This is a group where you can add at any time anything you remember from "back then" in our society that isn't the same now. It'll be fun to read how things have changed from a first hand experience of the posters here!
Darin ? wasn't that bad... I Dream of Jeanie seemed crazy back then too! Us boys liked Twilight Zone, Star Trek and Outer Limits..and then there was always Bandstand to check out the music scene when dad would let us..He would always check to see if Buck Owens or Dave Dudley or Johnny Cash and other country people were on in hopes we would like them.. LOL!
As a child we would go to the movies for the day. We would see 17 cartoons( really cool cartoons), a newsreel, then maybe something like Abbott & Costello or the 3 Stooges or some other short film, and then the feature: a spaghetti western, or the Lone Ranger or the like.
WOW 17 cartoons...back in the 40's we only got one and of course the newsreel and a double feature movie.....once in a while they would sneak an extra cartoon in between the two features.....
i do!! barely, but i do! and it was good too! funny you should mention that, because i was thinking of that just last week. i was wondering why that's never on reruns. i haven't seen it in ages and ages
oh, so true, bains! i remember that. they used to smoke me out of every corner i would find. i remember when it was socially acceptable to put you in the car, drive you to florida, and smoke all the way there with the windows up! ......ok, a different one. i remember my mom hanging all the clothes outside on the line. which meant that she did the wash, took it all outside, then brought it inside and IRONED it. no wonder she hollered ;-)
i remember less options. everything was kinda in threes. regular potato chips/ruffles/bbq, crest/colgate/auquafresh, 3 major beers/cigarettes/car companies/churches/gum/and so on... just much less. far less choices. as in most things, there is a good and not so good side. certainly it's a wonderful thing that we are offered so much, we have even sponsored an industry that solely supports such an idea(smart phones, etc.), but the question begs: why? why do we THINK we need it all? while i believe that it is ultimately a good thing that we value the human condition, i am continually disappointed that we seem to forsake the high road when given the opportunity to take it. seems as though option equates to convenience only. how can we take choice away from the consumer by offering too many. again, it's a good thing to have the known universeat our fingertips in the way of the internet/web devices, but honestly, 90 something percent of us, including me, stream endless hours together, making perfect circles doing really only one thing: playing on our phones. chatting/gossiping/gaming/watching dog's fart/people fall/on and on...
not bad things really. afterall we need to relax, we spent so much time answering to someone else's demands/vision. i understand. but really, the universe is out there. talk about options. i am gonna get out of my digital backyard today. there has to be an app to help me with that entitled whim of mine.
matthew, are you younger than i thought? because i don't remember aquafresh OR bbq potato chips back in the day. i remember a choice between pretzels and potato chips and that was it! ha! but you make such a good point. although i'm wondering what it means that we have so many ways to express our creativity now that we didn't before. with digital stuff, we can create so much music, art, writing, etc. it's true that we spend so much of our time on the stupid stuff it offers, but we could use it for good if we want to, right? i just posted about my mom doing the laundry. so she was busy with her body and outdoors. she was making a home. all things more worthwhile than playing on her phone. but i also wonder about how her day would have been more satisfying with more mental stimulation that our world provides. but one thing is for sure. when i think about back then, when people wanted inspiration or stimulation, they/we reached outward...towards community. there were dinner parties and coffee and cake with a neighbor, organizations that met in person regularly rather than just tossing money online. i think we can still have the good of what they had, but we have to try harder. which brings us back to your point...choices. we have more choices. not just of phones but of how to live. thanks for the thought provocation. better than ironing!
there has to be an app to help me with that entitled whim of mine.
Bawuwuwhuhuhahahahaha~~!!!
I remember right when Aquafresh came out. We couldn't afford that either. Used some grotesque generic stuff which is why I always hated brushing my teeth. At least until later when I realized that baking soda did a good job for that. Heh! Baking Soda tastes better than the junk we used!
