Back here in WV, we could get WLS on a clear night. My gas was 35 cents, and came from a Pure Oil (later Union 76). Most of the replacement parts for my cars came from the local pick-a-part, and if I pulled the part it was cheaper. If I spent the afternoon pulling other customers part, it was free. I once traded a pickup load of rough lumber for a running Pontiac 400 from a 70 GTO. Good old Joe. BTW, 3 candy bars still = a gallon of gas. Candy bars cost $1.25... A coke in a little 8 oz bottle was 15 cents. You carried the opener on your keys. I still remember my first 35 cent coke. I thought that price was a crime.
Getting up early and riding bikes till dark with the neighborhood gang, with no helmet, no phone and no worries.
How long it seemed to take to crank the top up on the Coleman camper, then pull the beds out from each end. How big the woods seemed when we arrived after our 9 hour road trip and blasted out of the back seat of the daily driver, the ex-cop car, a 61 plymouth Savoy, 3 on the tree, with the 395 golden commando monster under the hood. The car I learned to drive in and got my license in. I remember how I thought we would never find our car from the lake that must have been as big as a couple of states after fishing all day, then realizing thirty years later the lake was less than fifteen acres . I remember breaking a thermometer to play with the mercury ball on my palm. I remember street racing on Gratiot ave. In east Detroit in 68,69,70. Man, I do feel sorry for kids today. In a sort of weird way I'm glad I won't be around to see how it all turns out, just glad I got to see and do what I saw and did while I was here. Way happier with my memories than the prospect of the memories of my first car being a used hybrid with a nice replacement battery from Ames Performance Parts.
Going to the local pool every day and admittance was 25 cents..and ice cream bars were 15 cents.. Looking and drooling at my best friends hot mom in a bikini at same pool I thought she was old but she was early 30's and she would be hardcore MILF status today...no e-stats but she was a true 9.8/10 body and face. Actually saw her several weeks back when she was in town and she is still stunning in her early 70's...
feel lucky, I lived 3 miles from the transmitter ( in the same location since the 1920's) and AM 89, 89,000 watts of pure power ( which I found out later from someon who worked there was only 80) was the only thing your radio would get ( the other stations were hardly heard as it walked over them ) , and our fence would humm the songs near the poles , and you would keep your radio on the lowest volume setting and it was still loud , but your batterys would last a year .. and during thunderstorms the tower would get hit all the time . anyone remember using a coffee can to amplify the sound of a small transitor radio ??? by putting it in it ?? the us30 drags ads sunday, sunday, sunday, at UUUUUUUUSSSSSSSS 30 dragstrip where the great ones run run run ..... and it was in gary indiana at that time not hobart or merrillville ( which wasn't a town till the 1970's ) and its funny as I moved 5 miles from US30 and raced there the last year it was open . around here it was Clark Gas and the cigerette boxes at the fuel islands ,remember when gas hit a dollar , and people said it would never go that high again ( I wish )
pouring peanuts in my small coke bottle, or grape. Which ever one I had.damn,life was simple..........................
Those Anacin and Bufferin TV commercials with an animation of somebody's head. They'd have hammers and springs and stuff to represent pain. Of course, after the person who owned the head took the pills, the hammers, springs and static disappeared. Also, antacid and stomach relief commercials with the compartments leading down to the stomach with trap doors and such. The Old Ranger and 20 Mule Team Borax. Boston Blackie The Riders of the Purple Sage The Silent Service On the Waterfront with Preston Foster Rescue 8 The Littlest Hobo When the automatic transmission in any car was called a Hydra-Matic. When any refrigerator was called a Frigidaire. Police and Taxi call boxes mounted on telephone poles on the major street corners in the city. Police cars didn't have sirens in Philly when I was growing up, so they would lay on the horn for emergencies. A lot of intersections in our neighborhood, North Philly, had no stop signs or traffic lights, so drivers beeped their horn when the approached the corner. Back in the 50s and 60s, there was a tradition that happened in Philly that I believe no longer exists. One designated Saturday each summer we would have a 'block party.' The block captain would get supplies from the city and everyone would get up early, like 6am, move all the cars off the block, sweep the sidewalks and the alleys, the gutters, and the curbs. Remove all the trash and litter. Then we would paint the curbs white and paint white lines for parking spaces. Once this was done by about 2 or 3pm in the afternoon, the old heads would pull out the BBQ grills and grill hot dogs and hamburgers. Somebody would get out the 45s and the records would be played through loud speakers. Chubby Checker "The Twist," The Orlon's "Meet Me On South Street," and lots of other Philly favorites would be played, and we danced up a storm. Festivities lasted until nightfall, and a great time was had by all.
