The person who made this video probably grew up in the 80s, because using your FM radio at the drive-in didn't become a thing until then. Speakers were on a pole that you hung on your car window.
@@reallyseriously7020 Once a pay phone stole my money. I attached a thick, strong tow strap to my trailer hitch, the other end to the handpiece, drove off. SNAP! Left it there along with a note saying WHY.
@@jasonrodgers9063that was wrong to do. All you had to do is call the phone co. from that area with the number of the phone, and they would mail you your money back via check. Some people would try to use a slug, (a washer the same size as a dime) to trick the phone for a free call. Most would never work and the slug would make the phone not work. I never had a pay phone not work.
Radio frequency for drive-in movie sound?!! Must have been the richer neighborhood. Our drive-ins had speakers hanging on poles that you could hang to your car window on the inside...then roll it up to keep out the mosquitoes. They were very tinny sounding too.
I think the RF part is a newer thing in the few Drive-ins that still exist, mostly in warmer climates like Florida, and usually do double-duty as flea markets during the day.
Our drive in had a barrel near the exit to toss the speaker into if you accidentally drove away and ripped it off the pole. They were made to be easily reattached. 😂
In the 60s and 70s all you needed for awesome music was a little portable radio because the music of all kinds was so good! FM was also wonderful when it started.
I worked at this one place that had an old late 1970's stereo system. The sound was just incredible. People have no idea how much better a full size speaker can be.
The difference between AM and FM was amazing - I remember hearing my first FM station and was blown away! I’m driving our old 1999 TL at the moment and it inky has AM/FM and I sure can tell the difference - had forgotten as I only ,siren to SXM!
Sears started losing business to the "big boxes" like Home Depot and Walmart long before Amazon emerged. Combine this with decades of mismanagement, and a leveraged buyout left them in no shape to take advantage of e-commerce. The ultimate irony: my local Sears is now an Amazon Fresh store.
Sears, at one time, sold houses you could buy and then assemble after delivery. Montgomery Ward (aka Wards, also Monkey Wards, although I never understood that; it wasn't malicious) sold farm items, ponies, dogs, harness, saddles, etc., in addition to clothing, housewares and seemingly everything. I loved looking through the catalouges for bot hcompanies, and the Christmas ones were special fun. Diane, using Joe's tablet.
I was hoping to see this comment. Back in the summer of ‘80 we had stacked TV’s. We had to change channels on both for different shows. Oh yeah, I was the remote control!
An old boomer here. I remember all those things mentioned in this video. Playing outside was imperative and we loved it. We played all sports throughout the year. Yes, there was bullying and we had to deal with it and we did. Today I live in a nice middle-class neighborhood in the US. In my current location for 26 years, I have never seen a young kid or teenager even mow the yard. We did that with those manual push mowers with rotating blades as soon as we were old enough to use those manual mowers. Ranking leaves or pine straw, clearing off snow from driveways, washing cars, plus doing our share of the house chores were required as part of our contribution to the family. I am so glad I was part of the era. The greatest music ever to be heard was in the '60s and '70s It was great and much better to grow up than the kids do today.
I agree although living in Phoenix we didn’t have the snow! I rarely even see a teenager mowing lawns, many people hire others to do this! And it’s sad but it just isn’t safe for kids to play outside especially after dark! I see kids on bikes rarely and are usually with parents - kids not old enough to drive don’t ride bikes (and I despise those E-bikes!!!)
I was fortunate to grow up in a basic middle class neighborhood. Lawn crews basically didn't exist. People either did it themselves, or hired a local kid to take care of the lawn. Most of us had a few yards yards that we paid to mowed, on top of our own (that was part of chores). We also helped each other out if someone got behind. If I wanted a new record, bike or skateboard, it was bought with my own lawnmower money. We were all between about 11 and 15 years old. The girls had baby sitting jobs. Ay 16 we got jobs at the grocery store, or fast food. That early start on understanding work ethic and responsibility is rare with kids these days.
@@sandybruce9092 We lived in Tucson. My parents used to let me fill up a canteen, grab a sandwich and play all day in the desert (I was 7). I had a great time. No one would think of that today.
@@dudley7540 first time seeing a color TV back then was revolutionary, I stopped fantasizing about being a MLB star in black and white and daydreamed in color from then on! Lol
#8 no, you did not pull up to a spot and tune your radio, at first it was a speaker that hung on a pole that you then hung on your window for sound, then it was a wire you attached to your antenna of your car to tune the radio to a certain station to then get the sound and now finally your just pull up and tune your radio to the drive in's station to get the sound. Drive In's still exist visit your closest one today!....
Can't take your advice to visit one now. By the time the sun goes down and the movie starts, I'm already asleep. And the nearest one is like an hour away and to far for me and the wife to make it home safe, because we are both to sleepy to drive the hour home. But, if you are someone who can stay up late, go and experience it, you won't regret it. Those were beautiful times back then. But, with our children and grandchildren today, these are just as beautiful times today.
We had a milk man, I was a paper boy, we went to the drive inn on dates. Only "bad girls" went past 2nd base. Was a boyscout and a safety patrol at school. Went to church, shoveled the neighbors snow if they had no male children. Played little league, got in fights and played together the next day.
@@josephbreaux2668 gotta admit I went haywire and rock n’ roll after that and rounded 2. base a couple of times and didn’t regret it. Oddly enough I’ve been married for 20 years now. Don’t regret anything
6:43 The payphones I used spit the money back out if the call didn't go through or nobody answered. If your phone company kept your money they ripped you off.
If you were heard saying a nasty 4 letter word in public, most adults would reprimand you and some would call your parents to report it. It happened to me on the way home from the community swimming pool in about 1972. I was 3 blocks from home and I let an obscene word fly on Front Street. The pharmacist heard it and by the time I traveled the 3 blocks, my mother was waiting.
The phone company would send your nickel back if the phone kept it. Used to get money for comics and candy by checking the money return slots phones, cigarette machines etc. Me and a buddy cleaned out a woman's garage. She let us keep the glass bottles. We made $20 each selling them. We were rich.
Most Television stations signed off around 2:00 a.m. after Johnny Carson and The Tonight Show at 11:30 p.m. after him a few miscellaneous programs like Alfred Hitchcock, Twilight Zone, The outer limits or a movie. I'm early Generation X and remember these things. Furthermore, it was not a few coins in the Payphone it was a dime 10 cents. I love how the ones that weren't even born yet make videos on the past like they were there.
Yes and think they are experts 😊 Not. Good deal for straightening him out on some things. Heaven help today's youth if the grid ever goes away for an extended period.
Hi Tara! I read your profile. I would say that by today standards your life is spectacular! Congrats on staying married since you were 18 and having many children! You see so many divorces and broken relationships out there now. Cheers!
You know you’re old when you watch an old television show now, and aren’t phased when someone has to find a phone booth to make a call. I still am in the habit of carrying change in case. I need to make a phone call. (Plus I have an iPhone)
I've watched modern reactors watching "Superman" with Christopher Reeve, and they don't get the tongue-in-cheek scene where Clark Kent runs outside, only to find a little phone kiosk instead of a phone booth in which to change into his tights. So the filmmakers had to get creative with his costume changes.
The "Dr.Strangelove" phonecall scene is pretty funny. The guy is trying to make a phonecall to save the world from nuclear annihilation but he doesn't have enough change because it's a long distance call. They have to bust open a Coke machine to get the money.
One of the beauties of the card catalog and browsing the shelves looking for the book I wanted is that my interest was always piqued by other authors and book titles. Often I left the library with more books not on the subject I was researching that on.
My wife used to be a library shelver and knew the Dewey Decimal and Library of Congress systems by heart. It's still referred to at times today as not all libraries have not yet been burned to the ground.
Ordering from the Sears Catalogue and receiving the order in a "couple weeks"? Allow 6-8 weeks for delivery was the norm. And we were damn happy to wait two months for that item that was probably going to be damaged beyond use when it finally did arrive. Now get the hell off my lawn! 😁
But it's irrelevant The website of the retailer not really so much Sears these days but any given retailer is the catalog in fact I can remember back in the late '90s if you went to the Sears website it would talk about the catalog it would be a drop down and then you would pick what department you wanted to shop oh and by the way they had the capability of shipping either directly to you or in the store it's the same concept it's just you use electronic device rather than a paper catalog it's more efficient... NEXT!
@@janeflip1 I always "helpfully" dog-eared the pages of things I wanted so mom would have an easy time of it. Got maybe one thing out of 63 items, but hey...had to give it the effort lol.
Couple of weeks? That's what Amazon takes, or worse. EBay sellers? Maybe days, maybe months. I remember from catalog buying days that a Priority package mailed on Wednesday in Massachusetts would reach Honolulu on Saturday.
@@hollyingraham3980 well the distance between China and the United States and then of course depending upon your location in the United States will determine exactly how long it really does take the item to get to you if it's something that Amazon has in stock already here stateside then really you should have it within 3 to 4 days so actually two weeks that's going to be for stuff that you're specifically ordering from China by the way from vendors in China because Amazon is not just Amazon there are independent business owners that sell through Amazon much like eBay... So the difference between Honolulu to Massachusetts in 3 days is simply the distance between China and America which depending upon how quickly your item gets loaded depending upon when that ship leaves yeah it could take up to a couple of weeks but that's the difference.
