What are you old enough to remember?

[+ Autumnal]

Phones with no dials - had to give the operator the number.

Phone party lines.

Getting our first TV - black & white, and we only received 4 channels.

"I like Ike!"

Hula Hoops.

Having to wear a suit and tie if we went to the city.

[dbar123]

I miss 7 digit telephone numbers with named exchanges...like PEnnsylvania 6-5000....or MUrrayhill 7-7500. They were a lot more fun.

[+ sync]

The introduction of:

• Tissues
  
• Varieties of bathroom tissues
  
• Electric automobile windshield wipers
  
• Electric automobile windows and door locks
  
• Automobile automatic transmissions
  
• Automobiles without directional signals
  
• Automobiles had the gear shift on the floor only
  
• Electric can opener
  

YIKES!!

Edited February 14, 2021 by sync

[thickornotatall]

Twin Pines Dairy

Milky The ? Clown

[MikeBiDude]

The introduction of:

• Paper towels
  

1931?

paper towel trivia

[marylander1940]

All of these....in Los Angeles there was a local clown show on TV “Chuckles the Clown”. I made a brief appearance on it at 4 years old on B&W TV.

 

My dad was a real estate agent....he was showing a house in his newish Chrysler in the 60’s which had seat belts. He says a boy of the family got into the car, buckled up, and asked my dad “cool, when do we crash?”

 

About real estate...

 

I remember "no Catholics" and only "Caucasian people of the Nordic branch" in covenants... yes, I'm 80!

 

George W.'s Racial Covenant (slate.com)

[samhexum]

yes, I'm 80!

 

Did you ever think you'd get to a point in life where "You don't look a day over 65" would make you smile?

[Phil_musc]

Mail delivery in both the morning and the afternoon M-F; only once on Saturday

 

MacDonald's hamburgers were 15 cents, a small fries was 12 cents, and a coke was a dime.

 

Watching the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show.

 

Tammy, Tammy, Tammy's in Love.

 

Keukla, Fran and Ollie.

 

Watching Casey Donovan in Boys in the Sand.

 

Gas was under 20 cents per gallon.

 

Top price tickets for a Broadway musical on Saturday night were $9.99.

[+ sync]

1931?

paper towel trivia

I stand corrected. I became aware of them when I was about six. My mom was probably aware of them much earlier, I just don't remember snatching them off their rollers until I was about six. That was fun.

[+ 7829V]

I’ve heard stories about swimming naked at the YMCA. Any first hand experiences?

[MikeBiDude]

I’ve heard stories about swimming naked at the YMCA. Any first hand experiences?

You may enjoy this thread about naked swimming pools including YMCA.

[+ azdr0710]

To plan an airline trip, there was a thick paper book, like a phone book, that was printed twice a year. It contained all of the airlines, flight numbers, arr/dept times and cities. You looked up here you wanted to go, wrote down all the flight numbers, then called the travel people to book the tickets.

 

I remember it: the OAG - Official Airline Guide....yes, it was exactly the size and appearance of an old phone book....my Dad was an airline captain, so I saw it occasionally.......

 

[samhexum]

What are you old enough to remember?

 

When that guy running at the bottom of the guide was a beloved football star. ???

[+ WilliamM]

Harry Truman, Arthur Godfrey and Dorothy Kilgallon

[+ Topseed]

Seeing Jack Ruby shoot Lee Harvey Oswald live on national television. Sunday, November 24, 1963.

[+ Charlie]

Sending CARE packages to Europe.

Truman beating Dewey.

Our first post-War car (1947 Pontiac).

Our first car with turn signals (1952 Pontiac).

Black and white TV with only three channels.

Watching the Miss America pageant on TV every year in the 1950s.

Going to Dodgers games at Ebbets Field and Giants games at the Polo Grounds.

Phones with party lines and live operators.

Lying in bed worrying about whether World War III would start if the Chinese bombed Kemoy and Matsu.

Girls wearing plastic pop-beads.

Kids with polio in "iron lungs."

No zip codes or area codes.

The US Senate had only 96 members.

Water fountains in Virginia that were marked "White Only."

World maps that showed most of Africa as European colonies.

My parents finally paying off the 30 year $3500 mortgage on our home.

[kingsley88]

Flying on a 747 plane where there is one large screen in the middle and everyone had to watch the same movie(s) throughout the flight. There were no small TVs back then in front of each seat. For other forms of entertainment, you can ask the flight attendant for a deck of cards.

 

Having 1 landline phone number for a family of 6. We didn't have callerID back then so whenever the phone rang we always answered it! In addition, long distance domestic and international calls were $$$ (I grew up in NJ and recall some phone numbers that had the same area code were considered long distance too.)

 

Classified ads (Personals) where you have to call a phone number and leave them a voicemail message.

