Posted by Michelle/AL on 3/2/07 10:04pm
Msg #177985

OT: Memory Lane Unplugged - Final Chapter

I had no idea that NotRot was full of men and women who were….computer whizzes, geeks, engineers. I have to admit that I had no clue about most of the computer stuff you guys were talking about but I did learn something.

Do I dare go back down memory lane – but this time focus on the household items? Not sure why I’m feeling so nostalgic these days but I am so….

I remember cameras with individual, bluish flashbulbs that had to be changed after every photo taken. The bulb was hot but I still couldn’t resist playing with it. It was like a combination of glass and plastic. I remember my parents' cars had those small triangular shaped windows that you could push open and direct outside air to the perfect place on your body – without having to roll down the window and mess up your hair. I remember when anything and everything liquid came in a glass containers: vegetable oil, alcohol, milk, Vaseline. I remember how easy it was to break those bottles. Remember mercurochrome (sp?) that red stuff we had to put on scrapes and bruises and how much it burned! Then Bactine came out and changed kids’ lives forever. Am I the only one who remembers Blue and Green Chip stamps from grocery stores? You filled up the books with stamps and turned them in at redemption centers for neat gifts like blenders, toasters and toaster ovens. What about televisions with buttons for “tint”, “vertical and horizontal hold”. I was the TV tuner expert in my family. No one could fix the picture better than I could. Last of all….I remember train crossings at busy intersections and when a train halted traffic, no one complained, everyone would get out of their cars and mingled and talk with other people and all of the kids had to wave to the conductor who stood at the back of the caboose. (Do trains even have cabooses anymore?)

Okay..I'm done. My next 10 postings will be notary-related. I promise!

Reply by Larry/Ca on 3/2/07 10:20pm
Msg #177986

I am way too old as I...

remember everything here and in the last thread. I embrace all that is new and wish I were to.

Reply by Charles_Ca on 3/2/07 10:36pm
Msg #177989

Looks like Michelle has thrown down the gauntlet! Do you...

remember when the telephone hung on the kitchen wall and you had to turn the crank to ring other people. Our phone ring was a long and a short and we had 4 parties on the same line and everyone listened into each others conversations. I had a friend whose dad owned the Bryant Pond (Maine) Telephone Company. Their phone number was Bryant Pond 46 and when I was in college the operators used to tell me that there was not such number so I used to dial up the operator and ask for the President of Bryant Pond Telephone Company and I always got through. Their system ran on dry cell (batteries) they had one line man and the switchboard was in the living room. Anyone remember the names of the early exchanges, ours in Sebago (Maine) used to be Niagara followed by 4 digits. Ok Michelle, top that!

Reply by Michelle/AL on 3/2/07 10:41pm
Msg #177992

Charles, you're kidding me, right?

Something tells me you're serious. You really do remember phones with a crank? The ones I remember were just for fun. Now I do remember "party lines" and we had one once for six months. I also remember phone numbers with letters. Ours was AX4-7048. But I have NEVER called anyone on a phone that needed to be cranked and I still don't know anyone who owns a utility company! Charles...are you rich? Single? Sorry, wrong website.

Reply by Charles_Ca on 3/2/07 10:50pm
Msg #177995

No Michelle, I'm not kidding, however...

Maine was somewhat of a technological backwater (still is I hear). Yes, New England Telephone and Telegraph were as modern as anyone else. My parents had a summer home in a very remote rural area of Maine and that really was the only telephone service. With the number of people in the area I would not be surprised if Bryant Pond Telephone is still in existence and may still have crank phones. Bryant Pond Telephone if I remember correctly, had 60 subscribers, not exactly a technological giant but they did eke out a living in one of the most beautiful places on the planet.

Reply by christiSocal on 3/2/07 11:07pm
Msg #178000

I STILL have blue chip stamps!

