Fifty Plus (50+) - I remember When.....

Okay, just for fun, what can you remember?

Riding in to work this morning and noticing the gas signs for $3.89 for low-end 87 octane and it got me thinking.

I remember when I pumped gas in the 70's for 65 cents a gallon and getting chewed out by the customers for the ridiculous prices.

This can be fun. I'm sure my dad bought cigs for a quarter a pack.

Okay, just for fun, what can you remember?

Riding in to work this morning and noticing the gas signs for $3.89 for low-end 87 octane and it got me thinking.

I remember when I pumped gas in the 70's for 65 cents a gallon and getting chewed out by the customers for the ridiculous prices.

This can be fun. I'm sure my dad bought cigs for a quarter a pack.

Yea, me too but I was making 2.35 per hour. Then my care got gallons per mile instead of MPG. All is not lost.:)

I started working as a TV repairman in 1961 for $1.50 per hour.
Gasoline was $.24 per gallon at some stations.
I paid $150 for a 1953 Ford, ran good.
Got married in 1962
I was an Idiot.

I can remember gas at $.25 for regular and $.35 for high test. I can remember MacDonalds burgs at a quarter a piece. Shoot I can remember going on a date with $5 in my pocket and still had money at the end of the night.

I remember liking the Red Skelton Show, hating The Ed Sullivan Show, and The Lawrence Welk Show. Our parents decided what was watched on TV.

We had to do our chores on Saturday then we had to get the heck out of the house or our parents would "Give us something to do". We had to be home by five for dinner or else!

I remember "gas wars" between stations across the street, and prices would sometimes go as low as $.25/gallon.

I remember when gas stations served you, and the Texaco guys were in white shirts and bow ties.

I remember when you got "gifts" at gas stations, like stemware, or toy trucks, or whatever, if you filled the tank.

I remember when the attendant said, "Check the oil?" and automatically checked the air pressure in all the tires.

I remember when you could say, "Give me $3 worth."

I recall getting green stamps when purchasing gasoline at $0.24 per gallon. Also of note, there were only three commercial television stations plus the public tv station. I lived in eastern Ohio going to college after 4 years in the army and having cable TV back in early '70's.

When McDonalds first arrived in this area, hamburgers were 15 cents, cheeseburgers were 20 cents. They also sold fries, milkshakes, and Coke, but I can't remember those prices.
I think the items I listed were the entire menu in those days.

I recall getting green stamps when purchasing gasoline at $0.24 per gallon. Also of note, there were only three commercial television stations plus the public tv station. I lived in eastern Ohio going to college after 4 years in the army and having cable TV back in early '70's.

If I remember right, those channels were 3, 5, and 8, and the public station was 43?

I can remember filling the tank of my 68 Volkswagen micro bus @ eighteen cents per gallon.

FWIW, that van got around 25 MPG on the highway, exactly the same as my Honda Element. The Honda, however is faster, is air conditioned, has a real heater, and hopefully won't require a valve job every 20,000 miles. It also has lots cleaner emissions.

Am I going to lose retro grouch points over this?

If I remember right, those channels were 3, 5, and 8, and the public station was 43?
I remember 3, 5, and 9. Channel 9 later became channel 8. I'm assuming you're referring to Cleveland.

Later we got a UHF signal out of Akron, channel 49...I think.

I remember that I could remember, but I've forgotten what it was that I remembered. :o

I remember when we wrote something called "letters" with "pens" and used the US Mail with 3 cent stamps, 1 cent for something called a "postcard."

I remember when you could dial "0" for the operator and ask her - it was always a her - for the time.

I remember we never locked our house, and didn't even know where the keys were.

I remember a generator that supplied electricity, and they turned it off at 8pm

I remember a crank phone with 13 people on the party line, and our number was 2 longs and two shorts. And it often shorted out whenever we had a snowstorm. It was a single bare wire on pegs with insulators nailed into convenient trees.

I remember a wooden oak ice box and getting a 25 lb block of ice every 3 days.

How about listening to the radio to the "Great Gildersleeve" and "Let's Pretend" and "Dimension X-x-x-x-x "

I can remember when there WEREN'T any McDonalds.

I paid $100 for my 49 Plymouth and sold it 40,000 miles later for $200. And it had a pink and black dashboard (my own paint job).

