Remember when..........

[GeorgeandTheBear]

The Bear (6 years younger than me) once asked me if my parents remembered having a milkman. To which, I replied "I remember the milkman"...awkward

[RI Expat]

The authors of the posts here span several generations with interesting nostalgia and forgotten traditions. But for all the reminiscing, I don't see too much desire to go back to days of outdoor plumbing and any of the other conveniences that we have today that were either not invented yet or crude in their early forms.

What I miss most is the culture and attitude that everyone shared where, as young people, we had to apply a little initiative to get spending money. One poster mentioned collecting bottles to get the deposit. That meant going from door to door or just embarking on a scavenger hunt. For me, it meant cutting grass for my regular customers and shoveling snow. Those days instilled in us a work ethic that has evaporated from today's typical society.

In our days, fast food jobs went to pimple-faced teens looking to earn enough to buy stuff for their wreck of a car. The real industrious ones figured out that saving for school was the right choice.

Today, those same entry jobs that taught us how to navigate life are being held by folks struggling to feed a family of four. With no entry level jobs and kids living off the "Bank of Dad" with no incentive to create other opportunities for themselves, we can only blame ourselves for creating an environment where free time is filled with computer games and non-personal interactions.

And our own parents had the same view of the hours we spent reading comic books and devoting time and energy toward the music trends of our day. For all the fads we chased and now have fond memories of, our grandchildren are forging their own. The only constant is nothing ever seems as good as what we used to have and nothing is as strange and confounding as what our kids are following today.

Sorry, was in a rambling mood this morning.

[Renegade RV]

I remember when gas was 39.9 per gallon. 39.9 cents per gallon that is.

[MSHappyCampers]

I remember when a county school bus picked up the kids out in the country every Saturday to go into town for the movies. Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, The Lone Ranger, Hopalong Cassidy, etc. We paid 15 cents to get in the movies. Cokes and popcorn were 5 cents each. Late that afternoon we would load back on the bus to be returned to our homes, ready to put on our cowboy outfits with gunbelts and cap pistols to hunt down all those bad guys!

[dieselclacker]

One of the first jobs I remember having was at our grade school cafeteria. I was about 9 or 10 years old at the time. My job was to rinse and dip 8 oz glass milk bottles in a bleach water solution, then place the rinsed bottles into wooden cases so the local dairy could pick them up. The job took up most of the schools lunch hour. For doing this job, I received a free lunch from the cafeteria, and 40 cents per day from the dairy. Alas, the next school year glass bottles were replaced by disposable waxed paper cartons.

[Wayne M]

Youngster! I remember 15 cents a gallon.

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I remember before TV, laying on the carpet in front of the radio listening to The Shadow, The Green Lantern, The Green Hornet, along with all the cowboy movies that were mentioned but only audio. Made doing home work easier - and took a long time to finish home work.

Another radio favorite was the Kate Smith Hour, and Jack Benny. So many more I can't remember.

[okmunky]

When I was 6 I would take a nickel and walk down to the 7-11 in Ft Worth, TX to buy a bottle of Coca Cola. I had to drink it there because I didn’t have the 2 cent bottle deposit. That was a rare treat. One day my nickel wasn’t enough. The price had gone up to 6 cents.

When I got my first car in 1968 (a maroon 1963 Chevy Corvair Coupe) there was a gas war in Kansas City. I paid 19.9 cents/gallon. In August 1969 I started college at Kansas State and gas in Manhattan, KS was an outrageous 35.9 cents.

[Glenn and Kathy]

I'm sure I could tell stories like the ones posted so far, if I could just remember stuff from that far back.


Glenn

[puttin]

Originally Posted by Wayne M

Here is some nostalgia for you


Video may change as website wishes.

Back then we really didn't know we were living great- until now.

[RandJPass]

One of my fondest memories was of a job that I had selling news papers in the middle of a four way stop in my little Tennessee town. When I started, I had to borrow a dollar from dad, I would then walk a couple of miles to town to our local newspaper, The Rockwood Times, and but the papers for a dime. We would then sell for a quarter and then go back and buy more so we could sell more. After the first day, I paid my dad back and was self sufficient from then on. My fingers would get so black from the ink....but I had money to spend and save.

Love this thread!

[dix39]

Same here, on a farm in WV through the late 40's and 50's. Escaped to the Navy in '58 after graduating HS in '57.

I bought my first "car" a '47 Harley in '57. Gas was around .20 cents per gallon then, and I remember one station where it was pumped up into a clear container on top that had measurement markings with a hand lever. When the desired amount was in the container it was then drained into the vehicle through a hose.

We had outdoor "privys" and used catalogues and sometimes newspaper for TP. I would have to feed and milk cows, feed horses, sheep, and whatever other animals we may have had every morning and evening before and after school. I guess I was the "milkman".

During summer I would help make hay on our farm, help the neighbors make hay, and work in our gardens. The summer "bathtub" was a stream about a mile away or a river about 3 miles away. Walking, hitchhiking or riding my pony was the way to get there.

Water came from a spring about 100' away from the house and was carried up two flights of stairs, wash day was the worst. The milk house with sawdust insulation in walls and water from the spring running through a trough was used to keep things cool during summer and from freezing in winter.

Heat to cook and stay warm was derived from coal. That required carrying coal from the coal house to the house in "coal buckets", which was another of my responsibilities.

Two of my friends dads on neighboring farms got TV before we did and I would walk to their houses, one about a mile and the other a mile and a half to watch TV. They could get about 3 or 4 channels by turning the antenna, that was mounted on a long pipe, until the picture was visible through the "snow". One of their dad's didn't mind and we would watch the Saturday night fights and spit tobacco juice into a coal bucket. Snuff, which I tried a little before tobacco, had disastrous results. Back then a lot of the older women used it.

The movie theater was about 3 miles away and I would walk/hitchike there on weekends sometimes.

After I was old enough to run a chainsaw I would make spending money cutting pulpwood on the farm.

A phone, when we finally got one, was a party line and sometimes one would play a piano or sing and we could all listen. Actually, when I finally got to college in the late 60's early 70's with a wife and 3 kids, the small coal mining town we lived in still had a party line. We had to buy the crank phone, and I still have it.

Those were the days my friend.

Steve.

[Ernie.]

Reminisce magazine and radio classics Sirius radio station 148.

[PABO05]

Wow, my perspective is a little different. Born in the Bahamas, home was 50 feet from the beach. No running water, or bathroom toilet was the outdoors.(you dig a hole) LMAO in my settlement there were nine homes all relatives, powdered milk at school only. Rain barrels were used to catch water for cooking bathing and drinking.Seafood a plenty and fresh pig.Lots of eggs as we own chickens and GREAT weather all year.After all these years (66) those were the best years. Also no electricity and flush toilet until I was 12 years old.

[Rodg495]

Simple play things that were made of metal, cars, trucks, trikes, scooters. What is this plastic stuff? If you had two or three toys you were lucky and we shared with friends. Played in sand piles outdoors. Yea, gas was 20 cents a gal. Phone number was AM 202.
My dad was the milkman and I got to get up at 4 am to ride with him on his route, he RAN back and forth from the truck to the front porches.

Remembering so much of what the others have said, times seemed to be good then without all the tech and political garbage. But... guess I would be bored now without all this electronic stuff. Wondering if our grandkids will be thinking the same as us 60 years from now ( gas was only 3.99 gal, wow - remember the cars that used gasoline? )