I remember it and would give almost anything to smell it again every day I drive past the corner where elmers Sunoco station used to be......torn down ...and is now a wallgreens pharmacy how many remember that, knowing the gas stations or other business's by the owners name
Swimming in Elkhart Creek, getting out and grabbing the cigerettes & matches dad sent along with me to burn off the leeches (and no-one was foolish enough to smoke someone's leech cigs). Collecting cardboard from the dumpster behind the market to make up "armor" for our (wooden) sword & staff fights. "Bottle scrounging" bicycle rides to get up money for various things. Wood & nail scrounging at every new construction site. Chasing fireflies. Tree houses.
In N.S.W.????.... How come I've never heard making like a D.J. when I lived down there???... Then again, I never had a radio...
Beautiful. We had an annual block party in the Atlanta suburbs in the '60s, but it did not require as much preparation as yours because we lived on a cul-de-sac. The big event for the boys was the soap box derby with our homebuilt wooden cars. The cul-de-sac was the top of a 150 ft drop over 1/8 of a mile. That was grreat father/son stuff, building those cars.
Climbing all the 28 garage roofs on our street in order to become a member of our neighborhood club. Hiking along the river with all the cool army gear Uncle Joe brought back from Korea for me and my brother. Sleeping out in the back yard in our army tent. Ed Sullivan Show, Lone Ranger, Hopalong Cassidy, Car 54, Sky King, Speedy Elkaseltzer, New Ipana Toothpaste, Golden Point 15 cent Hamburgers, the playgrounds at the drive in movie, Bus transfer tokens, making pot holders, boondoggle crafts and painted plaster indian heads at YMCA day camp. Walking the LA (Lake Ave) strip to all the car dealers and getting a free plastic promo model of the new cars. Going to the hobby shop with your brother and using the 1898 silver dollar your dad gave you to buy a model car. Building models with your buddies then finding cool ways to crash and burn some of them. Using a clothes pin to hold the baseball card near the spokes of your bike, going to Western Auto to get cool stuff for your first car. My 8 track car radios and a huge box on the front seat to carry the tapes. Cruising the Dew (Dewey Ave) and hanging out in the parking lots with your older brother and car buddies and impressing the local girls with your ride. Stepping up and paying 40 cents a gallon for higher octaine fuel on race night at Spencer Speedway. Straight towing a car with dads huge chain. Turning your dads garage at home into a neighborhood repair hangout. First paintjob using Rustoleum in a rattle can. Second paintjob using a real paint gun and cheap thinner from a hardware store. Learning how to wet sand and buying your first buffer. Finding cheap cars in the neighborhood and in the SwapSheet for parts or to fix and resell. Hooking up your CB radio in the Street Rod and cruising a group of cars down old two lane US 15 to East Coast Nationals in Timonium Maryland with your wife and young kids or going up north to the Canadian Nationals or heading west to Columbus events.
