Christmas break from school, snow forts and getting so cold but not caring, hay rides behind horses and kids Christmas parties with Santa and a movie...
Pulling into a gas station and running over the air line that rang the bell so that the attendant would know you were there (Ding Ding). Then after he wipes his dirty hands off from doin an oil change in the back and walks all the way out to the pumps to have me hand him a 1 dollar bill and get three gallons of gas and a pack of Lucky Strikes that he would have to go back inside to get. Then I would tell him NOT to wipe my windows because I knew he would use that same oily rag on my windshield and I didn't want that metal changer that he wore around his waist scratching up my car. Those were the days.
When Mars bars where relatively flat and had whole almonds on top before the chocolate was poured on. At least, Ithink it was the Mars bar.
give Diane at Harrisons Auto a call. They have a lot of early 60s Olds, Buicks etc,etc. They need to sell some stuff s
I remember pushing buttons to shift, (still do) hanging out on the street without worrying about gang activity, waxing my folks 65 Impala, facing backwards in the third seat of our 63 Chevrolet wagon, the way the drive in movies made us kids go to sleep after the night cooled us all off, how long it took to drive to our vacation spot,(it seemed)with windows down ,no ac, waiting for that powerglide to shift when my brother held his foot to the floor. and this old guy in town with a immaculate 62 LeSabre with venetian blinds inside the back window,.
Running up my first car in Low (Auto) and backing off to hear how cool it sounded. Nobody told me it would mean the end of my transmission.... What a Maroon....I'm not sure why I got to Graduate High School.....Centurion9
Catching lighning bugs in a mason jar. Loading the trunk of a car with friends to sneak into the drive in. Using ladyfinger firecrackers to blow up ant hills. Placing 45-70 cartridges into a mud bank with the primer showing and then shooting the primer with a bb gun....lol
Seeeeee the USA...in your Chevrolet! Supercar! It's the marvel of the age. Sea Hunt Highway Patrol Navy Log Walter Cronkites Twentieth Century. Hearing big radials on USAF C-119's lumbering at night, rushing outside to see jets, F-89's and 102's. Milwaukie Hobby Shop Olsens 5 & 10 Going en masse as small kids 2 block to "The little store", a 2 story wooden affair dating from, who knows, the 20's or earlier. A banging wood screen door, the aged couple that owned it.Buying Popsicles for 7 cents, candy for 1 penny. The whoosh of light aircraft ( we had an airfield next door) as they landed. My Grandfathers Chevron Station, built in the 30's.Liftiing up the lids of the tanks to smell the gas.A big roll top desk, my Grandad in his uniform giving us rootbeer.Riding in the 50 Plymouth to pick up a tire that was wrapped in brown paper. Going to the Zidell ship dismantlers and Andy & Bax's to buy WW2 surplus, mostly to look.You could buy ANYTHING THERE! The smell of thousands of tons of steel, grease, canvas. Stories of our Dads in WW2, looking for reasons the Russians would nuke us! Seeing Sputnik. Giant TV's in the gym to watch John Glenn take off. It goes on forever, I'll NEVER FORGETthose wonderful times.
Think I was kidding about thousands of tons of steel? Here's about half the Zidell dismantling yards in 1958.The WW2 Navy was being pared down, Liberty ships, tankers, cruisers, jeep carriers, you name it.All these ships were from the reserve fleet so they were fully stocked with everything but ammo and persishables. AND you could buy all this stuff! Clothes, helmets, gas masks, bunks silverware, valves, motors, all sorts of mechanical and electric gizmos. They dumped all the asbestoes....in the river!!!!!!!
I was about 10 yo and walking to a friends house several blocks away and I saw a boy a couple of years older than me with a Bb gun shooting into his parents garage. I asked him if he was shooting a rat, he says no, I put a 12 ga shell in my dads vice and I'm trying to hit the primer.
buying gas for 30 cents a gallon, three or 4 bucks and you could drive around town all night TV stations going off the air at 10:30 after the news and playing the National Antheym, going on the air at 6am and playing the National anthyem again.
