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In my day ...

I remember when McDonald's first came to town. There was no indoor dinning or drive through window. You walked up to the window and gave your order. You could buy a hamburger for a dime, a cheese burger for twelve cents, and fries were twelve cents. They also sold sodas, malts, and fried pies. It was an all male staff that always got your order correct. Griff's Burger Bar hit town about the same time as McDonald's. Their prices were the same but the food was a bit better. Goes to show you what marketing can do. Griff's didn't make it.

In my youth the stop signs looked like this.
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Yes... yellow!

One of my earliest memories was the major construction of a four lane highway running through my state. It was to be funded by being a toll highway for a few years. Sixty years later it's still a toll road.

I remember when these were the keys to a good time
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For opening a soda bottle or a canned beverage.
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Used to adjust and tighten your skates.

I enjoyed the ability to strike this anywhere I cared to.
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The first car I drove had a small fan attached to the dash. It could be directed toward the windshield for defrost or toward the driver for cooler travel. And the windshield wipers were vacuum operated so they all but stopped working when you stepped on the gas. Gas for the car was regular or ethyl. