up in the 50's on the east coast and have a lot of fond memories. We kids always looked forward to going to Brandywine State Park for a picnic on the weekend, when Dad would make a charcoal fire in the tall metal grill next to the wooden picnic tables and we'd have hamburgers and hot dogs, baked beans, koolaid from the big red insulated jug.
On hot summer nights the city trucks would come down the street, spraying DDT to kill all the mosquitos, and the smell is still strong in my nose and mind. Once a week or so, we'd hear little jingling bells coming down the street and knew it was the Mr. Softee ice cream man, and would run to mom and dad to beg for dimes or quarters.
The neighborhood kids would play outside all day, not having to check in or come home until it began to get dark. We'd be playing ball in the street or putting on our skates over our shoes with those skate keys that hung around our necks, or running through the back yards playing cowboys and indians ( I always wanted to be an indian).


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## Froggy22 (Aug 7, 2011)

I can remember when gas was $.25 a gallon, I couldn't afford to fill up then either.lol

I can remember when I could go to the Saturday Matinee for the price of 10 R C bottle caps.


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## jwal10 (Jun 5, 2010)

My Mom would talk about everything they did when she was growing up. They lived out of town around Cedar Vale Kansas. They went to town most every week, went to the store and then walked around, went to the bandstand, sat in the park and talked to the neighbors. We always asked why we didn't get to do anything like that. We knew it was Dad but she never let on. We lived on a farm and so....we lived on THE farm. There wasn't much joy ON the farm. All work and not much play....James


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## Dquixote1217 (May 15, 2008)

(The Best Years in Life) I love the country - and there has always been more than a little country in this city boy who has now moved back to his beloved country life. Much of that comes from childhood days spent on my maternal grandparents farm. So many memories . . .

Riding on my grandfather's Farmall and John Deere Tractors, walking down rows of cotton plants and filling a "tow-sack" with fluffy white cotton, going to the cotton gin and marveling at the noisy and powerful machinery that separated the cotton from the seeds and compressed it into bales. Fishing for "craw-daddies" with a piece of cotton string, a slice of bacon and a rock weight.

The notorious outdoor toilets (half-moon on the door, the acrid smell of lime wafting up from beneath the two holes in the wooden bench, bumblebees buzzing about and making for a wary time) . . .

Swinging leisurely on the porch swing. Playing with a menagerie of pets that included baby rabbits, ground squirrels, horny toads, lizards and more. Getting to ride ponies - and later, HORSES! - and marveling at (and being a little afraid of) the powerfully muscled and beautiful animal beneath you. . .

Walking barefooted on a dirt road on a hot summer day in air so still that small puffs of dust lingered in the trail of your passing footsteps. Watching shimmering waves of summer heat rise above fields parched golden, listening to the brittle sound of grasshoppers flitting to and fro in the roadside Johnson grass. Cooling off in the hot afternoons with a drink of magical elixir known as "well-water" drawn up in a pail by a rope and pulley and dipped out in a tin ladle. Later, in the evenings, being serenaded by the never-ending evening symphony of cicadas (referred to as "locusts" by the local folks) and then chasing fireflies in the dusk across the front lawn. . . .

Making home-made ice-cream from fresh cream and just-picked eggs and hand-cranking away forever on a sturdy oak container filled with ice and rock salt. Then, by the time the ice cream had finally âsetâ, being so anxious that you end up eating too much too fast and get aching "brain chills" one after another!

And, at the end of the day, sinking exhaustedly beneath home-made quilts into feather mattresses and feather pillows that swallowed you up, falling fast asleep and dreaming of the fun and joy of the new day to come.

You know, I wouldn't trade those days for all the computer games, internet, cell phones and 500 channel satellite TV's in the world!

- from the author's own memories and the article with the same title at his website (http://www.tbyil.com/Farm_Life.htm)


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## Aranaea (Oct 17, 2005)

My father's voice when my mother got me out of bed to watch the first man walk on the moon: "Let her sleep, Lou! She won't remember it! She's much too young!"

My sister stretched out across the back seat of the car when we got tired because she was older. I slept on the floorboards. We got a new car that had seatbelts when I was seven.

Going up in my grandmother's attic after dusk (it was too dangerous during the day because of the risk of heatstroke) to bring down stacks and stacks of Reader's Digests' from the Depression and WW2 to read the next day. I'll never forget how good they smelled!

Reading every volume of the World Book Encyclopedia from cover to cover one summer. My parents neither bragged about their "unschooling supergenius" nor went through the roof about their "lazy couch potato" exceeding the AMA's recommended hours or minutes of book (we didn't have screens) time for kids my age the way my kids will if my as-yet-unconceived grandbabies even try to do that with wikipedia. I don't think they particularly cared one way or another if they even noticed.

The channel changer dial broke before I was born, so we didn't click the buttons on the remote, we asked one of our parents to come upstairs and change the channel with a pair of pliars. I remember the first family in our neighbourhood who got a colour TV inviting everyone over to see it and how the grownups laughed the minute they walked out the door and talked about how they couldn't believe anyone would waste perfectly good money on such a stupid fad. For months, all one of us kids had to do was say the phrase "colour television" and we'd all start laughing uncontrollably.

