You know your're 50 something if you remember...

A little game here. Post here a something you think defines being a 50-something.

Here's a few of mine:

There were only 3 tv channels, and the national anthem played at midnight when they went off the air.

Your first Babie doll did not have bendable legs.

You know what a slide rule is.

You know about "old math" and "new math".

You know who Dick, Jane, Sally, and Puff are.

Your skirts were measured in school.

You know all the words to "Hotel California" (I know all the words, but have no idea what they mean)

Yes, you inhaled.

any more??

You know who Mr Greenjeans was. And Howdy Doody. You can still sing the Zorro song.

And when you got to college, slide rules were allowed in tests, but those new-fangled pocket calculators were considered cheating.

I just heard an announcer on NPR mention that the 40th anniversary of Woodstock is coming up in a few weeks.

You don't have to google 'schmoos.'

You happen to bump into Lesley Neilson and gasp..."Swamp Fox!"

You owned records that were both smaller (45s) and larger (33s) that your parents' (78s).

You learned to ride a bike without a helmet.

You paid 47 cents for a three-course meal.

What about Captain Kangaroo??

#6 yes, and Mr. Moose and the ping pong balls.

and if you grew up, as I did, in the DC metro area, you might remember Captain Tug and Countdown Carnival.

If your mom ever gave you a "Toni" perm.
"If you really want a perm get a 'Toni' more curls, more swing, more bounce. (bomp, bomp)"

You remember how excited you were when you got a Schwinn banana seat bike with the U shaped handlebars.

You remember the excitement of the Beatles performing on Ed Sullivan

You know who Topo Gigio is

There were air raid drills once a month while we were in grammar school--the siren sounded and we all filed into the hallway and sat with our heads between our knees.

. . .Ipana toothpaste and Bucky Beaver.

. . .no one having a color television.

. . .that your parents thought it was perfectly alright for the neighbors to yell at you if you did something wrong and your parents were not there.

You remember TV ads for fire prevention that had the actual Smokey the Bear in them.

You know who Zachery, and the Jelly Beaner were (not at all associated with each other).

You used Ipana toothpaste (and remember the name of its mascot).

*ETA: Okay, so Lisa is TRUELY a 50-somethinger (or is that 50-somethingite?)

You remember paying 5 cents for a full size candy bar.

You remember having milk delivered to the back door.

You remember the Fuller Brush man coming around twice a year to sell brushes.

You remember the first time you saw a color TV.

You remember Mom hanging clothes outside on the clothes line and then having to iron everything. And on rainy days she pulled out the wooden rack to dry things.

You remember listening to AM radio. No one listened to FM radio.

You remember the local department store sending boxes of clothes to the house for you to try on at home, keeping the ones you wanted and sending the rest back. The bill came in the mail.

You remember sending away for cereal prizes.

Sitting in front of your TV on a Friday night at 7:30 (when Prime time started) waiting patiently for the Flintstones to change from B&W to COLOR!

Christmas shopping from the Sears Roebuck catalog

Aluminum Christmas tree (now available at antique stores at an astronomical price!)

shopping at Woolworth's or Ben Franklin....downtown...what the heck is a MALL??

In college, watching Iranian students protest "Down with the Shah!" on campus

draft cards

Holy super-heroes! You remember the original Batman series on TV, with Adam West. (I once wrote him a fan letter as a child and, according to my mother, ended it with "So pack up your Bat Cape and come visit us sometime.")

If you remember when Saturday night meant The Lawrence Welk Show & Gunsmoke. (My dad's favorite Dynamic Duo.)

17 > I certainly do AND the Green Hornet.

I also remember watching (with my grandfather) Walter Cronkite's 20th Century and Ted Mack while I waited for Disney's Wonderful World of Color on Sunday!

You're also over 50 (and from the east coast) if you ever heard "OH honey that's too far and very expensive" when the only thing you wanted out of life was to go to Disneyland!

>13 karenmarie: - I still get milk delivered (to my front porch. :-)

Milk deliveries that came with little toy plastic cows showing the different breeds.

Aluminum Christmas trees with color-wheels to shine four different colors on them since it wasn't safe to put regular lights on the metal trees.

Christmas tree lights that got so hot you didn't dare touch them.

Embroidery floss (I learned early) at 10 cents a skein.

Rotary dial telephones

Party lines

Beany and Cecil the Seasick Sea Serpent

Watching the clerk at Penney's put the money in a brass tube, and watching it zoom away in a tube up to the ceiling.

Miss Frances and Ding Dong School

2- and 3-digit phone numbers

Wonder Bread builds strong bodies twelve ways

Test patterns

Speedy Alka-Selzer

You remember paying 12 cents for an Archie Comic book, 25 cents if it was a "special."

On Goldwater: In your heart.... you know he's right OR (and this was my family) In your guts.... you know he's nuts.

You were finally allowed to wear pants to school when ladies' pantsuits became popular. A few years later you wore hot pants to the homecoming dance.

party lines

You remember telephone booths with closeable doors.

You think a book named Hannibal is a book about the 2nd Punic War.

You think a book named The Talisman is a historical novel by Sir Walter Scott.

Phone numbers that started with two letters, such as RA-4534.

You know what the two letters stood for.

Now I know I'm only a 'pup' here, having only turned 50 ten days ago, but are you guys sure you shouldn't be in the 80-Something Library Thingers?

No, no, it's alright, I understand. I, too can remember tiny details of thirty or forty years ago. Don't ask me about the day before yesterday though.

To justjim:

I should be in the 70-somethings, and, within 2 years, in the 80-somethings.

You notice that there are still a few people older than you, and there are A LOT of people A LOT younger than you, but thereʻs hardly anyone A LITTLE younger than you -- the depression or something --guess there just werenʻt many born in those few years after your birth.

Wow! That does bring back memories. I think my phone number was RE3-5824 until I was 10. We had a 4-person party line.

We didn't have any house numbers until I was about 8. Not sure about zip codes. Does anyone remember whether we had zip codes?

My mother yelled at the Fuller Brush salesman while she was trying to quit smoking and he never came back. She felt bad about that.

:-(

k4k

I think zip codes were rolled out in the late 60s, although I seem to recall New York city had codes before most cities.

Much Fun here how about:

Bonomo Turkish Taffy -- My brothers and I loved smacking it on the table and breaking it up into little pieces much to my Mom's chagrin.

Flipping baseball cards (do they still do that any more) -- we used to play colors

Here is a real classic, I remember the reissue of this show in the 1960's (originally it came out in the 1950's): Winky Dink--the first interactive TV show cartoon -- My mom used to hate how I destroyed the TV screen with crayons...B-)

I'd heard that you should feel old when the policemen look young. Well they did, and I didn't. Probably because I was in charge of a lot of military guys who were also young but, typically, I wouldn't ask (OK, order) them to do anything that I (thought that I) couldn't do.

Strangely, now that the Police Commissioner looks young.....

The prize in Crackerjacks was a toy, not some lame "book" or stickers. Sometimes you even got to assemble the toy.

Beechnut gum, fruit flavors and stripes.

I remember when the Hershey bar got smaller--for the same price, grr. (I wonder how big the original was?)

And, "everyone loves a Slinky!"

Slinky! I'm getting that reference. So will my kids and g/kids. They wouldn't understand that it was first made of metal though. Seriously, my grandson has a plastic slinky... the noise as it goes down the back stairs is just not right.

Yipes, Stripes, Beechnut's got 'em.
Yipes, Stripes, with Fruit Stripes Gum.
Yipes,Stripes, five different flavors.
Get Beechnut Fruit Stripe Gum.

Remember Barbie's baby twin siblings--Tutti and Todd?

Putting playing cards on the spokes of your bike with clothes pins. Loved the sound.

Our phone # was OSborne 9-1835.

They changed our street address when we got the zip code. It confused us kids for a while.

In Los Angeles we had channels 2,4,5,7,9,11,13 and 34 - KMEX Mexico.

You remember when there were two pro baseball leagues (as there still are, but with no divisions) and just one representative from each played in the postseason.

...and maybe you remember the expansion in 1961, when Cal Griffith moved the Senators to Minnesota and we got a truly putrid expansion team in Washington. The Mets were lovably bad and eventually became wonderful. The Senators just sucked till they left for Arlington (Texas, that is). Can you name the other two new teams?

I don't know when zip codes started, but we had "postal codes" in Chicago. Ours was 34 as in "Chicago, 34, Illinois.

And how about only six hockey teams? The entire NHL was Chicago, Detroit, New York, Boston, Montreal and Toronto.

Can't remember the whole phone number, but it started with PE6.

And we had PENNY candy at the corner store. That is another thing--we had corner stores within a couple of blocks in any direction.

I love being 50 something!

In Billings, Montana, in 1959, we were ALpine 9-6649.

I can remember a 50 year-old phone number, but can't remember to go out and read the electric meter.

Our home number back in the 70's was KI7-4502. My number now is #4. Every time someone asks for it I have to look it up.
Lunch was a quarter: 15 cents for a basket of fries. 5 cents for a can of coke and 5 cents for 2 donuts.

milk cards at school...milk was 2 cents a carton, and your teacher punched the card every day at lunch. The kids at my school lunch room have barcodes today to keep track of their purchases!

I didn't have Barbie's brother/sister, but I did have Skpper, and Francie (weren't they cousins or something?)

Mystery Date, Mousetrap, Beatle Dolls, Magic 8 Ball

Don't forget Midge, Barbies's best friend!

I had a "Thing" bank that had batteries it would rock back an forth and the lid would open and a green hand would come out and grab the coin and then quickly go back in the black box.

Like "Thing" on the Munsters.

>45 dara85: dara85

Thing was on "Addam's Family".

Automats (not to be confused with auto mats)

Hank (a TV show)

Marlin Perkins

Clarabell

Romper Room

A time when cigarettes were "good for your health".

Saddle shoes

One of the first (dozen?) McDonald's opened up in our town when I was maybe 6 years old. Dad could treat a family of 7 (at the time) to a hamburger, fries and a shake (each) for about $5.

Our phone # was SW(arthmore)7-3858 until we moved to a town about 12 miles away. Then it was DA(vis)7-4120.

Re: some of our memories seeming to be older than we claim. Even when I lived in Billings (ie. Big City) my grandparents still lived in very small Nebraska towns that didn't get 7-digit phone numbers or automated telephone exchanges until the early 60s. So I do, in fact, remember operators and 3-digit numbers.

The 72-color big flat box of crayons. I was in heaven.

We had a "Thing" bank too. It's probably still sitting in the corner of the bar in the den at my mother's den.

We paid 5 cents for milk, 25 cents a week every Wednesday for the next week.

We also had a Bank of America savings plan - you could bring your passbook and money to school on Tuesday. It was returned to you sans money, passbook stamped with your new amount, on Fridays. I usually deposited 25 or 50 cents.

I remember getting my first pair of jeans when I was 11. Dad wouldn't let me wear them to the movie theater. Had to wear a dress.

How about allowances? I was uptown - got 50 cents a week in the early 60s. Of course there was a lot of work required for that money, but I didn't think twice about it. I'd spend 25 cents and save 25 cents.

Yesterday, when I was filling up the car, I remembered collecting 25 cents apiece from the other gals in the car to pay for gas. I got 50 cents a week for allowance, until I got use of the car that was supposed to be my mom's, but she failed her test. I got $2 a week, on the condition I drove my mom to work and anywhere else she wanted to go. Gas money came out of the $2.

I remember my sister and I wheedling a dime from my grandmother so we could buy a comic book, then standing in front of the rack in shock because the prices had gone up to 12 cents. We had to go back and convince her to give us a quarter, which was a whole other level of wheedling.

When my dad found out Grandma had never been to McDonalds, he took her along with us by telling her, "Let's get you in on the second million."

We could wear pants (NO jeans) to school starting in 1969 - 1970 my Junior year -- from Thanksgiving to St. Patrick's Day! It got pretty cold and snowy in NE Pennsylvania which was the ONLY reason girls got to wear slacks!

Yeah -- I was wondering when someone would mention Saddle Shoes -- I loved my clunky saddle shoes!

Hubby still breaks out in the Marvel the Mustang ditty every now and then. He actually bought our middle school aged son a pair of vintage PF Flyers ("run faster, jump higher!), because he always wanted them when he was a kid and never got any. Same child received a reproduction 'Schwinn banana seat bike with the U shaped handlebars' (grins to theaelizabet/9), and the reproduction Rock'em Sock'em Robots for the same reason.

