Stretching out the hose from gas pumps at night to fill the tank on my Cushman, each hose held about a pint or so. On Friday night when the local drive in movie had $1 a car load and we could get a lot of friends in the bed of a '47 International pick up. The old Coke machines that had the bottles stacked vertically, all you needed was a bottle opener and a cup to catch the soda. The other kind that you had to slide the bottle into a stop and pull up, all you needed was an opener and a straw. S&H green stamp signs made good floor board material.
..meter reader going house to house (inside!), everyone left their back door open.. had a rag/scrap man that still used a horse drawn cart into the late 60's..I remember my dad had rolled up an old sheetmetal swimming pool and the rag man stuck his magnet to it and shook his head no..guess he was hoping for aluminum but as a kid I was wondering what the hell his problem was my neighbor "Fat Anthony" who used to fill up model cars with some kind of home made gunpowder and blow them up..later on he had a bunch of older 'vettes he was always workin on...guy was my hero. My first mini-bike....emerald green with a black tuck-n-roll seat "nickle starting" the mini-bike...if the pull cord or re-coil mech broke, you could wedge a nickle into the centrifugal clutch and push start it...nickle would get tore up and fly out the side but you'd be rolling! running out of master links for the chain Wetson's Hamburger Stands .
Going to downtown Victoria,b.c. by bus with my friends at age 12 for 10 cents skateboarding all over hell then back on the bus . We also rode everywhere on our 3 speed bikes and our parents only ever asked who we were with , where we were going , and to be back for dinner. My boys are 8 and 10 and with the way the world is now I don't think they have the freedom we did as kids , and that is a crying shame. Rob.
The smell of burning leaves in the fall and the taste of roasted potato and corn that you kypted from someone's garden. A touch charred but great with that pound of butter that you brought from home. Learning those new words and putting them into a conversation that made you sound kool. Words, like; "can you dig it? Man!" " Did you see the seatcovers driving Daddy's Chevy?" " Let's go uptown and pick up some ginch and head up to the Hill." Walking down the street dressed to thrill, wearing your Castro hat, blue jean or James Dean jacket, short rise Levi's with a rat tail comb in the back pocket, trucker's wallet in the other, Jet boots with chains and cleats, chewing soapy Thrills gum or Beeman's BlackJack, Collars up on those jackets, shirt buttons open to your navel, a few well nurtured hairs on your chest, don't forget to scrape your heels on the pavement so the cleats ring out loud and clear, make sure that cigarette is hanging just right in the corner of your mouth, get the swagger just at the right speed, not too fast but with purpose, that big skull ring on your finger shows you mean business.....better watch that boy, he's a Hard Rock! Dressed to Thrill....not to Kill, he's a part-time Lover and you'll soon discover....he'll be teaching your kids about life for the next 37 years. The HA-Ha's on you!
Summer/1964 Redondo Beach Ca...all the neighbors would have a evening water fight...everyone wore bathing suits...adults and kids...garden hoses and water balloons...it was fun to watch the adults act like kids again chasing each other around and hitting each other with balloons
Larry: Great thread. I read them all. most apply to those of us that are older. As Mazooma commented thank for the trip down memory lane. Gary
when i left the house on fri. evening for a night on the town in my moms 73 monte carlo, [ 350 4 barrel and dual exhaust ] i would stop about a mile down the road and flip the air cleaner lid. oooooooowahhhhhhhh. well.... you know the sound a quadrajet makes. i eventually blew that motor up! yep! those were good old days.
All my friends were getting their tonsils out. Damn I sure wanted that to happen..... I remember I would ride my Huffy Rail to the the local "walk-in" theater. They had a 10 cent drink machine that had flimsy paper cups and crushed ice. You could jimmy the "Burgundy" flavor button and it would dump more syrup than it was supposed to.(or we imagined it would) We would also hollow out a dill pickle with a straw to use as the drink straw. You had to knock the drink out pretty quick as the bottom of the cup would saturate and fall out. Always bought a box of "Rots of Ruck" candy"The Three Stooges in Orbit" was a favorite movie. an aging Moe, Larry and a 3rd or 4th Generation Curly Joe kept me entertained for an hour for about a 75 cent admission price. When the flick was over, my bike would still be outside waiting. Never had to chain it. In my early teen years, it became a hangout to score cigarettes and maybe a chance to cop a feel from the local gals that would show up from the neighborhood. woo hoo
Not that old but I remember a few rigs around my place growing up having the ol flat spots. It was like chitty freakin bang bang for the first 10 miles!
