What was it like "back then"?

[retrorich]

What was it like "back then"?

"Back then"

I remember when Harry Truman defeated Thomas Dewey for the presidency.
I remember when popular U.S. cars included LaSalle, Hupmobile, Terraplane, Nash Rambler.
I remember when the death of FDR had the world in tears.
I remember the end of World War II and the joyous return of our troops.
I remember staring through the plate glass window of a radio repair shop at the first TV set I had ever seen. The only thing being telecast was a test pattern, but it was totally fascinating, nonetheless.
I remember my first trip to the polls to vote for Lyndon Johnson.
I remember the Korean and Viet Nam wars.
I remember the flower children.
I remember the "four dead in Ohio."
I remember the burning of bras and draft cards.
I remember buying my first home computer (the IBM PC jr.). It had 128k memory, which I proudly upgraded to 256k.
I remember the assassinations of JFK, RFK and MLK, Jr.
I remember the "shocking" TV debuts of Elvis Presley and The Beatles.
Etc.

Only problem is, I have trouble remembering yesterday. :biglaugh:

I am grateful to Mr_Spinkles for posting this thread. It made me newly aware of the wealth of memories that I have. It is my sincere hope that today's young people will also create a vast album of memories and, in the process, find a way to bring peace to this planet.

 

[Yerda]

Sometimes it seems many adults forget that people my age and younger are too young to remember the Gulf War, or the fall of the Berlin Wall.

I remember the outbreak of the Gulf War, I was a wise old seven. Some of the older boys in school told me it was world war three. I was such a trusting child, I fully believed them. I shot home with heroic haste that day to make sure my house was still there. Imagine my disappointment at finding the entire street still standing and Hitler nowhere in site!

The fall of the Berlin Wall was a puzzler to me, some guys on T.V. vandalising public property, I thought to myself "those men are going to jail". I'd been caught only days before, with a couple of affiliates breaking slats (by karate kick, just like Bruce Lee) on my next door neighbours fence and been threatened with the police by the entirety of the three families represented in our demolition agency. Not one camera crew showed...

Anyway, the year after the soviet union disintegrated the reformed state (the CIS I think it was called at the time) were drawn in the same group as Scotland in the European Championships.

We humped them.

The humiliation of losing 3-0 to Scotland left a legacy visible now as much as ever. Quality of life in Russia is said to be lower now than twenty years ago, and some lefty journalists blame America, free trade and the IMF. But you ask any Russian, they gave up when they couldn't beat Scotland at football anymore.

 

[Majikthise]

I remember sitting in the day room between classes at air force training school and watching the gloriuos shuttle launch(they were all gloriuos).I saw a burst of flames on the tube and was confused.Was that supposed to happen?The announcers report made me sick to my stomach.some of our finest men and women were gone in the blink of an eye.It gave me pause ,also, to think that I would soon be preflighting aircraft with human beings on them .

 

[Christopher Krajewski]

Think I care. Those were thr easy days for religious minded people (in the seventies). Now, all the thiefs are in the churches:woohoo: .

 

[Christopher Krajewski]

Must be a good old days review of Faith. Actually atheism was a faith too then:162: .

 

[anders]

I was some 11 years old when I first saw a TV transmission. That was in southern Sweden, and the program was a Danish one, not very successfully received. That summer, give or take one year, I saw, for the very first time in my life, a live black man. What was special about him IMO was not his skin, but his African way of dressing, and his selling machines for soft ice. Yummy! Mind you, I felt more foreign in my western Swedish town of Gothenburgh, being born just outside of Stockholm (east coast), than how I regarded my classmate who had a Baltic surname and a very obvious Baltic heritage. He spoke the local dialect, and mine was a very neutral to standard one.

My Dad is 60, so he lived through all of those events. He always tells me about what it was like when Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated.

I'm not surprised that young Americans like your father remember things like that. I don't remember the assassination, but suppose that I was shocked when reading of it. A more clear memory is from the Sunday in end October, 1950, when I returned home from Sunday School and saw flags at half mast, and learned that king Gustaf V Adolf had died.

Where were you when we landed on the Moon?

No idea at all. The significant space thing to me was when the USSR launched the first Sputnik. That summer, I tutored a boy who was about to go to high school, in maths and English. That was more important to me, then and as a memory. (Yes, he did all right.)

 

[Mr Spinkles]

The significant space thing to me was when the USSR launched the first Sputnik. That summer, I tutored a boy who was about to go to high school, in maths and English. That was more important to me, then and as a memory. (Yes, he did all right.)

What was going through your mind when that happened? Were you glad that mankind had launched its first satellite, or afraid of the growing power of the USSR?

 

[Scuba Pete]

Actually atheism was a faith too then:162:

Yeah, but we called it "Communism"...

