Do you remember?

[dmwalker 604]

Sorry - two more:

I remember cars with windscreens which tilted open at the bottom for ventilation and direction indicators which were like small illuminated levers which popped up on either side.

I remember, in the footwear departments of the department stores, there were X-ray machines so you could check that the new shoes fitted properly.

[charliearon 3,024]

Remembering the iceman delivering ice to the house across the street for their kitchen icebox! The milkman delivering milk every other day,  Once a year the Fuller Brush man going door to door through the neighborhood.  For the Los Angeles people, the Helms Bakery truck making the rounds every day tooting his train whistle horn.  Got fresh bread, doughnuts, and 15 cent cream puffs from his refrigerated drawer.

[birdguy 3,943]

49 minutes ago, dmwalker said:

direction indicators which were like small illuminated levers which popped up on either side.

Or holding your arm out the window to indicate which you were going to turn.  Arm straight out was a left turn. Arm up was a right turn.  Arm down meant you were slowing down.

Noel

[Penzoil3 480]

LOL, in my neighborhood, we played tackle, not touch. I remember all of those on the list. We got our first tv in 1956.

I fly the Songbird in P3D.

 Sue

[dmwalker 604]

6 hours ago, Reader said:

The magical part tends to wear off as one approaches teenage years.

I remember an awkward moment when one of the children at the party knew Santa didn't exist and was keen to tell all the other children. Fortunately, he took his mother's advice and said nothing.

Edited December 3, 2021 by dmwalker

[dmwalker 604]

I remember before Lego there were rubber Minibricks. 

I remember when Electro-Voice had a 30" woofer.

Edited December 3, 2021 by dmwalker

[n4gix 4,947]

Yes to the long list Noel posted!

Do any of you remember when Christmas songs were actually GOOD???

[birdguy 3,943]

41 minutes ago, dmwalker said:

I remember before Lego there were rubber Minibricks. 

Lincoln Logs, Tinker Toys and Erector sets.  And when you got a bit older chemistry sets.

Noel 

[birdguy 3,943]

37 minutes ago, n4gix said:

Do any of you remember when Christmas songs were actually GOOD???

I hate the way pop stars sing them in their own modern arrangement.  The same way I cringe when I hear some pop star sing some arrangement of the National Anthem before a ball game.  Maybe they're not capable of singing songs the way they were written.

Noel

[charliearon 3,024]

42 minutes ago, n4gix said:

Yes to the long list Noel posted!

Do any of you remember when Christmas songs were actually GOOD???

What?? You don't like "Walkin' around in Women's unerdwear"?

 

[charliearon 3,024]

3 hours ago, birdguy said:

Lincoln Logs, Tinker Toys and Erector sets.  And when you got a bit older chemistry sets.

Noel 

2 of my favorite Xmas toys were my first gas powered .049 model airplane.  String controlled spinning me around in circles.  At a younger age, my Prince Valiant sword and shield!

[Mike A 338]

1 hour ago, charliearon said:

my first gas powered .049 model airplane

Mine was a P-51. I thought those tiny little engines were so cool. But after awhile, I had enough of the dizziness of spinning around in circles and inhaling those fumes. I got it out of my system & moved on 🤮

[birdguy 3,943]

1 hour ago, charliearon said:

my first gas powered .049 model airplane

That reminds of one of my boyhood stories I never published here.  It seems appropriate now.

The Great Goldfish Disaster

When I was in the third grade we got our first pet.  A goldfish.  Or rather, several goldfish.  

Mom started working at home, hand painting flowers on handkerchiefs for a lady who ran a sort of boutique.  One of the first things she bought was a goldfish bowl.

It was a large globe shaped bowl.  The bottom was layered with colored gravel, a few large rocks, and a castle.  Some aquarium plants grew out of the gravel and there were about a half dozen goldfish in the bowl; regular goldfish, one with odd coloring, and some fan-tails.

The bowl sat on a small table next to the wall in our living room.  On rainy days Lee and I would sit there for hours, just watching them.

One Saturday I bought a model airplane with my allowance.  It was a paper model of a P-40 Warhawk.  I cut the printed patterns out of the sheet of paper, curved and folded the parts along the dotted lines, and glued the pieces together with paste.  

This model was supposed to fly.  The instructions said to tape or glue a nickel in the nose for balance.  I taped the nickel in place, went out to the backyard, and launched my airplane.  It flew pretty well.  But I thought more weight in the nose would make it fly better so I got an advance on my allowance and Dad gave me a quarter to into the nose.  It did improve the flight characteristics.

