Signs of Getting Older

Wow! What a great thread! I have come to one inescapable conclusion. You ready for it?

MAN! YOU GUYS ARE OLD!

LOL… I jest. I can relate to most all of this.

20cents a gallon gas, 10 cent comic books, pop off soda caps, fixing a tv was a trip to the nearest drugstore with a sack full of tubes, three to 4 tv channels and mabe one came in clear, broadcast outages was the norm, parents do you knowwhere your children are, and yeah, we watched the commercials because we were too lazy to get up and change the channel.

Oh man, the good old days.

Okay…I’m so old…I used a slide rule for the first three years of college, a yellow Picket brand aluminum one with scales on both sides. I sold my car to my older brother in 1974 so that I could afford my first calculator, a Texas Instrument SR-50 that did logs and trig, it changed my life (such as it was). I am also very old because the car I sold my brother to buy that calculator was a 1956 Chevrolet 210 two-door column sedan with a 265 V-8 in very nice condition and for which he claimed I over charged him at $400…

You can buy one of those old calculators on eBay these days for $19. The car would go for a little more I think (+$25K ?)…if we only knew then what we know now…

I remember those shws, especially the rocket man. Leonard Nimoy even had a role in one of them. If you watch S.T.Voyager they do a couple episodes based on that show mixed in with Flash Gordon/Buck Rogers serials and they did them in black&white.

Then the show Andy’s Gang with the actor Andy Devine.

Kookla, Fran, and Ollie

Crusader Rabbit

Rocky and Bullwinkle

Rocky Jones, Space Ranger

Space AngelSuper Car, Fireball XL5, Stingray, Captain Scarlet

Dr. Who with John Pertwee

When shows would announce they were in color like 12:00 O’clock High, the Invaders and so on.

The first color TV sets. When they were installed and running they were not to be moved because the picture could go crazy. I don’t know why, that’s what they said.

Actually, the reason I know that I’m ‘getting up there’, is that I look at a lot of the kids today and think “Where did we go wrong?”

So many kids have no concept of reality, of having to work for a living, of respect for the flag and national pride. They idolize know-nothing celebrities and couldn’t survive without their phones in hand.

Sure am glad my kids are all grown.

Sorry to be a bummer folks, but as they say; It is what it is.

Greg, my brother called me the day it happened and asked the same question. My answer was “Who Me?”[;)]

Jim [cptn]

Stay Safe.

Oh yeah, I not only remember those shows, I watched most of them.

Beginning to think I’m older than what’s under dirt.[:S]

I’m really enjoying this message line. after reading all the messages I have a couple more:

  • Remembering when the first McDonald’s or A&W Rootbeer stand opened.

  • Living when every car or truck sold had a large chrome front and rear bumper.

  • Does anybody remember the funny shaped Pactra paint bottles?

  • When your first car was manufactured prior to 1970 and it was not a classic or antique.

  • When the military still used the 1911 Colt 45 as standard issue along with the Steel Pot, jeeps, M113 APC’s, and so on…

  • How about when we performed nuclear safety drills every day in school?

  • You had to know how to use a compass because GPS, satallites, or even computers did not exist.

  • The time when your hot rod was not complete without a Pioneer or Kenwood AM/FM Cassette with two Jenson tri-axle speakers behind the rear seat / in the window… all for well under $500.00

  • Or how about when your prermium home stereo had an Amp, Pre-Amp, Equalizer, tuner, and record player along with stereo speakers containing a base, mid-range, and tweeter (speakers).

  • Does anyone remember when lava or oil lamps were a big thing?

  • How about the original bean bag chair, did you have one?

  • When they used metal cleats for baseball and football.

  • Did anyone have the black light and associated posters in thier bedrooms?

  • Shag carpet anyone?

  • here is something not real old but old just the same; pagers, Sony Walkmans for both Cassetes or for CD’s.

  • Blockbuster or other Video rental stores

  • Reciting the Lord’s Prayer and Pledge of Allegience every day at school.

Keep them coming everyone!

Yep, reading through these made me think of a few.

My first car was a used 69 Camaro for $500.

If you wanted to have that one song you liked or to make a cool mix tape you had to call the radio station and request it, wait for it to play then record it with your cassette tape recorder. You hoped the DJ didn’t say anything before the song ended.

My first tape recorder was one of those small reel to reels you saw on Mission Impossible.

Beepers were the new thing and you didn’t need to wait by the phone for a call.

My fist calculator was a TI 2500 Datamath calculator that my dad brought home. He worked for TI at the time but you could get one for just $100. Schools band them.

I loved Capain Kangaroo and thought he worked down the street at the TV station.

After getting a color TV I was disappointed that Batman’s uniform was still black and gray.

My high-school math class (73-74) was literally the last one where the slide rule was taught…or probably even mentioned.

(However, since Dad was an electrical engineer…he’d taught my siblings and I how to use one back in grade school. Back then you could even use them on some tests – which sure as sixty wasn’t allowed with those new-fangled calculators – the reasoning being, I suppose, that if you ‘applied yourself’ sufficiently to master the slide rule.then the educational system was presumably working up to spec, the way it was intended. [I had a circular one the old man gave me, that I used in classes for years. All the advantages of being a nerd…without that tell-tale bayonet-sized thing sticking out of a pocket to broadcast it to the world. [:D]])

Well;

Lessee-Boats were built out of Wood and or Steel

You Dialed the phone with the circular thing on the front with numbers in it.

