dont be scared..show your age

[jamesngalveston]

dang, i thought annette funicello was hot too.
and gigi, and doris day...
wow you guys bring back lots of memories.
seth....imagine, if you buy some really good port and keep it till you 60 how much it would be worth, and how good it would be.

 

[jamesngalveston]

we could carry a pocket knive to school, but no switch blades..
and when in high school i kept my shotgun and my 308 in my truck gun rack...
be arrested for both now. the world has become a soft society.

 

[olusteebus]

69. We had outhouses at home and school when I first started school.

 

[Fabiola]

Thank you guys for sharing those memories, some day the present will be something like a time capsule, this reminds me when my son was 8 yrs. old (15 years ago) we were in a coffee shop in Albuquerque that displays some antiques, among them one of those old Corona typewriters, then my son says: "Look mom, those use to be the old printers", I laughed but then I realized he didn't have another way to described it, since he had never seen a typewriter before...

 

[Fabiola]

46 years old, grew up in a farm in Mexico, with an outhouse, no electricity, in the winter every child used to take a wood log to school to heat the classroom, we spent nights gathering in other houses playing cards under an oil lamp, and later watching b/w cartoons at the only neighbor house with electricity and tv. We spent days doing farm chores, making cheese, chorizo, sausage, canning, drying meat, making our cleaning supplies, soap, candles, etc. (which I still do), when I was 10 we moved to the city to attend school and college and I used to watch American shows translated to Spanish: Hawaii 5-0, Magnum PI, Bonanza, Dukes of Hazard, Mission Impossible, Fantasy Island, Beretta, Kojak, and my favorite, Knight Rider...

 

[bkisel]

Do any of you remember the cards that used to come in Nabisco Shredded Wheat? They'd have all kinds of neat stuff on them like how to make a lean to shelter and such.

 

[reefman]

Wow, great thread. 66, going on 18.
For me, growing up in the Philadelphia area, it was Willy the Worm, Sally Starr Show, Howdy Doody show, Loved Micky Mouse Club, except on Thursdays.
I also rember the Race Riots in Phila. in the mid 60's. I was a student at Temple University, took the Red Arrow Trolley, to 69th street, and then the Elevated train, and the Broad street subway to the Temple Campus.

 

[jamesngalveston]

we had trolleys also when i was a kid...could go all day and anywhere for a dime, and the movie theater was 10 cents with two dr pepper bottles.
so for 35 cent i could have movie,bus,eats,drink....

 

[Runningwolf]

My Favorite Martian, Rin Tin Tin and there was another show I think Sky King. Twiggy, Tiny Tim, Rowan & Martin. Adam 12, Man from Uncle, Gomer Pyle, My Mother the Car, and Rat Patrol. When we were much younger we never played army, we played cowboys and Indians (or yeah F-Troop).

 

[Simpsini]

Only 62. I grew up a military brat. Lived in Germany in the late 50’s. Had to boil our drinking water. I remember a lot of war damage to the cities.. Lived in Pittsburgh in the early 60’s and saw my first baseball game .. the Pirates with Roberto Clemente against the Milwaukee Braves. In college it was frat parties & gas was 25 cents a gallon. I’m always amazed at how far we’ve come in the last 62 years.

 

[cimbaliw]

At age 52 one of my earliest memories is the Beatles on TV, maybe Ed Sullivan. I just remember my Father saying "They need a haircut." Most of my early childhood memories revolve around pop music. I remember so many great albums coming into the house; Johnny Cash Live at Folsum Prison, Rolling Stone's Hot Rocks, Alice Cooper Killer, Zeppelin II, The Beatles White Album. Herb Albert's Whipped Cream. Man, that was a fertile decade for some great music.

Anyone for a bowl of Quisp or Quake?
Bill C.

 

[olusteebus]

46 years old, grew up in a farm in Mexico, with an outhouse, no electricity, in the winter every child used to take a wood log to school to heat the classroom, we spent nights gathering in other houses playing cards under an oil lamp, and later watching b/w cartoons at the only neighbor house with electricity and tv. We spent days doing farm chores, making cheese, chorizo, sausage, canning, drying meat, making our cleaning supplies, soap, candles, etc. (which I still do), when I was 10 we moved to the city to attend school and college and I used to watch American shows translated to Spanish: Hawaii 5-0, Magnum PI, Bonanza, Dukes of Hazard, Mission Impossible, Fantasy Island, Beretta, Kojak, and my favorite, Knight Rider...

That was pretty much like our parents or grandparents lived during the depression. I am sure you have some great memories of that and you have come a long way.

