What do you remember...

[Chuck S]

Helm's Bakery trucks...they'd go down the streets in the Los Angeles area and sell baked goods, similar to Ice Cream trucks
Movies without MPAA ratings
Seeing Walt Disney at Disneyland
2 prong ungrounded electrical outlets
Push button transmissions
AM only car radios
Cars without any seat belts

Wringer washing machines

 

[Galahad]

Having to leave the house to play video games.

Having to leave the house to play pinball (what's a video game?)

 

[ChrisnSteph]

Atari
Godzilla marathons
Three's Company and Mel's Diner - the slogan "Eat my Grits!"
Johnny Gage on Emergency!
Record players
Playing outside and my parents not even seeing me until it got dark
Payphones
Writing letters instead of sending email
When Michael Jackson was black
Rabbit ears on our t.v.
Select TV
When MTV was really about the music and videos
Rust colored shag carpet and mirrored walls
My parents spanking in private and public and not worrying if CPS is going to show up
Walking home a half mile from school by myself - when I was in the second grade
And who could forget this:

Though I just learned they're doing a movie remake with Will Ferrel! So maybe my kids will learn what a sleetstack is after all!

 

[cardaway]

Having to leave the house to play pinball (what's a video game?)

Ah yes, pinball with actual steel balls and solenoids instead of pixels and physics routines. (but they still have real pinball machines)

 

[cardaway]

A world without microwave ovens.

 

[AnaheimGirl]

Thinking Pong was the coolest game in the world.
Cars with no seat belts.
Riding in the backs of pick-up trucks.
Computers that used your TV set as a monitor.
The debut of MTV.
TV antennas on the roofs of all the houses.
The Bookmobile and the Bread truck.
Walking to school in kindergarten, supervised only by a 2nd grader.
Using baby oil to get tan, with nary a worry about skin cancer.
Using QT to "tan" and turning orange.
Sears Toughskins jeans.
Bikes with banana seats.
Most families having only one car.
Each girl having only 1 or 2 Barbies, and bringing yours to your friends' houses if you wanted to play with them together.

And as an adult: life in an office before fax machines and e-mail were commonplace -- when you had to wait at least a day for Fed Ex to deliver those important papers, and had to get to the office by 7:00 am to call Europe before they went home.

 

[AnaheimGirl]

When Michael Jackson was black

...and I loved Johnny Gage, too!

 

[OceanAnnie]

I remember a lot of the things mentioned.

- I practically lived on my bike. I had a lot of freedom.
- The crime rate was lower.
- People grew up in one place and didn't move around so much. Even if they did move, it was still in the same county generally.

I remember my grandmother got 10% interest on her CDs . And she was worried because the interest rate had fallen. Gosh. She wouldn't believe interest rates now!

 

[BeNJeNWaFFLe]

2 prong ungrounded electrical outlets

That is all my house has. Are you saying that my house is outdated?

While I am still considered young I remember:
The Bookmobile
When a VCR was new and cost about $500 for a cheap one
No mircrowaves
Those "huge" floppy disks (I still own and operate my Commodore 64)
Jem (Oh how I loved that TV show)
Being able to walk anywhere in town without any worries
Riding my bike to a friends house for "Barbie Parties"

 

[froglady]

I remember the milkman, the breadman, the produce man, the ice cream man (in summer) and the coal man and oil man in winter.

Our insurance man came to our house to collect, along with the paperboy (once my brothers gave up the route) and so did our doctor if we were really sick.

On a sad note, I remember bomb shelters and drills, and lining up at our local junior high to get first polio shots, and then oral vaccine. I remember the neighbor boy who walked with leg braces and crutches, and the friend's mother in the iron lung...later a chest compressor.

 

[pixiemomma]

VCRs
a world without cellphones and the internet (My 6 year old wonders why the people on the Titanic didn't use their cellphones to call for help despite the fact that I've explained to him cellphones weren't around then and they wouldn't have had a signal anyway)

 

[rascalmom]

Riding STANDING UP in the front seat next to my parents.

When none of my friends came from divorced families.

When the first black child came to my elementary school after they closed the all-black school on the other side of town.

Our phone number was Alpine 5 something

My grandmother having a party-line.

Being told to always take 15 cents with me on a date, in case I needed to phone home.

Making "the drag" on Friday nights between the Sonic, the A&W and the bowling alley to see all of our friends. (After putting $2 of gas in my car - about 4 gallons)

Only being able to see a new movie at the theatre about once every 6 weeks. We had one screen and they ran each movie for at least a month.

Having a computer that's backup system was a cassette tape.

How exciting it was to get a princess phone.

 

[sodaseller]

The only video game - Pong!

 

[WebmasterMaryJo]

Pong was so much fun...

I remember ...
The Helms truck delivering baked goods
roller skates with keys
walking to school
having neighborhood friends that all went to school with me
going to the park - by ourselves - to go swimming or play baseball - or just play
When something broke - you fixed it - you didn't go get a new one
tv rabbit ears with aluminum foil and tape when they were broken
Candy bars were a dime
and so was a phone call

 

[Shugardrawers]

My parents having a charge account at the grocery store. We'd take our purchase to the register and tell them to put it on their tab.
My parents sending me to the store on my bike with $1 and a note asking for a pack of cigarettes
Buying coke in a bottle out of a machine (you really had to pull HARD to get it out)
Riding bikes without helmets
Swimming in the river and wading in the creek a mile from the house (no parents then either)

 

[ChristmasElf]

Does anyone else remember "pay toilets" in restaurants? They cost a dime and you put the dime in and turned the handle to get into the stall.

 

[becker1123]

What about searching for empty soda bottles as you walked home from school so you could return them to the store for a dime or a nickel? Or how about when the TV stations used to sign off late at night and there was only fuzz after midnight or 2 am?

In business life, remember when fax machines had that goofy rolled thin paper that would fade from almost anything? Whatever happened to Aldus PageMaker? Do they still use QuarkXpress?

 

[MUFFYCAT]

Pong was so much fun...

I remember ...
roller skates with keys
walking to school
having neighborhood friends that all went to school with me
going to the park - by ourselves - to go swimming or play baseball - or just play
When something broke - you fixed it - you didn't go get a new one
tv rabbit ears with aluminum foil and tape when they were broken
Candy bars were a dime
and so was a phone call

You wrote everything I was going to! Maybe you lived on my block

I also remember:
the book straps that we'd write all over
sleeping in back of station wagons during trips
no seatbelts
Using the Encyclopedia for school projects
AM Radio music stations
Vinyl records and turntables

 

[Caropooh]

PeeChee folders
raking your shag carpet

 

[OceanAnnie]

Riding all over town in the back of a truck (with a bunch of my friends) whenever one of the neighborhood parents needed to run an errand.

No bottled water. I drank from a hose. And I liked it.