And the thing about all these "choices"? They're all the SAME choice! LoL Total BS used to sell sell sell, and usually from the same company with 3 different "competing" subsidiaries.
I recently dropped cable as Netflix gives me Far More Choice even if I don't have some of the choices cable provides. I can actually watch the shows I want, without commercials, at whatever time I choose.
The Past? Pros and Cons. The Present? Pros and Cons? The Future? One can imagine Pros and Cons.
I have been a nurse for more than 20 years. I love to tell new nurses about smoking in the hospital. Not only could the patients smoke, but so could the staff. At the end of my shift I would chain smoke in the break room while finishing my paperwork. I watch their jaws drop, and then tell them about the physician who smoked as he walked down the hallway (technically not allowed). When he got to the room of the patient he was going to visit, he placed the cigarette on a the small ledge at the top of the door frame (still lit) and picked it back up on the way out.
As for the multiple choices that Matthew mentioned--I said something to my sister just the other day when we were shopping. There really isn't a good reason to have 8 choices of tostitos. My cousin served in Iraq, and he had a bit of sensation overload when he returned to the States and went to the grocery store. I wish the energy to find the "next great flavor" could be spent on things that would actually improve life--and not just tickle our taste buds.
When I had to go to sleep because I had to go to school the next day, I would take mine under my pillow and listen to baseball games. They were so small for the time!
every time i lose power, i reach for a transistor radio, sherry. trouble is, i don't have one. can you still get them?? i couldn't resist this picture of PART Of the toothpaste aisle re: matthew's topic of us having so many choices!
What ever happened to Tom Terrific and Manfred his Wonder Dog? As bad as Rocky and his Friends,, especially Bullwinkle from Frostbite Falls, Mn. LOL! I'm sure there are many more from that generation.. Roadrunner was my favorite... there was always an Acme this or that in every cartoon..crazy huh? and then I ran into a place up here called Acme Glass for real.. Funny! My younger sisters would always sing Casper when they played which drove us boys nuts.. Double Bubble gum was a treat as well as collecting baseball cards which I don't think they do anymore. My wife loved her Barbie dolls and has quite a few she cherishes..
What about Dudley Do-Right and Snidely Whiplash? I mentioned him once to someone about 20 years ago. I was at the Grand Canyon (on a mule), and the guide's walkie talkie made the sound I associate with Dudley. When I said this, the young man said, "Just how old do you think I am, ma'am." He said it nicely, but it still meant that I was old. And that was a long time ago!
As for toys, we were very, very economically challenged. However, I did have an Easy Bake Oven and a Chrissie Doll (she was the first redheaded doll I remember after Raggedy Anne). Chrissie and her blonde sister had hair that could "grow." I still have the teddy bear I got for my first birthday. He is definitely *real,* and makes the Velveteen Rabbit look brand-spanking new. The only other thing I couldn't part with was a pair of roller skates that go outside the shoes. They don't have a key--never did. I'm going to hang them on the wall and call it art.
Love teh toothpaste pic! {rollin'eyes} Note that there are still really only Three main brands! + a couple of the high-end variety for "whitening". Heh! :)
bains, you actually used the phrase: "a couple" when referring to the choices offered in the world of toothpaste. whitening types alone are probably in the thirties. this is what i'm talkin' 'bout, the poor man is like me, brainwashed into thinking that the avalanche of choice will wash over us like some kinda product placement fountain of youth. yes, still three main brands, with octomom mentality.
Heh! There ARE only a couple but, like you're saying, they, those 2 or 3 MegaCorps, change some inane qualities of each item and make it look like we've got an Enourmous amount of choice! Total Joke. Too bad too many of us of so willingly the butt of it... {sigh}
i know in the case of women's make up, that it's all the same product just marketed differently and with different prices. one major corp makes the same actual liptstick, but puts it in a fancy tube and charges $35 for it in macy's and a different tube for $8 at the CVS...but it's all the same stuff. same ingredients. same colors.
this is a little to the side, but speaking of toothpaste, i'm old enough to remember when everyone on tv and in the movies had normal teeth. now everyone has white shark teeth..prefabbed at the factory!!!
