Milk delivered to your door. Cream on the top of milk. Cardboard caps on milk. Black outs to keep the Japanese bombers from know where we were. Being a patrol boy, (today crossing guard) Gravel roads. 10 cent movie admission Neighbor test driving his full midget on those gravel roads. Same neighbor welding far into the night in his shop. Phyllis. My mom leaving when I was just 10. Building my first project from Boy's life, an 8 foot pram. Getting a beating because I took the rotor out of my dads Merc turnpike cruiser cause he was to plowed to drive. Leaving home.
I remember delivering newspapers on my bike, from a giant bag hanging on the handlebars. It probably weighed more than me. It was around 1969, I was 12. I remember using an outhouse! Never having air conditioning in the house or car.
Farm-boy stuff? Okay: Running barefoot out to the barn on a cool morning to do the milking, and stepping in steamy cowpies to warm up the feet. . . and Mom telling us not to come back inside before rinsing our feet off - with cold water! Having "flying cowpie fights". The fresher the better. . . Getting hit in the face with a fresh one. . . .then gagging and sputtering all the way (1/4 mile or more) home to rinse out the mouth, while older brother and friends are rolling with laughter! Rolling the flywheel up to the power stroke on the old 2 cylinder "Poppin Johnny" John Deere "B" tractor - then giving it a tug to try & start it, only to have it backfire and nearly pull our arms outta their sockets. June-bug fights mostly with girls & getting those bugs in their hair and watching 'em scream as they tried shaking them out. Watching my cousin try & beat the storm home while on horseback, only to ride too close under a tree just as the lightening hit it - off he came but then right back on the horse while at a near-full gallup, without missing a lick. I think adrenalin was a big factor in making this a harmless but successful event! Learning to drive Dad's Ford panel truck, he'd park it halfway up a hill then tell me, "... hold it there and then move uphill, without using the brake - "AND DON'T BURN OUT THE CLUTCH!" I did hold it, I did move uphill, and I didn't blow the clutch. He was satisfied.
I remember this in the 60's, just before the National Anthem and the sign off with the test pattern....
man,my dad put those things up in the 50s-60s.when he passed away in 69,we must have throne away 100s of those.hadn't seen one in years.thanks
How about my first car at age 16 (year was 1960). A '32 Ford pickup with a '48 flathead in it. I paid $125 for it. Later bought a door window glass for $5 in a local junkyard in Dallas that had several '32 Ford parts cars. Few people wanted them then.
Lest I forget, Carol Burnett, Rowan and Martin's Laugh In, The Smothers Brothers, Laying coins on the railroad tracks, Not having any money, but it didn't seem to matter, Grandma cutting the heads off of chickens and letting them run, if they could, Collecting eggs in the chicken coupe,
Gas wars regular 19.9 cents gal reclaimed oil in a glass jar 25 cents, Shell 35 cents, Pennzoil 45 cents Blue chip stamps, F-310, Platformate, Gulftane Selector Fillin' station, foot feed Crusader Rabbit, Beany and Cecil, Tom Terrific Dick Lane, Gardena Raceway, Figure 8's and Destruction Derby - Whoa Nelly! Milk bottles at the door, Helm's Bakery Truck and how you and your brothers would stare as he rolled those drawers full of donuts, cream puffs, cookies.... Looking at your dad and his pals working under the hood, learning what a distributor was, and wondering why it was called the master cylinder Felix, Rock Bottom, the Professor and Poindexter... Damn where did all the years go, will we become like typical old people and talk about how everything was so much better in the past?
Now that was a big deal, made you feel like a king. That's what I'm talking about, very cool. You say Felix The Cat, I say Boris & Natasha and the Fractured Fairy Tales.
Going to Taylor Auto Parts in Imperial Beach Ca, asking to order headers for my "70 AMC Matador 401 ex-LAPD that I put in my 55 GMC long bed that i cut down to shortbed..with 3.90s...guys thought i was a 17 year old hero!!!
not being able to buy a '64 Biscayne 327/4 speed for $2500 from the original owner in 1987, i was making min wage.
Im so glad Im not the only one.....my roadster will not be complete unless it makes that sound, I am going to go out of my way to insure it does....I need to find one of those old trucks and have a look-see. Great stuff guys!!!!! ....getting to the local dirt track races early so I could sit in the very front row and watch my heros put around the track wheel packing the mud sawing on those giant steering wheels....open face helmets and most of them with a cigar or cigarette....and NO firesuits
Being less than affluent, I remember not having a decent set of jumper cables. We used to nudge bumpers together for a ground and use the one sorta good cable for the positives to jump start our second car.
anybody remember the car battery arc welders ??? my grandfather had one in his barn and it worked really good , but you could hear the batterys sizzle , or the gasoline blowtorch , ( my prized posession from him ) scare the shit out of the neighbors with that dragon , pump it up till the relief spurts and make a army flame thrower out of it .. damn good torch for leading too I grew up in several places in my childhood , went to school in the city , and out on the farm for summer and school breaks due to the parents fighting , growing up on the south east side of Chicago in the suburbs we had a old bakery on the street across from the grocery and the barber shop , and after a hair cut my mom used to get me fresh baked cookies , could smell that place for blocks , and birthdays getting a butter cream frosting cake , nothing like it to this day .
