Remember when ... ?

[d]

Remember when? I remember (in some cases just barely), do you remember when:

most folks bathed only once a week?
("5 day deodorant pads" were apparently a couple of days short)

most families did not have an automobile?
virtually no family had more than one?

many families did not have a telephone?
of those which did, many had a "party line"?

closets in the "master bedroom" were 2.5 to 3 foot wide?
many houses and apartments had no bedroom closets?
there were no "master" bedrooms?
there were no walk in closets?

the array of door to door service?
the bread man?
the milk man?
the egg man?
the fuller brush man?
the tinker?
the ash man?
the rag man?
the ice man?
(yep, "man", always!)

families would sit around at night and "watch the radio"?
the shadow
the lone ranger
gun smoke

it cost a penny to buy and mail a penny postcard?

the "operator" would place a phone call?
long distance phone calls were "reserved" several days in advance?
(and were rarely made)?

"sneakers" were inexpensive?
most kids had at most one pair of shoes and one pair of sneakers?
everyone wore rubbers and galoshes when it rained or snowed?

there were no supermarkets?

department stores were just that?
payments were sent to a central cashier by pneumatic tube or by "rope and pulley" tram?
the button counter at the "5 & 10"?
when you could actually buy many things for 5 and 10 cents?
when a keyboard had a cent symbol?
cash registers were manual?

drug stores primarily sold drugs (and perhaps had a soda fountain)?

nurses wore white?
and caps?

doctors were always older than you?
regularly made house calls?
delivered most babies in their homes?

restaurant dinners were for special occasions (only)?
fast-food was a diner?
eggs were good for you?

school children went home for lunch?

so, there's a bunch off the top of me head … what do you remember?

 

[Khan]

If you remember all that, you might be even older than I .

I'm 57.

 

[d]

just a spring chicken!

 

[JPatrick]

Ah finally, a bunch of old stuff I didn't experience.. Feels good.

 

[imnxpat]

I remember a few, like the bread man, but geez louise, ice man and families with no phones and /or cars? That must be prior the late 1940's.

Um, would you mind stating your age?

 

[UncleHoney]

Hummmmm........... My keyboard still has a cent sign. ¢
Just gotta know where they hide it.

 

[HFWR]

I remember:

Outhouses and chamber pots, well pumps, b&w tv, monophonic recordings, milk men, milk in glass bottles, dime stores, soda fountains, wringer washers, beer cans w/o pull tabs, Big Boys, highways pre-interstate, Esso gas stations, drive-in movies, drive-in restaurants with carhops, service stations...

I remember when our little town had a furniture store, a clothing store, a dime store, and passenger rail service...

 

[bbbamI]

Hummmmm........... My keyboard still has a cent sign. ¢
Just gotta know where they hide it.

 

[bbbamI]

I try not to remember the "good ole days".

 

[Notmuchlonger]

Ah finally, a bunch of old stuff I didn't experience.. Feels good.

Lol same!

 

[bbbamI]

Lol same!

Ah...you young whippersnappers!

 

[HFWR]

I try not to remember the "good ole days".

I can't remember...

 

[Notmuchlonger]

Ah...you young whippersnappers!

Remember when clowns didn't used to be scary!



No! me neither

 

[73ss454]

I remember all of them but don't know for how much longer.

 

[Nords]

I can't remember...

So, that means you were doing it right, eh?

 

[megacorp-firee]

Wow, you're old. I remember about 70% of your list.

 

[HFWR]

So, that means you were doing it right, eh?

Better living through chemistry.

 

[SteveR]

Oh Crap! I remember most of those things.

How about:
Gasoline at $0.25/gallon

Cigarettes were $0.30/pack

Kids "smoked" candy cigarettes

Cars had fins and no power steering, no power windows, no power seats, no automatic transmission, bench seats with cloth, huge steering wheels, small triangular windows next to the roll up ones, trunks were huge, backseats were the size of a living room sofa, there was only one grade of gasoline, oil came in glass bottles at the Service Station, etc.

You could go to the movies for $0.50 all day long. Drinks and popcorn were cheap. We saw a Newsreel and a cartoon before the movie. There were ushers with flashlights to help you to your seat.

Small towns had railroad tracks through the middle of town; frequently dividing the town in half. Usually, there was a "good" and a "bad" side of the tracks...you wanted to live on the good side.

If you got a speeding ticket in a small town the police would take you to the Justice of the Peace. You could also get married there and have things Notarized. (My grandfather was one).

