I'm so old I've... [Archive] - Simple Living Forums

IshbelRobertson

6-23-11, 12:32pm

I'm so old that I remember when the TARDIS really WAS a police box and they were on street corners everywhere! Nowadays there are still 2 or 3 in the centre of Edinburgh that work as coffee/sandwich stalls!

I'm so old I remember flying in military aircraft that still had propellers - and let me tell you flying from the UK to Singapore on troop carriers was no joke!

I'm so old I still remember 'old' money - ie pounds, shillings and pence (pre-decimalisation). I am also still more comfortable with British Imperial measurements rather than metric.

I remember when Christmas Day was only a half day holiday for workers in Scotland. Our big celebration was and is Hogmanay.

kib

6-23-11, 1:03pm

Hope this isn't another foot-in-mouth moment from being away, but where's Lizii? Bet she'd have some terrific "I'm so old" moments.

Personally, I'm so old that I remember typing school papers on a manual (no electricity) typewriter. I'm so old I remember when there was no such thing as "faxing" or microwave ovens or watching a movie unless it was being shown by a public entity like tv or a theatre. I'm so old I remember when phone numbers were referred to with names - like ours was Pioneer-1-7443. I'm so old I remember riding on a wooden escalator. I'm so old I remember shopping with my Mom at a butcher, baker and cheese store as part of the regular grocery shopping. I'm so old I remember when there was no such thing as a can you could open without a church key or other device. I'm so old I remember "sanitary belts", and panty girdles being a staple reality of adult female underclothing. I'm so old I remember not having a clothes dryer - not as an environmental statement, just a reality. I'm so old I remember having a milkman ... er, I mean employing a dairy product service. :~)

This won't mean anything to most of you, but I remember when the Roosevelt Field Shopping Mall had an ice skating rink in the middle of it.

I remember the terms "short pants", "ash can" and "ice box".

goldensmom

6-23-11, 1:49pm

I'm so old that I remember rotary phones AND manual typewriters, spray tan that left orange streaks, girls bikes were blue and boys bikes were red, country schools grades 1-8, cell phones the size of a bread box, one furnace register that everyone stood around to keep warm, our phone number was 77J4, Mercurochrome on was the only first aid for cuts (ouch), reel to reel tape recorders were the best in recording devices, computer punch cards and the list could go on and on.

Tradd

6-23-11, 2:14pm

I'm so old I've... when working for attorney's I did many, many, many legal documents (wills, deeds, divorces, etc) on a typewriter - letter by letter, word by word. Each one EVERY word had to be typed and no mistakes if possible, if so the old white out was used. So great when we got word processors, then computers, to have all that boilerplate language already there after only putting it in once and just change the new info!

Remember the typewriter ERASERS? They had the white eraser on one end and that stiff plastic brush on the other end to brush away the crumbs from the easer on your paper. ;-)

I learned how to type in 1982 (7th grade) on a manual typewriter. It stuck and so I pounded. I STILL pound when I'm typing to this day!

In my office (freight forwarder/customs broker), we still have one of the big old electronic typewriters. Probably ca.1995 or so. I wish all the companies, US Customs, etc., that wanted forms filled out - and NOT handwritten - had them all in writeable PDF files! We still have to type some forms. I've had to show young coworkers how to use the thing. And some not-so-young coworkers who simply have forgotten. I happily type away on it - and at a speed that mystifies my coworkers! I miss typewriters *sometimes*. I LOVED the IBM Selectrics I used while working in various university offices when I was an undergrad from 1987-1991. The young coworkers have never HEARD of manual typewriters, lol!

I'm also so old to have used computers on my college paper that needed boot disks - TWO for each computer. These were huge 5" floppy disks that had a hole in the middle and the magnetic tape (looked like a thick strip of the same sort of tape used for cassettes) around it. The computers were ancient when my college paper got them - maybe made late 1970s. They were likely hand-me-downs from the local paper. Anyway, the computers sometimes didn't boot up. So you pulled the disk out, put your finger on the magnetic tape surrounding the middle hold and moved it around several times. That always worked to get it to the point where the computers would boot.

I also remember the inky smell of mimeographs. I often ran off exams when I worked in a couple of departments when I was in college. AND sometimes typing the exams out. Was there some special paper/carbon to type on for the mimeo machines? I don't remember!

I miss the card catalogs in libraries! I think the part I miss the most was when you would go to the subject cards and find all sorts of neat books. It never seems to me that the library catalog computers work quite right when you're searching by subject!

I remember when it was a BIG deal - maybe sometime in the 80s when you could order something from a catalog via phone with a credit card, rather than having to send away a check and seemingly wait forever.

My first car in 1991 had manual-opening car windows. I miss those. Do they even still make vehicles with them?

And trying to set a station present on an analog radio in a car - remember those big "piano" type black plastic keys sticking out from the radio? And radios that ONLY had AM.

I remember being a kid and my mom having a wipe-off board - avocaco green, again! - next to the phone in the kitchen. She had numbers written down such as AV3-XXXX and referred to them that way for years.

OTOH, I don't remember NOT having a/c at home! An uncle was a HVAC guy and so A/C was put in sometime in the early 70s.

Tradd

6-23-11, 2:16pm

I remember using one of those hairdryers that had a plastic cap you put on your head. It had a hose that was connected to a case. I must be very old. Does anyone else remember those?

YES! My mom had one! I used it more than once as a kid, just for fun. She also had one that was similar to the ones at the beauty salon - it sat on the kitchen table and it had the hard plastic hood you sat under. I'm laughing - I'd totally forgotten about it! And for some reason I think it was avocado green, too! :P

FYI...I was born in 1969.

kib

6-23-11, 2:24pm

Ours was sort of aqua-turquoise with a pink tube and hood. And when I was very little, we really used it, not just as a joke but to be "party pretty". I also had a hand me down blow dryer from my grandmother that had a wooden handle and one of those old round plugs. Fool that I am I got rid of it in high school in favor of some plastic piece of crap, it was still going strong after ?? 50 years. Memory lane, here it is.

http://www.oobject.com/vintage-hairdryers/1930s-40s-all-chrome-vintage-hair-dryer/7997/

loosechickens

6-23-11, 4:07pm

benhyr

6-23-11, 4:12pm

I'm so old I downloaded Netscape 0.9 from a Gopher site that I used Veronica to find.

ok, so not that old....

Float On

6-23-11, 5:09pm

I grew up on a party line. Each house had a different code of rings. Got in trouble a lot for listening to the old farm ladies gossip. We had one and one half channels on the TV. Three in the tree manual transmissions in the trucks and it was o.k. to drive to town at age 12 if you were on farm business.
The water truck delivered our water once ever few weeks and I was always afraid I'd fall into the well. Dad would pick up hobos at lunch time and let them eat at our picnic table under the big oak tree and I'd watch them from the window wondering where they'd been and where they were going and if anyone in the world loved them.
I remember the first car we got that had air conditioning - we went for a long drive that hot summer day.
The IGA and the 5&Dime and the library still had hitchin' posts. TG&Y came to town and that was a big thing and then Wal-mart (who both also added hitchin' posts).

treehugger

6-23-11, 5:40pm

...I remember riding in a car without seatbelts. The back seat of our boat-size green Buick Apollo had no seatbelts, and no one thought anything of it. :) All the better for squishing 4 kids back there to drive to the beach for the day, circa 1979, Orange County, Calif.

Kara

catherine

6-23-11, 5:45pm

I'm so old that I remember that when you needed a copy of something, you had to take it to a photoshop, where they would photograph it, and you would get back what was called a "photostat" of your birth certificate or whatever important paper you needed a copy of, and the background would be black and the lettering white, a reverse of whatever the original was, and on heavy photo paper. Getting a copy of an important paper was a big deal and cost several dollars as I remember, which would be like paying twenty bucks to get a copy of something now.

If you were creating a document that you wanted a copy of, you could use carbon paper to make several copies (had to remember to hit those manual typewriter keys HARD if you were making more than one or two copies), OR you could type what was called a "stencil" that you then stretched over a drum of a ditto or mimeograph machine and used a handle to revolve the drum of the machine to end up with a purple (if it was a ditto machine), or a black ink (if a mimeograph) copy of your typed stencil.

Oh, and I'm also old enough to have lived in Washington D.C. when there was literally NO air conditioning anywhere, except in a few "refrigerated" movie theaters, which was what the signs said out front "REFRIGERATED".........

Have I mentioned that I love my computer, my internet connection, my cell phone, my scanner/copier/printer, etc.? I'm definitely one who thinks that the "good old days" were only the "good old days" so long as we engage only in selective memory.........

I agree with you 100%, LC!! And I have the same recall of that old office equipment. I went to Katharine Gibbs for a six-week "Entree" program for women who graduated from college but somehow still needed skills to get a job. If we made more than 3 mistakes, we had to rip the letter out of the typewriter and start over. We had VERY strict standards on how many lines to start the inside address on, and we had to estimate how long the letter was, so that it would be perfectly centered on the page.

When I got a job at NBC at 30 Rock in 1974, the only "fax" machine was in the News Dept. and it was called a "Dex" machine. Imagine a company like NBC only having one fax machine!!!

And then I remember being at Union Carbide when the Wang Word Processor came out and I had to teach the executive secretary how to use it. She was about the age I am now back then (59), and she was HOPELESS!! Couldn't even get the concept of putting the cursor where you want to add a word. She kept saying "If I were typing this, I would have had it done a half hour ago!!" The way I felt teaching her is probably how my kids feel teaching me other stuff, although I really think I'm pretty good for an older working girl.

Oh, and I also remember staying after school for hours when I was responsible for making the playbill for our drama club play--those mimeograph machines were so cumbersome and MESSY. And when you made a mistake on that special paper you had to use a razor blade to scrape off the mistake and then retype.

peggy

6-23-11, 5:46pm

I remember Maypo, and weiner whistles, and mom enjoying a cold beer as she drove home from the grocery store. Of course she smoked while shopping. I remember walking home from school and if someone, anyone offered us a ride we would hop right in. Didn't matter if we knew them.

Tenngal

6-23-11, 6:37pm

portable record players, remember? For all the little 45 rpms we bought.

Mrs-M

6-23-11, 7:00pm

Oh, you guys have come up with such good ones!!! Looks like I bombed on the rotary phone one huh? My way of thinking was, I know rotary telephones haven't been absent from our lives for decades and decades or anything, but, I'd be willing to bet my bottom dollar on the premise that few of today's younger generation have dialed or used one before. :) So even if that doesn't make me old, it still makes me old enough! :)

Anyhow, I'm so old I've done laundry in a wringer washing machine! How's that one? :)

Libby. I sure do! Mom would drag us to the beauty salon every so often and there all the women would be, all lined up in a row, sitting under those big plastic balloon bonnets, smoking cigarettes and talking.

Will touch on more entries as I have time. Talk about a fun thread!

Zigzagman

6-23-11, 7:36pm

I'm so old that my DW and I saved and lived on Vienna sausages and saltines for what seemed like forever for a 20% down payment on our first house. We never thought a thing about and actually had fun doing it.

We are so old that we both burnt holes in our t-shirts from seeds while smoking grass and listening to Neil Young and sitting in a circle with our friends so we could pass a joint.

We are so old that we both can remember taking a quart coke bottle (glass) back for a 25 cent refund. We are so old that I remember pulling cokes (little cokes) and looking on the bottom of the bottle to see the city of origin.

We are so old that we remember when toilet paper came in single roles.

We are so old that we remember when bumper were made out of "Steel".

Peace

sweetana3

6-23-11, 8:02pm

I started my IRS career in Alaska pre computers. We had to use microfilm records and paper and pencil to figure out accounts. For years we were able to use a calculator to do all audit reports.

Not so now. All computerized since it is so overwhelmingly complex.

catherine

6-23-11, 8:10pm

Oh, you guys have come up with such good ones!!! Looks like I bombed on the rotary phone one huh? My way of thinking was, I know rotary telephones haven't been absent from our lives for decades and decades or anything, but, I'd be willing to bet my bottom dollar on the premise that few of today's younger generation have dialed or used one before. :) So even if that doesn't make me old, it still makes me old enough! :)

One day (probably in the late 80s, early 90s) when we STILL had a rotary phone (it was cheaper than touch-tone), one of my kids' friends came in the house and asked if he could call his mother. I said, "Sure, Chris, the phone's in the kitchen." He was in there for a while, but I didn't hear anything. So when he was on his way out the door, I asked, "Did you get your mom?" and he said, "No, I couldn't figure out how to work your phone."

Kathy WI

6-23-11, 8:43pm

I remember when cars had those triangular vent windows that you could open at just the right angle to get the air to blow in your face. I'm so old that when I was a kid, I rode in the front seat, or climbed over to the back seat, or lay down on the seat if I felt like it. And the glove compartment door when opened made a little tray with an indentation for a cup, and my job was to pour coffee for my mom from the thermos.

