old farts corner

[bobhenry]

Well I am about to celebrate my 65 birthday!

It is strange how you can remember Skyler Kings planes name "The song bird"

And you know Dale Evans horse is named Buttermilk but you know so little of the new world.

I have a 20 + year old maytag washer ( back when I had running water) It took plain ol laundry soap.

I was asked to procure some tide (H.E.) laundry soap from the store last week for my gal pal and laundress.
Apparently the High energy soap is low sudsing for the new style "hit and miss" machines,

So typical, I went in without my reading glasses and couldn't read the labels. As I went to the door to summons her from the car for help the clerk asked me if she could help me find something. I flippantly said I need some "HE" soap. She swept over and grabbed it up just as the cavalry arrived and as my gal pal selected her brand of choice of laundry soap the clerk handed me a bottle of men's shower soft soap. . I still laugh when I think of "HE" soap.

[bobhav]

Bob,

I did the 65 thing last January. Everything that want to purchase requires making a choice from 20 viable products or,,, it hasn't been on the market for 30 years.

50 years ago no one used the word computer and I wanted an Eversharp that wouldn't misspell.

"The older I get ,the better I was."

BobH.

[ParTaxer]

I know what you are saying Bob. I go to the cracker section for the original Ritz cracker and can't find it for the various flavored Ritz crackers. But as they say its better to be 65 than not.

Mike W

[jandmz]

I still do pretty good at Jeopardy, but some of the newer quiz shows are beyond me, especially the answers to the questions are things like "Jay Zee", "Beyoncee" and "emogee".

[Vedette]

Don't feel bad guys........we were sitting around having a few cool ones on Friday night, when the discussion switched to TV characters and actors from our past.
Even the young hot gun slingers of the day are getting old?? Did you know Clint Eastwood is 85 years old??
Good Roads
Brian & Sandi

[capnTelescope]

I can remember the first time I saw color TV. It was that big a deal. Dad took us to a store in the Big City to see a show that was coming on in color. Waiting for the show to come on, I was looking at the B&W shows and trying to imagine what it was going to look like. My young mind was just too boggled, couldn't do it. When the show came on, it was a thing of such wonder!

Do they even make black & white TVs any more?

[mustangcats]

Do they even make black & white TVs any more?

I don't think so...if they did they'd probably cost more than a color TV. I'm old enough to remember the early color TV's and how poor the color was and how unreliable they were. The tv repairman was constantly working on them.

[GuitarPhotog]

. I'm old enough to remember the early color TV's and how poor the color was and how unreliable they were. The tv repairman was constantly working on them.

I made a good living as a TV repairman working on the last generation (~'68-69) tube TVs. It was easy work and the markup on the tubes was ginormous.

I changed careers just as solid-state TVs were coming on the home market.

<Chas>

[capnTelescope]

In high school ('66 or '67), I got a summer job in a TV & appliance store fixing those old vacuum tube TVs!

[noseoil]

OK guys, how about transistor radios when they first came out? Remember the craze of people walking around with a radio at their ear (not a ghetto-blaster) and listening to tunes in the 50's? They were "cheap" Japanese radios & a complete wonder of technology and miniaturized circuitry. Funny how times have changed and a simple cell phone now has more computing power & memory capacity than the old space programs had with a room full of vacuum tubes....

[Wanna Be]

I can remember the first time I saw color TV. It was that big a deal. Dad took us to a store in the Big City to see a show that was coming on in color. Waiting for the show to come on, I was looking at the B&W shows and trying to imagine what it was going to look like. My young mind was just too boggled, couldn't do it. When the show came on, it was a thing of such wonder!

Do they even make black & white TVs any more?

I still remember watching T V and it said in COLOR,,,,, Different shades of grey!!!

Wanna Be

[daveesl77]

I'm surprised with this group the one thing not mentioned was CAMPING!!!