[+ harey]

Walter Cronkite

Classic Doctor Who

Making eye contact on the street

[Luv2play]

Harry Truman, Arthur Godfrey and Dorothy Kilgallon

I remember when Dorothy Kilgallon died. She was doing a television show from NewYork, a panel show. Was it What’s My Line? Anyway, the host of the show was almost in tears the next episode. I think Bennet Cerf was on the show too.

 

Many years later I read her death was suspicious. Is my memory serving me right here?

[+ WilliamM]

I remember when Dorothy Kilgallon died. She was doing a television show from NewYork, a panel show. Was it What’s My Line? Anyway, the host of the show was almost in tears the next episode. I think Bennet Cerf was on the show too.

 

Many years later I read her death was suspicious. Is my memory serving me right here?

Perhaps suspicious and connected to the John Kennedy assassination. Never proved.

 

 

Arlene Francis, another regular, was almost certainly on the show a week after Kilgallon died. And moderator John Daly.

 

If I am remembering correctly Kilgallon took the panel show very seriously and was good at it. Francis was more sophisticated and very witty. Not sure if Cerf was gay.

[Luv2play]

Sending CARE packages to Europe.

Truman beating Dewey.

Our first post-War car (1947 Pontiac).

Our first car with turn signals (1952 Pontiac).

Black and white TV with only three channels.

Watching the Miss America pageant on TV every year in the 1950s.

Going to Dodgers games at Ebbets Field and Giants games at the Polo Grounds.

Phones with party lines and live operators.

Lying in bed worrying about whether World War III would start if the Chinese bombed Kemoy and Matsu.

Girls wearing plastic pop-beads.

Kids with polio in "iron lungs."

No zip codes or area codes.

The US Senate had only 96 members.

Water fountains in Virginia that were marked "White Only."

World maps that showed most of Africa as European colonies.

My parents finally paying off the 30 year $3500 mortgage on our home.

I have a friend here who is in her 90’s and Dewey was a neighbour of her family in an apartment building on 5th Ave. In New York when she was a kid. I think she said Roosevelt sent him to Russia during the war to visit Stalin but could be wrong about that.

[Luv2play]

Perhaps suspicious and connected to the John Kennedy assassination. Never proved.

 

 

Arlene Francis, another regular, was almost certainly on the show a week after Kilgallon died. And moderator John Daly.

 

If I am remembering correctly Kilgallon took the panel show very seriously and was good at it. Francis was more sophisticated and very witty. Not sure if Cerf was gay.

Cerf was my favorite. He was so erudite and always had a twinkle in his eye.

 

So many people died mysteriously after JFK’s assassination. Like Mary Myers, his girlfriend and mistress, wife of the CIA deputy head, Cord Myers.

[mike carey]

The first day of decimal currency. The Australian pound was converted to two of the new 'dollars', and one shilling (12 pence) became 10 cents. So I still know what it meant when the price of something was £5/17/11. The cartoon character for the introduction advertising was Dollar Bill, but we never called currency notes 'bills'.

Party line phones. Five local farms were on the same number and they could listen to each other's calls.

My first few years at university my mum still had a manual phone. Number was 745.

Imperial weights and measures.

Having our first television just a few years after TV started here. TV started after I was born but before I can remember.

Wireless stations closing for the night with the national anthem. (It was 'God Save the Queen'. I can't remember when it was God Save the King - I hadn't been born when the Queen came to the throne.)

Only AM radio.

One and two cent coins. (5c is the smallest here, 10c in NZ.)

One and two dollar notes.

Finding Kiwi, British and Fijian coins in circulation. They used to be the same size and weight for the same nominal value. The only foreign coin I've seen here in recent years was a Swedish 10 Krona coin which is the same size and metal as $AU2.

[BSR]

I remember European travel before the Euro. You had to exchange money in each different country you visited and had to budget a lot more carefully because if you exchanged too many francs, for example, you then had to exchange the francs for pesetas (or marks or whatever), thus getting nailed twice with exchange fees.

 

Before my time, but my uncle used to talk about the days when only luxury cars had air conditioning. The father of one his friends bought a Cadillac that had air conditioning, and they were the envy of the whole neighborhood.

[+ WilliamM]

Mail delivery in both the morning and the afternoon M-F; only once on Saturday

 

MacDonald's hamburgers were 15 cents, a small fries was 12 cents, and a coke was a dime.

 

Watching the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show.

 

Tammy, Tammy, Tammy's in Love.

 

Keukla, Fran and Ollie.

 

Watching Casey Donovan in Boys in the Sand.

 

Gas was under 20 cents per gallon.

 

Top price tickets for a Broadway musical on Saturday night were $9.99.

 

Tickets to Broadway shows like "Funny Girl" and "The Sound of Music" were about five dollars when they tried-out in Boston, New Haven But, The Sound of Music in 1959 almost immediately sold out