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Regular HD readers know how old I am, but just for fun how about a trip down memory lane to a very different time.
When I was a child an ice cream cone was a dime, a slice of pizza was $0.15. There were no malls. Where there are malls today, there were dairy and cattle farms.
When I was really young our milk was delivered by horse and wagon kept cool by blocks of ice.
A man regularly walked down our street pulling a cart seeking to sharpen knives and fix umbrellas.
We had one phone with the line shared by other people.
I rode on trolley cars – not in San Francisco
My mother’s clothes dryer was a wringer on the washer and a clothes line out the kitchen window.
My parents feared polio and we kids feared the mumps and measles and the shots that came with them – and the doctor came to the house.
At the theatre the show included news, cartoons and two movies and it cost $0.35.
We got a half pint of milk each day at school. When I was in junior high the cafeteria served my favorite – mash potatoes with gravy – $0.07.
Our black and white TV had a 12” screen and “rabbit ears” with aluminum foil assistance. We had seven channels, and they went off the air at midnight.
Cars did not have seatbelts, but the side windows had “wings” and the tires whitewalls.
We played with cap guns. My heavy weapon was a rifle that shot ping pong balls – nobody was shot in school.
My first new car cost $1,895 and the monthly payment was $49.
The year i graduated high school, the average Dow Jones closing was 691.74
Even in kindergarten we walked to school by ourselves with student crossing guards along the way.
Once on the way to school we were fooling around and someone swung a sweater and the zipper sliced open my head. I was bleeding. When I got to school the teacher looked at it and said, “you’ll be alright” and I was.
If you want to the beach in Atlantic City, you were not allowed on the boardwalk wearing a bathing suit – you walked under the boardwalk to the beach.
All the playground equipment was made of steel – and when a swing hit you, you knew it.
Roller skates attached to our shoes- as long as you had your key.
Our jeans were dungarees- no rips or bleached spots.
The life expectancy the year I was born was 62.3 and my parents were using ration books.
I recall the amazement standing on our apartment roof and looking for Sputnik.
The first real -colossal- computers were built the year I was born.
On the way to school one group of kids would chant “I like Ike” and the other “Stevenson, Stevenson, he’s our man.” just for fun.
Things I remember:
S&H Green Stamps. I’d rather NOT remember how much stamp adhesive I must have ingested.
Mini Tootsie Rolls that cost a penny each.
Party lines. Pick up the phone and hear your neighbors conversing! Privacy? What privacy?
Food that came with toys in it–Cracker Jacks and boxed cereal most often. Red Rose Tea came with ceramic animals in the boxes…they could be used as toys if you were careful.
Gas stations (ARCO) that gave out (and sold) toys. I wrote a post on the Erma Bombeck blog about this not so long ago; you can read it HERE.
Ah yes, Green stamps and we had Plaid Stamps too. Remember pasting a few in those darn books. Our gas stations gave out miniature jars of jelly until it was outlawed. Supermarkets gave out miniature loafs of Wonder Bread.
I suspect some child putting a “prize” in their mouth ended that. Gee, we even need HOT printed on cups to tell us coffee is hot.
I’m a few years younger than Dick, but most of this is familiar. However, I’ll add that there are still vestiges of this lifestyle in some places. A “city” example is the small Kew Gardens neighborhood of Queens, NY. On my regular visits there, it looks barely different from when I grew up in the adjoining neighborhood. Where I am now, we have a community park with a basketball court that almost always has kids shooting hoops. There’s a large area where water was sprayed to make a temporary rink. Skates can be borrowed for free. It’s also got one of those old-fashioned kiddie go-rounds where the kids or parents propel it with their feet until momentum builds up for a short ride. I think there are plans to upgrade the equipment but the stuff there now is popular. My nearest mall is about 30 minutes drive, but hiking, a couple blocks from me in any direction. Not mentioning the name of the town again 😉, though I would welcome any HD readers who manage to track it down. Let’s throw some personal finance in here: you can get a decent diner lunch for $15 -$20, tax and tip included. At our two or three “finer” establishments, you can get a good meal for $35-50, depending on whether you order a $12 cocktail or no alcohol. These places with their slower pace are still around if you look.
To be sure, the “good old days”, by-and-large, weren’t.
‘Dungaree’ came from 17th century India, where a local coarse cloth, Dungri, was used to make robust work clothing. (thought you’d like this)
I think it was 1973 the year we had crushing staglation (inflation and a stagnant economy) that things really changed. (My yardstick, candy bars doubled in price!)
Thanks, my new learning for the day.
How did any of us survive childhood with such rudimentary “ amenities ” available to us?! Roughing it barely starts to describe the times and surroundings we grew up with!
JUST FINE, I would say!
I look at what my grandkids have available to them now and I can’t even attempt to describe the lack of technology and conveniences we had growing up to them. I hope they are fine, but they sure don’t have to try very hard compared to our childhoods!
1960’s west side of Detroit, youngest of five:
Dave, the independent ice cream truck guy. If you rang those bells on his truck today, I’d remember them. (Pavlov?). The Good Humor ice cream truck too.
The Awrey bakery, Twin Pines dairy (Milky the clown Magic Show on TV) and other neighbor hood delivery trucks.
I think we had the same knife sharpening guy/cart that Richard had in NJ.