I remember when finding out that somebody was divorced, or another kid's parents were divorced, was kind of shocking and scandalous.

catherine

6-23-11, 8:46pm

I remember when finding out that somebody was divorced, or another kid's parents were divorced, was kind of shocking and scandalous.

That was me. My father was alcoholic, I was in Catholic school (7th grade), and God knows divorce doesn't go over well with the Catholics--esp in 1964. I was mortified because my mother's remarriage announcement was in the paper and my schoolmate called me out on it. Her reaction was probably the same as yours was, Kathy. I was the only person I knew that had divorced parents (never mind remarried excommunicated parents), until I met one other guy in high school. Of course, I fell madly in love with him (unrequited--turns out he's now gay).

So, some memories are fun, others are quite painful.

Miss Cellane

6-23-11, 8:47pm

I remember my mom buying one of the first pairs of pantyhose. And some of the first disposable diapers. Both in the same year, if I recall correctly.

Remember the old car seats that had a little steering wheel to entertain the kid and which just hooked over the back of the seat? Often the front seat? And car beds--my parents had a red plaid vinyl car bed for the babies to sleep in. It folded down flat. It was used as a portable crib when we went to visit the grandparents.

I remember the fight to allow girls to wear pants to high school.

We had a car without seat belts. And when we did finally get a car with seat belts, they didn't retract, but stayed out and got all tangled up. When we drove the 8 hours to visit family, my parents would put all the back seats down flat in the station wagon and make a big bed there with blankets and coats. They'd leave at night, and we'd sleep in the way back for most of the trip.

This post had good timing--just a few days ago, I astounded my 13 year old nephew by admitting that I had never, ever sent an text (he sends over 1,000 a month), and by telling him that cell phones did not exist when I was a kid, nor did home computers, the internet, email, video games or CDs, let alone iPods. I told him how his dad used to record songs off the radio on a cassette tape player, but I don't think he believed me.

No microwaves growing up. Not even a toaster oven.

razz

6-23-11, 9:58pm

Got you guys beat!

I remember using a sickle mower, hay loader, dump rake to put loose hay in the barn. Milk was cooled in large cans in the well house, chickens were living above the dairy barn. I wore rubber boots for almost everything. Grain was cut and stacked in stooks of sheaves with the local threshing machine coming to our place in turn to thresh the grain for the grain bin.

My parents gave me a portable typewriter as a graduation present and I used it through university for essays - got quite good at typing.

Shoes, appliances, radios, clothing, etc., lasted forever and could be repaired rather than today's built-in obsolescence and disposal.

I was just saying to DD2 that as a 67 year-old woman, I have had the most wonderful life - had a healthy family life and successful career, lots of travel, diverse adventures, seen how the old life was doable and thoroughly enjoying the new technology as well.

Mighty Frugal

6-23-11, 10:28pm

I am loving this thread!!
I'm so old I remember pink/blue/green Kleenex and toilet paper! Also the white ones with the pink flowers on it...like, who needs flowers when you wipe? Its not as if they were scented.

I'm so old I had a Walkman with cassettes inside.

I'm so old in grade school we would watch movies on those big projectors. Our teachers would invariably not be able to thread the film through and after a frustrating 15 minutes ALWAYS called the custodian to come in and do it for her! Loved the slap slap sound the film made when the movie was over the the finally bit of film was wrapping around the holder-thingy

Float On

6-23-11, 11:22pm

I'm so old I remember pink/blue/green Kleenex and toilet paper!

I was just thinking about colored toilet paper the other day!

Sad Eyed Lady

6-23-11, 11:27pm

I'm so old ..... that I remember all the things you guys are talking about!

Kathy WI

6-23-11, 11:46pm

I'm so old, I remember wearing "shoe boots" as a kid, the kind of snow boots that go on over your shoes.

I'm so old, all my grandparents were born in the 1800's.

Alan

6-24-11, 12:06am

I'm so old ..... that I remember all the things you guys are talking about!
Me too! Including floor mounted dimmer switches in cars, outhouses, collecting water from a pump in the yard, heating with a coal stove, going to a two room country school with two teachers, one for the 1st through 4th grades and another for the 5th through 8th grades, picking cotton by hand and putting it in a 9 ft long cotton sack, Lucy & Desi when they were still married, Jack Benny/Marilyn Monroe/Dwight D. Eisenhower/Twiggy/Tiny Tim, being Mod, Nehru jackets, watching Lee Harvey Oswald as he was shot on live TV, The Twilight Zone, Queen For A Day, Amos & Andy, and hundreds of other things that most people nowdays have never heard of.

Polliwog

6-24-11, 12:13am

I'm so old that I remember when McDonald's hamburgers were 15 cents; and I remember the Helms Bakery truck and the K Bus that came around with food and candy, etc.

iris lily

6-24-11, 12:45am

I'm so old on these boards that when I saw "Chickadee" post, I thought it was Chick from Canada who is definately not high maintenance and wouldn't wear high fashion. Little does the current Chickadee know that there was a long long long term poster named Chickadee on the old boards.

Well, if I retire from these board nobody better take my moniker! Not even Lily Iris! ha ha

loosechickens

6-24-11, 1:19am

ohmigod, Alan......I'd forgotten about Queen for a Day....... when I was a very young houswife, with a tiny black and white TV, I would get all my work done and then sit down to watch Queen for A Day. I would cry at all the terrible things that had happened to those ladies and feel so badly for them, and today, looking back, find it inexplicable that somehow I thought that getting a new washer and dryer would somehow help with their troubles........but I was always SO happy for the one that won and got all those new appliances, etc. What could I have been thinking?

but that was the period when I made Minute Rice, and what my family called "African Chow Mein", for some reason, which was hamburger browned in a skillet with a chopped onion, Minute Rice and a can of Campbell's Cream of Mushroom Soup.....makes me gag to think of that now........

Mrs-M

6-24-11, 1:29am

Holy smokes! They just keep coming! Good one after good one! I've said it before and I'll say it again, you guys are the best!!! Have to say I'm even a little jealous over all the good ones you all thought of and I didn't! :laff: :~)

I'm so old I remember 8 mm family movies! No sound! Can you imagine a kid of today sitting down and watching those?

Tradd

6-24-11, 1:34am

I'm so old, I remember wearing "shoe boots" as a kid, the kind of snow boots that go on over your shoes.

Yes, I had those too. And to make it easier to get the boots on, my mom put bread bags over our shoes.

Tradd

6-24-11, 1:38am

I remember the colored toilet paper, too. And the cassette Walkman.

For Christmas my senior year in high school, in 1986, I got a 12" black and white TV to take with me to college. It was $70 at Kmart. I was just thrilled to have my own tv, and I remember doing homework to LA Law and Johnny Carson on the Tonight Show.

Can you imagine the reaction of a kid now to a black and white TV?!

Mrs-M

6-24-11, 1:58am

The coloured toilet paper I don't remember, but that's because my mom was sooo thrifty and frugal. :) It was basic in our house. Everything was basic.

Anyhow, I'm going to have to put my thinking-cap on tonight over this one, but as for now I can't think of anymore. (That's because you guys stole all of mine)! http://th38.photobucket.com/albums/e105/CommentCrazyGirl/Smileys%20Emotions/th_thgigglesmile.gif

Mrs-M

6-24-11, 2:00am

Tradd. I can't imagine the stir an old black and white television would create with today's younger generation. Would be hilarious to set up an experiment just for laughs!

Greg44

6-24-11, 2:26am

Some random thoughts - I am so old --- my first thought was "I am so old I am complaining about my aches and pains", but then I read the thread and see it was going a whole different direction!!

In Oregon they experimented with milk in quart bags you set in a pitcher and snipped off a corner.
Where I was standing in elementary school when Mr. Rogers announced President Kennedy was shot.
I remember when my cousin Barry told me at lunch Walt Disney died - I didn't believe him - that was like saying Santa had died!
Paper/wax drinking straws and cardboard tops on our milkshakes with a pull tab that you stuck your straw in.
That we never locked our doors during the day - until a murder happened on our street and all innocence was lost.
Only having to dial 4 numbers in town, having to go through an operator to call long distance, renting phones from Ma Bell.
Reading the magazines "Look & Life", only getting two TV stations - and we had to get up to change the channel.
Keeping ashtrays at our desks, parts counter, etc. for our customers who smoked.
Car lots with strands of bulbs to light their lots at night.
Going to the barber & getting a crew cut and him using "butch wax" in front to make my hair stand straight up!
TV commerical - Dove dishing washing liquid that thinks it is a hand lotion - turns into Dove and flys upstairs!
The small town I grew up in decorated city streets wires with real fir bows and christmas lights.
Grocery stores that actually boxed your groceries and tied a string around the flaps to hold them up - and took them to your car.

sweetana3

6-24-11, 6:19am

Alaska had NO Tv in the 50s. I remember the first station and the wonder of it all. Old movies were a staple.

Hotdogs in cans with the bbq sauce in a little package in the center.

I still have a 1930s rotary phone in the bedroom. It works great.

herbgeek

6-24-11, 6:47am

I brought a black and white TV to college, and it had a VIDEO GAME on it! It was just a ping pong game and moved ever so slow. Maybe why I never got into video games even thought the graphics got way better than an ascii display. :)

cdttmm

6-24-11, 10:02am

I remember milking our entire herd of dairy cows by hand twice a day.

razz

6-24-11, 12:03pm

This thread has been cute to read bringing back a lot of memories. In 1954, we had one of those wooden box phones and you had to wind the little handle on the side 2-3 times to get an operator who would connect you with another party. They now sell these phones as decorative items; should have bought them all when they went out of use and made a million :-)

Stella

6-24-11, 12:38pm

I'm so old I downloaded Netscape 0.9 from a Gopher site that I used Veronica to find.

ok, so not that old....

:) Yes, this.

herbgeek

6-24-11, 3:47pm

I'm so old that when the browser first came out, I said why would I ever need such a thing, when I already have Archie and Veronica to find any files on the internet that I want.

benhyr

6-24-11, 4:11pm

I'm so old I've owned (new) clothes made in the US!

LDAHL

6-24-11, 5:23pm

I’m so old I can remember doing my chemistry homework with a slide rule. I’m so old I remember tuning my Dad’s AMC Matador with a timing light and plug gapper. I’m so old I remember cigarette commercials featuring doctors. I’m so old I used to walk around with silver change in my pocket. I’m so old I joined the Air Force because I wanted to do something about the Soviet Union. I’m so old I can remember getting a transistor radio for my birthday. I’m so old I can remember learning the metric system because my teacher told us we’d be converting over in 1975. I’m so old I can remember worrying when Paul Ehrlich was on talk shows telling us about the food riots we could expect by 1980.

Greg44

6-24-11, 6:24pm

I remember getting free stuff at gas stations when you filled up your tank. Dishes in boxes of laundry detergent, etc.
Free maps at the gas station. S&H Green Stamps...licked many of them in my day for mom.

Nella

6-24-11, 6:25pm

...the word "ditto" meant a machine, not the phrase "me too."

Rogar

6-24-11, 9:15pm

I'm so old, I've forgotten how old I am. OK, not quite, but I occationally have to think about it.

I've enjoyed reading through everything for sure. I can almost remember the smell of paper coming out of mimeograph machines, and associate it with grade school tests. I remember the teachers lounge was so thick with cigarette smoke you could about cut it with a knife. Remember when the drive-in movie speakers came out with little heaters on them so you could go to the drive-in in cold weather? Although I think I prefered another method to keep warm:) Wing windows were one of my favorites that's gone away. Men wearing hats instead of caps (and having the manners to take them off inside). Duckwalls and Woolworths. Free concerts in the park on Sunday evenings with brass bands. Fill 'er up and check the oil?

Tenngal

6-24-11, 10:44pm

fender skirts.......seats that seemed to go on forever........clear vinyl car seat covers that had that wonderful (to a kid's nose) smell? My first car was a 1970 Opel GT, green and I spent hours washing and polishing that little car.

pony mom

6-25-11, 1:05am

I remember so many of these--rotary phones (still have one somewhere, a heavy black one), mimeographs, manual typewriters (keys would jam if you typed too fast), reel to reel recorders.

My parents had an old Polaroid camera with a flash that would blind you. And an 8mm movie camera with a bright light...most of our Christmas morning movies are of my sister and I shielding our eyes from the blinding light.

Remember when you could buy cigarettes from a vending machine? And stamps? Those ashtrays that sat on a tall base so you didn't need a table? Those little AM radios shaped like a hoop or a ball (Loop a Loop or something like that)? Hot stinky yellow rubber raincoats with those metal clasps? Bubble umbrellas? Clip-on roller skates (always unclipped at the wrong time). Mutual of Omaha Wild Kingdom? The truck that would come and spray mosquito stuff through the neighborhood (the bug man's coming! Close the windows!)? Click Clacks? - OUCH! Sun In for orange hair. All old people had false teeth. Women in their 50s looked old. Those old belted sanitary pads were the size of surfboards! The boxy 126 cameras? Those round fur-covered cases to hold your 45rpm records? Ker Plunk and Tinkertoys?