Roller skates,,, LOL! We shared a pair we got from the Goodwill store. And of course we shared to old Schwin bicycle dad picked up someplace for us. It lasted many years... We always wished we could get a power lawn mower because it would be me and my brother forever to push that old heavy metal mechanical thing I swear was built in the 1930's. My sister claims she has it as well as the old cast iron shoe horn from Norway in her garage...
Okay, what about candy? I ask this because I just found and ordered some Zotz, Pop Rocks, and Lik-M-Ade for my niece and nephew. I remember standing in the driveway with a bunch of friends and feeding our sheep dog pop rocks. She wasn't sure she liked it, but she came back for more!
margaret, scroll back, we covered candy all the way to pixie styx! :-) but those pop rocks..they were yummy! ;-) feel free to add more. oh i remember roller skates! and ice skates here too. we always had a power mower, but starting it was a big engineering project. ...but you know what i remember about the mower? people were far less protective of kids back then. the gasoline was in the garage near the mower, and the words "don't play with that" were enough. nobody touched it, nobody dreamt about protective caps and putting it in a cage away from children. what do people do now? put it in an alarmed glass box?
We weren't allowed much candy back then in the 50's... I don't even recall us ever having many sweets.. Only my greatgrandfather had sweets which was Brach's mints... He wouldn't share either. LOL! And greatgrandma always made coffee with eggs in it which was fantastic plus lefse and lumpas and all kind of Norwegian stuff I couldn't pronounce if I tried, all tasting great!
oh wow, bob! are you sure you're not a character from prairie home companion??? :-)) i've never had any of those norwegian goodies. sounds fun! but coffee with eggs in it???
something i remember and miss is how each town used to be so different from another town. we used to travel up and down the east coast, so i was able to see every little town. they were all different from each other, all with different songs on the radio, different drugstores, different accents....no strip malls! i don't like the way every town now has the same stores. what a yawn.
Garrison? His cousin is a friend of mine and an organic gardener with a good size farm by me. Garrison's father was quite the masonry guy in town... Garrison told me a couple years ago that the town he's from up here is a good place to be from.. LOL! I didn't say any names!! LOL! And I agree with your take on the small old towns because it is the truth. Michelle Bachman went to the same high school as Garrison though years later and I'm not going to say much...LOL! If you know what I mean... the town had it's own radio satation, theater, amphitheatre, and everything you talked about except, the best darn bakery in the world to us kids...Glazed donuts were fantastic..
get OUTTA HERE! i was trying to be funny, and it turns like you're actually FROM lake wobegon??? LOL! ....you know, i was just thinking about matthew's point about the choices. we have so many choices, and yet...in some ways, like the individuality of the towns issue i brought up...we have fewer choices. for example, we used to have a clothing store with x type of stuff in town A. then down the way there was store B with y type of clothing stuff. different furniture in different stores in different towns. but now....there's a gap and a pottery barn everywhere and on every human and in every house. so is that really having more choices or less??? just thinkin'
You are correct.. but there really was never a wobegon here. Yes, there are a few lakes true, plus two rivers. I agree with the less choices, knowing the transitions of that little town I happened to be a part of,,, though we lived in the next town. From the malt shop on main street where we got a coke and fries to the A & W for rootbeer to the Armory where I and other musicians first played in a rock and roll band at friday night dances. The local pool and city hall all built and paid for by a local company in 1956-57 just being nice to the townfolk. It doesn't happen in our towns anymore which is a shame. Now that's worthy of a tax deduction or right-off as an American dream,, which never happened there again...The companies went public and were sold,, Wall Street took its profits to line strangers pockets and there is no sense of community anymore. We all saw this...It was a great town to be part of but is no more.
