Things I'm old enough to remember first-hand

Automatic Washer - The world's coolest Washing Machines, Dryers and Dishwashers

Help Support :

rinso

rinso

Well-known member
Joined
Jul 5, 2005
Messages
1,034
Location
Meridian Idaho
“Radar Men on the Moon” weekly Saturday serial, 1956 Ford safety campaign (not well received), Bomb drills at school, Cigarette ads on TV, CinemaScope, Colorful, locally owned hamburger stands and amusement parks, Crosely Shelve-a-door, DeSotos, Fifties sci-Fi movies (In “This Island Earth” the monster has visible panty lines under his costume), Frigidaire ventless Condensing Dryer (My mom’s first dryer), I Love Lucy – first runs, Maytag AMP with the red agitator (My mom’s first automatic), Polio-and the Salk Vaccine, Senator McCarthy’s lunatic rants and raves on TV, Sputnik—the first object launched into orbit, Studebakers, Nashes, Hudsons, and Packards, Suicide doors on cars, The debut of tail fins on cars, The first Color Televisions, The first colored appliances and bathroom fixtures, The first Stereophonic Sound records, The first Unimatics, The Red Skelton Radio Show, The rubber tub Bendix Squish-O-Matic Washer (our renter had one), Union suit short underwear with a flap in the back, Univac computers, Youngstown Kitchens metal cabinets and dishwashers, Your Hit Parade
 
Anybody care to share their lists? My last name, translated from colloquial Italian, roughly means "I am with years." Too true!! I'm older than the first Unimatic. Scary!
 
Oh, this is gonna be fun!

The television premiere of "Rudolph" and "A Charlie Brown Christmas." Being able to smoke in the supermarket. Inflation. Long lines at the gas station and only being able to buy gas on odd-numbered days. Dynamo as the first 1/4-cup detergent. Cyclamates. McDonalds with no indoor seating. Grant's and Woolworth's. Cool toys that didn't have their own TV show. One TV set per family and most likely black and white. 45s. Bonomo Turkish Taffy. Sears Toughskins. Banana bikes. Plastigoop. Snow Tires. Late August when the Christmas catalogs would start arriving. Burning my butt on hot vinyl car seats in the summer.
 
My List

8 Track tape players, Suzi Homemaker, Johnny Quest, Covairs, TV shows: Combat, Time Tunnel, Star Trek, Laugh-in,.. Nixon, Nixon's Resignation, NBC Peacock, Bama Jelly jar glasses, Kenner's Big Burger Grill (toy cooks with 100 watt bulb), Sears Toughskins, Sears Wish book, Zenith "Quality goes in before the name goes on.", "Winston tasts good like a cigarette should.", "The following program is brought to you in living color on NBC", AMC Pacer (yes I owned one), FM converter for your AM car radio, Moon landings, Huntly Brinkley Report, Captain Kangaroo, Romper Room, Matchbox cars, Ah what memories
Joe
jamman_98
 
Ok so i am not that old, but hey

When the Ford Taurus Came Out and When the Ford Explorer Came Out
Ferris Bullers Day Off, Breakfast Club
Ford Fairmont and Dodge Aspen
The chevy trucks that blew up when you hit them in the side
When greenstamps dissapered out of stores
When you could smoke in the mall or in the airport (my parents did this)
Those big bear guys from the home improvment magazeines in ciggerette ads and car ads (the first inclination one might be gay)
Litton Microwave Ovens
Polybutalene Pipes
Round Hoover Vaccume Cleaners
When Wal mart Started appering every place you whent
 
in no particular order...

"One Small Step for man, one Giant step for Mankind"
Vietnam war
Nixon resigning
The Brady Bunch in first run
Here's Lucy
The energy crisis in 1973, and my dad complaining about paying $.60 a gallon for gas.
Our first car with power windows(1974 Buick Electra Limited)
My mom's 1968 Buick Electra 225(her favorite car ever) and the ignition keyhole way down on the dashboard.
Having cable TV because you lived too far out to have a signal.
The enactment of the 55 MPH speed limit in 1973.
Kmart selling GE and Frigidaire major appliances
 
Breakfast Club

Chad only 2hours ago i reminded myself that i was acting like the Hooded girl with dark eye make up that sat in the back me the library in Breakfast Club. I was slightly drunk sniggering and squeaking at the kitchen table eating dinner whilst workin out how to ask Mum about our first washer. Great film and that character was the best! Rob
 
Breakfast Club

I was momentarily excited to see this headline, as I thought it was about the radio show with that title.

========================================================
Good Morning breakfast clubbers, good morning to ya

We woke up bright and early just to howdy-do ya

It's first call to breakfast for all of you out there

America awake, the Breakfast Club is on the air!
========================================================

There's another verse, or maybe more. I can't remember.
 
LOL

My list kind of sucks, I suppose :-)

Cadillac--Standard of the World; the "this is not your father's Oldsmobile--this is the new generation of Olds!" ; the movie Legend; the Atari 2600; all things Ronald Reagan; never wearing your seatbelt no matter where you went or what you did; sitting on the center armrests of a car to see out over the hood.

Inspector Gadget, Foofur (what a name), 3-2-1-Contact; Coke versus Coke Classic; cola wars and Elton John with Diet Coke in hand. Remembering movies where the default bad guys were Soviets and the KGB.

Timothy Dalton as James Bond, Swiss coffee and almond as the ultimate interior colors; gas under $1 per gallon. Shoulder pads and oversized belts in women's apparel.
 
And oh yes...

Home Box Office (what a novelty), cable pre-wired in your house...the ratcheting-lever cable tuner, RF modulators, and--*runs in circles then falls over*--The Golden Girls!!
 
