I'm so old I remember when...

[unjonharley]

I knew dust when it was a rock..

[Dr. Pyro]

…you could actually tailgate at a Dodger home game.

[Eric]

... you didn't have to use an "alt" code to make the ¢ sign, since it was on your ... typewriter.

[Oldguy]

... ring the operator to connect you to long distance... with the hand crank.

[TT120]

I paid .17 cents a gal for gas in 1971 , a ounce of weed was 12.00 dollars , and my skin was smooth

We used to get a 4 finger bag of weed for $10. We sometimes called it a "lid".

[FIGJAM]

I was 6yrs. when I saw the Osmond brothers doing barber shop quartet at Disneyland and Donny was introduced as the newest member of the group.

He was 3!!!

[mgb327]

I remember when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor!

I have a friend that is half black and half Japanese...every Dec. 7th, he bombs Pearl Bailey.

[oscillator]

... there was no such thing as water.

You had to slam your own hydrogen and oxygen atoms together. PITA!

[shroom]

Walt Disney World had tickets for each ride and it was actually affordable.

[Thecatman]

...Knott's Berry Farm was free to get in.
In the late 60s the hippies blew that because they would sleep over night in the covered wagons and smoke dope, trip out on LSD, and have their orgies.

[tummler]

Airplanes had smoking sections.
You used the telephone book to find phone numbers.
The Summer and Winter Olympics were the same year.

[GreyCoyote]

Iron Eyes Cody was a fixture at FrontierLand in Disneyland, and this was long before his famous commercial. (RIP)

[Eric]

Airplanes had smoking sections.

and airlines & restaurants thought that a sign that said "non-smoking area" would magically keep the smoke out

[Popeye]

When auto batteries where 6 volt and some positive ground.
When nobody pumped their own gas but everyone worked on their own car.
Telephone numbers started with letters instead of digits

[unjonharley]

our phone# was two shorts and a long..

[Thecatman]

...the railroads operated their own passenger trains. Much better & classier service than Amtrak

[theCryptofishist]

facebook had woodcuts instead of photos.

[Molotov]

There were fervent debates regarding the Kennedy vs. Nixon presidential election. Interstate highways didn't exist. You strapped a canvas water bag on your car before driving desert highways. and this is what substituted for air conditioning if you were really lucky...

[Lonesomebri]

Drive-In Double Feature on a double date was a thing.
Chuck Taylors were not ironically hip, they were a good gym shoe.
Plaid flannel shirts were worn to keep warm.
We were at war with Eastasia, and at peace with Eurasia.
Heineken was an artesian beer.
There was no such thing as pre-cooked bacon.
Rappers only worked around Christmas time.
The only place to get a tattoo, I knew of, was in prison or the military.
A coffee shop was nearly the same as a dinner, they serve food.
The only people who got coffee to go were white lining it down the freeway.
Coffee only came in one flavor, same with vodka.
There was a Starbucks only on every other block.
Gluten wasn't a feared health and safety menace.
Lasers, flying drones, computer created music; these were things of science fiction, not the shit they turned out to be.
There were films at theaters not about comic book super heroes.
It used to snow alot, and we lived far from town, and I would have to walk to school everyday.

[Eric]

Playground equipment was made out of metal planted in asphalt.

Almost nobody would be at the movies on Christmas but us Jews.

Christmas decorations didn't go up until the day after Thanksgiving.

Paperback books cost 75¢

You could only watch movies in the theater, unless a TV network had an "exclusive premier" of it years after it came out.

[Captain Goddammit]

I remember sugar cubes, bikes with big gear shifts sticking up from the top frame bar, fallout shelters, big station wagons with a third seat facing the rear window that rolled down and everyone towed large trailers with them, no one used a crude pickup truck for that.
I remember when NASCAR was interesting. The cars really WERE real Mercurys and Chevys and Dodges, and they said things like "STP", "Dodge", and "426 c.i," on them instead of "Vagisil" or "Tide". The drivers had names like "Fireball Roberts" and they smoked cigarettes while they raced. A "little guy" could field a competitive car.
I remember TV stations, all four of them (plus maybe a scratchy UHF station or two) shutting off every night, and the litterbug and crying Indian. And fine tuning the TV channel with the ring around the channel selector knob, and adjusting the contrast and the tint somewhere between green and red.

[GreyCoyote]

Sigh. I feel old.

Fortunately, I see I'm in REALLY good company.

[ygmir]

I remember sugar cubes, bikes with big gear shifts sticking up from the top frame bar, fallout shelters, big station wagons with a third seat facing the rear window that rolled down and everyone towed large trailers with them, no one used a crude pickup truck for that.
I remember when NASCAR was interesting. The cars really WERE real Mercurys and Chevys and Dodges, and they said things like "STP", "Dodge", and "426 c.i," on them instead of "Vagisil" or "Tide". The drivers had names like "Fireball Roberts" and they smoked cigarettes while they raced. A "little guy" could field a competitive car.
I remember TV stations, all four of them (plus maybe a scratchy UHF station or two) shutting off every night, and the litterbug and crying Indian. And fine tuning the TV channel with the ring around the channel selector knob, and adjusting the contrast and the tint somewhere between green and red.

remember when the tv station would "sign off" and play the national anthem and show "patriotic" images? and the "test pattern"

Captain Kangaroo
Fireball 500

[Aurelia]

I remember Baker Beach and thinking I was finally finding a group that understood pagan ritual as well as Jesuits do.

[FIGJAM]

Tom Terrific!

[unjonharley]

The Howdy Doody show on a 8 inch screen..

Before that.. My ear pasted on the speaker of the 25 tube radio.. To hear The Shadow.. From Chicago 200 mile away..

Before that, Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree : with anyone else but me..

[lucky420]

shit got real

[DoctorIknow]

and this is what substituted for air conditioning if you were really lucky...

One would put ice in that device in the car window.

There used to be huge roadside ice vending machines, where you could insert quarters and get block or cubes.
These were all over America because of the household "ice box" (cold closet) which needed feeding.

The big ice vending machines are being re-introduced now, as in the photo below, but they were numerous in the mid-1960's.
I remember a movie where some guy was imprisoned in an ice vending machine and spelled out SOS in wire on a block of ice, that was dispensed and he was saved.
http://www.icehouseamerica.com/images/home-feature2.jpg

[unjonharley]

We lived ten mile off the beaten path.. Cooled food was in a weighted cream can in the horse tank..

Running water was: Jon! "run" fetch a pail of water..

[Drawingablank]

Firemen used to actually hang onto the outside of the truck en route to fires.

My first modem was 56 baud (not 56k, but actually 56).

Soda machines dispensed bottles and had wooden crates next to the machine for the empties.

25 cent packs of cigarettes.

5 cent candy bars.

My first lazer jet printer was almost the size of a dishwasher and cost thousands of dollars.

The best seats at a big name concert cost 7.50 at most.

I remember a time when nobody that I knew had color tv, and it was well into the 70's before my family got one.

I remember having 7 tv channels - but only because we lived in NYC, most of my relatives in other places only got 2 channels.