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!

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.

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.

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.

Yep:beer:! None of that digital stuff for us, eh?

I remember 35 cent gas in high school. I remember making my father an ash tray in elementary school for art class. I remember side vent windows and floor vents in cars. I remember wooden skate boards with steel wheels.

Bubble gum for a penny, most candy bars were 2 cents, the big deluxe ones were a nickel. I filled my Honda 90 for 24.9 cents per gallon. How about when the oil embargo hit us hard, and gas went all the way up to 36 cents per gallon??? I worked for Burger King while going to college, and was aghast when the Double Whopper topped $1 and the sugar embargo made a large drink jump to 39 cents.

I don't know about others, but my family were always high-tech nerds. We were using calculators as soon as we could multiply.

http://www.dansdata.com/images/blog/curta/curta500.jpg

Both my brother and I were using computers in high school.

http://www.cca.org/tech/rcs/images/asr33-01.jpg

We were eating at McDonald's when I was 3. And I can remember when it said 1 million.

http://cache.viewimages.com/xc/52630...0A659CEC4C8CB6

To me, music was always remixed and electronic.

http://www.carlosbela.com/aporias/wp...andrepopp2.jpg

And most futuristic about my life....

I taught myself to ride a bike at age 5 and kept on riding.

http://www.bikeicons.com/images/1960...nn%20Pixie.jpg

I remember watching Satchel Paige pitch for the Browns, Stan Musiel bat for the Cards and Ted Williams play for the Red Sox...all in person.
I shined shoes in 1952 for $.10 a pair--and had to keep the barber shop swept for free.
Drove a truck in 59 moving drilling rigs for $1.00/hr.
1st car--1949 Chevy--$200--1960
Mom used to give me $.25 to go to the Saturday matinee movies. $.15 to get in, $.05 for candy or popcorn and $.05 for a coke--and the cokes and candy were BIG. Double feature with cartoons and coming attractions.

I remember when saying the "f" word anywhere near where your mother (or the Priest, teacher, or neighbor) could hear it was worth a near-death experience at the hands (or specifically at the boots) of a Battle of the Bulge veteran.

I remember a lot of those things mentioned... And I don't think I saw a color TV until I was in the Marines, but I was always intrigued when the family sat to watch one of our regular shows on our B&W TV...

The announcer came on and boldly said, "The FBI... In Color"

It was probably in the 80's when I finally knew that the Wizard of Oz was partly in color, and partly in Black and White.

I also remember hand written report cards where the comments weren't just the instructor selecting from a list.

Remember when downtown areas were the hubs of activity, before everyone started shopping at malls?

I remember getting my first library card, and then walking the 2 miles to the library to check out books. It was nothing but a wallet sized slip of paper with a number and my name on it, but it was so cool waiting for the librarian to type it up.

I remember when I could remember.

Most of it will be silly prices but 3 gallon of petrol for £1--About $2. Then prices started going up and thought that if it hit $1 per gallon- I would give up driving. That was in 1972/3. It is now around $11 a gallon.

And I would like to know when the penny chewie bar hit 15 pence. Gave a neighbours kid £5 to go to the shops to get two Icecreams last week and got no Change. Still reckon she made a profit out of me.

Yeah and that radio today is supposed to be an "improvement." :rolleyes:

My son wanted to buy me a new radio for my car... something that would play CDs... He has heard me rant so much he remembered to get one with knobs... so I could adjust the volume without pushing buttons. (thing still has too many buttons... and yeah, I keep a copy of the manual in the "glove box")

BTW grew up in Texas... 19 cent gas was pretty much the deal during "gas wars" until about the mid '70's... then there wasn't any gas. I was already a bike rider and I just knew we were going to one day a week of no driving... man I was looking forward to that... It was already fun riding past the long lines at the gas stations. ;)

My "car" is a used '91 4x4 Toyota truck... one of the "selling items" was the side vent windows... they have far outlasted the air conditioning. (and the radio... )

Of course the truck still works fine as I bike commuted for so many years. (I bought that truck in '93)

Those side vent widows are wonderful... wonder if they are available as an option in any car made today.