Lee and I went to the park and played with that airplane all day.  I launched the model from the top of trees and from the crests of the steeper hills.  It was a wonderful flyer.

The next day it rained.  Our snack was waiting for us on the kitchen table when we came home from school.  There was a note there too.  Mom had gone downtown to do some shopping, and she wouldn't be home until 5 o'clock.

We ate our snacks and changed into our play clothes.  Lee and I watched the goldfish for a while.  Then I decided to play with my new airplane.

The living room wasn't big enough to fly the model in, so I decided to tie a string to one of the wing tips and fly it in a circle around my head.  I'd seen older boys and men doing that with gasoline powered models in Golden Gate Park.

I punched a hole in the wing with a small nail.  I got some string from the drawer next to the sink, poked it through the hole, and tied a knot in the end of it to keep it in place.  For insurance, I pressed a small piece of scotch tape over the knot.

Standing in the middle of the living room I started to swing the model around my head in a small circle.  It worked!  I let out more string.  It worked even better!  

With practice I was able to maneuver the airplane slightly.  I could make it go up and down, fast or slow, and I could even land it.  This was great.
On about the third or fourth flight I let the string out all the way.  I was trying to see how fast I could make the airplane go.  All of a sudden the string in my hand went limp.  Then I heard the crash.  The wing had torn loose from the string and my airplane soared right into the goldfish bowl.  The quarter in the nose shattered it.

The airplane was badly bent.  There was glass all over the table and floor.  Everything was wet.  Two of the goldfish were flopping around on the table and the rest of them were flopping on the floor.

I went to the kitchen and filled two drinking glasses with water.  Then I went back into the living room and picked up the fish.  I put three in one glass and three in the other.

Lee looked as if he were about to start crying.  I felt like crying too, but there was still work to do.

I picked up the broken glass and put it in the garbage can.  I got some towels from the bathroom and started wiping up the water, but there was too much.  I told Lee to get the mop from the back porch.  He brought it back and I started mopping the floor.

I put the gravel and rocks in a cereal bowl and filled another drinking glass with water for the aquarium plants.

When Mom came home she noticed the change immediately.  Instead of her beautiful goldfish bowl sitting on the table there were two glasses with fish in them, one glass with plants in it, and a bowl full of gravel.

"What happened?" she asked.
"I had an accident," I said.
"What happened?"
"I accidentally broke the fish bowl."
"How?"
"I don't know, I was just flying my airplane and it broke."
"It didn't just break, tell me what happened?"
"I was flying my airplane and it hit the bowl and it just broke."
"Can't I leave you kids home just once without something happening?"
"I'm sorry, I didn't do it on purpose."
"This is going to come out of your allowance."

I stood there, shame faced.  Lee had already retreated to the bedroom.  Mom walked over to the table and look at what I had salvaged.  "Where's the bowl?" she asked.  

"I put the glass in the garbage can," I replied.

"You kids are going to make me gray before my time," she said.

Mom got the punch bowl out of the kitchen.  She put the gravel and rocks into it and smoothed it out.  Then she filled it with water.  Next she took the plants and stuck the roots in the gravel.  Then she poured the two glasses of fish into the bowl.

Dad never noticed the difference when he came home from work and hour later. 

Mom got a new goldfish bowl the next day.  It was just like the one she had before.
As for me, I had to give the quarter I borrowed from Dad back and I didn't get my allowance the next Saturday, and that was enough to remind not to fly model airplanes in the living room anymore.

Noel

Edited December 3, 2021 by birdguy

[n4gix 4,947]

Noel, you were such a naughty boy!

I've done really stupid things myself, like the time in Tehran, Iran I was playing in the basement and was using a can of something flammable (I don't recall just what it was) to shoot flames like a flame thrower and managed to set the curtains on the basement windows on fire.

Or the New Year's Eve when my friend Jonathan Merzel and I drank a full quart of Johnny Walker Black Label scotch I'd snuck into my bedroom from our bar. Both of us threw up all over the bedroom. To this day I cannot stand the smell of scotch!

[birdguy 3,943]

Probably a can of lighter fluid Fr. Bill.  I used to do the same thing even when I was a big kid in my 20s.

I still prefer Scotch to Bourbon, although I very seldom drink anymore.

Noel