Etc.

 

[myself]

Well, I can remember some of those.

Here are some more:
I can also remember watching the first man land on the moon ... on black & white TV. Then you had "color TV", which was just 3 different pieces of cellophane across the black & white TV screen.

Drive-in movies were great! And loading up 5-6 people in the trunk to save money (although you always had to have 2 people in the front seat ).

Going with my grandpa to pick up rationed supplies. He also used to grab all the free jelly/salt/pepper/condiments that you'd get from the diner or fast food joint.

Cars didn't need "crumple zones". And when you ran into a telphone pole, you could almost always keep driving the vehicle for many more years.

Air raid sirens going off occasionally (mostly to test them, and keep everyone on their toes).

Wow, I just thought of several other things:
Pre-dating iPods, CDs & DVDs: Vinyl records (that you had to manually switch between 3 different speeds). 8-Track tapes. Cassettes.
Our kids (7 years old) just asked about records the other day, and I explained to them. They just laughed and thought I was joking until I pulled one out of the basement.
Who'da ever thought you could cram 1,000s of songs onto a device smaller than the palm of my hand (i.e. iPod Shuffle)?

Nevermind the fact that I still haven't seen that much headway into storage of personal information (i.e. X-rays, medication, etc.), that you should be able to bring around to your doctor/hospital for readily accessible information.

 

[poboy]

ESPN Remembers Sports

If you enjoy sports, this is a great video.

 

[Rich_by_the_Bay]

Dumont, Kaiser, Emerson, English Racers, CP/M, Flip-off cardboard caps on milk bottles - usually with just a little cream sticking to them, fla-vr-straws, 7-game (max) post-season baseball, weekly reader.

 

[bbbamI]

I remember all of them but don't know for how much longer.

....That's pretty funny!

Wait, what were we talking about?

 

[Walt34]

5 cent Cokes, which were neither snorted or smoked.
High beam switch on the floorboard, left of the brake pedal.
Steel pedal cars for the kids.
Flexible Flyer sleds were the best.
Full-service gas stations (my first job was a "Platform Petroleum Engineer" aka "Pump Jocky". We checked the oil, cleaned windshields, checked tires & other fluids on request. And politely.
Big steel hot-water radiators under each window in the house. It took "two men and a boy" to carry one.
It was a big deal when the drugstore got air conditioning.
A window air conditioner in the house was a miracle.

 

[W2R]

5 cent Cokes, which were neither snorted or smoked.

They were even just 5 cents from a machine. The small ones tasted better, though nobody knew exactly why.

High beam switch on the floorboard, left of the brake pedal.
Steel pedal cars for the kids.
Flexible Flyer sleds were the best.
Full-service gas stations (my first job was a "Platform Petroleum Engineer" aka "Pump Jocky". We checked the oil, cleaned windshields, checked tires & other fluids on request. And politely.

Those were the days!! We never had to worry about fluid levels, underinflated tires, or dirty windshields back then (and never spilled gas on our clothes or had that smell of gas on our hands). Going to a gas station was a pleasant experience, and often the gas station would offer a free drink glass, free (manual) car wash, or some other freebie, if I had the tank filled.

That was a great first job for high school boys, and was easily available. A lot of my high school friends did that, too, and at the time I thought it was "so manly".

Big steel hot-water radiators under each window in the house. It took "two men and a boy" to carry one.

I had three in my bedroom as a little girl, one under each window.

It was a big deal when the drugstore got air conditioning.
A window air conditioner in the house was a miracle.

That's for sure. We weren't allowed to play in my parents' bedroom (which was the only room with a window A/C), but we used to walk down to the drugstore to cool off. When was the last time you heard of kids voluntarily walking to a drugstore? The A/C in drugstores was great marketing, because we would spend our allowances there, too. For 25 cents, I could get two comic books and a candy bar. Then I would sit in the shade on our back steps and read my comic books.

 

[Orchidflower]

I was born in 1944, so I remember in grade school having air raid drills where the children had to line up against the walls, sit back, hang their heads with their arms over them to protect themselves from falling debris. Just after WWII, so people were still scared. I think this stopped around 4th grade.
Remember Valomilk candy bars that looked like a small cupcake and was filled with syrupy marshmellow? My son bought me one for Xmas from Cracker Barrel, which is the only place that I know of to get them. However, in my stepfather's day, Valomilk's were the size of giant cupcakes--about 3X the size of my generation and today's. Hey...we got ripped!