A few years ago, his sister gave him a "down memory lane" Christmas gift. A box full of stuff like a miniature Radio Flyer, one of those Qiana silky disco shirts with the big picture wrapped around the side and back, the full set of the old Batman series - on "circles" (as they're called in our house), a rubber band gun, and a bunch of stuff I can't even remember.

#47 "I've got him, Mr. Perkins!"

I remember the two-cent milk tickets. I convinced my parents to let me have two a day, and I got one chocolate and one white and mixed them.

I remember flipping baseball cards at recess. I was also a bus patrol and had a cool white canvas belt that went around my waist and over one shoulder.

Speaking of buses, I remember when the nuns (or, more likely, the monsignor) became racially enlightened and we had to stop calling the bus drivers by their first names. They sent home a letter that explained that Leroy was Mr. Rich, etc. Lots of confusion but I think it eventually reached some people.

Finally, you know you're fifty-something if you remember your sister having an insane crush on Davy Jones.

I remember My Mother the Car. Can't remember if the star was Dick van Dyke or his brother.

Ah! It was his brother, Jerry. And the voice of the "mother" was Ann Southern.

I remember zip codes appearing in about 1963 or '64. It seemed weird to have to add this number - didn't the post office *know* where the towns were?

Also 2-cent milk; chocolate was 5 cents, and they usually ran out.

>25 justjim:- As to whether some of us are "80-somethings" - well, there were lots of things around in the '50s that weren't *new* then, but still in use. (Like my best spatula - formerly my grandmother's - recently saw one like it at an antique show, but it turns eggs just fine...)

I also remember reading books that were my mom's when she was a child in the 1920s - they were still around grandmother's house.

varielle, I'm pretty sure it was Jerry. I vaguely remember that show, but what I mostly remember was that it was considered really awful.

you remember B&W television as being normal

you think of Roger Moore as the guy who played Ivanhoe (http://images.google.nl/images?q=roger+moore+ivanhoe&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:nl:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=gM9pSpmyLdPb-QakzvyLCw&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=4)

True, but when I was a tot the idea of a talking car seem wonderful and perfectly believable.

I loved My Mother the Car! There was also Mr. Ed, the talking horse. I don't remember who the human was.

Remember:

A horse is a horse, of course, of course
And no one can talk to a horse, of course
Unless, of course, the name of the horse
Is the famous Mr. Ed!

***goes back to work***

k4k

Mr. Ed's person was Willlll-ber

Played by Alan Young

The first show I was allowed to stay up and watch - from 7-7:30, 'The Littlest Hobo', (B+W of course) adventures of a German Shephard that went from town to town...
The Schwinn bikes with banana seats - the 'U' shaped handlebars were called butterfly handlebars. And I rode mine till the neck broke and I was nearly impaled...
For those growing up in western New York: WKBW Rocketship 7?
Swimming pools with diving boards? Actually, the thirtie-somethings may remember those...
We had a party line, Butler 2696 (Butler being a Loyalist soldier - western New York was part of the British Empire until 1796)
I vividly remember the first year of Saturday Night Live - or as they had to introduce, "Live, from New York, it's Saturday Night' and the pseudo-muppets, including the mighty Pavag.
Midnight Concerts - with Melissa Manchester!

I only had one Barbie instead of the 10-15 my daughter had. One Barbie could be anyone you wanted instead of Teacher Barbie, Veterinary Barbie, etc. Actually I had Midge instead of Barbie. A neighbor lady sewed a lot of really cool clothes for her.

You remember test patterns on TV when the station was shut down for the night.

And they played the national anthem before they shut down.

Dick Clark's American Bandstand, Hullabaloo, Shindig and Midnight Special....

>66 theaelizabet: Also Where the Action is featuring: Paul Revere & the Raiders and others.

Was only aired a couple of years in the mid-60's. I can still hear the opening music...Oh my!

a 3-cent stamp mailed a letter

going to the drive-in movie and playing up front on the playground until the movie started... then putting a blanket on the warm car hood so my brother and I could lie there and watch the first feature (we usually fell asleep by the second movie)

This thread is showing me that 10 years is really a long time in terms of cultural norms and experiences. Most of these reminisces seem to be from people’s early and middle childhoods. While all are interesting and many are colorful, only half or so ring any bells with me. In attempting to define what makes us a group based on childhood experiences, I'm seeing a decade-long age cohort that didn’t have a strongly coherent experience.

For me, I would say you know you're 50-something when you remember to live fully right now because you are wise enough to be unimpressed by minor aches, pains, and imperfections and to have stopped waiting for ships to come in, white knights to ride up, spouses to shape up, sacrifice-free diet and exercise plans, or that ‘round toit of popular myth.

67--Where the Action Is! That was the first place I saw Sonny and Cher!

Amen, WildMaggie/69!

>51 ddelmoni: That's about the year they let us wear pants, too. Prior to that, we could wear snow pants TO school, but had to change out of them (in the closet!) when we got to the classroom.

(And they call those the "good old days"?)

Oh yeah! I remember walking barefoot 5 miles (each way) to school and back, and both directions were uphill! In the winter, we'd wrap our feet with barbed wire for traction.

And we didn't have water back then. If we wanted a drink, we'd have to smash together Hydrogen and Oxygen atoms by hand. I remember beta testing dirt... ah yeah, the good old days...

Luxury!

I cannot believe 73 posts in one day. I should say you know you're 50 when you post 73 things in one day about the good old days!

I think you guys have covered most of the last 50 years, but I have my memories too...

#12. Do you remember the Ipana theme song? I am singing it to myself as I type ("Brusha, brusha, brusha, with the new Ipana...")

#53. Sister, nothing. I had my own crush on Davy Jones.

#68. And we popped popcorn at home and put it in a large brown paper grocery bag and took it to the drive-in with us.

Remember when Paul was dead?

Carol Burnett and Ken Berry on TV in "Once Upon A Mattress." She was a much better Winifred in that one than she was Queen Agravaine on the updated version from a few years ago.

And how excited I would get when my aunt would be on TV on St. Louis Hop (a local American Bandstand).

Soupy Sales--is he still alive?

Assorted sites report that he is still with us and is 83 years old.

The Smothers Brothers!

If you remember gathering in the streets with your friends listening to Led Zeppelin on a cassette player, while the parents sit on lawn chairs in the drive way drinking beer and ice tea, talking about cars, family and politics.

Laugh-In, sit-ins, love-ins and happenings

"The whole world is watching." "The revolution will not be televised."

Oh, and "I buried Paul."

Haircuts I have had:

Pixie, when I was about 8
Pageboy, when I was 10
Long, straight hair parted in the middle, like Susan Dey
Shag, like Carol Brady
Wedge, like Dorothy Hamill

For those of us who remember Peter and Gordon, Gordon Waller passed away on July 17:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/jul/19/obituary-gordon-waller

Thanks, Phaeda. I remember a couple of their hits, including Lady Godiva.

From the other side of the pond:

You watched the first series of Dr Who and it was really frightening.

You can still do arithmetic on £sd and you remember when we went decimal.

You had a pair of klackers and your parents didn't ban them for being dangerous.

You could cycle over to your friend's house five miles away and stay all day without anyone being worried about you.

The joy of tights after the terrible lisle stockings you had to wear at school.

Rolling your uniform skirt over at the waistband so you could have the right length and roll it down again quickly when the games mistress measured them all at the beginning of term.

Ironing your hair.

Dreaming of getting to be in the audience on Top of the Pops.

Hi justjim:

On Slinkys: I remember my nephew (now age 50) asking, when he received a Slinky as a gift (at age--whatever age you receive Slinkies, anyway in the 1950s-- "Do REAL Slinkies walk downstairs?"

Pretty logical: he knew it was a toy and if there is a toy form of something there must be a real form, too

Bell-bottom pants, with stripes, no less! Peace symbols, peace signs, protest signs, protest marches, civil rights and anti-war marches...

#83 ironing your hair--oh, yes. And rolling your hair using orange juice cans....

filling up the tank of your first car for 25 cents a gallon.....(for those of you who google this and get 36 cents, I am referring to the "Gas Wars" where stations would try to undercut each other to sell the most volume!)

Romper Room, Engineer Bill, Green Stamps, Blue Chip Stamps, the Helms Bread Truck, the milkman, Bosco, Jets and Ruskins cereals, penny candy, Big Donut, big fluffy petticoats, every spare penny into a mayonnaise jar for the family to go to Disneyland, tying the nickel for milk in the corner of my hankie. On to the Hop, gas wars (and the perks you could get at the gas stations), middriff tops, hot pants, the Smothers Brothers, Laugh In, love-ins. No cell phones, no computers, etc. Those were the simpler days!

Nehru collars.

Full service gas! "May I check your oil, miss?"

Madras plaid - guaranteed to bleed.

cursed with double posting tonight. Apologies.

When you still remember all the words to Davy Crockett KIng of the Wild Fronter, and had your own Coon skin cap to wear.

When the family's first TV had a round screen

And a T.V. light.

test patterns on TV when the station was shut down for the night

And they played the national anthem before they shut down

Except on Labor Day weekend, when Jerry Lewis telethoned thru the night -- it was exciting to think that if you woke up in the night and turned on the tv ... there'd be people on!

Ooo #94. I forgot we had a TV light, that was a duck taking wing. I wonder whatever happened to that thing...

and all the grocery and hardware stores had those thingys to test tv tubes.......

96: varielle,
Ours was a sailing ship with metallic silver sails. My wifes family had a leopard standing majestically on a log.

97: streamsong
T.V. sets with tubes! Now you are really dating yourself.

How about x-ray machines in shoe stores? (what were they thinking?)

Daily serials on the Mickey Mouse Club? like Spin and Marty? (With Kevin Corcoran as Moochie)

Buster Brown shoes (Hi I'm Buster brown. I live in a shoe. This is my dog Tyge. He lives in there too.)

What's My Line ... sponsored by Stopette deoderant

Your Hit Parade on Saturday nights (TV show killed by rock and roll - Snooky Lanson and Dorothy Collins trying desparately to sing "Hound Dog.")

>98 usnmm2:

Actually there where TV tube (I think the English call them valves) test stands in the hardware stores up until about the early 70's. I had a small black and white RCA set (bought in late 60's) while in first year college (1974) that I was forever changing tubes...what a different world...B-)

Here is a thought maybe this is another topic (or perhaps it has been done before), but when you were growing up way back then, what did you think the world would be like in 2009?

>97 streamsong: streamsong,

I forgot about the TV sets with tubes! My dear departed grandmother loved to tell the story about finding me at the age of four headed toward the television with screwdriver in hand to "fix the tubes". Apparently I had seen my grandfather do just that!

99: tfrank0630
I think it was Stride Rite or Red Cross shoes that had the x-ray machines. My mother got my first pair of walking shoes in them.

99: tfrank0630,
How could I forget "Wrong way Moochie and his lucky little league socks. The ones that stood up like a pair of casts. :)

I think it was Red Goose shoes that had the x-rays. I was always envious, but we weren't allowed to do that.

I used to love looking at my toes in the little machine. It's a wonder I didn't grow a 6th toe or something.

Green Shield stamps
8 singles stacked on the Dansette (hoping that they would all play)
Shopping at the Co-op and having to remember Mums number

well ... a little too recent maybe but I was a thirtysomething during the run of the tv show "thirtysomething" and am happy to see it'll finally be on dvd in August!

Y'all are making me remember things I haven't thought of in years. Today's hazy recollection is of a singing cowboy named Pick Temple, who might have been on the local channel. I remember he advertised the chocolate chip cookies at the Giant supermarket chain, and we called them Pick Temple cookies. I think he might have also been the one singing

My favorite bread's Heidi
I hope it's yours too
It tastes so delicious
And it's so good for you

And that reminded me of:

On top of spaghetti
All covered with cheese
I lost my poor meatball
When somebody sneezed

It rolled from the table
And onto the floor
And then my poor meatball
Rolled right out the door.

There was a lot more, but that's all I can remember. What? Controlled substances? Recreational chemicals? Not me.

My father STILL sings that spaghetti song every time we have spaghetti. His grandkids think he's nuts. I just sing along with him.

