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To: HungarianGypsy
All from the perspective of a kid at the time:

At 8 and 9 years old I'd ride my bike 2 miles to school everyday. Whenever I got punished I'd have to take the bus or walk it.

My buddies and I would roam 3-5 miles away from home on our bikes in the 4th-5th grade. There was no fear of perverts or gangbangers.

In the summertime every evening all the kids on the block would play kick the can in the middle of the street. Almost all playing was done in the street.

I got into a fight with a kid over the Wicked Witch of the West in the Wizard of Oz movie. He kept talking about her ugly green skin and I told him she didn't have green skin. I didn't know he watched it on a color TV.

Speaking of fights, my mom let me get my ass whupped on my front porch. She saw a fight brewing and locked the door.

Westerns and WWII movies were king.

Most tee shirts kids wore where plain white.
James Bond was totally cool. Lava Lamps were contemporary art. Chicks in mini skirts with go-go boots. Motown records.
Dodge Ball and Fox Across were school sanctioned activities.

Our kitchen cabinets were filled with gas station drinking glasses. You got one free every time you filled up.

Paul Newman a cool actor.

Rachel Welch and Sophia Lauren were ~the~ hot babes of the day.

Reel to Reel tape was cutting edge audio technology.

"Made in Japan" meant cheap crap.

Bananas were 9 cents a lb.

A Mcdonald's hamburger was 17 cents.

Happy meals didn't exist.

The Burger King wasn't gay.

TV went off the air when Johnny Carson was over.

M-80's and Cherry Bombs were legal.

Spring time meant kite flying.

If you traveled any distance you'd come to a point where the interstate highway you were riding on ended and you'd have to take a state highway. If you came upon one of these interstate terminus at night, there'd be smudge pots burning along the road to alert you to the exit. And there were great restaurants along those old roads.

Hendrix, Zeppelin, Cream, Jefferson Airplane, Zappa, Vanilla Fudge, were playing on my brother's stereo. Beatles, Beach Boys, Animals, were playing on my Sister's stereo.

I had a crappy record player and lousy kids records, and 45's.

Big arse puffy hairdos were in style.

Every night on the TV, the news would start out (Walter Cronkite) with how many US troops were killed in Vietnam that day.

If you wanted to know something you had to go to the library and look it up, unless you were lucky enough to have a set of encyclopedias in your house.

Phones were rotary dial, none of this push button stuff. I hated calling friends whose phone numbers had a lot 8's,9's and 0's.

Walkie talkies sucked. You were lucky if they worked across the street.

Room to room intercom systems were popular in houses.


Computers were rocket science.
If you wanted to boil water you had to put it on the stove, no microwaves.

Transistor radios were cutting edge.

Planter's peanuts had chain outlets where you could get fresh roasted nuts.

Dime stores or drug stores were the place to hang out as a kid.

Hardware stores were cool. If you needed it , they had it, from ammo to Vacuum Tubes. Speaking of Vacuum Tubes, every hardware store had a Vacuum tube tester where you could plug in your tubes and check them.

There were no self service gas stations. You sat in your car and the attendants pumped the gas, checked the oil, washed the windows and checked your tires If you asked them.

TV dinners sucked.

Everyone left their doors unlocked.

My dad use to raise hell with my brother over his hair covering his ears and long bangs.

My sister and her college roommate backpacked all over Europe on summer.

A pack of Cigarettes was 30 cents and they sold them to minors. :-)

That's all for now.
239 posted on 01/09/2007 10:29:27 AM PST by Rb ver. 2.0
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To: Rb ver. 2.0

"The Burger King wasn't gay."

Which reminds me, in the 60's "gay" meant happy.


244 posted on 01/09/2007 10:31:39 AM PST by Rb ver. 2.0
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To: Rb ver. 2.0
TV dinners sucked.

I kinda dug the Swanson's turkey because it came with apple cobbler (which was pretty tasteless but we were kids).

Remember those little wax bottles filled with colored liquid you would drink and then chew the wax?
268 posted on 01/09/2007 10:39:05 AM PST by Miss Didi ("Good heavens, woman, this is a war not a garden party!" Dr. Meade, Gone with the Wind)
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To: Rb ver. 2.0
A pack of Cigarettes was 30 cents and they sold them to minors. :-)

I can remember when cigarettes were sold in army/navy surplus stores for 1.90 a carton. The cigarette machines (remember them?) would charge you .25 cents a pack and some would give you change in the pack if the sign on the machine said .23cents. No kidding, they would pack 2 pennies into the pack. Just about everybody smoked in those days.

270 posted on 01/09/2007 10:39:16 AM PST by mc5cents (Show me just what Mohammd brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman)
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