[Dakotabound]

This has several anonymous postings on the web, so I have no idea who the author was.

Posted for your reminiscing pleasure on this Saturday in January.

[DouglasKC]

I'm not that old, early 40's, but I remember watching "The Partridge Family" and wondering what kind of exotic food a taco was.

[Atlantian]

I just came back from visiting my 80 yr. old in-laws. They subscribe to a magazine called "Reminisce".

If you enjoy threads like this, you'll love the magazine. The whole magazine is devoted to--guess what!--reminiscing. It contains great stories and pictures. All the stories are submitted by readers.

I must be getting old (mid-50's), since I could reminsce about a lot of things in the magazine.

[texson66]

One of my memories growing up in West Texas in the 40s and 50s was the Department Store shoe X-RAY! When you tried on your shoes you could see how well your feet fit in the shoes! God only knows how much radiation kids got from THAT!

[SupplySider]

I remember exercising in front of the TV, my mom with her Jack LaLane Glamour Stretcher, and my sister and I with our Glamour Stretcher Juniors.

[Max McGarrity]

From early last year right here on FR, six whole threads of memories:

CALLING ALL PRE-BOOMERS...LET'S REMINISCE !!! Thread VI

Enjoyable. Thanks. (If this has been linked already, I'm sorry. Just can't go through more than 400 posts right now to find out.

[dasein64]

My visiting aunt has been reading this thread and told me it brought to mind lines from a favorite poem of hers. "Turn back, turn back, oh time in your flight. Make me a child just for tonight". I can relate to that. Then it's on to a new day and new experiences.

[lorrainer]

Where to start?
My husband is a '47, I'm a '59. We once sat around with his siblings and their spouses for FOUR HOURS and traded stories about when we were kids and had near-death experiences our folks still don't know about. They're farm kids, and they have more than one story that starts, "..that time when you went up too high in the silo..." Still nothing but butter in ANY of our houses.

I started working at my dad's meat market at 15, no pay, but all the lunchmeat you wanted. Ever get full on headcheese? Me neither. There was still sawdust on the floor, before it got outlawed. We ate dinner in shifts because there was 10 of us, with the working men eating first, of course (I had 5 older brothers--hand-me-downs were interesting, too). We listened to my Dad talking politics every night, which is where I think I got my basic education. Stories about the Depression: lard sandwiches, and the "relief" in those days was the county wagon going around to the widows and dropping off bags of beans, etc.

No TV until Dad turned it on, and it was what he wanted to watch. Heaven help us if we tried to switch to either of the other 2 stations if he fell asleep during a ballgame.

Childhood--1st memory was getting to watch As The World Turns because I had the flu, and having it interrupted by the assasination news.

We only got to watch TV during the day if we were sick. Faves were Romper Room and Sherry Lewis/Lambchop. We weren't ever to let on outside the home (or Dad) that the TV went on during the day.

Dippity-Do, the precursor for styling gel. Springy rollers with the plastic picks, AND pincurls on the bangs AND "sideburns"--remember that? The curlier the better. My aunt got to wear false eyelashes because she was cool, and lived in the city. We couldn't wait to get out of ankle socks and into stockings, so we finally got to wear panty-girdles with garters. Painful when you wore fishnets! Mass EVERY morning, with a "veil" on our heads, held on with bobby pins. You got to wear pants under your dress only when it was snot-freezing cold, then you had to take them off as soon as you got into school.

We couldn't wear pants to school until high school, then no jeans until we were seniors or so. The bare-midriff-hip-hugger styles so popular today were only for the trashiest girls, and if it was too risque, you'd get sent home. In those days, girls would "have" to get married.

Kids these days, they don't know what it was like...I finally get to pass along this old gem...I guess I am getting old.

[freepersup]

