Most people seldom, if ever, wore seat belts. But cars were built of actual sheet metal back then and were harder to destroy. A lot of teaching in the schools was done by showing "film strips." A diagnosis of cancer meant certain death, sooner or later. Lawrence Welk still had a TV show and my grandparents insisted on watching it on Sunday nights. Even then it made me want to hurl.
2001 seemed a very long way off. The scenes in "2001, A Space Odyssey" in which the dad goes on a quick day-trip to the moon and talks to his little girl on a picture phone seemed both exciting and attainable in short order.
Dick Tracey had a two-way wrist radio, the precursor of cell phones.
In the sixties people who were born in the late nineteenth century were still alive and available to learn from. I'm glad I had that chance and hope I can pass on some of their knowledge to my own children.
Oh that's for certain. I remember int he late 60's thinking that I'd be SO old in 2000...almost 40, older than my parents. It seemed so far off, but it sure did pick up speed.