TBT…

Remember when…

It took three minutes for the TV to warm up.

Nobody owned a purebred dog.

When a quarter was a decent allowance, and made with real Silver!

You’d reach into a muddy gutter for a penny. Made with real copper! Looking to see if it was a 1943 copper penny!***

You got your windshield cleaned, oil checked, and gas pumped, without asking, all for free, every time. And you didn’t pay for air? And, you got trading stamps to boot.

Laundry detergent had free glasses, dishes or towels hidden inside the box. Not to mention Cracker Jacks!

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…and they did it!

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.

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.

*** According to the American Numismatic Association, the 1943 copper–alloy cent is one of the most idealized and potentially one of the most sought–after items in American numismatics. Nearly all circulating pennies at that time were struck in zinc–coated steel because copper and nickel were needed for the Allied war effort.

Approximately 40 1943 copper–alloy cents are known to remain in existence. Coin experts speculate that they were struck by accident when copper–alloy 1–cent blanks remained in the press hopper when production began on the new steel pennies.

Comments

TBT… — 18 Comments

    • A man was murdered in a stop and rob and the DA said it wasn’t murder and won’t prosecute – because the man shouldn’t have shot at the robbers as they were fleeing with his stuff.

      Yup, California is done.

  1. I have a 1943 silver nickle.
    I’ve seen the copper penny, forget if I have one or not. Would have to dig out the collection. I was a paperboy and as my cousin was an avid coin collector, I ALWAYS used to check the change.

  2. Those were the days my friend, those were the days. I remember playing sock ball when we would take a pair of socks and turn them into a ball and use a broken broom handle for a bat and play ball all day until supper time all day. Also we would agree to the rules of the game and pick players from all the kids that were there. No adults involved!

  3. You made me check my calendar multiple times. It’s not nice to mess with an old man like that!

  4. We spent many a day playing our own game of tag with the orange rubber ball that came in a box of tide. We called it “grenade” and the entire neighborhood was the play area. Tagging required either touching the person with the ball, or hitting the with a throw. In the end, after we thought the game was over, someone would wander from their good hiding place and ask: “What happened?”

    Yes, I remember the days, and miss the honesty.

  5. Anyone but me notice the “Fuel Injection” insignia on the fender of that ’57 Convertible?
    Rare.

  6. I remember most of that. Laundry soap? What’s that? Learned about it when I was 18. Mom collected green stamps. We only ate out on our birthdays. Neighborhood was always full of kids, all playing in the street. My favorite game was Red Rover. My kids didn’t have that, everywhere we lived there were only 2-3 other kids in their age group. I’m sorry they missed that.

  7. I know it’s Friday. LOL, I’m a day late… Glad to hear I’m not the ONLY old fart around here. GB, that’s why I posted that pic! Those were few and far between (guesstimated at 1500 out of 70,000), but 283/283 power was GOOD!

  8. I have a set of laundry detergent glasses courtesy of an elderly neighbor. We rarely went out to dinner, with the exception of fish filets at McDonald’s on Fridays during Lent!

  9. Hotrodders paid a premium for the heads that were marked for F.I. For unknown reasons, some of the carb engines came with the FI heads from the factory. I don’t think I ever knew the details of the differences, but they were noted as producing more HP on a built engine.
    My personal ’57 ragtop probably had more than twice the HP of the 283FI engine, but that had a later big block that could spin the tires shifting into 4th well over 100.

  10. Before the car radio came on with it’s music or whatever you could hear the vibrator running.

  11. Had to google “submarine races”. Oh, my.

    About 20 years ago I was servicing some gear at a Mobil gas that was giving away Green Bay Packers branded drinking glasses with a minimum 5 gallon purchase. The stack of swag was large and kinda in customers’ way. No one wanted them. The clerk changed the minimum to “any purchase”. Nope. Then he started saying “free glasses, no purchase required”. Nope. Finally, he started growling “take a damn glass!”. Nope. I guess we needed glasses more in the TBT era than nowadays.