Old Timers . . . remember when . . . . . ??

[irish]

Joe, God Bless you and your wonderful mind. I know where the on/off switch is on my computer and that is about it. I hate to tell you but I learned on a Mac at work and I really hate my PC. I have never adjusted to it. You are one smart dude!!!

Bucky, Yes, I do remember the S&H stamps and Gold Bond stamps I think they were called. Such a huge, important thing in our lives back then. I hated having to lick those stamps and put them in the books.

Also, I remember a little bit about the dishes in the cereal boxes and I think some detergents. Also, the big thing I remember is the really nice drinking glasses that we could get when we bought gas. I have a few of the dishes from the cereal--inherited them from my MIL.

I also remember the material that was used to make feed sacks, flour sacks, etc. My mom used to use them to make dish towels. I was really young at that time. My dad gave me a transister portable radio (AM of course) when I was in high school and it was the cats pjs at that time.

When I think back to being a kid in the 40's and early 50's I often wonder what the heck we ate or snacked on. We had potato chips in the big cans but I don't remember much else. Ice cream came in quarts and pints. Guess we ate bread and jelly or graham crackers/soda crackers. Anybody else remember snacks. No HoHo's, etc.Imagine we ate home made cookies without all the artificial ingredients. Irish

[eyeamdry]

I just posted and Irish's post mad4e it and mine didn't.  I'll write it tomorrow. 

[Joe S.]

@Irish, I leave my computer on so I do not have to find the on/off switch. My wife has a tendency to turn off the wifi and I just never seem to remember how to turn it back on. It is a lighted antenna on my key board, red is off, blue is on. I check all cables and wires before the touch sensitive light.

Mom found a recipe for Icebox cookies on an oatmeal box. You mix them up and form them into logs. Then you place them into the Freezer over night. You cut the frozen dough and bake. They are made with ground walnuts, coconut, and oatmeal.

My uncle worked for general mills so I got to try a lot of new cereals before they came out. The game and stories we made up when I played with my cousins often became toys and cartoons. I did not think about it at the time, when I got older I realized that my uncle and his co-workers used their kids as test subjects. My cousins always had the latest new toys.

Who remembers sitting in front of their TV with a TV dinner watching the Flintstones? Dad was selling appliances and TV's. We got the first color TV in our neighborhood. I brought a small black and white TV to the lake and Dx'd TV stations from Minneapolis, South Dakota, Winnipeg, and Chicago when the skip signal was good. We had and old tube radio (am) that was about the size of a small fireplace and had a nice warmth to it as we searched for radio stations that we wanted to hear. You tuned the radio and then tuned the antenna to get a good sound that did not fade.

Who remembers having to run to the out house? Did you have an old Sears catalog or toilet paper? Do you remember reading with hurricane lamps? How about telling stories by fire light to stay up later.

When I stayed with my cousins - Jim, Jay, Jon, and Jed - we took turns starting the wood stove, going to the pump that had to be primed, and chopping wood before coming in to wash up for breakfast. We listened to 78 records on the big hand crank Victrola. We slept in the screened porch of an old Victorian style farm house.

[Sooki]

@Joe - I can just see you as one of those really bright kids who brought down DARPA (and SAC??).  They must have been pretty interested in you and your talents. It was people like you who brought us all these advances. 

Two enjoyable books come to mind - Bimbos of the Death Sun by Sharyn McCrumb - a mystery that takes place at a sci-fi convention and people are all using bulletin boards to communicate (sequel - Zombies of the Gene Pool also good).  Also Cory Doctorow's Little Brother in which high school gamers bring down DHS (which has taken over San Francisco) using old XBox technology.  Fun reads.

[irish]

I can remember when I was around4 years old (1947 or so) sitting on the floor in the living room with my ear close to the big radio that sat on the floor. Mom would feed me early and then at 12 Noon I would sit and listen to the David Stone Show. Played old country western music, weather, joking around etc.

My dad sold TV's in his store and he brought home a black and white Traveler TV that we watched mostly in the evening. There wasn't much on but Saturday nite wrestling I remember. I would ride around with dad when he would fix TV's---they were the old tube jobs. Times have changed.

Yes, Joe, I remember watching TV and eating TV dinners. I don't know what year they came out but it would have been in the early to mid 50's. Saturday nites dad had the store open. The town where we lived was full of people shopping and sitting around and visiting. THe popcorn wagon was on the side of the street and the band would play in the bandstand in the park. Sometimes I would get to go to the movies and it was 25 cents.

I hate to say it, but I think the kids had more fun back then. We ran all over town. All the mom's were pretty much home and if you were naughty somebody elses mom would scold you and send you home. Nobody got sued over it---just the way it was back then and it worked well.