I had a similar opinion of computers and expected the typewriter my mom gave me when I was 13 to last me a lifetime as long as I took care of it and took it to the shop for servicing every year. Hers did, but she didn't get it until she went away to college.

I thought we were poor because everybody else had these great big giant console stereos and we just had the record player my mother got in college. I felt such a delightful twinge of "nya nya!" whenever I saw one of those monstrosities at the dump or hauled out to the curb with a "free" sign on them, but they'll probably start showing up at the antique stores soon and spoil all my fun.

I had to ask one of my parents to flip the record for me because I might scratch it and records were expensive. The first record I was allowed to listen to any time I wanted was "American Pie" by Don McLean. My aunt bought me one record every year for Christmas when I was a teenager. Sometimes it was the one I wanted, other times it wasn't. I remember wanting "Some Girls" by the Rolling Stones when it came out and getting "Rubber Soul" by the Beatles instead.

I bought an email only device called a Cidco Mailstation because I couldn't figure out how to open an email account on the computers at the library. When I got my first mailer daemon, I thought that a distraught relative was trying to tell me that my friend had died in a horrible automobile accident.

I have a 16 year age gap between my two youngest kids so I can also remember when "homeschooling group" was a bunch of nice ladies who met at the park and lent each other John Holt books and tattered magazines instead of a target market for publishing companies to make a killing for their stockholders or a particularly shocking episode of a reality show.


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## lmccall728 (Apr 14, 2013)

I remember when the only seatbelt in our car was my mothers arm. You didn't wear any kind of padding when skate boarding or riding your bike. When my mother could write a note to the clerk at the local store giving them permission to sell cigarettes to me so I could bring them to her. 

People had to stop and use a phone booth because there were no cell phones. It only cost me a dime to go anywhere on the city bus and you could have as many transfers as you needed with no additional charges.

Instead of "Legos" we had "Tinker Toys" and different colored blocks of wood, and we would play with dangerous toys like "Click Clacks"and Lawn Darts were the rage.

Drive - In theaters, A&W Root beer with the roller skating waitresses that brought your food to your car. Doctors made house calls, so did the milkman and the bakery man.

You could get a spanking at school and no one went to jail. In fact, once your parents found out you probably got another one from them.

I remember we traded a "weiner pig" for all the milk we could drink for a year with the dairy owner down the street. We would ride the horses down to the dairy with empty jugs/bottles to fill with fresh milk.

I remember riding my horse in the local Christmas parade in Oceanside down Main street and waving to everyone, making my horse buck (he would do it on cue) to hear the oohs and ahhs.

I remember in my parents convertible Studebaker we would ride in the very back where the top would be if it were down. No seat belts! 

Seeing the huge draft horses waiting patiently in the fields while the owner went in to have lunch.

and I remember having to get my tonsils out even though they did not cause any problems, because my parents would get a much better "deal" or "group discount" if they had my tonsils taken out the same time my brother was getting his out.

And last, but not least, I remember in the 70's when there was a "gas shortage" and almost everyone had to stand in long lines to get gas.


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## I_don't_know (Sep 28, 2012)

Dad bring home that box called a Television and then a few years later they would proudly announce this program will be in color.:bouncy:
The 5 cent deposit on bottles, I would take the kids, mine and the neighbor&#8217;s, and a wagon and go on &#8220;bottle hunts&#8221;. One of the construction workers at the new hospital ask why I did it and I told him I needed the money for a turkey to Thanksgiving dinner. Suddenly everyone on the site got their soda-pop in a bottle. God Bless Them. :angel:

:nono:I remember being told not to chew &#8220;Bubble Gum&#8221; because they made it out of old shoe soles and old tires. (Ya, Right :hysterical Then later in life, I remember meeting a lady who was the legal secretary on the court case where Food and Drug made them stop. Now they use synthetic rubber.


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## justplainbill (Jan 25, 2013)

Things that are no more:
Five pounds of potatoes for 25 cents
A pound of ground beef for 69 cents
A nickel frankfurter, nickel beer, nickel coke and a nickel for a subway ride.
Being a 16 year old able to carry a shotgun and ride my bike to go duck hunting.
Having a rifle team and shooting range at high school.
An $11 steak dinner for two at a high end steakhouse.
Having an employer sanctioned rifle and pistol club.
Being able to rent a 14' fishing rowboat for $2.
25 cent per gallon gasoline. 
A new Chevy for under $2,500.
20 cents a pack cigarettes.
A $1 federal migratory bird stamp.
Sears and Roebuck, Montgomery Ward, Macys, Gimbels, Abercrombie and Fitch, Rogers Peet when they sold good stuff.
An abundance of reasonably priced, good quality, made in USA hardware and kitchen ware (E.G. my hand-me-down Griswolds my 55+ year old GE electric wall oven, GE and Frigidaire refrigerators; all of which, knock wood, are still going strong).
The predominance of a disdain for government largesse.