Seems to me that we got pretty crazy without the recreational chemicals...Read some of this stuff out loud. Our kids would put us away...

How about Chocolate Marsh...or was that just a local (NY) product line?...I loved the Chocolate pump on top...

msg 107 makes me remember listening to Children's Favourites with Uncle Mac on a Saturday morning.

"Goodnight, David. Goodnight, Chet." (Or was it the other way around?)

"And that's the way it is."

Mutual of Omaha's "Wild Kingdom"

Tinkerbell started the disney hour every Sunday night.

"How would you like a nice Hawaiian punch?!"

"You'll wonder where the yellow went when you brush your teeth with Pepsodent." (Pepsident?)

hot pants
platform shoes
Twiggy

the first Polaroid (black and white film) instant camera that looked like a small accordian

Thanks for the memory-jog, everybody in messages 1-110!

The Polaroid Swinger.... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polaroid_Swinger

There's a link to the commercial at the Wikipedia site. That commercial had me hooked. I received the camera for Christmas the year it came out (1965) and carried it to every slumber party after that.

The commercial features a pre-Love Story Ali McGraw, and is sung by, possibly, Barry Manilow.

#109 Steve, I remember a product called Cocoa Marsh, with a pump on top. Great stuff!

>113 Jim53:...Jim,

I think it (Cocoa Marsh...that's the right name) came in strawberry flavor too...it was a national product right?

Did you or any one else ever enjoy the plastic submarines (I think they used to come in cereal boxes) that used to dive in your bathtub with baking soda. They may have had plastic frog men too.

msg 114

Yep remember them over here in the UK, I suppose the 'elf 'n' Safety would prevent them being re-introduced these days. Also remember Jetex rockets and 'planes.

Elves should not be allowed to interfere in safety regulations

Jello 1 2 3 - what happened to that stuff?

I remember the Winky dink Song !!

Folks, as if I actually ~need~ to point out the obvious: #117 is a troll. It may be actually be around our age, but it's merely trying to advertise its site. Ignore the beast, and hopefully it'll be removed from this site very quickly. I'm sick of this kind of behavior.

The first line of 117's reminds me of listening to transistor radios in bed but not for baseball, trying to get Radio Luxembourg on 208 metres.

Also going the The Boys And Girls Exhibition in Olympia and buying a Cat's Whisker radio, but I could never get it to work, and a pantograph drawing machine.

Daktari with Clarence the cross-eyed lion.

How about Skippy the Kangaroo...I think that was an Australian import to the states.

Maya with Jay North and Sajid Khan.

Odd Og.

When you remember going to Disneyland and The Matterhorn cost you an "E-Ticket." (Heck, you remember when they built The Matterhorn.) (Even worse, you remember when Disneyland opened.)

When you remember Tom Terrific and the Mighty Manfred.

When Hostess Cupcakes/Twinkies/Snoballs came in a package of two and cost .13¢, or two packages for .25¢.

... standing by the side of the road, waiting for the school bus, and pumping your arm up and down when a truck went by, inviting the driver to give you a blast from his air horn.

I was in Disneyland the summer it opened in 1955. We (my mother and I)were on our way to the Marshall Islands where my father was stationed.

>128 usnmm2:

usnmm2

I'm not sure how old you were (I guess the oldest you could be would be 6...if I did my math right), but do you have any remembrances of Disneyland in 1955. The only thing that could be comparable for me was the 1964 NY World's Fair. I was 8 years old for that.

I remember green crayon marks I left on the TV's fabric-covered speakers after a "Winky Dink" episode. We were supposed to draw a bridge across a chasm.

129: stevetempo

Oh I have very good memories of it. Riding throught the mines with Snow white and the 7 dwarfs and getting the Sh--! scared out of me by the wicked witch. Loved the flight to the moon and tom sawyers island. And getting to meet the real Mickey Mouse!!!! Any way I was five at the time.
Just as an aside Many years later when We took our kids to Disneyworld I wouldn't go on Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs I sent my wife. (I know I'm a scardy cat) Oh the truamas of childhood, :0).

Also enjoyed the NY Worlds Fair. must have been there 10 or 12 times, between my family, school, scouts, church and just going with my friends for the day.

#87 luvmycats - Southern California girl here, too. The Helms Bread Truck driver was a sour old skinny man, but we loved going into that open-air truck and having him open the drawers so we could spend our money. We also had another bread truck - the Golden something - and that man was nice. We could buy candy on that one too. He had 5 cent cherry or grape suckers and if you opened it up and it said winner on the BACK of the sucker, you got another one for free.

We loved Disneyland. We went there a couple of times a year. Remember all the A-ride tickets floating around the house 'cuz everybody liked the E-ride tickets? I think the A-ride tickets were 10 cents each.

We had some cousins who lived in Anaheim - where Disneyland is - and if we were over there for dinner we could stand in their front yard and see the fireworks.

My mother didn't have a steam iron - she sprinkled all the clothes with water from a glass bottle that had a sprinkle head on it and put them in a bag. She ironed in the kitchen, with the bag of clothes on a chair, the pressed clothes hanging on hangers hung on the door frame.

I only had one Barbie too - still have her. The clothes were gorgeous - satins, silks, lace, tiny buttons, beautiful hems. Nothing like the swill they sell now. Velcro. Give me a break. The wedding dress was $5 - a huge amount then.

My mom sprinkled clothes, too. If she couldn't finish right away, the damp clothes would go into the refrigerator. We didn't have a clothes dryer, so in the winter (Chicago) when it was too cold to hang clothes outside, we'd hang them in the basement. They'd take forever to dry. I remember a wringer on the washing machine, too.

I remember that $5 Barbie wedding dress -- an amazing amount of little-kid money back then.

we had the sprinkler too, and laundry in the fridge. I learned to iron starting with dad's handkerchiefs, and pillowcases (my mom ironed pillowcases, but drew the line at ironing sheets...which my grandma did do!) Mom had a washer and dryer, but prefered (and still does) the clothesline. My grandma had a wringer washer in the old smokehouse. Grandparents lived on a farm w/ no indoor plumbing until 1975, when they moved to town. She filled that washer hauling buckets from the cistern pump.

other random "50 something thoughts"

POW bracelets

you think of Kent State as an event rather than a place

cigarette commercials on tv ("Winston tastes good like a cigarette should.")...also candy cigarettes

I suspect, exiledlibrarian, that we had extremely similar childhoods. Everything you mention, I'm saying yep, yep, oh yeah, 'member that!

135--me too!

TO: BarkingMatt:

On #58: How old do you "know you are" if you think of NOT Roger Moore but ROBERT TAYLOR (1953?) as the guy who played Ivanhoe?

137: rolandperkins

Old enough to know better, but young enough no to care. :o)

MerryMary...
I think all of us raised in small towns in that era had the same childhood! Actually, I'm an Army brat and grew up all over the place, but we visited my parents' home town in southeast Missouri a lot and eventually we ended up there when dad retired from the army in 1975. Army bases are essentially small towns too... :)

hey, any other "brats" out there?

139: theexiledlibrarian

Navy brat here. in 12 different schools by the 7th grade, when my father retired in 1962.

Actually, I'm a railroad brat. Not quite as mobile as the military variety, but when we moved to Sargent, Nebraska I was 11 and had moved 12 times. (Sometimes within the same town as the size of our family outgrew the size of the rental homes we occupied.) Mostly in Nebraska, with a 5 year stint in Montana.

I'm 69 & grew up in the Seattle area in the 40s & 50s. We got our first TV in 1949 & the only station in town was KING TV & they were: only on a few hours a day, came on the air in the middle of the day, ran test pattern for several hours before coming on the air (we would sit there in a darkened room & watch it for several minutes in anticipation!).

In those days Seattle's baseball team was the Seattle Rainiers, a triple A team & they played @ Sick's Rainier Stadium. It was a big treat to go to the games. There were, of course, no major league teams on the west coast in those days!

On Saturday nites a few years later the TV was mine from 8 to 9 pm cuz i always watched 'Saturday nite w/Mr. C' also known as 'The Perry Como Show'! My brother would leave the room & i had the living room to myself along w/the TV. 8^)

Sing to me, Mr. C.,
Sing to me.
A song that I've been waiting to hear.
Just for me, Mr. C.,
Just for me.
And everybody else will disappear....

MerryMary -

My Mom was a railroad brat - my grandparents moved every year, and, at least once, twice in a year, going from one station-master's job to another.

You remember when there was a Soviet Union. ;-)

theexiledlibrarian/134: Same here. But we drew the water from the well with one of those long cylindrical well buckets. Mama used a wringer washer, but Grandma used the washboard. One summer when I was staying with them, Grandpa took us to town and Grandma did the wash at a place called a laundromat. :-)

When my grandparents built their 'new' smoke-house, it turned out to be almost as big as their house. So, it became a storage building, too, Ever after, when Grandma brought a sewing project in to work on, it smelled like a smoked ham.

For Christmas, Grandpa always brought home bags of oranges, mixed nuts, and those big wavey hard candies that are too big to put in your mouth. The men would sit around cracking nuts and chatting; someone would get up every now and again and go out to the woodpile and bring another log for the woodstove. The women would be busy cooking up a storm in the kitchen, and the kids would be told to 'go play'. My family believed in sleeping with frost on their noses, so they kept the bedroom doors shut against the heat from the woodstove. But when we were playing back there, we kept trying to sneak the door open so we could warm up. But were never quiet enough with our play to get the benefit of it for very long.

We lived in the city (Chicago) and being 50 something means remembering my parents telling us to "go play" without worrying about us. We played softball (16"inch, of course, because it is Chicago) on the corner and just got out of the way when cars were coming. We roller skated with the skates that had a key. We made up games all by ourselves. We were never allowed to be indoors if the weather was half-way decent. If someone was caught doing something wrong by an adult in the neighborhood that adult was allowed to "yell" at us and our parents would then second the "yelling" just to make sure.

147 > "Come in when the streetlights come on!"

When I was eight and my sister was ten, we were deemed old enough to walk the half-mile to the bus stop and take the bus to the Marquette theater on 63rd and Kedzie Ave. by ourselves. I think the bus was a dime for kids, and the movies were maybe fifty cents. We didn't usually go to the Colony on 59th and Kedzie by ourselves, because it would have meant paying for a transfer and changing buses for the last four blocks. However, when the family went to the Colony, we would always stop for ice cream bars at the Dove Candies store next door to the theater. Yeah, *that* Dove Candies, the original where they'd hand-dip the ice cream bars in their own chocolate, right in front of you when you ordered.

When I was ten and my sister was twelve, Mom got a part-time job because my sister and I were old enough to stay home alone with our two-year-old sister. If we had any problems (I remember getting locked out at least once), we had plenty of neighbors who would help us out.

I often rode my bike to the Jewel store on 82nd and Kedzie for my mom, because the grocery stores closed at six pm, before dad got home with the car. Once the stores started staying open later, you still couldn't buy meat after 6 pm. Union rules said a butcher had to be on duty or you couldn't sell meat, not even what was already packaged in the meat case. At six pm, the butchers covered the meat case with big sheets of paper and went home.

You know your're 50 something if you remember...

Hi -fi's having a 78 rpm setting, reel to reel tape recorder and the good guys always had the white hat..

My husband still has the reel-to-reel that he just can't bear to part with, even though it's not hooked up to his system.

We also have 78s, LPs, cassettes, and CDs, Beta, VHS, LaserDiscs, DVD, and now BlueRay DVD. We also have all the equipment to play them, although most of it's not hooked up and hiding in the back room.

I had a Sears record player that had a cylinder that fit over the spindle so that you could put a bunch of 45s on it and let them all play. God that thing was ugly. Orange and yellow with flowers.....

Somewhere along the way my 45s got lost, which makes me sad. Especially Pretty Ballerina by Left Banke. And, of course, lots of Beatles 45s.

Are there any songs that, when you hear them now, you anticipate the "click" that occurred when you were playing them on the 8-track player in your car? Certain Dan Fogelberg & Elton John songs still have that click when I "sing" them...

>151 tloeffler: that's so funny! Not clicks, but I listened to a cassette of a Carpenters album over and over the whole way through Gone With the Wind ... and when I hear some of those songs even now, I think of GWTW.

