I guess I didn't think of myself as "old" until I read this, but this brings back so many great memories.
What was your favorite fast food when you were growing up?
McDonalds was kinda new but my father knew of a no-name lookalike that sold 5 burgers for a dollar. With four kids this was too hard to pass up. I loved that place but now just wonder if it was real beef. It was right near the Hostess day old shop so I also would get my sugar fix of Suzy-Q's!
My parents never drove me to school. I had a bicycle that weighed probably 50 pounds, and only had one speed, (slow).
I -loved- riding my bike to school, it was a true freedom. One of my favorite memories and maybe why I love motorcycles so much.
We didn't have a television in our house until I was 10. It was, of course, black and white, and the station went off the air at 11, after playing the national anthem and a poem about God. It came back on the air at about 6 a.m. and there was usually a locally produced news and farm show on, featuring local people.
Yes, all true. And there were only three stations CBS, ABC, and NBC, and NBC was fuzzy until they put up a tower in town and broadcast on "UHS" channel 30 which was soo high tech. It was my job to keep the TV working, every month I pulled out all the tubes and brought them to the local store where they had a vacuum tube tester. If any were bad I replaced them. My friend's grandparents got the first color TV in the neighborhood and all the kids would meet there on Wednesdays at 7pm to watch the first color transmissions of Lost in Space. It was mind blowing to see it in color!
I never had a telephone in my room.
I did, when I was a teenager. I made it myself from old parts and I ran my own wires from the outside feed. This was "illegal" at the time and my friends were fascinated that I had my own phone in my room in the basement. They had to use their one phone which was always in the kitchen for some reason.
Pizzas were not delivered to our home... But milk was.
True and true. But we always got pizza from a local tavern (there was no such thing as Pizza Hut or Dominos). Never have I tasted a better pizza since and I never expect to again.
All newspapers were delivered by boys and all boys delivered newspapers --my brother delivered a newspaper, six days a week. He had to get up at 5AM every morning.
Seven days a week for me. Those damn Sunday papers were the worst. I remember trying to carry them all on my 20" bike in the snow at 5am. All for about two bucks a week profit and only if everyone paid you on time which was rare.
Movie stars kissed with their mouths shut. At least, they did in the movies. There were no movie ratings because all movies were responsibly produced for everyone to enjoy viewing, without profanity or violence or most anything offensive.
True until the 007 movies came out. We were watching one with my friend's dad at the drive in and we saw a boobie! We talked about it for weeks and my friend's dad got in trouble with his wife for taking us to see it. He swore he had no idea that was going to happen. Gotta love Bond.
Head lights dimmer switches on the floor.
Always thought they were much better on the floor. I have no idea why they moved them to this day.
Ignition switches on the dashboard.
1965 Ford Mustang.
Pant leg clips for bicycles without chain guards.
We just used clothes pins.
Soldering irons you heat on a gas burner.
My father had a new fangled electric one but it was huge and I kept getting shocks as well as burned.
Using hand signals for cars without turn signals.
That was required learning in high school driver's ed.
And what about 78 and 45 RPM records? 33 RPM was high tech for the day. And the 8 track car player was the MP3 of my teenage years. I bought a rare 8 track recorder from Radio Shack (still have it). I made a small fortune selling bootleg 8 track tapes to my friends. I also made a small fortune selling groovy light boxes that you hooked to your speaker wires and would flash with the music. My friend had a great reel to reel tape recorder that could actually record music without much hiss. Loved watching the reels go round and round.
But the best memory of all is that every night you ate dinner at the table with your family. No TV, no computers, no Xbox, no iPads, no smart phones, and it was great.