We climbed trees, made forts, found tall grass and made hideouts. Just had a darn good time playing from morning til night. Now the kids are all glued to some electronic device and hardly see the light of day. I know the world is not as safe as it used to be, but I think life for the kids is way too stressful and not very fullfilling. Just my humble opinion. IRish

[eyeamdry]

I'll try again and hope I don't fade out.  When I was aged pre-jr/sr high, we lived in the upper peninsula of Michigan on a farm.  It would get 25 or 30 below zero just as snow fell to dozens of inches.  I went to a one-room country school until we moved to southern Michigan.  Our one room school had no telephone, no running water (not even a pump), chemical toilets - one in the girl's cloak room and one in the boy's cloak room.  The teacher fed a wood burning stove during the day to keep us warm.  She would have to come into a frosty school early every morning.  I am thinking we did have electric, but I am not sure.  We used to listen to the radio for "music class" once a week from a local radio station.  We could have had a radio run with batteries.  We had no soda, no water, no snacks, only what was packed from home and we carried for lunch.  If someone forgot their lunch, the teacher would give some of her food and ask others to donate to the forgotten one. 

My kindergarden year, my brother was 12 and in 7th grade and that was the last grade and then you went to to town to jr/sr high school.  It was a long ride back and forth on the bus.  We lived one mile from the school and walked this in every kind of weather.  It's a wonder I didn't get stuck in the snow and lost forever.  My brother would take off across the field so take a short cut and I had to follow and was way, way behind.  I remember bawling all the way to school and sniveling away.  I was likely covered with tears, spit, boogers all frozen on my little face.  My brother was never in a mood to help me.  I only had to deal with him one year though and he was gone to big school. 

Water was brought to the school is a 5 or 10 gallon milk jug every morning by the bus driver.  When it was summer, we drank more water and sometimes we would run out of water by noon.  If that happened, I got to walk to my friend's house closest to the school, call my folks and ask my Dad to bring some water to the school on his way to work on second shift.  I felt like a big shot when I got to do that. 

Also as a perk, my older sister used to have the job of cleaning/scrubbing the school floor once a month for $5.00.  She often had to take my younger sister with her "to watch us" while she was doing the big job.  I used to sit in every desk, look in the teacher's desk and generally be a pest.  We did not have tv until just before we moved to lower Mich.  A tv station was going into Soo Canada and we would be able to get it!  Dad bought a tv way before we could see anything.  Imagine, no tv.  It wasn't a matter of rich or poor.  We simply did not live within a reception area.  OK, here I go again.  Hope it posts this time
Lucy

[kimbo]

I worked as an emergency room receptionist at a hospital in the mid 70s, when I was 20. One of my jobs was typing up the daily surgical schedule. This was on a manual type writer, typing through with carbon paper, hammering as hard as I could on the keys to get through 7 copies each 3 different times, for a total of 21 copies. when they proudly supplied me with an electric type writer, I was disappointed because then I could only legibly type through 5 carbon copies, causing to make a whole other set, 4 in all.

I distributed these copies through out the hospital by way of the tube system, in order get this task out before the floors began calling inquiring for their schedules - I needed a good supply of tubes for their deliveries. I would begin collecting tubes at my feet as I received them in my little ER station; all morning hoarding tubes as I typed and carried on other very immediate duties of the ER. Until I heard maintenance stomping down the haul......"Kim", and there I sit with all the tubes of the whole hospital. Maintenance would get word that the tube system was broken down. They knew where to come and some would even help me load the schedules and send them in my wild rush.

The long time maintenance men there at the hospital would tease me years later, saying they had to lay off a maintenance man when I left there.

One time with my sister, (who also worked there in the pharmacy) - We had been out to lunch, me driving, us talking and gabbing as sisters often do. Well when we got out of the car and we are standing on the side walk getting ready to go back into work, my sister says, "are you going to turn your car off?" I look at her and smile stupidly, "I can't it's locked !" So we stand there and laugh. She goes into her department which is directly across from maintenance and ask them if they can bust into my car, as I locked my keys in it. "Which one is it?", they ask. "The one running", she told them as she and they laughed together.

When they came to the ER acting like they could not open it they said, "it will run out of gas", I said, "it has a full tank."  They laughed and handed me my keys.

I would like to just say how much I love great memories with my sister, we are now in our late 50s and we still laugh and gab it up together. We are 16 months apart she hugs me often and calls me her fun sister.

Thanks Bucky, you make this place special. It really is a different world from our early jobs.

I love reading these stories.