 

[anders]

What was going through your mind when that happened? Were you glad that mankind had launched its first satellite, or afraid of the growing power of the USSR?

I just thought that it was interesting from a scientific point of view, and didn't think of it as a power thing. That summer I spent at a place less than 50 miles from the then USSR border in the Baltic. I have never really been afraid of the USSR.

 

[fromthe heart]

I remember when:
it took at least 5 minutes for the small black and white tv to warm up.
Nearly everyone's mom was at home after school.
Girls all wore the same ugly gym uniforms.
Hardly anyone owned a pure bred dog.
A quarter was a big allowance.
There was no such thing as pantyhose.
Laundry detergent came with free glasses,dishes or towels hidden inside.
It was a big deal to go out to eat.
a 57 chevy was a dream car that everyone wanted to own.
Girls and boys went steady for a long time prior to getting engaged and an engagement lasted at least a year prior to marriage.
No one locked their cars or houses. No one asked where the car keys were because they were usually in the ignition.
the best afternoon past time was laying in the grass looking at the clouds saying,"That one looks like..."
there were no such things as safety caps.
When being sent to the principals office meant you were really in trouble when you got home.
Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, Laurel and Hardy, Howdy dowdy, the Peanut Gallery, the Lone Ranger, Roy and Dale,Trigger and Buttermilk.
The perfect age was old enough to know better and too young to care.
Candy ciggarettes,wax coke bottles with colored sugar water inside,soda pop machines that you slid the glass bottles to the opening to get them out,coffee shops with tableside jukeboxes,washtub wringers,green stamps,drive in movies,tinker toys, the Fuller Brush man,5 cent baseball cards with a piece of gum which was the reason you bought them to begin with,35cent gasoline and only one type...leaded,45 RPM records.

The list goes on and on...I even remember when the important decissions I made was done with eeny-meeny-miney-moe!

I remember the "good old days".

 

[½ Sane]

Warning this site could ruin your day.
http://www.frontiernet.net/~cdm/age1.html

Enter your birth date and read what it finds. I’m surprised I’m older then a few celebrities listed.

Shoot, I feel like I’m about 25 years old most days so that site can shove it. :149:

 

[Sunstone]

you were:

44 years old at the time of the 9-11 attack on America
42 years old on the first day of Y2K
40 years old when Princess Diana was killed in a car crash
38 years old at the time of Oklahoma City bombing
37 years old when O. J. Simpson was charged with murder
36 years old at the time of the 93 bombing of the World Trade Center
34 years old when Operation Desert Storm began
32 years old during the fall of the Berlin Wall
29 years old when the space shuttle Challenger exploded
27 years old when Apple introduced the Macintosh
26 years old during Sally Ride's travel in space
24 years old when Pres. Reagan was shot by John Hinckley, Jr.
22 years old at the time the Iran hostage crisis began
19 years old on the U.S.'s bicentennial Fourth of July
17 years old when President Nixon left office
15 years old when Alabama Gov. George C. Wallace was shot
12 years old at the time the first man stepped on the moon
11 years old when Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated
8 years old during the Watts riot
6 years old at the time President Kennedy was assassinated
2 years old when Hawaii was admitted as 50th of the United States
not yet 1 year old when the Soviet satellite Sputnik 1 was launched

Most of the things I recall happening during my life were not so much these headline making events as they were social changes.

 

[Ceridwen018]

14 years old at the time of the 9-11 attack on America
12 years old on the first day of Y2K
10 years old when Princess Diana was killed in a car crash
7 years old at the time of Oklahoma City bombing
7 years old when O. J. Simpson was charged with murder
5 years old at the time of the 93 bombing of the World Trade Center
3 years old when Operation Desert Storm began
2 years old during the fall of the Berlin Wall

Very interesting.

 

[½ Sane]

If that site made you feel old and your ready LOL…..
http://www.jjchandler.com/tombstone/ :biglaugh:

 

[Sunstone]

Ceridwen, what did you think when you saw the 9/11 attacks at 14? Did it seem like the end of the world to you? You were religious back then, weren't you? Did you find a religious meaning in them? Just curious.

 

[Scuba Pete]

So Sunstone... we are the same age! Kewl!

 

[Jaymes]

"14 years old at the time of the 9-11 attack on America
12 years old on the first day of Y2K
10 years old when Princess Diana was killed in a car crash
7 years old at the time of Oklahoma City bombing
7 years old when O. J. Simpson was charged with murder
5 years old at the time of the 93 bombing of the World Trade Center
3 years old when Operation Desert Storm began
2 years old during the fall of the Berlin Wall"

I remember standing in the school bathrooms with a few classmates talking about the OJ Simpson trial... and seeing the pictures from the Oklahoma City bombing.