I was just thinking about how if I could not read a map I would’ve followed directions given me…instead of Palm Springs to SanDiego I would’ve ended up in Mexico! And remember the desperate turning the radio dial in the middle of nowhere?! Hoping for Something! Or Anyone!
The Boomer years were 1946 to 1964, an 18-year spread. So, depending what year you were born, you might have had slightly different experiences. I would add that supermarket checkouts didn't use barcodes like today. Cashiers had to manually press keys on the register to enter the prices. It was quite loud on a busy day. The merchandise had to have price stickers on them.
@@mchume65 and stores with air conditioning had it painted on the store glass in blue with ice sickles hanging off. Grocery stores were the first to have automatic doors. Hotels had revolving doors if they had AC and drug stores had a fan over the front door that stirred the air and kept the flies out.
Born in '52. I remember all those things well. Cigarettes were a quarter a pack. I can remember my old man grousing about the price when they went up to 30 cents a pack.
One year younger. I remember 25 cent cigarettes because my father would send me to the corner store to buy them for him. I also remember the him grousing about "What the Hell makes a hot dog worth 75 cents just because you're eating it at the ball park! Penny candy ("banana splits" were two for a penny), five cent candy bars, ten cent Cokes, a quart of milk was a quarter, and we would go to the gas station and get "a dollar's worth" if we ran short before payday. One other memory is laying awake in bed one night listening to the grown-ups talk in the kitchen. Someone mentioned a news article that in the (somewhat near) future a loaf of bread would cost $1. They couldn't imagine that.... people would be starving in the streets if bread were a dollar a loaf!
I was 13 and would ride up to the gas station to get cigarettes. I think they're about a quarter at that time.But I remember myself and other people saying that we were gonna quit smoking once it hit fifty cents😅
@@trudieristich795 West Coast Boomer Canadian here. I started smoking in 1967 at age 12 when cigarettes' were 50 cents a pack and quit a year later when I discovered a corner grocer a 10 minute bike ride from home that offered 8 scoops of ice cream on a double cone for 25 cents. I enjoyed these cones twice a week from my weekly 50 cent allowance.
Cheap cigarettes just encouraged people to smoke more and become addicted. Also there was this attitude in society that smoking cigarettes was grown up, mature , fashionable, sophisticated.
@@stevedallas4942 It’s shocking to me that there are more and more people who cannot read or write in cursive. Their signature is barely legible printing.
The Yellow Pages were also pre-internet, as in, you could locate b&m businesses by alphabet. It was a paper search engine. As recently as 2006, I kept a YP, just in case of internet outage.
More intangibly, people weren't afraid all the time. People from 50 years ago would be amazed (and many would be very disgusted) at how fearful, cowardly and safety-obsessed people are today. Back then, people would make fun of the frightened and timid. We've turned into a society of neurotically scared old ladies or little girls.
I can't say it enough: YOU ARE EXACTLY RIGHT! Yes, we lived with the threat of nuclear annihilation, but truthfully that's still completely possible anyway. But I think back then we could think about how bad that might be, and everything else in life looked pretty tame by comparison. On the other hand, with so many fewer luxuries and almost no tech other than a 3-channel TV and a radio, people just weren't oblivious to most hardships like they are today. Don't get me wrong: I'm by no means a wealthy man, but I've got it a lot easier than the average working stiff had it back then as far as the pleasure/pain ratio goes. The maintenance of life in general is just easier now. Tech carries the burden so people have gotten coddled, so every little pinprick now engenders complete worry.
@dixonpinfold2582 that's what happens when you celebrate mediocrity and give everyone a trophy. You raise a generation of man-ginas and overtly masculine women.
Growing up in the 60s and 70s here in Australia was basically the same. You’ve given me a blast from my past at 5:16 advertising the radio is Kiwi born Aussie Brian Henderson who hosted a show called bandstand. Later in his career Hendo was one of our best news readers RIP. Thanks for some great memories. It’s a real shame we’ve made life so complicated. Personally I could easily go back to the good old days.
Before watching, I assumed this would be crap like most of what I see on youtube, but this was a really good video and don't feel like my time was wasted. Keep up the good work!
I remember the smell of my little red am only transistor radio,3 channels on the black and white tv,the milkman and my parents complaining how spoiled rotten we were
Loved the milk deliveries...the Sears Roebuck catalogue was the best reading in town...every Summer you joined a Summer reading program and agreed to read X number of books. At the end you got a certificate. Library cards were 25 cents. Tang sucked. I saw the first color TV in my neighborhood. You basically had three colors LOL You had three channels - 2,5,11 and three UHF and VHF - 17, 36 and 46 - they were scratchy. Knowing how to write was important. Your signature meant something. Flying was great - you got real food and the kids got pins and toys. Seat belts ROFL. Good times!
This year, I’m nearing 70 years old. In my free time, a few friends and I still reminisce about our childhood stories. Everyone has their own memorable experiences to share. It truly was a wonderful time.
My school never had duck and cover drills. But we did have fire drills where we had to practice getting out of the building as quickly as possible and then stand out in the lawn and hope that the school building would burn down, but it never did. 😂
We had duck and cover drills in Los Angeles. They doubled as earthquake drills. On the same block as my elementary school there was an air raid siren that was tested every Friday. It was there for civil defense in case of nuclear attack.
When I came home from Vietnam, I was suddenly a popular guy because while I was there I ordered a stereo with an 8 track player that also recorded 8 tracks.. NOBODY else had one. The first playlists!
I remember the stereo equipment the guys brought back from Vietnam and Germany. Very high quality stuff and they got it very cheap. Most of my friends had older brothers deployed.
@@TheHistoryReserveIn the 80s, the family of my sister's boyfriend had a party line. They basically got a women chased out of town for listening in on phone calls and gossiping. Wasn't anything legally they could do. When they had proof she was spreading information she could only get by listening in, the town took care of making sure she wasn't welcome.
We had a party line. We had a medical energy and they refused to give us the line to call for help. My uncle died from that heart attack a few weeks later in hospital. He might have been saved if the gossipy neighbours got off the line. It's was a sad day.
The early Polaroid pictures came out with the wet chemicals on the outside, and we shook them to help them dry. Later, the chemicals were contained within, so there was no need to shake them any more.
Don't forget the protective lacquer coating for the earlier (pre-SX-70) black & white ones that you apply with the supplied sponge applicator. That's what needed to be dried by waving around. Without the coating they would fade. As far as the SX-70 colour prints go, artist Lucas Samaras would push the still-wet emulsion around with his fingers and empty ball-point pens, before it developed. He got some surreal effects with it.
@@gnericgnome4214Yes, the stick yiu had to run across!! My Gramdpa had k e of the first Polaroids and I can still see him running that stick across the picture! Grandpa passed away in 1977 just before technology wa really hitting - I knew he would have enjoyed taking videos with sound and so ma y other items. He had one of the first color TVs before there were any color shows. I didn’t know for years that The Cisco Kid TV show was filmed in color but we couldn’t see it. Loved that show!
8 tracks came out while cassette tapes were already out. They failed because people could record their own playlists on cassettes and 8 tracks did not have that capability.
Nope, wrong! Cassettes preexisted 8 track but were originially intended for voice recording and thus had crappy fidelity. 8 track tapes recorded (and played back) at twice the tape speed of cassettes with more surface area to record on and therefore produced higher quality recordings. It wasn't until cassette manufactures started producing better tape and recorder makers changed their technology that cassettes began to rival 8 track! And yes you could record your own 8 track tapes, substantually cheaper than buying them in the store.
I’m thinking those big 8-tracks came out before the smaller size cassettes - and they were non-recording at that time. We might still have our 8-tracks in a box somewhere!
@@ivanleterror9158 Forgot about that! But they were so big and awkward - glove box couldn’t hold maybe a couple or so! I’m back driving our old 1999 sweetie - only over air radio but she has a CD slot!!!
Thanks for this video back into our past. Growing up in the 1960s & 1970s was great. In my opinion, it was probably the best decades to be a child/teenager. Life was fun, music was fantastic and we learned responsibilities. Hopefully, some families have kept some of these traditions in place-family meals, family jobs around the house inside & out, outdoor games, movies together, etc....
Last Christmas we started giving our albums to our son and DIL - have five. Them about half (we have to take them to Colorado where they live to North Carolina where we live!) I still miss them - the rest hopefully,will,go this year! I need to see if they want my stack of at least 100 45s!
Gas is actually cheaper against your wages today than in 1970! @ 30 cents a gallon, I could buy 5 gallons of gas for one hour of work, being paid $1.50 an hour. If that were the case today, gas would have to be $6 a gallon and I'm on a fixed income! Oh, the party line! not only did you have to wait for the line to clear, you had to remember your house's ring sequence to determine if the call was for you or not.
