Old Timers Unite---Give it Your Best Shot

[BlueRooster]

Im so old that my Dad used to drive around with a six pack on the front seat, drinking and driving. I dont think the cops even cared about the open ones back then.

[computerworks]

Dano... you're doin' the 'time warp' thing again... taking a swing from early 50's to late 60's!


Mr. French.

oh, it was Lily Tomlin, not Ruth Buzzi.

..nice compilation, though.

[Dan Semko]

Good Job Ron,
I stand corrected on Lilly Tomlin. But you didn't tell me the number of children that Mr. French watched, their names and how about what their uncle did for a living?

Anyone remember Carling Black Label Beer manufactured in Cleveland Ohio?

[computerworks]

"Bill Davis' carefree existence as a swinging bachelor
was just about perfect. A highly paid consulting engineer,
he maintained an elegant apartment off Fifth Avenue in
Manhattan and had his domestic needs cared for by a very
English gentleman's gentleman, Mr. French. Into this life
of independence came three young orphans, the 6-year old
twins Buffy and Jody and 15-year-old Cissy. Their parents,
Bill's brother and sister-in-law, had died in an accident,
and other relatives felt that Bill could best provide for
them. Despite initial misgivings, Bill and French became
very attached to the children and learned to adjust their
life-style to make room for the new members of the
household. Mr. French, a stickler for neatness and order,
had the toughest adjustment to make, he was with the
children all the time while Bill was often out of
town on assignments."

[Rick Parker]

Here are some more:

Bucky Beaver & Ipana tooth paste. "Ready" Killowatt. All the different toys you could buy with 3 boxtops from Sugar Jets & 50 cents. A plastic boat called a "Swamp Glider" it was an Air boat with a propeller like an airplane and scooted around in the bathtub, took a long 3 weeks to get and I checked the mailbox all the time. The little pastic frogmen that came in Nabisco shreaded wheat that you put baking powder in the bottom of and they would rise up and down in the water, they were popular when "Mike Nelson" (Lloyd Bridges) was popular while Sea Hunt was on tv. The little plastic spacemen that fit on your spoon handle when you ate breakfast, they came in cold cereal too.
Rick

[petek]

Mabel, Black Label!

How about Hamms, from the lands of the sky blue waters (I used to love the TV commercials for Hamms, remember the bear)?

Dippty Do (that's how the women with the curlers got their hair to "fix" into place).

Climbing up onto the roof to rotate the TV antenna because the wind had blown the antenna out of position. Wishin' we were as rich as the folks down the street with an antenna rotor (motor driven antenna).

Don... Davy and Golith, "Gee, I don't know Davy...". Sunday morning cartoons with Biblical themes.

Anybody remember Astro Boy? Cecil the Seasick Sea Serpent? Mighty Mouse? Casper the Friendly Ghost? Or my favorite: Johnny Quest! Heck, remember when they started shipping off the Saturday Cartoon production off to Japan and the drawing became more or less static pictures with very little movement?

.........

But lest we forget, there were also some very "not so good" things about the good ol' days. Remember Polio, "whites only", and "duck and cover"?

[Monster]

I'm so old that I remember when a body shop actually was a place that repaired cars (and was not just a place on the north side of Las Vegas) .............

and a body shop didn't just change parts, a body and fenderman actually fixed it with a hammer and dolly and lead (no replacement fenders or Bondo and cars were painted in enamel.

Ok, I'm really not that old, but my Dad was one of those old bodymen and he did teach me the old way

Mike "monster"

[Rick Parker]

Clutch Cargo cartoons. About a kid and his escapades on a cargo ship. The lips moved but not the bodies.

Rick

[Dan Semko]

Computerworks,
I'm impressed. You look good for your age and your memory is sharp. Must be that fresh east coast air! You were right on target!

[computerworks]

Originally posted by Dan Semko


...your memory is sharp. Must be that fresh east coast air!...

...aluminum dust has dulled my senses, but I can still drive a wicked search engine.

[EdOrlando]

Dan - I appreciate you mentioning that Black Label was manufactured. I never did understand the taste difference. It must have been the manufacturing rather than brewing.

If I remember correctly, Black Label was one of the first to come in a Pony Keg. Three of my friends an I use to chip in a buck each and buy one. We would put in the frig for a day and then when we could come up with another buck we would buy another. It was all we could afford.

[Robert T. Day]

Rick-
When you mentioned the Swamp Glider-that brought back some memories. I got something similar, if not identical to that by sending in two Cheerios boxtops, and wrappers from bags of Sunsweet prunes(my mom made me eat those before she would send in the boxtops and wrappers)- that was one of my favorite toys.

-Bob

Clutch Cargo--w/ spinner and paddlefoot--my dad used to make fun of how their mouths would move,and nothing else.
Also, Astro-Boy and Mighty Mouse cartoons-those were the good 'ol days

[Excaliber]

Well, how far back are we going here??? The milk in the glass jug? THAT reminded of what I had almost forgotten.