 

[The Voice of Reason]

I remember my best friends Dad getting a sheet of plastic in the mail, that you peeled off the backing and stuck it over the TV screen - the top was blue, the middle was kind of orange, and the bottom was green - VOILA!! Instant color TV. Everyone thought it was the cat's meow.

I remember being 6 years old - a kid that lived in the apartment two doors over came home on a pair of crutches (he had twisted his ankle in a basketball game), and all of the other kids were crowded around the stairwell chanting at him, so I joined in - we were all chanting "******, ******". I honestly thought that we were cheering for him for having hurt his ankle in the basketball game (as a means of support). My Dad came home and blistered my butt 'til it bled. From that day to this, I know the true meaning of the word.

I grew up in the south, and remember that blacks had to sit in the balcony of the theater to watch movies. I remember black and white water fountains, blacks sitting at the back of the bus, etc. I am in 100% agreement with Deut - progress has been slow, but it has also been steady.

I remember the first toy that any of my friends got for Christmas that was electric - it was a toy tank that had a wire running to a flashlight handle with two switches - one for forward and one for back. You talk about being a popular kid. That same Christmas, I got Lincoln Logs and I was thrilled beyond anything you can imagine.

I remember when McDonald's raised the price of their hamburgers from 15 cents to 18 cents - and my best friends Dad (they were Catholic, with 6 kids) ranting about the price gouging, and how he would never eat there again!

I remember my Dad trading an old farmer in North Carolina a grenade for a sword from the Revolutionary War. Dad asked him what he would take for the sword, and the old farmer said he had never seen a grenade. We took him to the grenade range, Dad showed him how to throw a dummy grenade, then gave him three live ones to "get the hang of it". He gave the old guy a live one, and we got the sword. The farmer was on cloud 9.

I remember being sent home from school for JFK's assassination.

I remember being in Munich when they tore down the Berlin Wall (my wife and I were on vacation).

I remember being awestruck and watching the crowds on TV when Neal Armstrong walked on the moon. NOBODY moved a muscle while he was on.

I remember Jack Parr as the host of The Tonight Show.

I remember when "Mighty Mouse" was the best cartoon on TV - he was on right before Howdy Doody and Buffalo Bob.

We were poor growing up, and I remember Tuesday night was "Baloney Grind Up" night. Mom would bolt the meat grinder onto the side of the kitchen counter and we'd grind baloney for the meat on our sandwich - LIVING IN TALL COTTON!!!

I remember my grandparents house, and going into the root cellar to get canned vegetables that had been put up in the summer. I can also remember canning the vegetables.

I remember my grandmothers house had a bathtub with four lions feet that was about 5 inches off the ground.

I remember the washing machine with the wringer on top to squeeze out the excess water before you hung the clothes on the line.

I remember my cousins house with the outhouse - and how cold it was in the winter, walking on that dirt path in the evening. Not to be too graphic, but I can remember why you had the corncobs separated into "Brown" and "White".

I could go on, but I'll let someone else take the floor for a while.

Strongly reminiscing,
TVOR

 

[½ Sane]

I remember my mom making sure we ate right during hard times. She would always sit at the table and talk but very seldom ate with us. I found out one sad day she was waiting for us to finish so she could secretly eat what was left on our plates.

I remember my dad sleeping in a frozen car at the end of a 1 mile gravel driveway because he had to work the next day. The snow was to deep to get back home.

I remember the first time my dad said “I love you Ramon” It was Thanksgiving Day 2004.

I’ll never forget the day I stood crying with a .357 magnum to my head. I’m glad I didn’t pull that trigger. With that said I remember the day I was arrested and sent to a psychiatric hospital for 72 hours. :biglaugh: I met some of the most intelligent people I’ve ever met in my life in there and I’m not talking about the doctors. No joke. I highly recommend you try it once.

I remember the day a voice in my head said “It is complete. You’ll never have to get drunk again”, and I haven’t since. :jiggy:

I’m much happier because of these memories. :woohoo:

 

[Ceridwen018]

Those are some great stories, TVOR.

Ceridwen, what did you think when you saw the 9/11 attacks at 14? Did it seem like the end of the world to you? You were religious back then, weren't you? Did you find a religious meaning in them? Just curious.

I was in Mrs. Fisher's English class. One of my classmates had come in late to school because he'd had a doctor's appointment, and on his way to school he and his mom heard about it on the radio. Until then, I don't think anyone in my school had been aware. The teachers turned on the TV's in the 7th and 8th grade rooms, but they wouldn't let any of the kids younger than that watch.

To be honest, god didn't even cross my mind. I really didn't understand it at first--I didn't realize the significance of it until days later, when it was still all over the screens, and the death tolls kept rising.