I second that. Great pic of Walt Arfons. I remember his brother, Art and his LSR competition with Craig Breedlove (who I met at a car show in '64) on the Salt. It was riveting stuff for this schoolboy back then (even if I thought the use of a jet engine was kind of cheating ).
..those sheetmetal small parts cabinets with the clear plastic drawers were the best..Akro Mils usually..had dimples and little feet so you could stack them...little dividers inside that say "top" on them...can't get good ones like that anymore. ..oh yeah and I played with my father's Dymo labelmaker for hours...even had the very classy "woodgrain" tape for it...seemed like magic at the time. .
Just an observation for you guys that say you wish you were born in an earlier time; My dad farmed with horses. Then he bought a tractor. I learned to drive in a Model A Pickup. As the years have rolled by, there have been good and bad. Great memories? Hell yes! Or not........ I have a grandson that's going to college in the fall. Now, today, for him, just getting out of High School, the time couldn't be more exciting. There's just too much to do, to be done. Today, and the years to come will, God willing, be his 'good old days'. If I had to do it all over, I'd start today.
I am 22 and I remember when buying a coke or a pepsi was half the price it is now and not only that but there was more in a bottle. I remember before I had a computer or internet I would read books alot I still do but not as often. I remember being able to watch a video tape without having to actually try and find a tape player.
Speed buggy, Laff Olympics, Speed Racer, Land of the lost, Incredible Hulk, Dukes of Hazzard. Kit bashing models with your friends at a spend the night party. Putting together all your matchbox plastic track down the stairs and making a jump at the end. Rip Stick cars, that scream that the flywheel makes. I had a Evel Kanevel motorcycle that started in a hand crank stand, then shot across the room into the wall. G.I. Joes Grandpa brought a wardrobe box home, it became a clubhouse, spent the night in it, then it became an R.V., then a tank. More big boxes became a racecar and a hauler. Give a kid a box today and see what looks you get. pounding roll caps with a hammer. Shooting bottle rockets from a glass bottle. Black cats under a coffee can.
Who the hell thought an 8 year old needed a woodburning kit? And who actually thought said 8 yr old wouldn't use the hot iron on other things? Melting Crayolas together with a magnifying glass to make interesting new colors. Burning ants with the magnifying glass.
Playing cards in bicycle spokes. Bicycles with tanks and headlights. Rat Fink toys. I think I still have some. Firestone 500's four of them for 80 bucks. Being able to work on a car without a computer. Taking your girlfriend out on a deserted dirt road and parking. Dropping her off at her house and coasting around the block and heading out cruising all night. Coming in at daylight doing the chores, feed the hogs, calves and chickens then heading to bed. Sometimes after granny made us breakfast. Stealing gas from Grand dads farm tank. Buying beer at the drive in movie. Being told to go home when the one of two cops caught you out drinking. Not going home and getting to spend the night in the iron bar hotel. (the door was never locked but you dare did not leave!!!) When kids gathered behind the donut shop after school to watch a fist fight. We had rifles, shotgun hanging in the back window or the truck in the high school parking lot. Noone even ask if they were loaded, cause they knew they were. But kids still settled theings with a scuffle that ended with maybe a black eye or bloody nose. No one would have even thought about getting the guns to settle the problem. Getting the draftcard that said 1-A and thinking which way to Canada. (funny I have since retired from the US Army). real pinball machines!
Buster Browns, Kangaroos shoes with the pocket you could fit a quarter in, Zips....Big Z! The mind numbing buzz from the electric football game. Merry go Rounds, and the kid who forgot to turn loose dragging a ditch around it. Piece of plywood and some bricks.......we've got a bike ramp! Stealing materials from house construction sites to build a tree fort. The "engineering" that went into those tree forts.....and they actually stayed up there for a few years! Spending all summer days in the woods, showing up just in time for dinner.
With my memory fading, this thread just renewed some brain cells! Mr. Softey Ice Cream truck driving through our neighborhood, 3V cola, A plastic orb that split in the middle to put a scoop of ice cream in then insert the end of it in the top of your pop bottle for ice cream soda. Mom getting towels or wash clothes that were inside Oxydol soap powder boxes. We sat on our front porch in the evening and everyone spoke to you as they passed by. Seeing one neighbor doing minor repair to home or auto, and end up with all the neighbors helping him. So sad it isn't like that these days. But thanks for starting this thread, brought back some great memories. rusty
I remember when you could not buy butter instead you got a block of white stuff with a yellow pill in the middle. It was my job to need the yellow stuff through the white stuff.
..seeing the first Schwinn (Apple) Krate bike when the local rich kid got one ..my metal lunch box with two magnetic cars and race track on the back ...Man from U.N.C.L.E. attache case that shot bullets out the side ...pet box turtles ...the yellow advertising card full of combs at the drug store...had a guy on it with slick hair bending the comb and said "UNBREAKABLE" ...switchblade pocket combs ...the rocket ice pops with twin wooden sticks...you could split it in half and share it ...real wooden pickle barrels with the long tongs and supply of wax bags on the side ...making kites out of newspaper and bamboo shoots ...Super Pinky balls for playing stoop ball or stick ball ...going down to the corner store on Saturday night when they were "assembling" the Sunday papers to see what was happening with Dick Tracy .