Poping tar bubbles with my big toe during the summer on the tar & gravel road in front of our house,catching crawdads in the creek behind the house,pulling the lawn mower behind my bicycle to my grandmother house to cut grass. Leaving the windows open because we didn't have air conditioners and the smell of fried chicken permeating the evening air signaling it's time for supper,,,and the dreaded first,middle and last name being call out by my mother,,all three names and I knew I was in trouble. Family reunions,horse shoes ringing from down the street and toy guns made from building scrap piles for new construction. snow cones for a nickle,movies on Saturday for 10 Pepsi bottle caps and playing outside from morning until dark,,making tents out of old blankets and sleeping in it with several other kids,, and telling ghost story's all night. Life was simple in the rural South when I was a kid. HRP
I remember 17 cent gas, 5 cent bottles of coke, 5 cent candy bars bigger than the ones they sell today for a dollar or more. Staying up late to listen to Beaker Street with Clyde Clifford on KAAY out of Little Rock, Arkansas playing songs like The Legend of the Titanic, Alice's Restaurant, The Motorcycle Song and other long songs that most radio stations wouldn't play.
My Brother and I each had a shelf in our room that we could put our model cars on when they were done,..... Problem being, there was only enough room for five cars each,.... And we both were building them whenever we could save up the 96 Cents or $1.50 to buy them,.... Testors $.49 spray paint and $.10 Glue & bottle paint. When we ran out of room,... We would take our least favorite car into the backyard,... With my Daisy "Buzz Barton" BB Gun and pick it apart..... Then whatever was left we planted "Lady Fingers" and Firecrackers in..... Only problem was,.... Next time we cut the grass,..... some of the plastic that we didn't pick up,...... Would turn into projectiles.
returning pop bottles for a dime. Saturday morning cartoons the tv going off at night. wing windows the ding ding when you pulled into a gas station the cool sweet smell of the coke machine (chest style) going outside in the morning only to come home for a lunch snack then back out until dark, getting s&h green stamps .
I also remember the above mentioned forks along with the front wheel coming off as I wheelied coming out of a ditch then plunging the forks in the ground and doing a swan dive over the ape hanger handlebars, face first in the gravel driveway thus ending my "chopper" days.
The local neighborhood grocer doling out bubble-gum one piece each to us kids because it was so scarce during WW2. He only got one flat box of Double bubble a month and he wanted to make sure all the kids got at least one piece! Mr. Jernagan,I just remembered his name after all these years!
flex pipe painted wws oil cloth door panels y pipe ehaust dq spoons windows porto walls gas cap headers flipping shackels fender lights fuzzy paint dingle balls pennys in manifold remove shocks..install allthread..screw those suckers down tight.
had a younger friend call me one day a couple years ago wondering how to set the points in a 54 chevy. he was storing it for a young guy who just got back from a tour in afganastan. he didn't have any feeler gauges and the points had stuck closed over time. I told him I thought that I remembered guy's using the match pack striker strip to sand the points clean and use the cover as a feeler gauge to set the gap. when I talked to him later he said that old 6 banger fired right off after the point cleaning and ran so well that the kid never had to reset them.
I remember that stuff was like chewing on concrete, you must be able to bite through anything if you are STILL chewing it!
I remember the thunk sound that the brake and clutch pedals made on our flathead Fords when the pedals were released against the wooden floorboads, also the tingle sound the parking brake cable stuff made as it bumped against the torque tube on most '40's & '50's Buicks as they went down the road...anyone else remember this stuff?
in the early 70s seeing the first ATC a Honda 90 3-wheeler, the first one in our town went to the local berry farm , it had a hollow axle and bent right off and got a solid one from the dealer, looked like the red one in 73 my brother got one it looked like this one over the next few years we and all the neighbor kids totally wore that thing out a few times, then in 79 we got a 110 then later in 85 I got a 200 then in 86 they out lawed them, we had 3 ATC90s at one time, the chain would wear out get loose and brake the engine case, and then it would leak oil , the frames were stamped sheetmetal and would break in the back from all the flexing, the pullrope would break and to start the thing you would push it fast jump on and throw it in gear, somehow we survived runnin them into trees, runnin over your leg ETC,
The Jalopy Journal