Dad picked up one of those lovely, big canvas tents that probably slept 8-10. Must have weighed 200# dry. Giant, heavy duty steel poles. Took the whole family to unload it and several hours to put it up.
So with that info, what was the one sentence your folks always said to you over and over and over after the tent got put up?

come on

think

Don't Touch The Sides!

From all adult family members - No swimming for 30 minutes after you eat.
From Mom- For my brother and me it was always - leave the snakes outside and quit bothering that alligator! But mom, the gator is our friend and likes us to throw rocks and sticks at it, then go swimming near it.
From Dad - If you kids don't learn how to start a fire with two sticks you'll die when the Commies attack...then dad would pour on the kerosene and light the campfire.

4th of July 1968, brother-in-law just returned from Nam and had with him some smoke grenades and a white phosphorus rocket. Good times for all. I learned that smoke grenades get really, really hot when making smoke (2nd-3rd degree burns on hand, but mom rubbed butter on them to fix it). WP rockets, when they misfire and go into the lake make everything really bright, create lots of bubbles and smoke and kill fish like crazy.

Ah, the good old days!

dave

[JuneBug]

65 is in the rear view mirror (two years out!)

Yes to camping in big canvas tents in Anchorage, Alaska area in the 1950s. I think my love of camping came from that.
My mom confessed many, many years later that is was just more work for her (and it was!)
Don't know why we never worried about bears, or maybe my parents were aware but didn't let the kids be concerned.
Everyone was more worried about aggressive moose; seems they were everywhere.
And duck and cover! You could almost see Russia from our house (not), but the Russians could do bad things at any time.

Sunday evenings were a BIG family TV time with Sgt. Bilko, Ed Sullivan and (later) Bonanza.
Sgt. Bilko was especially important and enjoyable since my dad was in the service.
And the Mouseketeers after school? Spin and Marty?

Remember the first time you called someone and got a message from an answering machine?
Trying to figure out your VHS player? Eight track!

Just got my first smart phone in the mail yesterday. TracFone starter kit is due tomorrow. Whoo hoo.

ETA and a public service announcement: Duck and cover is still a real deal. When the meteor (near earth asteroid) exploded near Chelyabinsk, Russia in 2013, many, many people were injured when they rushed to windows to see the source of the bright flash of light, and were subsequently injured by flying glass and debris when the shock wave arrived. If you see a massive flash of light and hear a big boom, duck and cover and don't run to a window.
You can read about this event here on Wikipedia. It is interesting and less scary because it happened far away.
PSA over, and back to your regular programming.

ETA II: Discovered a few months ago that powdered Spic n Span can still be ordered through Amazon! Double whoo hoo.

[booyah]

Imagine for kids like me, the young whipper snappers

We started in a world that had still had black and white TVs, rotary phones, as well as paying extra for "touch tone service".

I grew up on sunday funnies, knew what an air raid siren was, and was on the tail end of the duck and cover drills.

Seeing calculator watches, cellular (bag/car) phones, and home computers (TI, Tandy, IBM Jr) coming into the home with a complete sense of wonder. Imagining what the future would bring, (we'd really live like the Jetson's, and vacation on the moon with tourist traps!)

Space shuttle explosions, (yep, they had an assembly for the first teacher in space at my school), the Berlin wall coming down...

The great red menace falling without a shot being fired.

Fast forward to smart phones, Putin, made in China. Once you bought American because it was the best available, now its rarely even available...

I look at my kids. Never heard the concept of a "house phone" (cell phone only parents) no idea how a rotary phone worked. I pointed out a pay phone to them on a road trip a while back, because THEY HAD NEVER SEEN ONE. Explained the concept of calling collect "speak your name" <very fast talk> "Mom, all done at practice come get me"<hangup>

They saw a polaroid camera in a movie the other day and asked what it was, how it worked, and why they didnt just look a the picture on the screen Had to get into the concept of picture developing (Yes, you COULDNT see what it was until after the entire roll was done) and why 1 hour development was such a big deal.

Lot of change for kids born after WWII, lot more for the children of the 80s, even more for those born this decade. Imagine whats next.

[Gage]

Someone say camping?