Remember When ......

[Bonnie Campbell]

Rick.....no....farther north.....think about a stolen Burma shave advertising idea.....by the way...the Burma Shave advertising idea started in 1925 I just found out...

Wall Drug in South Dakota? lol

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Wall Drug in South Dakota? lol

BINGO!

Wall, South Dakota Bonnie....not actually in the drug store.....but I did go in there and as a US military veteran, I got my free cup of coffee. This was taken in the photography store on the street there across from Wall Drug.

[Brett Luna]

The Radio Shack TRS-80 and the Commodore 64.

I started with the predecessor of the C64, the VIC 20. It had a whopping 5KB of RAM. My current home-built PC has more than 3 million times that. I was an electronics hobbyist at the time (as well as a USAF avionics technician) and being short of disposable income, I scratch-built a memory expansion card for it that plugged into the game slot. My father-in-law at the time had a Texas Instruments TI-99/4A.

Speaking of USAF and remembering things that make one feel old...

After basic, I attended the Lowry Technical Training Center at Lowry AFB, CO. It's closed now.

My first permanent duty station after tech school was England AFB, LA. It's closed now.

The first aircraft I worked on at England AFB was the A-7D Corsair II...long since interred at the bone yard.

My next air frame was the F-4 Phantom: first, the F-4D at Kunsan AB, Republic of Korea then the F-4E at Osan AB and a couple of other stateside bases. As they were replaced (by the F-15E at my base) they were transferred to the Air National Guard, then to the bone yard...except for a few that were converted to drones, painted a humiliating shade of orange, and shot down for testing and/or training.

Tying back into computers, an infrared sensor system I maintained on the F-4E actually had a computer in it. I was a among the first in our field. Instead of chip RAM like we're all used to, this one had 32KB of magnetic core memory. Ancient stuff.

[Rich Riddle]

So right Rich,

I was up till 3:30 last nite, looking at pics of early T-Birds for sale. I sold my rat rod '55 a couple years ago, and already miss it.

My wife desperately wants a rat rod. She had a man wanting to trade her 1965 Mustang Coupe for a rat rod in Gatlinburg. Thought she might go for it, but calmer heads prevailed.

[Bob Burk]

A number of the ones Brett listed I remember as well.

I remember taking road trips with mom and dad and riding/sleeping in the rear window of the Pontiac.

Roll up car windows.

When you had a cassette player you were high tech.

TRS (Trash) 80 computers.

When Cokes were real cokes.

You could pop fire crackers within the city limits and not get in trouble.

I to remember being able to carry a pocket knife in elementary (6th grade) and through JR as well as High School without getting into trouble.

First roller skates I had were the one's you clamped to your shoes, those were around long before me I believe.

We made our own skate boards.

[Julie Moriarty]

The Polaroid camera. Take the picture, then remove it from the camera, use a sponge applicator to put this smelly stuff on the shiny part of the picture and watch the image appear! I can still smell whatever that stuff was.

The Hula hoop craze

My dad coming home with a TV that has a remote control. I found out later I could bang rings together to change the channel just like the remote.

Air raid drills where we either went under our desk or into the school building hallway, where we'd be safe if Russia dropped the A-bomb on us.

Polio vaccine - we lived in fear of polio until that came along.

Teachers doling out corporal punishment and kids fearful of telling their parents because they would get it worse from the parents.

A new doll called Barbie - I think girls were actually convinced we would look like that someday.

[John Sanford]

I remember when America went to bed at night: By far most jobs were daytime... 9-5 or 8-4, whatever; very few shift jobs that went overnight. There were very, very few all-night stores and only a few all-night restaurants. 7-11 stores meant that they opened at 7am and closed at 11pm, period.

Not in my hometown. Less than half the folks worked day jobs.

I remember when:

Slot machines had real reels.
Slot machines paid off in real coins, not stupid little tickets.
If you wanted to play poker or blackjack in a casino, you had to sit down at a table and play with cards, no idiotic video games.
The United States Army still used jeeps, and wore pickle suits.
There were series about World War Two on network TV. (12 O'Clock High, McHale's Navy, Hogan's Heroes, Combat, and more)
There were numerous Western series on network TV.
There was no cable TV.
You would hear sonic booms routinely.
At noon on Saturday, the air raid sirens would go off all over town. Just to make sure they worked and people knew what they sounded like. (Oh, and folks knew it was noon. On Saturday.)
Levi's were Made in America, and weren't fashion.
We drove our car onto the apron at an international airport to check on our planes, routinely.
Portable power tools had polished aluminum bodies, and came with steel carry boxes.
The house had one phone, and it was rotary dial.
Lawn darts were really big darts. With metal tips.

[Carl Carew]

OK I'll toss these out
Drinking soda at the fountain from paper cones in a metal holder
Flipping baseball cards
Watching Yogi Berra and Mickey Mantle on the Yankees
Playing with mercury in school
Paddling down the Hackensack river in a "borrowed" construction site cement mixing tub
Buying a 5 year old 58 Chevy that wouldnt start for $100 and finding a 348 with 3 duces when I got the hood pried open and getting it running with just a new set of points
Having dam near the fastest car in town with that chevy
Feeling like I lived in the very best place in the world
Skimming over the top of the water in my 9 ft mini runabout with a 22 hp merc outboard
building a firebird 400 from a derelict
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