What are you old enough to remember?

[leebee]

Telephone numbers that started with a name or place, e.g. Howard, Dewey. I still remember our family's first telephone number, which started with Howard.

Yes, our exchange was Jefferson.. JE5-3993.

I remember party lines, phone books, operators, calling information (411), phone booths, collect calls (and the "signals' so mom knew that I'd arrived safely and to NOT accept/pay for the call).
Rotary phone, typewriter, transistor radios, 8-tracks, sunsuits, pedal pushers, could only wear dresses to school, mom changing from her house dress to her dinner clothes before dad came home from work.
JFK's funeral, polio sugar cubes, air raid/bomb drills in school, no seatbelts in cars. In junior high school girls took cooking, sewing, and household management, shorthand, typing, and bookkeeping. Boys took shop. I'm old.

 

[goofyernmost]

I have another one -- no indoor plumbing. Only the rich folks had a bathroom in the house.

Well, that beats me. The only time I had to use an out house was in Vietnam and that was in 1969-70.

I do remember my Grandfather building a cistern in the basement of their house. The piping went to the toilets and bathtubs and kitchen sink were supplied from the cistern. The kitchen sink also had a cold water tap that was directly from the well. Worst tasting water ever. The cistern was filled via roof gutters emptying in the cistern. Big storms sometimes required them blocking off the feed otherwise the dirt floor basement would have been flooded.

They couldn't afford to have that happen because in that same basement, next to the cistern was a pot belly wood stove that sat just under a huge floor grate located in the kitchen. That was the entire heat for the house. In the winter most of the house was closed off and all the living was in the kitchen, bathroom and master bedroom. As a kid I used to stay with them in the summer but once in awhile I stayed in the winter and I was delegated to an upstairs room. I always marveled at the number of blankets and comforters on the bed and the "slight" chill in the air. Honestly, I missed all the clues that the house didn't have a furnace until both my grandmother and grandfather had passed away. It all made sense then, just never occurred to me. You'd think I would have figured it out since I had to go down to the basement every morning and stoke up the wood stove. I always thought that was for hot water. Never could figure out how that worked.

 

[NannyBeBe]

They couldn't afford to have that happen because in that same basement, next to the cistern was a pot belly wood stove that sat just under a huge floor grate located in the kitchen. That was the entire heat for the house. In the winter most of the house was closed off and all the living was in the kitchen, bathroom and master bedroom. As a kid I used to stay with them in the summer but once in awhile I stayed in the winter and I was delegated to an upstairs room. I always marveled at the number of blankets and comforters on the bed and the "slight" chill in the air.

Oh yes, I remember the stove in the cellar of my grandma's house. I used to like to watch Grandpa shovel coal into the stove. And there would be so many blankets on the bed that I could hardly move. Hard times, but better than today in many ways.

 

[AlohaNow]

Taking my passbook to the bank to add to my savings account. Going with Mom to the bank on a Friday so she could get cash for the weekend.

 

[LuvOrlando]

The crushing blow of this scam aimed at little kids, I am still salty.

 

[FigmentSpark]

Crinolins under dresses to make them poof out. I was only 3 the last time I wore one, but they were so itchy, I'll never forget it. Those dresses made cute photos when we look back on our childhood pictures, though.

I also remember my mom telling me to stop singing along with one of the top 40 songs - the title song to "Jesus Christ Superstar". She said it was a sin. Years, later, when we actually watched the video in (Catholic) high school, I got worried the movie was sinful, lol.

 

[DebbieB]

All of the above.

No color TV

My grandparents had the first color TV I saw. I thought it looked so weird. Looking back, it was actually over colored.

JFK's funeral is my earliest memory. I remember the horse and the caisson.

Party line on the phone. We moved when I was 7, thought it was great we had a private line!

National Anthem when TV ended for the night.

 

[Lumpy1106]

Earliest memory - probably watching the moon landings with the family gathered around the B&W TV. My Grandparents had a big console tube TV. My Dad had to tinker with it to get the picture to come on right before the coverage went live.

 

[Lumpy1106]

You want to feel really old? My DS18 graduates HS this year. He was born a year AFTER 9/11. Now THAT feels like it just happened yesterday.

 

[RedAngie]

Telephone numbers that started with a name or place, e.g. Howard, Dewey. I still remember our family's first telephone number, which started with Howard.

Philly kept their “named” phone numbers much longer than many other places. Even after they officially switched to all numbers, many old-timers would still say EM 5-5563 instead of 365-5563.

Zip codes were introduced in the early 1960’s, but I can remember people still addressing mail with Phila 29, Penn. instead of 19129.

 

[cleverclovers]

I am old enough to remember everything that has been mentioned so far.

Me too.

 

[kimmar067]

1) Blockbuster Video ["Please be kind, rewind."]
2) Assassination of RFK and JFK
3) princess telephones
4) penny candy stores
5) the ENTIRE Wizard of Oz movie in black-and-white

 

[kimmar067]

Philly kept their “named” phone numbers much longer than many other places. Even after they officially switched to all numbers, many old-timers would still say EM 5-5563 instead of 365-5563.

...mine used to be WH5-9435 [WH stood for "Whitney" and we didn't use area codes unless it was for a long-distance call!]

 

[kimmar067]

...how about 8-Track players and 8-track tapes? Sometimes it would change tracks right in the middle of a song!

 

[kimmar067]

.....roller skating with 4 wheels [two in front, two in back] BEFORE in-line skates came around.

 

[lucas]

JFK assassinated - 1963
Beatles coming to America - 1964

 

[Babsy]

I am old enough to remember everything listed so far......Plus.....,

1. One room school with a coal stove in the middle of the room for heat, no electricity. different rows for different grades. Our teacher would allow students to take turns wiping the blackboard off with the erasers or ringing the bell when it was time for everyone to come back inside after recess or lunch. I loved ringing that bell!
2. Easter bonnets and Christmas corsages.
3. a small brown paper bag of mixed candy for 1 cent
4. candy cigarettes, candy necklaces
5. no supermarkets, just a community general store
6. my grandmother scalding milk over the wood stove, then slathering the cream on top of warm homemade bread and molasses YUMMY!
7. when Walt Disney was an unknown

a different world, guess I'm getting old

 

[Praying Colonel]

State of the art when I was a kid.

 

[barb969]

I lived in NYC.
An electric Maytag washing machine that hooked up to the kitchen sink with rollers to wring out the clothes. There were cloths lines on the roof.
The family sittIng around the radio. No TV
My Mom and Grandma removing the pin feathers from a Thanksgiving turkey.
The subway cost $.10.
At ChrIstmas the department stores had large toy departments with carnival like rides along with Santa.
Good Humor ice pops cost $.07.
Not going to a swimming pool because my mother was afraid of polio.

 

[RedAngie]

...how about 8-Track players and 8-track tapes? Sometimes it would change tracks right in the middle of a song!

That’s why I never bought 8-tracks. A friend had Meat Loaf’s Bat Out of Hell on 8-track and it changed right at a good part of a song, maybe You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth.

I stuck with vinyl records but would make my own cassette mixes from either radio or my albums. I don’t think I bought a pre-recorded cassette until the later 80s, just before CDs started coming out.