RC Cola, clay wheeled skateboards, $3.00 in advance $3.50 at the door rock concerts, pop top chains, navy pea coats, $4.00 levis, 3 for $5.00 8 tracks, boom tubes, 12" long shackles, JC Penny pocket t-shirts, swats from the principal, when gay meant happy, when condoms were optional
..pulling that miserable pull start cable on my COX purple dune buggy while the nitro/castor oil mix seared into the blisters on my worn out fingers....then checking the glow plug with the battery hooked up and watching the little coil in the center disintegrate...re-install the ruined glow plug and start pulling the cable again............ .[/QUOTE]
I could smoke in my hospital bed ,, My Dad coming home with a Brand New Yellow '53 Ford My Dad coming home with a brand new yellow '55 Merc Montclair My Dad Coming home with a brand new Turquise n White '57 Chevy 210 two door hardtop,283 pwr pac w' a three speed overdrive ,,AND I got to learn how to drive in it ,,and,,when i turned 16 ,,i got to use it for dates and car club meetings ( the Hi-Winders,,Marshalltown,Iowa),,and ,,it was the second fastest car in Marshall County ,,BUT,,,he didn't know i street raced it 'till he traded it in on a new '59 Impala ,,the Chevy Dealer told him ,, He's 85 now and still pissed I raced his '57 Chevy ,,he never got over it ,, the first Satilite T V ,,at Elmendorf AFB in '64,in Alaska when Cashis Clay fought in the "Thriller in Minilla" ,,the fight lasted a couple minutes in the first round ,,i was getting a Pepsi & a Candy Bar ,,had a front seat in the reck room all day ,,missed the whole thing , Oil Bath Air Cleaners,, Atlas Bucron Cheater Slicks Schlitz Beer Ever Clear MoonShine 115 octaine AVE GAS at .39 cents a gal Union 76 Ethyl at $.29 cents a gal D-X Ethyl at $.19 cents a gal Lucky Strikes at $.25 cents a pak Car Hops a nite fer two at the Drive-In Theater ,,w' popcorn & pepsis ,,for $5 bucks,, Poodle Skirts Penny Loffers Ed Roths Weirdo Shirts Roth's Car Names the Surfers Dragster Race Team Stone-Woods & Cooke flat towing the Willys to the Drags,, Shorty Lakers Fiesta Flippers Lancer Flippers Yep,,i'm 67 years young and remember ALL that stuff ,,like it was Yesterday ,,
Larry......whaddaya mean, setting points with a feeler gauge?? That's what the pro mechanics did........us shadetree guys used a matchbook cover to set points! CB
I remember NO seatbelts. And that big solid steel dashboard looming in front of me while my Mom drove around town. And yeah Doug, Ethics. How about simple manners. Slim
I remember sitting in the front row at Lions and being able to take photos like this from my seat. and when I was old enough to get photographer's credentials' you could get anywhere you wanted...
Yeah I remember...watching Dad behind the tv and poking stuff with a screwdriver until sparks few. Then we would put all the tubes in a paper sack and take them to the grocery store and check them in the big tube tester. Seems like Dad always ended up calling the tv repair man to come out and fix it up. Muntz 4 tracks RCA 45 rpm car record players playing hardball in the street crossing over the LA river on the train tressel putting pennies on the train tracks that got smashed by locomotivies sail cats
Roller derby on TV... Drive-thru photo developing shacks (like coffee stands are today)... Oh, and M&M's in a cardboard tube...
5¢ Cokes and 7-UPs at Mason's Conoco in New Orleans, until they eventually went up to 6¢ ea. Plus, ya got 2¢ deposit on each bottle ya brought back. 15¢ for a full hot lunch + 3¢ more for a little glass bottle of milk in junior high school (early '60s). 7¢ to ride the NOPSI bus or streetcar ANYPLACE in the city. Bought a pretty fair Model A coupe (runnin'), that sat in the parking lot in front of Winn-Dixie for ages with a for sale sign on it-$45. Dad had to drive it home for me. Bought it with paper route money. DD
Mazooma1, 117harv and all the rest of you that contributed to this thread so far,,,,,thank you , thank you, thank you! I just spent the best hour of my life remembering all the things you've mentioned! Mazooma1.....i just don't know what to say about your collection! I had one of each also, but lost all that stuff when I went to "Nam! Thanks again everyone!! Crow.