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## salmonslayer (Jan 4, 2009)

The Mrs and I actually live fairly simply and very happily using a lot of the things people keep posting about as an "do you know what this is?" or "do you remember this?" and we find it rather amusing. When I was a kid I lived part time with my Grandfather and Great Aunt and often visited my great grand parents huge farm way out in the country where there were animals, a hand pump water well, an out house, a big old tractor, crops, a barn, a great big old farm house with a big porch etc. and I loved it and always remembered it. However, later in life I found pictures of that huge farm and talked to my grandfather about it before he passed and it turns out the huge farm was 5 acres, the pictures of the big old tractor show it was a Farmall Cub, the barn and animals turned out to be just a large shed with some chickens and one old cow and an old horse way past his prime and the great big farmhouse had no in door plumbing and was about 800 square feet. They were dirt poor but I sure never realized it and in my mind its still this huge farm of my youth and we pretty much live that way today (except we did get indoor plumbing!)..

We live in a house built in 1938 (but it did receive substantial updates in the late 1940s!) We dont have a microwave, I dont have a cell phone (the Mrs uses a basic one), our house phone is a rotary dial, our TV has tubes and rabbit ears and cost $25.00 at a yard sale, we get milk in glass bottles from a local dairy, we have no dishwasher (gives the Mrs and I time to enjoy each other and flirt while doing dishes), we have nothing digital in the house by choice (there is something incredibly annoying to me about green digital for some reason), and in the winter we all smell like wood smoke just like almost everyone else around here, we get our news primarily from the weekly local paper and local TV channels we pick up with rabbit ears, and we eat mostly what we grow or raise ourselves.

We have been told we arent living in reality by some family members and that we are going to regret jumping off the corporate grinder and "hiding" out from the world in the Ozarks living like the world stopped in 1955. The thing is, we are happy with our reality.......


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## whole-hearted (Nov 13, 2012)

I remember when my three oldest brothers safely hitch-hiked home in their uniforms after returning to the states from VietNam.


I remember riding in the car _without_ air-conditioning, with the windows all rolled down, hanging our heads out, soaking in the summer breeze and the sweet smell of the corn in the fields and singing hymns to the top of our lungs allllll the way home.


Momma would get us all in bed and then relax a bit with the radio on. If our family favorite song "Wheels" came on, we would all get out of bed and dance in the middle of the living room. It didn't take many nights before the seven of us wore a hole in the carpet, but momma didn't care.


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## SFM in KY (May 11, 2002)

I remember my grandmother driving the team on the buckrake during haying season. She would put the last load on the stacker and then come to the house and tie the team to the fence while she came in and helped my mother finish getting dinner for Grandpa and Dad. When they came up, Grandpa unhitched the team and took them to water, then hitched them again before they came in to eat.

Everyone had things they did specifically. Grandpa and Dad did the milking morning and night and brought the milk to the house where Grandma ran it through the milk separator and then washed all the parts and put it back together. I remember her showing me the little payment book she had where she'd bought that separator from a store in down and paid for it at $5 a month. I don't remember the full price now but there were several pages of payments.

Grandma used to get the Grit newspaper and read it over and over. She would clip recipes sometimes and most of her apron patterns were ones she ordered through that magazine. She also ordered many of her crochet and embroidery patterns through advertisements in Grit as well. I remember how delighted I was to see that the Grit magazine was still being published ... and how disappointed I was when I got a copy of the small, slick magazine it is now.


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## o&itw (Dec 19, 2008)

Yep, all these bring back similar memories of my own. 

Living on a farm with 8 brothers and sisters, we would always have a great time in the Autumn when my father plowed. We would stack strips of sod from the furrows into u-shaped walls about 20 feet apart which we called forts, and had a great time pitching dirt clods back and for at each other. My mom wouldn't even let us close to the house after one of these episodes before she sprayed us down with the hose.... it was amazing how cold that water was.

Sometimes in the Spring, we would all go down to the tavern and eat fish on Fridays. There we lots of Catholics in the area, and fish fries on Friday during Lent were the norm. At that time, at least in Illinois, a minor could drink at any age with his parent or legal guardian. My dad would always pour each of us a half a glass of beer. I don't drink much, but to this day I like to have a beer or two at a fish fry.

One of my earliest memories was the "after church" treat us children would get. There were so man of us that my dad would take the older kids to early church, and my mom would take the younger ones to the second service. The only store open in town on Sundays was Foley's Drug store. Most young people have never seen one, but most drugs stores used to have a soda fountain. There was a snack bar with those round seated stools that one could swivel around on. Everybody that came in for a fountain soda would stick their gum under the bar counter top..... it was sort of gross when you felt all the gum stuck up there. We never had soda at home. so that once a week trip to the drug store was special. One could get any combination of flavors they wanted. Besides a "Coke" my next favorites were cherry-phosphates and strawberry-lemonades.