It's sad that so many things are in the past---people being better dressed for all occasions, being safe playing outside in your neighborhood, having only one television for the whole family to watch together. However, I eat Maypo at least 2-3 times a week--it's still around.

Oh, if you're from the NJ area, remember the stores S. Klein, Two Guys (food, hh goods, appliances and a bowling alley), Korvettes? Highway circles? Action Park?

I'll stop now.

Tradd

6-25-11, 2:05am

Korvette was in suburban Detroit, too!

catherine

6-25-11, 8:59am

Oh, if you're from the NJ area, remember the stores S. Klein, Two Guys (food, hh goods, appliances and a bowling alley), Korvettes? Highway circles? Action Park?

How about Palisade Park?? I grew up in CT (live in NJ now), but our 8th grade graduation party was at Palisade Park--it was a BIG DEAL to go there! And I brought my new Polaroid Brownie camera to take pictures! I also remember when Newark was a small airport.

HappyHiker

6-25-11, 9:19am

I'm so old I remember when gas station attendants wore snappy uniforms with bow ties and washed your windshield and checked your oil for you. So old I remember our fruit man was called a 'huckster' and sold produce from the back of a horse-drawn wagon. And we had a coal chute on the front of the house down which the coal delivery man ran a metal chute and rattled down the coal into our basement coal bin.

And my grandmother's ice box was just that--and the ice was delivered in big chunks, and the neighborhood grocery store had a huge wooden pickle barrel and it was a treat to get a pickle from it and eat it like an ice cream cone. And coming home from high school, we'd stop in the local Five and Dime that had an old-fashioned coffee shop with a fountain and we'd chow down on cherry and vanilla or chocolate cokes and French Fries.

And so old that my friends and I tried to get on Dick Clark's Bandstand but the regulars elbowed us out of camera range so we never got on camera.

And so very old that during the cold war we all learned how to duck and cover under our desks to protect ourselves from nuclear attacks and--lol--nuclear fall-out. And those attacks were very real if you're old like me and remember clearly the face-off with Russia and the Cuban Missile crisis!

catherine

6-25-11, 9:43am

One of my mother's wise pieces of fashion advice was, "If you wore it once, you can't wear it again" (meaning, if a trend comes around again, you look stupid if you wear it).

So, I'm so old I can no long wear:

--bell bottoms
--gauze shirts
--platform shoes
--miniskirts
--macrame purses
--heavy eyeliner paired with pale lipstick

Mighty Frugal

6-25-11, 2:21pm

I'm so old I remember actual film in cameras. And buying those disposable cameras were so cool and hip. I know this wasn't THAT long ago but my kids just got their hands on a disposable camera and I had to explain to them repeatedly that 'no, you CAN'T see the pic you just took' and 'no you only have 27 shots, after that it is over-you can't delete some and keep snapping' I had to explain how you take it into a camera store, they remove the film, develop it and we wait a week until we see anything. It is like bizarre-o world' to them

Tenngal

6-25-11, 5:03pm

love beads............John Lennon eyeglasses

rosarugosa

6-25-11, 6:58pm

About 8 - 10 years ago, sister & I were in Newport, RI with a 10-year-old friend, and we somehow got talking about toys. We were astounded to learn that she didn't know what Colorforms were! We popped into a nearby toy store, and asked the teenage clerk if they had Colorforms, because "Can you believe Alissa has never even heard of them?!" The clerk asked, "Why, what are they?"
I have one of those typewriter erasers on my desk. I use it to get breadcrumbs and sesame seeds out of my PC keyboard. The brushes they make for cleaning keyboards aren't stiff enough.
And my 1995 Saturn has crank windows. They work just fine!

freein05

6-26-11, 12:00am

We were in Yosemite last week and took the valley tour. The ranger giving the tour talked about the Firefalls. I was the only one on the tram that had seen the Firefalls. They stopped them in 1968.

Mrs-M

6-26-11, 1:12am

What a fantabulous thread!

I just couldn't resist adding, I'm so old that when I started school there was a boys side and a girls side as far as playground/school-grounds went. Imagine...

Tiam

6-26-11, 2:26am

We were in Yosemite last week and took the valley tour. The ranger giving the tour talked about the Firefalls. I was the only one on the tram that had seen the Firefalls. They stopped them in 1968.

I saw them! I remember them. It's a very vivid memory of a very young child, but I remember them.

catherine

6-26-11, 9:34am

What a fantabulous thread!

I think it's pretty neat, too, Mrs-M!

A few excerpts from my diary:

2/14/65: I went the shopping center and got 5 records and a magazine. I want to get a Granny dress. All the girls in England wear them. All the styles are going back to "granny's" age. No more high, teased hair. We now have long straight hair, with maybe a little curl at that ends and bangs. I'm still waiting for mine to get long. No more spiked heels and pointed toes. Now it is stacked heels about 1 to 1-1/2 inches and rounded toes, "granny" style.

1/17/65: Yesterday I went with Dad to see "That Darn Cat" with Hayley Mills & Dean Jones. It was hilarious!

2/1/66: "We Can Work It Out" has been No. 1 for six weeks! Isn't that fab?

2/10/66: Phooey! We Can Work It Out never made it to seven weeks. Rats!

2/11/66: Today in school, Sallie was putting the nurse's chart in the office when Jimmy walked up to her and said, "Wait! I have to write down somebody's phone no. first." He looked up MY number! The only trouble is, he wrote down my old number, TR4-7133.

3/27/66: My birthday came last night and I had a blast! I got $27 and apple seed beads, two records, a china doll that sings "I Could Have Danced All Night" Ben Franklin glasses, and a granny gown.

4/30/66: On Thursday went to the Post. Got "The Sonny Side of Cher" LP at Sabres. Good day. On Saturday, I went to N.Y. City. We climbed the Empire State Building. It was wicked!

6/14/66: For our class trip we were told we'd be going to Palisades Amusement Park. Of course, that "amused" everybody because Palisades is ONLY the biggest and greatest amusement park in the country!

Fun reliving those times--and that neat-o, wicked language we used!

Sad Eyed Lady

6-26-11, 11:32am

I think it's pretty neat, too, Mrs-M!

A few excerpts from my diary:

2/14/65: I went the shopping center and got 5 records and a magazine. I want to get a Granny dress. All the girls in England wear them. All the styles are going back to "granny's" age. No more high, teased hair. We now have long straight hair, with maybe a little curl at that ends and bangs. I'm still waiting for mine to get long. No more spiked heels and pointed toes. Now it is stacked heels about 1 to 1-1/2 inches and rounded toes, "granny" style.

1/17/65: Yesterday I went with Dad to see "That Darn Cat" with Hayley Mills & Dean Jones. It was hilarious!

2/1/66: "We Can Work It Out" has been No. 1 for six weeks! Isn't that fab?

2/10/66: Phooey! We Can Work It Out never made it to seven weeks. Rats!

2/11/66: Today in school, Sallie was putting the nurse's chart in the office when Jimmy walked up to her and said, "Wait! I have to write down somebody's phone no. first." He looked up MY number! The only trouble is, he wrote down my old number, TR4-7133.

3/27/66: My birthday came last night and I had a blast! I got $27 and apple seed beads, two records, a china doll that sings "I Could Have Danced All Night" Ben Franklin glasses, and a granny gown.

4/30/66: On Thursday went to the Post. Got "The Sonny Side of Cher" LP at Sabres. Good day. On Saturday, I went to N.Y. City. We climbed the Empire State Building. It was wicked!

6/14/66: For our class trip we were told we'd be going to Palisades Amusement Park. Of course, that "amused" everybody because Palisades is ONLY the biggest and greatest amusement park in the country!

Fun reliving those times--and that neat-o, wicked language we used!
Catherine, that is so neat (get the language LOL!) that you posted from your diary inserts - could have been mine in most places. I have diaries and journals going back to 1965. I may steal this idea and start a thread for people to post to from their old diaries, for those that have them. Maybe we could pick one day, say June 15, 1968 and have everyone post, (what they want to share only of course), what was going on in their lives that day. Or maybe we should make it a choice of 5 dates randomly scattered because not everyone would have entries on the same day due to age, not consistently making entries etc. What do you think?

catherine

6-26-11, 2:05pm

I may steal this idea and start a thread for people to post to from their old diaries, for those that have them. Maybe we could pick one day, say June 15, 1968 and have everyone post, (what they want to share only of course), what was going on in their lives that day. Or maybe we should make it a choice of 5 dates randomly scattered because not everyone would have entries on the same day due to age, not consistently making entries etc. What do you think?

GREAT idea!! Maybe pick a day, and people could use the date that's closest to it. I love it!

Stella

6-26-11, 2:24pm

Shalom poet that is a great idea. I would love to read that. June 15 1968 is 10 years before I was born but it would be interesting to read what people were doing.

Sad Eyed Lady

6-26-11, 2:46pm

Shalom poet that is a great idea. I would love to read that. June 15 1968 is 10 years before I was born but it would be interesting to read what people were doing.
It would be interesting to see what we were all doing on the same day! I will get the dates on here soon and let everyone choose one to share.

Mrs-M

6-27-11, 9:58pm

Love the diary entries Catherine!

Tradd

7-6-11, 10:32pm

My goodness, I'm only 31 and I remember using a rotary phone. My parents had one until I was well into high school.
I remember when vehicles had carburetors, floor vents, and push button radios, and automatic transmissions were a luxury. I still will only drive a manual :)

My mom learned how to drive in 1960 and the only unsmashed cars available for drivers ed had an automatic transmission! She never really learned how to drive a manual. There's a funny story of how, not long after they were married in 1965, my mom ended up leaving my dad's car at an intersection - in the middle of the road! - around the corner from their apartment as it stalled at a light and she couldn't get it going again!

Tradd

7-6-11, 10:38pm

dialed a rotary telephone before! Anyone else?

In 1991, when I was a newly-minted newspaper reporter working on a small-town Michigan newspaper, the town of 12K's police department and fire department offices had to use rotary phones to communicate. I can remember being shocked - my parents had had a touch tone (not rotary) phone for longer than I could remember!

Mrs-M

7-7-11, 12:00pm

Love the great stories Tradd!!! :)

reader99

7-8-11, 4:41pm

I'm so old I saw my first television when I was six years old. Aunt Jeannie had a crank-style telephone in her kitchen. In those days we not only had rotary phones, we had only one per home, and hard-wired into a central location with no privacy. We were on a party line. I can't get across to my (very bright) stepson what a party line was.

4 cent stamps; 31 cent a gallon gasoline. Cars with side vent/wing windows in front that could be broken into with a coat hanger. I locked myself out of my 70 Cutlass once and got back into it with a borrowed coat hanger.

The gas bill for my first apartment was $2.40 a month, electric $5. My entire college education including living expense cost $6,000, and it took me 12 years to pay it off.

Looking things up in a multi-volume hard copy encyclopedia, with no way to know what had changed since it came out, unless your folks subscribed to the yearbooks.

Schools with NO vending machines of any kind. Pay phones in booths that had a door on them.

Kathy WI

7-8-11, 9:26pm

I remember when all department stores like JCPenney and others had departments for everything like sporting goods, toys, hardware, fabric, bicycles, wedding dresses, cameras, electronics, pianos, etc. and a candy counter and sometimes a restaurant inside. Sometimes the clothing department was called "ready-to-wear". It seems like just recently that department stores no longer have a huge department for panty hose, and a large selection of slips in the lingerie department. Do they even make full slips anymore? I grew up in Cleveland and we sometimes went to Higbee's, the store shown in the movie "A Christmas Story" where the kid goes to see the mean Santa Claus in the store. I went to see Santa in a Higbee's that looked just like that.

kfander

7-8-11, 9:32pm

I can remember our telephone number when we had a crank phone. It was short-short-long.

My first computer didn't have a hard drive, and operated on a cassette disk.

Polliwog

7-8-11, 11:59pm

I'm so old....I remember having to put things on lay-a-way, because there were no credit cards. I remember babysitting for like 75 cents an hour.

Mrs-M

7-9-11, 1:21pm

Reader99. Oh, the old coat hanger trick! I remember that from way back in my school days, and how every so often we'd watch a boy get into his locked car using a wire hanger. A great collection you brought with you! :)

Kathy WI. Boy do I miss the old mass stores. The ones where canoes and boats and things hung from the ceilings, the ones where every large storefront window displayed a different theme. Great memories. Your Santa story is wonderful!

Kfander. The crank phone sounds awesome! Hee Haw style!