And they are still good too. I looked them up online. I was amazed they were still around. My phone number when I was a kid was Clinton(CL)4-5517. You guys are reminding me of all sorts of things

Reply by Stamper_WI on 3/2/07 11:13pm
Msg #178001

2 long 2 short

I lived in the cascade mountains. If the phone rang 2 long/2short rings, it was for us. You just ignored all the other ringing. Also, my parents gave me several books of green stamps to buy a set of luggage to go off to college. Once there, if I needed to get mail to them fast, we "airmailed" it. Special thin paper and envelope and extra postage. I forget how fast it got there.
Forget calling home. Each floor in the dorm had one payphone in the hall. It had to be life and death to call home collect. The whole dorm had 1 TV down in the basement.
I would fly home from WI to CA on student standby for $76.00 round trip. I would take any empty seat for that price UNLESS a soldier was trying to get somewhere. Got to know a lot of soldiers sitting in the Minneapolis airport in the middle of the night. A can of Campbells tomatoe soup was 15 cents.
Oh yeah, I paid for college by investing my milk money (about $45.00) in Lucky Stores when I was 14. I worked at the A&P during college and walked and rode a bike. My first car was a used 1968 VW Bug I paid $400 for in 1972. The new ford pickup was out of my range at $2500.

Reply by Stamper_WI on 3/2/07 11:15pm
Msg #178004

and gas

was 25 cents a gallon

Reply by Katrina Arnaud on 3/2/07 11:38pm
Msg #178009

Re: and gas

Do you remember the Flying A gas stations and the glass containers that held the gas?

Reply by Susan Fischer on 3/2/07 11:59pm
Msg #178012

Oooohhh, and the swirly thing when the gas was pumping... n/m

Reply by Stamper_WI on 3/3/07 12:35am
Msg #178017

Re: Oooohhh, and the swirly thing when the gas was pumping...

We got dishes from the gas station and ALL detergent

Reply by Susan Fischer on 3/3/07 12:40am
Msg #178020

And Green Stamps! n/m

Reply by Katrina Arnaud on 3/3/07 4:15am
Msg #178032

Re: Oooohhh, and the swirly thing when the gas was pumping...

Wasn' t the detergent in the oil or something like that? My family got towels from Breeze detergent and depression glass from the oatmeal cereal. Oh, yeah, my mom bought Cheeze Whiz in a little juice glass and peanut butter in a metal glass.

Reply by Susan Fischer on 3/2/07 11:19pm
Msg #178006

In Yreka, CA, when I was a girl spending summers with

my Grandmother, Maxie, her number was Victor 2475. You didn't have to dial the prefix VI, just the numbers unlike San Francisco (MIssion 8-3864).

A phenomina occurred for a time in my teens - KYA and KEWB were the two rock 'n Roll stations in the City. Bob Mitchell was the evening DJ on KYA during 'Dedications' - you called the station and dedicated a song to someone (s), and he read the Dedications before the song (8 pm to 10 pm, or close.) It was so popular, the phone calls somehow interconnected and we used to 'talk on the Busy Signal:' Conversations went something like this: "Hi, [nah-uh], what is, [nah-uh], your name [nah-uh...]" Remember the sound of the busy signal? And someone would answer their name, and so we chatted to strangers on the Busy Signal. Got to meet lots of great kids, make friends, visit schools. Finally, the Ma Bell figured it out, and the Busy Signal was gone.

But not Rock 'n Roll, good radio stations, making friends through the ether, or technology.

Cheers!
Susie

Reply by Jersey_Boy on 3/3/07 12:54am
Msg #178023

You're making me feel young...

The day I got my driver's license gas was 89 cents a gallon. I remember it because I thought it was funny that my first car was an 89 Honda Civic and gas was 89 Cents. Got my drivers license in 1997.

When I was a kid (about 14) there was a lady at the Oaklyn Meat Market who would sell us cigarettes if there weren't any other customers in the store. We could get a pack of Marlboro for $1.75. If that lady wasn't working or the store was busy, we needed $2.50 in quarters to buy them from a machine at the Diner. We were so pissed when we had to spend that extra 75 cents. Circa 1994.

Reply by christiSocal on 3/3/07 1:33am
Msg #178028

I was already a Grandma in 97!

And when I quit, cigs were 35cents a pack. Did I already tell you that? The memory ain't what it used to be... Young'in

Reply by dickb/wi on 3/3/07 1:55pm
Msg #178128

jersey boy, you are young....i got......

my drivers license in 1945.......my 1st car was a 1949 plymouth delux for $300.......when i started smoking [ quit 30 years ago] cigs were 11 cents a pack...we mowed lawns and shoveled side walks for 10 cents......milk was deliverd to the house by the quart in glass bottles and the milk man had a wagon and 1 horse.....in cold weather the milk [was not homoginized in those days] would freeze and the cream would push the paper cap off and it would look like a cream cicle, which my brother and i would break off and eat and put the paper top back on so my mother wouldn't notice....the ice truck would come by and deliver ice to the homes for the ice box.....when the ice man was in the home we would take his ice pick and chip off slivers of ice and the run...that was our treat for the day [sucking on ice chips]...we watched jack armstrong;tom mix;green hornet;buck rogers; and others on radio...ah yes as the song says "those were the days my friend, those were the days"....