That's the nice thing about "the good old days" You remember all the pleasant things and forget the "hard-times" ones


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## grandma12703 (Jan 13, 2011)

salmonslayer said:


> The Mrs and I actually live fairly simply and very happily using a lot of the things people keep posting about as an "do you know what this is?" or "do you remember this?" and we find it rather amusing. When I was a kid I lived part time with my Grandfather and Great Aunt and often visited my great grand parents huge farm way out in the country where there were animals, a hand pump water well, an out house, a big old tractor, crops, a barn, a great big old farm house with a big porch etc. and I loved it and always remembered it. However, later in life I found pictures of that huge farm and talked to my grandfather about it before he passed and it turns out the huge farm was 5 acres, the pictures of the big old tractor show it was a Farmall Cub, the barn and animals turned out to be just a large shed with some chickens and one old cow and an old horse way past his prime and the great big farmhouse had no in door plumbing and was about 800 square feet. They were dirt poor but I sure never realized it and in my mind its still this huge farm of my youth and we pretty much live that way today (except we did get indoor plumbing!)..
> 
> We live in a house built in 1938 (but it did receive substantial updates in the late 1940s!) We dont have a microwave, I dont have a cell phone (the Mrs uses a basic one), our house phone is a rotary dial, our TV has tubes and rabbit ears and cost $25.00 at a yard sale, we get milk in glass bottles from a local dairy, we have no dishwasher (gives the Mrs and I time to enjoy each other and flirt while doing dishes), we have nothing digital in the house by choice (there is something incredibly annoying to me about green digital for some reason), and in the winter we all smell like wood smoke just like almost everyone else around here, we get our news primarily from the weekly local paper and local TV channels we pick up with rabbit ears, and we eat mostly what we grow or raise ourselves.
> 
> We have been told we arent living in reality by some family members and that we are going to regret jumping off the corporate grinder and "hiding" out from the world in the Ozarks living like the world stopped in 1955. The thing is, we are happy with our reality.......


 
We do the same by choice and wouldn't want it any different. Must be something about being in the Ozarks.


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## Joel_BC (Nov 10, 2009)

Some things I remember... There had been a Middle East oil embargo (1979) and a lot of people started switching to more fuel-efficient cars and trucks. Our family got its first Toyota pickup.

I could ride my bike anywhere (nobody wore helmets, either), and could meet my friends. There was little or no fear of perverts grabbing kids.

There were still vinyl record albums - cost about $6 in Canada. (There were 8-tracks... people mainly had these for their cars. All us younger folks were going for cassette tapes, though.)

Chainsaws had become compact and light, even before I was old enough to pick one up and start to learn to use it. The ones our dads kept around (as spares - manufactured, say, back in 1970) seemed like *monsters*.

Off-grid equpment like solar panels, pelton wheels, and home-scale wind generators had moved off the fantasy-magazine pages and were starting to show up on real country homesites, scattered around.

Young people had more physical energy and didn't just sit around computer screens and or peck at little smart phones. They _did_ things and wanted to do things. Dads and Moms all set a hard-working or steady-working example.

I saw my first welder that wasn't acetylene or stick - a MIG that a friend of the family had bought and was making use of.


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## trbizwiz (Mar 26, 2010)

I remember cooking exclusively in cast iron pans.
I remember kids playing out side, 
I remember eating foods that where natural and unprocessed, 
I remember getting groceries in brown paper bags, 
I remember using those brown paper bags for almost everything, 
I remember grownups teaching respect, by being respectful,
I remember doing what is right, not because of what people think, but because it is what is right
I remember buying only what you can afford,
I remember being resourceful with what you have,
I remember giving to God first, saving for tomorrow next, and living for today always
I remember teaching children excellence is more important than winning, and that losing is not bad unless you don't learn from it
I remember most of these things , because they were important enough that my family still does them.


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## Nevada (Sep 9, 2004)

Joel_BC said:


> Young people had more physical energy and didn't just sit around computer screens and or peck at little smart phones. They _did_ things and wanted to do things.


That's the way people remember it, but we had our share of couch potatoes back then. Some adults used to tell us that we sat in front of the TV too much, which would not only makes us physically weak but would also rot our brains. I can tell you that sitting in front of the TV was a part of my daily routine as far back as I can remember.

People often remember things skewed.


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## Joel_BC (Nov 10, 2009)

Nevada, cantcha let me be a little nostalgic? everybody else in the thread was.


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## grandma12703 (Jan 13, 2011)

Nevada said:


> That's the way people remember it, but we had our share of couch potatoes back then. Some adults used to tell us that we sat in front of the TV too much, which would not only makes us physically weak but would also rot our brains. I can tell you that sitting in front of the TV was a part of my daily routine as far back as I can remember.
> 
> People often remember things skewed.


 
There were some Nevada but back then most kids were required to take PE courses and participate. Most kids at our school played some sort of sport on top of PE. There weren't (at least in my time) much for video games, however in my teenage years atari came out with some but not many had them. I grew up in a very rural area and we were all expected to work hard on the farm but we got to play a lot come fair time. It was kind of learning that you have to give to receive. 

TV was only late in the evenings after everything else was done and usually we were too tired to watch much. One of the happy memories I have is waiting for practice to get over because momma always had supper done when we got there. We never ate out. I think she could have written her own 30 minute dinner cookbook. She was a great cook..