Head Shops springing up in old buildings around town. Incense, black light posters and petula oil by the gallons ARRRG. ZIG-ZAG man on everything and alligator clips attached to beaded streaming feathers.
chevron white pump $.25 a gal, cerritos was all dairy farms. My first job out of HS 69 ford assembly plant Pico Rivera ,I wrote "would'nt you really rather have a Buick on the wall big chaulk ..got fired. cruiz'en whitter, bellflower . Dad bought me a 312 thunderbird for my 12th b-day erector sets The Big T model, Turn'in steel tricycles upside down, put forks backin made our Big wheels the steel rear wheels would trim the grass on sidewalks .Larry ;thanks for the memories seems like yesterday
Ripple and Bali HI wine......... I think I'm gonna barf "New Leaf" Cabbage leaf Cigarettes Free music concerts in city parks. Trinity Park in Ft. Worth "The Cellar" renowned club in downtown Fort Worth in the 60s-70s that was easy to get into (under age) John Nitzinger played there as a regular.
How about when the president was on television , you couldn't watch anything else cuz he was on every channel .
The ding noise the gas pump use to make,... and the smell of that gas,... it was different than todays gas,... The total secure feeling of a loving family,... (a Home that felt like Home) The nasty gum you got with Baseball cards,.. Mom sending my Milk money in a tiny envelope with me to School,.... 1 New pair of shoes a year,.. the old pair became your "Play Shoes" School clothes, Church clothes, And Play clothes,... (You had better not mix this up !) Your Transistor radio hanging from your bicycle handlebars,.. or hanging 45 RPM records on your handlebars when you went over to a friends house to listen to the "Record Player". The smell and feel of my Baseball Mitt. Christmas mornings ,.... Hai Karate aftershave in my Zippo, as fuel. Cuban Heels, Hagar slacks. Very best one,... when I was a little kid, After leaving some family we were visiting late at night, sitting between Mom & Dad in the front seat of the car,.... listening to them talk,... I would put my head on Moms shoulder,.... and could smell her Emeraude perfume, not knowing I was drifting off to sleep... next thing I would remember was waking up, safe and secure in my own bed,..... For me,... this tops them all !
Selling the most bitchin' 3 window 32 Ford coupe ever built to some rich guy in Ca. and wishing I never did. Oh!, That wasn't me. It was someone else.(Sorry Larry, I couldn't resist) Just joshin'
Hey aLittle1,,SE of Nome ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,I spent most of the '60's in Alaska,,Joe Reddington Sr was my best friend ,,,,,talked to Ramie after he spread Joes ashes along the Ididarod Trail ,,I had great times up there ,, i werked at the Airport Union 76 Gas Station ,,mighta gassed up your airplane a time or two ,, i raced at Polar DragWay then too ,, Those were sum a the very best memories ,,Alaska is the best ,, i'll be back there next summer ,,for a few months visit ,, Bill Conn
Dick "Whoa Nelly!" Day. Ascot Park, channel 5, Sunday afternoon. When I bought the house I'm now in 15 years ago there was a box of old tv vacuum tubes. Couldn't bring myself to throw them out. Too many memories.
I remember going to just about any parts store and the guy behind the counter actually knew about cars and how to work on them .
Here Go's - ...Helms Bakery Truck and the heavy mahogany drawers, and the donut smell wofting through the air from the truck all the way to the front porch...... ....Mom and Dad with their scorebooks scoring the dodgers game as we watched it on the Zenith... ...Test Patterns ...TV Tube repairmen ...Pitch and Catch ...Washing the 62 Impala SS ...police on Electra Glides... ...LA Basin Orange Smog ... ...Flying Saucers at DLand ...Engineer Bill asking my Dad "How the hell do I get to Van Nuys" ...Skateboarding and half Killing myself on the sidewalk cracks ... ...Me Down the street 2 blocks at 8pm hearing my Mom yell my name to come home.. ...Dodger Games with Dad at the LA Coloseum watching the Dodgers beat the "hated ones" SF.. Giants..
On a clear night catching "Wolfman Jack" coming in the car radio. Didn't happen too often but when it did it was always a treat.
