You guys are making me feel young, because some of these are before my time.

In no particular order, I remember

• when I had less than a nickel, the guy at the corner drugstore would measure dots by the penny (dots were colored dots, probably just sugar and food coloring, on waxed paper)

• the corner drugstore

• three TV channels (and the TV was only capable of getting channels 2-13)

• watching football and trying to guess the color of the jerseys (only much later did I realize that my dad didn't have any special ability in discerning shades of gray, but knew the home/away jersey colors of the NFL teams)

• scrounging for returnable bottles to get spending money

• changing the oil in the car and watching the cool patterns it made on the surface of the water after we dumped it in the creek

• taking broken stuff to be welded

• pulling all the tubes (except the picture tube) from the tv and taking them to the store to be tested to find out which one(s) needed to be replaced

• "duck and cover" nuclear attack drills

• a 5 digit phone number

• pong kept us entertained for hours

• the time the Romper Room lady saw me in her magic mirror

• when my parents had parties, they had a special sterling silver cigarette dish that they stocked for their guests

• looking at the A&W mugs and timing the order to get a chipped one (our A&W let you keep the mug if it was chipped)

• gas wars driving the price below 20c

• bang notation email addresses

Jeesh, this is really funny stuff. And some of it may have to do with where we lived.

Bang notation...yup, forgot about that. And, around 3PM at work you could hardly work because everyone was sneaking onto bulletin boards.

Duck and cover, tv tube testers, saving pop bottles, wax lips, corner store...we should get together and film a TV show.

Digit, Yours was really interesting in regards to wild life and dealing with it compared to our respect of such now along with their living environment. Plus the farmer thing between two kids...note that the three of us were all on a farm. Maybe the rest of the forum regulars are actually calling us "farmers" and can't figure out why any of this is so close to home for us. Trying to be humorous here, but memories of the farm gave me a love for many of my joys of today.

I used to go trout fishing 1/2 hour from Denver and bring home a limit of 10 trout, about perfect for the wicker creel, every day I went, and we'd fire up the charcoal grill (with the Libby, MT vermiculite chunks as the base for the charcoal), and everybody would eat two 12 " trout for dinner.

I remember fishing in some streams north of Crested Butte where the brook trout were so thick that it looked like a hatchery, you had to wait to see the bottom of the stream until the fish moved out of the way.

I remember when we wouldn't keep a trout unless it was at least 12" long, and when we'd get bored, we'd fish with worms and throw suckers, by the dozens, up on the bank to die.

Our prefix was Pioneer. :) Talking to a real operator at the local telephone substation.

Before the Interstate bypass went around town, there was a great old stucco-faced truck stop in town. They and A&W drive-in were the only "take out" food in town. And behind the truck stop, they dumped all their coffee grounds on the ground out by the incinerators (yes, burned trash) and you went there to get worms for fishing.

When they built the I-70 bypass, we would take our Honda 50s out and run up and down that nice smooth road before it was paved and ready for traffic.

Sunday afternoon drives around town the countryside were for everyone and the average speed was about 15 mph in town and maybe 25 out on the country roads. LOL Then you went to DQ.

Gymkanas on alternating Friday nights and Saturday afternoons. The wheat trucks lined up for two miles waiting to dump their loads at the elevators (pre-custom cutters).

Getting Atomic Red Hots at Hub City Variety and how musty smelling and wonderful that store was. :)

Wow, so interesting to hear everyone's experiences in different places/times. The polio epidemic must have been so scary. I may be a tad younger and I didn't grow up on a farm (My parents were "city folk" my mom grew up in Detroit and my Dad in Denver) and have never experienced outhouses...But...

I, too, remember candy cigarettes, saving glass bottles, and drive in movies in pajamas--the first feature was usually for kids/family and the second one was rated R and we had to lay down in the backseat and go to sleep.

( I think I mentioned this on another thread) but I grew up in Orange County Calif. and walked to school when it really was mostly orange groves and strawberry fields. Buying the first flat of strawberries for the year:)

Learning to read with the Dick & Jane books.

Color TV came out when I was about five, but we couldn't afford it and had a black and white one with the rabbit ears taped on forever.

Watching Sonny & Cher and Donny & Marie (I had a Cher barbie).

TV shows that were on regularly when I was a kid: Disney movies and Omaha's Wild Kingdom every Sunday night. Andy Griffith, I Love Lucy, Bewitched, Land of the Lost, HR Puff & Stuff, Fat Albert, School House Rock.

My Mom getting a microwave oven and what a huge deal that was.

8 track music.

We never had pong but my aunt did and we'd play for hours. The first Pacman & Centipede video games at the local pizza parlor where I spent all of my babysitting money.

As a kid, leaving in the morning to go out and play and not coming home until the street lights came on.

When I got a little older, we hung out at the roller rink every Friday night.