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## Nevada (Sep 9, 2004)

Joel_BC said:


> Nevada, cantcha let me be a little nostalgic? everybody else in the thread was.


Sure, I suppose we all do that to a degree. It's just that I was a proud couch potato myself.


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## Evons hubby (Oct 3, 2005)

Nevada said:


> Sure, I suppose we all do that to a degree. It's just that I was a proud couch potato myself.


Now we know who started that trend!


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## salmonslayer (Jan 4, 2009)

When I was a kid we only got one station and on weekdays it came on at 1800 for the news and went off the air at 2300. But the weekends were something, cartoons came on at 1000 and the afternoon movie at 1300 and of course...if we were behaving we got to watch the Sunday night Wonderful World of Disney.

Like Nevada I went through the cowboy and Davy Crockett phase and had the **** skin cap and a leather fringed vest. Then I found Popular Mechanics and started ordering things like magnifying glasses, balsa wood airplane kits, animal hide tanning supplies, and then got into crystal radios....I kind of miss those days.


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## Nevada (Sep 9, 2004)

salmonslayer said:


> Like Nevada I went through the cowboy and Davy Crockett phase and had the **** skin cap and a leather fringed vest. Then I found Popular Mechanics and started ordering things like magnifying glasses, balsa wood airplane kits, animal hide tanning supplies, and then got into crystal radios....I kind of miss those days.


Growing up in the 50s & 60s, I was often reminded of how modern and high-tech my surroundings were. After all, we lived in the Space Age. We could get most any color phone we wanted (some even had a Princess Phone), we had transistor radios that fit in the palm of your hand, and we even wore permanent pressed clothing.

Today I look back on all that and I have to grin. We never dreamed of things like home computers, cell phones, or microwave ovens.


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## lonepine (May 29, 2005)

I remember walking to kindergarten when I was not quite 5 in Toronto. It was five blocks away but we had been taught how to cross the street safely. We didn't need parents to organize teams and rules for us to play hockey, baseball and football in the park nor did we require an adult escort to watch over us. 
Milk, juice, eggs, and bread were delivered to the door. Neither of my parents had a car - we all used public transit. We cut the grass using a mechanical push mower and grew a lot of our own vegies. Mail arrived twice a day on weekdays and once on Saturdays. Newspapers at the corner box were there on an honour system. You just picked a paper from the top of the stack and put your dime in the slot on the side of the box. Playground fights were allowed to sort themselves out within reason and you stood up to bullies who soon tired of someone willing to fight back. Those who were too small to fight back had friends who would back them up. And here is a biggie - in the 40s, 50s, and 60s a family of four could live quite comfortably on the earnings of one parent. I am really enjoying the comments here.


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## emdeengee (Apr 20, 2010)

Joel_BC said:


> Nevada, cantcha let me be a little nostalgic? everybody else in the thread was.


I love reading these threads - brings back so many memories - but I do agree that people remember the good and skew reality. 

I think it is important to value the past but not to rewrite it. For every wonderful memory that I have there are also some bad experiences and for many people there are actually only terrible memories. There is no such place as Mayberry.

No one talked about the terrible things. Lots of dirty secrets. Today we probably talk and sensationalize too much without making real changes. It took enormously courageous people to stand up and tell the world what it did not want to hear - Marilyn Van Derbur, Miss America was one such person. Child sex abuse existed just as much back in the good old days as it does today. I am sure that there will be many wonderful memories from this era for the young people growing up in it but there will also be horror stories.


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## bruce2288 (Jul 10, 2009)

Thank you all for remembering, and jogging my memories. Some things the same some different. I remember being in 7th grade hunting on the way to school, giving my .410 to the teacher. She put it in a closest, after school she gave it to me and I hunted on the way home. I wonder what would happen to a kid who walked into school with a shotgun today.


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## terradura (Mar 19, 2012)

These bring back a lot of memories! It is fun to hear that others remember the same experiences from childhood: collecting pop bottles for spending money, walking through town with a shotgun after a day of hunting, etc.

I remember the first time I heard my own voice from a tape recorder, my father bringing home a photocopy for us to marvel at ... Never had pizza or a bagel (or even heard of one) until I went to college.

What I'm missing most is the ones who used to tell me about the good old days. My parents' and grandparents' generations. I was at a Veterans Appreciation Parade this weekend and two WWII vets were highlighted. Then I realized just how few are left.


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## PlicketyCat (Jul 14, 2010)

I remember living and traveling throughout Germany and the rest of Europe and not being despised because I was an American and a military dependent.

I remember when the first McDonalds opened in Berlin. It was the 4th time I'd ever eaten American fast food.

I remember sitting in my HS History class watching the cable news report of the Berlin Wall coming down... and crying, because I'd been there and seen it, traveled through the DDR on a restricted train, and understood the significance... and everyone looking at me like I was an alien.

I remember when kids had to do their chores BEFORE they got an allowance. And if you wanted anything special (or different than what your parents bought you) then you had to save up your allowance & birthday/holiday money & odd job money to buy it yourself. And having a job before you got a car, either saving up to buy it or having an official loan (with structured payments) from your parents... but no job, no car.