Gas was as low as 17.9 during a gas war in 1973. Even when it was .35 I put in two bucks, cause that was all I could afford. I was in college then. In the 60s in Eastern Iowa with an antenna we got channels 2, 4, 6,7, 8, 9 and 11. Sometimes got channel 3 too. My first regular hourly job paid $1.55 an hour in 1971. In 1970, I groomed horses six days a week for $350 per month. That was a good wage.

I remember we never locked our house, and didn't even know where the keys were.

I remember a crank phone with 13 people on the party line, and our number was 2 longs and two shorts.




On our party line our ring was 3 shorts. I still know people who never lock their house.

1964-68, University of Northern Iowa. Gas about .25/gas, cigs about .25/pack. I sold my first car, a 1959 VW for about what I had in it, $600, to buy a 1953 Ford Victoria 2-Dr Hardtop for $200 so I could say I had a flathead V-8 and a big back seat. Traded that and about $1000 (big money) a year or so later for a 1962 Chevy Nova convertible while I was working my first post-high school job as a radio announcer. Next year I made $15/wk working in a two-way radio shop to cover my spending money during the school year. We went from an operator assisted line to dial while I was a Junior in high school When I went into the USN after college in 1968, Olympia beer was $2.40/case from the BX in Japan; Pepsi was $3.00. Bought a new Bridgestone 10-speed for about $100 US, and a 1966 Honda S800 sports coupe for $500.

I remember real silver coins, the old mercury dimes, liberty quarters and half dollars, the buffalo nickel as regular change, and that change was worth something.

I remember these new buildings going up with the strange name of "Ebbets Field", I didn't know anything about what what was there before.

I remember my parents watching "I Love Lucy" before it went into endless reruns.

I remember the '59 Chevy Impala being long and sleek, whereas the '58 was boxy. Every car after that seemed that way too until gas went up over $.75 and people started buying smaller cars. I remember every model year of chevy being introduced on Bonanza.

I was at a conference today of about 200, and I was stunned by the extraordinary number of people who were much more than a little overweight.

As a little kid, I remember JFK saying that Americans were out of shape and that we needed to exercise more. At the time about 13 percent of adult Americans were considered obese. Today it's more than 30 percent.

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0883555.html

I remember we never locked our house, and didn't even know where the keys were.

My wife and I rented a house for a year. At that time the way that you did it in Ames, Iowa was to have the tenants who were moving out show you the house. Then, if you liked it, you'd call the landlord on the phone and work out what the rent was going to be. "Lease? We don't need no stinking lease." Anyway, the old tenants told us they didn't have a key for the door. The landlord had told them to install a new lock and deduct the cost from the rent. They just never got around to doing it. A year later we showed the house to another young couple and had to tell them the same story.

Another thing that was commonly done in Ames at that time was to leave your car running during the winter while you did your week's grocery shopping. That way it'd be nice and warm when you got back in.

I can remember when cokes from a machine went from 5¢ to 6¢ for an 8oz bottle.

I can pretty much vouch for everthing so far. And add that I owned a Studebaker, a Willys, '55-'57 Chevvys when they were just "used cars". Don't forget polio shots, and school lunches that were not out of a machine.
It sure seems that life was simpler then, but I guess every generation has it's ups and downs.

John

I remember when:
1. We got our first dial phone and no longer had to give the number we wanted to call to the operator.
1a. Party lines!
2. Numbers were added to exchanges, so that phone numbers were seven digits, not six.
3. McDonald's was the new kid on our block- Gino's was there first.
4. Virtually every new car had tail fins.
5. Every kid wanted an "English racer" bike- the hot new thing.
6. We had to duck and cover.
7. Pushbutton radios in cars- do you remember how you set the buttons to tune in a station?
8. "Hardtops"
9. Drive-ins.
10. It seemed like every draftee (remember them?) went to Germany for a tour.

I remember leaving the house on a summer morning, and the only rules where; don't get in trouble, and be home for dinner. Everybody knew who you where, and knew your parents. The cops knew who you where. If you did something stupid your parents knew about it before you got home. If you got hurt someplace where you shouldn't have been, there where no law suits, you got patched up first, and punished second, the end. And the world was very much bigger.

I remember when:

7. Pushbutton radios in cars- do you remember how you set the buttons to tune in a station?


I remember how to do that, but I have to re-read the manual when I have to reset my buttons today

and school lunches that were not out of a machine.

