I'm so old I remember when...

[Roberto Dobbisano]

you could still open carry on the playa...

[unjonharley]

I love it that they were called church keys.

My granddaughter said, huh?

[Thecatman]

Pasting green stamps into mom's booklet.

And blue chip stamps.

[kittyrodriguez]

Well, I may be a young'un to some of you, but things have certainly changed loads in my lifetime.

Things my children will never experience:

Icehouses and hanging out at them.

Being kicked out of the house after breakfast and not coming home till dinner. What the neighborhood kids did during those hours was our business.

Going to the video store on friday afternoon to rent movies and buy a pack of microwave popcorn. The thrill of standing at that wall of new releases and all the promise that it held.

Saturday morning cartoons. You had to wait all week, except for Sesame Street and other PBS shows.

Just how awesome the Atari is. I kicked butt on Cookie Monster Crunch (or whatever it was called- it came with its own Cookie Monster controller).

Waiting for your favorite song to come on the radio, and recording it! And mix tapes! And walkmans!

I remember getting my first CD player. You could go to the music store and ask to listen to a disc before you bought it.

I remember getting cable tv for the first time, getting two phone lines for the first time, getting our first home computer (an apple II), getting the internet for the first time (AOL CDs!!!), and getting my first cell phone in high school (it would NOT fit in your pocket).

I also remember when seat-belts were optional and no one wore them. Here, it was normal for all the kids to sit in the bed of the pickup truck. Those are two things I am glad are different....

[Meat Hunter]

Kitty,

Just you wait. The next thing that you know you will turn around and say what the heck happened and a 20-something will ask you, "What is a CD and what was cable TV?"

Hopefully, it will happen to all of us.

When one is nearing the end of the actuarial tables, the best that one can do is to live in the moment and Carp Diam. Then it is time to pack-up and head to the desert.

[Captain Goddammit]

Well, of course I remember no cell phones… but I had them all as they came along. First the beeper, and you called the office when it went off. Then the awesome, bad-ass digital pager. You were the shit when you had one of those. Then the voice pager, that went right ahead and played the message out loud whenever and wherever you were when it came in. That got me in trouble…
Then the car phone. Back then you drove around holding it just so people did see it, not trying to hide it so you don't get a ticket.
Then the bag phone… which was a car phone in a bag with a big battery.
Then the famous white Motorola "brick". And you know what, that thing worked pretty damn good. The thing cost $1000 in the late 1980s.
Oh I almost forgot, that goddamm Nextel! BEEBEEP!! HEY DAVE WHERE ARE YA?

[DoctorIknow]

When every tool my Dad owned, or that I bought, was made in USA, with the proper steel and craftsmanship.

I have a 40+ year ViseGrip that although the teeth in the jaws are not super pointy anymore, it still puts newer ones to shame.

For those on the hunt for USA made tools, here is a site that will have tool freaks (yes, some are burners) drooling:

http://store.harryepstein.com/

[BBadger]

Toy guns were completely black.

Cartoons on TV depicted suicide and blackface.

Going online meant dialing into local BBSes that only gave you a certain number of minutes per day.

[DoctorIknow]

Hitchhiking was a common, workable solution for going for short or long distances.
I even hitched on private airplanes after I read about it in some underground newspaper.

Oh yeah, underground newspapers!

My buds and I fell into the prank of smoking bananas to get high that was created by those papers!\

And for tri-state-area East coasters, who can forget the East Village Other?

[Drawingablank]

My kids were watching 101 Dalmatians and my daughter asked if I had that tape as a kid lol.

[Drawingablank]

For that matter - home video was super 8 mm. and each reel lasted about 3 minutes.

[Captain Goddammit]

I remember hitchhiking with my friend, jumping in the back of the pickup that stopped, and passing beers through the sliding window to the driver.

[DoctorIknow]

I remember hitchhiking with my friend, jumping in the back of the pickup that stopped, and passing beers through the sliding window to the driver.

I lived in Palo Alto before the "Summer of Love" and would hitchhike just for fun. No destination, but bound to be picked up by some freaks, who may or may not have had a destination in mind either. Most of them ready to share or be shared with something other than beer.

If the "younger" readers of this thread want to know what the big deal (for us old folks) of "the sixties" was: no video, no book, no threads like this can express it better than Hunter Thompson did:

"Strange memories on this nervous night in Las Vegas. Five years later? Six? It seems like a lifetime, or at least a Main Era—the kind of peak that never comes again. San Francisco in the middle sixties was a very special time and place to be a part of. Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run . . . but no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant. . . .

History is hard to know, because of all the hired bullshit, but even without being sure of “history” it seems entirely reasonable to think that every now and then the energy of a whole generation comes to a head in a long fine flash, for reasons that nobody really understands at the time—and which never explain, in retrospect, what actually happened.