2 mistakes in the narration. 1) At the Drive-In there was a wired speaker on a post at each parking spot. You had to hang the speaker inside your car window. 2) When using a payphone your coin(s) would be returned if the called party didn't answer or if the line was busy.
The gas for the car in that time was also filled with lead. Unleaded gas became a thing in the 1970s. You can still buy lead fuel supplemen fluids for classic cars in auto parts stores today.
@@gnericgnome4214 Yeah, Monkey Wards. My dad liked Monkey Wards socks with the red smile heel. My gramma showed me how to sew and I made a stuffed monkey from a pair of those socks following Montgomery Ward's plans.
At my Grandma's on a Saturday night, we cousins (about 10 of us) would lay out quilts on the floor and were allowed to stay up as long as we lasted, watching horror movies. We always swore that we would last until the channel went off. We never did last. We woke up to a silent TV and we were covered up.
in central indiana it was the sammy terry show . i loved overnighting with a large ky family and watching the cheesy movies but eventually their dad decided that he had 10 girls to protect so i wasnt allowed to overnight any longer . sometimes when it rained most of us would capture night crawlers in the school yard but it sure didnt yield much pay .
As a kid growing up in the southern US in the late 1950s and early 1960s TV programming ended with beautiful scenery while playing the instrumental to "Dixie"
That sounds wonderful. I grew up in Phoenix and I remember the test screen and one station had a beautiful poem - it might have been called “High Flight” or something like that played before the test screen and then total black! I never gave a thought about it being different in other parts of the US!
When I was a kid we shared a phone line with eight other families in rural Iowa until around 1970. Then it was a two-party line. We didn't have a private phone line until about 1973. Now my wife and I have four telephone numbers between the two of us.
One important feature of the boomer generation that seems to be forgotten here is that nostalgia existed back then too. In the 50’s and 60’s my parents and grandparents longed for aspects of the “good old days” of their youth when many of the things mentioned here didn’t exist . . .
And in spite of all these archaic things we did...we did fine, and were happy--- MUCH happier than people nowadays who can't talk to their friends and family because they can't get their face out of the cell or laptop.
When I was a kid, many people didn't phones. People just showed up at each other's houses. Loved when that happened. The old man would send someone to the A&W for a gallon of root beer in the glass jug. If it turned into a party, he'd send someone for another jug of root beer. We were so easily pleased in those days and root beer was such a treat.
Back in the 60's we got about 4 channels of TV, mostly B&W, and later in Color. I didn't get a color TV until the 80's. Surprisingly, I can still only get about 4 TV channels TODAY over direct broadcast, but it is now digital instead of analog. Sigh, no more watching NFL football games from 1200 miles away when the ionosphere allowed 'skip' - static galore but still decernable through the 'confetti snow'.
And every so often one of your buddies would show up the next day with a trophy hanging to his window unless the speaker wire was tougher than the window glass.
Drive Inns used the corded speaker boxes not radio that came in the 70’s. TV was 3 network stations and PBS although the dials had 56 stations. I was one of 9 TV remotes for my Dad whoever was closest. Cartoons were only on Saturday mornings and 2 hours on Sundays. Street light curfew or Dad’s whistle. We would pack 9 kids and Mom and Dad into a station wagon, no seat belts. Gas was $.32 a gallon in 76’, you could get 4 burgers, 4 small frys, and 4 drinks at McDonalds for under $10.
Also: An entire generation of young men lived in fear of being drafted and shipped off to Vietnam. Many of those who were lucky enough to survive came back traumatized for life.
@@spidgeb3292 not really, Vietnam was almost over before the draft started. I was subject to it when I was eighteen but the war was ten years in by then and only had two years to run. They kept the draft but ended the war. They drew dates at the Pentagon and it was broadcast on TV. I called it "death bingo". I drew draft number 365, but it was a leap year, there were 366 birthdays drawn. Only people with low draft numbers were at any real risk of being drafted. The people who were protesting the war on college campuses all had deferments. Most of the people who went enlisted voluntarily.
The Sears Catalog lasted longer in Canada. I worked on it around 2000, and one of the stats that got thrown around in the office was that 1/2 of all grad/prom dresses in Canada were ordered from the Sears Catalog because there just weren't (affordable) shops in small towns.
As well as a milk man who delivered fresh milk daily, the neighborhood i grew up in as a kid back in the 60's also had the "egg man" as we called him. He would deliver farm fresh eggs weekly. He would bring in a big basket of eggs and set them on the kitchen table and my mother would pick through them. They were farm fresh brown eggs. No bleached white eggs you would buy at the store. And let's not forget about the Fuller Brush Man back then making house calls.
went to drive in theaters in the early 60s and into the 70s before they became extinct but were a blast. Me and my friends went through all that this video talks about, I was born in 55 so yah, it was a trip!!!!
I just turned 64. These are the good old days! No more rushing home in fear you would miss your favorite program. With the invention of the VCR/Tivo/DVR you could record it. Back in the day you just had to wait for summer reruns. If I want to watch some old TV shows, I can always tune into MeTV or some other nostalgia channel. If I want to watch something new, there’s current TV. On a personal note speaking as a retired auto mechanic if you would’ve told me 35 years ago that a 2.4L four-cylinder engine would crank out 195 hp WITHOUT a turbo charger I would’ve said you’re out of your mind! But that’s exactly what my 2013 Hyundai Sonata put out. With all the innovations I’ve been privileged to see in my life. I only hope I get to live another 30 to 40 years so I can experience even more fantastic innovations!
My dad was the chief engineer at an Atlas missile base when the Cuban Missile Crisis hit. I didn't realize it but they had armed the missiles with nuclear warheads, we were that close to the war to end all wars I didn't know this until he told me that just a year ago. He is 92 years old now
I do think any of us knew at that time that the misses weee actually armed - I was in HS and have vague memories - never knew the real story for years!
We used to have "gas wars". Stations across from each other would occasionally lower their prices a penny or two for a couple of days to drum up more business. We would see this and lower our prices a penny lower. This usually lasted 2 or 3 days and then went back to the regular prevailing prices for the time.
I am Gen-X, and our milkman was named Mr. Sweet. For the longest time, I thought all sweet milk came from his company. There was also a potato chip company that delivered Charlie's Chips.
And don't forget the Good Humor ice cream man. And in the Los Angeles area the Helms bakery trucks door to door. My FIL drove one for 30 years in the Venice area.
IDK if this is actual fact, but I read that the reason the letters on our keyboards are arranged in such an odd order goes back to the old-school clickety-clack typewriters. The layout stemmed from trying to minimize the risk of the letter hammers jamming together when typing quickly.
Here in eastern Pa. during the 1960's we had the :'Tidy diaper" man, way before disposable diapers mom and dad would rinse the dirty diapers in the toilet bowl and put them in a hamper and the Tidy Diaper man would pick the cotton cloth diapers up once a week and give you a fresh stack of clean diapers for the next week. Of course us kids would flush the soaking diapers and poor dad had to unclog the toilet at least once a week.
In the early 60,s in Australia, there was an adhesive film you could stick to you TV to make it look like colour. The top was blue, centre green, bottom brown. Perth had its first channel in 1958, then its second was the ad-free ABC channel in 1960, then it's second commercial station in 1965. Perth finally got its fourth station in 1988. As children we would collect empty soft drink bottles and return them to the corner shop. We got tuppence (1.66 cents) for small bottles and threepence (2.5 cents) for large bottles. A marine dealer (bottle collector called the bottle-O) would collect empty beer and soft drink bottles from homes and pay a halfpenny (0.42 cents) for each bottle. Also had a fruit and vegetable vendor would do his weekly round down our street in his truck, but my favourite was the Italian gelati vendor with his horse and wagon. His gelati still is the most delicious ice cream I had ever eaten. A racist friend of mine claimed the icecream was made with horse manure, to which I replied that it's delicious.
3:22 It's been found that "clicky" keyboards work better on Computers, it's NOT just a typewriter thing - and the BETTER typewriters were sometimes quieter than some of the early IBM computer keyboards.
I had a hand-me-down CURSIVE typewriter from my Grandpa which I used for decades; all my letters to him were typed on it. Wonder what kids would make of THAT, today?😮
OK, after reading all of the comments....nobody mentions 4 track tapes. The 8 track tapes had the rubber pinch roller idler wheel built in to the tape that you were playing. The 4 track tapes had a big hole in the underside of the end that goes into the player with no roller. The pinch roller popped up from the tape machine and forced the tape into the drive post to play it. Either way, it was common to pull out a tape and have it spew out a hundred miles of tape that could never be repaired. Our drive in had corded speakers only. Some foreigners owned it and at the climax of the movie, they would get on the P.A. system and override the movie sound with ''Dee snagg barrrr ees closink een feefteen meenutes, de snagg barrr ees closink een feefteen meenutes.'' TO which everybody blew their horns, flashed their lights, and yelled ''SHUT UP DUMB ASS!''
@@ivanleterror9158 Antenna rotors were widespread - carry-over from Amateur Radio designs for the most part. Needed mostly when you were close to a city, as the transmitter sites were usually scattered all over the city or nearby.