Life and Look Magazines Red Goose Shoes Woolworths and Newberry's stores. Johnson Smith Co. mail order Edmund Scientific mail order Wide wail cord pants, paisley shirts daily body count in Viet Nam Going to the airport, putting a dime in a radio to "hear the airplanes talk to the tower". Dumping used oil on the riverbank Hawaii and Alaska becoming states The US population hitting 200 million The Weekly Reader March of Dimes and Savings Bonds in school bleeding Madras shirts and light blue Levi's Empire dresses mmmmmm! Sir Jacs Poptops Burma Shave signs Motels advertising COLOR TV! Green Rivers Everybody smoked! 17 cent hamburgers nickle cokes cut off sweatshirts, jeans (white or blue) and Desert Boots. I still wear these. Cragar mags for $29.99
When Christmas started in December. Meeting Robert Kennedy a week before he was murdered. Seeing JFK speak in 1960, in our neighborhood. Meeting Eugene McCarthy in 1968. Seeing Led Zeppelin second bill to Jethro Tull in 1970. Halloween was for children Moutain Bars Women wearing Car Coats and pedal pushers. Seeing Elvis, The Beatles, The Supremes, Roger Miller, The Raiders, Country Joe, Blind Faith, Vanilla Fudge, ELP, Yes,Rod Stewart,Chuck Berry, Bill Haily, Bo Diddley, Big Brother, Jefferson Airplane, the Dead, Rosemary Clooney, Satchmo TWICE! and a bunch more. Seeing Johhny Carson and the Smothers Brothers doing stand up live. Respect for government office. Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle slugging it out. Fizzies Pneumatic tubes in offices and stores. transoms Charge O Plates NO air conditioning anywhere Hush Puppies Girls HAD to wear dresses in school, no jeans or pants. Kids getting the crap beaten out of them in school by teachers The "two finger rule" for long hair on boys. Girls having to kneel to see how short their skirts were in school. Vitalis Sta-Lube Everybody used cash All men wore hats, women wearing hats and gloves. Wearing a clip on bow tie and salt and pepper cords Milk cost 2 cents in school, ice cream on Thursdays for a nickle. Reading my Dad's True magazines. Coronet magazine. TV Guide Days gone by.
Gas for 19.9¢ per gallon at the local Sinclair station, Mad magazine, and 5¢ cokes at the Rea & Derick store, after school.
Car dealerships were open on Sundays, and stores had shopping nights, Mon. & Thursday open til 8pm. This was before Malls.
two dollar bills 50 cent pieces steel pennies 100 piece tool kit for $29.99 red and white surfer shirts You could see the stars at night short wave radio ham radio Big Hunks $25 cars $50-100 Models A's MGA's, TR3's and 50's Jags CHEAP! The TV repairman coming to our house. Heathkits Listening to the World Series on smuggled transistor radios in school Much, MUCH more choice in everything. Riding in a 1947 Republic SeaBee flying boat. Thinking the Can Can was really hot The Star of David tattooed on the arms of Max and Rose, our neighbors in a triplex. Almost no traffic at night. Air raid sirens The 1962 Cuban Missle crisis, with kids asking our teacher if there was going to be a nuclear war ( as JFK's deadline to Russia approached). Canneries and commercial fishing fleets on the Oregon coast. Barber Mikes German helmet and 9mm Luger ( in the shop) that he took from a Nazi.My neighbors USMC tatoo he got just befor Guadalcanal. Men smoking pipes Dixie Cups with wooden spoons. Really, very little is the same today. Im obsolete!
Laying down on a long trip in back of moms impala stretched out trying to nap only to get repeatedly shocked from the static electricity the clear plastic seat covers generated. Going to the local 5 & dime n getting those cheap stick airplanes n a plastic bag. Wondering how come the owner drove a big 63 caddy convertible everyday? And how'd it fit into a parking space? Then mom would go next door to the 50s leftover malt shop I'd get a shake & always get in trouble for spinning on the bar stools. I believe that place was 3/4 polished stainless steel & neon. Stocking R12 at our family parts store & raising the sticker to .59 cents a can & putting out cardboard oil cans mostly straight 20w, writing hand tickets , talking on rotary phones, calling in stock orders by phone, seeing long haired young guys driving up in air shocked, shackled, cragar ss'd, muscle cars. Still seeing some late 50's stuff Rollin down the street. Hearing old guys gripe about HEI ignition & how'd it even work? Going back in our shop when we rented it out to my best pals master mechanic dad& watching the older mechanics knurl pistons n valve guides? Wow......not cool now Dad complaining when gas got in the upper .70 cent/gal range. Dad selling the big block impala & getting a chevy luv. Riding to school both my cousins 396 69 camaros Seeing Star Wars at the theatre Wearing out bicycles & living for baseball. Starting a late night street race with a flashlight & seeing a friends ratty primered stage 1 Buick 70 GSX twist up & absolutely smoke the local spoiled rich kids LS6 ,nitrous , tubbed 55 chevy big time. My dad always taking me with him to the dirt track races to help wrench on friends 55 chevy post "c" class stock car. Still got some of the the ol stroked 292 internals. Playing in my uncles old GM dealership after hours. A pal of my dad's trading his dual quad 409 for a fresh 327 to go in his 55 chevy as a kid, I wondered even then if that was smart? Putting tail pipes on my car before a date & removing them afterwards. When dad got back from Vietnam, sold used cars , later on buying the old chevy dealership garage & property from my uncle & me spending most my young life in that building learning how to become the car nut I am today.