Reply by BrendaTx on 3/3/07 7:22am
Msg #178045

Re: Looks like Michelle has thrown down the gauntlet! Do you...

When I was in kindergarten our phone number was BE3-1645 or Belmont3-1645.

Never saw a crank phone work, but did see one in my great grand-parents' home. Rotary phones were in homes in my area by the time I came around.

Party lines were a pita. Dad had a party line. You talked knowing that someone was listening. As recent as '95 my cousin had a party line in East Texas. Very rural. He and his wife were in their 20's and they were really patient with their elder eavesdropper.

It was funny. They'd be talking to me on the phone and then casually say, "Hey Miz Lonnie, do you remember what time Mama said we were supposed to meet them in Nacogdoches?" SHE'D ANSWER before she thought.

Reply by Ernest__CT on 3/3/07 6:50am
Msg #178037

Sylvania Blue Dot Press 25 flashbulbs (the only brand and model I'd buy) required two 1 1/2 volt batteries to make 'em flash. Anybody who looked at the flash had after-image spots for several minutes. My first camera took 120 film, never any brand but Kodak.

Our phone number was 6606. We had one telephone, on the first landing of the front stairs. The big, black Western Electric 500 set (rotary-dial) was heavy enough to break a foot if it fell. The cords were all straight, not coils, with fabric coverings. When phone numbers were changed from four digits to a two-letter-plus-one-digit exchange plus four digits my father decided that he didn't want to keep 6606 as the last four digits. Our exchange was HIlltop 5 (what became 445 when All-Digit Dialing came in); across the river the exchange was GIbson x (I can't remember what the digit was).

Milk was delivered in quart glass bottles with a cardboard cap a couple of times a week. The cream would float on top (it was before homoginized milk became the norm). Pure cream was delivered in pint bottles. Raw (unpasteurized) milk was available if one wanted it.

S&H Green Stamps bought my parents goodies and me toys; there was a redemption store in the town across the river. (Later one had to Stamp shop by catalog.) We'd shop at stores that gave 'em, and if we were buying gas away from home Dad would buy only at stations that gave Green Stamps. Trivia: S&H stood for Sperry and Hutchins.

Reply by BetsyMI on 3/3/07 10:04am
Msg #178082

I worked for an airline starting in 1967 and back then everything was done on paper. I'd write down what flights you wanted on a file card and crank the arm down on this old machine to indicate a seat had been sold. The cards would get deposited in a belt in front of me and every 20 minutes they'd run the belts and all the cards would shoot to a back room where they were filed by hand. We wore big old headsets and they had different colored lights on the phone to indicate where the calls were coming from...Grand Rapids was green, Toledo was red, etc.

We 'fondly' referred to missing or misfiled cards normally as "no-recs". One year they were remodeling the office, ripping out ductwork and ceiling tiles, and there were a bunch of reservation cards missing, but no one knew this. When they tore down the ceiling, tons of 'no-recs' fell out of the ceiling since they'd been stuck somewhere in route to the back room for years probably. What a hoot. If you're reservation was ever missing when you called, maybe yours was stuck in the ceiling!

They were flying viscounts back then and DC-6's and I thought it was really a fast paced world. Flight attendants were called 'stewardesses' and they were all women, no men. Working for an airline was a really exciting career and I've seen drastic changes take place over 35 years!!

Reply by Stamper_WI on 3/3/07 10:35am
Msg #178091

Disney land

The last time I went to Disney land in the 60's I didn't use all my ride tickets because I was a preteen and my Grandmother took me. She got really tired before we used them up so we left. Antiques dealer bought the book from me. The face value was 50 cents a ride and there were 4 tickets left. He gave me $30. Also bought my Dennis the Menace spoon I got out of a box of Cherrios.

Reply by dickb/wi on 3/3/07 2:01pm
Msg #178130

hmmmm....i wonder what my..

blue shirley temple bowl that came in a box of cereal is worth.....it's about 67 years old....

Reply by jojo_MN on 3/4/07 11:21am
Msg #178234

One sold for $70 on www.spglass.com n/m