@@ivanleterror9158 We didn't have a rotor in the 50's. Someone would go out and turn the mast, another person would hold the door open so we could hear each other, and a third person would watch the TV and yell out to stop turning when the picture was good. A real pita, but we didn't know any better.
#24? Nah. Totally wrong camera. You were talking about having to send films to a lab to be developed and printed, but showed a Polaroid instant camera the whole time.
I remember when I was a kid around Christmas getting the Sears catalog and being told circle the things you want Santa to bring you I miss a lot of things in this video
I'm surprised there isn't more about the types of records available. As an early teen, we often bought 45s (45 revolutions per minute - RPM), which had just one song on the A-side and a (usually) less popular song on the B-side. They had a big hole in the middle and you had to have an adapter so they fit on the spindle. Albums (LPs, 33 1/3 rpm) became more popular through the 1960s, and really took off with the switch from AM radio to FM. The switch to albums and FM radio revolutionized the music itself, and arguably 1971 was the year of some of the best rock. Sometimes we even listened to our parents' 78-rpm records. The main problem with records is that they easily got scratched and would skip. You also couldn't play them in the car unless you recorded them onto tape.
I remember wearing nylon slacks as I was driving and took a sharp turn to the right and slid across the vinyl bench seat until my butt hit the opposite door trim. I craned my head up to see over the dashboard and pulled myself back with my right hand. (We are right hand drive here in Australia.) Later I learned that guys would take a sharp left turn to get the girl they had just taken to the movies to slide up against them. Great memories. The only better memories are the ones I have not yet had.
My mother once was driving Dad's pick-up while her car was in the shop. She had made a casserole for a potluck at work that day, and she picked up a co-worker who also had a casserole. Both Mom and the other lady were "plus size" as we say now. They put the casseroles on the bench seat between them, and Mom slid over as far as she could to make room. She was leaning against the driver's door, and as she took a sharp right, the latch came loose and she slid out onto the pavement as the truck kept on going.
@@bobunderwood803 I'm glad you brought that up. It was a hazard in the early days of driving and your mother could have been hurt badly. I hope she wasn't. At least when cornering in those old tanks it was necessary to slow down quite a bit to make the turn. Though the possibility of going under the wheels of the car behind was always there.
I took a typing class as a filler my last year in high school. Probably the last year this class was offered. Computers were just coming out. The typing class ended up being one of the most useful high school classes I took. Using pc’s in college I could type 20wpm+ while most were hunting and pecking.
I did my student teaching to 3 classes using typewriters - 1972! I was already 25 and finishing college as I has to pay my own way through many years - took a little longer than usual🫢☹️
I taught myself in 8th grade (1962) using the old "20th Century Typewriting" flip book on a manual typewriter. An extremely useful skill ever since. At my best, when I was a computer programmer, I could do about 60 wpm. My fingers are slower at 75, maybe around 40 wpm now. My mother was a legal secretary, around 100 wpm in her prime. My wife was a secretary, about 100 wpm at her best. I still get comments from young folks watching me on my laptop, "How do you go so fast?" 😁
Mid-sixties, I got a part time job selling encyclopedias. There were several very large companies in the business. Britannica and Grolier were two I still remember. I lasted 2 evenings of training before I told them to shove it. The entire sales pitch was based on guilt tripping parents that their kids would fall behind in school if they didn't have a set of encyclopedias for the kids to study at home.
Boomer here. I was an adult before White-Out was available. I typed on a manual typewriter, often with carbon paper to make copies, and the only way to correct mistakes was with a very hard eraser that often tore a hole in the paper. I was already working before photocopiers came on the scene, although there were things like mimeographs and thermofaxes. Of course, there were no remotes to turn anything on and off, including both b&w and color TV and you had to get up and manually change the channel. And, while there were lots of gadgets and cookware innovations (my Mom loved her electric frying pan), microwave ovens didn't come around for a while. In our area milk delivery stopped by the mid-50s, although I know that milk and bread deliveries continued to the 60s in other areas.
The person who made this video probably grew up in the 80s, because using your FM radio at the drive-in didn't become a thing until then. Speakers were on a pole that you hung on your car window.
Nice. 👌
And they sounded like crap! All crackly. I loved drive ins!
@@IdahoRanchGirl Same here! ✌
I didn’t know about that until ‘87. We only had the cheap speakers in my small town!
Yeah, the radio thing wasn't what we ever had. Just the window speaker. And how many drove away with it still rolled up in the window? Oops.
Pay phones gave you your money back if the call did not go through
Heck, half the time the payphone took your money and you got nothing.
@@reallyseriously7020 Once a pay phone stole my money. I attached a thick, strong tow strap to my trailer hitch, the other end to the handpiece, drove off. SNAP! Left it there along with a note saying WHY.
@@jasonrodgers9063that was wrong to do. All you had to do is call the phone co. from that area with the number of the phone, and they would mail you your money back via check. Some people would try to use a slug, (a washer the same size as a dime) to trick the phone for a free call. Most would never work and the slug would make the phone not work. I never had a pay phone not work.
@@jasonrodgers9063doubt it.
And if you called the police or fire depts., you got your money back.
Radio frequency for drive-in movie sound?!! Must have been the richer neighborhood. Our drive-ins had speakers hanging on poles that you could hang to your car window on the inside...then roll it up to keep out the mosquitoes. They were very tinny sounding too.
Honestly, I didn't know anyone went to "Drive-ins" to actually watch the movie.
@@im1who84u I was going to say . . . .
Movie ?
I think the RF part is a newer thing in the few Drive-ins that still exist, mostly in warmer climates like Florida, and usually do double-duty as flea markets during the day.
Our drive in had a barrel near the exit to toss the speaker into if you accidentally drove away and ripped it off the pole. They were made to be easily reattached. 😂
In the 60s and 70s all you needed for awesome music was a little portable radio because the music of all kinds was so good! FM was also wonderful when it started.
I worked at this one place that had an old late 1970's stereo system. The sound was just incredible. People have no idea how much better a full size speaker can be.
The difference between AM and FM was amazing - I remember hearing my first FM station and was blown away! I’m driving our old 1999 TL at the moment and it inky has AM/FM and I sure can tell the difference - had forgotten as I only ,siren to SXM!
I had one of the very first transistor radios with a little crappy earpiece. 1960 (I think), listened to "I wanna Hold Your Hand" first day it was out
I remember WLOF channel 95 in Orlando in the 60's 😇🙏
The fact that Sears totally missed out on the potential of the internet as the modern version of the catalog still amazes me.
Sears started losing business to the "big boxes" like Home Depot and Walmart long before Amazon emerged. Combine this with decades of mismanagement, and a leveraged buyout left them in no shape to take advantage of e-commerce. The ultimate irony: my local Sears is now an Amazon Fresh store.
@@bobunderwood803 good points.
Even more crazy, product mgrs at msft said to pour more capital in msn because people will regard the Internet as a fad.
100% Home Depot and Walmart.
Sears, at one time, sold houses you could buy and then assemble after delivery. Montgomery Ward (aka Wards, also Monkey Wards, although I never understood that; it wasn't malicious) sold farm items, ponies, dogs, harness, saddles, etc., in addition to clothing, housewares and seemingly everything. I loved looking through the catalouges for bot hcompanies, and the Christmas ones were special fun. Diane, using Joe's tablet.
I can't be the only one who had a color console TV that didn't work anymore, so we watched the little black and white TV that sat on top of it 😂
I was hoping to see this comment. Back in the summer of ‘80 we had stacked TV’s. We had to change channels on both for different shows. Oh yeah, I was the remote control!
I didn’t even see a color TV till I got married in 1975 - only owned black/white layer with a wire coat hanger in the antenna place!
An old boomer here. I remember all those things mentioned in this video. Playing outside was imperative and we loved it. We played all sports throughout the year. Yes, there was bullying and we had to deal with it and we did. Today I live in a nice middle-class neighborhood in the US. In my current location for 26 years, I have never seen a young kid or teenager even mow the yard. We did that with those manual push mowers with rotating blades as soon as we were old enough to use those manual mowers. Ranking leaves or pine straw, clearing off snow from driveways, washing cars, plus doing our share of the house chores were required as part of our contribution to the family. I am so glad I was part of the era. The greatest music ever to be heard was in the '60s and '70s It was great and much better to grow up than the kids do today.
I agree although living in Phoenix we didn’t have the snow! I rarely even see a teenager mowing lawns, many people hire others to do this! And it’s sad but it just isn’t safe for kids to play outside especially after dark! I see kids on bikes rarely and are usually with parents - kids not old enough to drive don’t ride bikes (and I despise those E-bikes!!!)
Yes, ALL that and more. Except for the snow. If our Mom's ever really knew some of the shit we did...... I'm 63.
I was fortunate to grow up in a basic middle class neighborhood. Lawn crews basically didn't exist. People either did it themselves, or hired a local kid to take care of the lawn.
Most of us had a few yards yards that we paid to mowed, on top of our own (that was part of chores). We also helped each other out if someone got behind.