I miss the individuality of stores as well. When I was in college in Athens, GA I loved strolling down the rows of shops downtown. I try not to spend as much money in the "Superstores," but they do save time and money. I just wish we didn't have to lose so much to save so little.
When I graduated in 69 it was the first year of the draft lottery. Yet, I still had to get my draft card which was a male thing we all looked forward to.. My lottery number was 365 so I didn't worry.. Two of my grad friends got number 1 and they were gone in about two weeks to boot camp..The goal at that time was to have a 1-Y classification for school/college which was impossible to get into back then especially if your parents didn't have money. I was lucky!
serious story there, bob. ....sherry, along those lines but not the same, i remember manners being a whole lot more important. you had to actually answer RSVP's back then. people nowadays don't even seem to respond when you invite them to something. back then if you said "i'll let you know closer to the date" you would have been looked at like a total social failure. boyfriends HAD to observe certain rules. i had to answer the phone a certain way. thank you notes were crucial. ...not to mention you had to actually get dressed up for church.
When I was really young we live close to the R/R tracks. One day we woke up to a steam engine stopping behind our house, all the cars said Barnum and Bailey Circus on them. This was new to us kids.. they let out pretty much all the animals from garaffe's to lions, etc. in our yard and the neighborhood. Now how cool was that to be maybe 5 or 6 years old and having this happen. I know we would never go to the circus because my parents couldn't afford it...We had police and fire people everywhere just to monitor the mess. To this day I don't have a clue what happened and why our neighborhood..
that's cool, bob. it's great to have such memories, and great for us for you to share them.
i hope i'm not repeating myself....but i remember when everyone disciplined everyone else's children. when i was growing up, if someone was misbehaving, nobody called the parents. they just handled it somehow. i remember my parents dishing out "hey knock that off or else"'s to the kids in the neighborhood, and other parents doing the same to us. and if someone in the neighborhood had to call me out on something, i got in trouble twice...first with the neighborhood person, then with my parents. back then, parents didn't come to the rescue on bad behavior. now it seems like no matter what someone's kid does, you're not allowed to even question bad behavior. parents want to talk gently to johnny while he's hurling a frozen bagel at you in the grocery store. and if you dare say "don't throw that at me", the parent gives you a dirty look!
I still have some :-) Oooooo, Child ; The Night Chicago Died ; Billy, Don't be a Hero ; Tie a Yellow Ribbon ; Got to Get You Into My Life !! I had a boatload!!!
well alrighty. so long as we are embracing our inner geeks, i must tell you that i enjoyed and am old enough to remember a weird toy named "creepy crawlers"..it would gross me out now, but i was braver then. you made these molds of insects and such and baked them in a mini oven thingie.and got rubber colored creatures. better than an easy bake oven! ;-)
oh! and i would like to add that i played with that way up in the unfinished attic..oven thingie and all. and i remember my dad yelling up not to use ovens in the attic and thinking that he was wayyy over the top on safety issues! :-))
45's--add me to the Billy, Don't Be a Hero geek list. I also remember One Tin Soldier, Ode to Billie Joe, and Hooked On a Feeling. They cost 99 cents at "Peaches" record store down the street.
My first full length albums were the Johns--Sir Elton and Olivia-Newton.
oh , margaret! here's the good news...although we're old geeks, we're old geeks still up late on a thursday night! :-) one tin soldier...I HAD IT! :-) i'm not sure what my first album was, but it might have been the partridge family. i had older sisters though, so i had hand me down records too. i remember buying the carpenters and carly simon with my babysitting money.
wiffledust
Jul 15, 2011
Robert Muscovitz
Jul 15, 2011
Robert Muscovitz
Jul 15, 2011
Bains
Oh yeah, Hee Haw! "Pain, despair and agony on me!" LoL!
