WOW WOW things sure have changed just in my liftime...WHAT do you remember.

I remember playing pong and Space Invaders on my Atari and Dungeons and Dragons on my Intellivision game consoles, turning orange with all my girlfriends from QT, gas costing .19 cents a gallon, paying a dime to get into a public toilet (I usually crawled under the door!), granny dresses, cable television with a cable attached to the remote, console stereos and tvs, orange juice cans on the tops of our heads to straighten our hair (not to mention the iron and ironing board trick!), incense was the air freshener of the times, cheerleaders wore uniforms that were actually covering their backsides, and Corvettes were around $15,000.

these toys reminded me of ones i played with

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/5c34002d60f1.jpg[/atsimg]

wooooohoooo hours of fun with silly putty

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/fd570bf12859.jpg[/atsimg]

modeling was the greatest wasn't it

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My parents too loved this too....mmmm coffee for in the morning....

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but there was nothing like the smell of fresh baked bread....done by hand....remember that.

But i must say this is one of my favorite toys....when you bumped the bumper the ejection seat would shoot up

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/3210348be528.jpg[/atsimg]

now...i remember sorting punch cards for computer systems and feeding them in making sure they were in the right order and now i look at the power everyone has their fingertips it is just amazing.

Originally posted by peewee1263
I remember waiting for Saturday morning, getting up, getting a bowl of cereal, then sitting in front of the t.v. to watch cartoons. Jonny Quest, Underdog, Touche Turtle, Josie and the Pussycats. Then on Friday, sitting in front of the t.v. with a big bowl of popcorn and watching Creature Feature. Those were the days!

OMG, I remember that.
TV was for saturday mornings, and even then only up till about noon.
Most of my early life was either outdoors or on the drafting table,
but on saturday mornings I would watch the most violent Warnerbrothers cartoons.
I always Liked Scooby Doo better.


David Grouchy

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/ddff2081058c.png[/atsimg]

My earliest memory from when I was 3 was seeing the moon landing live on a black and white TV in Seattle, where we were living at the time.

I was called into the room by my mom, her sister, and their mom. "Come see, the man is about to walk on the moon."

They were making such a big deal about it. I came in, sat down close to the TV and watched. My feeling at the time was "I've seen better special effects than this."

Of course I didn't know what the phrase special effects was until after the release of Star Wars, so this memory has obviously been revised over and over by myself as I have grown up. But the quote captures the feeling I had fairly well.


Since then I have learned that the broadcast was filmed by TV cameras pointing a screen at NASA. So the transmitted image was an analog copy of an analog copy. This accounts for the poor picture quality. That settles the issue for me.


David Grouchy

reply to post by plube


I remember:

No cell phones
No CAT Scans
No Robotic surgery
Gallbladder surgery = two weeks of being in bed with cloth bandages tightly wrapped around the mid torso
No microwaves
No color TVs
No Amazon.com (To buy a book you had to go to a book store and hope they had it. You had a slim choice compared to now days.
No cameras on every street corner
No tracking devices, while GPS is nice, it can be used both ways.
1984 was just a novel and no one imagined it could ever happen - 1984 is here, we are all watched, measured and evaluated.
No ipods, video games or home pcs (god, how did I ever survive without a pc!)
Now, you have a proverbial library at your fingertips, the whole world laid out before you. You use to have to go to a library (and prayed it was a well stocked one) and go through the books.....book by book by book.
No Google (god, how did I survive without Google)
One of my e-mail buddies from australia contacted me today. Back 45 years ago, my penpal in England, we wrote back and forth and each letter took a week to arrive.
No Ebay or Paypal
No e-books
No banking on-line
No shopping for groceries (or anything on line)
A computer (not for home use yet, only NASA and Government) took up a hugh room and had less computing power than the computer I am on right now.
No downloading any song your heart desires onto a ipod or your pc
No Utube
No video cameras except for the very rich.......we could never afford one, now my cell phone has one
Computer punch cards
Having to take MS Dos in order to interface with my first home pc, typing in commands.
No Internet
No Windows (Thank you Bill Gates, everyone hates you except me, I sincerly love you)
Any kind of hospital procedure was very rarely in and out, you got hurt or needed surgery and it was a long drawn out process.
A lot of men died in their 40's & 50's because their heart conditions were not detected.
Open heart surgery was quite rare, complicated and dangerous - my husband had his aeorta valve replaced just a few years back and he was in and out in one week at our local hospital.
Austism was considered due to "bad parenting" I was made to feel like a horrible mom, when I wasn't - now we know it's a combination of enviroment poisoning and bad genes
You couldn't talk about major conspiracies without being labeled a "nut case" - nobody questioned the government, politicians or Wall Street.
Having to dress up to go to school, the movies or on a date.
The advent of birth control pills............and having a period every 21 days. Now woman can take a birth control pill and have 4 periods a year (WHOOO HOOO!!)
The "colored only" signs in Pensacola Florida.
Watergate
Mini skirts and go go boots, hot pants and afros, peace signs and protest marches
My husband remembers shaking hands and talking with Martin Luther King for several minutes at his campus.
Fast food was either Steak n Shake or McDonalds
Foreign food was Chinese or Italian
Most things were "made in America" and only junk stuff was "made in Japan"
Head shops that smelled like strawberry incense and posters that glowed under black lights.
The Beatles, Paul Revere and the Raiders and the Monkies were groovy
All In The Family - TV series with Archie, Edith, Gloria and Meathead, we were not allowed to watch this controversial show in our house so I would go to my girlfriend's house each week. Too many "bad ideas" like all people are equal and our government may not be looking after our best interest.







Alice Cooper's song, "School's Out" came out the year I graduated from high school
MoTown and Michael Jackson as a little boy.
Jeffereson Airplane, Cat Stevens, The Moody Blues and The Rolling Stones, their concerts were phenominal.
Times were more gentle, it was cool to be kind and intellegent, to think outside the box, to question authority, to embrace peace not war and principles over money and power.

My earliest memories were watcing Bullwinkle and Rocky, Yogi and Boo Boo Bear and Deputy Dog cartoons while my mother fixed dinner.

And on Saturday morning being allowed to drink Whistle Soda from a glass bottle. (Soda only came in glass bottles).

I know I'm going to get flamed for this, but I remember when the sun was actually YELLOW and not blindingly white! Being outside was the greatest experience as a young child for me and going fishing with my family at a friend's pond or the river that crosses our small town and everybody knew each other. I remember my grandmother telling stories of her childhood growing up how everyone met at the frozen river in the winter months and ice skated. It was a major event and times were good. Children didn't sit in front of their x-boxes and actually spent time outside with the neighbor kids and the sounds and sights of nature. Water was clean and we could drink it from a hose...like the song.

reply to post by davidgrouchy


OMG....you used a drafting table...do we still have those nowadays.... Is everything gone to CAD hmmmm...I remember seeing offices full of drafting tables and now they are all full of computers...
the silence of watching people leaning over thier tables quietly drafting away.

That makes me think of something else that is missing that there use to be so much of .....SILENCE

now for the conspiracy...is technology taking us away from our interactions with people or is it bringing us closer together....personally in some ways i now talk to people all over the world but in the same breath it has removed the personal interaction from our state of being....but please keep posting what you think has gone missing in our short lifetimes here as it shows a bit of who we are.

While some things have changed in the last 30-50 years, we really haven't had as significant as changes like they had from say 1920-1970. Look at NASA, almost nothing new. As for personal computers, sure they have become smaller, cheaper and faster but you can't really say "new".

Had to put this in

That what this thread is reminding me of

and here's the same but with images ( for those who don't know who or what he's speaking about )

Pretty cool thread, and a chance to show our age here.
All these items were part of my youth and have lot's of associated memories, and because it was my youth, I guess toys were one thing I remember most.

The first cable boxes

The first game console Atari

First Asteroids

Old Hot Wheels

Anyone remember Stretch?