We had three milk cows at Grandpas house (my folks and us kids lived with them when I was little). I wasn't much of a "milker" myself. But I would help prepare the milk and ride with Grandpa in his Studebaker (V-8, he bragged about the "power" of that thing) when he did his milk deliverys around town. Some was pasturized, some wasn't. What ever the customer wanted.

Plenty of milk left over. We made our own butter and ice cream and poured the left overs on the rhubarb patch.

We planted and harvested hay by pulling old farming equipement converted from horse drawn to tractor pulled (big yellow tractor, can't recall the make). When Grandpa died, the cows were sold. It was the end of an era.

Cottage Grove, Oregon, late 50's early 60's. A logging town through and through.

Ernie

My parents live there to this day. Same OLD house, very little changed and all but falling down. ONLY old growth timber homestead left on that mountain that hasn't sold off their trees. Poachers have been a problem over the years, had to put some serious fences in.

[Jamo]

Dano and Island Creature sparked this memory...

"Duck and Cover" drills at school. Problem was--I couldn't fit under my desk. Stayed awake nights figuring I was gonna die.

[Excaliber]

Jamo under his desk,,,,,would that look something like this??

[KobraKarl]

LOL... thats still funny.. an artistic moment there Jamo..

[Bish Wheeler]

I remember sitting with my grandparents listening to the radio when FDR declared war on Japan....the old spider infested two holer..unpastuerized and unhomoginized milk from the farmer on the way to town...boy was that a treat, then we had to pour it into the separator so we could make butter. I remember when you had to pop the color button in the bag of margerine and knead it until it looked like butter. I remember counting ration stamps so we could get gas. I remember my uncle coming home from the war in Europe and ordering a jeep for which he had to wait 6 months. And how much my aunt hated that thing when it finally arrived.

Bish

[A Snake]

Bish,

You must be the official "Old Coot" for this thread. Nobody else mentioned ration stamps or FDR. I can remember Truman, but not FDR.

I do remember our first phone was an oak box with two silver bells and a hand crank. I got to see the swithboard and watch the town operator plug in the wires to connect calls. You really had to watch what you said in those days....she 'knew all". Our first dial phone only required 4 numbers to dial in town and all calls out of town were operator assisted.

The first TV in town was owned by the local banker and had a 100 foot high antenna. He had to offer TV viewing to get his neightbors to let him put the guy wires in their yards. The picture only came in once in a while between lots of snow the size of small peas.

We got milk in glass bottles too. In the winter, they would freeze and push the cream up like a plug with the paper cap on top.

Mickey Mouse was black and wore only red shorts.

Kites were made of carefully carved fruit box wood and coverd with newspaper. Later, they came ready made for 10 cents and a ball of kite string was 10 cents.

The frizbee was a coffee can lid or an old worn out record (until it broke)

A skate board was a 2x4 with an old clamp on skate on the bottom and a wooden box with handles.

The rich kid had a real English bike with 3 speeds and the rest of us had old Columbia's or Schwinns if we were lucky. My first bike was a Firestone Flyer.

Our fishin' car and Dad's work car was a '31 Model A coupe. Like a lot of people, he took out the rumble seat and put in a little short pick-up box in it's place.

The Friday night fights on the radio were sponsored by Gillette. "You'll look sharp and you'll feel sharp too."

Right after the fights came the Lone Ranger and The Shadow. Also Amos and Andy and Suspense.

I saw Shane in the theater when it first came out......$.35

My first trip to 100mph was with my Dad in his brand spanking new 1954 Olds Super 88. And you wonder where my itch for speed came from! He made me swear I wouldn't tell Mom and I didn't for over 30 years. Long after they went their separate ways.

Excalibur reminded me of the "Good Old Days" in a logging town. I remember Cottage Grove as he does, when logging trucks ruled the road and you were either a farmer or worked in the mill or were a logger. There wasn't much else and real men drank Lucky Lager.

Almost forgot. I remember the first soda in cans. It was called Can A Pop and the cans were steel, not aluminum. Same with beer cans and a real man could crush a beer can with one hand.

Al

[Dan Semko]

How about those balsa wood gliders that had red and blue printing on the wings, that you had to carefully push apart, assemble and put paper clips on the nose for balance? If you wanted a long flight pattern you pushed the wings towards the tail. Or model airplanes made of balsa that you Exacto knifed to customize the parts, used REAL Testors airplane glue from tubes, then "doped" the wings to tighten the paper. Originally they were powered by rubber bands then advanced to .049 gas engines that would always bite your fingers when they kicked back during starting.

[mr0077]

9 cents/gallon for regular gas during a gas war in Harlingen TX;
vacuum windshield wipers;
third brake lights (befor there was a "DOT");
hand signals were really used, 'cause a lot of cars didn't have signals;
Driving cross-country before there were freeways or air conditioners;
6 cent cokes;
butch wax for crew cuts;
Seeing Elvis' first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show;
actually CONSIDERING buying an almost new Renault Dauphine for $200 (what a POS!)