And Samantha Stevens was hotter than Jeanie but Jeanie had better legs. ;-)
HENNY Youngman! Yeah, and Jack Benny. Loved that guys little looks to the side with raised eyebrows. Classic! :-D
Jul 15, 2011
Sherry Somach
As a child we would go to the movies for the day. We would see 17 cartoons( really cool cartoons), a newsreel, then maybe something like Abbott & Costello or the 3 Stooges or some other short film, and then the feature: a spaghetti western, or the Lone Ranger or the like.
Jul 15, 2011
nancy Sanchez
Jul 15, 2011
wiffledust
Jul 17, 2011
Maryrose Orlans
Jul 17, 2011
wiffledust
i do!! barely, but i do! and it was good too! funny you should mention that, because i was thinking of that just last week. i was wondering why that's never on reruns. i haven't seen it in ages and ages
Jul 17, 2011
Bains
"those were the days", eh. ;-)
Jul 25, 2011
wiffledust
Jul 25, 2011
Matthew Kahler
not bad things really. afterall we need to relax, we spent so much time answering to someone else's demands/vision. i understand. but really, the universe is out there. talk about options. i am gonna get out of my digital backyard today. there has to be an app to help me with that entitled whim of mine.
Jul 25, 2011
wiffledust
Jul 25, 2011
Bains
Bawuwuwhuhuhahahahaha~~!!!
I remember right when Aquafresh came out. We couldn't afford that either. Used some grotesque generic stuff which is why I always hated brushing my teeth. At least until later when I realized that baking soda did a good job for that. Heh! Baking Soda tastes better than the junk we used!
And the thing about all these "choices"? They're all the SAME choice! LoL Total BS used to sell sell sell, and usually from the same company with 3 different "competing" subsidiaries.
I recently dropped cable as Netflix gives me Far More Choice even if I don't have some of the choices cable provides. I can actually watch the shows I want, without commercials, at whatever time I choose.
The Past? Pros and Cons. The Present? Pros and Cons? The Future? One can imagine Pros and Cons.
Jul 25, 2011
margaret kraft
I have been a nurse for more than 20 years. I love to tell new nurses about smoking in the hospital. Not only could the patients smoke, but so could the staff. At the end of my shift I would chain smoke in the break room while finishing my paperwork. I watch their jaws drop, and then tell them about the physician who smoked as he walked down the hallway (technically not allowed). When he got to the room of the patient he was going to visit, he placed the cigarette on a the small ledge at the top of the door frame (still lit) and picked it back up on the way out.
As for the multiple choices that Matthew mentioned--I said something to my sister just the other day when we were shopping. There really isn't a good reason to have 8 choices of tostitos. My cousin served in Iraq, and he had a bit of sensation overload when he returned to the States and went to the grocery store. I wish the energy to find the "next great flavor" could be spent on things that would actually improve life--and not just tickle our taste buds.
Jul 25, 2011
Sherry Somach
Jul 25, 2011
wiffledust
Jul 25, 2011
Sherry Somach
Jul 25, 2011
wiffledust
every time i lose power, i reach for a transistor radio, sherry. trouble is, i don't have one. can you still get them?? i couldn't resist this picture of PART Of the toothpaste aisle re: matthew's topic of us having so many choices!
Jul 25, 2011
Robert Muscovitz
Jul 26, 2011
margaret kraft
What about Dudley Do-Right and Snidely Whiplash? I mentioned him once to someone about 20 years ago. I was at the Grand Canyon (on a mule), and the guide's walkie talkie made the sound I associate with Dudley. When I said this, the young man said, "Just how old do you think I am, ma'am." He said it nicely, but it still meant that I was old. And that was a long time ago!
As for toys, we were very, very economically challenged. However, I did have an Easy Bake Oven and a Chrissie Doll (she was the first redheaded doll I remember after Raggedy Anne). Chrissie and her blonde sister had hair that could "grow." I still have the teddy bear I got for my first birthday. He is definitely *real,* and makes the Velveteen Rabbit look brand-spanking new. The only other thing I couldn't part with was a pair of roller skates that go outside the shoes. They don't have a key--never did. I'm going to hang them on the wall and call it art.
