Things I'm old enough to remember first-hand

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LOL WHAT A SAP!

Can you just picture one of those gushy /mushy Coffee-mate commercials that make you want to / to have to stroke your kitty cat.

or those gourmet coffees in the square tin whose advertisements were equally emotional?

O M G !
 
Here are a few, at random:

Our old Westinghouse television with a rounded screen; our old mahogany Sylvania console record player (mono); seeing “I Love Lucy” for the first time during the day as a toddler at home; being allowed to come downstairs to watch “The Lucy Show” on Monday nights; a television commercial for a laundry product called Action, where a fist thrust up out of a washing machine; my first 45 record, Herb Alpert’s “A Taste of Honey,” which I took to school in the first grade, but the teacher wouldn’t play it because she thought it was too risqué; my first LP, “Supremes A-Go-Go,” which I got as an Easter present; “The Kirby Scott Show,” kind of a local Baltimore version of “American Bandstand”; the Blizzard of ’66; riding the bus downtown with my mom to go Christmas shopping at the big Howard Street department stores: Hutzler’s, Stewart’s, Hoschild Kohn, and The Hecht Company—all gone; the novelty song “They’re Coming to Take Me Away (Ha Ha)”; the discount store EJ Korvette’s, which had the best record department anywhere; Sylvia Scott, a TV personality who did domestic spots on WMAR; seeing “The Brady Bunch” for the first time, which I found by accident on Christmas night 1969 (it was the episode where the kids got the measles); The First National Grape, a local boutique where I bought incense and black light posters in the sixth grade; going to see “Easy Rider” at the movies with my mom; The 5th Dimension, my favorite group during fifth and sixth grades (my mom took me to see them, and Marilyn McCoo shook my hand—ooh!); the hit single “Brandy (You’re a Fine Girl)”; the early ’70s TV movie “Maybe I’ll Come Home in the Spring,” starring Sally Field; the TV movie “Dawn: Portrait of a Teenage Runaway,” starring Eve Plumb; the TV movie “Cage Without a Key,” starring Susan Dey; the “Medical Center” two-part episode where Robert Reed had a sex change operation; Lafayette Radio Electronics; Read’s drug stores (sadly now Rite Aid); White Coffee Pot restaurants; when Oprah was a local reporter on WJZ; when I bought my first CD player in 1989 in desperation because I couldn’t find records anymore . . .
 
What happened to make us so nostalgic?...

Today, or this week, or this month? I could cite dozens of things like E.J. Korvette, or "Celebrate the moments of your life". I recently ordered a couple of books about post-war TV and radio (dee-jays) broadcasting in Detroit. I read the TV book last weekend. Instead of the history I thought it would be, it was a hundred or more entries of the "picture and a paragraph" variety of people I had forgotten about but was inexplicably pleased to remember. People utterly unknown outside south-eastern lower Michigan (and parts of Ontario).

BTW, I think my favorite feel-good commercial was the first one where GE "brings good things to life". The jingle starts out: "We make your daughters dance, we wake you to the sun..." and the video is a bunch of related shots.
 
The real Bozo the clown, Milky the Clown for Twin Pines Dairy in Detroit, Johnny Ginger and Rita Bells Prize Movie, Bwanna Don, New Era Potato Chips, Clutch Cargo and Sky King, CKLW the Big 8 AM.
 
How could i forget!!!

WOOLWORTHS! We had two in asheville and both had snack bars... oh i remember those from a kid... OMG, that black lady there knew me (or at least i thought she did) and used to bring me a tuna melt with fries and a dill pickle, with Dr.pepper to drink without even asking.. OMG, the memories..
I just came across some wool worths shampoo and soap and a phone nip from them.. I also have a small tv from the early 80's and some plastic containers never used i scarfed from grams b4 they moved... Did they not sell vaccumes???

Also the Golden Girls, i watched this daily as a youngster from 2.5 yrs old!
This is a wonderful thread.. I was raised by my grand parents and some of the older stuff i remember (like the GE clock toggles referred to, gramps has one)
 
I was born in the early 70's. These are things I remembered commonplace that have dissapeared as a kid, some things I remember being introduced, and quite ironically, there are many things on the "most recently" list that are on the "remembered introduced" list:

Things I remember being commonplace that dissapeared when I was a kid:

Big console stereos with huge bass speakers
8-track players
tube testers at drug stores and electronics shops
rotary phones with full-length handsets and real bells
outdoor "campus" style schools
twin-lens reflex cameras
bean bag chairs
CB radios
16mm movies, projectors and cameras
Those metal "Charles Chips" cans you could get refilled
glass soda bottles
typewriters
Volkswagen Beetles
station wagons
modern style home architecture

Things I remember INTRODUCED when I was a kid

The CD player
VCR's
Boomboxes
hand-held portable LCD TV's
home computers (Commodore, Atari, TI, etc)
3-gun television projectors
The space shuttle
diesel powered automobiles
"Big dish" satellite TV
Heat pump HVAC systems
solar water heating systems
below the knee Men's shorts (if you can call them shorts)

Things I thought would be around forever that have recently dissapeared or begun to dissapear:

35mm SLR cameras
transistor radios
VCR's
boomboxes
handheld portable LCD TV's
component stereo systems (stereos as a whole!)
incandescant light bulbs
picture tube TV's and monitors
The Space Shuttle
metal bumpers on automobiles

Things that have held on despite the march of progress:

The ranch home
vacuum tube audio equipment
A.M. broadcast radio
the turntable phonograph
sealed-beam headlamps on automobiles
 
Real department stores, with records, books, sewing supplies, appliances, restaurants, etc. etc. etc.

Nurses in white uniforms.

Elks Clubs

Union Halls

Everyone having an ashtray on their desk

The Phone Company

Real news on local TV - not the fluff and gore you see today.