If I wanted a new record, bike or skateboard, it was bought with my own lawnmower money. We were all between about 11 and 15 years old.
The girls had baby sitting jobs. Ay 16 we got jobs at the grocery store, or fast food.
That early start on understanding work ethic and responsibility is rare with kids these days.
@@sandybruce9092 We lived in Tucson. My parents used to let me fill up a canteen, grab a sandwich and play all day in the desert (I was 7). I had a great time. No one would think of that today.
Ours was the last generation that grew up truly free. I would not trade that for any amount of money or modern gadgets.
I never new that Huckleberry Hound was blue until we finally got a color television in 1970.
@@dudley7540 first time seeing a color TV back then was revolutionary, I stopped fantasizing about being a MLB star in black and white and daydreamed in color from then on! Lol
#8 no, you did not pull up to a spot and tune your radio, at first it was a speaker that hung on a pole that you then hung on your window for sound, then it was a wire you attached to your antenna of your car to tune the radio to a certain station to then get the sound and now finally your just pull up and tune your radio to the drive in's station to get the sound. Drive In's still exist visit your closest one today!....
I was going to say this if you didn't.
Did you notice the car clipped that very solid pole and made it move?
Can't take your advice to visit one now. By the time the sun goes down and the movie starts, I'm already asleep. And the nearest one is like an hour away and to far for me and the wife to make it home safe, because we are both to sleepy to drive the hour home. But, if you are someone who can stay up late, go and experience it, you won't regret it. Those were beautiful times back then. But, with our children and grandchildren today, these are just as beautiful times today.
I liked the speakers better than tuning to station on you radio better!
And, you were lucky if the goddamn thing worked!
IN SoCal we never had the wire. Went from the speaker to the radio. About that tie tho we were not going much anymore.
We had a milk man, I was a paper boy, we went to the drive inn on dates. Only "bad girls" went past 2nd base. Was a boyscout and a safety patrol at school. Went to church, shoveled the neighbors snow if they had no male children. Played little league, got in fights and played together the next day.
Sounds great apart from the no sex bit, must have been a drag
@gingerfellah5665 turned out fine. Married my first and only sex partner. Been happily married 42 years.
@@josephbreaux2668 CONGRATS to you & your sweetie!
@@jasonrodgers9063 Thank you 😊
@@josephbreaux2668 gotta admit I went haywire and rock n’ roll after that and rounded 2. base a couple of times and didn’t regret it.
Oddly enough I’ve been married for 20 years now. Don’t regret anything
If I remember correctly, if no one answered the phone the dime you put into the phone was returned to you. Aparently you were not alive yet.
I think they don't realize there wasn't an answering machine / service.
Correctamundo
And they do not know what, "dropping a dime" on somebody means.
I noticed that too. He didn't do too bad a job!! He missed a couple of others, but it wasn't a bad video. BB
Very well done! In my later sixties, I remember every one of these. You might consider a Part 2!
Watching this brings back so many memories of my childhood. Man, I miss being young. Thanks for giving me these..
Me too. Life was great as a child back then.
6:43 The payphones I used spit the money back out if the call didn't go through or nobody answered. If your phone company kept your money they ripped you off.
If you were heard saying a nasty 4 letter word in public, most adults would reprimand you and some would call your parents to report it. It happened to me on the way home from the community swimming pool in about 1972. I was 3 blocks from home and I let an obscene word fly on Front Street. The pharmacist heard it and by the time I traveled the 3 blocks, my mother was waiting.
The phone company would send your nickel back if the phone kept it. Used to get money for comics and candy by checking the money return slots phones, cigarette machines etc. Me and a buddy cleaned out a woman's garage. She let us keep the glass bottles. We made $20 each selling them. We were rich.
Most Television stations signed off around 2:00 a.m. after Johnny Carson and The Tonight Show at 11:30 p.m. after him a few miscellaneous programs like Alfred Hitchcock, Twilight Zone, The outer limits or a movie. I'm early Generation X and remember these things. Furthermore, it was not a few coins in the Payphone it was a dime 10 cents. I love how the ones that weren't even born yet make videos on the past like they were there.
Yes and think they are experts 😊 Not. Good deal for straightening him out on some things.
Heaven help today's youth if the grid ever goes away for an extended period.
Hi Tara!
I read your profile. I would say that by today standards your life is spectacular! Congrats on staying married since you were 18 and having many children! You see so many divorces and broken relationships out there now. Cheers!
10 cents for a local call. for long distance, and all calls that lasted longer than 3 minutes, the operator tells you how much more to insert.
Those were usually on the, was it VHF channels? Like 15 or 27, and later, 33? Was hard to get the picture clear.
I was born very beginning of 63.
@taramcblakeshire8516 yes and TV viewing day was over when the National Anthem finished playing.
You know you’re old when you watch an old television show now, and aren’t phased when someone has to find a phone booth to make a call. I still am in the habit of carrying change in case. I need to make a phone call. (Plus I have an iPhone)
I've watched modern reactors watching "Superman" with Christopher Reeve, and they don't get the tongue-in-cheek scene where Clark Kent runs outside, only to find a little phone kiosk instead of a phone booth in which to change into his tights. So the filmmakers had to get creative with his costume changes.
The "Dr.Strangelove" phonecall scene is pretty funny. The guy is trying to make a phonecall to save the world from nuclear annihilation but he doesn't have enough change because it's a long distance call. They have to bust open a Coke machine to get the money.
One of the beauties of the card catalog and browsing the shelves looking for the book I wanted is that my interest was always piqued by other authors and book titles. Often I left the library with more books not on the subject I was researching that on.
My wife used to be a library shelver and knew the Dewey Decimal and Library of Congress systems by heart. It's still referred to at times today as not all libraries have not yet been burned to the ground.
@@stischer47 when they got rid of card catalogs and I had to use a computer, I found out I did not know how to spell, lol.
Ordering from the Sears Catalogue and receiving the order in a "couple weeks"? Allow 6-8 weeks for delivery was the norm. And we were damn happy to wait two months for that item that was probably going to be damaged beyond use when it finally did arrive. Now get the hell off my lawn! 😁
The Christmas catalogs gave us hours of entertainment!
But it's irrelevant The website of the retailer not really so much Sears these days but any given retailer is the catalog in fact I can remember back in the late '90s if you went to the Sears website it would talk about the catalog it would be a drop down and then you would pick what department you wanted to shop oh and by the way they had the capability of shipping either directly to you or in the store it's the same concept it's just you use electronic device rather than a paper catalog it's more efficient...
NEXT!
@@janeflip1 I always "helpfully" dog-eared the pages of things I wanted so mom would have an easy time of it. Got maybe one thing out of 63 items, but hey...had to give it the effort lol.
Couple of weeks? That's what Amazon takes, or worse. EBay sellers? Maybe days, maybe months. I remember from catalog buying days that a Priority package mailed on Wednesday in Massachusetts would reach Honolulu on Saturday.
@@hollyingraham3980 well the distance between China and the United States and then of course depending upon your location in the United States will determine exactly how long it really does take the item to get to you if it's something that Amazon has in stock already here stateside then really you should have it within 3 to 4 days so actually two weeks that's going to be for stuff that you're specifically ordering from China by the way from vendors in China because Amazon is not just Amazon there are independent business owners that sell through Amazon much like eBay...
So the difference between Honolulu to Massachusetts in 3 days is simply the distance between China and America which depending upon how quickly your item gets loaded depending upon when that ship leaves yeah it could take up to a couple of weeks but that's the difference.
Paper maps are still better. No need to find shade or run out of time.
But how often are you going around having a paper map in your pocket. We have more information at our fingertips than any other time in history.
@@mattomite9097 paper maps are in when I needed them.
@@JohnStiletto totally agree. I still keep paper maps in my car and some in the house but I never really use them
I was just thinking about how if I could not read a map I would’ve followed directions given me…instead of Palm Springs to SanDiego I would’ve ended up in Mexico!
And remember the desperate turning the radio dial in the middle of nowhere?! Hoping for Something! Or Anyone!
@@jenfentress7636 you must ride a motorcycle.
This was such a walk down memory lane. You really nailed it. Thanks for the fun video!
The Boomer years were 1946 to 1964, an 18-year spread. So, depending what year you were born, you might have had slightly different experiences. I would add that supermarket checkouts didn't use barcodes like today. Cashiers had to manually press keys on the register to enter the prices. It was quite loud on a busy day. The merchandise had to have price stickers on them.
@@mchume65 and stores with air conditioning had it painted on the store glass in blue with ice sickles hanging off. Grocery stores were the first to have automatic doors. Hotels had revolving doors if they had AC and drug stores had a fan over the front door that stirred the air and kept the flies out.
Born in '52. I remember all those things well. Cigarettes were a quarter a pack. I can remember my old man grousing about the price when they went up to 30 cents a pack.
One year younger. I remember 25 cent cigarettes because my father would send me to the corner store to buy them for him. I also remember the him grousing about "What the Hell makes a hot dog worth 75 cents just because you're eating it at the ball park!
