A Walk Down Memory Lane

For baby boomers and those fortunate enough to remember, when . . .

• It took five minutes for the television to warm up.
• There was an antenna on the roof of your house which was connected to rabbit ears on the top of your television.
• You had to adjust the TV’s vertical and horizontal holds to get good reception.
• Sometimes wrapping aluminum foil around the rabbit ears would give you a better picture.

• You had to get up and walk over to the television to turn it on and off. You also had to get up and walk over to the television to change the channel.
• There were only three TV stations, and they went off the air at night.
• The first TV program “in living color” was an event.
• Phones were black with rotary dials and party lines.
• You dialed “0″ on your telephone to get an Operator.
• Phone numbers had a word prefix like “DI(amond)” or “OL(ympic).”
• If you weren’t home and needed to call someone, you had to use a pay phone.
• Nearly everyone’s mom was home when kids got home from school.
• Nylon stockings came in two pieces, one for each leg, and had dark seams down the back.
• Females wore hats and gloves to church.
• No one owned a purebred dog.
• A mixed breed dog was called a mutt or Heitz 57, and nobody paid good money to buy one.
• A quarter was a decent allowance.
• You wouldn’t think twice about picking up a penny.
• A service station attendant pumped your gas, cleaned your windshield, and automatically checked your oil, without asking, free of charge, every time you went for gasoline.
• Laundry detergent came with free glassware, dishes, or towels hidden inside the box.
• You had to defrost the refrigerator.
• It was considered a special treat to go out to dinner at a restaurant with your parents.
• Diners and soda counters had table-top jukeboxes.
• Soda pop machines dispensed soda pop in glass bottles.
• Girls wore ugly gym uniforms.
• Male teachers wore dress shirts and neckties; female teachers wore high heels and had their hair done.
• Teachers threatened to keep kids back a grade if they failed . . . and then did it.
• Being sent to the principal’s office was nothing compared to the fate that awaited you at home.
• Spanking a naughty child was OK.
• A ’57 Chevy was everyone’s dream car.
• Cool guys wore leather jackets and jeans, had ducktail haircuts, and were considered “fast.”
• 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 had a key for your roller skates and wore it around your neck.
• You collected 45 RPM records and listened to them on your Hi-Fi.
• Stuff from the store came without safety caps or seals because no one had yet tried to poison a perfect stranger.
• People went “steady.”
• Young lovers sat in the balcony of the movie theater where they could make out.
• You knew how to do the Jitterbug, Stroll, Bristol Stomp, Mashed Potatoes, Twist, and Pony.
• Girls word saddle shoes and bobby socks.
• You would lie on your back in the grass with friends and say things like, “That cloud looks like a . . .”
• Catching fireflies could happily occupy an entire evening.
• You played baseball on back lots without adults to help with the rules of the game.
• When you played baseball, the captains of each team moved their hands up a bat to see which team went first.
• Summers were filled with bike rides, rollerskating, baseball games, hula hoops, bowling, visits to the pool, and Saturday matinees at the movies.
• If rain kept you indoors, you couldn’t wait to get out.
• A quarter would get you into the movies where you could sit all afternoon watching three horror flicks in a row.
• You could get a McDonald hamburger, fries, and a milkshake for under a dollar.
• The milk man delivered milk in glass bottles with paper bottle caps right to your doorstep.
• You would “double dog dare” someone.
• Decisions were made by using “eeny-meeny-miney-moe.”
• “Race issue” meant arguing about who ran the fastest.
• It wasn’t odd to have two or three best friends.
• The worst thing you could catch from the opposite sex was the cooties.
• Having a weapon in school meant being caught with a slingshot.
• A foot of snow on a school day was a dream-come-true.
• “Oly-oly-in-free” made perfect sense.
• You played a game called “It.”
• When you went to your friend’s house, instead of knocking on the door, you sang, “Oh, [name of friend].”
• Packs of baseball cards came with squares of pink bubble gum in each that broke into pieces when you bit into them.
• Baseball cards in the spokes transformed any bike into a motorcycle.
• Taking drugs meant orange-flavored chewable aspirin.
• Water balloons were the ultimate weapon.
• War was a card game.

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