Nostalgia..What do you remember

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Anybody remember the Fuller Brush man ,my father used to throw him out of the house almost every saturday morning.
 


What I remember so well was having the opportunity to have ridden in the cabs of steam, diesel and electric locomotives with relatives working on the Northern Pacific and Milwaukee Road. Burned into my memory and the reason I love model railroading. I also loved the trips we took on the Hiawatha and North Coast Limited.
 
What I remember so well was having the opportunity to have ridden in the cabs of steam, diesel and electric locomotives with relatives working on the Northern Pacific and Milwaukee Road. Burned into my memory and the reason I love model railroading. I also loved the trips we took on the Hiawatha and North Coast Limited.

Just rub it in, why don't you...! lol

Not jealous...not one bit...honestly! lol
 
Proper looking radios....

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And how about going to the movies at 12 noon on saturday and getting out at 6pm after watching the cartoons,chapters and a double feature film! And all for 25 cents
 
The slogan," I would walk a mile for a Camel"

We had a sunday afternoon movie on the television, called the Mell Jazz Matinee Movie. circa 1965
 
My Mom getting the first Montgomery Ward mail order wringer type washing machine delivered via Reader Railroad to the company wear house. It sat out in the yard, next to her large cast iron wash pot, for quite a while where she used it until my Father built a "wash house" for her to house it in. It was the only one for miles around, and many people came just to look at it, and see it in action, and bring their laundry to try it out!

Listening to the Lone Ranger and The Shaddow on the radio.
 
When the new fangled non wringer type washer came. My mother was not happy when it took her 3 loads to the one it took with the old machine.

In fact, she used the wringer in conjunction with the new machine to speed up drying. Incidentially, everything went on the line, in the winter they hung in the basement to dry. I can't remember when we got the electric clothes dryer.
 
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Anyone listen to "Big John and Sparky" back in the 50's on the radio? Saturday mornings on my Quaker Oats crystal radio set for me. It was a puppet show that was on the radio! Strange eh?
 
Maybe not that show, but did have a transitor radio. I think everyone had one, had a little strap you could use to carry it around, was about 1.5" x 3" x 2".

My wife said she taped hers to her bicycle so she could listen while riding her bike.
 
A few more. Presidential Fitness Awards for meeting certain standards for PE, Weekly Readers, 1964 World's Fair (didn't get to go but it was a big topic of discussion in school), John Glenn, the Space Race, the Iron Curtain, first man on the Moon, hippies, war protests, feminist protests, if the TV broke the repairman came to your house with a BIG satchel of tools and parts and being in fear that it would have to go into the shop, Rocky and Bullwinkle Show and liking it all the while not knowing it was a satire on the Cold War, Sky Lab, Johnny Quest, high rise handle bars and banana seats with sissy bars, the TV weatherman actually drawing the cold and warm fronts and temperatures on the map with a grease pencil and one of the best was taking the milk and cream to the depot with my dad so it could go out on the passenger train.
 
Riding in the lower berth of a heavyweight Pullman (with the green curtains) where the porter made up the berth from facing seats. I was about 2 or 3 years old (1944 or early '45) and shared the berth with my mom. We were feet-to-feet so she wouldn't breathe in my face. We were riding a Burlington train from Chicago to downstate Illinois, where her parents lived. Must have been either Thanksgiving or Christmas-time. Dad was overseas in the Army. I was supposed to sleep, but woke up several times and peeked out the window to see crossing gates flashing as we rolled by. Don't remember what kind of locomotive was pulling us, but I vaguely recall hearing a diesel horn.

Later, we took day trains, Pioneer Zephyr #9900 and the Mark Twain Zephyr. In 1948, when I was 6 years old, my Dad, Mom and I were riding the shovel-nose Zephyr, when we were sidetracked at Galesburg, Illinois, while President Harry Truman's "Whistlestop Special" campaign train came through. It stopped at the station. Dad was a staunch Republican (and voted for Thomas Dewey), but felt I should see the president. He put me up on his shoulders, and we walked to where the crowd had gathered (must have been 50 yards away), and I saw Truman and Bess and a campaign aid (Secret Service???) on the observation platform of the "Ferdinand Magellan" car. I was six years old.

I remember when a pay phone cost a nickel, and my Dad's parents (who lived in a residence hotel) had both an "inside" phone, connected to the hotel switchboard, and an "outside" phone in the other room, which required nickels to make an outside call. They kept a few nickels in some tennis trophies my dad's brother had won in college! I remember when private phones in Chicago had NO dials, but when you picked them up, the operator said, "Number, pull-eze?" You gave her a name prefix and the numbers. When we moved from an apartment to a house, when I was seven, we got our first dial phones.
I remember my mother volunteering at a Civil Defense "filter center", where reports of airplanes seen by the Ground Observeer Corps were reported, and she sorted them out for plotting on a large board. There were Nike-Ajax anti-aircraft missiles and 90mm AAA canons on the Chicago lakefront, in case Russian bombers tried to attack us. I also recall ONE "duck-and-cover" drill in a Chicago public school in that time period.

On a more pleasant note, I remember T.V. shows such as "Captain Video and His Video Rangers", "Tom Corbett, Space Cadet", "Commander Corey of the Space Patrol", all science fiction shows, plus the "Wonderful World of Disney" and the episodes featuring Wernher von Braun, Kraft Erikhe, and Wiley Lay, on the "Tomorrowland" episodes, talking about space exploration. This was two or three years prior to Sputnik I (1957). These were what sparked a lifelong interest in space exploration, which became my career, and still is part of my interest.

Remember when oleo margarine had to be sold "in the white" with a package of yellow dye, because dairy farmers didn't want it to be mistaken for butter! :rolleyes:
 


I remember when there was no air conditioning and not knowing what humidity was.

I remember going to a country store and getting a candy bar for a nickel. If the candy had weevils, you could take itback and the owner would give you a new one. I would eat around the weevils and take back the weevily part and getanother bar.

I remember going to town in 1953 and looking at the little 9” black and white TV’sthrough the store windows and wondering what it was.

I remember getting a wind up train for Christmas. It went around the 3’ circle about two times and then the spring brokeand then it was over.

I remember listening to the Lone Ranger on the radio and feeling like I was rightthere with him.

I remember putting a penny on a railroad track at recess and going back laterthat day to see how flat it had been made.

I remember hitchhiking home about 500 miles from the Army at Christmas in 1967. Inever had to wait more than a minute or two to be picked up. I was afraid of noone and no one of me.

I remember gas wars and paying 19 cents per gallon in 1967.

Our phone number on the farm was two longs and a short on the crank phone.

Bill
 




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