My first concert ever was Rick Springfield at Red Rocks Ampitheatre in CO with my cousins.

Madonna, Oprah, & MTV all made their debuts when I was in high school.

....I'm sure there's more but that's all I could think of for now :)

Charlene

I remember WoolworthÂs & Ben Franklin stores 5 & 10 cent stores they were calledÂand you really could get stuff for 5 and 10 cents; and hardwood floors in the stores.

When I moved to Denver there were only short stretches of I80 done between Chicago And DEN. A section of I80 was finished going into Council Bluffs, IA, but it stopped right in the middle of town, and my girlfriend and I, in separate cars, wound up separated from each other in the middle of Omaha for a half an hour! DonÂt remember how we happened to find each other again! And Iowa, where itÂs hilly, had 3-lane roads and the middle lane was called the suicide lane! The uphill lane was always a passing lane, and where the two directions met at the top of the hill, people were always getting killed in head-on collisions! Most of the drive out was on 2-lane, plain old US 6.

I remember driving throughÂand parking in traffic jamsÂin Glenwood Canyon. It was the original 2-lane road, and the Eisenhower Tunnel (originally called the Straight Creek Tunnel) hadnÂt even been conceived of yet. Boy, was it a big deal when the primary bore of that was finished! And you drove right thru the middle of Georgetown and Silver Plume when you went west, and the ONLY thing at Vail was the Vail Village Inn and the Conoco Station. And Aspen **she said wistfully** was a nice, peaceful little town. We used to go there every Fourth of July and watch them shoot the fireworks off of Ajax, and there were hippies with flutes, and dogs running freely all over the place. It was a kinder, gentler time!

And there were no seat assignments at Red Rocks, so for a 7:00 performance, youÂd go out there at noon with enough stuff to go camping, and picnic and read and sleepÂand cover everything up when the afternoon rain came thruÂand then change clothes when it started to cool and defend your "space" for the last hour against all comers! And there were never enough girls bathrooms, so when the line got too long, weÂd commandeer the menÂs bathrooms!

And I remember the Flood of 1965! I lived in an apartment along Speer, and, until the power went out, the radio was saying they expected Cherry Creek Dam (which was brand new) to break and flood everything between the dam and the Platte. And when they said that a ten foot wall of water was "moving down the South Platt" toward Denver, we went down and stood on the train tracks along Santa Fe and waited for it! But we got tired of standing out in the cold rain, so we went back homeÂto wait for the dam to break and wash us away. The wall of water DID comeÂafter we left! ALL the bridges into Denver from the west side were washed away, and LARGE stretches of I25 and the train tracks between DEN and COS were washed out. And, does anybody remember Denver used to have Centennial TrackÂa horse racing track? It was washed away too, and a bunch of the horses were killed. And it wasnÂt just Denver, it was the whole east side of...

LOL, Charlene! I learned to read with Dick and Jane (and Puff and Spot and Timmy) too, but colored TV didnÂt come out when I was 5-----TV came out when I was 5!

And I watched Rin-tin-tin, The Lone Ranger, The Hit Parade (songs), and Arthur Godfrey Talent Scouts! And the dancing pack of Lucky Strike cigarettes! LSMFT! Lucky Strike Means Fine Tobacco!

And I donÂt remember when my mother got her first microwave, but I do remember when I got my first microwave! They were originally called electronic ovens, and I had heard about them in home ec in highschool and when I found out you could cook bacon on paper towels, I wanted one. Got it in the mid sixties, and it had/has two magnetron tubes and is so heavy it takes 2 men to move it. Yes! I still have it (and it still works)! ThatÂs one of the things IÂm keeping as an electronic antique!

IÂm amazed you remember candy cigarettes!

Skybird

Charlene, your childhood memories are pretty much the same as mine, so I'm guessing that you and me are pretty close in age.

My father grew up on a farm in Pennsylvania, so I grew up hearing stories about farm life, and outhouses with Sears Roebuck catalogs, but I lived in the suburbs. We had a yellow station wagon with the wood paneling down the sides. Later when we were teeanagers, my dad bought a Pacer, which at the time we thought looked pretty futuristic. Of course it didn't have the flames on it like the one in Wayne's World (though most of you probably never saw that movie).

The first shows I remember watching were Sesame Street, Electric Company, Mr. Rodgers, and Captain Kangaroo.

In the summer we would catch June bugs and tie a string around one of their legs and watch them fly in a circle overhead. We would also catch "lightening bugs" in jars.

McDonalds was fairly new when I was little, and the only other fast food places were HSalt Fish & Chips, and Kentucky Fried Chicken. For special occasions we would go to Shakey's Pizza where they had a player piano and barbershop quartet that wore red and white striped jackets and those fake straw hats with the paper band around them that were flat on top. You could get one of them if it was your birthday.

We lived in West Tennessee so we would drive around after church in the spring so my mother could look at all of the azaleas and dogwoods in bloom. I do miss that here!

In the summer when our parents would let us get the hose out and wash the car, we would lay out in the sun afterwards with baby oil mixed with iodine on, no one had ever heard of sunscreen before.

The "snowcone man" would come by on summer nights, and Charlie's Chips delivered big metal tins of potato chips and pretzels. We also had a milk box outside our house, but they didn't deliver in glass bottles, they used cardboard half gallons. When I moved to Castle Rock a few years ago, I loved having Royal Crest Dairy delivery service. It really brought back memories.

Party lines - our neighbors were the Cadlaveks. They were Czechs and we couldn't benefit in the least by listening in on them. The phone rang once for their house and twice for us.

A gold super-duper spinner could always be counted on to catch trout. It always seemed to work better for us than the much more poplar Mepps. But, I could only be trusted with a worm until I was old enuf to stand on the bank and cast by myself.

Dad was willing to pull the vacuum tubes out of the RCA Columbia and take them down to have them tested and replaced until there wasn't anywhere to go to have them tested and replaced. Then he HAD to buy a color set. I think he got it at the Western Auto store but that was nearly in the modern times. Hecks fire, I was grown and had left home by then.

Gas cost 30 cents a gallon when I started driving - and my car had 85 hp. I was sometimes known to pass those Renault (beep beep) Dauphines (bop bop). I put an 8 track in my 3rd car just before it broke down, for good. At least, I didn't roll it off the side of a mountain in a snow storm like I did the 2nd car (my one-and-only real accident, so far :o).

(Shelley, what's the chance that you are still living in the community where you grew up?) We always bought garden supplies at the "Feed & Seed." In late Summer, a couple of old guys showed up in the parking lot and sold sweet corn and water melons out of the back of their trucks. The asphalt street out front had a little rubber sign between the lanes that was flexible and it was okay to run over with the tires. But, it said "STOP," so we always stopped when we were on that street.

By the time Charlene came along, I bet Marlin Perkins was having Jim Fowler wrestle the giant pythons for him on Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom. And, why did they always need Jim Fowler to wrestle something? I thought he looked pretty darn silly doing it, most of the time.

The first supermarket I was ever in was the Groceteria. (Groceteria.com doesn't quite do it for me but it brought back that familiar line: "Did You Bring Bottles?") BIG green building and it was amazing how the front door was in the parking lot!! Should we even call it a "front" door? No one was fighting for a parking spot at the curb. And, there were flags on ropes from the outdoor lights that converged at the entrance. Once you got there, something amazing happened. You stepped on a rubber pad and the door opened - - automatically!

They gave S&H green stamps  Dad still has a clock Mom got with green stamps. The donÂt make Âem like Dad, anymore. The cheap coffee came bulk and there was a machine so you could grind it yourself. We felt dang near plutocratic to be able to buy a can of Folgers. Funny, how times have changed.

A few years later, the Piggly Wigglys opened in a new shopping development not too far from our home. It looked almost exactly like this except I remember it as completely new, with a intense neon sign at night. Of course during...

I'll have a ham sandwich and a chocolate malt, Steve. Just send it down to Denver.

I remember prices like those! That's scary!

Well mea culpa, I just replied to the duplicate post by mistake. Guess that's what I get for reading the list from the bottom up after being offline for a few days... and having a teething 11 month old on my lap crying so I can't even concentrate too!

Wondering about the younger members of the list (younger is relative of course). And my husband is even younger than me so... I remember when answering machines were for sophisticated people. And I remember being afraid to use that new gadget, the microwave oven. And when we got our first remote control for the giant console television.

Not as fun as reading posts from the Real Olde Folks but it makes my young husband roll his eyes.

steviewonder

The Flood of '65 - ah, yes, we were coming home from doctors' appointments in CS and the bridges washed out and we were stuck in Peyton. Peyton wasn't much in those days and most folks stayed in the gym and we stayed with the postmaster and his family. Walked three miles past the washed out bridges the next day and came home. Dad went back two days later and got the car :)

Yes, Steve, same town. ;)At the east end of town was a Frontier Truck Stop. Haven't heard that name in eons. All the different oil companies.

Coming home from a baseball game to watch Armstrong and Aldren walk on the moon. Never saw the ball park clear so fast! Ate a grape popsicle watching, the kind with two sticks.

My daughter has a birthday today and spent the night with us. It is delightful to hear her recollections of "early times."