My central memory of that time seems to hang on one or five or maybe forty nights—or very early mornings—when I left the Fillmore half-crazy and, instead of going home, aimed the big 650 Lightning across the Bay Bridge at a hundred miles an hour wearing L. L. Bean shorts and a Butte sheepherder's jacket . . . booming through the Treasure Island tunnel at the lights of Oakland and Berkeley and Richmond, not quite sure which turn-off to take when I got to the other end (always stalling at the toll-gate, too twisted to find neutral while I fumbled for change) . . . but being absolutely certain that no matter which way I went I would come to a place where people were just as high and wild as I was: No doubt at all about that. . . .
There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda. . . . You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning. . . .
And that, I think, was the handle—that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn’t need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting—on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. .
. .
So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark—that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back."

[Captain Goddammit]

I was just a little kid in those days, but I got some sense of that stuff. My folks were in all that. Their friends were in all that. That was the world I thought I'd grow up into. In a sort of way, I did, being a burner. Other than that, I grew up to be a pretty straight-laced, conservative, drug-free, regular guy with short hair and a house in the suburbs.

[Patsh]

Montreal was kind'a like that in the '60s... no fear of hitching, stuff happening everywhere, music of all kinds all over, $10 lids, anti-war things to get involved with everywhere, peace and love spewing out to those who made it home alive (the Americans, who 'escaped' to Canada after their ordeals)... great shows for cheap (Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez, Dave Brubeck, John & Yoko, Richie Havens, Johnny Winter, Edgar Winter, Jethro Tull, Jefferson Starship (Airplane modified) etc.), good acid (not the scary shit that's out there now), Woodstock (not too far from Montreal), and a whole bunch of other stuff that I've forgotten... probably because I was actually there...
I'm so grateful to have been born when I was. It has been a truly blessed life that way.
Dang, I'm so old I remember when I did awesome shit that I can't even remember!

[AntiM]

I was about ten years too young for that, but still, I ended up in San Francisco in 75~76 at age 18, the pull was still there, weak, but there. Project Artaud on Alabama Street is where I landed. Interesting times.

[tatonka]

I was 14 in 1969 when we moved from Minn to Oregon , quite a culture shock . Went to seaside or. and met some girls that were having a hash party in a house right on the beach front. Became a believer of free love

[lothos 1162]

My original EMT was chiseled in stone, My family tree is painted somewhere on a cave wall in France, I was the medic on the Ark, My first car was used in the Flintstones.

[tatonka]

My 1st car was a 52 chev coupe with a 235 6 cyl . The doors were welded shut , and the hood and trunk were closed with wire. It had no starter , so you would push it and jump thru window and dump clutch to get going. I bought it from a hippy for 5.00 it also had a orgy scene painted on top , and on the trunk was painted a blitz beer logo, and also white stripes on front fenders. Had it for 6 mths and never got pulled over .

[tatonka]

My 2 older daughters came out from VA for 2 weeks , had so much fun seeing them and the grand kids and great grandson . I see a bit of me in all their faces and
kinda gives me the feeling like ill live forever ")

[maryanimal]

I remember when you had to open a can of beer with a can opener.

[DoctorIknow]

I remember when you had to open a can of beer with a can opener.

Already mentioned here, as "church keys"
Came free, especially if you bought a "case" which was 24 cans or returnable bottles. (no disposable ones back then)
I used to get Schlitz or Rheingold or Schaefer or Carling Black Label for $4/case.

[theCryptofishist]

Beautiful.

[maryanimal]

I remember when you had to open a can of beer with a can opener.

Already mentioned here, as "church keys"
Came free, especially if you bought a "case" which was 24 cans or returnable bottles. (no disposable ones back then)
I used to get Schlitz or Rheingold or Schaefer or Carling Black Label for $4/case.

Oh! I didn't know they were called church keys! I remember when pennies were made of copper and silver coins were made of all silver.

I remember when Disneyland had the Carrousel of the Future sponsored by Monsanto.
I remember when Disneyland gave out booklets of tickets, and the tickets ranged for A to E tickets with E tickets being the big, fast, dark, scream at the top of your lungs, and scary rides. Thus, the phrase that explains something heart pumping, hair raising, scare the crap out of you in a good way, "Wow, that was an E ticket ride".

[Molotov]

In my scrapbook, I have a partially used book of Disneyland tickets, including two unused E-tickets. I wonder what they would be worth on eBay?

[Thecatman]

I remember when, if we were thirsty, we'd drink water from a garden hose as opposed to a plastic bottle.

[BeeWeeDee]

Sugar cubes were only laced with attenuated polio virus.

[lucky420]

You could have lots of sex with different people and not worry that you could die.

Unless you got syphillis or stabbed or strangled


Never mind

[theCryptofishist]

You could have lots of sex with different people and not worry that you could die.

Unless you got syphillis or stabbed or strangled


Never mind

lol is so inappropriate here.

Did it, anyway.

[lucky420]

You could have lots of sex with different people and not worry that you could die.

Unless you got syphillis or stabbed or strangled


Never mind

lol is so inappropriate here.

Did it, anyway.

Yes!