Penny candy ("banana splits" were two for a penny), five cent candy bars, ten cent Cokes, a quart of milk was a quarter, and we would go to the gas station and get "a dollar's worth" if we ran short before payday.
One other memory is laying awake in bed one night listening to the grown-ups talk in the kitchen. Someone mentioned a news article that in the (somewhat near) future a loaf of bread would cost $1. They couldn't imagine that.... people would be starving in the streets if bread were a dollar a loaf!
I was 13 and would ride up to the gas station to get cigarettes. I think they're about a quarter at that time.But I remember myself and other people saying that we were gonna quit smoking once it hit fifty cents😅
@@trudieristich795 West Coast Boomer Canadian here. I started smoking in 1967 at age 12 when cigarettes' were 50 cents a pack and quit a year later when I discovered a corner grocer a 10 minute bike ride from home that offered 8 scoops of ice cream on a double cone for 25 cents. I enjoyed these cones twice a week from my weekly 50 cent allowance.
Cheap cigarettes just encouraged people to smoke more and become addicted. Also there was this attitude in society that smoking cigarettes was grown up, mature , fashionable, sophisticated.
I made A+ in penmanship in elementary school, and I always loved cursive.
Me too!
By the time I got to Jr. High I started printing instead of using cursive. Still do to this day. 😃
Today cursive writing is like a secret code used by people over 50.
@@stevedallas4942 It’s shocking to me that there are more and more people who cannot read or write in cursive. Their signature is barely legible printing.
@@nommadd5758 I learned how to type in 4th grade, and never looked back. Even now, if I can't type it, I print it. Cursive sucks - good riddance!
The Yellow Pages were also pre-internet, as in, you could locate b&m businesses by alphabet. It was a paper search engine. As recently as 2006, I kept a YP, just in case of internet outage.
I still go back and watch old twilight zone episodes.
I was under ten and some of those episodes really scared me.
More intangibly, people weren't afraid all the time. People from 50 years ago would be amazed (and many would be very disgusted) at how fearful, cowardly and safety-obsessed people are today. Back then, people would make fun of the frightened and timid. We've turned into a society of neurotically scared old ladies or little girls.
I can't say it enough: YOU ARE EXACTLY RIGHT! Yes, we lived with the threat of nuclear annihilation, but truthfully that's still completely possible anyway. But I think back then we could think about how bad that might be, and everything else in life looked pretty tame by comparison. On the other hand, with so many fewer luxuries and almost no tech other than a 3-channel TV and a radio, people just weren't oblivious to most hardships like they are today. Don't get me wrong: I'm by no means a wealthy man, but I've got it a lot easier than the average working stiff had it back then as far as the pleasure/pain ratio goes. The maintenance of life in general is just easier now. Tech carries the burden so people have gotten coddled, so every little pinprick now engenders complete worry.
Hey!! Old men and little boys get scared too.
@dixonpinfold2582 that's what happens when you celebrate mediocrity and give everyone a trophy. You raise a generation of man-ginas and overtly masculine women.
@@gingerfellah5665only if they're gay...
A complete pet peeve - we've turned into a nation of effetes who are scared of life.
Growing up in the 60s and 70s here in Australia was basically the same. You’ve given me a blast from my past at 5:16 advertising the radio is Kiwi born Aussie Brian Henderson who hosted a show called bandstand. Later in his career Hendo was one of our best news readers RIP. Thanks for some great memories. It’s a real shame we’ve made life so complicated. Personally I could easily go back to the good old days.
🐨🇦🇺
Before watching, I assumed this would be crap like most of what I see on youtube, but this was a really good video and don't feel like my time was wasted. Keep up the good work!
@@stinkycheese804 thanks!
I remember the smell of my little red am only transistor radio,3 channels on the black and white tv,the milkman and my parents complaining how spoiled rotten we were
Loved the milk deliveries...the Sears Roebuck catalogue was the best reading in town...every Summer you joined a Summer reading program and agreed to read X number of books. At the end you got a certificate. Library cards were 25 cents. Tang sucked. I saw the first color TV in my neighborhood. You basically had three colors LOL You had three channels - 2,5,11 and three UHF and VHF - 17, 36 and 46 - they were scratchy. Knowing how to write was important. Your signature meant something. Flying was great - you got real food and the kids got pins and toys. Seat belts ROFL. Good times!
Tang sucked and those space food bars tasted dry and crumbly in your mouth.
This year, I’m nearing 70 years old. In my free time, a few friends and I still reminisce about our childhood stories. Everyone has their own memorable experiences to share. It truly was a wonderful time.
Gen X here. Most of this i was familiar with in the early70's and 80's.
I was going to make the same comment. born in 70. I experienced much of this, i would say most of it.
My school never had duck and cover drills. But we did have fire drills where we had to practice getting out of the building as quickly as possible and then stand out in the lawn and hope that the school building would burn down, but it never did. 😂
@@glennso47 wow!
I think that's one thing that every student universally hoped lol.
Ah, yes. The venerable Fire Drill. I remember those and thought the same thing.
We had duck and cover drills in Los Angeles. They doubled as earthquake drills. On the same block as my elementary school there was an air raid siren that was tested every Friday. It was there for civil defense in case of nuclear attack.
Yeah...glass, brick and concrete, the most flammable materials known to man...
Oh, wait!
When I came home from Vietnam, I was suddenly a popular guy because while I was there I ordered a stereo with an 8 track player that also recorded 8 tracks.. NOBODY else had one. The first playlists!
I remember the stereo equipment the guys brought back from Vietnam and Germany. Very high quality stuff and they got it very cheap. Most of my friends had older brothers deployed.
Card catalog! A thing of magic and wonder!
my dad had his neighbors' phone cut off for not giving up the party line
That’s crazy! 😂
@@TheHistoryReserveIn the 80s, the family of my sister's boyfriend had a party line. They basically got a women chased out of town for listening in on phone calls and gossiping. Wasn't anything legally they could do. When they had proof she was spreading information she could only get by listening in, the town took care of making sure she wasn't welcome.
@@keekers Wow!!
We had a party line. We had a medical energy and they refused to give us the line to call for help. My uncle died from that heart attack a few weeks later in hospital. He might have been saved if the gossipy neighbours got off the line. It's was a sad day.
@@psychoticbob That is a felony. I know.
Wow!
They'll be getting their comeuppance on Judgment Day. Your uncle will probably earn his way into Heaven. 🙂🙏
The early Polaroid pictures came out with the wet chemicals on the outside, and we shook them to help them dry. Later, the chemicals were contained within, so there was no need to shake them any more.
Don't forget the protective lacquer coating for the earlier (pre-SX-70) black & white ones that you apply with the supplied sponge applicator. That's what needed to be dried by waving around. Without the coating they would fade.
As far as the SX-70 colour prints go, artist Lucas Samaras would push the still-wet emulsion around with his fingers and empty ball-point pens, before it developed. He got some surreal effects with it.
remember that stick you had to swipe across the picture, so the colors wouldn't fade? That was before they perfected the process
@@gnericgnome4214Yes, the stick yiu had to run across!! My Gramdpa had k e of the first Polaroids and I can still see him running that stick across the picture! Grandpa passed away in 1977 just before technology wa really hitting - I knew he would have enjoyed taking videos with sound and so ma y other items. He had one of the first color TVs before there were any color shows. I didn’t know for years that The Cisco Kid TV show was filmed in color but we couldn’t see it. Loved that show!
8 tracks came out while cassette tapes were already out. They failed because people could record their own playlists on cassettes and 8 tracks did not have that capability.
There were home 8 track recorders.
Nope, wrong! Cassettes preexisted 8 track but were originially intended for voice recording and thus had crappy fidelity. 8 track tapes recorded (and played back) at twice the tape speed of cassettes with more surface area to record on and therefore produced higher quality recordings. It wasn't until cassette manufactures started producing better tape and recorder makers changed their technology that cassettes began to rival 8 track!
And yes you could record your own 8 track tapes, substantually cheaper than buying them in the store.
I’m thinking those big 8-tracks came out before the smaller size cassettes - and they were non-recording at that time. We might still have our 8-tracks in a box somewhere!
The only advantage of 8 tracks was you could let the entire tape play through again without flipping the cartridge over to hear the other side.
@@ivanleterror9158 Forgot about that! But they were so big and awkward - glove box couldn’t hold maybe a couple or so! I’m back driving our old 1999 sweetie - only over air radio but she has a CD slot!!!
Thanks for this video back into our past. Growing up in the 1960s & 1970s was great. In my opinion, it was probably the best decades to be a child/teenager. Life was fun, music was fantastic and we learned responsibilities. Hopefully, some families have kept some of these traditions in place-family meals, family jobs around the house inside & out, outdoor games, movies together, etc....
I'm lol-ing at the explanation of what a record is. I'm so old.
Last Christmas we started giving our albums to our son and DIL - have five. Them about half (we have to take them to Colorado where they live to North Carolina where we live!) I still miss them - the rest hopefully,will,go this year! I need to see if they want my stack of at least 100 45s!
The Sears catalogue was the best!
I preferred JC Whitney! 😂
Sears, J.C. Penney’s and Montgomery Wards.