Polliwog. Boy, was I ever ripped! My hourly babysitting pay (in the 70's) was based on 1950's/60's hourly babysitting pay! :laff:

I'm so old I remember life-size mannequins in department stores/storefront windows.

Kestrel

7-9-11, 4:16pm

I've been gone for four days and just now reading this ... I too remember a lot of what's been posted, but I have a few as well:

Our first phone was not a rotay phone. You had lift the receiver and the operator would say "number please" and you'd tell her the number you wanted ... ours was 971-W and my best friend's was 375-R. These were party lines, of course. Later on we got a private line and for the life of me I can't remember what the number was. It had four numbers tho. And when dial phones came, we got the word/number combination too; ours was WElls 5-XXXX because we were in oil weil country.

In our small town the telephone operators knew everyone, so sometimes I'd get a babysitting job because the operator told me who needed a sitter.

Other things: When I was around 7-9 we had to use an outhouse -- no toilets. And this was just south of San Francisco! I remember when we could wear pants to school -- around '60 where we were. Also the wing windows. Many many years ago I was watching -- oh dear, what was that talk show host with gray hair that Marlo Thomas is/was married to? -- anyway, he had some auto executives on so people could ask questions. One woman asked about the wing windows, and one executive said "you'll never get them back" -- something to do with streamlining, I guess.

TV shows I loved in the "olden days" were Superman, The Cisco Kid (I so loved him), and Father Knows Best. And American Bandstand when it finally came along. My folks liked Ed Sullivan. I also remember margarine (oleo?) that came with an bubble in the middle of it that you had to squeeze to color the margarine nice and golden -- to look like butter, I guess.

And the mimeograph that smelled so nice wasn't mimeograph, it was ditto masters (I think "ditto" was a brand name?). When you typed the purple ink stuck to the back of the sheet and you had to put it on a drum and that used a special liquid (can't remember what it was) to make the "ink" adhere to the paper. If you made a mistake typing you had to roll it up and scrape off the mistake with a razor blade or something like that. I remember smelling the paper when the teacher would pass them out. Mimeograph was a green fibrous sheet that, when you typed, spread the shape of the letter in the sheet, and you put that on a drum and some kind of ink came through the spread part. It was black and didn't smell good at all. If you made a mistake typing you had to roll the paper up and try to make the fibers go back together using a small glass stick with a ball on the end that look sort of like a thermometer.

At one point I had an IBM Executive typewriter with proportional spacing! Wow, that was a challenge! a, b, c and the like were two (or three) "units", capital M and W were four (or) five "units", etc. Corrections were well-nigh impossible, but it sure did look pretty when the document was finished ...

Enough for now ...

kfander

7-9-11, 4:32pm

I remember when cigarettes were eighteen cents a pack and gas was thirteen cents a gallon.

kfander

7-9-11, 4:41pm

Kfander. The crank phone sounds awesome! Hee Haw style!

I lived in a town where I was related to pretty much everyone, and we were on a party line. My mom knew everyone else's number (I think they were referred to as telephone numbers although they weren't numerical), since most of them were her sisters or other close relatives. Whenever someone called anyone on the party line, the phone rang in everyone's house. Two short rings followed by a long ring was our number. When someone would call one of my mom's sisters, she would wait a moment to let her sister answer the phone, then lift the receiver up softly and listen. If the call was from someone else she knew, such as one of her other sisters, she would join in and there would be four or five of them talking. Otherwise, she would softly hang up the phone. To make a call, you picked up the receiver and gave it a few cranks; the operator would answer and you'd tell her who you wanted to talk to, often only needing the first name, and she would connect. At night it took longer because I think the operator was located in her own home, and would be in bed at night.

Mrs-M

7-9-11, 10:17pm

Stupendous Serendipity! Can you imagine the stories the old operators could tell? The things they heard and listened in on... I've always thought about that. (Talk show host Phil Donahue)! :) I actually miss his show. Your butter story is over the top! Way too cool! I don't remember that, but then again I am only in my 40's. Other shows (television) I remember from back in my days, Carol Burnett, Tim Conway, My Three Sons, and You Asked For It. This is awesome! I love this thread!

Kfander. I can't tell you how many "pops" we got on the seat of our pants (from mom) for listening in on other peoples calls. (Just one more example that spanking doesn't work)! LMAO!!! I remember it all so clearly. Sometimes when us kids would pick up the phone, one of the other parties would present the question, "did you hear that". Then the other person they were talking to would say, "no". Of course it would get us all giggling and we'd have to hang up! ROTFLMAO! Still makes me laugh to this day. Oh how I love all these old telephone stories!

pinkytoe

7-9-11, 10:22pm

I recall buying albums as a teen and playing them on a stereo with needle. It would skip when it hit a bad spot. I remember my Dad's reel-to-reel tape recorder. He had cabinets full of large spools that he would sit and splice with tape. I remember in 1970, we were finally allowed to wear pants to school. I remember that most everyone's mom was a housewife; I was embarrassed that mine worked as a pharmacist and that she too got a divorce. I remember that we personally knew most of our neighborhood tradespeople - the cop, the service station owner, the mailman,, etc. That reminds me, I recall that gas stations were always full-service.

kfander

7-9-11, 10:33pm

I live in a town where we still know all of the service people, and the lady who delivers the mail comes in for coffee sometimes. We have one station that is full service, and no more expensive than the self-serve ones.

kfander

7-9-11, 10:35pm

A few years after I had moved from my hometown of Wallace, Michigan to California, a letter that I had written to my father in Wallace came back as undeliverable. He hadn't moved but apparently they had changed the numbering system so he had a different route and box number. Rather than calling my dad, I wrote on the front of the envelope: "Come on Bob, he's lived there all his life." Bob was the postmaster. He not only delivered the letter but sent me a personal letter with my dad's new mailing address.

Polliwog

7-9-11, 10:58pm

Mrs-M

7-9-11, 11:10pm

Pinkytoe. Yes, I remember the old reel-to-reel recorder units! Ours was housed in moms big bulky stereo console. A humongous long wooden box the size of a deep freeze, with fabric covered speakers (built right in). On one side was the reel-to-reel unit, on the other, the record player. Inside there was also a nifty built-in compartment where you could store all your record albums. The hours I spend sprawled out in front of that thing listening to music!

Kfander. Way... too... funny!!!!! That is over the top hilarious!!!!! ROTFLMAO! Yes, this is my laugh of the day!http://th32.photobucket.com/albums/d8/wildhappytime/Smileys%20and%20Icons/th_laugh.gif

Tradd

7-9-11, 11:23pm

Pinkytoe. Yes, I remember the old reel-to-reel recorder units! Ours was housed in moms big bulky stereo console. A humongous long wooden box the size of a deep freeze, with fabric covered speakers (built right in). On one side was the reel-to-reel unit, on the other, the record player. Inside there was also a nifty built-in compartment where you could store all your record albums. The hours I spend sprawled out in front of that thing listening to music!

We had one, too! I'd forgotten about it. Just the radio and the record player, though. It had pride of place in the LR.

Sad Eyed Lady

7-9-11, 11:29pm

Am I remembering correctly that the nice department stores used to have restaurants in them? Maybe it was because I was a child/teen but the restaurants seemed to be very classy and grown-up.

Tradd

7-9-11, 11:31pm

Yes, I remember the JL Hudson store at a mall in suburban Detroit that had a nice restaurant, at least through the mid-80s.

Mrs-M

7-10-11, 1:10am

Tradd. My moms had pride of place in the living room AND was moms pride! She polished that thing to the nth! Ugly as sin it was... Mind you a lot of the old run of the mill furniture back then was pretty ugly.

Shalom. Oh tes, I remember Woolworth's Department Store and it's Luncheon Counter! Vanilla milkshakes and a plate of french fries were at the top of the menu for us kids! :laff:

Mrs-M

7-13-11, 4:41pm

Originally posted by Pony mom.
Those old belted sanitary pads were the size of surfboards!ROTFLMAO!!! Yes, I do! :laff: (Was just reading through a few threads and came across this and had a good laugh)! I don't know which one trumped which, the embarrassment part of wearing them or the discomfort part! Gosh, those were the days...

Greg44

7-13-11, 6:49pm

I remember the zip code for the Spegial (sp?) catalog...I think I heard it so often on the daytime game shows.

"60609"

Sad Eyed Lady

7-13-11, 7:43pm

I'm so old.......I remember when this thread started! LOL! Just kidding Mrs-M, it is a great thread and I enjoy reading the comments.

Mrs-M

7-14-11, 6:38pm

Great stuff Greg and Shalom! :)

Mrs-M

7-18-11, 1:05am

Courtesy of my mom, "I'm so old I've smoked cigarettes with a cigarette holder"! My mom passed that one onto me tonight. I vaguely remember those long silly looking cigarette holder thingies.

libby

7-18-11, 1:48am

I'm so old I remember the whole class having to stand and say the Lords Prayer first thing every morning. This was in a public school. There's no way that would happen now days.

SiouzQ.

7-18-11, 12:09pm

Minimum wage pay at my first job at Foxmoor Casusals (a cheapo junior clothing store) at the mall was $2.35/hour. I felt rich when I got my paychecks because that meant I could purchase my own cheapo clothing at a discount!
The priceless thing about that job was my manager (I don't remember her name) who taught me excellent work skills that I still abide by today in all of my various retail jobs.

It of sad to realize that 30-odd years later, minimum wage is only $7.65/hr? Certainly not a living wage AT ALL!

Mrs-M

7-18-11, 12:27pm

Yes, Libby, I remember the same! :) 1970's for me, and you're right, it definitely wouldn't fly today!

SiouzQ. How incredibly awful, that in thirty years, that's the best minimum wage has evolved, but how fun is to reflect on old times. I was a floor-staff employee for Pharmasave back in the early 80's and I remember getting $3.75/hour. I also felt rich! :)

kevinw1

7-19-11, 4:01pm

I'm so old I grew up without a TV or a phone in the house. My first (mainframe) computer programs were stored on punched paper tape, and later punched cards. My first home computer had 5K or RAM, and cassette tape for storage, not even a floppy disk. In my 20s I lived for several years in a house with no fridge.

I'm so old that when my Mum worked as a fruit picker in the summer, us kids went along and played in the farm fields among the ladders and machinery, rode on the trailer with the fruit, and watched the strawberry fields burned off. We shopped on the "parade" at the end of our street, with its butcher, baker, fishmonger, post office, greengrocer, etc. (The guy who ran the greengrocer's is still alive in his late 80's - he grows lots of vegetable seedlings every year, gives them away to neighbors like my Mum, and plants them along the back alley.)

My partner is so old he grew up on a farm in northern BC with no electricity and no running water. In the winter they closed off most of the farmhouse and all of them - parents, 6 kids, and the hired man - lived and slept in the kitchen where the wood-stove was.

Mrs-M

7-19-11, 10:53pm

I love it Kevin1!!! :laff: Good times. I'm so darn distraught with myself right now over forgetting one I thought of while outside this afternoon. Grumble, grumble, grumble...

Water&Air

7-20-11, 10:24am

anyone else remember mimeograph machines? AHHH the good old days.

Florence

7-20-11, 10:54am

Just the other day DH and I were discussing ice trays--the metal ones with a handle that you pulled the loosen the cubes. I also remember when hula hoops were new and all the rage. I remember before air-conditioning the hand fans at church that were provided by the local funeral home. Anyone remember wind up alarm clocks? DH remembers using a slide rule; I think he still has his old slide rule. Remember when phone numbers had 4 digits? Learning how to fill a fountain pen?

Gawd, I am ancient....

Greg44

7-20-11, 1:28pm

anyone else remember mimeograph machines? AHHH the good old days.

not only do I remember them, I loved the smell of freshly memeographed handouts the teachers use to give us!

Polliwog

7-20-11, 1:52pm

Learning how to fill a fountain pen?

Gawd, I am ancient....

I still fill a fountain pen. I love writing in my journal with fountain pens.

Mrs-M

7-20-11, 2:04pm

Florence

7-20-11, 2:44pm

I never did get the hang of fountain pens--big globs of ink plagued any work I attempted with a fountain pen. I am in awe of people who write smoothly and evenly with them. Ball point pens came just in time to rescue me.

catherine

7-20-11, 2:53pm

Water&air. Definitely! I remember the warmth and smell of the paper afterwards.

Florence. I remember the old metal ice cube trays from back when I was a kid. We were never allowed to get cubes from them out of fear we would cut ourselves, at least that what my folks always told us!

Question about fountain pens. Do they still ruin work by leaving big ink globs and things?

I remember those trays, too! Thank God for my icemaker!

Fountain pens--when I went to Catholic school we HAD to write with cartridge pens (fountain pen lite). I have good memories of that, too.

Well, I have a new one, based on the news report I saw of the pedestrian getting hit by a Cash Cab in Vancouver. The person who wrote the report on cnn.com said that "the cab hit an elderly pedestrian. The pedestrian was 61." Wow. I'm 59. So, I guess I'm so old, at my age, I'm nearly elderly!