Poodle skirts and saddle shoes. Yeah, OK, I'm over sixty.

Ahh - the memories:

Back to Captain Kangaroo:
Bunny Rabbit and the falling ping-pong balls,
Good books being read and watching the illustrations: Robert McCloskey, Millions of Cats (which was a great way to get me to go to the library and start my bibliophilia!)
Tom Terrific w/ Mighty Manfred "The Wonder Dog" (and his song: "I'm Mighty Manfred (umph) the Wonder Dog in tango style). Also the villains: Isotope Feeny and Crabby Appleton (rotten to the core)

Then the thinking person's TV cartoon show:
Rocky and Bullwinkle (with William Conrad as narrator and Edward Everett Horton doing Fractured Fairy Tales). My parents watched to hear the puns at the end of the Rocky and Bullwinkle episodes.

And finally, for today, the thinking person's newspaper comic: Pogo (always with "Deck us all with Boston Charlie" at Xmas) w/ Albert, Madame Hepzibah, Howland Owl, Churchy la Femme, Gundroon, Deacon (with Gothic Lettering), Beauregard Bugleboy, Simple J. Malarky. Watch the changing name on the sidde of the swamp boat.

As Bob Hope always said: Thanks for the Memories.

As an addendum: Maybe we need to remember what got us going to begin reading as kids and kept us going.

# 154 - "We have met the enemy and he is us"

Crusader Rabbit
and
Tooter the turtle

"Help me Mr. Wizard !!!!"

"Drizzle, drazzle, dradle, drone
Time for this one to come home".

You remember skate keys.

Telephones were on party lines.

Your telephone number began with a word and the first two letters represented the first two numbers.

You reember Gunga Din, Sky King, the Lone Ranger and Freddie Freihofer.

Rough and Reddy cartoons - with the ArchVillan Master Cylinder, who lived on Muni-Mula (which is aluminum spelled backwards.)

Girls rules in basketball!

It would seem that the 'powers that be' back in the 50s thought young women would faint & swoon were they to run the length of a basketball court.

So, the team members were confined to one half of the court-some on each half-& of course only those at the end where their team's goal was would be able to score while the ones on the other half were supposed to gain posession of the ball & pass it to those on the other side of the great divide!

Sound vaguely Victorian to you? It did to me then as well as now. 8^)

160--Oh, how well I remember playing that way. Can you imagine Lisa Leslie or Teresa Witherspoon doing likewise?

Couple more memories.

Following on from my last thoughts about the Boys and Girls Exhibition in 121, using Red Rover bus tickets or even Twin Rover bus and tube tickets.
The Corona lorry coming round and taking the old empty bottles out to him and getting new full bottles.
The sea-food van coming round and getting pints or half-pints of cockles, winkles etc. Then getting a safety pin off Mum to open the winkle and pull out the meat.

Dave

Clyde Crashcup, and his assistant, Leonardo.

170 >

When I was a lass, girls who attended the Chicago public high schools were not allowed to participate in extramural sports, only intramural. Apparently, playing against students who attended other schools, although fine for young men, would have been too stressful or undignified for the young ladies.

As I recall, we played some sort of strange variation on basketball called captain's ball, which required a member of each team (the "captain"?) to stand on a fixed spot. The ball could not progress to the net without being passed through the captain's hands. At least, I think it was something like that; having never seen it played before or since, the details are all a little vague to me now.

Firesign Theatre:

1. "Today we will learn 3 new words in Turkish: taffee, towel, border... May I see your passport, please?"

2. "My blood would not make a suitable copy, so I acquired an electric typewriter."

3. "--My son, do you have a gun?
-------No father, I don't.
-------Here! Have one of mine!"

(from "Waiting for the Electrician")

The Saturday matinee was 50 cents for two movies and cartoons, and only one screen in the theater.

The dollar sign had two lines through it.

I think you'd have to be from the NY Metro area, but anybody else remember Jean Shepherd's radio show and Uncle Floyd's TV show on NJN?

You could give your $0.02 by typing 2¢ right from the keyboard (instead of spending 2 minutes looking for the HTML code for it).

Back to laundry for a moment... we had a wringer washer too. We also had a mangle in the kitchen. My mom used to run the linens through it.

>114 stevetempo:

"Did you or any one else ever enjoy the plastic submarines (I think they used to come in cereal boxes) that used to dive in your bathtub with baking soda."

Yes!

The toy mules and wagons from Twenty Mule-Team Borax!

#167 - Uncle Flloyd!!!! Scott Gordon is a friend of mine.

Never had color TV as a kid. In Chicago there was CBS on 2, NBC - 5, ABC - 7, WGN - 9, PBS - 11. Garfield Goose and Friends with Frazier Thomas. Bozo's Circus. Three Stooges every afternoon hosted by an old guy in an alley. Lived for Disney on Sunday.

The Beatles arrived in the US on the day my baby brother was born and we didn't have to go to school - Feb 7, 1964.

My mom had an Ironrite contraption that she did the bulk ironing with. Clothes were usually hung outside.
50 lb sack of potatoes was $3.

There was a theater up in Antioch where we would all go. They gave away stuff. Saw 'The 13 Ghosts' there. Spent most of the movie on the floor screaming. No cassette players until a teenager.

Our local movie theater had a 50 cent matinee on Saturdays in the late 1960's. My best friend and I used to go every week, then wander the business district for a little shopping. Mostly window shopping, but I remember buying one of the memorable books of my youth (long since lost) at Grants on one of those Saturdays -- it was a ghost/horror story anthology, More Tales to Tremble By.

Did any of you guys get to order books from Scholastic Book Services? I still have some of them - Escape from Warsaw, The Enormous Egg, Mark Twain's Best, Yellow Eyes, and Danny Dunn and the Anti-Gravity Paint. They were 25 to 60 cents each (I don't know how to make a cents sign.)

I would pour over the catalogs, count my quarters, and wait anxiously for the orders to arrive.

Separate item - we had an incinerator in the back yard when I was very young and had just moved to a new subdivision (1955). They took it away sometime soon after, certainly by the time I was 5 or so. Big cement thing to burn trash in. Of course, all those incinerators contributed to LA's smog problem.

#173 hdzookeeper I remember the first time I saw a color TV - it was at Vicky Murdock's house and I saw the NBC peacock. I was in 3rd grade, so that would make it 1961 or so. We didn't get one until 1968.

edited to include all my Scholastic books.

>173 hdzookeeper:, 174...

I remember the first time I ever saw color TV...1965 at a cub scout (this was big in the 1950's and 1960's) meeting at our Den Mother's house...It was a an old Popeye cartoon. It blew me away, unfortunately we didn't get one in our house until the early 1970's.

I didn't have a similar mind blowing experience until I used an electronic calculator for the first time in 1973 and then surfed the Internet for the first time in 1995.

I"m loving this thread and just read it in one sitting. I didn't think there'd be anything to add but--

I had short white go-go boots, all the girls wore them just like Hullaballo TV dancers.

Fox's U-Bet -- chocolate syrup and the only one to use to make an egg cream.

Roger Moore on TV as The Saint

77 Sunset Strip -- Kooky, lend me your comb.

Miss Revlon doll--I never had a Barbie, this must have been the competition. It was somewhat larger than Barbie, too.

Mighty Mouse

Oh yes, I remember The Matterhorn and "E" tickets. I was in college by the time I got to Disneyland and rode it four times straight. It was amazing. Years later, as an adult (uh, yeah, I guess I finally grew up...) I went on the updated version--Space Mountain. Took one ride and staggered off clutching my stomach.

E.G. Marshall in The Defenders. I think this may have started my Law and Order addiction!

Push-button driving. You just pressed the P, R, N, D or L and were off!

Traffic lights that stood on the corner on a pole.

Mail boxes on a pole! And on every other block, at least!

Banging the side of the TV to get better reception, putting foil or a hanger on the rabbit ears...

Picking one TV station for the night so you wouldn't have to keep getting up to change the channel.

So it goes....

Checking every corner of the outhouse for snakes before commiting to the dropping of drawers.

We had a remote - my baby sister. She learned to recognize the numbers 2, 5, and 13 very early, and later learned the numbers in between.

Lee and I bought our first color tv set in 1972. Stayed up late to watch a black-and-white movie, just so we could see the color commercials!

>175 karenmarie: I loved the Scholastic books! $.35 was big money. I remember debating what to get--The Enormous Egg or No Children, No Pets. I ended up with both eventually.

My mom had a pad to place her hot iron on that I am certain had to be made from asbestos. It had a cute little line drawing of a 50s era lady in apron ironing away.

Secret Agent with, who was it? Patrick McGoohan? In the US, Johnny Rivers sang the title song "Secret Agent Man."

My parents bought their first color TV in 1972, three years after I moved away. I don't think I owned one until the 1980s. It still occasionally surprises me to see an old movie or TV show in color today that I only remember in black and white.

Getting an add-on or a new set for UHF channels.

My mother's "stories," her soap operas, came on around noon-time. Some were half an hour, but most were 15 minutes long, the same as the nightly news.

Our first color tv came from Sears and had a remote that looked like a ray gun which was connected by a wire. You clicked it to make the channels go up or down and a dial to make the volume loud or soft. We thought it was the greatest thing ever.

How excited were we when mum got a 'twin-tub' washing machine!!
Archie comics
steam trains being the usual rather than the special event
The fantastic Sgt Pepper's album sleeve
in Australia: changing to decimal currency in 1966

every year, my sisters and I waited in anticipation for the yearly airing of The Wizard of Oz. We didn't get a color tv until the early 70's so, it was really cool we finally got one and saw the difference when Dorothy got to Oz and everything was in color! We also couldn't wait to each year to see Rogers & Hammerstein's Cinderella and all those stop-motion Christmas shows, like Rudolph, The Little Drummer Boy, and Santa Claus is Coming to Town. Also Charlie Brown Christmas, and How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

#182 Not to mention, Patrick McGoohan and Diana Rigg in "The Avengers!" And how long has it been since I've heard them referred to as "stories!" The whole house shut down during Mom's stories!

#185 I have a VHS copy of Rogers & Hammerstein's Cinderella, with Lesley Ann Warren and Stuart Damon--beats the heck out of the Brandy version. And don't forget Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol. I still watch all those Christmas shows every year.

Mr. Magoo's was my favorite version of A Christmas Carol! I still remember the tunes of the songs.

> 175 I loved ordering Scholastic Book Services books, too. (I think that's where I got Plain Girl by Virginia Sorenson, and The Ghost of Dibble Hollow, among other memorable reads) . . . but you don't need to be fifty-something to remember that. My son was ordering Scholastic Books through his school just a few years ago, when he was in Elementary school. And they were still inexpensive, relatively speaking.

> 179 I love it! I think I was the "remote" for our family TV for a while.

>182 PhaedraB: I loved that theme song from Secret Agent, too! But for watching, we were partial to The Man from UNCLE. And Get Smart -- that was my mom's favorite! (My mom loved to laugh.)

>185 theretiredlibrarian: I remember The Wizard of Oz airing every year (and, yes, the first year we saw it in color was especially memorable). Another one I remember was The Princess and the Pea, they aired that yearly for a while.

(BTW, does anyone else have the touchstones go haywire when you go in and edit a message? I wound up removing one because it shifted to a wrong book, and refused to be corrected.)

186> Diana Rigg starred with Patrick Macnee. Patrick McGoohan was also in The Prisoner -- was that show in color? I only ever saw it in b&w.

My dad once pointed out that you could always tell when Emma Peel was going to be in a fight by watching for when she was wearing pants, usually those skin-tight jump suits.

My brother and sisters always had to laugh at me during the yearly airing of "Wizard of Oz." I had to leave the room during the flying monkeys. They were too scary. And I was the oldest!

Mom went back to teaching when I was in 7th grade, but before that she was really hooked on her stories. I remember her always saying that the people on the soaps would lead happier lives if they didn't drink so many cocktails. "They all have bars in their living rooms. It's ridiculous." But of course she didn't stop watching until she went back to work.

Mary,

I had to leave the room when Mrs. Gulch turned into the wicked witch during the tornado!

#190, 191 Isn't it funny, the things that scared us when we were kids that we laugh about now? I can think of a few . . .