Spent summers on my Grandparent's farm in South Georgia. I remember: No shoes and dirt roads. Walking in the cool clay behind the county road grader. Handing and sticking tobacco for 50¢ a day. Jumping off the feed lot fence and landing in a fresh cow pie, barefoot of course. Learning to drive on a Ford Jubilee, on a dirt road. Picking watermelons. Learning to milk the Jersey. Shelling chicken corn in the corn crib. Cutting pulpwood. With a big wheeled circular saw. NOT OSHA approved. Driving into town and going to my first drive-in movie, Elvis in "Love Me Tender". Plowing with a mule. Learning to harness him and riding bareback. Snaking logs with a mule. Helping blaze pine trees for pine gum collection. Learning to shoot with a single shot .22 Remington. Bullets were 50¢ a box. Grinding sugar cane and boiling the juice to make cane syrup. Cutting stove wood for my Grandma's cook stove. Knowing it was ok to get a biscuit and bacon out of the pie safe. Or a fresh baked tea cake. Going to the mill pond and Granddaddy having his sweet corn ground into corn meal. Going to the ice house and getting a block for homemade ice cream. Having to crawl under the house and look for chicken eggs. Hog killing at the first cold weather. The log smoke house. The outhouse, with its corncobs and Sears catalog. Killing a chicken for Sunday dinner. Going to town only once a week, Granddaddy getting a barber shop shave, and me a chocolate milk shake at the drug store. He always got strawberry. Making a corncob pipe and smoking his Prince Albert mixed with Bull of the Woods chew. Having to cut your own limber switch from the pomegranate bush for the coming whuppin'. Learning to sharpen your pocket knife so you could shave your arm. Iron pitcher pumps and pumping yourself a drink of fresh cool water. Eating a whole homemade sweet potato pie, much to my Granddaddy's amusement and my Grandma's dismay. Only wood heaters and a fireplace in the winter; windows open in the summer, listening to the crickets and hoot owls at night. Country church and baptizing in the creek. Dinner on the ground. Making a cannon out of water pipe that shot BB's powered by a Cherry Bomb. Thanks for the memories!
I used to watch Carol Burnett all the time. I really miss those Variety Shows. Loved to watch Felix the Cat, the wonderful, wonderful cat.........loved alot of those theme songs on T.V. like the ones from the Dating Game, Love American Style, Hawaii Five-O, Adams Family. Loved that song for Bain De Soli commercial. I miss those times when California was truly Golden.
I remember watching Winky Dink and You and the hokey little 50 cent magic kit that you could order to interact with the tv show.
Brer Hare.... Long County, between Ludowici and Hinesville. Rye Patch community. Pine gum: collected and sold to make turpentine. Knives: if they were sharp enough to shave the hair on your arm, they were done! Prince Albert and Bull of the Woods: Yep, around 12. NEVER been more sick. Pulpwood saw: belt driven by a big single cyl cast iron engine, two solid wheels, handlebars with throttle. Circular 36" blade that would cut horizontal or vertical. Limbs were stripped with razor sharp axes. Bad ass dangerous!!
we did cottonwood when it was fresh cut and green ( like cutting iron once dried would tear up a blade quicker than daylight on a vampire ) , we had a 72" and a sliding carriage , was originally belt driven , but the belt would slip , so grandpa modified it with a truck driveshaft from a wrecked truck of ours and hooked it to the pto of the WD-45 PTO , was great but if you started to hear a squeak inthe shafts you shut it down quick as the u joints were coming apart and when that happened you ran , we would cut the trees to make barn beams , cut them and stack them and let them dry a year and like a iron beam , and rot and bug resistant . learned how to sharpen and set teeth on that saw
Saturday morning cartoons super sugary breakfast cereal Lego's the invention of the internet.....oh wait I think I might be a different generation than you guy's
Looking back and the many mostly great posts here, it sure makes one wonder what today's kids will be posting in their adult years, about what they remember from their youth? Plastic what? Fake everything, loud buzzbomb cars with boom systems louder than the exhaust, computer generated everything, no need for creativity or originality.... Just thinkin, our generations from the 40s, 50s, 60s and into the 70s sure make many of us lucky to have survived those great times. Sadly, many of us didn't survive due to a whole lot of reasons. Remembering the good times though. It's been fun.
Getting car sick in back seat of grandpa's '46 Desoto monster four door every Sunday after church. I dreaded Church and Sundays.
kids today?" you remember when the new I-phone-hand-puter thing-a-ma jiggy came out? "i can hear it now............
The Jalopy Journal
