Remember When ......

[Ken Shea]

I had one of those 58 tbirds as well Fred, a Classic.
Vacuum windshield wipers, operated off a secondary vacuum pump attached to the Fuel pump.

How about 8 track tapes?

Somebody stop, my mind can't take all this rolladexing in reverse

[Ken Shea]

OK Beat this,
When I was growing up Doctors made house calls.
In my case it was Dr Moffett.

[Dave Zellers]

How many of you remember when Alaska and Hawaii became states? It was before my time...by a few years.

Totally. It was used as a huge civics lesson. I was 8.

[Dave Zellers]

How about reel type hand push mowers.

Oh yeah. Ours had a wooden stem and handle and cast iron wheels.

[Tom Stenzel]

Can you remember standing in the rain with the hood up trying to locate the vacuum leak that was keeping the wipers from working?

I can remember plenty of times standing in the rain with the hood up trying to find out why I had no vacuum.

Cause the engine wouldn't start. Sheeesh! And I paid a whole $100 for the car.

Why do we call them the good old days again?

-Tom

[Dave Zellers]

OK Beat this,
When I was growing up Doctors made house calls.
In my case it was Dr Moffett.

What are you talking about?

I get a house call from Dr. Bombay every evening...

[Dave Zellers]

Why do we call them the good old days again?

-Tom

It is truly amazing how reliable cars are today. Of course we pay a little more than $100 for them...

When was the last time you had a flat tire or even saw anyone else with one? I don't miss that!

[Mike Cozad]

The woods in a set of golf clubs were actually wood.
Spare tires were full sized.
Beer cans were tin coated steel.
Coors was not sold east of the Mississippi.
Getting out in the crappy weather to "lock in the hubs" before shifting into 4WD.
There weren't self serve gas stations in our town.
Service stations had an "on duty" mechanic and no kwiki-marts.
You popped the top of your 16oz soda bottle on the machine you just pulled it out of.
Playboy was on the magazine rack in the drugstore right next to Time....

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Shot guns at school..... The high school I attended was performing an operetta.....Annie Get Your Gun. I got the part as Buffalo Bill. They needed a gun and I had and still have a 12 gauge H&R Topper Model 45 full choke. In one scene, Annie needs to shoot and from above the stage 2 ducks are dropped. "No sweat says I!" So Annie practiced with my 12 gauge unloaded. The art class at this school painted the multiple backdrops. So opening night, I opened up a shell and removed the shot. I probably should have removed the wadding too! When Annie pulled the trigger, the wadding hit the current back drop knocking the paint off a 3' radius diameter area. It got a huge laugh from the audience at a time when a laugh wasn't expected! The next night I removed the shot, the wadding and the powder.

[Dave Zellers]

I'm starting to get a picture of you as quite the troublemaker.

Exactly the kind of guy that made life very interesting back in the day...

Former rabble rousers make the best moderators.

[Frank Drew]

1. When soft drinks came in glass 1 gallon and 1/2 gallon bottles you returned for refunds.

That I don't remember, and I'm 68; most of the Cokes consumed when I was a kid (and Coke was king) were the 6.5 oz bottles. I wonder if 1/2 and 1 gallon bottles were a regional thing?

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. Television, such as it was in the Fifties, shut down around 11pm, even in cities, and of course there was no internet. There just wasn't much do to at night to keep people up. Totally different nowadays.

Playing outside with friends without our parents worrying where we were as long as we were home in time for dinner.

Another huge change, the time before parents became paranoid about "stranger danger". Halloween -- the absolute best holiday from a kid's perspective -- meant being outside at night, after dark and usually a school night, with your friends and NO PARENTS!, collecting sackfuls of candy. It didn't get any better than that! The general, unafraid freedom that kids had in those days was wonderful and is, IMO, a great loss for kids today.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

I'm starting to get a picture of you as quite the troublemaker.

Exactly the kind of guy that made life very interesting back in the day...

Former rabble rousers make the best moderators.

The southern Illinois high school shot gun incident was minor.

In 3rd grade in the mid '50's living in Kemmerer, WY 2 friends and I proved our mathematical skills. There were then and still were a couple years ago, some old coal mines that have been on fire since the1930's. In the '50s the old wooden support buildings and even wooden water towers were still in existence. One day "exploring" one of the coal mines, I crawled under one of the old buildings. I am glad I didn't meet a rattle snake in the process. I found an old wooden box. I drug it out. My friends and I showed our math prowess by dividing 21 by 3 and each of us brought home 7 sticks of dynamite.....which had sweated crystals on the outer paper covering...... The ones I brought home, my Dad took to the rig and when it came time to blast the casing, they used it. It was still good. I am the oldest of 6 kids.....all former oil field trash......proud of it.....and my Mom is still alive and has much of her senses. She's a strong woman!

[Rick Potter]

Rich,

I remember when you were in diapers. My oldest kid just got an AARP card.

[Lee Reep]

Lee,

My Dad drove a '58 Pontiac Star Chief with a 370 CI IIRC. It was heavy and hole shots weren't that good but top end.....


At the age of 15 I began roughnecking nights on oil rigs for my driller Dad. One night the derrick hand rode his '47 Indian IIRC. When they decided to race, the Pontiac stayed with him for a while, then Buzz reached around for a little more throttle and left us. It was my first lesson in horsepower-to-weight ratio that night.

Ken,

My Pontiac was a Chieftain. It was georgeous -- pale yellow, with white on the sides, like Chevys of the day. It had a green interior. Green fabric on seats, and all the metal inside was painted metallic green. It got 8 miles per gallon! That 370 was amazing, even with a 2-barrel carb. As I recall, 4 barrels and 3 dueces were options (that's a set of 3, 2-barrel carburetors for you "kids" ...) It had a 4-speed Hydramatic automatic transmission (pretty advanced for that era), and what looked like 1/4" plate steel under the transmission. It had no radio, so I went to a junk yard and bought the factory radio with all the curved chrome trim pieces, speaker, and antenna for $12. When I tried to drill thru the fender for the antenna, my drill bit began smoking. Granted, my tools were lousy, but that metal was thick. The partial hole looked like countersunk plate steel. Later on, during an attempt at repairs, my mallet bounced off the inside of the hood when I tried to pound out a small dent in the hood.

That thing was built like a tank. (No wonder mileage was so poor ...)

Gosh, it's great to reminisce about your first car ...

[Jerry Thompson]

I remember being with my dad the night he drove the new '47 Chevy 2 door home.