Morning and afternoon newspapers

Intelligent talk radio

Big hype fore each new model year of cars

Local TV shows (cooking, bowling, farm family of the week, etc. )

Western Auto, Ben Franklin, Pamida, Woolworth's, Kresgee's, McCory's, etc, etc, etc.

Branniff Air Lines

Local drug stores

The Candy Counter at Sears

lighted blacksplashes

The President's Physica Fitness Test

Local utility companies

Orson Welles doing commercials for Gallo wine

Barbara Walters on the Today Show

Dolly Parton doing commercials for Duz
 
Sorry, forgot three things....

Charge plates

Milkmen and TV Repairmen

When everything (utility bills, store bills, report cards) came on an IBM card with "DO NOT FOLD, SPINDLE OR MUTILATE" stamped on it.
 
Ohhhhhhhh...

"The Candy Counter at Sears"

I always thought the fragrance wafting from that department should have been captured and bottled as a cologne. You'd be irresistible to EVERYONE.
 
RC Cola sitting in an ice water cooler, with the cloth to wipe it off tied to the side(13 cents drink in, 15 cents takeaway), Kresge's, draft dodgers moving in down the street and EVERYONE talking about it, our '56 Dodge Regent, the Gestetner and addressograph in my mom's office, Expo '67 Montreal, the coal bin at my grandparents house (very scarey!), the Beatty wringer at the other end of the basement, the Canadian dollar worth more than the US and the tubetester at the TV store.....
 
But wait, there's more!

My mom's Henna Rinse, her mangle ironer,(appropriate name) Waiting in the car (a 46 DeSoto) at the cleaners and watching the steam blow out of the press vent pipes, Manual operator-assist telephones ala "number please?", real dual exhausts and not the faux ones we see on cars these days, My Sears Wee-Alert alarm (blush,blush) The Jewel T. man, Reds under the Beds, Black jet boots, Deborah Kerr, pegged pants, sadistic nuns, Sunbeam chrome vacuum coffee pots, The Fleischman's Margarine lady with her cat eye glasses, taking out the klinkers, 3-bar spinner wheel covers.
 
you guys are good!!

Record Stores with Vinyl LP's and 45's.

The arrival of CD's in the big cardboard packaging.

Nurses in caps and white uniforms while on duty.

Turn cranks on the hospital beds.

Tincture of Green Soap.

The Brady Bunch and Partidge Family on primetime.

Another World in the Steve,Alice and Rachel days!

Kirby Vacuum Stores with The Dual Sanitronc 80 in the window and D50's along the side wall.

Green blenders and mixers on Department store shelves.

Mary Hartman,Mary Hartman.

Seeing the B52's for the first time on Saturday Night Live and becoming hooked!
 
The drama-spoof "Soap" being pre-empted because of racy content.

TPIR with solid tub Speed Queen washers & matching dryers.

After School Specials

Function Junction

Racing home after school to catch reruns of the Brady Bunch, Bewitched, etc. and being pissed as hell when it was ALL Watergate coverage on every channel.

Real news reporting with anchors nobody cared whether or not they were pretty or had good "camera presence" but were honest, intelligent and insightful.

The "Un-Candle"

Kasey Kasem & the Top 40

Buying the number one hit of the week on 45's

Blue Cheer
 
DelRosa Syrup, Farleys Rusks,Bengers
Andy Pandy, Watch With Mother, Pinky & Perky
Hoover Juniors, Servis Supertwins, Creda Debonair`s
Ronson Escorts, Carmen Rollers, Clairol 1200`s
Fairy Soap, OMO, Radiant
Ford Capri, Vauxhall Viva`s, Austin Allegro`s
Brutus Jeans, Cheescloth,Platform Shoes
10cc,Sheila B Devotion, Nancy Sinatra -These Boots Are Made For Walkin
Man on the Moon, Profumo, Miners Strike`s, Power Cuts

And Ariston, and on, and on, and on....
 
I was born in 1981.

Rotary dial phones.
Stick-Shift cars.
The Nintendo Entertainment System.
The Apple IIe with Oregon Trail.
Sesame Street.
Cars that actually contained metal.
Woolworth's.
Montgomery Ward's.
K-Mart.
No Wal-Marts!
Dart Drug.
Washing machines with lint filters you had to clean.
Before cable TV.
When people though beige was a good decorating theme (my mother still does)!
When cars were stll rear wheel drive.
Before the internet.
VCRs.
VCRs that were huge and loaded from the top.
BETAmax.
Microwaves were HUGE! (mine still is)
Dot Matrix printers.
When 9600 modems were the fastest thing EVER!
DOS. You could do ANYTHING in DOS, if you could only figure out how to use it.
When minivans replaced station wagens (why did this ever happen?).
Riding in the back of a GM station wagen facing backwards.
Whe SUVs replaced cars.
When pickup trucks were utilitarian work vehicles.
When many cars had no AC.
When Nickelodeon's last kids' show was Looney Tunes at 7:30, and at 8:00 they switched to Nick at Night with Mr. Ed.
When children played outside without direct supervision until 8:30 at night.
Before the National Do Not Call registry. (I was very evil to telemarketers.)
When people drove cars from the 60s and 70s every day.
Square One on PBS.
Before all the fun kids toys and playground equipment was outlawed for not being safe.
When flying was actually kind of pleasnt.
When accidentally getting injured wasn't cause for a lawsuit.
Sturmey Archer bicycle hubs. (Think old English 3-speeds)
Before Roler Blades.
Before Harry Potter.
Before toy guns were considered dangerous.
Before grocery stores accepted credit cards.
Before the McDonald's extra value menu.

That's a good dose for now,
Dave
 

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