What are you old enough to remember?

[Smurof]

Screaming bloody murder on a choo choo train ride at age 3. The ride went in a small circle on a track. Therapy started shortly thereafter, and continues to this day. I'll let Amtrak know when I'm ready....

[+ Cash4Trash]

Picking up your phone and asking the operator to connect you, mixing yellow dye into margarine to make it look like butter (saving butter for the troops), going to a small rural school where the 1st 8 grades were all in one room with one teacher, pissing out the window in winter because getting to outhouse in the snow was a bitch.

[Buff Daddy]

Getting smacked around by the Dominican sisters in Catholic School. Going to 9am Sunday Mass and you had to sit with your class or else!. Not allowed to eat meat on a Friday or you were going to hell!. Old Italian Ladies wearing black all the time, because of a death in the family. Subway tokens. Schwinn bikes with the banana seats. Walking to the candy store and buying cigarettes for my grandfather at age 10. And walking all by myself. Could you imagine that today! Playing with marbles.

[JayCeeKy]

The 1956 Republican Convention. I was a child but I can remember watching, on our teeny-tiny b/w screen.

 

Cars w/out seat belts.

[+ poolboy48220]

The 1964 World's Fair in New York City. One of my earliest memories, a family vacation (my mother & father grew up in New York). I remember the big globe (Unisphere) as we walked in from the parking lot, and the exhibition introducing the Ford Mustang, they rode on tracks through a room full of dinosaurs. I remember thinking I was actually driving the car.

[+ Pensant]

Sodas sold only in glass bottles

Coke in small bottles for 5 cents dispensed from a round red coke machine.

[+ Pensant]

Attending Phillies games at Connie Mack Stadium

Ford Country Squire station wagons

using the Thomas Guide to find my way way around LA and Orange Counties

the gay bars in Garden Grove CA. I think there were at least 6

wearing Bass Weejuns

[Guest]

Going with my dad to the drug store to test and replace the vacuum tubes in the TV

Sunday night watching the Wonderful World of Disney

Having my older half brother take me to see Star Wars in the theater the month it was released

Jack in the Box commercials with Rodney Allen Rippy

The cafeteria in our local Sears which was turned into an arcade

Ticket books at Disneyland and saving the unused ones for the next trip!

[+ azdr0710]

And running out of E tickets first, thus being reduced to riding the lame Main St Trolley a few times

[BSR]

I just remembered another one: going to a TV store. Yeah, believe it or not, such a thing used to exist. Before Best Buy, Wal-Mart, etc., you used to go to a TV store, little boutique shops, to buy a TV. Then the big box stores negotiated such deep discounts from the manufacturers that they could sell retail for less than the wholesale price that mom & pop TV stores paid. Needless to say, that was the death of the mom & pops.

[+ sync]

Attending Phillies games at Connie Mack Stadium

Ford Country Squire station wagons

using the Thomas Guide to find my way way around LA and Orange Counties

the gay bars in Garden Grove CA. I think there were at least 6

wearing Bass Weejuns

The Ford Country Squire was one sweet-looking ride for pretty much of its entire run.

1949

1991

[+ 7829V]

Passengers smoking on planes.

 

When you bought your plane ticket they’d ask you “smoking or non smoking zone?”

[+ Lucky]

My favorite movie:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JSiFzw2PbE

[samhexum]

Screaming bloody murder on a choo choo train ride at age 3. The ride went in a small circle on a track. Therapy started shortly thereafter, and continues to this day. I'll let Amtrak know when I'm ready....

When I was a young'n, the family went to a kiddie park whilst on vacation. I must've been 5 or 6, I guess, maybe 7 (8 tops, for sure). I went on a ride where you drove miniature antique cars around a track. The cars were actually gas-powered, and mine ran out of gas right smack in the middle. An attendant had to come out with a gas can. I stayed calm. What a champ!

 

It didn't stop me from driving, though I failed my road test the first time. It wasn't until this very moment that I realized it was because of the trauma that I had buried since that day long ago.

[samhexum]

The cafeteria in our local Sears which was turned into an arcade

 

I assume you meant that the cafeteria was turned into an arcade and not the Sears, because otherwise that would've been one heck of an arcade!

[Buff Daddy]

Who remembers Woolworth ?. Sitting at the lunch counter and having a malted or ice cream ?. The place had wooden floors that Creaked and the store smelled like mothballs. And outside the store they had the pony rides for I believe 10 cents. What a bunch of old Queens we have become.

[+ WilliamM]

Molly Goldberg (actually Gerdrud Berg who is also known for "A Majority of One" on Broadway and summer theater)

[thickornotatall]

I'm

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

We had to swim nude in high school...I remember looking and wondering if I'd ever get more hair down there...One red head always had a hardon..the swim coach said that was a big fucking dick...A few Black guys were afraid to swim...The coach used a long pole ( hahaha) to push one guy in the deep end..I jumped in to help him..His name was Henry Ford...A skinny little guy with a cock as big as he was...When I kept looking at it he let me touch it..I was very nervous...but eventually got over it..then on it..I made a good friend ?

Edited February 16, 2021 by thickornotatall

[Buff Daddy]

Dammm. I went to the wrong school ????

[+ bashful]

no area codes

 

Don't know if this was mentioned, but I remember exchanges, then a number. The first phone number I remember we had was a word, then number (VEmont - #####), we moved, and our phone number became BRoadway - #####.

[+ bashful]

Being able to "floating" a check for two or three days before payday. (Banks were closed on Wednesdays- no ATM's)

 

Did it often, as late as the early 80's.

[+ bashful]

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

 

We swam naked in our high school swim class.

[+ bashful]

Passengers smoking on planes.

 

When you bought your plane ticket they’d ask you “smoking or non smoking zone?”

 

Airlines would send you a ticket in the mail, and you would then send them a check for the airfare.

 

I remember getting a call from a collection agency long after I took the trip about owing money to a now long ago defunct airline. I said I paid it, and looked at my check register, and even told them the check number, and account number. I was moving at the time, and never heard more. About four/five years later, I was trading in my car, and at the dealership, I was emptying out all my stuff, and there in the glove box, was an envelope to the airline, stamped, and sealed. Oops.

Edited February 16, 2021 by bashful

[+ bashful]

Who remembers Woolworth ?. Sitting at the lunch counter and having a malted or ice cream ?. The place had wooden floors that Creaked and the store smelled like mothballs. And outside the store they had the pony rides for I believe 10 cents. What a bunch of old Queens we have become.

 

Kresge's (in Detroit) had the same counters. Used to get a Coke served in a paper cone in a metal holder, crushed ice, paper straw, and don't know for sure, but maybe made with syrup and soda water.

[+ bashful]

I'm

We had to swim nude in high school...I remember looking and wondering if I'd ever get more hair down there...One red head always had a hardon..the swim coach said that was a big fucking dick...A few Black guys were afraid to swim...The coach used a long pole ( hahaha) to push one guy in the deep end..I jumped in to help him..His name was Henry Ford...A skinny little guy with a cock as big as he was...When I kept looking at it he let me touch it..I was very nervous...but eventually got over it..then on it..I made a good friend ?

 

In our naked swim class, I remember there were about three guys who some thought to be gay. They were bigger than average. One guy's in particular hung low, and had a nice curve. (not that I really noticed)