John

When I was in first grade (1960), school lunches were 25 cents. Thirty-five cents got you lunch and an ice cream cone. If you brought your lunch, you could buy a half-pine of milk for two cents.

I remember when the Mariners used to win...:D

GO ANGELS! :D:D

I remember .25 gas and lower during gas wars and it was pumped by an attendent that cleaned the windshield, checked and aired the tires and checked the oil. Stamps were given after the purchase. Also, my mom got stamps at the grocery store.

McDonalds hamburgers for .15 and real drive-ins with car hops. Homework everynight and teachers with discipline in mind. Learning slide ruler use in HS physics class and laughing at the first calculator owners when the batteries ran out during a test in Trig or Chemistry. Being respectful to all adults and being dressed neatly for school and in our Sunday best for church.

Riding my bicycle everywhere and not worrying. No A/C in our cars, home or schools until the early-mid 70's. Only 3 commercial TV channels, 3,5 and 10 and one PBS channel, 23. Naval Avation Cadets in summer whites on weekends at the restaurants and movies (no multiplexes)

Leaving for the Marines on a Greyhound bus to the AFEES Station and standing on the yellow footprints. Wondering what in the world I had done while being yelled at constantly. And I miss every bit of the past. My old friends and classmates save a few and especially my wife, Monica, are scattered. Only see one guy from the Marines and he was a long time classmate too. Those were the days.

Bill

I remember when the Mariners used to win...:D

GO ANGELS! :D:D
:lol:

I remember the Seattle Pilots, St. Louis Browns, Boston Braves, Philadelphia Athletics

I remember when the Dodgers and Giants moved from NY to California.

I remember the last time the Cleveland Indians won the Series, I was 6 years old.

Remember,"Duck and Cover?"

I remember full-service gas at 17.9 cents/gallon during price wars. For that price, you got all of the windows washed, the lights washed, and your tire pressure checked. In addition, your oil, windshield washer fluid and fan belt all got checked if you said yes when asked if you wanted your oil checked. You also got green stamps and, on occasion, other goodies, such as set of 8 iced-tea glasses with a metal caddy to hold them. Oh, and if you were talking about south east/south central Ohio, the channels I remember were 3, 8 and 13. One of them (13, I think) had an all-night Saturday night horror/science fiction movie program named Chiller - my cousins, brothers & I watched as much as we could every chance we got.
- Bob

I remember .25 gas and lower during gas wars and it was pumped by an attendent that cleaned the windshield, checked and aired the tires and checked the oil. Stamps were given after the purchase. Also, my mom got stamps at the grocery store.

McDonalds hamburgers for .15 and real drive-ins with car hops. Homework everynight and teachers with discipline in mind. Learning slide ruler use in HS physics class and laughing at the first calculator owners when the batteries ran out during a test in Trig or Chemistry. Being respectful to all adults and being dressed neatly for school and in our Sunday best for church.

Riding my bicycle everywhere and not worrying. No A/C in our cars, home or schools until the early-mid 70's. Only 3 commercial TV channels, 3,5 and 10 and one PBS channel, 23. Naval Avation Cadets in summer whites on weekends at the restaurants and movies (no multiplexes)

Leaving for the Marines on a Greyhound bus to the AFEES Station and standing on the yellow footprints. Wondering what in the world I had done while being yelled at constantly. And I miss every bit of the past. My old friends and classmates save a few and especially my wife, Monica, are scattered. Only see one guy from the Marines and he was a long time classmate too. Those were the days.

Bill

Dang Bill with a couple of exceptions it sounds like we were raised together. our TV channels were 4,6.8, and 13, PBS was 20. I remember the yellow footprints with this DI screaming something and thinking the same thing you did. But I think these are the days, it has been a pretty great life so far.:)

Remember,"Duck and Cover?"
Yup. I remember wondering how someone could be crazy and evil enough to drop a bomb on people.

Sounds like many of us were raised in the same "style" and did many of the same things. I am greatful for the discipline from my parents, teachers, neighbors and the Corps. And yes I remember the "duck and cover drills" and the Civil Defense films in grade school especially during the Cuban Missle Crisis. The JFK, MLK and RFK assassinations made permenant impressions on me that I feel to this day. Wow, what a flood of memories. Great thread.