D'S'

What a lot of old memories! I grew up in the desert and very poor. We didn't have a phone but my friend did and the prefix was Wilson. She had a television in high school and sometimes I was alowed to go to her house and watch - black & whilte of course! We listened to the radio and my father loved Amos & Andy. If we could scrape up a dime we would go to the Saturday matinee and watch Roy Rodgers. Outhouse and Saturday night baths in a washtub And then when I was in school we got a bathroom! We had to share it with 10 others. When it was cold at night we would put our coats on the bed to try to keep warm. There was only a pot belly stove in the house in the living room. When I was older in school my mother finally got a gas cook stove and we thought the B for Broil stood for Burnt! Then a refrigerator to replace the ice box with the block of ice. My father had polio and we had to take gamma goblin shots and a lot of people had polio. We went to the school to roller skate because it had sidewalks.

Margaretmontana, do you think our lives were more interesting under conditions of poverty? Is poverty the correct word?

DigitS'
The difference between the right word and the almost-right word is the difference between the lightning and the lightning-bug. ~ Mark Twain
Yes, it was a fortunate hour that I went netting for lightning-bugs and caught a meteor. ~ Mark Twain

We were called poor. Didn't hear the word poverty until many years later. I guess we sometines wished we had some of the things like better off kids owned but then we knew families that were worse off - parents gambled or drank or beat them and they didn't have food half the time. Then nothing much was done about child abuse. It definitely was a simpler time. We played games like kick the can, Red Rover, jacks and in the winter cards (which I always lost at) I was 5 before my family owned a car and then it was to take my dad to work. We walked everywhere we went.

I think the best times at my family home were when we played cards in the evening. That wouldn't do in this house with DW, however. She considers all cardplaying a form of gambling and gets strangely excited in the presence of a deck. It's not as tho' cardplaying is especially evil just kinda as tho' it's an invitation for the supernatural to become involved in your fate . . .

Any notion of skill goes right out the window and she plays with complete reckless abandon. If DW doesn't win within a few moments the excitability subsides and she gets sleepy and needs to go take a nap.

D'S

Windwhipped, are you from Rockford? I was born in Rockford!

I remember 5 cent stamps. I remember when gas was 29 cents a gallon, and they gave away green stamps and tumblers. The first house I lived in, we had a coal room in the basement. We kids were forbidden to play there, for pretty obvious reasons. On cold winter mornings, we'd jump out of bed and run to the furnace room to dress near the warmth.

My grandmother had a wringer washer. She exited out of the basement through the storm cellar door to hang clothes up.

I remember Howdy Doody and Crusader Rabbit.

I was so excited when the Jetsons cartoon first came on. I was always a science buff. I felt cheated when I saw it, though, because it wasn't the future. It was just the same old 50s in fancy dress.

I remember 6 oz glass Coke bottles.

I used to have Elvis and Everly Brothers singles. Can you imagine what they'd be worth now?

But my mother threw them away. :-(

She also threw away my comic collection.

My brother had a Davy Crockett hat. And a lucky rabbit's foot. (No PETA back then!)

Burma Shave signs.

Sputnik. Telstar. When I was born, there was NOTHING in orbit. The sky was virgin land.

Duck and cover.

MAD (Yes, the magazine, too, but I was thinking of the Cold War's Mutually Assured Destruction.)

Licking green stamps and putting them in the book for my mom.

The very first pantyhose.

Dress codes. Girls were only allowed to wear dresses or skirts, even when the temperature got down to 30 below.

Sock hops.

I Like Ike.

"Better Living through Chemistry."

Chatty Cathy.

Reefer Madness.

The Twist.

Spring
Is sprung
The grass
Is riz
Where
Last year's
Reckless
Driver is.
Burma Shave

I have an 81 year old neighbor whose Grandfather homesteaded the farm across the road, and he now lives in a manufactured home next to the original house, which helps put things in perspective. Grew up during The Depression and he and his wife still are incapable of throwing away anything. They save newspaper and use it for wrapping stuff, sleep with quilts made of old blue jeans, and still have 3 full sized chest freezers, always full of food. His stories about growing up around here are amazing; one of the original burro racers, prospected for Uranium in SE Utah desert, when he was 14 he took a mule, a couple of sacks of potatoes, and spent 4 months, camping by himself in the mountains. He's lost count of the elk and deer he's hunted, and knows the best fishing spots in the area, many of which are only accessible by hiking 10 miles.

Lilacs,

My family is from Illinois - mother from Rockford, father from Chicago and I was born in Springfield, although we didn't live there for more than a few years after I was born.

After a couple years in Lansing while my Dad was in grad school at MSU, we moved to Richland, WA and that's where I spent most of my childhood (teen years in CA). That's why I remember taking the train back to IL to visit the grandparents. When you all talk about the cellars with the coal rooms and the wringer washers, I picture my grandparents' house in Rockford (422 Harper Ave., if that means anything to you). Lots of great summer memories there including garden memories. She had cherry trees and grapes and petunias. I will always associate the smell of petunias with Grandma and that house.

I remember the gas station tumblers. And don't forget the Welch's jelly jar glasses. Do they still have those?