Really, I just hope the reporter was 16--it would make me feel so much better!

Spartana

7-20-11, 3:08pm

I remember those trays, too! Thank God for my icemaker!

Fountain pens--when I went to Catholic school we HAD to write with cartridge pens (fountain pen lite). I have good memories of that, too.

Well, I have a new one, based on the news report I saw of the pedestrian getting hit by a Cash Cab in Vancouver. The person who wrote the report on cnn.com said that "the cab hit an elderly pedestrian. The pedestrian was 61." Wow. I'm 59. So, I guess I'm so old, at my age, I'm nearly elderly!

Really, I just hope the reporter was 16--it would make me feel so much better!

Ahile ago we had SEVERAL reports of an "Elderly" female robber who was assualting people at their cars with a handgun. The media speculated that she was so old and frail that it was probably a way for her to make ends meet in this tough economy. When they caught the "elderly" woman and showed her pic on TV I was flaggergasted - she was 51 and didn't look at all frail or elderly. Seem to see alot of people - even middle aged people - refuring to anyone over 50 as "elderly". I think of elderly as an 80 year old white haired person using a cane or walker to get around.

Mrs-M

7-20-11, 3:16pm

Florence. Nasty, unforgiving things they were, at least that's my opinion of them. I was in elementary school at the time and a teacher (just for fun) handed out fountain pens along with a tiny bottle of ink to all of us so we could try our hand at writing with one. I know the more modern versions had actual ink cartridges, but still, thank heavens for modern ballpoint pens! :)

Catherine. You are a riot! I agree, the reporter better have been a bubble-gummer! :laff: On the ice cube side of things, I am forever grateful for the fridge we bought year before last! Reverse osmosis water filtration and ice! No messing around.

Spartana. Yes indeed, my definition of an "elderly" person would the same as yours. 80 plus years of age, anyway!

Mrs-M

7-23-11, 1:13am

I'm so old I've ridden in the back boxes of trucks (as a kid) when seatbelts and safety wasn't important. Anyone else remember the old days of riding in the back of truck boxes as a kid?

Mrs-M

7-23-11, 1:19am

Tradd

7-23-11, 1:42am

My parents had several big old station wagons with seats built into the back, in the cargo area. They folded out of the floor. I LOVED riding back there, especially on the long drive back in the summer from somewhere fun, maybe with a friend, as it was away from my pesky brother *and* my parents, lol! The back window would be down a bit and it was lovely!

I remember once going to a beach with a friend's family. It was a long (2-3 hour) drive away. The parents were in the cab of the pickup truck. There was a big couch in the bed of the pickup, the bed covered with one of those caps with windows in it. My friend and I were back there with her two brothers. We even crossed the border between the US and Canada at the Ambassador Bridge with us back there! This was in the mid-80s. You can't imagine that happening now!:0!

Mrs-M

7-23-11, 4:47pm

I remember that too, Tradd, that, and riding in the back of an aunts station wagon where there were no seats at all. We owned/drove a station wagon during the time our first three kids were little and it definitely had it's pluses!

Family picnics with the station wagon were classic! Lots of room to spread everything out in the way of food and drink! Then, when someone (one of the kids) got tired, the back turned into an instant bed.

Tenngal

7-26-11, 10:21pm

hose, not panty hose, but hose held up by garters. And, fishnet tights in every color you can think of. Older girls wearing girdles to school. We only had 3 channels on TV and I spent lots of time as a pre-teen listening to the radio. Does anyone remember those little velvetine bows ladies wore on the front of their treased hair?

Sad Eyed Lady

7-26-11, 11:25pm

Does anyone remember those little velvetine bows ladies wore on the front of their treased hair? YES! I had almost forgotten that! I think there is even a picture of me as a child with one in my hair, I think on the side. Or, it could have been in front where the bangs parted away from the rest of the hair. Can't remember exactly, but yes I do remember the little bows. They came in lots of colors didn't they?

Sad Eyed Lady

7-26-11, 11:28pm

Does anyone remember Nifty Notebooks? Apparently these weren't around too long because I have mentioned them before and never found many who remembered them. They were vinyl covered notebook binders that opened at the top instead of the side. And there was also a place for your pencil at the top when it opened. The front flap folded behind the back and it was very neat - didn't take up a lot of space on the desk.

heydude

7-27-11, 1:46am

I'm so old I still think THE WIZARD OF OZ will be on once a year.

ctg492

7-27-11, 11:37am

Oh this has been fun reading all the posts! I must be old because I remember so much mentioned here!

SiouzQ.

7-27-11, 9:40pm

Oh, I have fond memories of the "way-back" of the station wagon, tumbling and wrestling with each other on those long car trips out west before the interstates went all the way through!

Zigzagman

7-27-11, 10:22pm

To add, riding in the back of pickup trucks (back in the day) wasn't even an option, it was the standard! As kids we wouldn't even ask if we could ride in the back, we just filled in and took up residence.

I was in high school at the time, earlier grades, but I remember a bunch of kids leaving for lunch in a pickup truck, the back box full of teens, and by the end of lunch hour, one of the teens in the back was dead. The driver rolled the truck.

I can remember many times (in the 50's) my grandpa going fishing with us kids (3 of us). He would put the flat-bottom boat in the back of the pickup and we would climb in and sit on the seats of the boat - of course he did tie the boat in but he also always had a half pint of whiskey with him, for medicinal purposes only!! I miss my grandpa - those were the days!!!

Peace

Mrs-M

7-28-11, 4:17pm

Hi Shalom! :) Darn it all anyway, I don't remember them. I think I remember something similar though.

Heydude. But it is! In our viewing zone, The Wizard of Oz broadcasts at least once a year, but I know what you mean. :)

Ctg492. Me too! Scary isn't it. :)

SiouzQ. The back of station wagons really did make for the best playgrounds of all didn't they!

Zigzagman. That sounds like fun! Somehow when you look back on events such as these and know they included the likes of loved ones who are now gone, it makes the events and memories all the more better!

I'm so old I've permanently forgotten the one, "I'm so old" memory I wanted to share!

Gardenarian

7-28-11, 5:28pm

Those nifty notebooks sound great. I can hang around stationery stores forever, just looking at all the index cards and different kinds of pens and stuff. Maybe it's a librarian thing.

I actually have a rotary phone. It is the main phone I use because the sound is so much better that the cordless.

herbgeek

7-28-11, 7:31pm

I'm so old I remember the launch of MTV 30 years ago this week, and the original VJ's.

pony mom

7-30-11, 12:23am

herbgeek, video really DID kill the radio star. Nowadays, it's not how you sing (with autotune, anyone can sing now), it's how you look and what kind of controversial video you can make. I've always had a thing for dark curly hair and Mark Goodman was the man!

I remember when strangers would start conversations instead of constantly checking/texting their phones. What kind of social skills will the adults of the future have when they can't even make eye contact?

Remember the old shampoos? Prell, Gee Your Hair Smells Terrific, Body on Tap (had beer in it!), Flex, Short & Sassy (I had a Dorothy Hamill cut). My mom used to wear Jean Nate' body splash. Just saw that in CVS today and had to take a sniff. My perfume is from the 40s--L'Air du Temps is my signature scent. Were there any celebrity perfumes years ago? My mom swore by Deep Magic moisturizer, which isn't made anymore.

I do miss people dressing up to go out in public. Today so many people just shuffle along in baggy shorts, old t-shirts and flip flops in the summer.

Remember how controversial it was years ago when John Ritter had his own spinoff show from Three's Company, called Three's a Crowd, and people were complaining because he was living with his girlfriend and they weren't married? How times have changed. I'm not a prude but I'm a bit shocked at what is shown on regular cable channels and stunned at what they get away with on series from HBO/Showtime.

thinkgreen

7-30-11, 1:07am

I'm so old I remember shampoo in glass bottles.

Mrs-M

7-30-11, 1:52am

Gardenarian. Yes, the sound and the look, Re: rotary phones! :) Just love the retro look.

Herbgeek. Me too! Sometimes it seems like longer, other times no so much.

Pony mom. You made me smile with this, "video really DID kill the radio star"! :) Yes, I remember when strangers would strike up conversation, old shampoo commercials and pantyhose commercials, and when everyone dressed fashionably and neatly.

Thinkgreen. LMAO! You got me TG! I can't say I remember shampoo in glass bottles, but I remember when disposable diapers came in boxes, and the old foot-pedal operated diaper pails!

I'm so old I remember Archie Bunker's Place and clunky old 8 track cassettes! Talk about revealing my age! Does anyone remember this commercial jingle?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7We7hLFuDQ

Mrs-M

7-30-11, 2:16am

herbgeek

7-30-11, 8:59am

I remember that commercial Mrs. M! Did not know that was "Sue Ellen Ewing" though.

Greg44

7-30-11, 10:43am

I'm so old I remember using (and sharpening) wooden pencils. Does anyone even use wooden pencils anymore?

I know wooden pencils aren't that old of an idea that will throw anyone here, but just the same, I don't see anyone using them anymore.

I love using pencils..though the must be "Ticonderoga" brand -- they simply write better! We stock up during back to school season. Out of 20 or so employees, I think I am the only one who uses pencils!

ctg492

7-30-11, 12:37pm

ctg492

7-30-11, 12:42pm

My dad has the rotary Black phone on the wall, only one he will use. The line I will remember forever is "Don't stretch the CORD!" Yes we were allowed 2ft tops from the kitchen wall to carry on our personal conversations! The other thing about phones I remember and still in my folks home is the 4 prong plug for the phones. Mom has to use an adaptor for her newer phones to plug into the old 1935 outlet.

Tradd

7-30-11, 1:03pm

Raising my hand here, Yellow Number 2 (I like them) and I have a pencil sharpener on the wall in the basement. Funny, every home we have bought has had a pencil sharpener in the basement and this home is only 20 years old.

We had a good all metal (except for maybe a bit of plastic on the handle) pencil sharpener on the wall in the basement when I was growing up. I buy mechanical pencils now (the cheapo papermate ones) because I don't like the way either the hand-held plastic little sharpeners or the electric ones sharpenen the #2 pencils.

goldensmom

7-30-11, 4:06pm

We use pencils a lot. We have an electric pencil sharpener and a crank pencil sharpener, crank sharpens best. We use pencils in the wood shop and to mark music. It is a mortal sin to mark music with a pen.

Mrs-M

7-30-11, 6:20pm

Whoops-a-daisy, looks like I fluffed on the wooden pencil thing. OK, wooden pencils are still alive and well. :) Good to know actually, because in my own silly way I still see wooden pencils as being old-fashioned, and everything old-fashioned is all good with me!

Hmmm....... thinking what else...

ctg492

7-30-11, 8:29pm

Crank car windows///do they still make those? My last one was in my Yugo :)

Mrs-M

7-30-11, 9:10pm

LMAO! Ctg492! :) It's been sooo long since I've manually operated (rolled/cranked down) a car/vehicle window! So long in fact I don't remember the last time.

Mrs-M

7-30-11, 9:14pm

Herbgeek. I didn't, but shame on me, the actresses name is right at the top of the video, yet I didn't see it! :)

Sad Eyed Lady

7-30-11, 10:41pm

Crank car windows///do they still make those? My last one was in my Yugo :)

My car (Toyato Echo) has crank windows - I prefer them actually. My previous car had the automatic ones and each one has a separate motor, so when one goes out you have to have it fixed and at that time it was about $100.00. So good old crack ones are just fine and not so expensive to repair.

Sad Eyed Lady

7-30-11, 10:44pm

goldensmom

7-30-11, 11:03pm

Okay, this is a BIGGIE. I am so old...........I remember my great grandfather having what he called a "quill". It was a glass straw that he used to drink from. Not disposable, a glass one. It was bend so that it was easy for someone who might be sick in bed to drink from. Does ANYONE at all remember this?

No, but I learned cursive using a quill in second grade. Not really, I used a ‘pencil’.http://www.simplelivingforum.net/images/smilies/smiley-laughing002%5B1%5D.gif

RoseFI

7-30-11, 11:53pm

YES! I've seen "quills" in some antique shops and am dying to start collecting them (uh, gazingus pin?) I'm so old I remember when FM radio was a HUGE deal, but we all kept listening to AM anyway for a few years. (Why?)

I'm so old it only took 5 digits (DIALED) on the wall phone to call my friends, and my grandma still referred to numbers with their exchange name. "Lucerne 3543, please?)

Rogar

7-30-11, 11:58pm

I don't remember that one, but I remember my grand dad using a straight razor, a strop, and shaving soap in a mug. I've actually thought of giving it a try someday.

pony mom

7-31-11, 1:01am

Wooden pencils smell good. When our house was for sale a little boy was so excited by our pencil sharpener that he wanted to be sure it stayed with the house.