Bill

OK- since you asked!
I remember:
*Gas at 25 cents/gallon, sometimes down as low as $.19/gal if they had a good gas war
*The first color TV show I ever saw- it was "Bonanza", & from the Chevy commercials I remember it must have been the fall of '63 or '64.
*3 channels on the b&w TV, a 4th if we turned the antenna about 90*. I was about 12 years old when I was finally able to turn it myself.
*We never locked the doors to the house or the car, usually left the keys in the car. After I was grown & married, my (former now for a long time)wife & I made a spur of the moment late-night trip from OKC to my parents home in NE Texas, probably 1976. Got there late, almost 3 am. They didn't know we were coming, house was dark- and the front door was unlocked. She was shocked!
*Dial telephones! When's the last time you used one of those?;) We never had a party line.
*Car sound system was an AM-only radio with a single speaker in the dash. Yup, I remember how to set those push buttons- tune the station, pull the button out, then push it in.
*If you got in trouble at school, you got in worse trouble when you got home. Heck, my first grade teacher lived across the street & one house over from us- all through elem school, I couldn't get away with *anything*!
*"Duck & cover", wow, hadn't thought of that in ages. Yup, we saw those films.
*6-cent Cokes, in those little 6-oz(mebbe 6 1/2 oz?) bottles.
*Dad taking me into the bank, & trading a dollar bill for a real Silver Dollar! Probably about 1957-8, age 4 or 5.
*Drive-in movies!
*Being in the last batch of kids in Texas to get their driver's license at age 14 with Driver's Ed.:eek: Drivng the family car- a 1960 Ford Galaxie 500, bought used in 65 or 66, it was our first famlily car with air conditioning.
*Listening to my 6-transistor radio late at night, could often get WLS from Chicago on it!
*Eating at places where each booth had one of those cool little jukeboxes in it!:p
*Watching Red Skelton, Jack Benny, George & Gracie, Lucy & Desi, Captain Kangaroo(I think that's a probelm for kids today, no Captain Kangaroo!), Walt Disney, the Micky Mouse Club, and *Westerns*! Lawman, Maverick, Gunsmoke, The Rifleman, Yancy Derringer, Broken Arrow, Have Gun Will Travel, The Rebel, Wanted Dead or Alive, Colt .45, and more- :eek: there were a *Bunch* of Westerns on TV when I was a kid.
*Riding my Schwinn bicycle!

I went to Catholic school. We were expected to go around the neighborhood and raise money for "pagan babies" in foreign countries who would end up in purgatory when they died unless we subsidized missionaries to save their little baby souls by getting them baptised.

Remember Miss Nancy and Romper Room? Anyone in the Bay Area remember Captain Satellite? Charlie and Humphrey? Mayor Art? Later: Creature Features?

Oh, and when I was first married, the wife's income couldn't count toward qualifying for a mortgage because it was assumed she'd stop working when the first baby arrived.

I remember when I could get a coke for a dime a bag of chips for a dime and a snickers for a nickel. I mean you could get your after school sugar fix for a quarter. I remember eating beans, fried potatos and cornbread and thinking that was the greatest meal ever, and government cheese and bologna. Didn't know we were poor cause we always had food on the table and a warm bed and Mom could take nearly nothing and make a meal out of it. Now I pay more for bike parts in a month than I think my dad made some months. Hard to realize how easy most of us have it compared to our parents.

I remember Ghoulardi (Cleveland's Saturday night horror show host), Sky Bars, and Clark Bars.

I remember gasoline at 19.9¢ during a gas war, and that was in a high tax state where the total gas tax was about 14¢.

But, in about the same era, I remember my first job out of high school paying $1.47/hr, and my first job out of college (with an engineering degree) paying $3.70/hr. And I remember my car getting about 13 mpg (highway) on that cheap gas.

My Dad owned a small Burger Shoppe in Santa Cruz, CA in the 70's. Burgers were 25 cents, 35 cents with cheese. Milkshakes were 40 cents. Nothing was over a dollar, except for Bob's Special Garden Hot Dog.

Gas was 45 cents, pay phones were 10 cents for all you could talk. If you had to make a call, you stopped at a pay phone or waited until you got home/to the office.

My first real 10 speed was for my paper route in the 70's. It was built by hand and cost $40, even with the custom paint job. I rolled the bars back with the brakes on my palms, because that's what was cool.