Scared us when we were kids? How about Maleficent in the Disney version of Sleeping Beauty? I could not stand to watch her, and I had nightmares for days after I saw it. My parents thought they were really giving me a treat, too. Disney was not all sweetness and light!

Maleficent! When we went to see the movie, it was so crowded we had to sit in the front row. I knew it would be scary, and we were so close, and I was sooo afraid I wouldn't cover my eyes at the right time ... wow, I guess I had anxiety attacks then, too!

Did anyone else watch Dark Shadows?

Yes!

We use to discuss it on the school bus. I started collecting the series.

We loved watching the annual showing of The Wizard of Oz. Big family event.

I can remember smelling the orange blossoms while driving to Disneyland when I was a kid - it's when there really were orange groves in Orange County California.

When my kid sister started having kids, she got the VHS of Wizard of Oz, but told the offspring they could only watch it on holidays. She wanted to preserve it as a special event, the way it was for us when we were growing up.

One day, her oldest comes to her and says, "It's my birthday tomorrow, right?"

"Why, yes, it is."

"Is my birthday a holiday?"

"Well, I guess it is a kind of holiday, yes."

"Good. I'm going to watch Wizard of Oz tomorrow."

Never underestimate the logic of a child wanting something.

>186 tloeffler: Ah, Phaedra, you're absolutely right. You know you're a 50-Something LibraryThinger when you can't remember anything!

>188 tymfos: tymfos, are you talking about Once Upon A Mattress, with Carol Burnett and Ken Berry? Another one of my all-time favorites!

>201 tloeffler: Yes, that's it! "Once Upon a Mattress."

> 195, 196 I loved Dark Shadows! Not only watched it, but read many of the Dark Shadows novels . . . couldn't tell you which ones, though. (Hmm, I'd forgotten those books . . .)

>202 tymfos: tymfos
I didn't know there where books.

They were paperbacks, of course. I think I bought a bunch of them at a flea market long ago, and in my hometown's old paperback book exchange store. I seem to recall a lot of them revolved around the young governess . . . hmm, with the popularity of the "paranormal romance" genre, they could probably make a comeback! :)

Especially since I hear rumors of a Dark Shadows movie in the works; wouldn't be real surprised if they were re-issued! :-)

I actually own one. Don't think I've read it, though.

To Tymfos et al. :

Come to think of it,, there was a very disappointing movie of the 1940s -- possibly because it DIDN'T scare me. (DIdn't make much of any other impression, either.) It was "The Flying Serpent".

But I wasn't aware of wantng to be scared. Just expected it to be fascinating, and it wasn't.

Curioously, oneof the most disappointing movies of my adult viewing was "Cobra". (Seen in the 1980s, whatever decade it was from.) I don't seem to do well with reptilian themes.

And from the back of beyond ...

Petrol pumps 7 feet tall, where the attendant (very occasionally this kid when he got lucky) swung a handle and first one, then the other, 1-gallon glass measure would fill and empty into the car, until the preset amount had been delivered ...

"No Place to Hide" (a truly awful sf series) on Springbok Radio ...

Top 40 on LM radio (aside: I see someone in Durban has made that into a musical-of-sorts; it was on in Durban in the last couple of weeks) ...

Decimal Dan, the Rand-cent man of 1961 ...

and in South Africa, TV was considered sinful until we got it in 1976.

...I love Lucy, The Beverly Hillbillies and Voyage to the bottom of the Sea, were T.V. shows from the USA shown in the U.K. when I was a kid. I love Lucy is still a favourite , I have just read her autobiography

Also free milk was withdrawn from all schools in the U.K. by Mrs Thatcher.... she was known as."Thatcher the milk snatcher"

"This is the cereal that's shot from guns!"

#211, yes, Jennie, I remember that commercial. It was set to the theme at the end of the 1812 Overture, is that right? Now I'm not sure which cereal it was--Cocoa Puffs?

Quaker Puffed Wheat?

I remember the 1812 Overture and the long cannons exploding with cereal.

It was Quaker Puffed something--maybe all the varities . . .

I was taken to the cinema to see Pinocchio when I was 5-6ish. I was so scared by the whale that I didn't eat my choc-ice (a real treat) and let it melt all over my arm.

In 1964, a Mickey-D's "surf-and-turf" special (my term) cost exactly one dollar. It was a cheeseburger, a fish-fillet sandwich, a small milk, and small fries. Today, that price is my "inflation adjuster".

re Dark Shadows - I saw some episodes on the Chiller channel (DirectTV) just recently.
How about the ads where doctors recommended their favorite cigarettes?
I can remember not being allowed to stay up for The Twilight Zone and forcing myself to go to sleep when I heard the theme music.
I grew up in the Virgin Islands and in the early 60s the only station came on at 3:00 pm and went off at 11:00 pm. One of the most important links I had to the whole 70s scene was Casey Kasem and American Top 40 every Sunday afternoon. I missed most of the Beatles and Elvis era. The radio stations there played Calypso and Motown music (loved the Temptations and the Supremes). The only color TV I enjoyed was when we visited my grandparents in Florida in the summer. W.D.'s Wonderful World of Color

We had a neighbor with color tv who used to invite us over on Sunday evenings to watch Perry Como and Bonanza in color.

All the old Dark Shadows shows are available on DVD on Netflix..... I've been sporadically watching them but haven't yet gotten to where Quentin (my favorite!) enters the plot.

Rumor has it Johnny Depp has signed on to be Barnabas.....

Quentin!!!
**drools all over herself**

Quentin!!!
**drools all over herself**

My entire sixth grade class sent a letter of protest to ABC when they canceled Dark Shadows.

and Quentin was the man. Nicholas Blare, the warlock, remember him? Not too shabby either.

My mother wouldn't let me watch "The Three Stooges" because she thought it was too violent.

sigh....

My mom wouldn't let us watch the Three Stooges, because she thought they were too stupid!!

>224 theretiredlibrarian:: Hah! That's hilarious! k4k

#217--I was in Aruba and my only access to the Beatles etc. was Kasey Kasem on the Voice of America shortwave. You had to tune the radio exactly, and even then it kept fading in and out. No tv though.

My scariest movie as a child was Old Yeller. For months after I saw it I thought our dog was getting rabies every time he barked.

# 180--Re Scholastic Books: I still have my childhood copy of No Children, No Pets. I was enthralled by the idea of living in a motel. Two other favorite Scholastics I still have are Castaways in Lilliput and The Road to Agra. I was so disappointed when none of these books appealed to my kids.

Hair (The Musical) and Jesus Christ Superstar.

Miss Frances and Ding Dong School

To number 186: The Avengers starred Patrick McNee. McGoohan was the "Secret Agent Man" and later "The Prisoner." Diana Rigg was an Avenger and was awesome (or whatever the equivalent word at the time was).

How about the "Man from Uncle." One of my first crushes, the other was Spock from the original Star Trek.

My first Barbie doll--burned by my neighbor because I made her too anatomically realistic in the bust area with a magic marker. And I was so thrilled that a girl doll had a bust! Especially with the popularity of Twiggy and mini skirts on long skinny gals.

Dodgeball as the best playground game.

The deaths of the Kennedy Brothers. Your mom telling you about the Gracchi.

David McCallum who played Illya Kuryakin on "The Man From Uncle" is a regular on the "NCIS" TV series 40 years after he did "The Man From Uncle". 8^)

>230 Vanye:
One of the best lines EVER in an NCIS episode was when one of the female characters (I forget if it was Kate or Abby) asked Gibbs what Ducky (McCallum's character) looked like when he was young, and Gibbs answered, with a perfectly deadpan delivery, "Illya Kuryakin". :-D

>231 staffordcastle:
It was Kate and I love that episode.

I adored Illya Kuryakin, but my first crush was Richard Chamberlain as Dr. Kildare.

Growing up I spent an awful lot of enjoyable hours watching Saturday Morning Cartoons which were The Best:

The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Show
The Jetsons
Spiderman
Jonny Quest
Magilla Gorilla
Top Cat
The Wacky Racers
Squiddly Diddily
Rocky & Bullwinkle
Fractured FairyTales
Scooby-Doo
Dudley Do-Right
Beany & Cecil
Speed Racer
Gigantor
Fireball XL-5
The Flinstones with the little green Martian, The Great Gazoo

Petticoat Junction
That Girl
Mission Impossible
Gilliagan's Island
Green Acres
My Favorite Martian
McHale's Navy
Gomer Pyle,USMC
The Andy Griffith Show
The Girl From U.N.C.L.E.
The Flying Nun
Family Affair
Leave It To Beaver
Batman
Daniel Boone
Davy Crockett
The Monkees
H.R. Pufnstuff
The Wonderful World of Disney
The Beverly Hillbillies
Ultraman
Creature Featue with Count Gore De Vol
Sir Graves Ghastly
The Banana Splits Show
Wagon Train
Raw Hide
Gunsmoke
The Mod Squad
Mannix
Hawaii 5-0
The Partridge Family
The Brady Bunch
This Is Tom Jones
The Red Skelton Show
Hee Haw

I too remember watching The Man From U.N.C.L.E.; Get Smart, The Avengers, The Saint, The Prisoner, coming home from school to watch Dark Shadows, watching The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show. In fact my family used to watch The Ed Sullivan Show every Sunday night.

Beatles1964

Having to actually get up to change the channels on the t.v. by hand and to also adjust the volume either up or down by hand too. This of course is way before remotes, (B.R.). I remember buying my very first VCR in 1979 an RCA Selectavision with a 15 foot long cord you stretched out on the floor in order to cut out commercials. You clicked the button up to pause recording while the commercials were on and then you clicked the button down to start recording. This would've been considered State of the Art back in the day. And your video tape went in the top of the VCR not in the front like it is now and you could recrod up to 4 hours on one video tape. I originally paid $749 not counting taxes of course, for the RCA Selectavision which was on Sale from it's original price of $1,100.

Beatles1964

And your video tape went in the top of the VCR not in the front like it is now...

Sounds like you were on the losing side of the VHS/BetaMax war.

That's where you're wrong. I consider Beta to be the loser in the VHS/Beta VCR War. I could record up to 4 hours at a time while Beta could only record for 1.5 hours even though they say with Beta you got a much clearer picture. I gave up the clarity of the picture for the extended recording time. And besides VHS is still around today and Beta is extinct like the Dinosaurs, the DoDo birds and the Edsel. So who's the winner and who's the loser now? I say I certainly made a much better decision because you can't even find any replacement parts for Beta VCR's if anyone still happens to own one. Plus I would certainly would've been the loser if I had sunk thousands of $$$$ into Beta video tapes and Pre-Recorded movies like I have with my VHS VCR's over the years. So I feel I certainly came out ahead in the VHS vs. Beta VCR War

I'm not sure if you could even find any Beta replacement parts on E-Bay. It's possible but since I don't have that worry I never bothered to double- check and see whether or not you can find Beta replacement parts on E-Bay you can find just about anything on E-Bay if you look hard enough.

Beatles1964

And you were putting the tapes in the top? Not that it matters, formats and vectors have moved on. Since then we've had Laser Discs (LD) and Digital Versatile Discs (DVD) and High Definition DVD and Blue Ray DVD. All gone. Well BR is down but fighting, but it can't last. Streaming and PVRs are the future.

But then, you don't know the future.

Yea at the time I was loading video tapes in the top. So what? At the time it was the technology of the day. In fact my first two RCA Selectavision VCR's were top loading. I know we've moved on since then. But today I still own 45's. LP's, 78's, Audio Cassettes, two Play Station Ones, plus some old Play Station One video games,plus CD's and DVD's. Just because technology changes doesn't mean I have to get rid of everything I've collected over the years. I still like listening to my Cassettes tapes from time to time. I plan on eventually buying myself a PS3.

Beatles1964

I still have my 45s and LPs.

I sold my (400+) 45s about 20 years ago. I had copied most of them to cassette tapes so I could listen to them in the car. They took up a lot of room and we rarely pulled them out. I sold them as a group to a used record dealer, and I found out afterwards that he had immediately sold more than half of them to a strip club. I have resisted the temptation to tell my wife I want to go hear them again. I sort of miss them, but the sound quality was pretty awful, especially on the ones that over the years had been used for frisbees or coasters.

My family didn't go to church.... dad was officially agnostic.... and I was always jealous of the other girls in the neighborhood who got new dresses, Easter bonnets, gloves, white purse, and new white patent leather shoes for Easter. I think my sister and I got Easter bonnets one year, but of course had no place to wear them.