I feel your pain about the things your Mother threw away. Mine gave away my pristine Barbie doll, the original one, in it's case, and my whole collection of Nancy Drew books. The books weren't valuable but I really loved them. The whole row of yellow covers, I had every one written. In Rockford, I would read my mother's old Bobsy Twins, Dana Sisters and Hardy Boys. I recently found a Nancy Drew to give to the granddaughter of a friend. Nancy drove a little red sportscar. I mentioned to my mother (she lives here with me now) that in my day, she drove a roadster and Mom said "what do you mean, Nancy didn't have a car!" Guess it changes for every generation.

Think we may have to rename this group "OLDER THAN DIRT"!!
Proud to be a member !!!!!!
Nancy

This is probably more pedantic than old, but I'm curious how many people here realize that "Ye" (as in Ye Olde Folks) is properly pronounced the same as "The". Originally, the th sound was spelled with its own letter (þ--called thorn), but printing presses didn't include that letter, and the closest to it was the Y, so that was used instead.

There was another word "Ye" that meant you, and the Y was pronounced as a Y is now, but "Ye" as in "Ye Olde Folks" is actually a different word with a different pronunciation.

I'm hijacking this thread to post a link from the Decorators Forum. From then to when....it brings a wide dimension to our discussion.

Here is a link that might be useful: When?

I tell my kids that what they end up doing for a job(s) probably hasn't been thought up yet.

What happens when the power goes out?

You used to be able to light a kerosine lamp and life went on as normal!

Hmmmm! Kerosine powered computers?

(interesting about "ye" BPGreen :o)

Regarding shift happening: The world's children are growing up in a different world. But, so did we . . . or something . . .

However, the rate of change is, uh, not always consistent nor upward. I used to enjoy science fiction films and then they became sooo dark. I don't need to imagine the future after the "crash," there's an interesting past to imagine. Four hundred years of Jamestown . . . before the honeybee and the earthworm. European tribes herding their cattle and migrating in ox carts . . . stone age kitchens . . . Miocene cliff life.

The future will be something else and Olde Folks serve as "moderators" of the course of events. Of course, more moderation reduces the effectiveness of new ideas. But, less moderation also reduces the effectiveness thru rapid randomness. ("random" - that is so yesterday!) Is it nuclear energy or just nuclear reaction?

If the world's children feel marginalized, alone, nihilistic, despairing and even rejecting of anything hopeful - we Olde Folks are failing. "Life is dark, life is sad, all is not well, and most people you meet will try to hurt you."

So, "we must cultivate our own garden." I mean, look where we are coming from:

DigitS'
A witty saying proves nothing. ~ Voltaire

Once upon a time
When the world was just a pancake
Fears would arise
That if you went too far, you'd fall

But with the
Passage of time
It all became more of a ball
We're as sure of that
As we all once were when the world was flat

Only two things money canÂt buy
ThatÂs true love and home grown tomatoes.
Guy Clark (Lyrics and Chords)

Hopefully you didn't see this as a negative for sharing. I was intrigued with the data and also began thinking how fast so much has changed with our time travel....the relative of all with these memories shared.

And I too do not get the movies anymore regarding the future where everyone and everything familiar is devastated. Just recently watched 2 that were filmed as such.

STill love your found writings. They always say so much and tell a bit more about who you are each time one is posted.

David, we use to tell the kids if they didn't get some computer education that they would be the ones sweeping around them. Of course this wasn't entirely true as all evolved and will continue to evolve.

Burma Shave? Gads, had forgotten that one and they kept me busy on long trips.

"Ye", never knew this. We have a group of people here with so many keen bits of knowledge.

Not a negative for sharing, Emagineer. Perhaps sparks a little xenophobia with some people. But, thought provoking.

Children from a family tree
That's longer than a centipede
Started long ago when you and I
Were only love.
~ Mike Pinder

DigitSteve

I knew about "Ye"! But then that's the kind of odd bits of knowledge that I tend to pick up. Often I think I'd make a great Jeopardy contestant. Except that they'd probably ask me something about American Idol or Hip Hop, and I'd lose it all.

I remember American Bandstand, however.

Laying in bed unable to sleep and pulling in radio stations from far away. What a big world was out there beyond the stations out of Denver and the Springs. KSTP out of Minn., WHO out of Iowa, KMOX out of St. Louis, KLDR out of Dallas, and KOMO out of OK City, and a host of others. And actual local programming with local hosts and djs that took requests!

This post brought back many memories.. I am getting older but not as old as my memories make me sound....

I grew up on a farm in North Dakota... we didn't have a lot of money but we weren't considered poor.. just farmers.

We had five families on our party line.. the phone numbers were four numbers.