I remember when toaster ovens with rotisseries were the newest things and no one had ever heard of a microwave.

I remember TV dinners in aluminum trays with foil covers that actually had to cook in the oven. And eating them off folding fiberglass TV trays watching football with my Dad.

I remember my first computer... it had a whopping 512kb internal hardrive and the word processing application was on an external spooled tape drive.

I remember Vinyl records... 78s, 33s and 45s. How cool it was when you got a silver or blue or red or clear one. Changing the needles on the record player, or using an emery board to get another couple weeks out of the old one. And, yeah, I remember 8-tracks, too.


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## downntheholler (Mar 10, 2010)

I recall how you woulkd pull the belt on the pretties girl, out on the playground...and she would try to kick you in the shin, thats how you knew she liked you...wonder if it still works that way.


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## salmonslayer (Jan 4, 2009)

Nevada said:


> Growing up in the 50s & 60s, I was often reminded of how modern and high-tech my surroundings were. After all, we lived in the Space Age. We could get most any color phone we wanted (some even had a Princess Phone), we had transistor radios that fit in the palm of your hand, and we even wore permanent pressed clothing.
> 
> *Today I look back on all that and I have to grin. We never dreamed of things like home computers, cell phones, or microwave ovens.*


 Remember when portable calculators came out and how big they were? I also was injured in a motorcycle wreck when I was in the USMC and spent 6 months of hell on light duty as the Training NCO where we had to type everything on the field typewriters (old manuals like Underwoods) or the first gen IBMs if we were in garrison....you had to really hit the keys hard and to this day my wife says I murder a key board.


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## udwe (Aug 8, 2009)

I'm still living in rural MT. Just a little farther south from where I was born & raised. Were you close to the HiLine?


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## justplainbill (Jan 25, 2013)

We've gone from getting by without a telephone and checking account to the US Treasury telling Americans that they are discontinuing the issuance of paper Social Security Checks.
Payday has largely gone from cash, to a check, to direct deposit and despite the watered down purchasing power of the US dollar, $500 and $1,000 bills have become a thing of the distant past.
Used to be banks wanted you to prove who you are to borrow money. Now we're asked to prove who we are in order to be able to deposit money and Verizon wants your Social Security number for many cell phone plans.


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## Nevada (Sep 9, 2004)

justplainbill said:


> We've gone from getting by without a telephone and checking account to the US Treasury telling Americans that they are discontinuing the issuance of paper Social Security Checks.
> Payday has largely gone from cash, to a check, to direct deposit and despite the watered down purchasing power of the US dollar, $500 and $1,000 bills have become a thing of the distant past.
> Used to be banks wanted you to prove who you are to borrow money. Now we're asked to prove who we are in order to be able to deposit money and Verizon wants your Social Security number for many cell phone plans.


The fundamental difference in banking today is the ability to have real-time transactions, either by debit card or ACH (electronic check) transaction. That makes it convenient for the customer and secure for the vendor.

Bounced checks used to be a big problem for vendors, but real-time transactions have made that mostly a thing of the past. We still have chargebacks, but transactions returned for insufficient funds are rare. It may seem like big brother is breathing down your neck, but this is a good thing for the most part.

I think that privacy in Social Security numbers is a thing of the past. That ship sailed a long time ago.


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## airotciv (Mar 6, 2005)

Everyone keeps reminding me of so many things I have not thought of in years. Sleeping on the floor boards, ridding in the back of a pickup and my father asking me at the age of 9, "Do you want to drive the tractor or the pickup?" My first computer was a Trash 80.


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## clovis (May 13, 2002)

Thank you all for your posts!!!!!

I've have enjoyed this thread immensely, and am appreciative of your comments and stories!!!!

Anyone else have something to share?


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## mikec4193 (Oct 13, 2011)

HI Everyone
I guess I am the gear head because what I remember has to do with our transportationâ¦
1. Ignition switches on the dashboardâ¦
2. Starter switches on the floorâ¦. 
3. High beam switches on the floorâ¦
4. Flat windshieldsâ¦
5. Being able to see the ground in a not so tight old truck cabâ¦.
6. Tall shifter leversâ¦.
7. Column shift carsâ¦
8. No power steeringâ¦
9. Station wagons and No mini Vansâ¦
10. Guys cutting the backs off of station wagons to make them into pickup trucksâ¦
11. Fixing an exhaust system with and old tin canâ¦.
12. Two tone carsâ¦.(now that was cool)
13. No FM radiosâ¦.
14. Chrome trim was real chrome attached to a car via clipsâ¦
15. Painted steel bumpers on trucksâ¦
16. Pickup trucks road like trucksâ¦..
17. Points, Plugs, Rotors, Condensersâ¦ 
18. Being able to repair your own car in your garageâ¦.
19. Bias ply tiresâ¦
20. Steel wheelsâ¦
I am sure I can think of moreâ¦..


