Memories of old people (your memories)

Discussion in 'The Chatterbox' started by gorgo2, Sep 10, 2017.

  1. gorgo2

    gorgo2 geezerhood

    Correct title should be, "Old people's memories (yours)." Please post any recollections you'd like that will indicate your advancing age.

    I remember when TV did not have digital super-clarity. Even the strongest broadcasts on VHF had just a hint of blur and the colors, as I recall, were either slightly muted or off (the set needed adjusting). UHF, where I lived near Chicago, was always lesser powered and accompanied by a slight degree of snow that for the longest time I assumed was supposed to be there. I'd love to see how young folks today would react to seeing the quality of broadcast TV circa 1975.

    Also remember the first time I really saw color TV, because it was in my early teens. We'd had a big color floor model in the early '70s but it fried before we moved to southern Illinois when I was 10. Money was tight for awhile so we had a tiny black and white portable but a few years later, around 1982, Dad got a 15 or so inch color set from Western Auto. The first thing I got to see was the colored brilliance of storm radar, and was stunned. Most beautiful thing I'd ever seen, I couldn't quit staring at it.

    VHS was also fuzzy but wonderful when you had never heard of a DVD. I didn't make the switch until around 2002, I think.

    Tape hiss...took it for granted, and vinyl dust cracks/pops.

    Yes, I'm feeling old. Somebody join me.
     
    Last edited: Sep 10, 2017
  2. Bama Samurai

    Bama Samurai with Laser-like Focus

  3. CarlfromMO

    CarlfromMO Well-Known Member

    My parents grew up during the depression, (that was in the 1930's for you young guys). They would tell me things like,
    "Get a job with a company and stick with it. They will recognize hard work and you can work your way up."
    "You don't quit a job."
    "Don't throw that away. You might need it someday."
     
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  4. Jayaruh

    Jayaruh The Cackalacky House Pet

    Supporting Vendor
    I grew up in the 50s. Disneyland was new and the Mickey Mouse Club was really cool. Walt Disney had a tv show on Sunday nights as I remember and they ran some really neat shows. One was about Davy Crocket. Because of that, Davy Crocket merchandise was everywhere to be found, and the Ballad of Davy Crocket was on the radio. We lived in Texas, and we were especially tuned in to Davy Crocket because of the Alamo. Well, our family went to San Antonio when I was about 6 or 7 to see the Alamo. We were eating at a Mexican restaurant that had a mariachi band. My little brother asked if they could play "Davy Crocket." I don't remember them knowing that tune for some reason.
     
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  5. PickledNorthern

    PickledNorthern Fabulous, the unicorn

    I remember when my grandma got her first microwave. She was the only one any of us knew who had one. The whole family was there looking at it like it was some mystical box. Grandma made breakfast for everyone, and used it to cook the bacon. It was horrible.
     
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  6. SharptoothC

    SharptoothC I bite..........

    Using the outhouse at my great-grandparents' house. Family reunions at my great uncle's tobacco farm - old clapboard cabin and food set up on a flatbed trailer. Wood stoves at my other great grandmother's house. No TV there. Everyone would gather around the old pump organ and sing. Space shuttle Challenger blowing up on live TV in elementary school. Recording songs to tape from the radio - we would wait for the top 20 countdown and try to hit record at just the right time. Bell bottom pants. Dad's new Volkswagen Karmen Ghia.

    Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk
     
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  7. PickledNorthern

    PickledNorthern Fabulous, the unicorn

    -Everyone smoked everywhere, all the time.

    -I remember our first video game console. I was maybe six?? It was made by RCA and had two ten key pads, one on each side, left and right. It played a series of moving, square block games: bowling, pong etc..

    [​IMG]

    -It was completely normal to bring guns to school during hunting season. Half the kids in school had a gun in their car.

    -In our school play one year we used one of my dad's revolvers onstage, and a student fired blanks backstage.