Here’s one. You put your key in the ignition,Then pressed the starter button, Oh! that’s right, Chrysler brought that one back didn’t they?

Cars had Spare Tires, not donuts or inflating kits

T.V.s had a self control thing called a Hand.

Libraries, were Quiet!

Post Ofices had the Stamp and Package counter in the same building, not two miles away!

There were these Red, White and Blue-Sometimes All Blue curved top boxes on every third corner.(Postal Drop Boxes).

Feminine and Male products were NOT advertised on T.V.

Insurance (Whatever Kind) was only advertised in a short spot showing their LOGO.

Stores had Windows toward the Sidewalks-Remember the term " Window-Shop"?

The Lights on dashboards in cars were called " Idiot Lights"! Why? Well, if one came on the damage was done, and you were an idiot for not servicing the car when you should’ve!

Maybe to check Tire Pressure,you had a little pen sized gadget you kept in your " Glove Bo". Not a little light on the dash.

Perhaps you wanted Coffee at home .You made a “pot” NOT A pod!

Shipleys and Dunkin didn’t have " Drive -Throughs".

There were no Double Door Refrigeratore and none had Computers in the Door!

Applesauce came in a Jar, Not a squeeze pouch!

Ketchup was spelled " Catsup"

Kellogs had a ten pack of little cereal boxes, sealed so well each one was called the Kel-Bowl Pack" Yeah, you could actually pour milk on the cereal in boxes without leaks.

We had a Cabinet in the bathroom wall with a Mirrored door called a " Medicine Cabinet"

Houses had “Rooms” such as Kitchens, Sitting Rooms, Living Rooms, Dining Rooms and Studies And the ONE bathroom was on the ground ( Or First) Floor. The wealthy folks had Music rooms and Parlors!

There was a thing called a Linen Closet! That’s where household Clean Linens were stored between use!

Hi Johnny K!

The first Photo was Clarabell the Clown, Buffalo Bob Smith and the one in the middle was the Marionette called Howdy Doody. Live from W.B.E.N. T.V-4- in Downtown Buffalo N.Y.

The Second-?

Third-“Our Miss Brooks”

Fourth-?

Duncan Reynaldo and Leo Carillo- In The " Cisco Kid"

Lastly-The Famous " Captain Kangaroo"

Going to the library and turning pages in the Encyclopedia Britannica for book reports.

going to the dentist and their drill was powered by cables and an electric motor.

the singer sewing machine was powered by your foot.

Going to Picatinny Arsenal each Armed Forces Day for their open house. Their border touched our town border.

I still have my steel helmet with its cammo cover and have a flack vest fro bsack then, I drovew the M-113 as well as the X706, M-715, M-151 and you had to be able to operate a stick shift for a government driver’s license.

The Thunderbirds were flying their brand new F-4E

Getting a notice from the FBI that they had just grabbed a member of the Weather Underground in a motel outside the base who was planning to cause trouble during the Bi-Centennal.

Having the Freedom Train which made a tour of all the sttates in 1976 acrrying objects from the country’s past for everyone to see.

Playing a minor part in the test flight of the new cruise missile while at Minot. Two of our fighters escorted a B-52 into Canada where it fired the missile to be picked up by a sub. Green Peace got wind of it and tried to catch it with a large net stretched between two hot air balloons.

I bought my first slide rule in high school. A friend sold it to me cheap when he upgraded to a metal one. I used it for the first year in college. Bought a used K&E during soph year from friend who upgraded to a circular one.

TB, the second photo down is “Commando Cody, Sky Marshall of the Universe.”

Also I remember “Space Patrolllllll- High Adventure in the Wild, Vast Reaches of Space! Missions of daring in the name of interplanetary justice! Travel into the future, with Buzz Corry, commander in chief, of the Space Patrollll !”

And of course, the ever-popular “Tom Corbett, Space Cadet, in the age of the Conquest of Space”,

And “Rod Brown of the Rocket Rangers”, (who didn’t seem to do much of anything.)

Ikar, saw the Thunderbirds and the “E” at Beale in '73.

Another couple of old shows… Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.

Sky King.

METV is running a morning hour of the old cartoons from the 50-60’s. That’ll take you back.

And where does this all lead; back to when we were young and innocent (well, semi-innocent for some of us). Back when there was some semblance of sanity, at least in our eyes, back when there were no hidden agendas, when life as we knew it was straight forward and could be taken at face value . . .

Wow, way back then!

Exactly.

Well, I put together a bookcase for my DVD/Blu-Ray collection last night and my back is killing me today.

Guess that’s:

1). Killer backache- yeah I’m old.

2). I don’t trust owning a movie on streaming, if I don’t own a physical copy I don’t consider it owning it- makes me old.

I used to love Rat Patrol on TV, palyed with army men and jeeps being the Rat Patrol. Bought the complete series on DVD, and boy it was awful.