Funnily enough, I just thought of that L'Eggs commercial this week. I saw someone with legs like that, but she WASN'T wearing pantyhose. Are there facelifts for legs??

Did anyone have one of those plastic carrying things for half gallon milk cartons? Ours was blue, and I think it had daisies on it. The carton slid in from the top, there was a handle and one or two horizontal hard plastic straps. Made it easy to hold for pouring. Oh, and those cow shaped creamers? My great aunt had one that mooed.

Our small drinking glasses were the flowered glasses from sour cream.

WorldFoodie

7-31-11, 2:29am

Did anyone have one of those plastic carrying things for half gallon milk cartons? Ours was blue, and I think it had daisies on it. The carton slid in from the top, there was a handle and one or two horizontal hard plastic straps. Made it easy to hold for pouring.

Not only do I recall them, I have two, a half gallon one and a quart one.
Now here's the "I'm so old ... part." I've had them since 1972 when my summer job from college was as a plastics machine operator. I'm sooo old that "I made them". Wish some one still sold them today.

WorldFoodie

Woops, looks like they still make them somewhere...
http://www.soundbytes.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Category_Code=kitchen-supplies&Product_Code=318302&Screen=PROD&Store_Code=SB

pony mom

8-1-11, 2:27am

OMG! World Foodie, that's it!! I didn't think they made them anymore since most milk containers I see are plastic handled ones.

Tenngal

8-1-11, 7:49am

hair rollers, the plastic kind that you slept in all night. With my hair, I had a curl for about 2 or 3 hours......also do you remember Dippity Doo?

Sad Eyed Lady

8-1-11, 10:12am

hair rollers, the plastic kind that you slept in all night. With my hair, I had a curl for about 2 or 3 hours......also do you remember Dippity Doo? Yes, I remember those rollers, and dippity do. What about Spoolies? Little rubbery things you wound your hair around then they folded down? The things you remember....................Wow.

leslieann

8-1-11, 12:27pm

Wow, this thread is really fun...and I must be really old. A few pages back someone talked about glass shampoo bottles: I remember when Prell went into a plastic bottle and the TV ad for it was a falling Prell bottle...oops! But no worries!

I'm so old I remember washing my hair once a week on Saturday night (with Prell, of course) and later, as I got to be about eleven, arguing with my mother to be able to wash it more often. Once Dippity Do came into wide use, I think frequent hair washing became more important....after putting all kinds of junk in your hair, you did have to wash more often, maybe?

ctg492

8-1-11, 1:10pm

Mom used the empty Prell bottle filled with water, frozen as our Ice Bag if we fell or something. Always in freezer when I was little.

Cream Rinse, later name changed to Conditioner.

Mrs-M

8-2-11, 7:05pm

Shalom. Never heard of a quill before.

Rozie. I'm so old I remember when the number part of clock radios flipped down (like cards) with the changing of each minute/hour. So antiquated..... The minutes were on one wheel, while the hours were on another, and if the house was quiet you could distinctly hear the sound of the minute/hour number cards flipping. Ugly as sin, too! P.S. Love hearing about the phone stories!

Rogar. My dad had a friend who shaved (daily) using a straight razor, shaving soap in a mug (with brush), and a strop. My dad says he gets just as close a shave using his old safety razor without all the fuss. (Too bad you don't live closer, as I definitely see this as having all the workings for a classic head to head shave-off competition). Dad (with his safety razor) up against you with your straight razor.

Pony mom. I don't remember the plastic milk carrying dealies, but your entry made me remember the old toothpick holders with the birds. You bumped the bird in the back of the head causing it to dip it's sharp (pin beak) into the holder and fetch a pick! Neatest little things.

WorldFoodie. So neat that you worked in a plastics factory and made the plastic milk carriers. Sure enough, I visited the link you posted and I definitely don't remember them.

Tenngal. Absolutely, I remember them, and the Dippity Doo! Never used the Dippity Doo though...

Shalom. Yes, I remember spoolies!

Leslieann. Bam! Flashback!!! OK, now I remember. Yes, the TV commercial for no-break shampoo bottles! Would have never remembered it had you not mentioned it.

Ctg492. I remember my mom using Tame Creme Rinse. It was her thing, and dare any of us kids use it without her permission, look out! Boy, would she ever get mad! She'd go off on a tangent telling us how expensive and special it was, and that it was only for her to use. So consequently, in our house, we used soap!!!

leslieann

8-2-11, 9:03pm

Tame! Yes, Tame! Thanks, Mrs. M. We all used Tame. And Creme Rinse turned into conditioner and honestly, before the 1960s nobody "needed" it. That makes me think pretty hard about all the things that I think I "need."

Anne Lee

8-2-11, 10:57pm

Shampoo used to be much harsher than it is now. Plus without hand held blow dryers it would take forever to dry your hair. My college dorm in the 80's still had the big bubble domed hairdryers from the 60's and earlier in the basement.

I remember tooth powder (Pepsodent, I think). My orthodontist used to use it. Keds Oxford sneakers for women, they go in and out of fashion. I predict they will be back in style in a few years. Stirrup pants with seams down the front. Capris went out of style for a while but now seem to be back to stay. Mini-skirts and hot pants and go go boots and pants that flared below the knee. Hip huggers. Half terry cloth aprons with some sort of design in "fall colors".

And in the late 70's/early 80's, for whatever reason, the girls who "partied" (i.e. smoked pot) all wore long denim coats.

Mrs-M

8-3-11, 6:47pm

Leslieann. I remember the smell of Tame just as if I were smelling it right now. It was a unique scent. Strong and defined.

Anne Lee. I'm laughing right now because I'm thinking about 1960's design. Why in the world those old hairdryers needed such big and puffy balloon/bubble styled hair-toppers is beyond me! :laff: Love your memory!

I'm so old I remember when women wore terry cloth shorts! They were tight fitting (like most everything 60's), and had a fluffy nap to them. Ugly as sin they were when I think about it now.

IshbelRobertson

8-3-11, 7:27pm

I remember Dop shampoo - the first stuff that appeared in little square plastic sachets. Think it was French!
Linc o lin - a beer shampoo.

Sad Eyed Lady

8-3-11, 8:35pm

Remember hot pants? 1970 style?

Mrs-M

8-3-11, 11:05pm

Ishbel. Between you and Shalom, you two are doing a good job throwing me! :laff: I don't remember either.

Shalom. I do. Some of the terry cloth shorts were styled like hot pants, only not as fashionable.

I'm so old I remember my mom wearing cigarette pants! Slender, leg/hip/butt hugging pants. My oldest daughter has a friend who wears a similar styled pant and do they ever look smart on her. Very sophisticated. She's tall and slender, so she pulls it off with style.

Tenngal

8-3-11, 11:06pm

I do remember the hot pants, in High School they were in style.

Bronxboy

8-3-11, 11:49pm

I'm so old I remember using (and sharpening) wooden pencils. Does anyone even use wooden pencils anymore?

I have two of them on my desk at work, and a colleague not far away with an electric sharpener. Meant to sharpen them this afternoon, but got caught up in a database task.

Mrs-M

8-3-11, 11:50pm

I do remember the hot pants, in High School they were in style.Late 70's/early 80's? I remember, too. Not much although. Seemed that style had pretty much faded by that time.

Mrs-M

8-3-11, 11:54pm

Hi Bronxboy. Your post along with the others who posted Re: using and liking wooden pencils, is a happy reminder that wooden pencils are still as popular as ever. :) My mom occasionally reminds me of the fact that some things never go out of style, I think wooden pencils are one of those things.

catherine

8-4-11, 9:12am

Speaking of hot pants, I remember when schools actually had dress codes. In fact during that time, there was always one day a year called "Beg Day" when you were permitted to dress any way you wanted (like a beggar). But after they abolished the dress code, there was no more Beg Day because everyone looked like beggars every day (wearing ripped faded jeans, t-shirts, etc)!

Sad Eyed Lady

8-4-11, 10:08am

Oh yes catherine...........I'm so old I remember school dress codes. We weren't even allowed to wear pants, (can you imagine now?), and this was in the 60's when pants would have covered a LOT more than some of the mini skirts we wore! It never made sense to me.

Mrs-M

8-4-11, 4:17pm

Yes, I remember school dress codes as well, but by the early 70's when I was new to school, dress codes had definitely mellowed and had become more relaxed as compared to the 60's or even 50's. (Can't remember what the dress codes were although).

The whole, "not allowed to wear pants thing" gets me. Such an old-fashioned (behind the times) rule that was. I tend to think it had something to do with gender differentiation. I'm all for everything old-fashioned, but some things old-fashioned sure were stuffy.

IshbelRobertson

8-4-11, 6:59pm

Nella

8-4-11, 7:31pm

Okay, this is a BIGGIE. I am so old...........I remember my great grandfather having what he called a "quill". It was a glass straw that he used to drink from. Not disposable, a glass one. It was bend so that it was easy for someone who might be sick in bed to drink from. Does ANYONE at all remember this?Glass straws as well as stainless steel straws are back in fashion! Just bought some stainless ones from Reuseit.com. I was a little worried that the stainless would taste metalic, but it doesn't. And they're slightly bent at the top like the old fashioned paper straws. ...everything old is new again...

Nella

8-4-11, 7:34pm

...I just thought of that L'Eggs commercial this week...Remember when the L'eggs panty hose came in the little plastic eggs (usually one pair per egg) and there was a craze for awhile to save them up, decorate them and use them at Easter?

Tenngal

8-4-11, 9:14pm

yes, the hot pants were in the early 70's. They were pretty modest by today's standards. Mid-thigh shorts really.

Mrs-M

8-5-11, 6:47pm

As I mentioned on another thread today, most secondary school children here wear uniforms - at least until the Sixth Form (17-18). Interestingly, they mostly seem to wear a self-imposed uniform at that age, too, ie they all wear the same thing!So true.

Originally posted by Nella.
everything old is new again...Yes! A wonderful thing. As far as the eggs go, I sure do remember.

Originally posted by Tenngal.
yes, the hot pants were in the early 70's. They were pretty modest by today's standards. Mid-thigh shorts really. That's what I remember, too.

Mrs-M

8-14-11, 1:22am

I'm so old I've lived through the days of gauchos! Anyone else remember gaucho pants?

WorldFoodie

8-23-11, 1:43am

I recall that when I was young some one had an older barn that they didn't want, so they ran an ad in the local paper offering the wood free to any one who would tear the barn down. Boy, those days are history, except for the occasional architectural salvager.
Oh, and the Amish would go have a barn raising (completed in a day) for those who lost a barn in tornadoes, etc. Ahh community!

Mrs-M

8-29-11, 12:44am

I miss community closeness and support too, WF. It's that sort of close-knitted goodness that ensures there's never a rainy day.

LionGail

9-5-11, 11:39am

goldensmom

9-5-11, 1:08pm

I recall when at the supermarket checkout there was another person packing my groceries for me instead of nowadays where the checkout operator does both. I also recall the days before plastic bags for everything; my Mum used to get her groceries packed into boxes. (I also remember the days before supermarkets).

Bread was delivered to our farm and it was unsliced and wrapped in tissue paper. The milkman and his beautiful Clydesdale draught horse would come trotting past before sunrise delivering milk in pint bottles and he would whistle to slow the horse down so he could catch up.

Gail:)
I must live in a time warp as our local grocer still has one checkout person and one packer. Another local grocer uses boxes, no bags plastic or paper. Our cream laden milk was delivered by dad from the milking parlor on foot. No Clydedales but one time he did saddle the milk bottles to the back of our Saint Bernard to deliver to the house while he was busy elsewhere.

iris lily

9-5-11, 1:14pm

I'm so old I've lived through the days of gauchos! Anyone else remember gaucho pants?
Oh, those are modern! ha ha. Anyone remember Elephant pants? They came and went in about 7 months, I think in 1973. They had huge legs, the wider, the better.

leslieann

9-5-11, 2:48pm

I was thinking Elephant Pants when I read Mrs. M's post about gauchos. Yeah, I do remember both. And I guess "shorts" before Hot Pants were knee length. Elephant pants were cool when my friends and I were all learning to sew, and those pants were really simple to make.

Sad Eyed Lady

9-5-11, 2:59pm

Oh, those are modern! ha ha. Anyone remember Elephant pants? They came and went in about 7 months, I think in 1973. They had huge legs, the wider, the better. I had COMPLETELY forgotten about elephant pants! Wow, what a memory Mrs-M. How about jumpsuits? Remember those, probably around the same time frame as the elephant pants?

Mrs-M

9-5-11, 4:45pm

Originally posted by LionGail.
I also recall the days before plastic bags for everythingOh, me too! As a kid I remember merchants and store owners wrapping everything in tissue paper, then boxed the items (or items) lovingly (and with such care) in a decorative box. It was special, and always made me feel special. And yes, no plastic bags that I remember when mom and dad went shopping (groceries). Either boxes or paper bags. I still remember the smell of those old large brown paper bags.