Gardena Speedway....those were great days.... oh, man...my dad and my favorite spot, between turn 3 & 4...and ice cream sandwiches with my grandpa...
Going to school in a one room school house with one teacher for all of the grades. It had outhouses for the toliets and a coal furnace for heat. Hey, we walked to school in the Winter and Spring...the dirt roads were too bad for a car to travel without getting stuck in the bad Iowa weather!! Ah...those were the days my friend. "Wasn't anybody there except me and Little Skeet"
Begging my mom to take me downtown to the slot car track. Those tracks seamed to go for miles, but hating the walk to the other side when you unsloted. Digging underground forts and using vw pans and plywood covered with the dirt from the hole. Having my prized purple schwinn stingray stolen and the police finding it and bringing it back.
alot of good ones guy's ,5 gallons of gas was my allowance back in 69' that had to mow the lawn ,keep the go-cart & mini-bike running all week,watering the yard down to broad slide the go-cart around cut down on a little mowing ,by the end of the summer i had nice size track worn in,sleeping in the back of a 53 buick woody wagon on saturday nights waiting to hear the guy's up the road drag there sprint cars home from the races, listening to am rock,but most of all watching my pop work on his cars that i miss the most !!
I remember when our whole phone number was 2019. No prefix, no area code. Until 1961 in Cedartown (next town west on US 278), the operator still came on and said "Number please," and the phone number for Moore's Drug Store was 4. I remember when it was not unusual to see members of the armed forces in uniform hitchhiking. My father, being a WWII vet who had done his share of hitchhiking, would never pass up a man in uniform. I remember once when we were on vacation about 1964, going to Panama City, Daddy picked up a soldier who was hitchhiking and drove more than 50 miles out of our way to take him home. The soldier tried to give Daddy at least a little gas money, Daddy refused and told him that he was just repaying some of the rides he got in his Army days. And it didn't matter that we were white and the soldier was black. I remember when the word "LOADED!" emblazoned on the windshield of a car on Hoyt Statham's car lot meant that the car had an AM radio, heater, whitewall tires, and two-tone paint. You could buy good solid F1 Ford and AD Chevy pickups--ones that were not rusty, beat up, or worn out--for $395 all day long. By the time I was 11 or 12, my parents didn't worry about me walking a mile to where my cousins lived or two miles to a friend's house. I remember my best friend's great-grandfather who was in his 80's at the time (early '60s) telling me that he had never been to Rome or Atlanta. We were 25 miles from Rome and about 50 from Atlanta. He had never once been outside of Polk and Paulding Counties, and he didn't feel as though he had missed anything. I remember when Jack Abbott (everybody called him "Jackrabbit") had a store and gas station in Van Wert, 3 miles down the road from us. We were going to town to buy groceries and pay bills, and Daddy ran out of gas in the '55 Ford at the top of Baldwin's Hill. Not a problem with 3 on the tree, kick the clutch in and coast all the way down to Jackrabbit's, about 1/2 mile downhill all the way. Jackrabbit was kidding Daddy about running out of gas as he filled it up with Sinclair HC ethyl. Daddy told him he did it on purpose, said he didn't like to mix new gas and old gas so he ran all the old gas out of it before he put new gas in. Speaking of coasting with 3 on the tree, Daddy called it "riding on credit." He was proud of himself if he could cut off the switch at the top of Baldwin's Hill and coast all the way to the traffic light in front of Second Baptist Church in Rockmart before he had to drop it in gear and pop the clutch to crank it again. I remember my father and many of his generation referring to an accelerator pedal as a "foot feed." Of course, the story behind that is that Model T's had a throttle lever on the steering column just like a 9N tractor. When the Model A's came out with an accelerator pedal on the floor, it was dubbed a "foot feed." Every time I drive up Baldwin's Hill, I can remember when Daddy was teaching me to drive on the '55 Ford, hearing him tell me, "Mash your foot feed, Son, and give it some gas or you're not gonna get to the top of Baldwin's Hill." No true southerner would ever be caught dead depressing the foot feed, we mash the foot feed. Dang, I'm old. One of the twenty-somethings at work came in all distraught because she almost hit a deer on the way to work. I told her that once, when I was about her age, I had a real close call when this brontosaurus walked right out in front of me.
The Jalopy Journal
