Dad having all the seats folded down in the wagon, 4 kids sitting back there with a St Bernard . He would corner fast and laugh at us rolling around. The only one that didn't go flying was the dog
Reading Hot Rod Magazine back to front to read the "for sale" column first. Bad habit I still have not broken. Weird starter motor sounds on Chrysler cars. Seeing a race car of any type on an open trailer. Cruising through the A&W and in my back yard the "Biff Burger" Looking at wrecks through the fence at Philpots Auto Wreckers Seeing what automotive jewellery showed up at Mason's Sunoco. Friends is what I remember most.
Taking a straw and bottle cap opener with you and popping the caps of the bottles still in the cooler and drinking all the soda ya could hold for free. (Always outside and after the businesses closed)
I remember the day in 1966 when I took the $74.00 I saved from my "get up at 4:00 in the morning every morning paper route" and buying the Saphire blue Schwinn 5 speed stick shift Fastback Stingray bike. I was the envy of seventh grade. I remember a buddy and I would walk the four miles out to the drag strip and stay 'til the end and walking the four miles home at midnight. I remember standing near the top end of the drag strip at night watching the flames from the Top Fuelers and Funny Cars coming at you and then one would "sneeze" a blower and everyone ducking 'cause you had no idea where it was going to land. I remember in High school in 1970 -72 "gas wars" between the various service stations. The cheapest I ever got gas for was .18 cents a gallon. Whoever was going to drive their car to the drive in or go cruising would collect .25 to .50 cents apiece from whoever was riding along and go put a couple bucks worth of gas in and have plenty left when the weekend was over for school and work.
hey Mazooma, I was admiring the sale receipt you had from your post about the Shelby. What I really caught was how good the salesmans penmanship was,,,nobody writes like that today. Great pics you have though. Tommy
I grew up in south central Nebraska during the 60's and 70's and remember listening to KOMA all the time - on the tube driven clock radio I inherited from my oldest sister. WOW (Omaha) and WLS (Chicago) would occasionally come in. Only had three channels on a black and white TV. Got to pick between PBS, CBS and ABC. The location of the grain elevator north of town generally prevented getting anything other than a snow storm for NBC, unless you had a high-dollar antenna. On rare occasions, you could go outside and turn the antenna and get NBC, but you'd lose ABC. Also: --Star Trek phaser guns. My neighbor and I shot little plastic disks all over their basement. I'd bet there's still a few hundred of those disks in hiding. --Racing home from school to watch Star Trek (original series) in syndication. --Monty Python's Flying Circus on PBS. --Roller Skating every Saturday night in the winter. --Dragging Main (once I had my license). --All 6 family members piling into dad's '64 Corvair for the weekly trip to Grandma's - I was the youngest and usually rode in the compartment behind the back seat. --Playing Ditch 'em (team version of hide and go seek) on bicycles. The whole town was considered fair game. --Driving my uncle's 60 John Deere tractor, pulling the grain wagon. Thought I died and went to heaven when I got to drive the 3010 and disk a field. --Darts with steel tips. My wife and her brothers used to stand on their roof and throw them across the street to their friends (also on the roof). After it got dark. --Hooking the air hose up to the bell at the gas station. Sounded like a fire alarm, and probably wasn't real good for the compressor. --Town siren blowing faithfully Monday through Saturday at noon, 1:00 PM and 6:00 PM --Mom doing laundry using a "conventional" washing machine, which meant a wringer-style washer and two wash tubs for rinsing. All clothes were line dried in the summer, hung over a rack that straddled the floor furnace in the winter. --Walking 6 blocks to get a ten cent bottle of pop from the machine in front of the gas station. Was not allowed to open it until I got back home so I could share it with my sister. --and on and on and on, including a lot of what everyone else has posted. Thanks for the great trip down memory lane...
The sound that my 55 Chevy door made when I opened it. The sound of Smitty's. The sound of my girl friend in the back of my 55. Ooooppps! nother day nother story.
laying in the back window of my moms new 76 electra 225 all the way to florida. watching evel knievel jump the grey hounds, live. my brand new chrome mongoose, with the honey comb mags. riding my bike to the dodge dealer to see the new little red express trucks. he had a black warlock too. looking at the first 1984 monte carlo ss in our town, in the show room. happy days comes on at 7pm on tues. the kiss "action figures", make up kit at sears, and the kiss model van. opening my brand new kiss "alive II" model cars cost $3.25 at k-mart and $3.45 at wal-mart. the day MTV started. any adult could spank your ass, then your dad spanked your ass because the first guy had to.
rideing in the back window of my dads 56 valiant with a trunk load of fruit from the ocanogan. never having a seat belt to buckle .going to a junkyard for my tires for the weekend.
sneeking in my dads truck and listening to his gene tracy truckstop 8 track tapes.............oh yea! there goes a little kitten to the sand box now......cover it up honey, cover it up.
Lions Drag Strip Foster Freeze A&W rootbeer floats Schwinn Stingrays Hotdog bubblegum breakfast with Uncle Ed(Roth that is)after Church Rat Fink t-shirts wooden skateboards slotcar places air raid sirens girls had to wear skirts or dresses to school my first "feel-up"(YES! on a girl!) sliding down the hill on cardboard at ASCOT playing carroms til dark saturday Monster matinaes Fright Nite with SEEEEEEYMOR!!!!! Vacations in Yosemite My first kiss!!! Rebecca Salvotti,AMTRAC train, on the way to San Diego Zoo...I was 11,she was 12.
Only 32 here but i have done a few of these ... How bout carrying a bar of ivory soap in my 55 chevy in high school and having to rub it on the crack in the gas tank every couple of days to keep it from leaking.