Originally posted by Goldensmom.
I must live in a time warp as our local grocer still has one checkout person and one packer.Back in the day, up till (about) 20 years ago we had what was called Super Value. It was a large grocery/supermarket chain and service was where it was at. You never had to pack your groceries out to the car, ever. I loved shopping at Super Value!

Originally posted by Iris Lily.
Anyone remember Elephant pants? They came and went in about 7 months, I think in 1973. They had huge legs, the wider, the better. Darn it all anyway, I don't remember them. Where in the world was I, that I don't remember them?

Originally posted by Shalom_Poet.
How about jumpsuits? Remember those, probably around the same time frame as the elephant pants?I sure do! I had one, a white one, and a pair of pinky-purply bib-front pants (with suspenders). I'd wear either a short-sleeved or long-sleeved shirt under my bib pants, and, in keeping with everything suspenders, you were always pulling the straps (suspenders) up onto your shoulders continually, constantly, because they were always falling down off your shoulders and down your arms.

Mrs-M

1-16-12, 6:51pm

I'm so old I remember when "pinking" was standard, and nearly every store sold "irregulars".

Rogar

1-17-12, 12:29am

I'm so old...I remember going into the five and dime on main street for a cherry coke and grilled cheese at the soda counter and then having my picture taken in one of those photo booths that looked like a phone booth. I think you got 5 little photos for quarter? And on a really good day taking a matchbox car, that really came in a box that looked like a matchbox, home to add to the collection.

Mrs-M

1-17-12, 1:21am

Yes, Rogar, I remember those silly, photo-booths! Disappearing behind the black curtain for a few minutes to do all sort of silly things! I remember baby brother had a Matchbox car collection. He used to keep them in a plastic bucket with a lid.

kally

1-17-12, 2:57am

I'm so old I remember going to Eddy's department store. When you bought something on credit, they made out your bill and sent it upstairs by pneumatic tube. I loved watching those tubes zip up there.

Selah

1-17-12, 10:53am

Kally, I remember those tubes too, at Kline's Department Store in Ann Arbor. Very fancy! :) I'm so old I remember my teachers "running off dittos" with purple ink for class worksheets, and when we ripped news copy from a telex machine!

Gregg

1-17-12, 11:01am

Made chains out of beer can pull tabs.

Mrs-M

1-17-12, 11:38am

Kally. The pneumatic tubes you speak of sounds space-age! :) Never seen such a thing in my day.

Selah. I sort of do/sort of don't, remember the purple ink dittos. It's been so long...

Gregg. LOL! My husband talks of an old friend of his who used to open beer bottles (caps) using his teeth! Egads!

happystuff

1-18-12, 8:03am

Made chains out of beer can pull tabs.

Made chains out of the oustide paper wrappers from the sticks of gum. :-)

Gregg

1-18-12, 10:20am

Made chains out of the oustide paper wrappers from the sticks of gum. :-)

One of us was apparently more deviant than the other.

beckyliz

1-18-12, 1:21pm

Okay, I'm not even going to bother listing anything because 95% of the stuff you've already posted is familiar. So, I'm old.

Alan

1-18-12, 1:36pm

I've started taking a 1/4 tab of Viagra to avoid peeing on my shoes.

Spartana

1-18-12, 2:20pm

I've started taking a 1/4 tab of Viagra to avoid peeing on my shoes.

Men and their excuses :devil:!

I'm so old I remember when Barbie was single and Ken didn't exist.

herbgeek

1-18-12, 3:21pm

We used to sniff the freshly made (purple) mimeograph sheets! I'm sure there was some brain damage happening there :laff:

Greg44

1-18-12, 3:42pm

We used to sniff the freshly made (purple) mimeograph sheets! I'm sure there was some brain damage happening there :laff:

...ah fresh handouts in grade school, I remember them oh so well!

Greg44

1-18-12, 3:47pm

I'm so old...I remember going into the five and dime on main street for a cherry coke and grilled cheese at the soda counter ...

My dw and I were just speaking of this the other day. Her and her older sister would ride the bicycles downtown to the Woolworths (or was it Newberrys?) and order at their lunch counter. She said she could not have been much older than 8 or 10 years old (and questioned why on earth would her mom let her do that?!). She said they felt so important sitting on the bar stools and deciding what they could afford to order! Life was simpler back then.

Greg44

1-18-12, 3:53pm

Milk in Plastic Bags? I am not sure if this was a regional thing or not. Milk came in 1 quart plastic bags and you bought them in bags of 4. You then had a hard plastic pitcher you would put it in and snip off a corner.

It seems like it lasted a few years, back in the early 70's?

Weston

1-18-12, 4:07pm

I'm so old.... I forgot the rest of what I was going to write here.

Weston

1-18-12, 4:09pm

Oh yeah now I remember. I'm so old that when I wanted my own choice of music in my car, it meant buying a boom box with a cassette player and putting it on the back seat while I drove.

SiouzQ.

1-18-12, 7:08pm

Selah, I remember Klines! I grew up in Ann Arbor; I remember doing our back-to-school shopping there. I think that is where I got my Buster Browns...oh wait, I maybe that was at Deitzel's down the street.

I loved my red buckle Buster Browns with the little pin-dot pattern 'round the toes!

catherine

1-18-12, 7:29pm

Speaking of Klines: How about:
E.J. Korvettes
Best and Company
Alexander's
Jamesway
Crazy Eddie's
And unfortunately, we will soon add Border's to the list :(

Carvel's is still around, but I still think about Tom Carvel's commercials with the ice cream mold that he used for every occasion!

pony mom

1-19-12, 12:15am

Here in central NJ we had Klines and Korvettes too. Two Guys was like a Super Walmart in the 70s-they had everything! We had a mall that had Alexander's, and before that the building housed a Mongomery Ward.

I'm sad that Friendly's will be/is gone. Lots of memories of going there for ice cream after a movie with my friends.

Remember when movie theaters had only one big screen? No multi-plex cinemas back then. And no commercials or too many previews.

Mrs-M

1-19-12, 12:33am

You guys are GREAT! This is my official happy thread!!!

Spartana

1-21-12, 2:28pm

My dw and I were just speaking of this the other day. Her and her older sister would ride the bicycles downtown to the Woolworths (or was it Newberrys?) and order at their lunch counter. She said she could not have been much older than 8 or 10 years old (and questioned why on earth would her mom let her do that?!). She said they felt so important sitting on the bar stools and deciding what they could afford to order! Life was simpler back then.

I remember both Newberrys and Woolworths lunch counters. Also K-Marts use to have a big lucnh place with full meals (chicken fried steak kind of things) as did Broadway's, Montgomery Wards (Monkey Wards) and JC Pennys. I think that the food courts that most malls have replaced all those old lunch counters type places. .

catherine

1-21-12, 2:34pm

Remember when movie theaters had only one big screen? No multi-plex cinemas back then. And no commercials or too many previews.

Yes, sure do... They would switch to a new movie about once a week. I remember they cost $1 for adults/.50 for children. I think all the movies back then were pretty "G-rated" even though there were no rating systems then. The only rating system for my family was the Legion of Decency report that the Catholic Church published. I had to fight with my mother to get to see Beach Blanket Bingo because the Legion of Decency had given it a bad rating.

And there were not many previews, but they did have "shorts" before the "feature presentation." I still remember a bizarre one that played out to the words of the song "One Meatball." I have no idea why that still rolls around in my head from time to time.

leslieann

1-21-12, 3:35pm

Did anyone else have W.T. Grant's? That store had a lunch counter. One of my good memories of childhood was my mother taking my sister and me to have supper at Grant's counter and then going to see the ONE movie at the movie theatre. I don't recollect the movie but I do recall that this big treat was because we had earned it with our good behaviour.

I didn't know I was THIS old until I sat here and re-read this thread. My parents gave me a portable typewriter for high school graduation; I had a hard-topped helmet style hair dryer to replace the one with the plastic cap, and both of them were blown out of the water in about 1973 when the first blow dryer arrived at our house....a Maxx....orangey red, as I recall. I remember wearing a "panty girdle" at age 12 to hold up my stockings, which I had to wear because girls had to wear skirts or dresses to school. By the time I got to high school, though, Joe Namath had invented pantyhose and those Leggs eggs became ubiquitous. I wonder how many millions of them are in landfills all over North America? "Pantsuits" were the first foray into pants for women. My mother bought a velour pantsuit as a dressy outfit. We got to wear "slacks" to school when I was in grade 12. Before that..freezing in Maine in the winter. Jeans? No way.

I wrote my doctoral dissertation in the early 1990s on a Commodore 64 computer. Man, I was cutting edge! Bought it as Toys R Us. You had to insert the program disk (a 5 1/2 inch floppy) into the drive, load the word processing program, then take that disk out and insert your data disk where the document was stored. It took significant time to load. The monitor was a green screen, with odd little boxy letters. It was still a vast improvement over preparing the document on a typewriter with tons of white-out at hand.

This thread is fun. Oh, and I am old enough on these boards to know Iris Lily's last two personae (or at least her names on the boards). I have no idea why that information has stuck for me...there are many others who have changed names and I don't remember but for some reason I recall hers!

leslieann

1-21-12, 3:37pm

And when I got married, the men in the bridal party wore coloured tuxes and were we EVER cool.

Mrs-M

1-21-12, 4:37pm

Spartana. The old Woolworths Luncheon Counter, will go down in history (in my mind) as being the best luncheon counter in the whole wide world!

Pony mom and Catherine. You know what else I remember about the old movie theatres? The funky red and blue lights that adorned the countless slender and tall alcoves that ran the entire length of the theatre on each side (outer sides). Maybe the theatres you guys went to had different coloured lights...

Leslieann. What a great memory you have! I remember those hard-topped helmet styled hairdryers! And the balloon plastic-cap ones, too! Very funky! If my mind serves me well, I think I posted an old Leggs, video commercial, somewhere near the start of this thread! I still love the jingle to this day! Yes, and I remember velour, too! So 1970's!!! Funny you mention Iris Lily, because although I don't remember her first persona (in context), I do remember it in thought.

Mrs-M

1-21-12, 4:47pm

Couple of old 1960's pictures of shopping at Woolworths.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Ei2Ik5quiI0/SjgYHp4eBGI/AAAAAAAACw4/0YT1xrkq9D4/s1600/woolworth+1964+bedding+dept+pleasantfamilyshopping .jpg

Mrs-M

1-21-12, 4:48pm

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Ei2Ik5quiI0/SjgXv-IJB_I/AAAAAAAACwY/36glaundcaM/s1600/woolworth+toyland+1964+pleasantfamilyshopping.jpg

Mrs-M

1-21-12, 5:11pm

If anyone likes those pictures, come join me, I'm sitting at the luncheon counter nibbling on a plate of french fries and sipping a vanilla milkshake! I'm at the very end in the counter, so you can't see me in the picture.

http://www.opendurham.org/sites/default/files/images/2008_5/lakewood_061063.5.jpg

The only thing I don't remember, is if the seats used to have backs on them or not??? I somehow seem to remember they were stools rather than seats... And, I seem to remember each seat being a different colour, or, an alternating (red/pale green) seat colour, or (red/pale blue). As in, one seat red, the next one pale green (or cream), the next one red, and so on. And how us kids used to stare with delight at the churning and spinning, chilled fountain drink tanks! See the funky/retro lights above the chalk-menu boards? My favourite is the white telephone looking thing (behind the 50¢ sign). That's the milkshake mixer!

Spartana

1-21-12, 5:33pm

I remember the seats didn't have backs. They were the swivel kind and always in dark green or red fake-leather (naugahide) with aluminum around the base. As a kid I remember swivelling around and around and around - drove my poor Mom crazy!

Mrs-M

1-21-12, 5:56pm

Yes, Bingo! You just made me remember, Spartana. Mom was forever telling us kids to stop spinning around!!! :) I think you're right, candy-apple red vinyl-padded seats straight across.

To wet the appetite a little more check out this (http://pinterest.com/yamilaf/thing-from-the-past/) site. Too bad for the banner in the way, but it sure is fun going through all the things. I know I'm old, because I remember just about every single thing!

early morning

1-21-12, 7:16pm

Geeze, Mrs-M, I think I ate at the first diner picture you posted last summer! I must have just missed you ;). Here's a link to a photo -not mine, BTW- of our summer diner dining spot.

http://www.urbanspoon.com/u/photo_list/1342366

I remember just about everything mentioned so far, but of course we lived in the boonies and were very much behind the times, lol. When my friends had color TV, we were just getting a TV that generally worked. My friends had princess phones and private lines (for the whole family, not individually!!) and we had a black wall phone and a 10 party line. When we got a phone with a long, long cord, I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. Fun thread!

libby

1-21-12, 10:39pm

Thanks for the link Mrs-M! What a walk down memory lane.........

pony mom

1-22-12, 12:24am

Mrs-M, that photo brings back memories! The signs on the wall are so familiar. I always had french fries, but when I was older I graduated to a corn muffin. I remember all the pie and cake slices in the glass display on the counter. Oh, and the dishes--I think they were off-white with a beige border. The seats in the booths were sort of a turquoise color, I think. It was such a big treat to eat there.