Remember when someone took a Polaroid photo and everyone would stand around and watch it develop. Usually the person holding it would wave it back and forth a few times as if that had some magic way of making the image appear quicker....
How 'bout dad, giving us a few cigarettes and matches to take along to the creek, to burn leeches off after swimming. And woe betide the fool stupid enough to smoke'em and leave us having to wait out salting'em off. I brazed frames at Huffy for awhile. 'Til I lit a fire from my in-line flux bottle when the valve unscrewed right out and shot up past the pilot flame. It was a beautiful, two story roman candle inside the building 'til we got the branch line valve shut off. They canned me, no sense of performance art at all.
Watching the gravel road pass under mom's 56 Chevy pickup through the wholes in the floor boards. Eating watermelon under the big shade tree out at my grandparents' farm on Sunday afternoons. Going into town with grandpa and him buying beer and buying me peanuts and a Coke in a glass bottle. Putting the peanuts in my Coke, then getting 10 cents back for returning the glass bottle. Original Coke, New Coke, and Classic Coke. Yellow porch lights. Tearing down the 300 in my F150 with my dad, after I blew a head gasket coming home from the beach during spring break. Walking a few miles up the road to get to nearest payphone after blowing the head gasket. Phone booths.
I remember the little light flickering on my 300 baud modem while I waited for hours for a single dirty picture to download.
The red and yellow packs of rollguncaps. We used to fill a Mauser shell with them and press on a 9mm shell. And throw a big stone on them till they explode. Ended with a friend got a primercap embeded in the nose Also remember the apollo coins you got on Shell gas stations
remember when all the toy stores and hobby shop were family owned? This one was my childhood toy store in Arcadia, California on Route 66... the building is still there and I can not drive past it today without glancing at it...those are the memories that makes being older, better. You never realize at the time how something like an old toy store building can bring back such wonderful memories until it's gone and you look back. Gone, but never forgotten...especially in the way it makes you feel
Grandma's NEW '64 Conti with suicide doors. Suicide was riding with her on Hwy 395. The gas in the secondary's never ever got old. We learned the "3 lane principle" from her. Any good 2 lane hwy was plenty wide enough for 3 cars to be abreast. No need for concern. The flip lever on old Volkswagens that didn't have a gas guage so you could have that last gallon to get you to one. Not being able to fit $2.00 worth of gas in the tank after you did get there down on Reseda Blvd. past Sherman Way. My neighbor revving the 332 FE motor in his '58 Country Sedan with the glass packs. I guess people thought revving the motor would fix things?? My other neighbor was revving the small block one day on his low rider chebby truck and actually DID throw a rod. Brilliant. Throwing oranges that fell off the trees at cars passing by and then running like hell when brake lights would come on. How gutless mom's '63 Fairlane with the 260 and 2 speed auto was.
AM radio, X Rock 80............... The Beatles and the British invasion. FM was for that high brow classical music. The full on "Double dog dare ya"! Chocolate Eclairs at the locally owned bakery that were the size of a small loaf of bread, for a quarter! The Iron Curtain and fallout shelters. My first set of tools and a small toolbox for Christmas, mainly so I'd stop borrowing dad's. "Man on the moon" was on TV live, not an R.E.M. song. My Papa's 49 Chev Master Deluxe, he could roll a Bull Durham and light it going down the road steering with his knees. Hoping you didn't get a low draft number, then being glad that the draft was over. Parking downtown and leaving the keys in the ignition...................................
When I was 6 or 7 my dad gave me a dollar bill and sent me to the gas station with a gallon jerry can." Fill the can with regular , get me a pack of Rothmans kingsize and buy yourself a pop and a chocolate bar....and bring me the change!" A time when kids could buy smokes and gasoline....good ol days!
i still am running the vacume wippers on my pontiac (and thats just how they are) i listened to am only radio in my nova for the first two years i was driving, didnt mind it when i tuned it just rite. i still have one of those testers for the different tubes, it was my grandfathers i still have a boox or two of green stamps of my grandparents keep in mind im 19
Having two license plates, one odd & one even to get gas when you wanted not when you were told you could. Sticking someone in the trunk to go into the drive in.
The Jalopy Journal