We didn't have a bathroom until I was ten years old. We had an outhouse and a pail with a built around seat in the basement, and a pot in the kitchen that was brought upstairs at night (with five young kids in the house, I'm sure it saved on my mom's sanity). Later we had a bathroom added to the house, but we still had a cistern, so used the outhouse when the weather was nice and only flushed when "necessary". Life was so much more relaxed about some things. Baths were in the tub in front of the kitchen stove (only on Saturdays, otherwise it was a sponge bath during the week). We brushed our teeth in the kitchen sink.

We had a pail of water on the bench outside the house, so that when the farmhands came to the house for the noon meal (dinner, not lunch) they washed up before coming in to eat. During certain times of the farm work we had up to six- seven extra workers to help with planting and harvest.. they all were expected to come eat dinner. And meals were meat/ potatoes and a vegetable. When planting potatoes, we still had to cut the bigger potatoes by hand.. a job good for the kids. Speaking of kids, we often drove to abandoned farm yards that still had fruit trees and were expected to pick apples, chokecherries, raspberries, etc. for jellies and jams.

We played outside from morning til night. When I was supposed to be helping my sister with the dishes I would have to go to the bathroom (outhouse) and would disappear for several hours.. knowing the dishes would be done when I got back. We played on the machinery, the potato harvester was our submarine. We played in the hayloft, skated on the pond, made rafts out of fallen trees and floated in the flooded ditches. Caught frogs/ toads/ and tadpoles.

We had three channels and late at night or when it was cloudy we got a station from Canada.

We planted a "few" rows of corn behind the pasture and planted a huge garden. In the fall we canned and froze fruits and veggies for weeks. A flower garden was a luxury.

There are many, many memories. I remember the candy cigarettes, I remember when everything was closed on Sundays, yes even the gas stations. I remember Woolworths and Ben Franklin. Where you could buy a soda and a yard of fabric.

Many of the memories aren't so much about the technology changes, but more about the life of a country girl.. as we played in the woods behind Grandma's house, built forts in the trees. Rode our bikes for miles without seeing a vehicle. When only 8, driving the pick-up to the field to help Dad, yes, it was a four speed.. short legs straining to reach the clutch and gas all at once!! Collecting eggs, riding...

I have no choice but to resurrect this thread! I was looking around for useful info and stumbled upon this. Okay, I am not necessarily an olde timer, to many, I am just a tiny seedling. But I am somewhere in the middle and, to lots, I am way old!

My old timey stuff consists of being invaded by punk rock. At first, in elementary school, we called each other punks as an insult. Then, after one summer, we were all punks with short funny coloured hair! My brother was almost kicked out of school when my dad gave him permission to dye his hair green. It had to be put back to black.

In junior high, all the staff were old timers and told us how lucky we were to wear jeans. Some of them not only had to wear skirts, they had to wear petticoats or crinolines under their skirts!! Good lord! No wonder all the ladies would wear pant suits to work!

No cell phones or lap tops! In high school, the inner-city kids all wanted to pretend they were drug dealers (and some of them were) so they had beepers (pagers). After high school, some of the rich folk had those super clunky car phones that one had to carry around with them. I remember they were about the size of a lunchbox.

My first computer was the family computer, an Atari 800 that came with everything! It had a disc drive--for those big floppy discs, a cassette drive, a printer and an internal cartridge receiver for two cartridges! 64KB ram, baby! We topped out everyone else and their commodore 64s! But then we fell behind as the new Macintoshes took over.

My dad would tell me stories of old about Vietnam and about the fifties. Drag races for pink slips, silly rolled-up pants cuffs with white socks and dark shoes, girls with gigantic hair. He said that his favourite part was the sweaters that the girls wore--soft and snug!!

My gram would talk about going to the movies for a nickle and how that included the news, a cartoon and a movie or two. She said that before that, one could spend the entire day at the theatre!! She told me how she had to put cardboard in her shoes when they wore through, as there was no money for fixing or replacing them.

When my grandparents met and fell in love in the doorway, they had to wait three years before they could marry because my gram's income was needed to put her brothers through school. She always seemed a mix of proud and jealous when my brother and I were at university.

When I was about six or seven, I decided that I could not take anymore avocado green, orange, mustard yellow or brown coloured mushrooms!! My mom replaced the shelving paper and the kitchen curtains with a nice strawberry print. I was very picky.

I have photos of my grampa in his garden. He built a coy pond with his bare hands. Later, after his death, I repaired it with my hands. Our finger marks in the cement were next to each other and our scratched-in dates and initials were next to each other.

I love memories!! Thanks... ...

How fun J, that you shared your "in-between" the major olde folks on this thread. I can only remember the olive green cord couch I recovered. Think we were too poor when the kids were your age to have the gold appliances, but do remember our gold shag carpet in one house and the liesure suits, polyester blouses. What were we thinking? Even you, at the a young age, had better judgement than the adults around. I had forgotten the strawberry decorating thing.