Our playground was the parking lot and drive-thru area of the bank on the corner.
Family of 7, one bathroom house.
Many store sale flyers were distributed by guys walking the neighborhood and attaching them rolled up with a rubber band to your front door. One day we asked a guy for a few rubber bands and he gave us a whole bag of them. We made a rubber band chain a block long.
Getting your first two-wheel bike was like your first taste of freedom…..as long as we stayed in the neighborhood, of course. First car many years later was even better (SW Michigan).
1968 Detroit Tiger World Series Champions. Church bells, horns, fire station sirens – town went crazy in a good way, versus 1967.
Never had anything fancy but we seemed to make the most of what we could with what we had wherever we were and we thought we were living large.
How well I remember enjoying those movies and all the extras you got for 35 cents. TV was in its infancy so going to the movies was a big deal. I’d eagerly await the new movie notifications.
And, About those dungarees (jeans}—do you remember that Eddie Fisher had a hit with his recording of “Dungaree Doll”.
I do remember that song.
Thanks for a fun post, Dick. I’m about 15 years behind but can relate to many of the references. In my birth year life expectancy had increased to 69.5 years. I find it fascinating to consider the amazing advances my grandparents and parents experienced over the 20th Century. It’s also interesting to look backwards.
Go back 82 years from your birth year (I guessed 1942) to 1860. Life expectancy at birth was 39.4 years. Consumption, typhoid fever, scarlet fever, croup, and diphtheria were the major causes of death. A year later a brutal civil war would commence. I saw a statistic that I found staggering – “The average wage for unskilled labor in the United States was $1 per day for two centuries, from the 1700s until World War II”. In 1860 lawyers wages averaged about $3 per day.
I think that each generation has its plusses and minuses. But we only have one birth, so we each have to do the best we can with the circumstances we are born into. But I have to be honest and say that I’m glad for modern medicine, AC, and modern plumbing.
Amazing to think of the changes over just 2 prior lifetimes.
November 1943 actually. I don’t think there is a generation group that includes me. 😃
The Silent Generation is usually listed as birth years 1928–1945. Preceded by the Greatest Generation born 1901–1927, and followed by the Baby Boomers born 1946–1964. Is that what you meant?
I saw that. Not sure I meet the “silent” definition though.
I think you’re 82. I’m 71. I identify with a lot of your memories. Thanks for this remembrance.
My childhood dentist gave us rewards of ice cream cones following an appointment. Talk about self-serving.
I watched my Dad drill holes in the floorboard of a car to install seatbelts in a very old Pontiac Tempest sedan.
We eventually had a station wagon that allowed us to sit in the very back – with no seatbelts.
Cars weren’t available as “woodies” with actual wood in the side panels, but you could get wood-grain vinyl siding.
In 1963 my parents bought a home in North Carolina that did not have air conditioning. They saved for a full year to have it installed in time for the following summer.
During the summer, I left the house in the morning, came home for lunch (most days), left in the afternoon, and came home for dinner. I played all day long. It was the same in all the homes in my neighborhood.
I’m sure this article will conjure other memories, but these came to me immediately.
I’m going on 74; I grew up north of Seattle; we, and 5 houses on our side of the street, each had 1 acre lots. Covered with tall virgin pine, fir and cedar; a perfect playground for us! We only came inside to eat, sleep and shower. Sometimes we slept in the treehouses we made! I remember gas at $.10 in the late 60’s!
I drove across country in my VW in 1964. I usually paid about $0.25 for gas. When we got to the West I remember being shocked at $0.45
In 1980 I moved to Phoenix Arizona in my 1972 Pinto Runabout (yes the explosion mobile) with no AC, but it did have a sunroof. Lived there for about two years. In the summer when I left work I would use an oven mitt to open the door to the car parked in the (uncovered) parking the open the roof and drive like hell.
When my children would complain about how hot the car was leaving the beach before the AC had a chance to cool it you can be sure they heard, “When I lived in Phoenix Arizona…”
I can relate, I grew up in a small apartment with no A/C and I recall the thrill of riding in the back of a station wagon, but my parents would never let me have a two wheel bike.
I grew up in the southwest in a rural setting that’s now just city. Pools were scarce so getting to go to one was infrequent and a real treat. The days were hot but the nights cooled off considerably without all the concrete and asphalt of today. As a kid during summer it was common to stay up late and sleep late the next morning to enjoy the cool nights, so I regularly saw the film “High Flight” that one of our 3 tv stations played at the end of the day. I still remember the lyrics since I saw that film about a million times “Oh I have slipped the surly bonds of earth, and danced the sky on…”. And there was no skipping tv commercials in those days, so you came to know the late night local regulars selling their products (often car dealers). Thanks for the trip down memory lane; that was fun.
There were no pools in sight for us, but the local park next to our apartment had a large fountain/shower we could play in. Sadly that park is gone as I knew it, falling to an interstate highway. 🥲
I know what you mean. I feel a bit sad when I drive around what was once a lovely rural area that’s now covered over with “city”. It can be tough seeing the change in an area you grew up in.
Two miles from where we live now was a 300 acre dairy farm. They had a two mile long miniature railroad kids could ride.
The town took away its farm tax status so they had to sell and a dozen corporate buildings took its place. Now those offices are empty and they are starting to demolish several.