 

[s0615353]

I'm 26, and it seems like myself and Seth are the two youngest members here. I remember I Love Lucy, The Honeymooners, The Andy Griffith Show, The Love Boat, and Match Game from reruns on TV Land. It really gives you an appreciation for what TV was like before everything became reality TV shows.

 

[Fabiola]

At age 52 one of my earliest memories is the Beatles on TV, maybe Ed Sullivan. I just remember my Father saying "They need a haircut." Most of my early childhood memories revolve around pop music. I remember so many great albums coming into the house; Johnny Cash Live at Folsum Prison, Rolling Stone's Hot Rocks, Alice Cooper Killer, Zeppelin II, The Beatles White Album. Herb Albert's Whipped Cream. Man, that was a fertile decade for some great music.

Anyone for a bowl of Quisp or Quake?
Bill C.

I went to every single concert of these rock bands, I still have all my vinyl records, concert tickets and concert shirts...

 

[sour_grapes]

Thanks, Seth. We love you, too. (Sotto voce: "Goldurn whippersnapper!")

 

[seth8530]

dang, i thought annette funicello was hot too.
and gigi, and doris day...
wow you guys bring back lots of memories.
seth....imagine, if you buy some really good port and keep it till you 60 how much it would be worth, and how good it would be.

Now, that is not a bad investment plan, buy up maybe 7 cases of an excellent vintage port from an important year and then sit on it until I am about to die or ready to retire ( most likely the same)... Or perhaps I would just drink them to spite the port collectors.

Thanks, Seth. We love you, too. (Sotto voce: "Goldurn whippersnapper!")

Rofl, if I only knew what Sotto was... must be some game yall old folks play. (;

 

[the_rayway]

Lol, I'm a few years ahead of the 'whippersnappers', at 31.

I remember having a party line on our rotary phone, wood stove heat, Transformers, Thundercats, and Dallas on TV. Walking 'downtown' with Dad in our bare feet to go to the hardware store. Getting homemade chocolates and toffees for Halloween, and they were the most coveted items to get. Summers on the farm swimming naked in the river and jumping out of the hayloft; and the only check-in requirement was to come home in time for bed.

 

[reefman]

Rayway
You're still younger than my kids!..by alot!

 

[geek]

Just turned 47 yesterday...

 

[Rocky]

Ray, I have socks that are older than you!

A couple people have touched on the price of movies. I remember when it was 17 cents at the Rowland Theatre in Wilkinsburg, PA for 2 feature movies, two shorts and 18 cartoons. We would get 50 cents from our parents, 17 for the movie, 20 for streetcar fare and 13 for food. Of course, we would "thumb" into Wilkinsburg and save the 20 cents for carfare. There was an Isaly's right next to the theatre and a banana split was 20 cents! Yummo!

I also remember listening to a number of radio shows that became TV shows, e.g. Dragnet, Sky King, The Lone Ranger, Superman, The Shadow (Who knows what evil lurks in the heart of man? The Shadow knows.) Looking back, I think that radio shows were great because we had to conjure in out minds what a person looked like and what was happening on the show. TV has us just lie back like the couch potatoes we are and it pours the show over us.

Does anyone remember "Rocky King, Detective" starring Roscoe Karns which was on Sunday night? ("Yes, Mabel, the case is closed and I'm coming home. Yes, we got him....") The vivid memory that I have of that show is that he used a cap gun as his service revolver. You could actually see the roll of spent caps coming out the top when he fired it. He also had the "misfires" that we all suffered so it was something like, "Bang, bang, click, bang, click, click, bang."

Speaking of guns used in movies at the time, it always amazed me the number of shots that one could get from a "six shooter" without reloading. And, in an early manifestation of Murphy's Law, they only ran out of ammo at the worst possible time. And then, the guy would throw the gun at his pursuer and run. Why not keep the gun, run and try to reload as you ran or when you put some distance between you and the pursuer?! That always baffled me.

The major event of my early childhood was World War II so war movies were my favorites. I grew up thinking that the Japanese and Germans were really nasty people and the Italians were just "misled" by Mussolini. As a matter of fact, I did not even realize that the Italians were involved in the war until the early 1950's when a young classmate from England (his father worked for Westinghouse and they were in the Country for a three year assignment) told me that, "Every night, your bombers would come over and bomb us." I remember thinking, 'why was the US bombing England?' Being of Italian decent, our parents neglected to tell us the whole story about the war. The movies kind of bore out that the Italians were deep down, good people just looking for somewhere to surrender. As the years have gone by, we have come to realize (through Hollywood) that everyone was misled by either Hitler, Tojo or Mussolini and the whole thing could have been avoided had we just better understood one another.