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## Nevada (Sep 9, 2004)

This thread is starting to remind me of the Statler Brothers song _Do You Remember These_.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LVbZ85olEQ

:dance:


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## mamita (May 19, 2008)

I remember in Jr. high school we gals would grab the loop on the back of a boy's shirt to treasure. (ya..who knows what we did with them, but it was a major bonanza) 

Monster Mash was THE craze.  (ok..I didn't really ever grasp it, but I tried)

don't ask me about the years that spelled.........PERMS. don't ask my little brother, either. hahaha!!!!!!!!!! pictures of him...priceless!


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## Joel_BC (Nov 10, 2009)

The period I was describing in my first post (# 99, on this thread) was the late 1970s and early '80s. One thing I remember was how difficult it was, compared with today, to get how-to information on some things. If you wanted to learn how to do something, or improve the way you were already doing it - and if it wasn't something your dad knew, or that they taught in a class in school, or that some neighbor knew and would take the time to teach you - then you were kind of stuck with what you could find at the local library (_maybe_) or possibly in some magazine article.

There was no internet until the middle of the 1990s, and there were not many how-to programs on the TV (at least not on channels we could receive).

Today is really the time to build your skills and understanding, because info sources are enormously more accessible.


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## ItchingDuck (Jan 25, 2012)

I remember finding my very own swiss army knife in the dirt in the gully behind my house at age 4; and my parents let me keep it. I was taught proper useage so I never cut myself. I just used it to help in the making of forts.

For that matter, I was making my own campfires by age 5. I was cognitive enough to understand and was taught properly certain survival skills.


I used to walk downtown at age7 to the dime store or the PDQ station. 

I know that my toys were the rocks, sticks and the outdoors no matter the temp; rain or shine. We didn't get anything ever unless it was annual clothes shopping or shoes every 6 months. Otherwise I would get maybe 1 or 2 small things for my birthday and maybe 5 things for xmas. Not the stupid "go into debt" game xmas has become.


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## mulemom (Feb 17, 2013)

I remember all that 'car stuff' clovis. Including the little lever you had to pull up to put the pickup in reverse. The chevy pickup we had with three on the tree that would lock in gear, mom would have to get out and wiggle something underneath to free it up so she could shift. Also sliding truck tires under the truck frame and using a bottle jack to break the seal so we could take the tube out and 'hot patch' it. Parking the Super C on the barn hill so we could roll it down the hill and pop the clutch to start it instead of cranking. All the old cars we had that came from the junk yard but now would be worth thousands because they've become popular.


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## terradura (Mar 19, 2012)

It used to be that if you wanted to avoid politics, the weather was a safe topic of conversation. Not so much anymore...


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## clovis (May 13, 2002)

Something that came to mind a few days ago...and I've been pondering it since then.

When I was a kid, I remember hearing:

"Use it up.
Wear it out.
Make it do,
Or do without."

Actually, I can still hear my mother's voice ringing in my ears with that saying. It seemed to me, at least in my world, that everyone lived by that motto.

What in the world happened to that way of thinking?


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## Joel_BC (Nov 10, 2009)

clovis said:


> Something that came to mind a few days ago...and I've been pondering it since then.
> 
> When I was a kid, I remember hearing:
> 
> ...


It still lives (in North America) with _some_ people in some places.

Harder economic times could bring it back in the lives of more people in the society. A lot of people get sobered-up and gain (or regain) a common-sense, frugal perspective when money is tighter. (Not that I wish hardship on good people.)


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## IndianaGrammy (Apr 19, 2013)

I remember the meals in the school cafeteria were cooked from scratch. 
I was 12 years old before I ever tasted pizza.It was quite the novelty!
I remember the Pledge of Allegiance before every school day started, followed by a patriotic or spiritual song.
I remember listing to "The Dark Shadow" on the radio.
We were sent out the door in the morning to go play and were not expected home until dinner.
Any pocket change we got was from riding our bikes the several miles between home and the nearest grocery store, picking bottles out of the ditch along the way and then getting the deposit back on them at the store to fund our penny-candy habit. 
My mom sent me to pick fruit every summer but I ate more than I picked and didn't earn much money.
White school paste that actually tasted kind of good.
We had "duck and cover" practice in school case in of an air raid. So at the teacher's prompt, we would all dive under our desks.
Unrelated adults could still scold you for improper behavior.
A trip to the principal's office at school was a big deal.
Personal hygiene items were not advertized on TV, let alone pharmaceuticals for sexual-related dysfunctions.
There were standards of dress and behavior.
Christian principals and icons were not considered "offensive."
Our old black and white TV was "on the blink" more than it was functioning. We watched Lassie, mickey mouse cartoons, Disney, I Love Lucy, Gunsmoke and Wagon Train.
We got our milk from the milk man who drove a truck loaded with ice. I liked to sneak into the back of his truck while he was not looking and get some of that great ice on a hot day.
My dad always drove a Rambler. There were no seat belts in it.
My parents put down a $50 deposit on a new house.
The doctor actually made house calls.
I have great memories of wandering the fields exploring nature. I still do that as an adult. I miss those innocent days, and wish my kids and grandkids could have known that simpler life.