Oh, I always had a glass of milk, with a straw, that I would blow bubbles with.

Mrs-M

1-22-12, 8:41am

Early Morning. So bummed I am over missing each other at the diner! :) The diner-car eatery is fantastic! Reminds me of the old commercial, "rice-a-roni, the San Francisco treat"! Re: telephones, in our old house we had a wall-mounted telephone, a cream-coloured one, and I used to stretch that poor old cord for all it's worth! :laff:

You are most welcome, Libby! :)

Pony Mom. Yes, I too, remember the glass-display cases with pies in them! And even now, after all these years, I still remember the familiar greasy, fast-food smell that emitted from the diner! Did your mom used to get cross with you too, when you'd blow bubbles in your milk? :laff:

Mrs-M

1-22-12, 8:46am

You know, I was giving thought to what it was like to be a waitress behind the counter of a department store diner back then, and how you were on display for the entirety of your shift. Countless watchful eyes critiquing your every move, non-stop waves of people coming and going, and the steady dull noise of multiple conversations going on from one end of the diner counter to the other.

catherine

1-22-12, 9:27am

Great pics, Mrs-M!

Leslieann, I definitely remember W.T.Grant's!! I had forgotton all about it. But, yes, we had a Grants in the mall in my town where we always got french fries and coke. One time, my friend and I were with our mothers and our MOTHERS got into a fit of the giggles (my friend and I were 14 at the time), and the waiter threatened to get the manager. My friend and I were so embarrassed. But I have that image in my head of the two 60s moms, with their curled blonde hair and their eyeliner with the little cats eyes, just in one of those gut-busting fits of laughter.

I think women had better, closer friendships back then. I know I don't have time for that kind of friendship now--too busy with work. Sad. (As much as I love you guys, a lot of "ROFLMYOs" in place of the real thing just doesn't cut it)

Mrs-M

1-22-12, 10:17am

They really do have such a way of taking one back don't they. :)

leslieann

1-22-12, 10:44am

Thanks for the link to the photos, Mrs. M. I sent it off to my children, who will recognize some of the items, and to my step mom, who will recognize more of them!

Mrs-M

1-22-12, 10:56am

You are very welcome, Leslieann. I loved the mood ring (remember those)?, and the plastic juice-jug/pitcher with the thumb-button on the lid! And many, many others...

Mrs-M

1-22-12, 11:18am

Now here's a picture in keeping with the whole theme of this thread!

http://www.simplelivingforum.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=619&d=1327240695

Leftovers from the baby-days in our house! The Curity brand dates to 1992 (first born). I unearthed them from the bowels of the basement (pardon the pun) over this past Christmas holiday season. (Got to be one or two older SL moms here who remember them)...

sunnyjoe

1-22-12, 12:19pm

I think Kathy in WI mentioned this in passing earlier in the tread but do you remember the candy/nut counter at stores like Sears? They roasted the nuts on-site and it always smelled so good. I can remember how the aroma hit you just as the escalator reached the second floor. They'd scoop out your selection with a metal scoop into a paper bag and then weigh it. My dad always liked to buy (gummy) orange slices.

Anyone here grow up in Pasadena and remember Gene Burtons?

thinkgreen

1-22-12, 2:52pm

Oh fun! I remember blowing bubbles in milk. The straws were made of paper and would collapse after a minute or so. Good times.

Sad Eyed Lady

1-22-12, 3:59pm

Oh fun! I remember blowing bubbles in milk. The straws were made of paper and would collapse after a minute or so. Good times.

Speaking of straws, I hope no one else has mentioned this and I missed it, but do you remember straws that flavored the milk as you drank it? The ones I remember were either chocolate or strawberry, made of paper, and as you sipped milk through them you had either strawberry or chocolate flavored milk!

Sad Eyed Lady

1-22-12, 4:08pm

Mrs-M, loved the old photos of Woolsworth. I remember the lunch counter there too, and all the treasures that one store could hold for a child!

Sad Eyed Lady

1-22-12, 4:15pm

Mrs-M, loved the old photos of Woolsworth. I remember the lunch counter there too, and all the treasures that one store could hold for a child!
Wow, I have just learned something from these old photos and posts- it was NOT Woolsworth as I said, but Woolworths! I have called it incorrectly all my life I think!

Mrs-M

1-22-12, 7:22pm

Sunnyjoe. Our Sears outlet was really small, just the bare-bones basics, but gee-whiz anyway, I would have been into the nuts and candy every single time I stepped foot into the store! What a great bargaining tool when out shopping with the kids! :)

Thinkgreen. Oh, the paper straws are too much! LOL! I can't say I remember paper straws, but I do remember the ones that bent like an accordion.

Shalom. You guys are doing a great job stumping me today! :) I don't remember such straws. One thing I do see that's different (in the posted picture of the toy department) from the Woolworths store I remember when I was younger, is that the isles and displays are much lower than ours used to be. The shelving and isle displays in our old store would have easily been twice the height as the ones shown in the picture. I remember a man would bring a ladder out from the back and climb way up high to get things down for shoppers. I actually had the name, Woolworths, wrong too, no apostrophe.

Kathy WI

1-22-12, 9:56pm

My mom was a coffee addict, and whenever we went to the mall, the first thing she'd want to do would be to find a place where she could get a cup of coffee, which was usually Woolworths. I liked their hot dogs because they grilled the outside of the bun. One time we went to a Woolworths downtown, and I saw in the underwear aisle that besides white underwear, they had underwear that was dark green, dark blue, or burgundy. At the time it was unusual to see underwear that wasn't white. I asked my mom what's with the dark colored underwear, and she whispered to me that it was for black people, so it wouldn't show through their clothes so much.

Tenngal

1-22-12, 11:18pm

does anyone remember seeing parakeets in an open box out in the middle of the floor at Woolworths? I could never understand why they did not fly away. We kids were always hanging around watching them.

Mrs-M

1-23-12, 10:55am

Funny stuff, Kathy WI! :) Re: white undies, it's taken me the better part of my life to ease myself into buying coloured ones. Even then, I'm still partial to white.

Tenngal. What a mind-breaker your post is. :) I think I do, yet maybe the memories I have of parakeets stems from the pet departments I visited... However, the more I think about it, the more I can see parakeets out in the open. This one is definitely going to keep me thinking...

pony mom

1-23-12, 8:24pm

My Woolworth's had a pet department, but it contained dead/dying fish and sickly hamsters. And yes, I remember the fried food smells too. And the clanking of plates, so out of place in a store. I think my straws were plastic, not paper, so they lasted through my bubble-blowing.

Years ago it seems that stores like Woolworth's and S. Kline had fabric/sewing departments. Not many stores carry material anymore. Walmart is supposed to be phasing that out of their stores.

My mom and I used to shop at a McCrory's, which was similar to Woolworth's, without the cafe.

Kestrel

1-23-12, 11:17pm

I got this little questionnaire sometime in 2000 ... just found it again, so I thought I'd pass it along:

How many of the following can you remember?
1) Blackjack chewing gum
2) Wax Coke-shaped bottles with colored sugar water inside
3) Candy cigarettes
4) Soda machines that dispensed bottles, not cans
5) Coffee shops with tableside jukeboxes
6) Home milk delivery in glass bottles with cardboard stoppers
7) Party lines
8) Newsreels before the movie
9) P.F. Flyers
10) Butch wax
11) Telephone numbers with a word for the prefix (Olive-6933)
12) Peashooters
13) Howdy Doody
14) 45 rpm records
15) S&H green stamps
16) Hi-Fi's
17) Metal ice trays with levers
18) Mimeograph paper
19) Blue flashbulbs
20) Beanie and Cecil
21) Roller skate keys
22) Cork popguns
23) Drive-ins
24) Studebakers
25) Wash tub ringers
26) Kukla, Fran, and Ollie

If you remembered 0- 5 -- you're still young
If you remembered 6-10 -- You're getting older
If you remembered 11-15 -- Don't tell your age
If you remembered 16-26 -- You're older than you know.

For me: #6 - home delivery of milk in glass bottles. I know some people had that but I don't remember much about it because we didn't.

#10 - Butch wax. My brother was 10 years older than I was, and he married and left home when I was 8, so had no boys around. I assume it's a wax for butch haircuts, which I do remember!

#7 and #11 - our first phone number was 971-W, a party line. Don't remember much about it. Later on we moved to a very small down and our number was 325-R, also a party line. Then we got a private line, 2585. You had to get the operator and tell her the number and she'd connect the call. It was such a small town that the operators knew everyone and you could ask them lots of questions. I used to get babysitting jobs from the operator -- people would ask her for recommendations if they didn't know any sitters, and sometimes she'd recommend me if I lived close to where they lived. Oh the joy of small towns! Later on we got dial phones and our number was WElls 5-1246, which changed to 935-1246.

#18 - Mimeograph paper, which I do remember, but the paper that smelled good wasn't mimeograph paper, it was ditto papers. Ditto was the purple "ink" that adhered to the back of the paper you drew or typed on, then put on a drum that had "spirit" inside that which "printed" the letters or pictures. It did smell good! Hand crank machines, as I recall. Mimeograph was the green fibrous masters that you typed on (not using the ribbon) which spread the fibers apart, then that was put on the mimeograph machine drum that forced the ink thru those parts. The ink was black and didn't smell good, but I don't really remember what it smelled like. They were electric.

#23 - Drive-ins! What fun! But we won't talk about that! :-D

#24 - Studebakers -- yeah, we had one.

So I guess, in one way or another, I remember all of these. Have fun with it!

margerymermaid

1-23-12, 11:20pm

Funny thread. I"m coming in late
Like an earlier poster I"m so old I remember the 'old currency' of pounds shillings and pence in the United Kingdom
I'm so old I had a 78 rpm record of Elvis Presley's "Blue Suede Shoes" that I used to dance to with my Auntie
I'm so old I remember not seeing TV until I was 5 yrs old because we didn't get one til then. And we were one of the early ones in the English town we lived in
I'm so old I remember men going by in horses and carts yelling "rag and bone"
I'm so old I remember brush salesmen coming to the door!
There's more but I don't want to be a bore!

leslieann

1-24-12, 12:25pm

I had completely forgotten the smell of the roasting nuts in the department store....Grants, I think for us, not Sears. When Sears came it, it was a big deal. The nuts were so delicious to smell but we hardly ever bought any (too expensive) but I do recollect my mother buying Spanish peanuts mixed with "chocolate babies." Odd as it sounds, it made a great combination.

Yum.

catherine

1-24-12, 12:33pm

Serendipity:

My score was 22.
I still have an ice tray with a lever.
We did have home delivery of milk when I was little and my kids were little
I loved hanging out with my friends who had party lines because it was fun to eavesdrop
I have so many happy memories of coming home from school, and hearing The Platters and Johnny Mathis playing on my mother's HiFi
I also have happy memories of helping Mom put her green stamps in the books.
My phone number when I was young: TRinity 4-5668

Fun!

Mighty Frugal

1-24-12, 1:27pm

My score was only 5 and I'm 45!! Maybe I lead a sheltered life!

razz

1-24-12, 2:38pm

I got 10 and am now 68. Another sheltered life?

Mrs-M

1-24-12, 3:04pm

Pony Mom. That's awful about the neglect of the living things in the pet department you speak of. Re: fabric/sewing departments/stores, I love rubber-necking/thumbing around in them. There are times when I'm so busy and have so much to do on town day, yet I'll say to the kids, "mommy has to stop in here for a minute". I need my notions fix...

The questionnaire is great, Serendipity! My score was 20! Lots of fun!!! Diaper Service, I think, would make for a wonderful addition to the already great list. We had one in the 80's.

Margerymermaid. I'm so old I remember vacuum salesman coming to the door. They'd dump a pile of dust and lint on the floor, along with a few shiny steel balls, then suck everything up. Imagine the concoction of nasties in that bag of dust/fluff? Everything, from everyone else's homes, all sucked-up, before he stopped by your house, then dumped on the sofa cushion or carpeted floor in your residence. Months worth of debris... Eew! No wonder mom would often put the run on them. LOL!

Leslieann. That does sound delicious!

Catherine. The Platters and Johnny Mathis, are still two of my old favourites.

Mighty Frugal. Not at all. Instead, I would say that you lived a rich, fun life, having little time to concern yourself over all the kerfuffle attached to daily living back then.

Razz. Same goes for you. Too busy with other things... :)