Classic Rockem Sockem

Tonka Times

Garbage Pail Kids

Break 19, you got your ears on?

Old School


Peace,
spec

I remember the clock radio's that had a little number tile that physically flipped over every minute.

I remember playing outside ALL DAY and being thin because it was a chore to come inside and eat food.

I remember watching the Three Stooges, Ma and Pa Kettle, The Bowery Boys, Honeymooner's and other much older shows that were on heavy re-run rotation at the time.

I remember watching Son of Svengoolie every Saturday with my creature feature buddy across the street.
(BAD Japanese dubbed monster flick's, Sinbad movies)

Loved to watch Twighlight Zone, Night Gallery, and Outer Limits!

Saturday morning cartoons with a big bowl of Kaboom cereal.

I remember all of us kids in the neighborhood felt like brothers and sisters not only because we spent so much time together, but because our parents spent time together and it was "the norm" to parent others' children in the neighborhood. You had the same chance of getting yelled at by Joe's dad three houses down as your own parents if you did something wrong. There was more of a community attitude about child rearing and watching out for one another.

Making "tents" out of a bed spread tossed over clothesline and rocks holding sides out. We "pretended" a lot and used our imaginations.

I remember the whole school taking part in a Halloween costume parade through each classroom of the school and treat party in afternoon. The whole day was a party. Schools celebrated holidays with music and art work, which could include religious sentiments and nobody cried and bleated about it.

I remember a teacher's strike in the early seventies where we had to go to school on Saturday mornings and our PARENTS had to come in to teach!

Roller skating at the local rink on Saturdays with a real DJ :-)

reply to post by speculativeoptimist


Do truckers still use CB radios...or do they talk on their mobiles now...and i love the dial phones...ahh the good ole days eh...when dialing 911 took for ever...and i remember having to actually go into the bank to get your money out.

when this was your entertainment



or this





oh choplifter

reply to post by shockedonlooker


I would love to mention more of my childhood but so many of the things that happened would have been considered child abuse nowadays...like when i got in trouble in grade six and the teacher would get you to stand in front of the class bend over touch your toes and then smack you bum...making you fall over cause your unbalanced and then you would tell your dad and he would smack you too for being a troublemaker.
Then yes the community was willing to yell and give a neighbors child heck just as well as their own.....now you would get sued.
have we moved backwards or have we moved forward...it is hard to tell as of yet.

just the good stuff

- 101001001 hand programming for hours that gave you a little flower or a teddy bear...and not much else.
- books that took you away to magical places instead of telling you what you were not.
- bushfires being fought by the whole town with pump packs and hessian sacks on rake handles....everyone pitched in and everyone was responsible...regardless of who's house or land it was.
- being taught geography and history in school.
- 'bloody hell' was a swear word
- a walkman was a link to other worlds.
- everyone had chores and ate together.

Pffft I am 18 and i can tell you for a fact all of those pictures are from the game fallout...they didn't exist dummies!!!!!!@@!!


Lol just kidding.

Ah, nostalgia. I'm not telling you how old I am

Actually, I have some 'overlap' too as I was primarily raised by older relatives / grand parents - so we had all their old things and I got to hear all about "the depression" and when bread cost a nickel and like that.

I did not see much TV either since they were strict, and very 'old world', and "children were to be seen and not heard". My Grandmother had lots of weird old stuff including stamps from Bohemia (a country which no longer exists) which had a picture of Hitler and the words: Bohemia, Third Reich.

I remember being confused as to "where", exactly I lived - because it was kind of "out in the middle of no where" and "unincorporated". Wilderness. We did not even have an "address" - it was a "fire code number". Actually, this is now the "Western Suburbs" of Chicago and, by the fire code or "county" number which began 24W - this = 24 miles west of "0,0" in downtown Chi - which is really not far at all. But as a child, and because there was very little "out there" - it seemed very rural. People had horses, burned garbage, there were even a few farmers.