In Canada it was the Eaton's catalogue that was a big thing with us kids, especially around Christmas time.
@@ramblerdave1339 Order me some fuzzy dice for my mirror and some blue dot tail lights which were ilegle later on.
@@ivanleterror9158 Got 'em already! 😂
It's not just boomers. I'm GenX and I remember most of those things.
Gas is actually cheaper against your wages today than in 1970! @ 30 cents a gallon, I could buy 5 gallons of gas for one hour of work, being paid $1.50 an hour. If that were the case today, gas would have to be $6 a gallon and I'm on a fixed income! Oh, the party line! not only did you have to wait for the line to clear, you had to remember your house's ring sequence to determine if the call was for you or not.
Gas wars, would get down to 19 cents a Gal. But, don't forget about inflation
2 mistakes in the narration. 1) At the Drive-In there was a wired speaker on a post at each parking spot. You had to hang the speaker inside your car window. 2) When using a payphone your coin(s) would be returned if the called party didn't answer or if the line was busy.
2: I remember one TV station that played a video of a fighter jet flying through the clouds at sign-off with a voice-over of the poem "High Flight".
I loved the annual sears catalog christmas gift hunt 😂 I would spend hours reading and looking at pics of stuff I wanted
Sure....and you skipped the lady's underwear section just like I did.......
@@kimmer6 yeah..... I skipped it 🤔🤔🤔🤪
The gas for the car in that time was also filled with lead. Unleaded gas became a thing in the 1970s. You can still buy lead fuel supplemen fluids for classic cars in auto parts stores today.
kind of funny; we gave up lead because it supposedly caused brain damage, and now we're dumber than we used to be.
My grandmother had a party line. You could tell who the call was for based on how the phone rang.
Christ I'm old. Still, it was all good and I miss every bit of it. Love this video.
The reason sodas tasted better out of a glass jar was because they used cain sugar instead of corn syrup.
2:15
During the Baby Boom, it wasn't JUST Sears.
J.C. Pennys also did a lot of catalog related business.
Sears, J.C. Penneys, Service Merchandise, Montgomery Ward....
@@gnericgnome4214 I couldn't remember if Monty Wards did a catalog.
I don't think I've heard of Service Merchandise.
@@gnericgnome4214 Yeah, Monkey Wards. My dad liked Monkey Wards socks with the red smile heel. My gramma showed me how to sew and I made a stuffed monkey from a pair of those socks following Montgomery Ward's plans.
@@bricefleckenstein9666 Yes, Monkey Wards did have a catalogue. They were pretty good on appliances.
@@bricefleckenstein9666 It's more properly "Monkey Wards"
At my Grandma's on a Saturday night, we cousins (about 10 of us) would lay out quilts on the floor and were allowed to stay up as long as we lasted, watching horror movies. We always swore that we would last until the channel went off. We never did last. We woke up to a silent TV and we were covered up.
in central indiana it was the sammy terry show . i loved overnighting with a large ky family and watching the cheesy movies but eventually their dad decided that he had 10 girls to protect so i wasnt allowed to overnight any longer .
sometimes when it rained most of us would capture night crawlers in the school yard but it sure didnt yield much pay .
As a kid growing up in the southern US in the late 1950s and early 1960s TV programming ended with beautiful scenery while playing the instrumental to "Dixie"
That sounds wonderful. I grew up in Phoenix and I remember the test screen and one station had a beautiful poem - it might have been called “High Flight” or something like that played before the test screen and then total black! I never gave a thought about it being different in other parts of the US!
I just googled “high flight” and I’m correct (amazing! It’s a poem from 1941 - anyone can find it - and read it!
When we got the Sears wish book the first thing we did was go to the toy section then we would checkout the womens underwear section.
The milkman didn't just deliver milk - you could get cheese and other dairy products.
It was a Fox Photo booth that the Libyan's VW Microbus ran into in the first Back To The Future in 1985.
When I was a kid we shared a phone line with eight other families in rural Iowa until around 1970. Then it was a two-party line. We didn't have a private phone line until about 1973.
Now my wife and I have four telephone numbers between the two of us.
One important feature of the boomer generation that seems to be forgotten here is that nostalgia existed back then too. In the 50’s and 60’s my parents and grandparents longed for aspects of the “good old days” of their youth when many of the things mentioned here didn’t exist . . .
And in spite of all these archaic things we did...we did fine, and were happy--- MUCH happier than people nowadays who can't talk to their friends and family because they can't get their face out of the cell or laptop.
I remember buying gas for 21 cents a gallon in the late 1960's when they had what they called gas wars.
When I was a kid, many people didn't phones. People just showed up at each other's houses. Loved when that happened. The old man would send someone to the A&W for a gallon of root beer in the glass jug. If it turned into a party, he'd send someone for another jug of root beer. We were so easily pleased in those days and root beer was such a treat.
People I knew used their fallout shelters whenever there were tornados in the area. In Oklahoma, there are lots of tornados.
Back in the 60's we got about 4 channels of TV, mostly B&W, and later in Color. I didn't get a color TV until the 80's. Surprisingly, I can still only get about 4 TV channels TODAY over direct broadcast, but it is now digital instead of analog. Sigh, no more watching NFL football games from 1200 miles away when the ionosphere allowed 'skip' - static galore but still decernable through the 'confetti snow'.
Remember the happiness of Freedom? Liberty used to be highly valued and cherished here in the USA. 🤩
75 and saw ALL these items. A few glitches here & there, but still brought back a bunch of good memories.
75 here, too. Good presentation overall, in spite of the glitches.
Drive in theaters didnt offer radio sound till the late 70's. Before that, wired speakers on posts.
And every so often one of your buddies would show up the next day with a trophy hanging to his window unless the speaker wire was tougher than the window glass.
Drive Inns used the corded speaker boxes not radio that came in the 70’s. TV was 3 network stations and PBS although the dials had 56 stations. I was one of 9 TV remotes for my Dad whoever was closest. Cartoons were only on Saturday mornings and 2 hours on Sundays. Street light curfew or Dad’s whistle. We would pack 9 kids and Mom and Dad into a station wagon, no seat belts. Gas was $.32 a gallon in 76’, you could get 4 burgers, 4 small frys, and 4 drinks at McDonalds for under $10.
Yeah, I remember when a Big Mac cost only 75 cents.
"Street light curfew." Same thing in Canada.
Also: An entire generation of young men lived in fear of being drafted and shipped off to Vietnam. Many of those who were lucky enough to survive came back traumatized for life.
@@spidgeb3292 not really, Vietnam was almost over before the draft started. I was subject to it when I was eighteen but the war was ten years in by then and only had two years to run. They kept the draft but ended the war. They drew dates at the Pentagon and it was broadcast on TV. I called it "death bingo". I drew draft number 365, but it was a leap year, there were 366 birthdays drawn. Only people with low draft numbers were at any real risk of being drafted. The people who were protesting the war on college campuses all had deferments. Most of the people who went enlisted voluntarily.
The Sears Catalog lasted longer in Canada. I worked on it around 2000, and one of the stats that got thrown around in the office was that 1/2 of all grad/prom dresses in Canada were ordered from the Sears Catalog because there just weren't (affordable) shops in small towns.
@@larryhammond5907 wow!!
As well as a milk man who delivered fresh milk daily, the neighborhood i grew up in as a kid back in the 60's also had the "egg man" as we called him. He would deliver farm fresh eggs weekly. He would bring in a big basket of eggs and set them on the kitchen table and my mother would pick through them. They were farm fresh brown eggs. No bleached white eggs you would buy at the store. And let's not forget about the Fuller Brush Man back then making house calls.
White eggs are not bleached. Any chicken farmer can tell you that the color of the eggs depends on the breed of chicken.
@@leestamm3187 Lol, I was hoping someone would correct that.
Yep we had a party line and a milkman my childhood was captured in black and white color film was a luxury.
Yeah the milkman, chicka chicka wow wow. Getting it on with the housewives!
went to drive in theaters in the early 60s and into the 70s before they became extinct but were a blast. Me and my friends went through all that this video talks about, I was born in 55 so yah, it was a trip!!!!
I just turned 64. These are the good old days! No more rushing home in fear you would miss your favorite program. With the invention of the VCR/Tivo/DVR you could record it. Back in the day you just had to wait for summer reruns. If I want to watch some old TV shows, I can always tune into MeTV or some other nostalgia channel. If I want to watch something new, there’s current TV. On a personal note speaking as a retired auto mechanic if you would’ve told me 35 years ago that a 2.4L four-cylinder engine would crank out 195 hp WITHOUT a turbo charger I would’ve said you’re out of your mind! But that’s exactly what my 2013 Hyundai Sonata put out. With all the innovations I’ve been privileged to see in my life. I only hope I get to live another 30 to 40 years so I can experience even more fantastic innovations!
You mean, you actually knew to program a goddamn VCR to record TV shows???