Jul 26, 2011
Bains
Jul 26, 2011
Matthew Kahler
Jul 26, 2011
Bains
Jul 26, 2011
wiffledust
Jul 26, 2011
Bains
Excellent idea! :))
Jul 26, 2011
wiffledust
Jul 26, 2011
Robert Muscovitz
Jul 26, 2011
margaret kraft
Jul 26, 2011
wiffledust
Jul 26, 2011
Robert Muscovitz
Jul 26, 2011
wiffledust
oh wow, bob! are you sure you're not a character from prairie home companion??? :-)) i've never had any of those norwegian goodies. sounds fun! but coffee with eggs in it???
something i remember and miss is how each town used to be so different from another town. we used to travel up and down the east coast, so i was able to see every little town. they were all different from each other, all with different songs on the radio, different drugstores, different accents....no strip malls! i don't like the way every town now has the same stores. what a yawn.
Jul 26, 2011
Robert Muscovitz
Jul 26, 2011
wiffledust
Jul 26, 2011
Robert Muscovitz
Jul 26, 2011
margaret kraft
Jul 27, 2011
Sherry Somach
I remember when tattoos were only gotten by drunken sailors and low lifes.
"Nice" girls did not go to pool halls, or even nearby where the guys hung out.
If you wore short shorts, you were a slut...and guys would follow you making cat calls. Those 50s and early 60s were some repressed years!
Jul 27, 2011
Robert Muscovitz
When I graduated in 69 it was the first year of the draft lottery. Yet, I still had to get my draft card which was a male thing we all looked forward to.. My lottery number was 365 so I didn't worry.. Two of my grad friends got number 1 and they were gone in about two weeks to boot camp..The goal at that time was to have a 1-Y classification for school/college which was impossible to get into back then especially if your parents didn't have money. I was lucky!
Jul 27, 2011
wiffledust
Jul 27, 2011
Robert Muscovitz
Jul 28, 2011
wiffledust
that's cool, bob. it's great to have such memories, and great for us for you to share them.
i hope i'm not repeating myself....but i remember when everyone disciplined everyone else's children. when i was growing up, if someone was misbehaving, nobody called the parents. they just handled it somehow. i remember my parents dishing out "hey knock that off or else"'s to the kids in the neighborhood, and other parents doing the same to us. and if someone in the neighborhood had to call me out on something, i got in trouble twice...first with the neighborhood person, then with my parents. back then, parents didn't come to the rescue on bad behavior. now it seems like no matter what someone's kid does, you're not allowed to even question bad behavior. parents want to talk gently to johnny while he's hurling a frozen bagel at you in the grocery store. and if you dare say "don't throw that at me", the parent gives you a dirty look!
Jul 28, 2011
Maryrose Orlans
Two Guys!! I bought most of my 45s there :-)
Jul 28, 2011
wiffledust
Jul 28, 2011
Maryrose Orlans
I still have some :-) Oooooo, Child ; The Night Chicago Died ; Billy, Don't be a Hero ; Tie a Yellow Ribbon ; Got to Get You Into My Life !! I had a boatload!!!
Jul 28, 2011
wiffledust
Jul 29, 2011
Maryrose Orlans
Jul 29, 2011
wiffledust
Jul 29, 2011
wiffledust
Jul 29, 2011
margaret kraft
45's--add me to the Billy, Don't Be a Hero geek list. I also remember One Tin Soldier, Ode to Billie Joe, and Hooked On a Feeling. They cost 99 cents at "Peaches" record store down the street.
My first full length albums were the Johns--Sir Elton and Olivia-Newton.
Jul 29, 2011
wiffledust
Jul 29, 2011