Now its a big mass of suburban sprawl. The 'burbs reach to 50 + miles out now.

Anyway, some things to give away my age -

We had an old TV from the 60's, black and white, you had to wait for it to "warm up" after turning it on. It didn't work too well either - you always had to fool with the antenna. Us kids did not watch it too much - my Gram monopolized it watching soap operas anyway - little kids don't want to watch this stuff - we played outside, we had a fairly good amount of land, which was bordered by forests. Our generation did not find too many cool things - but my Mom, Aunt and Uncle (who all lived with us at one time or another, we lived in a big old house) - found lots of Indian / Native American artifacts - arrow heads and etc. It was even more rural back then - 30s, 40s, and they hunted and had exotic pets such as raccoons and foxes.

Side note - my Gram started listening to the soap "As The World Turns" when it started on the radio

We watched kiddy shows on Sats, and the Monster Movies on Svengoolie. I do remember the original Sven - Jerry G. Bishop. That should tell you (locals anyway) apx. how old I am lol

Things were not all "good old days" either - the relatives used to throw cocktail parties, with the skinny tie suits and martinis if you can picture it - and me and my cousin who were supposed to be in the back / other part of the house would creep in and listen from the hallways (and there was this one good chair you could hide behind ) to their conversations People were getting divorced, going nuts, this one was an alky, who may or may not be in "The Outfit" (Mafia), etc.

I think my parents, aunts, uncles etc - next generation up, some of them were kind of "bad kids" in their time. And shady adults too. I heard about people carrying guns, alot of drinking, even some drug usage (the "hoods" who hung around the candy store). And illegal gambling etc going on in the back rooms of taverns. My relatives had some $ and were mostly business people, but there was this other element of people, and things they talked about - which little pitchers with big ears didn't need to hear about LOL.

The "good old days" were not all so rosy and innocent. It was interesting to read here - other's experiences - I am thinking right now of the guy/gal/person who said they got Paul McCartney's autograph. Nothing quite so exciting or exotic for me! But I am reminded that my one Nana, when young, used to wait tables downtown and Al Capone was a frequent customer. She said he was a nice guy. And a good tipper

Anyway, yeah, I'm wandering here - you get old, the mind starts to go...

So back to TV, did not watch very much and spent more time listening to the radio, as did peers / school chums.

I had one of these -
Toot A Loop radio, Wikipedia

One of my favorite DJs - John Records Landecker


Back on TV, sorry for disjointedness, I think I might be Pre Senile or something -
(I'm 40 Something, just for clairty's sake. I do often lie though, shave a few years off )

Hamm's beer commercial -


Hope I did these vids right! Several relatives were in computers, so I've always been around this, also longtime net user. Of course you wouldn't know it by my propensity to screw things up.
Too bad computers are not like old TVs where you could "bang on" them to get them working

Enjoying this.

Fashion anyone?

I was the coolest guy in school with my three star jumper, six button waistband trousers and wedge shoes!

OMG, did i really wear them. Lol.

As a male of thirteen i used to have my hair permed? WHY? God knows.

And as for them navy blue knickers girls wore for school!! They went upto their belly buttons..lol

These memories are great. Thanks.

reply to post by plube

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/ab064cce5c8b.jpg[/atsimg]

yes this was one of the best high fi systems to have in your home

I still have mine. Got it in Okinawa many moons ago.
Things have changed but. I don't see too many things that are actually new. Just faster and cheaper...

We had cell phones

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We had Interwebs

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We had PCs

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/f54cbbab8f22.jpg[/atsimg]

We had movie Lazer Dics

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[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/24f56309e936.jpg[/atsimg]

We had Electric cars...

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/b334ac78e431.jpg[/atsimg]

reply to post by Whiffer Nippets


Tell you what i think we should make a vacumm tube computer so that just by banging on it,it will work again...i think that would be a good thing and so easy to do.
I think that things change and i too am getting to the senility stage...but since people are tending to live longer and longer i might really get to enjoy my senility with dignity,....