I remember the AM radio fading out when we'd drive to LA... the only time we really drove under an overpass... Sam
At 48 I may be a youngster here, but I do remember: -That bouncing off the rubber stop sound the brake pedal in an old VW (or Jeep!) makes when you slide you foot off to the side. - VW Beetles you had to open the trunk to add fuel, and being the littlest kid in the family, so you had to ride in the "way back" behind the back seat of that same Beetle. - Owning a car with both a manual choke, a starter button, or three on the tree - and none of them being considered old, or a classic. - Buying my first new truck (new anything!) and it having rubber floors, power nothing, a vinyl bench, and dog dish hubcaps. - Having to buy the "Expensive" Amoco white for my Austin Healey in high school cause it wouldn't run on anything else. - Buying rubbers in the gas station mens room machine. - Parking on Ft. Lauderdale beach when that actually meant parking on the sand. - Knowing how to open a beer bottle (before twist off kids) on the shelf in any phone booth. - Owning a van with a Mural painted on both sides. - Carried your friends VW or Fiat up the stairs and left it there. - Rode to grandma's house looking out the roof windows of mom's new Vista Cruiser. - Pumped gas into my grandfathers truck from the hand pump next to his garage door. With a 300 gal. tank under the driveway of a normal house. - Spent hours pouring over the new car release flyers in the Sunday paper at new car time. - Remember when a new car came in 15 colors (instead of 5) ten two tones (instead of none) and eight interior colors instead of grey or beige. - When instead of a generic sedan - every model came in - A four door sedan, four door hardtop, two door hardtop, two door post coupe, convertible, two door wagon, four door wagon, and in the case of Chevelle, and El Camino. - And worst of all, I remember when that 67' Corvette Convertible I covet today, and probably will never be able to afford . . . . was just an $1800 used car.
Riding backwards in the 3rd seat of the aunt's 72 Pontiac wagon...Green on Green, baby!....Making faces and shooting the bird at the guy behind us, watching him turn red and you know he was swearing. Tuning in the truckers on the hand heald walkie talkies and practicing all that CB lingo from Smokey and the Bandit. Running home from school to watch Batman on the tube.....BIFF! BAM! WHAM! Watching the power lines through the t tops of mom's 79 Cutlass, spotting shooting stars. The sound of Mom's 72 Barracuda warming up in the carport before school....until it got traded in on said Cutlass. Wacky Packages mad magazine fold ins, Car Tunes, cheap model kits at Alexanders' in Spartanburg. BJ and the Bear Brown n Serve rolls every Sunday at Grandma's
That the only tatoded woman you saw was in the sideshow at the circus. 260 Sunoco When $40/week was good pay When every store carried only goods made in USA When all the stores were "down town" When I bought a new Corvette Coupe for $4500 which was almost years pay when candy bars were 5 cents when only farmers and service mechanics drove pickups
Camp shorts with all the pockets, zippers and a keychain clip! Bannanna boards My first bike that looked like a motorcycle. Vans shoes Body sway in the mountains in the brown VW van my Uncle had....Going camping. Shooting "diamonds" in the bottoms of glass bottles with BB guns. Footie PJs
I remember: the stacked boxes at the front of the grocery store for taking your groceries home and the ACTUAL "box boys" that put them in. - the free vacuum tube tester machines at the front of the grocery stores. You'd open the door underneath to get a replacement tube. - selling gasoline at the Sears gas island during a "gas war" (lol) when I was 16 years old (I'm 57 now) for 29.9 cents. This was Chevron gas too!! - Waiting anxiously for the The Recycler to come out each Thursday so you could be the first caller on that great deal on a car or a small block. - Installing a "Reverb" unit in my '55 Chevy two door hardto with the one speaker in the dash and ONE in the rear package tray and thinking it sounded SO cool.
I remember buying candy for a penny at M&M Bottle House in Fallon, NV - waiting until I was older so I could drink coffee for 10 cents at Sambo's, - riding in the back of the station wagon (without seatbelts), - riding my unicycle on my paper route, - Dad buying an extremely nice '55 Belair off a lot for 500 bucks, - buying my first car, a '66 Mustang, for 45 bucks, then adding a FM converter under the dash, then adding an 8-track, then gathering all my 8-track tapes to sell and buy a cassette player, - learning how to drive stick on my dad's 41 Ford pickup, - riding in my dad's '48 Ford and wondering if it was still running while sitting at the stop light because the flathead was so quiet
Re-linin' brake shoes with rivets n' radius cuttin' 'em on a Raybestos machine. Who needs a dust mask? In the room the size of a closet.....
Wow, nice old post. I remember Flatrock Speedway in '65. I remember TV commercials that advertised "Gratiot Auto Supply" and all their speed stuff. I remember TV commercials that promoted long smokey burnouts from whatever car they were selling. I remember my other uncle's 63 1/2 Galaxy with the 427. He had over a dozen tickets in his glove box. "I didn't know you were supposed to do anything about it, I just saved em." He lost his license for a while until he paid em up. I remember getting a brand new Schwinn Sting Ray in that kool shade of blue with a flake white banana seat and rear slick. Kool... I remember race cars always in the back yard and some of the racers always hangin out. I remember Dad letting me drive his 427 Ford racer to the corner gas station and being scared to death, but I did it. Pump grade No-Nox was enough octane for an all-out race motor. After we filled he took the long way home and ran wide open down Pelham Rd from Van Born to the 1st block, then back home. I remember thinking $100 was a lot of money. I could go on n on but...
The Jalopy Journal
