<p>I remember the scariest show on our black and white television being the Invisable Man. I was the youngest and my sister and brother would hang on tight to me while I plugged my ears and closed my eyes. </p>
<p>Playing outside everyday in the summer and not coming in until the streetlights came on.
Playing punchball and Johnny on the Pony.</p>
<p>My father coming home from work wearing his suit and tie everyday and sitting in a chair smoking his pipe while waiting for dinner to be put on the table. Every family member was present at dinner and the conversations all revolved around world events…Every kid knew what was going on in regard to the Vietnam war. Most houses had ashtrays and nobody seemed to notice that cigerette smoke was polluting their home.</p>
<p>DougBetsy…Madmen also reminded me that cars did not have seatbelts. And to stop my brother and I from fighting in the backseat, my Mom would tap the breaks. We, of course, would fall forward, crashing into the back of the front seat. Got our attention and we stopped fighting. Mom’s form of discipline while driving! She shakes her head now that she actually did that, but back in the day, that’s what Mom’s did…</p>
<p>Playing ghost in the graveyard on warm summer nights, freeze tag, catching lightening bugs and making “glow” jewelry (rings, bracelets) with their bodies (yuck), getting a super cool record player that looked like a little suitcase you opened up into the record player and then trying not to lose the little plastic piece you put in so you could play singles, white fashion boots, begging my mom to let me wear clogs (she said they would ruin my feet!), camping out in the backyard in tents, skating on the frozen lakes (and hoping they were really frozen). putting our sleeping bags out in the back of the station wagon for long summer trips (were there even seatbelts???), kodak instamatic cameras with a flash bulb you popped on the top and it rotated and took four flash pictures! (and you wound the film by hand between each picture!)</p>
<p>Moms going to bed with hair nets on their heads</p>
<p>Dads snapping their belts or moms threatening to “wash out our mouths with soap”, when they wanted us to behave or use less profanity (only got the soap in mouth treatment once)</p>
<p>Slide rules</p>
<p>Rabbit Ears on top of the TV</p>
<p>Men’s leisure suits, white belts, and white dress shoes</p>
<p>Plastic furniture/car seat covers, doilies, and avocado green carpet</p>
<p>Home permanents - the way they made my scalp burn, the odor I wish I could forget, and how ridiculous they invariably made me look.</p>
<p>We had a milk man, but also a bread man, who came around in a kind of mini-bus. You hailed him as you did the ice cream truck, then climbed inside and made your selection. (The bus smelled way better than the home perm.)</p>
<p>Getting dressed up to go to the airport! We didn’t travel by air much, but once in a while our parents would take us to the airport to watch the planes come and go. Of course my mom wore a dress and my dad a jacket and tie because you would never go to the airport dressed otherwise.</p>
<p>Playing SPUD. Girls had to wear dresses to school. Twelve was considered old enough to start babysitting. Library books had a due date stamped inside the back cover. Dime stores and drug stores with soda fountains.</p>
<p>The thing that struck me in watching Mad Men was how much people smoked in the 50s/60s!! My folks didn’t smoke, but I remember my friends’ parents and my aunt smoking all the time. Also remember my aunt carrying an ashtray around the house so she could always get rid of her ashes/cigarette. My kids have probably never even seen an ashtray!</p>
<p>While my Mom didn’t smoke or drink, she clearly recalls some of her peers smoking and drinking whiskey sours while nursing, and nobody had a problem with that…</p>
<p>One telephone, ours was in the kitchen. Being allowed to wear culottes to school was a big deal. Getting reprimanded by any adult who happened to witness a transgression. Draft numbers read on the radio. Bakes sales that featured real homemade baked goods. House coats and dresses. Getting dressed up to go to the doctor. Getting dressed up to go shopping. Getting dressed up to go to church. Spam was a luncheon meat. Earth shoes. My parents being appalled that I wanted to buy “dungarees”, which were what poor people wore. Taking visitors to see the Hippies in Coconut Grove. Police Officers patrolled the park on Horseback. Not being allowed in the adult section of the library.</p>
<p>What a great thread! Not only no seatbelts, but no sunblock, no bugspray, and no bike or ski helmets. I often think it’s a miracle we survived. And the summers seemed to last forever…</p>
<p>Painters pants…Walter Cronkite giving the Vietnam casualty report every Friday… watching the FBI with Effrem Vimbalist Jr…Bobby Sherman…the smell of my mother’s manhattans…a dollar a week allowance…</p>
<p>I remember being jealous because the FBI escorted my cousins to school every day. I remember my parents talking about how my aunt and uncle were in danger because they thought black people had the right to vote. I thought, well, my family thinks black people should vote too, so why don’t I get an escort to school? </p>
<p>The “I remembers” have their good sides and their bad sides, don’t they?</p>
<p>When cars did start to have seatbelts, some drivers were insulted if passengers wore them.</p>
<p>Also, do you remember the sudden transition from the era when it was impolite to have an answering machine (the precursor of voice mail, for those of you young people who are reading this) to the era when it was impolite to NOT have an answering machine?</p>
<p>I went to college in the first year when that particular university had co-ed dorms. I didn’t notice any transition, of course, but the change must have been startling for people a year or two ahead of me.</p>
<p>Ooh I love it when this topic comes around again! For fun reads, look back at these threads. Who remembers spoolies? Or junket? Or Dippedy-doo? </p>