How's This For Nostalgia?

Most of my life has been centered around selling nostalgia and reminiscing with sports fans. But outside of the sports memorabilia I typically deal with on a daily basis, I felt out of touch with other things that are now considered out of touch. Yesterday I was browsing through a website filled with blasts from the past, and I thought some of you may appreciate some of the things that jumped out at me...

Do you remember when...

It took three minutes for the TV to warm up?

Nobody owned a purebred dog?

A quarter was a decent allowance?

You would reach into a muddy gutter for a penny?

Your Mom wore nylons that came in two pieces?

You got your windshield cleaned, oil checked, and gas pumped, without
asking, all for free, every time? And you didn't pay for air? And, you got
trading stamps to boot?

Laundry detergent had free glasses, dishes or towels hidden inside the box?

It was considered a great privilege to be taken out to dinner at a real
restaurant with your parents?

A 57 Chevy was everyone's dream car...to cruise, peel out, lay rubber
or watch submarine races, and people went steady?

No one ever asked where the car keys were because they were always in the
car, in the ignition, and the doors were never locked?

You played baseball with no adults to help kids with the rules of the game?

Stuff from the store came without safety caps and hermetic seals because no
one had yet tried to poison a perfect stranger?

When being sent to the principal's office was nothing compared to the fate
that awaited the student at home?

We were in fear for our lives, but it wasn't because of drive-by
shootings, drugs, gangs, etc. Our parents and grandparents were a much
bigger threat! But we survived because their love was greater than the
threat.

The worst embarrassment was being picked last for a team?

Having a weapon in school meant being caught with a Slingshot?

Spinning around, getting dizzy, and falling down was cause for giggles?

Baseball cards in the spokes transformed any bike into a motorcycle?

Water balloons were the ultimate weapon?

Mistakes were corrected by simply exclaiming, 'Do Over!'?

Summers filled with bike rides, hula hoops, visits to the pool, and eating Kool-Aid powder with sugar?

...and with all our progress, don't you just wish, just once, you could slip
back in time and savor the slower pace, and share it with the children of
today.

and do you remember...

Candy cigarettes?

Soda pop machines that dispensed glass bottles?

Coffee shops with table side jukeboxes?

Blackjack, Clove and Teaberry chewing gum?

Home milk delivery in glass bottles with cardboard stoppers?

Telephone numbers with a word prefix...( Yukon 2-601)?

78 RPM records?

Green stamps?

Howdy Doody, Courageous Cat, the original Superman and Batman, Lost in Space, original Star Trek, Magilla Gorilla, the Peanut Gallery, the Lone Ranger, the Shadow Knows, Nellie Bell, Roy and Dale, Trigger and Buttermilk?

Oh, those were the good ole days. Tell me what things you miss the most, no matter how renowned or obscure they were.

Song Of The Day: "Easy" by The Commodores

Movie Quote Of The Day: "The list is an absolute good. The list is life" (Schindler's List)


3 comments


  • Playing Stup Ball, Playing Hockey in the Street on roller skates with metal garbage cans as the Goal’s and the car coming down the street would wait without hunking the horn for us to move the garbage cans ( GOALs ) out of the way I can keep on going but I just wanted to post a couple things we did growing up that were FUN AND SAFE AND IS NO LONGER SEEN TODAY IF YOU STOP AT A RED LIGHT THE CAR BEHIND YOU STARTS HUNKING THE HORN !!!!!

    David B on

  • Those were the good old days. Nobody stayed inside.We put our baseball gloves on our bike’s handlebars and spent the day playing ball or climbing trees or whatever. Too bad they don’t do those things now.

    Bernie Petak on

  • When I was 10-years old my grandparents used to take me to Whitestone Pool (one of the most popular semi-public pools in Queens) NYC.
    They always had an RC Cola machine with the baseball players on the cans and I always wanted one. But my grandparents would never let me buy a can because at the snack bar sodas were .15 cents cheaper!
    I finally bought my RC Cola can on eBay for $2.00 (in MINT Condition) and it was SEALED never having soda in it (unbelievable right?). Some things we are meant to have I guess, and if we are patient enough we may get something far better. Want to see pictures? cardcop04@gmail.com

    James McCay on

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