More "Illya" memories here http://www.librarything.com/topic/66164

Memories!...RCA Beta...I think I paid $20 for my first beta tape (1982)...of course I payed over $3,500 in 1989 for a 386 computer and monitor (it had 80 meg disk...B-) )

I still have and use on occasion my Sony Walkman from the 1980's.

#244 stevetempo: When I was an IT manager in 1986, they bought me a PC - 10MB harddrive, 9-pin printer, 16K RAM (I think), black and white monitor. It cost over $10,000.

>245 karenmarie: Wow! So some things have gone done ( a lot) in price...amazing!

I remember in high school those data punch cards ("do not fold, spindle, or mutilate")...I have no idea what they were used for, though.

In college, about 1978, the journalism school (U of Missouri) got "VDTs" (Video Display Terminals) on which the j-students wrote their stories for the newspaper. My j-student roommates thought they were awesome, and they were state of the art...no typewriters! As far as I know, all they did was word processing; I think they still had to print a hard copy to physically take to the editor.

At the same time, in the School of Library and Information Science, I was taking Cataloging, and still making author, title, subject cards. We had no technology whatsoever...I think we may have gone to the university library on a field trip to LOOK at the OCLC terminal, but we didn't actually get to use it. People may sigh longingly for an old fashioned card catalog, but if you ever had to TYPE those blasted cards, you wouldn't be so nostalgic! I'm not a real techie person--can barely use my cell phone, and don't get FaceBook, etc.--but I LOVE the fact that I can catalog books instantly, using someone else's work (original cataloging is time consuming, maddening, painstaking work, for which I have no patience).

Professors talked about a new technology that would soon replace VHS: laser discs, which were about 10" in diameter. lol, whatever happened to those? I used one once, while student teaching a science class in 1997! I couldn't believe that a school was still using it!

I was in college when I took my first computer course - Fortran typed out on cards. Then you had to wait your turn while budding programmers loaded their cards into a computer that took up half the room to run their programs. After I graduated, I got my first computer, a Commodore 64. It was hooked up to a TV for a monitor and I had an audio cassette machine to store stuff. For a wedding present, my parents gave my husband and me a Zenith 386 with an rpg monitor. Ah, those were the days!

When I first came to the Library 31 years ago I didn't have too many ILL Requests in Doc. Delivery to pull and photocopy so I'd go back to our Serials Dept. and help out there all the time. Anyway, we used to check in journal and newsletter issues in the old gray Kardex filies and you'd check them in on large orange index cards. Does anyone else here remember using the gray Kardex filing cabinets and large over sized orange index cards?

At the time we only had one photcoopy machine an old looking grayish-gray Xerox Copier that had a foot pedal on the floor and a huge hump in the glass platen plus a little ledge on the side so that you could press down real hard on all of the old over sized journal like New England Journal of Medicine and the PDR's too. And if you wanted to copy something on both sides of the paper after the front side was printed you had to put it back in the paper tray upside down otherwise the second page would always come out looking weird with the first page looking normal and the second page being upside down. I can tell you this from personal experience.

And my frist introduction to using a computer was a Wang. Does anyone here also remember Wang computers? When I graduated from HIgh School way back in 1977 they were still teaching Typewriting courses. My Sophmore year in High School I learned on the old manual style typewriter with the silver handle to return the page and then a bell would "ding" when it got to the end of the other side.

It wasn't until my Junior year in High that we actually got ot use the Selectric II & III models to type on.

Beatles1964

My library was using one of those grey rotary files for checking in journals up to about seven years ago, when we finally got an online system; I think we still have it somewhere!

I can remember from my 5th grade Weekly Reader an article. Talking to a person on the telephone and being able to see them on a picture screen. That was 1957-1958. Sure glad I am now around to see it happen.

I remember that too! I remember figuring out how old I would be in the year 2000, and wondering if I would possibly still be alive to see the wonders of the future. (Still waiting for my personal jetpack)

You wore bell-bottoms

You listened to music on LPs, or Spool tapes if you were keeping up with the Joneses

You tried to be flower people

To dragon 178:

"You TRIED to be flower people"
(emphasis added)
I never tried. I was 34 in 1965, but I wondered:

Didnʻt anyone SUCCEED?

#249 beatles1964 - I learned to type on an Underwood in 10th grade - a huge old clunker of a machine. You had to have muscles to force the carriage return back and you really had to pound the keys hard to get the keys to strike the paper evenly.

There was one electric typewriter in the classroom. We occasionally got to use it.

When I got a job at Micom in 1981 as a programmer and had an HP terminal, I still pounded the keys from habit and got the nickname Turbohacker. This was, of course, before hacker became pejorative. Two of my friends still call me Turbohacker.

I also still pound the keys pretty hard.

#255 Believe it or not, despite all the computers we have, our library still has one of those old manual typewriters behind the ciruclation desk . . . and it still gets used!

I had an old jingle run through my head last week; I suppose it is unique to Chicago:

"We're doing our Christmas shopping at Robert Hall this year..."

"Morris B. Sachs aaannnd Company!"

My paternal grandfather courted my grandmother when she was nanny to Morris B. Sach's kids back at the beginning of the 20th century.

I remember visiting the Fair Store in downtown Chicago during the holiday season more than fifty years ago. One floor (4th? 7th?) had kiddie rides. It was our favorite store for visits to Santa.

Sometimes we'd go downtown on the day after Thanksgiving, not to shop, but to see the Christmas windows and decorations, which didn't go up until Thanksgiving (boy, that dates me right there!)

You can tell I'm in retail, when Christmas hits my brain in October--sheesh :-)

Phaedra, we did the same thing in downtown St. Louis. We'd go down to look at the Christmas windows and decorations at Famous-Barr (now Macy's), then we'd go upstairs and wander through an enormous animated display, different every year, on the way to visit Santa Claus, where we had our picture taken (someone was always crying in the picture--why do we torture our children so?) and got a gift. I remember a plastic bank shaped like a huge Kennedy half dollar...
It was a big deal. I was always sorry my sons missed it.

So did we, in San Francisco. Macy's, I.Magnin and J.Magnin always had great windows, but the BEST ones were at Gump's. The City of Paris always had an enormous Christmas tree, as tall as the four-story light well at the front of the store, under the stained-glass window of the original ship, the City of Paris, that the store was named after.

edited to add the Magnins stores

#257 Was Robert Hall a Midwest store? I remember shopping with the family for school clothes, at one in South Bend,IN.

I don't think it was just Midwest. I seem to remember there used to be a Robert Hall not too far from where we lived in New Jersey when I was a kid.

#257 (PhaedraB), #258 (toeffler), #259 (staffordcastle),
We used to enjoy going to downtown Denver to see the annual Christmas decorations. At that time the Salvation Army's bell ringers, with their "kettles" for collecting donations, all dressed like Santa, so there was a Santa on every corner plus a "Santa" in each department store...made it difficult for my folks to sustain the myths about "Santa Claus"!

My family did the same thing here in NYC. The day after Thanksgiving we'd go to the early show 5 pm (before the prices went up) at Radio City. Then go out to Dinner and walk 5th Ave. to look at all the stores Holiday decorations. Of corse back then you didn't have to morgage your first born to see the show and go to dinner in a fairly nice place.

As far as Robert Hall goes, I lived all over the country growing up and there was a Store almost every place we lived. They were all set up the same way too.

You know your're 50 something if you remember... or use the line on your boss (who is younger than you).... "My biorhythm's must be on a triple low. Thats why ____________ happened" (fill in blank)

You know yu're 50 if you can remember the lyrics to:

The Addams Famly Theme song
The Monkees Theme song
Scooby-Doo Where Are You? Theme song
The Brady Bunch Theme song
The Flintstones Theme song
Gilligan's Island Theme song
Josie and the Pussy Cats Theme song
The Partridge Family Theme song
Daniel Boone Theme song
Davy Crockett Theme song
Rawhide Theme song
Have Gun Will Travel Theme song
Howdy Doody Theme song
The Mickey Mouse Club Theme song

Beatles1964

And cigarette jingles.

Yea, I forgot about them.

We've come a long way, baby
Winston tastes good like a cigarette should.
Come to where the flavor is, come to Marlboro Country.

These are the only ones I can think of off the top of my head.

Od course there's also all of the commecials for Airlines too.

British Airways- The World's Favourite Airline
Fly the Friendly skies of United
I also seem to remember tv ads in the ealry 70s with women dressed up in Stewardess uniforms and say- Hi, I'm Debbie or I'm ( insert name here) Fly me in a very sexy voice

Beatles1964

Am I the only one who thinks it's kind of sad how much of this thread is filled with references to television and other forms of popular entertainment? These, then are our generation's landmarks rather than historic events, economic transformations, social movements, or inventions that remade daily life? I know that some of us 50-somethings even read books, too. Our parents are the children of the depression and the greatest generation but we're consumers of TV.

268: WildMaggie

Your are right! and the "Greatest Generation" made, bought, watched and were proud of their TVs. They wanted what was promised them at the 1938-39 Worlds Fair, then after depressions and 2 wars and the fear that the world would blow it's self up, they retreated to their living rooms in track houses and watched the world as they imagined and wanted it to be.
So we as 50 somethings look back with a childs nostoligic eye to a A 'simpler' time Before Sputnick, ICBMs, and watching, in those same living rooms, wars fought on those same tvs. So we as 50 somethings now retreat back to our books, to find a world we imagine and want to escape to.

269>

I still want my flying car.

270>
Me Too!!

I'm still expecting my personal jet-pak.

How about the Space Age modern kitchen that did everything for you? I remember seeing the old newsreels about what kitchens will look like in the future.

Beatles1964

I remember the first Sunday night at the Dallas Brooks Hall Evans and Gudinsky had Little River Band all you could want for five dollars Australian. Good value!

I paid US$5.50 to see the Beatles. Low end tickets were $2.50.

I was a voracious reader when I was young. I grew up in a place that had very little television (St. Thomas). When I was very young I loved the Eloise books. I can remember coming across some hidden in my mother's closet (looking for Christmas gifts). Every time she left the house I pulled them down to read them. When I was in high school I loved James Michener books such as Hawaii and Caravans since they were so long. If I had nothing else to read, I would open Gone With the Wind at a random page and read from there.

I bet we spent less time time in front of the TV, then kids do now, in front of the computer,Play Stations, etc.

Our one station, a CBS affiliate came on at 3:00 pm and signed off at midnight. One of the things that occupied my brother and me was a stamp collection comprised of stamps from both of our grandfathers. My American grandfather worked for Texaco International and my French grandfather owned a cafe in Nice. Between the two of them we had many old and precious stamps. My favorites were from France and the French colonies because they were the most colorful. My brother worked on the U.S.A. stamps and I had the rest of the world. I learned so much about geography and history from working on those stamps. I can remember newspaper all over the place with stamps drying that had been soaked off of envelopes. One of the most interesting covers went under the North Pole in a submarine (can't think of the name). I still have the books that my Papa had with his spidery European handwriting.

My dad was in the army, and we spent about 3 years overseas in Japan. There was no English language tv. Unless you figured out what was going on in Japanese tv (which we sometimes would make up our own stories), or luck out finding an American show on (try figuring out Mission: Impossible in a foreign language, and listening to Hoss Cartwright talk in Japanese); the Andy Williams show was on in English, and we watched The Roadrunner ("beep beep!" in Japanese is "beep beep!")--you were out of luck. So we spent a lot of time at the base library checking out books. And at the PX buying comics. The neighborhood kids also used to dress up and write/perform plays--our mothers gave us a clothesline and old blankets for curtains, and we'd spend hours outside rewriting the books we read and performing. "Cinderella" was a favorite, and everyone took turns wearing the lace petticoat that served as the ballgown. Every Saturday, kids would be put on the bus (unchaperoned!) to go to a neighboring base to the matinee movies...usually 2 movies & a cartoon for $.35! Then we'd go to the PX, or to get a snack at the snack bar--no adults! I was 9 or 10; about 1968 or 69. Can you imagine a parent today allowing their child to take a bus in a foreign country and attend a movie all afternoon w/ only a bunch of other little kids! lol; I didn't even let my kids go to the Stop N Go 6 blocks away until they could drive themselves!!