Bob Barker with dark hair and the classic Barker's Beauties.
Madonna vs Cyndi Lauper
Big Macs in styrofoam clamshell containers
Punky Brewster
corporal punishment in public schools
phones rented from the phone company
having to sit in a chair by the phone to talk
wooden console TVs being the standard
Sears with a snack bar
Oprah before she was a life-spiritual guru/billionaire
 
And...

...Dial telephones, pay phones, typewriters, mimeographs, carbon paper, dial tuners on TVs, department stores that weren't Macy's, high heels for men, Astro Ventilation, add-on A/C units that hung under a car's dash, throw rugs on hardwood floors, incinerator baskets for burning leaves and trash, metal ice cube trays, The Saturday Evening Post, LOOK, and LIFE, Rexall Drug Stores, manual adding machines, IBM punchcard machines, Hollerith cards (the punchcards themselves), Coke bottles with sprinkler tops for ironing, "Laugh-In", Playtape, Betamax, seat covers on most people's cars, Fuller Brush wax applicators, Glo-Coat, Klear, and Beautiflor, the Record Club of America, Crazy Foam, Swanson's tuna pot pies, Goofy Grape Funny Face drink mix, Wink (the sassy one from Canada Dry), Bosco, coins of real silver and copper, commissioned salespeople who actually knew what they were talking about in department stores, Broxodent, Capitola flour tokens, The Tijuana Brass, Brother Dave Gardner, Iron Butterfly, the Tremeloes, Jo Ann Castle, Peggy Cass, Dorothy Kilgallen, "Mahna Mahna", portable record players, AM transistor radios, John Glenn's first Mercury mission, Vaughn Meader's "First Family" album, Chesterfield 101's ("A silly millimetre longer"), Texize, Snap-Jacks, Capri pants, and last but definitely not least...

...visiting a store or going to a movie at night and feeling ABSOLUTELY SAFE.
 
Duz wuz the detergent I remember with hand towels or tumblers. Raleigh cigarettes had coupons you could accumulate them and turn them in for an iron lung. And Sandy, when you mentioned mimeographs, a whole flood of memories came back. I think the 50's were such a calm decade was because so many were high on mimeograph fluid. When photocopiers came out, we HAD to smoke dope to take up where those machines left off.
 
Underoos

I was about 5 or 6 when these came out and were the rage. I loved my Wonder Woman ones. I bet there are a few of you on here who secretly jealous of your sisters Wonder Woman ones too! :-)

Superman and Batman were the ones I wanted but only came with boys tighty whitey style underwear and I couldn't convince my parents to buy them for me!

 
LOL!

"Sandy, when you mentioned mimeographs, a whole flood of memories came back. I think the 50's were such a calm decade was because so many were high on mimeograph fluid. When photocopiers came out, we HAD to smoke dope to take up where those machines left off."

That's the best laugh I've had in some time!

BTW, all you young whippersnappers who haven't seen the things of your childhood become obsolete and completely unobtainable yet- your turn is coming. I know it feels like you've beaten the system, like you'll be young (or reasonably young) forever. But one grim night, you'll be watching TV, and a commercial will come on. You'll look at the woman in it, and think, "Hmm. She looks familiar," but you won't quiiiiite be able to place her, because she's obviously face-lifted and Botoxed. Only when she speaks will you know who she is: "Hello- this is Jennifer Beals for Polident!"

And trust me- from that moment on, you will never really feel young again.

*Wicked Witch of the West cackle*
 
The first Atari, TI 99 home computer (my dad was on design team), gas shortages, tornado drills in school (doubled as nuclear bomb drills), Hong Kong Phooey, Romper Room, Peppermint Place, Dusty's Treehouse, Captain Kangaroo, Merry Melodies and Three Stooges every morning at 7, purple inked mimeographs - we loved to sniff them, blue laws (in Texas, we couldn't buy a kite on a Sunday - and other stupid rules), rotary phones - rented from SW Bell, only 3 or 4 TV stations, MTV!!! (Boy George, Billy Idol, Madonna and the rest), Captain and Tennille show, Pink Lady and Jeff, Love Boat and Fantasy Island (must see TV at my house), The Wonderful World of Disney every Sunday night, Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom, Logan's Run, first showing of Star Wars, Indianna Jones, Sears when they had everything: guns, toys, kitchenwares, plants and landscaping stuff, and all those specialty catalogs: farm and ranch equipment, etc, Kansas, Boston, Pink Floyd, KISS, Heart, Steve Miller Band, and finally NO WAL-MARTS ANYWHERE TO BE SEEN!!
 
More

DDT - trucks sprayed it every night to kill skeeters, LP records, 8 tracks, and then came cassettes to become the pinnacle of recording technology (now there are kids in their late teens who have never seen one), TV dinners with foil trays, Tiny Tim, AC/DC with Bon Scott - my parents would have died - but only after killing me first - if they would have caught me listening to that, cassette tape converters for car 8 track players, pet rocks, mood rings, plaid pants (eeewww!!!! they made me wear them in 2nd grade).
 
78 rpm only record players; first runs of Lassie (original with Gramps), Twilight Zone, I Love Lucy, Ed Sullivan, Red Skelton; Westinghouse bottom freezer fridge with shelves that rotated around a post in the center front; Bendix bolt-down Deco washer in the basement; 1957 Ford Fairlane 4 door sedan; hula hoops; first Frisbees (called "Pluto Platters"); real silver dimes, quarters, half-dollars, dollars; bomb drills at school where we had to crouch in the central hallway of our one-story brick school house; seeing JFK's prop plane fly overhead to the local airport; lining up for polio vaccine outside the town hall; goofy novelty songs ("Purple People Eater"); the Chipmunks (can't stand them now)...
 

Latest posts

Back
Top