I am a 1957 model.
-Burr haircuts, always- burr haircuts, up until 8th grade.
-Frocked Christmas trees were cool.
-So were the aluminun foil Christmas trees, with the rotating 4 colored lenses positioned on the floor, illuminated by a bright spotlight.
-Street lights with screw in light bulbs, just begging to be shot at with a BB gun, or hit with a rock.
-A risque movie (that comes to mind) was one where people ate this pink gelatin food and grew into giant people.
-The risque part was when a tight camera shot focused in on a woman's breast area expanding, (clothed in a fuzzy blue Angora sweater) and a couple of sweater buttons popped off- CUT... on to the next scene.
-What happened next was left to the imagination.
-Humina Humina Humina
-Not a peep at any skin, what so ever.
-Bikes, we rode our bikes everywhere, day and night.
-Really cool bike lights that would run off a small generator powered by a small wheel pressed against one of the bike wheels.
-The most coveted bike: a Schwinn Sting Ray with a banana seat, sissy bars, gooseneck, and high handle bars.
-Inflating balloons and tying them to the wheel spokes so that when you pedaled it made a very cool sound.
-Using playing cards for the same purpose.
-Attaching them to the wheel spokes with clothes pins.
-Carbide lanterns and carbide cannons.
-Building tree houses out of anything we could get our hands on.
-We once used the steel sides of a washing machine.
-Two broken arms from falling out of trees.
-Erector sets.
-Pump up water powered plastic rockets that would really climb skyward.
-Silly putty.
-Super balls.
-First TV of recollection... B & W with an oval screen.
-Memories of going to my uncle's house to watch Disney on a color TV.
-Taking the "milk train" at 4AM to St. Louis to watch a baseball game as a little leaguer.
-Baseball in the summer, every single day, all day, until the time came to go do our paper routes.
-Swimming in the creeks, until the community built a brand new public pool.
-Getting a swim pass for the whole summer.
-Listening to Inagodadavida by Iron Butterfly over the public address system (the long version- is there any other ?).
-Flying kites that were made with incredibly weak balsa wood that always broke.
-No exceptions.
-Tackle football or basketball in the winter, every single weekend day, all day, until the time came to go do our paper routes on Saturdays.
-Reading In Cold Blood by Truman Capote; my first book of an adult nature containing gratuitous violence.
-Watching homecoming parades where the high school kids did the "snake dance".
-Seeing the biggest bonfire of my life at the high school on the football practice field.
-Discovering that the streets had been mysteriously white washed the night before the parade.
-Wondering what all of this meant.
-Ice cream men that pedaled bicycles with a freezer mounted on the front of the bike.
-Eating push ups- sherbet ice cream that would give you an excrutiating headache every single time you ate one, even though you knew that this was a likely side effect.
-Big crush on my 5th grade teacher.
-My first "young" teacher that was a fresh graduate from college.
-Spent my paper route money (to no avail) buying the teacher albums of her favorite musicians- Herb Albert & the Tijuana Brass, on A & M Records.
-Cutting through people's back yards for short cuts on the way home from school.
-Getting under our desks at school or going out in the hallways and kneeling down on our knees in order to practice civil defense procedures or tornado drills.
-Getting down on our knees with both of our hands placed over the back of our necks for protection.
-Playing kill the man with the ball at recess with reckless abandon.
-Playing king of the hill at recess with reckless abandon.
-Recalling school paddlings in 2nd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th & 8th grades.
-Playing a game combining the rules of tag and kill the man with the ball in gym with those unique rubber balls.
-Everyone was a target.
-Selling greeting cards door to door, where one could then select cool prizes based on the amount of sales.
-On the way home from school, watching the police shoot pigeons with shotguns (in and around the downtown area) in an annual event to eradicate the nuisance birds from the taller buildings in town.
-Attempting to "hog" fish with our bare hands at our favorite fishing holes.
-Eating Mulligan stew at the local Moose club.
-Several wild game meats were part of the ingredients which made this stew one of the best I have ever tasted.
-Going to Bible school of my own free will because the girl that I had a crush on would be there.
-Buying the game Twister and wrapping that up as a present for the same girl's birthday.
-Getting no where with this girl, as she seeks favor with a male student in the next grade up.
-Popcorn in a disposable aluminum skillet.
-Turning in pop bottles for 2 cents a piece.
-Then 5 cents each.
-Finally, an astounding 10 cents each.
-Drinking pop out of a bottle.
-Aluminum cans as a novelty.
-Being at a friends house when his oldest brother returns home from Viet Nam.
-A five digit phone number.
-A big change, a seven digit phone number.
-First AM-FM clock radio combination.
-Oil for cars in glass bottles with metal neck spouts.
-Numerous train rides to Chicago with lots of passengers on board.
-Saturday morning cartoons or movies at the movie theater- cheap.
-Slot cars.
-Hobby shops with slot car tracks.
-Writing State's Attorney Jim Garrison of New Orleans investigating the Kennedy assasination for a school assignment and getting a reply.

[Mr. Mojo]

This was because soccer back then was just for the girls.

Well, I guess some things never change.

[jennyp]

I was 13 before I tasted my first pizza. It was a Sam's Pizza at the East end of Fruit Street in Milford. My friend, Steve took me there to try what he called "pizza pie." When I bit into it, I burned the roof of my mouth and the cheese slid off, swung down and plastered itself against my chin. It's still the best pizza I ever had.

This reminds me: Pizza was so much better when I was young! This would be the late '60s. We'd get a takeout pizza from the Red Devil (Detroit), or else some other non-chain pizza place. ("You've tried the rest, now try the best!")

What happened to pizza? I haven't had a pizza where the cheese actually pulls into a long string in years! There was a pizza place in W. Seattle that came close a few years ago, (darn, can't remember the name!) but they went downhill & now they're out of business.

Anyway, what is wrong with pizzas today? What is it they're missing?

[retiredtexan]

I was born June ,1933. When I was six we moved to the west side of Maplewood, Mo.There was a White Castle on Manchester and Lindover Just around the cornere from where we lived.On some saturdays there would be a newspaper coupon where you could get a dozen for a dollar. Usually they were 10 cents each.I enjoyed the burgers(there are frozen ones available, but not the same) and the aroma from the diner.But it was a rarity and a real treat to eat out or go to a movie.In early 1941 we moved to Kirkwood, which was in the county, to a house jusrt down the street form grandpas.Grammer school,WW Keysor, was about 7 blocks away, which meant walking to and from every day. It was fun, as there was lots of stuff to get into and occupy the time. I do not know if I want to go back to those times, but I have lots of fond memories. I still have school days chums alive and am in contact with them.

[Rebelbase]

M80's and Cherry bombs! The real ones.

[expatguy]

I was born in 1963 but a lot of this brings back memories for me.

[aruanan]

Levis were sold in Sears and Roebuck or other catalogs. Mail order catalogs of the 19th century put today's Williams/Sonoma and Victoria's Secret to shame (back in the latter part of the 19th century, you could buy vibrators and other interesting electrical devices by mail order).

This grandfather seems to be remembering a time that was more nearly before the Civil War. It's also interesting he doesn't remember the horrible ravages of childhood deaths that plagued society even down into the 1950s. I guarantee you it was written by someone no older that 30 or 40--only someone from this more recent era could be so factually deficient and so naively sentimental as the author.

[Freee-dame]

ping

[potlatch]

Memories of growing up in the 40's and 50's thread ping!