    -In elementary school, if you got caught fighting, they would bring you to the gym and put boxing gloves on you and make you finish. In high school if you wanted to fight, you went across the street to the Ford dealer parking lot and did it there. If a teacher was around, they would sort of watch from the school side of the street to make sure it didn't get out of hand, but otherwise left it be.

    -Having a rooftop style TV antenna that you had to go outside and turn the pole with a pipe wrench, depending on what channel you wanted to watch.

    -Pop machines that sold glass bottles, and there were always crates next to them to return your empties.

    -Soda fountains were still around.
     
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  8. MR41

    MR41 Well-Known Member

    Rotary phones.
    15 oz. glasses Coke bottles from vending machines
    Joe Camel was on T.V. ; MTV wasn't.
    Personal computers had 80 kilobytes of RAM(IBM 8088)
    Trans-AMs & Chevy Irocs
     
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  9. Morman Bridge

    Morman Bridge Well-Known Member

    Driving my uncles dilapidated model T.
    Grandmas out house.
    The police taking my beer, and then following me home to make sure I got home ok.
    The sense of pure doom of the Vietnam War.
    Muscle cars.
    Kagoogle.
    Polaroid instant cameras.
    Rotary dial telephones.
    Party line phone arrangements.
    Phone booths.
    Drive in movie theaters.
    There was a lot more. I wish I could recall it all.
     
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  10. Eeyore

    Eeyore Well-Known Member

    We got a phone when I was 7 years old. Our phone number had four digits

    I think I was 10 or 11 years old when we got colour TV.
     
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  11. Metro

    Metro Well-Known Member

    +1 on rotary phone;
    Atari;
    Beta tapes, then VHS...
    curtains that looked like a rug;
    Back to The Future II looking futuristic!
     
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  12. Paul Turner

    Paul Turner outside the quote(s) now

    Live organ music at baseball games
    Boys(and young adult men)wearing their baseball caps FORWARD
    Rise Original Shave Cream
    Westerns on TV(I was too young to appreciate them, but my parents were huge fans of Gunsmoke.)
     
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  13. Keithmax

    Keithmax Breeds Pet Rocks

    Riding my bicycle without a helmet, playing with firecrackers and gasoline. Trans Am with the big bird on the hood. No cell phone no papers you just came home when it was dark.

    Pong, Atari, IBM AT computer was a big deal.

    Pools had high diving boards and were 12 feet deep.
     
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  14. Bobcat

    Bobcat Well-Known Member

    Mom setting two radios in opposite sides of the room so we could experience the demonstration of "Stereo" they were going to broadcast.
    The family going to the airport to see the airplane of the future, a Turboprop.
     
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  15. Col C

    Col C Well-Known Member

    Black and white tv. We had a huge 20 foot tall antenna on the roof and on a good day we got 4 channels - and one of those was so "snowy" you couldn't really watch it. Also watching football with no instant replays.
     
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  16. Paul Turner

    Paul Turner outside the quote(s) now

    Funny, I was thinking about the football one. These days, the "instant replay" of the previous play quite often cuts off a part of the next play. No need for that!!
     
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  17. Sara-s

    Sara-s This Pun for Hire

    I can recall rotary phones, manual typewriters, and test patterns on the TV.
     
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  18. Col C

    Col C Well-Known Member

    Also I very clearly remember almost every other month my father would pull all the tubes out of the tv and we would go down to the drug store where they had the "tube tester". We'd buy which ever one tested bad and go home and put them all back into the tv.
     
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  19. Eeyore

    Eeyore Well-Known Member

    I guess most people in this community can ;)

    Or am I overestimating the average age (50 plus)?
     
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  20. Sara-s

    Sara-s This Pun for Hire

    Probably not, at least for participants in this thread. Another thing I can remember was swimsuits made of thick, heavy fabric. I don't know how anyone stayed afloat in them. I can also remember gas prices as low as 25 cents a gallon.
     
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