How great your grandparents shared the wonderful fifties...my time and dad loved it with me.

It was 40 years ago today
Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play....

(Jchaber, whose finger mark is on that photo of the 2 Teds? ;o)

Today in 1962, "I Can't Stop Loving You" by Ray Charles topped the charts and stayed there for 5 weeks.

digitS'
I've made up my mind
To live in memory of the lonesome times

How much fun this is! Thanks, Skybird!

My dad was sure TV would corrupt the family so we didn't get one til I was 9. There was only programming on a few hrs each day. I loved to watch the fights with my dad- brought to you by Gillette and the show started with that wonderful song I just thought of. My sister and I watched a kids show called Rinky Dink -we had a plastic sheet we put on TV surface that we had to send to the show to get. I think we colored on it when the show said to.

My dad let me start the car sometimes- you pushed a button that was the ignition button.

The trash pickup man came down the alley with a horse-drawn wagon!

In grade school I learned penmanship using a pen I dipped in black ink- what a mess.

We had a drive up restaurant that served tenderloin sandwiches- the deep fried pork hung out 4 inches around the bun. (This was in Indiana.)

When I came out in 1962 to attend CU, I remember the Boulder Denver turnpike with no towns, and nothing but farm land from Denver to Boulder. My memories may be slighty incorrect here!

Thanks for the sharing! mary ann

Those double-bladed, safety razors were obsolete before they started making them, Mary Ann. So heavy if you dropped one, they'd raise a welt right thru your slipper. But, those Friday Night Fights from Madison Square Garden were really something!

To look sharp every time you shave,
To feel sharp and be on the ball,
To be sharp, Use Gillette Blue Blades,
It's the quickest, slickest shave of all!

Archy Moore, Sugar Ray Robinson, Patterson and Johanson. But, after Benny Paret died I finally realized that this sport wasn't just for fun.

So, weren't you always curious why it was called Madison Square Garden? Uh, no, probably not.

digitS'
And, then on Saturday night it was Gunsmoke - starring James Arness.

Gunsmoke! HadnÂt thought about that for a looooong time! And before that there was Wyatt EarpÂwith Hugh OÂBrien. He was my first love! And another one called Broken Arrow (Michael Ansara). Loved that show. Think anybody will ever come up with a good western again? And who ever came up with the concept of Unreality Shows!

If you started college right after high school, Mary Ann, youÂre a year older than me! But I donÂt remember anything horse drawnÂbut I grew up in Chicago suburbs. In the very early 50's, everybody said watching too much TV would wreck your eyes. Funny! My eyes are just fineÂwellÂexcept for that olde part!

When I was little my father would sometimes let me hand the $2 to the guy at the gas station to fill up the tank.

And we didnÂt learn to write with dip pens, but the old desks we used still had the little inkwells in themÂempty. We threw bits of trash in them.

The land between Denver and Boulder was definitely farm land! It seemed to take forever to drive from DEN to Boulder. And the Denver-Boulder turnpike was a toll road. I think it was 25 cents the whole wayÂand most of the exits there now werenÂt there then. When the construction was paid for, the toll went away.

When I moved here (Â64), I25 was the Valley Highway, and it wasnÂt limited access in a lot of places. It was more like a 4-lane divided highway. And there wasnÂt a whole lot west of thereÂand Colorado Blvd. on the east side was the end of town!

And at the airportÂStapleton FieldÂthe "concourses" were 4' high chain link fenced sidewalks with a roof over them to keep you dry from the usual afternoon rain.

Today was the last day of skiing at Arapahoe Basin, and it made me remember the year the lodge burned down at A-Basin. That winter they put up a tent to go in to eat and "warm up." There was NOTHING there. I think that may have been in Â64.

....the way we were,
Skybird

Yes, Digit, I want to know why it was called "Madison Square Gardens". Could look it up, but bet your explanation is better.

Raised my kids in Parke and to this day they will get into a discussion about what it would have been like to live there and actually have a library bigger than 12 X 12 and more than one store to buy candy from. They are not going to let me forget the one hour bike rides to get there either.

And my drive from Parker to 120th for work was about 45 min. of no traffic back then...it has to be double that now. You had to bring up gas prices Sky?

matoad: my parents let me shift from the passenger seat all the time...probably why I am such a good driver with a standard! but we didn't have a push button ignition...we had an old VW square back that could be started with the tiniest of pushes from behind.

DigitS: My finger print, of course!! Not a worry these days with all that digital technology around.

And T.V.! Yeah, we had a tiny box of black and white with "13" channels only not all the channels were there. We only got to watch a very small amount: Star Trek, and any of the programs on PBS, like Nova, In Search Of, that yoga guy, I forget his name, and Sesame Street. I used to get pissy when my mom was watching ... was it Dick Cavet or Merv Griffin? Either way, one of those was on at the same time as Felix the cat...so sad. Funny, I haven't had a T.V. in about ten years but I netflix (on my computer) all the old Star Treks and also that Star Trek Deep Space 9!