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## sdnapier (Aug 13, 2010)

Played jacks, 4 square, jump rope. 
Made fairy houses with grass, sticks and leaves. 
Climbed trees, played red rover, and rode hand-me-down bikes of all sizes. 
At the little candy store we could buy a 1/4 penny candy. 
Dilly bars at Dairy Queen were 10 cents!! 
Ran thru the sprinkle to get cool. 
Watched Lassie and Disney. 
Charlie Chips delivered chips and pretzels to the house. 
We collected the 50 states milk top covers after licking the cream off
The youngest child had a car seat that hooked over the back of the front seat...and no seat belt! It even had its own little horn


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## sdnapier (Aug 13, 2010)

salmonslayer said:


> The Mrs and I actually live fairly simply and very happily using a lot of the things people keep posting about as an "do you know what this is?" or "do you remember this?" and we find it rather amusing. When I was a kid I lived part time with my Grandfather and Great Aunt and often visited my great grand parents huge farm way out in the country where there were animals, a hand pump water well, an out house, a big old tractor, crops, a barn, a great big old farm house with a big porch etc. and I loved it and always remembered it. However, later in life I found pictures of that huge farm and talked to my grandfather about it before he passed and it turns out the huge farm was 5 acres, the pictures of the big old tractor show it was a Farmall Cub, the barn and animals turned out to be just a large shed with some chickens and one old cow and an old horse way past his prime and the great big farmhouse had no in door plumbing and was about 800 square feet. They were dirt poor but I sure never realized it and in my mind its still this huge farm of my youth and we pretty much live that way today (except we did get indoor plumbing!)..
> 
> We live in a house built in 1938 (but it did receive substantial updates in the late 1940s!) We dont have a microwave, I dont have a cell phone (the Mrs uses a basic one), our house phone is a rotary dial, our TV has tubes and rabbit ears and cost $25.00 at a yard sale, we get milk in glass bottles from a local dairy, we have no dishwasher (gives the Mrs and I time to enjoy each other and flirt while doing dishes), we have nothing digital in the house by choice (there is something incredibly annoying to me about green digital for some reason), and in the winter we all smell like wood smoke just like almost everyone else around here, we get our news primarily from the weekly local paper and local TV channels we pick up with rabbit ears, and we eat mostly what we grow or raise ourselves.
> 
> We have been told we arent living in reality by some family members and that we are going to regret jumping off the corporate grinder and "hiding" out from the world in the Ozarks living like the world stopped in 1955. The thing is, we are happy with our reality.......


SS, don't let anyone sell you on anything digital. You have a wonderful life, stick with it!!!


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## mountainlaurel (Mar 5, 2010)

sdnapier said:


> Played jacks, 4 square, jump rope.
> Made fairy houses with grass, sticks and leaves.
> Climbed trees, played red rover, and rode hand-me-down bikes of all sizes.
> At the little candy store we could buy a 1/4 penny candy.
> ...


That's it, I remember milk being delivered but I knew when I was little something else besides produce was and it must have been Charlie Chips chips, pretzels and I think cookies?
When I was small, I lived in a more urban county, we were all Catholics except my family who had come from Virginia, so we were Episcopal, but everyone had at least 5 kids, so hide and seek at night was a blast. We covered the entire neighborhood.
Then we moved to the next county which was much more rural, there I graduated from a school that went from 7th-12th grades. A lot of people had party lines, if someone wanted your phone number, you only gave the last 4 digits. Rotary dial was the norm.


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## unregistered168043 (Sep 9, 2011)

No cable TV, just rabbit ears and about 6 channels.

No remote control.

No computers, internet, cellphones.

Movie theaters had a smoking section

People smoked everywhere

Cars were mostly American made, giant gas guzzlers

There seemed to be a lot less people around

Less stores, more open space

Kids played outside

We played war, shot plastic guns at each other and nobody went crazy


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## mekasmom (Jan 19, 2010)

I love reading all the memories in this thread. I have so many similar ones. It is a good thread--- even one of the top ones that have ever been on the boards.

I don't have a lot of memories of my Mom because I was little when she died. But, I remember Christmas shopping uptown with her a few times. Back then there was snow.... lots of snow. All the tires would we covered in chains as the traffic rolled down the streets on the square. And, the last 2-3 weeks before Christmas, the stores would stay open until 8pm on Fridays! How scandalous was that? Of course Saturdays were still 8am-4pm so everyone could get a good night's sleep before church Sunday. And the stores would be decorated with tinfoil garlands, real glass ornaments, pieces of candy and fruit hung from the real tree in the stores. We had about 5 stores to choose from uptown. Two were variety, two were clothing stores, and there was a hardware store. I loved the 5 and Dime like any real 4-5 yo kid would. And I had this fascination for Ben Hur cologne. It was always what I wanted as a gift along with powder that had a powder puff in it, and always what I told my dad that I wanted to give Mom as a gift. And, of course, my mom and I always went to the hardware store to buy something for my Dad for Christmas. 
It was such a long time ago, but they are happy memories. 
Thankyou all for this thread.


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