Remember When

[BMT (RIP)]

DO YOU REMEMBER WHEN .

All the girls had ugly gym uniforms?
It took five minutes for the TV warm up?
Nearly everyone's Mom was at home when the kids got home from school?
Nobody owned a purebred dog?
When a quarter was a decent allowance?
You'd reach into a muddy gutter for a penny?
Your Mom wore nylons that came in two pieces?
All your male teachers wore neckties and female teachers had their hair done
every day and wore high heels?
You got your windshield cleaned, oil checked, and gas pumped, without
asking, all for free, every time? And ... you didn't pay for air, & got
trading stamps to boot?
Laundry detergent had free glasses, dishes or towels hidden inside the box?
It was considered a great privilege to be taken out to dinner at a real
restaurant with your parents?
They threatened to keep kids back a grade if they failed & . they did?
When a 57 Chevy was everyone's dream car ... to cruise, peel out, lay rubber
or watch submarine races, and people went steady?
No one ever asked where the car keys were because they were always in the
car, in the ignition, and the doors were never locked?
Lying on your back in the grass with your friends and saying things like,
"That cloud looks like a ..." & playing baseball with no adults to help
kids with the rules of the game?
Stuff from the store came without safety caps and hermetic seals because no
one had yet tried to poison a perfect stranger?
And with all our progress, don't you just wish, just once, you could slip
back in time and savor the slower pace, and share it with the children of
today?

When being sent to the principal's office was nothing compared to the fate
that awaited the student at home? Basically we were in fear for our lives,
but it wasn't because of drive-by shootings, drugs, gangs, etc. Our parents
and grandparents were a much bigger threat! But we survived because their
love was greater than the threat.

Send this on to someone who can still remember Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys,
Laurel and Hardy, Howdy Dowdy and the Peanut Gallery, the Lone Ranger, The
Shadow Knows,
Nellie Bell, Roy and Dale, Trigger and Buttermilk.

As well as summers filled with bike rides, baseball games, Hula Hoops,
bowling and visits to the pool, and eating Kool-Aid powder with sugar.
idn't that feel good, just to go back and say, "Yeah, I remember that"?

I am sharing this with you today because it ended with a double dog dare to
pass it on. To remember what a double dog dare is, read on.
And remember that the perfect age is somewhere between old enough to know
better and too young to care.

How many of these do you remember?

Candy cigarettes

Wax Coke-shaped bottles with colored sugar water inside

Soda pop machines that dispensed glass bottles

Coffee shops with tableside jukeboxes

Blackjack, Clove and Teaberry chewing gum

Home milk delivery in glass bottles with cardboard stoppers

Newsreels before the movie

P.F. Fliers

Telephone numbers with a word prefix ... (Raymond 4-6801).

Party lines
Peashooters
Winky Dink
45 RPM records
Green Stamps
Hi-Fi's
Metal ice cubes trays with levers
Mimeograph paper
Beanie and Cecil
Roller-skate keys
Cork pop guns
Coal Deliveries
Drive ins
Studebakers
Washtub wringers
The Fuller Brush Man
Reel-To-Reel tape recorders
Tinkertoys
Erector Sets
The Fort Apache Play Set
Lincoln Logs
15 cent McDonald hamburgers
5 cent packs of baseball cards -
with that awful pink slab of bubble gum
Penny candy
35 cent a gallon gasoline
Jiffy Pop popcorn
Captain Midnight
Pinky Lee
Andy's Gang
Sabu
Mighty Mouse

Do you remember a time when...

Decisions were made by going "eeny-meeny-miney-moe"?
Mistakes were corrected by simply exclaiming, "Do Over!"?
"Race issue" meant arguing about who ran the fastest?
Catching the fireflies could happily occupy an entire evening?
It wasn't odd to have two or three "Best Friends"?
The worst thing you could catch from the opposite sex was "cooties"?
Having a weapon in school meant being caught with a slingshot?
A foot of snow was a dream come true?
Saturday morning cartoons weren't 30-minute commercials for action figures?
"Oly-oly-oxen-free" made perfect sense?
Spinning around, getting dizzy, and falling down was cause for giggles?
The worst embarrassment was being picked last for a team?
War was a card game?
Baseball cards in the spokes transformed any bike into a motorcycle?
Taking drugs meant orange-flavored chewable aspirin?
Water balloons were the ultimate weapon?