We did have Armed Forces Radio, which played a lot of the old radio shows from the '30s and '40s, so I know a lot more about them than most people my age do.

Did anyone else learn the mass in Latin? This was before I studied Latin, so it was primarily a matter of learning a bunch of syllables to mumble in response to the priest. I learned what a few of the words meant, but any chance of retaining it went out the windw when they changed to saying mass in English.

Hi Jim53:

I was 33 when the mass was changed to the vernaculars. So now, a U.S. mass has to be in English (or Spanish?) A mass in Tonga has to be in Tongan or English. I suppose a mass In Ireland could be in Irish or English.

I did attend a Latin (!) mass in 1977, some 13 years after the change, at the Uniate Catholic cathedral in Athens, Greece, of all places. Since the Latin had never been the regular language for Greek Catholics, I suppose the Church authorities didnʻt feel threatened by it as a seeming return to the "old" way. Ironically the change TO Latin in Western christian countries, occurred whenn latin was still a spoken language, so it was a change TO their vernacular (as opposed to the Greek of that time) -- in principle the same as the change to the vernaculars in 1964.

I attended Catholic school (and mass) until the middle of 4th grade when I switched to a private school. I took Latin in 7th and 8th grade but Latin masses weren't given anymore. (amo, amas, amat, ...)

Yes. I learned the Mass in latin, and still miss it.

I also learned the Mass in Latin. I can still recite some of it, but like you, Jim, only phonetically. I had no idea back then what I was saying (ekum spirit two-two-oh).

284: tloeffler
I remember that!
That was God's phone number. Right? :)

Eskom Speari 2-2-0

I am rolling on the floor! That is hilarious. I can't say I ever thought of it that way, but it's perfect! Thanks for the belly laugh!

paralleling "Godʻs phone number":

It used to be said of a Boston judge that "his telephone number is 1-0-1-5". -- He was addicted to giving, for relatively small offences, sentences of "10 to 15 years".

286: tloeffler

Glad to make you laugh.
Can't take credit for it though. It's from Sister Margret Mary's Conformation class 195*.

Soupy Sales.

*sniff*

The Eagle Has Landed. If you're only in your 40s now, you probably don't remember that.

Also:

Platform Shoes

Pastel Leisure Suits

and

Illegally imported copies of Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar, published under the pseudonym "Victoria Lucas" in Britain in 1963, but not supposed to be published in the U.S. until after Plath's mother died.

I carry a photo of my husband in my wallet of him dressed in a powder-blue leisure suit. It has had pride of place in every wallet I've had since 1972 (or so).

for years I was so tempted to throw those photos away to avoid the embarrassment, Mary Lou. glad I didn't do so before I found my sense of humor about myself.

One of the things I love about being 50: really, almost nothing embarrasses me anymore.

If I got rid of all my embarrassing memories I'd be a near amnesiac.

#290 reminded me of the Ace Books unauthorised Lord of the Rings, and the grassroots revolution against it. (Disclaimer: I was not aware of it at the time, not being a USAian and being under 10 years old.)

290;
Yes! "The Eagle has landed"

And the response? "You've got a bunch of guys down here about to turn blue"

Even though I know this isn't the right place for this, I just wanted to say, Yea the Eagles landed alright they landed right on top of the Redskins, a.k.a. Deadskins last night at FedEx Field with a 27-17 victory on Monday Night Football.

I'm not a 'Skins fan and I found it impossible to resist to say the Eagles have landed. Of course I remember watching the Moon landing of Apollo 13 on July 20, 1969 on Live tv at the time and The Eagle has landed is referring to them landing on the Moon. The Moon landing was such a great moment in human history and made you feel Proud to know that humans actually landed on walked on another Planet even though there is a video out that says the Moon landing was actually a fake and done in an Hollywood Movie Set and staged because the American flag is flapping in the wind and there is no wind on the Moon and there are a lot of people out there who agree with this theory.

The video also points out a lot of other mistakes as well not just the flag waving on the Moon. Though I don't personally agree with them I do however feel the Government has covered up the 1947 Roswell Alien Space Ship with the dead Alien bodies and has lied to generations of Americans and people around the world saying it was only a silver test Weather Ballon with Craash Test Dummies. I guess that was the best Cover Story they could come up with in a very short period of time since it had already been stated there had been an Alien Space Ship had Crash landed in Roswell. We have also probably been lied to about the assassination of JFK in Dallas in November 1963 as well.

Beatles1964

296: What happens when you play the White Album backwards?

;-)

!ynnuf dednuos sgnihT

Translation to those who didn't understand mamzel's backward message:

Things sounded funny!

Beatles1964

>And the response? "You've got a bunch of guys down here about to turn blue"

If you ever watch the footage, you'll know why, too! Thanks to my amazing web designer, you can link to it here: http://megclayton.com/brett.shtml

>!ynnuf dednuos sgnihT

Ha!

Watching the Addams family right now!

k4k

I just found this very funny thread and had to comment.

Did anyone else have a "milk chute" when they were a kid? I grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and we had a compartment in the kitchen of our house that the milkman could open from outside and deposit the milk bottles(!) in. We opened the compartment from inside the house and put them in the refrigerator.

When I was older, I also hitchhiked back and forth across the country in those innocent days. It was a great way to see the country and meet people.

Nope. We had an insulated box on the front porch. But it wasn't insulated enough. On cold mornings, the cream on top would be frozen and pushed up above the bottle an inch or so.

Our milkman just walked in the back door. He'd call out a greeting, and if no one was home, would look in the fridge and decide what we needed. Our dog loved him.

We had the milk box on the front porch, too. Only, if we were home, the milkman would stop to see if we wanted to buy anything else; he had ice cream, and cottage cheese,etc. I remember my mom buying something from him on a promotion that came with pretty isulated mugs . . . we had those mugs for years!

. . . . .if you find yourself saying ".....the past few decades" more than you say,

".....the past few YEARS..."

If one day you wonder if the officer in the police car is really old enough to have a driver's license.

And your doctor is no way old enough to have finished medical school.

You think the last century means the 1800's.

One day my daughter and I were walking along the street when we came to some beautiful, old slate paving stones. Earlier in the month she had been reading some story for her social studies class that had prompted her to ask me about the history of sidewalks, when they were created, what were they made of, etc. With her past query in mind, as we approached the slate sidewalk, I said, "Oh look, I read recently where this stretch of sidewalk was put in place at the turn-of-the-century." To which she, of course, replied, "2000? Really?!"

Hah!!

#310 - Ouch!

Some years ago, my nephew (now in college) picked up a penny from the floor. "This is a really old penny," he told me. "1982."

To PhaedraB

In the 1970s an archivist showed us a picture of a Honolulu block, and said, This block is really old!; it was built in 1953!" --About like saying, if it was now, that it was built in 1987.

Iʻm not a coin collector, but I do have a couple of "old(?)" pennies; canʻt read the date on them, but they are the kind where the verso says "ONE CENT" in the center, and has 2 sheaves of wheat at the sides. (The contemporary has ONE CENT at the bottom, and a building, rather than the wheat.) But Iʻm not sure just when the change of that earlier format was made.

Wheat pennies were legal tender from 1909 to 1958.

The building on the tail of the current penny is the Lincoln Memorial.

To MerryMary:

Thanks for the dating and description of the Wheat penny. Hmm, a mere 51 years old, a little more recent than I thought.

Yes, I was quite perturbed to discover I'm older than the Lincoln penny. More than a decade.

1899?

ACK! No! I'm 11 years older than the Lincoln Memorial penny!

I like the wheat pennies. I keep them when I find them. I like to collect coins from my birth year and that of my son and family members.

Talking to a 40-year-old co-worker yesterday, who was complaining that the local storage locker place was so old, "it's got to be thirty years old!"

I can remember when they changed to the alloy coins and we would always ask the cashiers to check their cash drawers for silver dimes and quarters.

>I grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan

No milk chute, but I grew up in Ann Arbor, too, at least in one sense. I was quite young when I arrived at college there, considerably older when I left after law school. :-)

>ACK! No! I'm 11 years older than the Lincoln Memorial penny!

I am so laughing at this!

I remember studying the new Lincoln penny that was going to come out next year, in Miss Walls 2nd grade class.

I remember being able to find Buffalo nickels, Mercury dimes, and war pennies in rolled coins my mother bought from the bank she worked for and gave me to look through for my coin collection in addition to lots of old wheat ear pennies and old silver quarters.

I had to replace what I took using my allowance.

I've done the same for my daughter since, although I don't work at a bank and there aren't as many juicy finds as when I was looking in the early 60s.

When i was in grade school i remember a couple of boys got hold of some mercury & coated some dimes, nickels & pennies w/it. I do not know how they got it & am sure they had no idea how dangerous it could be. They got a lot of attention w/it & i'm sure that was their motive, however, nowadays that sort of prank would bring out the EPA, the guys in the hazmat suits, the cops, the press & the rath of the PTA. That is not o the kind of attention those guys were looking for i'm sure! 8^)

kool game

This thread continues at

http://www.librarything.com/topic/76208

I have SO enjoyed reading these posts! Ok...

Rat Finks

Hang 10 shirts

Huge bells on the bellbottoms

Romeo and Juliet w/Olivia Hussey

Wearing a guy's I.D. bracelet to go steady

Gremlin cars

"Born to be Wild" playing on the speakers at the country club as you were jumping off the high dive

Coffee houses

Home Ec

Walking EVERYWHERE (and love it!)

Jack in the Box (TOY)

My mother's Lark record player and I loved the little "disc" you put on the middle prong if you wanted to play a 45 and you had to slide the little switch to either 33, 45 or 78

Pork chop sideburns

57 Chevys (all my bf's had 'em!)

Sky King, Lassie, Dr. Kildare, Father Knows Best, Ozzie and Harriet, Wild Kingdom, Dark Shadows, Superman, Sing Along with Mitch, American Bandstand, and so many more!

I remember lots of commercials; Lark, Camel, PalMal cigarettes. Breck shampoo, Gillette razors, CocaCola, etc.

The ice cream truck and the mosquito truck were always exciting in our neighborhood :)

Vaccum cleaner salesmen and Encyclopedia Britannica, World Book, salesmen.

Babysitting for .50 an hour; working at Dairy Queen for .75 an hour.

Central vaccum cleaner

Those fat yarn things to tie your hair up in pigtails or a ponytail.

Penny loafers and as mentioned, saddle shoes. Clogs, peace necklaces, maxi and mini skirts.

Female teachers wearing cat eye glasses and long skirts or dresses. And HOSE

If every post in this string puts a smile on your face. :-)

I wore those cat-eyeglasses myself! :-)

So did I!

So did I! And felt so "cool" when I switched to John Denver-esque wire frames!

So did I! And felt so "cool" when I switched to John Denver-esque wire frames!

LOL! You did that, too?

The birth of your first grandchild!

335> Maybe less than 50 -- the mother of my best friend in high school became a grandmother at 36! (And still got carded in bars.)

My aunt was a grandmother at 35 or so...she got married at 14! She's 13 years younger than my mom, and she looks 20 years older than Mom. Five children, a hard life, and cigarettes will do that to you, I guess.

My mother-in-law had a GREAT-grandchild who was
OLDER than 2 of her grandchildren. I think by the time of death at 92, she had at least 2 GREAT-GREAT grandhcildren; no one, in her obituaries tried to count the number of her grandchildren and great-grand children, though the
number was considerably less than those of many
nonagenarians in Hawaiʻi.

Nehru Jackets

The Lawrence Welk Show

Topo Giggio

outside latrine--until I was 13 years old

pegging the legs of your pants (jeans--girls)

To Kill A Mockingbird was "unbanned" in our school. I had to read it to find out why it was banned in the first place!

troll dolls

White go-go boots (These boots are made for walking!)

"Big" Hair

love beads

Come on baby, let's do the twist

coonskin caps

hula hoops

Alvin and the Chipmunks

The Diary of Anne Frank

oh, "Big" hair! The photos are embarrassing!

On "Big Hair":

I last heard of it during the Clinton administration. A pundit* said that the fourth woman who confronted the president with an allegation about their past could be taken seriously -- unlike the first three, because those 3 were: a "lounge singer", a "flouncy big hair", and a "moony intern". whereas the fourth was more a "soccer Mom".