My dad was the chief engineer at an Atlas missile base when the Cuban Missile Crisis hit. I didn't realize it but they had armed the missiles with nuclear warheads, we were that close to the war to end all wars I didn't know this until he told me that just a year ago. He is 92 years old now
I do think any of us knew at that time that the misses weee actually armed - I was in HS and have vague memories - never knew the real story for years!
In the Navy in San Diego. We were told we might pack our sea bags at any given moment at that time.
I remember the Cuban Missile Crisis quite well. Most everyone I knew was aware that the missiles were nukes. That's why it was called a "Crisis."
You didn't run out of change because if no one answered, your money was returned... a B.S. remark...
Came here to say this. The child needs to check with those who were there.
no need to condescend
@@JenSell1626 ok karen
My grandmother had a "city radio". It was connected by a cable and had two knobs. Volume and station selector. Station 1, station 2 and station 3.
We used to have "gas wars". Stations across from each other would occasionally lower their prices a penny or two for a couple of days to drum up more business. We would see this and lower our prices a penny lower. This usually lasted 2 or 3 days and then went back to the regular prevailing prices for the time.
I am Gen-X, and our milkman was named Mr. Sweet. For the longest time, I thought all sweet milk came from his company. There was also a potato chip company that delivered Charlie's Chips.
And don't forget the Good Humor ice cream man. And in the Los Angeles area the Helms bakery trucks door to door. My FIL drove one for 30 years in the Venice area.
IDK if this is actual fact, but I read that the reason the letters on our keyboards are arranged in such an odd order goes back to the old-school clickety-clack typewriters. The layout stemmed from trying to minimize the risk of the letter hammers jamming together when typing quickly.
I was a full service gas jockey .Best days of my life even after I worked 25 years Psychiatric. Being outside and listening to good music was freedom.
Here in eastern Pa. during the 1960's we had the :'Tidy diaper" man, way before disposable diapers mom and dad would rinse the dirty diapers in the toilet bowl and put them in a hamper and the Tidy Diaper man would pick the cotton cloth diapers up once a week and give you a fresh stack of clean diapers for the next week. Of course us kids would flush the soaking diapers and poor dad had to unclog the toilet at least once a week.
In the early 60,s in Australia, there was an adhesive film you could stick to you TV to make it look like colour. The top was blue, centre green, bottom brown.
Perth had its first channel in 1958, then its second was the ad-free ABC channel in 1960, then it's second commercial station in 1965. Perth finally got its fourth station in 1988.
As children we would collect empty soft drink bottles and return them to the corner shop. We got tuppence (1.66 cents) for small bottles and threepence (2.5 cents) for large bottles.
A marine dealer (bottle collector called the bottle-O) would collect empty beer and soft drink bottles from homes and pay a halfpenny (0.42 cents) for each bottle.
Also had a fruit and vegetable vendor would do his weekly round down our street in his truck, but my favourite was the Italian gelati vendor with his horse and wagon.
His gelati still is the most delicious ice cream I had ever eaten. A racist friend of mine claimed the icecream was made with horse manure, to which I replied that it's delicious.
3:22
It's been found that "clicky" keyboards work better on Computers, it's NOT just a typewriter thing - and the BETTER typewriters were sometimes quieter than some of the early IBM computer keyboards.
I had a hand-me-down CURSIVE typewriter from my Grandpa which I used for decades; all my letters to him were typed on it. Wonder what kids would make of THAT, today?😮
Drive in sound came to our car through a speaker that hung on the drivers window. Never used radio at all at a drive in
OK, after reading all of the comments....nobody mentions 4 track tapes. The 8 track tapes had the rubber pinch roller idler wheel built in to the tape that you were playing. The 4 track tapes had a big hole in the underside of the end that goes into the player with no roller. The pinch roller popped up from the tape machine and forced the tape into the drive post to play it. Either way, it was common to pull out a tape and have it spew out a hundred miles of tape that could never be repaired.
Our drive in had corded speakers only. Some foreigners owned it and at the climax of the movie, they would get on the P.A. system and override the movie sound with ''Dee snagg barrrr ees closink een feefteen meenutes, de snagg barrr ees closink een feefteen meenutes.'' TO which everybody blew their horns, flashed their lights, and yelled ''SHUT UP DUMB ASS!''
6:57
Yagi antennas above the roof were more common for TV antennas than rabbit years, which FLAT OUT DIDN'T WORK well.
And many of them were able to be turned for better reception by the "Antenna Rotor" as advertised on TV.
@@ivanleterror9158 Antenna rotors were widespread - carry-over from Amateur Radio designs for the most part.
Needed mostly when you were close to a city, as the transmitter sites were usually scattered all over the city or nearby.
@@ivanleterror9158 We didn't have a rotor in the 50's. Someone would go out and turn the mast, another person would hold the door open so we could hear each other, and a third person would watch the TV and yell out to stop turning when the picture was good. A real pita, but we didn't know any better.
#24? Nah. Totally wrong camera. You were talking about having to send films to a lab to be developed and printed, but showed a Polaroid instant camera the whole time.
Ahh, Photo Mat, I remember it well. Your local drug store as well.
I remember when I was a kid around Christmas getting the Sears catalog and being told circle the things you want Santa to bring you I miss a lot of things in this video
I would do that, plus circle one pretty girl in a bikini.
Mom and older sister frowned on me doing that.
@@im1who84u lol
Nah, the Best things were the TOY catalogs!!
I'm surprised there isn't more about the types of records available. As an early teen, we often bought 45s (45 revolutions per minute - RPM), which had just one song on the A-side and a (usually) less popular song on the B-side. They had a big hole in the middle and you had to have an adapter so they fit on the spindle. Albums (LPs, 33 1/3 rpm) became more popular through the 1960s, and really took off with the switch from AM radio to FM. The switch to albums and FM radio revolutionized the music itself, and arguably 1971 was the year of some of the best rock. Sometimes we even listened to our parents' 78-rpm records. The main problem with records is that they easily got scratched and would skip. You also couldn't play them in the car unless you recorded them onto tape.
I remember wearing nylon slacks as I was driving and took a sharp turn to the right and slid across the vinyl bench seat until my butt hit the opposite door trim.
I craned my head up to see over the dashboard and pulled myself back with my right hand.
(We are right hand drive here in Australia.)
Later I learned that guys would take a sharp left turn to get the girl they had just taken to the movies to slide up against them.
Great memories.
The only better memories are the ones I have not yet had.
That sounds kinda creepy and manipulative
My mother once was driving Dad's pick-up while her car was in the shop. She had made a casserole for a potluck at work that day, and she picked up a co-worker who also had a casserole. Both Mom and the other lady were "plus size" as we say now. They put the casseroles on the bench seat between them, and Mom slid over as far as she could to make room. She was leaning against the driver's door, and as she took a sharp right, the latch came loose and she slid out onto the pavement as the truck kept on going.
@@bobunderwood803 I'm glad you brought that up. It was a hazard in the early days of driving and your mother could have been hurt badly. I hope she wasn't.
At least when cornering in those old tanks it was necessary to slow down quite a bit to make the turn.
Though the possibility of going under the wheels of the car behind was always there.
As a Gen Xer I remember almost all those things.
Even with all of this technology, and some is pretty cool, I would still go back to the good old days anytime.
I took a typing class as a filler my last year in high school. Probably the last year this class was offered. Computers were just coming out. The typing class ended up being one of the most useful high school classes I took. Using pc’s in college I could type 20wpm+ while most were hunting and pecking.
I did my student teaching to 3 classes using typewriters - 1972! I was already 25 and finishing college as I has to pay my own way through many years - took a little longer than usual🫢☹️
I taught myself in 8th grade (1962) using the old "20th Century Typewriting" flip book on a manual typewriter. An extremely useful skill ever since. At my best, when I was a computer programmer, I could do about 60 wpm. My fingers are slower at 75, maybe around 40 wpm now. My mother was a legal secretary, around 100 wpm in her prime. My wife was a secretary, about 100 wpm at her best. I still get comments from young folks watching me on my laptop, "How do you go so fast?" 😁
Mid-sixties, I got a part time job selling encyclopedias. There were several very large companies in the business. Britannica and Grolier were two I still remember. I lasted 2 evenings of training before I told them to shove it. The entire sales pitch was based on guilt tripping parents that their kids would fall behind in school if they didn't have a set of encyclopedias for the kids to study at home.
Boomer here. I was an adult before White-Out was available. I typed on a manual typewriter, often with carbon paper to make copies, and the only way to correct mistakes was with a very hard eraser that often tore a hole in the paper. I was already working before photocopiers came on the scene, although there were things like mimeographs and thermofaxes. Of course, there were no remotes to turn anything on and off, including both b&w and color TV and you had to get up and manually change the channel. And, while there were lots of gadgets and cookware innovations (my Mom loved her electric frying pan), microwave ovens didn't come around for a while. In our area milk delivery stopped by the mid-50s, although I know that milk and bread deliveries continued to the 60s in other areas.
I remember collecting cereal box tops to mail in for some kind of toy and checking the mailbox from the next day of sending it in. Lol
I still have a box of 8 track tapes and a set of airline silverware.
Sears sold entire houses. You bought the kit and put it together yourself.
Not available after 1942.