My brother and I stayed with our grandparents every weekend and they would take us to garage sales. My gram never paid more than a nickel or, sometimes--rarely, a dime for stuff. That is when she would remind me that movies used to cost a nickel. When the prices rose and she could only get away with paying a quarter at rummage sales, she decided they were too pricey!

We went to the drug store for ice cream. While gram bought prescriptions, grampa would buy us ice cream for a few cents. Gosh, I think it was 25 cents a cone, for three scoops?? It was cheap. Grampa always got strawberry, I got chocolate and I don't remember what my brother got.

My bro and I used to make model cars, rockets and monsters, like Lon Chaney as this or that monster. We would blow up the models with firecrackers and then display them on our shelves. I saw lots of the models we had, un-blown up, on eBay for a zillion dollars. Oops!

We had our friends over yesterday (oooh, that is so in the past) and I used the relish tray that I found in grannies attic. It was brand new and pink speckle from...gee, must have been the late fifties. The box it was in was disintegrating, falling apart.

In junior high school, I wore clothes from grannies closet, I would fix them up so they would fit as gram was a pretty big gal. All the kids were curious as to why I had such neat clothes.

gosh, I loved reading what everyone wrote!

J.

Loved Gunsmoke until it got so brutal at the end. Mission Impossible, The Smothers Brothers, Laugh In, Disney on Sunday nights, Mickey Mouse Club and all their adventures.
Love Gerry and the Pacemakers, Jan and Dean (I was a CA girl), The Who, The Birds, Donovan (I was a hippy, CA girl), Cat Stevens, American Pie, Stevie Nicks, Lovin' Spoonful...
I was on Shebang and Lloyd Thaxton and won prizes for dancing- don't know if those broadcasted here. Came to Denver in April 1971 and it was snowing. I'd never seen snow coming down and was totally enraptured, still am.
Diane

Fun looking at this again . . !

. . but, I was older then,

I'm younger than that now . .

Steve

Funny old thread. Didn't have the time to read it all. Maybe tomorrow I'll have enough time.

(Greg, did you have time to read this ..

. yesterday?

... ;o)

Steve

Wow, Digit! Never thought this thread would be resurrected! I just reread quickly over most of it--and it sure is fun!

Any more Olde People around here to add to the fun?

Skybird

Dug up some of the pictures GW no longer supports and that were lost:

Looks like the one they built about 3 miles down the road from the farm. They were Groceteria's competition one they opened.

The ice cream sandwiches were self-serve outta the ice chest but I think they didn't want us to show up at the counter with them.

Steve

Just doing a short post to bump this up to the top again so anybody who might be interested will have a chance to read it! If you're OLDE, it's great fun--and I suspect even young'uns will enjoy reading it--if they don't pass out from disbelief!

Candy cigarettes, and Burma Shave signs, and 29¢ gas, Oh My!

Skybird

P.S. Digit, it was years ago now, but thanks for re-upping those pics! Anybody want a "super deluxe ham sandwich"--for 40¢?

F 03.01.24 @ 1305 MST

Thanks Skybird for bumping up this thread! This started about a year or more before I joined the GW/RMG group. I sure enjoyed reading through all of the posts! Too bad some of them got cut off - imagine that's due to the merger into Houzz.

I remember a lot of the things people have mentioned so I'm an Olde Folk for sure, too. I'll add a few things from my stroll down memory lane:

making "mud pies"

Like several others I remember playing outside all day. Besides adventuring, we'd play games like hopscotch, ring-a-round-a-roses, red rover, statues

Used to walk to the movie theater to see shows like Tarzan. We'd take the popcorn Mom made for us in paper bags to eat while watching the show.

Halloween we'd have to come back home and empty out our haul and go back out for more. Mom made either popcorn balls or caramels to hand out to the kids.

Cherry, vanilla or chocolate coke at the 5 and dime 'soda fountain'. Loved saving the syrup for last!

My sisters, brother and I walked to school on our own, even in the snow.

Our family vacations were always road trips. I remember Stuckey's was always a favorite pit stop. Definitely remember the Burma Shave signs! And we played the alphabet road sign game to while away the time.

When I stayed over at my girlfriends grandmothers farm house we'd walk to the country store to buy penny candy.

Green stamps for sure! Helped lick the stamps into the books and go with Mom to buy something when we had enough.

TV shows: Zorro, Roy Rogers, Lone Ranger, Andy Griffith, Leave It To Beaver

Saturday morning cartoons: Clutch Cargo, Beany and Cecil, Mr. Peabody & Sherman

This was fun!