I might be getting a little old, but I do remember: Individual packs of class "C" Dixie firecrackers containing 16 crackers, always 5 Cents. 12 oz sodas for 5 cents. Big candy bars for 5 cents. Single pieces of hard candy or bubble gum - for 1 cent each. Standard sized ice cream bars for 5 cents. Big triple dip ice cream cones OR ice cream sodas for 15 cents at local "drug" store counter. You could "ride around" most of the night on a dollar's worth of gas. Whitewall Re-cap tires $7.95 each (7.75 X 15) - Included TAX. Element oil filters at 49 cents each. Grease Jobs almost anywhere went for one dollar. Tubeless tire repair (plug) 1 dollar. Tire repair including patching the tube, $1.25 S&H Green stamps or Gold Stamps; each 10 cents spent equaled 1 stamp. They gave you free books to lick the stamps and fill the books up. My Mom collected and treated them like gold. She did get some pretty neat stuff with hers (items were priced by how many books of stamps were needed to fill up, to get your free merchandize.)
R C Cola loaded with Planters peanuts J C Higgins bicycles Western Flyer bicycles Grape Vine Black Cat firecrackers Cream sodas Heath bars Marfax grease STP Glass Wax Hurst Mystery shifters Twist in spring lifters Nathan 25 cent rubbers 1/2 order of cheese enchiladas Hash browns at Thottle House Napoleon burgers Near beer at Pizza Hut Excessive notes tickets Excessive acceleration tickets Quart beer bottles Flavored vodka Window peeping Is that enough?
early 60s -- my hands freezing to the metal gas pump nozzle as I came outta the wash bay w wet hands @ the Phillips 66 station in Metamora on a Illinois winter's day to pump gas for a customer -- coworker hadta bring out some warm water to free me --
Fantastic. Or a quart of oil. How cool is that? Extended forks and banana seats. Avon lady, Fuller Brush man, door-to-door sales were a regular thing. Oh yea. My dad smoked Kents, always had an open carton on his dresser, and never missed the occasional pilfered pack. Or the drag races (Dallas, GA) My dad and I would watch that show regularly on Saturday. Yes! WWII surplus stores were everywhere! "Playing army" was the default neighborhood activity, even more so than playing ball. We covered every war, Revolutionary, Civil, WWI, played "spy" when it rained (long raincoats and hats), tossed spent batteries as potato mashers and hand grenades, but far and away the favorite was WWII, there was still a pervasive sense of that war in the air, the country was still in something of recovery mode, albeit it was mild. Just a tangible sense, an intuitive understanding of that war, what with the surplus stores, the TV shows, and the dads' stories.
The Mother of all WWII surplus stores! So cool. Get them wet, they bled. Madras, Banyan, Izod, and Oxford were the '60s school shirts in Atlanta. Yes, Burma Shave signs . . . stretched . . . out . . . on . . . the . . . highway Wow, cool Kennedy stories. Or Spirit, Mountain, Traffic, Small Faces (with Ronnie Wood & Rod Stewart), The Who, The Dead, Amboy Dukes, Allman Bros., E,L,&P, Little Feat, Johnny Winter, Bob Seger, and many others all in a 3,500 seat capacity arena, before the big 20,000 seat coliseums were built. Amen, I really miss dark nights. The drill was you ducked under your desk, like that was gonna help when the Big One hit. Air raid sirens everywhere. Who smokes a pipe anymore? Ah yes, had forgotten the little wooden spoons. Great posts Gary, thanks.
Procol Harum, Beach Boys, Humble Pie, Joe Cocker, Vanilla Fudge, Leon Russell, Flying Burrito Bros., Santana, Hot Tuna, Fleetwood Mac, Chicago, Blood, Sweat, & Tears, Mott The Hoople, Yes, The Moody Blues, Robin Trower, Frank Zappa, JJ Cale, NRPS, Colonel Bruce Hampton & the Grease Band, The Grease Band (Cocker's old band) . . . oh shit, there is no way to remember it all! Before Big Arena Rock.
I remember a lot of this stuff. Some of it made think, some made me smile, and some got me sad knowing it's gone!
The Jalopy Journal
