i am surprised for TV shows nobody mentioned the Mike Douglas show, Soupy Sales show, or Flip Wilson show. how about Adam-12, Dragnet, Car 54 where are you, or the Honeymooners.
19 cent gas, 25 cent quarts of milk in the corner machine, and 10 cent quarts of beer in the cardboard containers like you got milk in, that had a 5 cent deposit on them.
walking to school, or the bus stop, and then back home too, whether it rained or snowed or not. and a school snow day was when the snow was so deep you had to climb out a second story window to get out of the house.
the day J.F.K was shot, and they closed school early, and for 3 days afterwords.
how about coming home from school and putting on your "outside clothes" and going out into the woods hunting for tomorrow nights dinner, then walking next door (1/2 mile away) and cutting your neighbors lawn for 25 cents, before you went to play outside instead of in front of the video game. in the house by dark or 6 pm, which ever came first. bedtime by 8 pm on school nights, and 9pm on weekends,
and it took a very special occasion to stay up later, and people visiting was not one of them.

 

I remember the original 1950's Dragnet, the one in B&W. Jack Webb as Sgt. Joe Friday, and Ben Alexander as Officer Frank Smith. In 1967, when the show resumed, Friday was still a sergeant, guess he didn't get all the facts.

Did'ja know that Ben Alexander was a Ford Dealer?

Ben Alexander's Hollywood Ford.

 

I remember al the old tv shows mentioned. I guess I'm lucky on one thing. I still don't have grey hair & I'm 53.

 

Or back in my day we called it **** up.


Now that is hillarious. I got tears in my eyes. I haven't heard "went **** up" since the early 80's. I completely forgot about it. I can't wait to say it again. Our Seagrams plant may be closing so when I hear people talking about it I can throw in the "**** up" thing.

 

Better stop worrying about 1975....You don't have much time left fatso..you better get moving.

 

I started to feel old when, 10 years ago one of my son's friends asked me what those big disks were in the big pictured folders. I told him they were LP's or records. He then asked what are LP's.

 

I don't feel old.
=]

 

I miss "My Favorite Martian"

 

I think I have you all beat by at least 20 years.

Does anyone remember what "LSMFT" means (HINT: "Johnny" was involved - and that's not Johnny Carson, either)? No, and it's not "Leave Some Meat For Truman, either, although that was a common joke of the day!)

How about scouring the neighborhood for salvaging the (real) "tinfoil" from discarded cigarette packs that was eventually shredded into confetti for jamming enemy radars? Or newspaper drives, which were also eventually shredded and used as packing material for war materiel shipped to Europe or the Pacific? Or food rationing and coupon books, when a family of four was limited to how much butter, meat, and other grocery items you were allowed to buy at the store in one week?

The canning process for food was still relatively new. Almost every family grew a garden, and the woman of the house "canned" food during the summer for winter consumption. Mason and Kerr were (and still are) the largest names in the manufacture of canning jars. Some Mason jar lids were made of zinc, with a glass insert for the jar seal.

Television didn't exist. Gasoline was 12 cents a gallon, milk was a nickel a gallon, and a haircut was outrageously priced at 15 cents. The only "plastic" the world knew about was either phenolic or bakelite. Radios used tubes, and car radios had just been invented. They used a "vibrator" to pulse the DC from the 6-volt battery so it could go through the high voltage transformer to generate the 350V that the plates in the tubes required. And nothing was digital. Push button radios with pre-set (but selectable) stations were yet to be invented.

Refrigeration wasn't common. Ice blocks about 2' x 2' x 6' long were cut from the local river during the winter, stored in "ice houses" in beds of sawdust, and delivered to homes by horse-drawn wagons. Every house had an "ice box". In the summer, you'd run up to the ice wagon and grab some ice chips when the iceman used his pick to fracture the larger piece from the icehouse into a smaller-size chunk that he's sling onto his back and carry into the house. Nonbody ever got sick from sucking on the river ice, either. If your mom served iced tea, guess where the ice chunks came from.

Model "T" Fords were still a common sight around town, and if your father hadn't suffered at least one broken arm (or a serious shoulder injury) from the starting crank "going back down" on him, he didn't have any bragging rights.

A flat tire was repaired with a vulcanized patch on the tube inside and, if it was slit, a "boot" was installed spanning the slice in the carcass of the tire itself. Tubeless tires didn't exist. New tires were not available, since all rubber production was allocated to the war effort. If a tire wore down to the cord, you removed the tube and filled (packed) the tire with granulated corncobs, and kept on driving.

Sixty MPH was considered sucidial. Burma Shave signs dotted the countryside, such as:

Train wrecks few
Reason's clear
The Fireman never
Hugs the Engineer
BURMA SHAVE

(aimed at young girls who would hug their boyfriend while HE was driving)

War bonds

The new B-25 bomber was the largest plane ever built at that time. The Spruce Goose was still in fabrication by Howard Hughes.

The words "nuclear" and "A-bomb" didn't exist in the common lexicon.

Bobby sox were all the rage. Women wore "nylons" (nylon had just been invented by DuPoint) that had a seam up the back. They were VERY expensive, and almost impossible to buy because most of the nylon production was allocated for parachutes.

Ballpoint pens had just been invented.

Bell bottom trousers were in style (there was even a popular song by that title). They pop back into style aboput every 20 or 25 years. I expect them again shortly.

Can anyone go back farther in time with personal experiences?

Oh, and I'm only 67.

 

Geeez I'm lucky I can remember what happened Yesterday.

 

Your doing good then! Your CRS isn't that bad yet.





CRS = Can't Remember S#!^

 

Haven't seen anybody on here mentioning a party line for the phone. Thats when you picked up the phone to see if your neighbors were already talking. If the conversation was interesting, you could listen for awhile. Great way to keep up on what was happening in the neighborhood. And they say we don't have any privacy today.
As to other experiences, I have a cap that says it all. "Been there, done that, can't remember".

 

Traderjoe28,
I remember some of what you mention. I live in S.C. and I guess we were considered backwards back then.
I was born in 45 a week after Japan surrendered.
We didn't have a TV till about 53 or 54.
On Sat. mornings a gang of us on the mill hill would get out and play what ever games we could think of.
Not many people had cars but everybody we knew was poor except the man that owned the drugstore.
My wife and I bought the house that she was raised in, her dad bought it when the mill company sold it, somewhere aroung 1950.
I had to do some work under the floor and noticed the pipes were wrapped in old newspapers. My Mother-in-law told me her husband did it to insulate the pipes.
The house is somewhere around 100 years old.
Now I got to go out and lay on the ground in this 36 degree weather and put plug wires and plugs in my van. This is gonna be fun for sombody that is eat up with arthritus. I done took a pain pill, just waiting for it to take effect.

 

Then you must be like me. 53 also, and not a grey hair. Matter of fact no hair.
Well. not much anyway.

My wife says CRS is my middle name. Not sure if it only has to do with aging tho. Good thing I don't drink the hard stuff. Wouldn't remember where I left the bottle. Now what were we talking about?

 

tewforford I still have my hair but I have CRS in a big way according to my wife. I don't forget what she says I just can't hear worth a darn anymore.