Mom would take us to the grocery store and spend $50 on a heavy shopping spree.

An ice cream cone at Thrifty Drug was 5 cents a scoop. The ice cream station was right next to the TV tube tester.

I miss Match Game.

I remember when the US used to Win wars!

Oh, and when I was first married, the wife's income couldn't count toward qualifying for a mortgage because it was assumed she'd stop working when the first baby arrived.

Yup and there was no way around the requirement to have 10% down. I think that the payment had to be less than 25% of the man's take home income.

Commando Cody, Sky King and Howdy Doody on a mostly round black and white TV.

McDonalds hamburgers for .15 and real drive-ins with car hops.
Bill

We had several of the Big Boy drive-ins in our area and car hopping was my first summer job. It was a tough job but the tips were great.

I remember sitting out on the front porch on summer nights and listening to my mother talk with neighbors who had also stepped outdoors to enjoy the end of another day. I remember being spellbound listening to "grown up" conversations, and wondering how anyone could have that many stories, events, of things to talk about.

I remember being a teenager and thinking that the talk that used to keep me spellbound was now nothing more than "geezer talk", and that old people (anyone over 30) didn't know anything.

I remember the first time my wife and I caught ourselves participating in "geezer talk" and laughing at ourselves. I remember watching my own children sneaking closer to us in order to listen to our "grown up" conversations. It was about at this same time that I remember thinking my parents were actually a whole lot smarter than I thought they were.

I remember watching my own teen aged children roll their eyes as they walked into a room where adults were talking about what they remembered and "the way things used to be". I also remember overhearing them refer to me as a "geezer" for the first time, and being caught between wanting to let them know I overheard them or just walking away (wisely, I walked away).

I remember last night's dinner when my oldest son came to visit and joined us, and he started a conversation with, "Hey, do you remember when..."

I remember when you had to boil or fry a hot dog...now we "nuke" em in 30 seconds!

Some of my fondest memories are:

My grandfather worked for the county. He often brought the road grader home for lunch and he would let me ride with him in the afternoon as he graded the nearby gravel roads.

We had a screened-in front porch and this was my favorite sleeping place on hot summer nights...no air-conditioning in those days.

This time of year I spent many weekends plowing the fields getting them ready for planting. My step-dad built a wooden box and attached it to the Ford tractor so my dog could ride with me.

Going down to the local creek for a swim after baling hay in the summer.

Stopping at the only restaurant in town after school for a coke and chips....the total bill was $0.15.

Buying my first car at age 17. It was a 1951 Ford with way too many miles on it. I paid $100 for it and it lasted me for two years before it finally died:( I replaced it with a cool '55 Chevy. I wish I still had that one.

-Our first non-party line phone number was "Franklin 5-7545."
-Gas at a perpetual 29.9
-Being on a class picnic Washington Park on a beautiful November day and a classmate running from home to tell us JFK had been shot:(
-Gathering in the school gym to watch astronauts launched (on a small BW tv):)
-One channel - 5 with Captain Video on Saturdays:rolleyes:
-Riding the bus to school and if you got caught breaking any one of the 100 rules, getting kicked off the bus
-My Dad always had is Ray Ban sunglasses at the ready if the sun was too bright through the windshield of our brown 52 Ford - which had a push button radio
-I played Little League baseball for one season - I was horrible so went fishing instead the remaining summers
- Going to see the principal in 6th grade (for fighting at recess) and seeing my Mom sitting there too:eek:
And of note, I still see that principal and his wife often here in town and they are the nicest people in the world.

I remember when you had to boil or fry a hot dog...now we "nuke" em in 30 seconds!

Or blow them up if you forget to puncture them:eek:

I forgot to add this to my list- if you were in the Philly area in the 50s, had access to a Philco or Dumont (and if you don't know what these were, you're too young...) you'd probably remember the little guy in my avatar. Here's a quiz for you Philly kids (notice that I didn't spell it "kidz" thereby proving that I'm old enough to be in 50+ :)):

1. Can you name him?

2. How about the host of the TV show- what was his name?

Pushbutton radios in cars- do you remember how you set the buttons to tune in a station?

Yes i do. you pulled the button out, after setting the dial to the station you wanted and then pressed it back in. At least on our 62 Olds 98 it worked that way.
I recall buying gas during a price war for 19 cents a gallon.