Waiting until sundown so the AM radio would be able to get the 50,000 watt top 40 radio station out of Oklahoma City. KOMA was our only link to the music teenagers wanted to listen to. The local north central Kansas station played a little of everything, so would let a teenager play top 40 for about a hour at 4 o'clock on weekdays. When some people started getting 8 tracks in their cars it was a whole new world! Rodshop
In 40 years my oldest son will be adding to a thread like this one about remembering his Dad (me) testing 9 volt batteries on his tongue when he was little. Boy, was his mom pissed. But he has a solid appreciation for and owns some nice vintage guitars, amps, motorcycles and cars. So low voltage shock treatments must be good for you. I remember how much I hated the rain when i was a kid cause there wasn't anything to do inside the house. The apple tree in the backyard was a B17 and we shot all the crouts out of the sky. Played for days on end with our Matchbox cars under the same tree. When we weren't doing that we were playing baseball or football. Only 3 channels on the black and white Philco my Mom and Dad had until the mid 70's. I remember watching JFK's funeral on that TV. "Helping" my Dad keep his MGA running and learning all the Lucas electric jokes. I also learned a lot of new words that my Dad never used unless he was working on that car. I thought they were funny. I think someone has said it before but I remember it being safe and secure and just a great place to be.
Burning trash in an old 55 gallon drum in our backyard. Saving up all of Mom's old Aquanet spray cans for burn day! It was like July 4th every other week.
Reverberaters! My older brother added a on the the rear speaker in his '55 (from J.C. Whitney) and it made the greatest sound on the RR tracks. Rodshop
This is a great thread. Brings back alot of cool memories. Here's a few that I remember from my Tennessee childhood. How those "Small bottle Cokes" were the best. Riding home from the races in the sleeper of the dually. You know... the one that was behind the cab that you had to crawl thru the back window. Stayin out late at the racecar garage on school nights with Dad. Knowing Mom was gonna be Pissed. Sitting in the racecar dreaming of the day the "I would be the driver" Growing up in a Chevrolet home. My Dad was, and still is a dyed in the wool Chevrolet man. He cusses like a sailor everytime he comes over here about all this Ford stuff. Riding my bike to our tire store "In Town". Seemed like 10 miles... About a mile and a half. My Papaw telling me to quit sliding my bicycle tire, thats just wastin' money. Witch Hazel and Meccurechrome would fix anything. Just ask my grandmother. Same grandmother sending you for a Hickory so she could stripe your legs with it. Well pump going out and having to switch over to "City Water". Dad thought that was the end of the world. He had never had city water in his life. Going to our camp in the Tellico Mountains with no contact out. Staying there for WEEKS! My kids can't go 10 seconds without a phone, let alone 10 days. Riding to Daytona counting cars. It would go from cars to trucks to travel trailers.... Just bored as hell. We had been to town and they were doing face painting. Got my best Gene Simmons KISS face paint... cool right? Little did I know (or Mom) we were meeting Dad at the Yamaha shop to pick up my brand new YZ 80. He was NOT happy. Got the pictures to prove it. Talked a bunch of smack to a guy that used to come in our tire store about an old Cuda he had. How I would smoke his ass and all that.... I'm about 17 at the time. He had all he could stand. He shows up with an all out Hemi Cuda drag car and shut me up. Damn that car was fast! Just a few to go along with the hundreds of stories I have of growing up around all this stuff. Kevin
Peanuts used to be "User Friendly" our 16 year old daughter is deathly allergic to them. Strange huh, as kids we never heard of such shit.
As 10 y.o., we used to make "crystal set" radios based around a germanium diode. They worked well at night, not so good in the daytime. When I was 5, back in 52, I fell out of a moving car when I opened the door. Here in kiwiland we had no rock n roll to speak of on the radio until the late 60s. The state run stations were'nt to keen on it, and it took a "pirate" station on a ship moored out at sea to convince them they needed to change. Until the "pirate" station, we used to make up huge long aeriels and listen to aussie stations at night when the reception was better. Schools in the 50s here in New Zealand used to make all kids drink a half pint of full fat milk a day. They used to think it was good for ya! The worst part was in the summer it sat out in the morning sun until 10am. Ugh!!
riding the escalator at Sears pink air Dog and Suds american made baseball gloves watching black and white TV and not even realizing there could ever be something better. riding from St. Joseph MO. to L.A. and back in a 57 Pontiac with my Mom, Dad and my older sister....... and both my Grandmas. You know how you have one Grandparent you like better than the other, By the time we got home I didn't like either of them
I know... We've been dealing with it forever now and don't think much about it. The rest of the world still thinks we are full of shit. 30 seconds after after she is exposed to peanut she has to have an Eppy pen or breathing shuts down. Crazy.
