<p>I was a student secretary in the psych department in college. Loved it when teachers hand-wrote their tests on dittos—easy machine to use and smelled GREAT!! the mimeograph machine and process was GROSS. We typed the tests on IBM selectric typewriters on this blue paper–basically the typewriter made a letter-shaped hole in the paper—if we made a mistake, there was this blue liquid that you painted over the error that “filled in” the letter, and then you typed over it. Making the copies with that black ink everywhere was the worst task of all of them. I’d always volunteer to type!</p>
<p>RE: carbonated beverages…</p>
<p>Having moved from IL to CA, back to IL, then to PA…we went back and forth between “pop” and “soda”. Then we moved to NC…it’s COKE. Even the grocery store has “Coke” on the sign for the carbonated beverages—pepsi, coke, 7-up, etc.<br>
"What kind of Coke do you want? "
“7-up please.”
“OK.”</p>
<p>^^ I had no idea what my relatives in Massachusetts were talking about when they offered me a “tonic” when I visited them one time (I’ve never lived in the NE). It was bad enough trying to decifer the accent.</p>
<p>Last time I saw a ditto machine in action was about 1988 in my son’s school in OK. Parent volunteers were still listening to that satisfying “ka-chunk” and watching the purple ink until the “master” copy was too far gone. Then someone had to type another. I remember it well from my year as student council secretary: You typed on a white sheet and some sort of carbon-paper like substance transfered to the reverse… when put into the chemical infused drum it would transfer your writing to a clean sheet. I got my only C in high school in typing - so imagine the fact that errors meant you started fresh or re-wrote the sentence around the typo. We must have had some interesting minutes!
A memeograph was a much more difficult thing - you typed on a film sheet and then put it on an inked drum and the ink came through the places where your typewriter had made the sheet permeable.<br>
Those of us on Jr High newspaper staff had to use special stencils to scribe the headlines on the articles. “Pictures” such as they were, had to be scratched in a similar way. And we all thought we were going to stop the war and become famous for our 8th grade scribbling!</p>
<p>And all carbonated drinks when I was in school were “coke”. Infuriated the kids from elsewhere:
“I’m going to the machine, do you want a coke?”
“Yes, bring me back a diet 7-up”</p>
<p>Oh, the smell of the ditto paper! Not only was I the student that had to take a whiff, as a teacher I would inhale right after printing the weekly vocabulary test. There was just something about that cold, wet paper with blue ink!</p>
<p>As far as regional differences- While visiting daughter up north at school I was trying to figure out which of the 2 ice tea pitchers was unsweeten and which held the sweet tea. After inquiring and being told they were both unsweet, my daughter had to remind me we were not in the south and there was no such thing as sweet tea in the north. I had to laugh at myself for not thinking, but I was also tickled at my daughter for thinking what a dummy her mom was! She had been in the north for all of two months at the time and here she was speaking with such knowledge.</p>
<p>I also have trouble going north and only finding Pepsi; this southern gal needs her diet coke!!</p>
<p>Does anyone remember the cord you would drive over at the gas station that would make a sound so the guy would come out and fill your tank and wash your windshield? I don’t think it had a name but I was thinking of it the other day…</p>
<p>It’s the ding ding ding ding thing. (4 tires)</p>
<p>Not only would the guy come out when the “ding ding ding thing” (we must get a scientific name for that!), but he would be wearing a uniform (and maybe a cap with insignia) AND he would clean the windshield and sometimes when you “filled up” you would get the next in a series of dishes. Sometimes I see remnants of that era in flea markets now. Nothing like a good set of gas station premium dishes. </p>
<p>Or there were the trading stamps…Nothing like good family bonding over a stamp sticking spree.</p>
<p>Bill Bryson’s description is perfect!
Given some of the earlier replies, do you think mimeograph is a regional variation on ditto?</p>
<p>And I loved those gas station ding, ding, ding things.</p>
<p>How about this for nostalgia:
Do you remember having purchases tabulated by hand in the grocery store? The machines were very similar to the old crank-style adding machines. How did we manage to finish our shopping in under 4 hours??</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Yes, and sometimes these inefficiencies are efficient! Five years ago, we bought all office supplies to send off D (middle child) to college. We shopped in a sole-proprietor shop in the Catskill Mountains. No Target, Office Depot, etc. within miles.</p>
<p>At the end of our long session there, the electricity went out, as it did throughout lower New York State that day. Fortunately, the entire order was handwritten on a little MIMEO receipt pad lasting many pages.</p>
<p>If the power blackout had occurred anywhere else, our order would have been stuck inside a computerized cash register. </p>
<p>Instead, they lit a candle, finished the order (2 sharpies, 3 erasers…each word written out,I thought I’d never get out of there.) They wished her well at college. I promised to return with my Visa, since my cash supply didn’t cover it. No problem.</p>
<p>It was a smalllllllll town.</p>
<p>And if you went to the same gas station often enough you could get your very own Peter Max towel.</p>
<p>I love the scene in Animal House where John Belushi is dumpster diving for the mimeograph original of the Psych test.</p>
<p>Re: the ditto machine, I never really cared for the smell, but some kids would really sniff the paper.</p>
<p>What I remember best is how some teachers would come into class with damp, smelly dittos - they’d just run the papers off, meaning they’d done their prep at the last minute. Other teachers had ‘cured’ dittos that were far more tolerable, from my standpoint. It was a nice window into the teacher’s preparedness.</p>
<p>Same thoughts on the guys that smoked cigarettes while wiping car windshields. Some were meticulous, some less so, which I found interesting.</p>
<p>Since we’re on the subject of grade school nostalgia and Peter Max- I remember the big thing at our elementary school were the Peter Max pocket folders- they were in black and white and schoolchildren could color them in with felt tip markers. Felt tip markers were $2.00 for a pack of about 12 (I remember because I used to buy them with my allowance). We’d sit in class and doodle/color our pocket folders.</p>
<p>Another popular school toy (which was eventually banned) was this clacking device made with string and two resin balls tied to each end (about 2" diameter). You’d hold the string in the middle and get the balls clacking up and down- they made a racket. EVERYONE had these and we would bring them to school, much to the teacher’s chagrin; occasionally someone’s ball would go flying off the string and break something.</p>
<p>Does anybody remember those round, black bomb-like things they used to light and put around construction sites in the road? When did they vanish?!</p>
<p>weenie,</p>
<p>I sure do - they had wicks sticking out of them that the construction workers would light.</p>
<p>I had forgotten all about those things.</p>
<p>I think the clacking balls were called “Clackers.” I was good at clackers, but could not get the paddle ball (wooden paddle with the rubber line attached to a rubber ball) down to save my life. </p>
<p>Who remembers their new lunch pails/boxes each year. I grew up in a home of hand-me-downs, but no matter how tough things were, we four kids always got to pick out a new shiny metal lunch box every Sept. And what a choice there was.</p>
<p>And the funniest toy ever - Vroom Motors. You put them on your bike, I suppose they ran on batteries?, and they made a loud VROOM noise. LOL</p>
<p>Sunny: My younger sister still has her Partridge Family lunch box. It’s hilarious.</p>
<p>Vroom motors? We must have been underprivileged. We attached playing cards with clothes pins to our bike frames so they came in contact with the spokes and made a whirring noise. Our house never had a complete deck of cards.</p>