If you can remember most or all of these, then you have lived!!!!!!!

Pass this on to anyone who may need a break from their "grown-up" life ... I
double-dog-dare-ya!

[BMT (RIP)]

Before I'm outed!!! YES I am an FOG!!!

BMT

[Kyobanim]

Dammit! For some reason I can remember the whole friggin list. for the record, our phone number was Mayfield7-4284.

[Razor]

Damn, even I remember some of that stuff.

I distinctly remember the Coke cooler (not machine) at the auto dealership where my mom worked, with metal racks holding suspended glass bottles. My dad and some other employee would each get a bottle, and then they'd check the bottle to see where it was made (the state of manufacture was molded into the glass). Who ever had the bottle made furthest away would have their soda paid for by the other guy.

[Pete]

Originally Posted by BMT

Before I'm outed!!! YES I am an FOG!!!

BMT

When putting P.F. Fliers down in something they should be followed by Red Ball Jets.

In the early 60s every kid on the block had Fliers or Jets below their long blue jeans that were rolled up a couple of times. When it was cool outside us kids in the UP also had our Milwaukee Braves jackets.

[jbour13]

I'm nowhere close to a FOG, but I do remember about 2/3 of the list.
I grew up in a town of about 250 people in S. Missouri. We were a little behind the curve on most parts (and still are).

If I had only had the insight to not be so fixated on the nasty stick of gum and some of the cards in it I'd be a wealthy man. Guess my wealth is in that of being able to read this and think of how cool it was to just be a kid.

The old coke machine that dispensed bottles was in the barber shop and a pain in the ass for me. I'd drop my nickel in the machine and I'd have to stand on a chair to yank it out. God help you if you slipped and tore skin from your hands on the cap or tumbled over backwards.

Most of the TV shows were in syndication by the time I was able to remember them but I still loved them. The Three Stooges were classics that were never missed. Sunday mornings sitting in front of my father as he watched Gunsmoke, Bonanza and Wild Wild West. Only to get the clockwork, "Don't you have chores to do?!?"

I still remember parents trusting their kids to do the right thing while they were gone or kids were on their own. The whole "Wrath of Mom and Dad" were enough to keep your butt in line. Real chores, chopping ice on the pond at 1 am on a school day so the cows could drink. Falling in and getting the "Dummy,...cold isn't it!" comment from my father, instead of being coddled and told it'll be ok.

Oh well I guess we can always remember, and say been there done sum' dat.

[Jack Moroney (RIP)]

Damn, I remember all of them and then some.

Jack Moroney-reflecting back to before the time when the computer mouse replaced the "cat's whisker"

[Kyobanim]

Left out -

Leaving the house for the day and not needing to lock the doors.
50 cent cigarettes in the vending machine
20 cent a gallon gas

[Trip_Wire (RIP)]

Originally Posted by Jack Moroney

Damn, I remember all of them and then some.

Jack Moroney-reflecting back to before the time when the computer mouse replaced the "cat's whisker"

Yeah! Me too! Especially the "Then some."

[Spartan359]

Heh I'm a pup and even I remember some of that list. Nothing better than watching Bugs bunny and Hong-Kong Phoeey on saturdays.

[12B4S]

I remember everything on the list too. The local Drugstore had a Soda Fountain in it. The local grocery store was so small, you'd be hard pressed to pass anyone in any of thier three isles and they delivered. They still do. Same store, same layout.

My neighbor once in awhile would surprise us and announce he was taking us to the movies. Going to the movies as a kid in the '50s was a HUGE treat. while driving out through the neighborhoods, if he saw a kid, he'd stop and ask if they wanted to come along. Of course the kid went nuts with excitement. Charlie just told them to go tell thier parents. We would have a car full. Try that these days, You'll have a Swat Team and the entire local Police force on your ass.
Yeah, great way to spend a childhood.