When we were kids…
It took 3 minutes for the TV to warm up!
Nobody owned a purebred dog.
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! They had real prizes back in the day!
And nobody ever asked where the car keys were, they were in the ignition and the car wasn’t even locked!
And we didn’t have answering machines. You actually had to answer the phone to find out who was calling.
I’m sure y’all can add a ton of things to these…
TVs had rabbit ear antennas, and child powered remotes, but only one, two, or three channels. To make a phone call you picked up the receiver, waited to make sure no one else was on the party line and then the nice lady said “number please.” Bicycles had one speed, balloon tires, and a steel frame worthy of a bridge truss.
Party lines! Kids would be horrified that people could/would listen to their phone conversations.
I can remember my Dad opening beer cans with a “church key” , stout cans with a big seam on the side , usually Falstaff or whatever was cheap , Skelly gas stations , we had one near our house in OKC , had the rubber hose across the entrance that would set off the bell when you ran it over , we’d ride our bikes up there in a pack and run repeatedly over that thing and ding ding ding ding till the guy would come out and spray us with water hose , returnable coke bottles you could find and make money (everything was a “coke” in Texas , “you wanna coke ? yeah, what kind ? Dr Pepper , okay ” ) , Drive in movies with that big ol’ honkin aluminum thing you hung on door sill, microwave ovens when they first came out , people said wait a minute before you open the door because radiation (don’t know if that was true or not) , Wood and steel school desks that would save your ass from a Russian atomic bomb if you were underneath it (I didn’t buy that one for a minute but complied ) ….the list is endless , times were good .
And now it can take that long for the TV to boot up. Ah, that magical time between so many tubes and the CPU when instant on was or was at least close.
I remember tube testors, and a healthy stock of spare tubes, at drug stores.
I remember when caller ID first came out.
We didn’t have it for many years, now everything has it.
As one who provided those endless services at the local Esso station I well remember the “dings” from the hose across the drive. Green Stamps, if she was a regular and a “hottie” she got an extra page. High school boys and their imaginations, doncha know.
How about the free stuffed “tiger tails” they gave out at the Esso station. A tiger in your tank!
I remember our 3 digit phone number.
I remember rearranging the living room and requiring two strong guys to move the TV.
I remember stackable TV trays with wheels.
I remember gas wars when filling stations undercut the competition.
I remember near every guy knew how to tune up, change the fluids, rebuild the carburetor or alternator. Them who couldn’t were called
sissies.
I remember ethnic jokes and no one got bent out of shape.
I remember the little insert that allowed 45s to play on stereos.
Stereos were a future invention. Before that was “hi-fi” (high fidelity) which had a single speaker. The portable ones had a handle for transportation and the turntable was unlatched and swiveled down into operating position. The tonearm had a tracking weight of a couple of pounds. (Only a slight exaggeration). The 45 adapter was a cylinder-shaped device that slipped over the changer spindle and allowed you to stack multiple 45’s (just as you could stack the 33’s – as I recall). The little single-play inserts came later.
All-Yes, fond memories…LOL Boats getting sprayed with water in the summer was GOOD! 😉
Yes it was , it was all done in fun to get sprayed . The same guy would patch our bike tubes when we had a flat , for a dime . He used a patch kit I think the brand was “Camel” .
I remember live operators. When someone wanted to let you know they arrived safely they called, collect, person to person. “Sorry, he/she is not here”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FI0rfv6Cw1M&t=308s