Getting up every morning to do my paper route... Fast food being a really really big deal. Like when the first McDonalds came to town. We already had a Carol's Lawn mowers without an engine. Going to the store to get my dad smokes and beer. I was 8. Nuns teaching at Catholic schools. Masses in Latin. Man this could go on for ever...
Heres some,.... Mom making you dress up to go to School on "picture day", And being really upset, because you thought you'd be made fun of,... and when you got to school,... all the kids got the same slice of humble pie you did,... Cause we all looked like little angles,.... And a lot of the kids looked dorkyer than you thought you did ! FEAR !,.... As you stood in line at grade school to get a vaccination,... only to find out it was no big deal,.... But as you left, telling the other kids still waiting, how huge the needle is and how much it hurt!,... just to see the fear in there eyes,... (We were rotten kids) P.F. Fliers,... & Red Ball Jets !,.... Sliding for home and ripping your "School Pants !" "Wait until your Father gets home young man !" Orange "Push Ups" from the Good Humor Man (That melted all over you) Being held down and kissed by Dawn Brosnick in 1st grade. Scraped Knees & Elbows,...... Mercurochrome, Merthiolate, Whichazel, Cod Liver Oil (YUCK! I can still taste it ! ) Salve and Gauze Saunders Bakery !
Watching my dad work under the hood of a car, setting the timing or fiddling with a carburetor and watching his hair flip up from the air of the fan. On Saturdays my dad and I would take his corvette to the car wash and afterwards with wet tires, he'd get on it hard and bust it loose sideways out on the road. That was always my favorite. I remember my dad having to put a new set of tires on my schwinn every 6 months. I loved locking up the brakes, getting it sideways and hearing the squeal of the tires.
My dad being the coolest dad in the neighborhood because we could use his tools (extras he had replaced with nicer stuff) and compressor to work on our bicycles. Getting my mouth washed out with soap. Cigatette vending machines. The dumpster the neighbor threw last months adult magazine in or around.
Erector sets. 10 cent balsa wood airplanes. My dad's 53 Ford panel truck that I could stand up between the seats and see out the windshield. My dad driving home, up the long driveway in his new blue '57 F100 - an me being mad cuz I couldn't stand between the seats anymore. My dad.
Those Schwinn 5-speeds with the shifter handle mounted on the frame, I haven't seen one in years. . TV shows like LOVE American Style, Laugh In, Dean Martin show, 007 flicks with Rodger Moore...
We had a pond behind our local park, the park was about 1 mile outside town, and we would walk out there in the winter to ice skate. Our parents would send matches and newspapers with us to start a fire to warm our feet once we got there and once again before we walked home. They trusted us to put the fire out as we left. I remember walking down to one of the gas stations in town owned by a guy named Honk, because all you had to do is honk and he would come running out. He had 2 pop machines filled with circulating ice water, the best and coldest pop in town, and he promoted us to hang around a drink pop. I lived in a small town of only 700, and all the boys in my class (all 7 of us) had either mini bikes or go karts we would ride around town together, most of these were home built, I had a couple of spare engines in the garage in case one gave out. That's where I learned to work on engines. Riding our bikes to the camp grounds where they had a pond for swimming, and meeting girls from other towns. Sometimes we would get lucky and get a kiss. The frozen candy bars at the drug store in the summer. Watching the trains with car carriers and checking out the new models coming out. You could accually see the cars on the trains back then. Going door to door in the different seasons to either see if you could mow their yard, rake the leaves or scoop the snow for a little extra cash. Building non motorized go karts out of wood and wagon and lawn mower wheels to race down the biggest hill in town, that same hill crossed one of the busier streets and we would have someone stand at the bottom and watch for cars before we raced down. Hitching a ride on the trains to the next town, hoping they wouldn't speed up too much to jump off. If they started to speed up we would jump off and walk back to town. As others have said, it's surprising we lived, but I had a hell of a good time.
I forgot one, every year at school if you played sports the town doctor would come to school and sit in a chair in the gym. All us boys from all the classes would line up for their turn to drop your pants and cough. Can you imagine the complaints you would get today?
what about the rope to the ceiling of the gym? or the peg board up the wall? that stuff is gone now too.
As a child of the 1980s I remember, among other things: Saturday morning cartoons - including Speedy Gonzales - that were just beginning to be non-stop ads for the latest toy Model kits at $4.97 in K-mart - a whole row of them Ordinary cars being '70s RWD tanks, not little FWD jellybeans Gumball machines that still only cost 1 cent the Atari 2600 being the hot video game system, with all the fancy graphics and resolution of construction-paper cutouts Michael Jackson: A black pop singer who only pretended to be dead in one video. Pretty decent cars could be had cheap - a '41 Plymouth 4dr for $125, a fortune to a 10 year old. Or a '36 Ford tudor - rougher but a complete shell for $600. At 12 I bought a running, drivable VW bug for $100.
Burning the shit out of our legs in the summer in our Nova with an all black interior including black vinyl seats!
Nick Adams was Johnny Yuma, the Rebel and yes I think he had a sawed off. But didn't Steve McQueen also have one - I think the show was "Wanted, Dead or Alive"?
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