*Quite a well known commentator but I've forgotten who it w as., and also forgotten the name of the fourth prospective plaintiff.

Now I wish I had enough hair to have "big" hair!

Stuff I remember finding under my Christmas tree:

-Midge--Barbie's best friend!
-slinky
-Schwinn bikes! (the best with fat tires, heavy fenders and built in lights)
-Flexible flyer wooden sleds with steel runners (the kind outlawed as being too dangerous on today's sledding hills)
-Silly Putty
-books! Always books--started getting the Black Stallion books one Christmas when I was in 2nd grade
-games--Life, Clue
--my Dad made a pink wooden doll cupboard; it's still upstairs in my DD's room and will probably last to hand down to her granddaughter if she ever has one.

I remember helping my brother build a robot (with a motor) from his new Erector set--and a race car track he got. (I was the stand in when none of his friends were around to race with him)

What did you get?

Great post......brought back tons of memories! Thanks!!!

Anyone remember Rat-Fink rings?

Columbia Playboy bikes?

Ranger Andy.....out of Hartford......See if you can tell me, oh what a state I'm in!!!!

Dick Tracy comic books......especially the series with the bleach-blonde female alien (can't remember her name......drats!!!)......she defined my ideal of female beauty!!!!

Mr. Machine?

The Good-Humor Man?

Tastee-Freeze?

The Munster Movie?

Burning rubber?

Hurst stick shifts?

Winston tastes good....like a cigarette should?????

Esso....put a tiger in your tank?

The 1968 Blackout?

You mean Honey Moon - that married Dick Tracy's son Junior?

I had a doll called Sparkle Plenty who was the daughter of B. O. Plenty a character in the Dick Tracy strip (I believe). She had yellow yarn hair. I still had her till 6 years ago when our house burned down. That has become the measure of my life-I call it the BF/AF divide or Before Fire/After Fire. 8^)

346 Ooh, so sorry about the fire. I can't imagine how horrible that must be.

344 I remember about half the things in that list. There was an Esso gas station at the main intersection of my home town. I think at one time they actually gave out tiger toys.

Anyone remember Sinclair (I think) gasoline? I seem to remember something about a dinosaur or some such creature as a mascot. I quite vaguely remember a little inflatable dinosaur toy that I think came from that company, but I'm not sure. I must have been very young.

Sinclair stations are still around, and they still use a green dinosaur as their company image. No give-aways anymore, however.

Couldn't stand it any more, looked it up. Junior Tracy's first wife was Moon Maid. They had a cute little baby girl named Honeymoon. After Moon Maid was blown up in a car bomb intended for Dick, Junior married Sparkle Plenty (daughter of B.O. Plenty and Gravel Gertie)

There. I feel better.

Yeah that is it I couldn't remember all of the details. Thank you! 8^)

You know your're 50 something if you remember when this was #1 on the charts;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-j3KGB8BYw

S&H Green Stamps

Operation

Henry Aaron passing Babe Ruth

Michigan State - Notre Dame: 10-10 tie

Pong

A 24 hour sports channel? That will NEVER work.

Cigarette commercials on TV

352 I remember just about all of the above!

On 352:

I remember # 1,3, 5, and 7. On the 10-10 tie, I didnʻt folow
MIdwestern football that closely, though Iʻve seen a couple of
very close televised (not ties) Ohio State vs. Michigan games.

The cig. commercial I most remember is Old Goldʻs ad to the effect that Old Gold is "a TREAT not a treatMENT".-riduculing other brands which almost claimed that their brand had so little nicotine that it
was almost good for you.

I remember the projected multi-channel scenario of many topics, but donʻt specifically remember that "Sports: 24 Hrs." would "never happen". I remember an episode based on an attempt to fool a suspect into thinking that he had been put under cryogenesis and had come back to life 15 years in the future. In r eality they had only put him to sleep for about 48 hours. He was trying to retrieve some hidden loot, and they wanted to make him believe that all money had been taken out of circulation years ago; they only used "credits" now, so anything he retrieved would be worthless. One of their ploys was to have him wake up in a hospital bed beside a TV that could get about 50 channels; (they had rigged one up that would seem to, but the ordinary current TVs could get 9 or 10 at the most.)

352 > I rarely watch football, and even more rarely college football, but I saw that Michigan State - Notre Dame game. Even I got excited!

When writing 354, I couldnʻt remember what series I was talking about "an episode" of (last paragraph).

It was a "Mission Impossible" episode. I always wanted to, but never did see the movie. (1990s?). Reviews said it was pretty "impossible" to follow the plot of it.

Of sports events memories, does anyone remember in what year was the very publicized 63 that Johnny Miller made in golf? (Today a 63, almost unheard of then, would be still pretty good, but probably only mentioned in passing.) Might have been the mid-1970s.

In the 60's, I really wanted to be one of those girls in Petticoat Junction, the one with the brown hair flip hair-do. I saw the show the other week and gosh, they were goofy (stupid)!

I remember my Aunt Myra (a teenager in the 60's) using orange juice cans to roll up her hair to get that hairdo!

Barbie, Midge, Skipper, Allen, Ken and the Barbie Dream House--I still have them all in pristine condtion packed away in a closet...for what I ask you?

Nehru Jackets

Alice, Jerry and their dog, Jip...basal readers

The Bobbsey Twins

The Book Mobile

Ice Cream socials at church, where the men cranked the old wooden ice cream makers

Flippo the clown, a central Ohio TV host--hosted movies, on Sat. night (late) it was Chiller Theatre!

Heaven Scent perfume

Lemon Up shampoo

Re #56: I'm pretty sure that zip codes started in 1963. I remember that my first zip code was 10000 - Mobile Construction Battalion (MCB) 6, Fleet Post Office, New York.

Trivia question: ZIP is the acronym for ___________.

I used to know that, but being senior I had to go look it up. Zone Improvement Plan. My first was 60652. It's true -- you never forget your first.

63601; the name of the town has changed, but the zip code has not.

. . . if you remember:

Iʻm Dickens, heʻs Fenster TV sitcom*

The New Breed was before the era when police procedurals had become a must. And t N B didnʻt last long.

*not sure the prefix " sit-" had even been invented yet in those days.

I was talking to a bunch of young 'uns today and mentioned Mr. Conklin. None of them -- not even the 47-yr-old -- had ever heard of him. Our Miss Brooks, wasn't it?

Super Helmet 7

http://www.timewarptoys.com/shelmet.jpg

>344 bernbeau:

Wow, Ranger Andy! The introduction mike would loom over each kid's terrified face. Some would cry, others would freeze with a look that they would vomit at any second!

There was a film short involving Hammy the hamster and maybe a guinea pig (they were never called cavies, back then) or two, sailing in toy boats and enjoying other incredibly boring adventures.

But the clock stopped, never to go again, when the old...man...died.

The show morphed into the Ranger Station.

...and speaking of the Connecticut area, don't get me started with the Hap Richards Show!

And here's another experience I remember. Because it was fascinating and new - watching a few episodes of a new afternoon show called Sesame Street - as a teenager!

I'm a young 50-somethnig. I missed the Jimmy Carter Post Office Draft "registration" by a few days.

I'm sorry for my repeated posts, but I just re-read this topic and there're some great memories!

Some more TV:

http://www.tvofyourlife.com/top100sitcomsofthe60s.htm

My son only knows the "I Dream of Genie" theme song from the sample in a Fresh Prince rap song. Sigh...

Teaberry gum and the Teaberry shuffle
White G- go boots
The Beatles on Ed Sullivan
Laugh-In
1969 and you were sent home from school if you were a girl and wore pant, even on the coldest winter days.

368 >

Ellen, yep, no pants ever, even if you wore them under your skirt and ran into the bathroom to change as soon as you got to school. If you were caught in pants, you could get suspended. We thought the greaser girls had an unfair advantage because their black stretch pants looked enough like tights that they could get away with them long enough to get into the john to take them off. I remember sitting in classes all day with my knees fire-engine red. It was the first stage of frostbite! But no pants.

No sunglasses in the building, either. Sunglasses meant you were hiding your drug-dilated pupils. If you were caught with them inside, even just walking twenty feet from your locker to the outside door, you were suspended (happened to a friend of mine).

Couldn't wear all black, either. The reasons were a little vague; it meant you were either an anarchist or a fascist, it was never quite clear which. One guy I knew evaded suspension when he showed the teacher that with his black shirt, black pants, black belt, and black shoes he was wearing white socks.

>368 ellenflorman:

The Teaberry Shuffle... I don't recall the actual dance but remember the commercial. I was surprised and pleased upon discovering that the music was Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass, which I was collecting in the 60's. I had ALL of their albums converted to CDs.

I remember the Teaberry Shuffle! Sort of a modified bunny hop, if I recall correctly.

OK!! I. could. not. resist!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fk11Acjofu8

Yes, I had to wear snowpants under my skirt! Yuck!!!

>211 jennieg:- >214 jennieg:

That was Quaker puffed RICE...

"Quaker is the cereal that's shiot from guns" (BOOM!)-

"Quaker is the cereal that's shiot from guns" (BOOM!)

"Quaker is the cereal that's shiot from guns" (BOOM!)

"Quaker is the cereal that's shot from guns" (BOOM!)

That particular 1812 overture version was done with real cannon and real church bells (at the very end of the overture.
Kate Remmington plays it on WSHU (91.1 FM) from time to time and always on Independence Day.
Unfortunately, the CD is out of print.

From a Brit -

Spirograph
Etch-a-sketch
The original Monkees and Batman series on TV
Aquamanda
Cut-out 3D zoo animals on the back of Cornflakes packs
When all phone calls were from friends, family or business - no cold calls!
Plastic covers you could attach to the TV screen to give you 'colour TV' (they were a bit like those coloured sun-strips you got in car windscreens. They had green at the bottom, red in the middle and blue at the top (presumably to give the illusion of grass, people (red people) and sky.)
Knocking on neighbours' doors to ask if we could run errands for pocket money
Plaguing the local haberdashery store for stocking boxes (god only knows what we did with them)
I'm not sure if this was a general 60s thing or just one person's weird quirk but one of my abiding memories of the 60s was the neighbour who kept the plastic cover on her 'new' living room suite for two years.

Booksloth-

I also remember your 1st 3 items.

On your last one, I've heard of people who have done that

I remember the "color TV" strips! I swear some of my friends thought I made that up. I'm so glad you mentioned them. I didn't dream them.

They definitely existed MM. I even knew someone who had one (and yes, it was the same person who left the plastic covers on her sofa)!

In our town the was a company who would come to your house and put plastic on your couch and chairs. My "rich" aunt had it done to all her living room and dinning room chairs.

#378 Bastards! Did nobody try to stop them?

#372 krazyforkatz Thanks for the clip!

You're welcome, Ellen. I had fun digging it up. k4k

Teaberry shuffle! I was thinking about that the other day, when the ice cream stand had teaberry as flavor of the week!

I think by 1969 we could wear slacks under our skirt to get to school, as long as we changed immediately before school started. By 1972 or 1973, we were fighting for the right to wear them to school dances.

The paper dolls in the last pages of Good Housekeeping magazine. I loved it when my mom got a new one.

I remember those, mamzel. My cousin Beth and I were always excited to get the newest one, because her big sister Karen was a wonderful artist and used to design reams of clothes for the dolls for us. I may still have a design or two tucked away. Karen went to art school, and then to a great career as a graphic designer in Chicago.

Betsy McCall

http://www.thebleudoor.com/betsymccallhome.htm

And Millie the Model...if I remember correctly, there was always a paper doll of Millie, Chili, and Toni in the back of each issue. My sisters and I spent many hours making our own dresses for them.

http://www.comicvine.com/millie-the-model/29-18526/

Franco and fedoras and fondue pots.

Salazar and spittoons and smallpox (vaccination) scars.

Franco -- he's still dead.

Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris and Whitey Ford

Willie, Mickey, and The Duke...

🔹 Bills BBQ Curb Service
🔹 Southside Plaza Christmas Santa Clause
🔹 Miller & Rhoads Tearoom with Santa & Snow Queen
🔹 The Tobacco Festival Parade
🔹 Skateland
🔹 The 9th Street "Humming Bridge" over the James
🔹 Nick's Seafood Pavillion-Yorktown