I had a bit of a chuckle about the warm milk comment; we had the same problem in L.A. back then, but our climate can be a lot warmer (even than Hawkes Bay). The homogenised stuff we were served (quaintly called 'Homo Milk') was delivered to the school at around 7.30 am and by morning recess at 10 was starting to curdle! I never understood why the milk couldn't have been kept cool... Most of the time it seemed undrinkable. Radio Hauraki has come a long way since the days of the Tui (somewhat before my time here).
Sitting in the stands at Fontana armed with a Brownie box camera watching REAL dragsters. Trying to capture shots of DNW quality (this is Kenny Safford BTW). [/IMG]
What about all the fire stations sounding their emergency sirens at noon every Friday. Collecting coke bottles and turning them in for money to buy something from the store. All the small stores back then actually had a meat counter with a butcher on site,man we ate our share of chopped ham wrapped in butcher paper. What about spear grass? I remember getting hit with it all the time before and after little league games because there was plenty of it around out field.
Muncie just brought back a memory for me.... Remember picking out the widest blade of grass you could find and putting it in between of your thumbs, blowing through it with pursed lips and making the loudest flippen whistle ever! Hall passes to go to the restroom that everyone would graffitti up with their own designs (ours were chunks of wood). almost running my band teacher over with my car whilst doin brodix's in the parking lot and hauling ass home, then meeting my mom and pops at the house after the phone call had already been made....pops thought it was funny.....mom not so much.
Sleeping on the rear window shelf on a long trip.. Heavy blankets covering your freezing legs in back seat of Dad's 51 Chevy.. Stopping along side the road to pee in the bushes.. Those magic shrimp things..just add water..THEY LIVE..! Pearl bombs..throw 'em on the sidewalk to hear the "explosion" Snakes..light 'em and they grow.. Girlie mags in Dad's underwear drawer.. "Snatch a Match"..
I don't know if this has been posted yet, but one of the things I still actually miss the most, when getting gas, is hearing the ding of the bell at each gallon of gas. I still hear it in my mind, and the clicks the pumps make now just don't compare. Ding.....Ding.....Ding. I liked the sound of the old police and fire sirens too. And OT of cars, saying the Pledge of Allegiance EVERY DAY in school. Butch/56sedandelivery.
"finding" Dynamite on construction sites and playing with it in the woods blowing up anthills. trees and old cars a miracle no one got killed. Losing my eyebrows and eyelashes and lightly barbequing my face seting some blackpowder on fire waited til it got dark and got straight to bed almost sceard my mother to death when she was wake me up for school the next day
I should add, orange hot wheel track!! remember the boosters? they took those old D batteries that would leak after about 10 seconds of sitting? . car would be slowing way down on the track,hit the wheels in the booster garage and ZOOM!! and real electric slot cars, and model trains, do kids even play with trains anymore? I still remember having the Chattanooga Choo Choo train set,
I remember finding the miniature nudie playing cards stashed in the house when I was a kid, my dad would have just given me a thumbs up, my mom would have killed me, when you are a kid and find something like that, it's like committing a major crime or something, you DON"T want to get caught. Today you almost see more then that in every second music video.
I remember my dad used to get the big ones that you strapped to the lawn mower and drag around the yard to get rid of pest.
Your story reminds me of the time around 22 years ago when my then-teenage brother-in-law was scolded by an aunt for giving her son (his cousin, obviously) some girlie magazines that she'd found under the kid's bed. These were handed to my rather embarrassed mother-in-law and instructed to "take that trash home". As they were heading back to where they lived, my brother-in-law, perusing through the magazines, commented, "Oh, I haven't seen these ones..." which sent my mother-in-law into fits of laughter.
Even here in New Zealand we had that noise too. You stand there and count the gallons as they went in and shut the nossle off and see how close you could get to your total. It was a bummer when the new pumps came in and they were lost - hang on thats been gone all most 30 years ago dowwn here!!!! Plus the service station would have a rubber pipe across the forecourt that pulsed a bell in the shop so the attendant knew you were there and would come out to help pump the gas
35desoto, you're old enough to appreciate when you'd be going through a small town needing petrol and the guy who owned the place would open up just for you. It happened to me on a trip around the South Island in '77 when we stopped in Inangahua Jct. The owner of the station lived next door, saw us pull up, and left his Sunday roast dinner to fill our car up, check the oil and water, and then refused to take a bit of extra cash we offered for his inconvenience! I remember my girlfriend of the day (the one whose family originally owned my '64) being amazed that someone would do that for us - coincidentally, we were talking about that trip on a Skype call last night.
The Jalopy Journal
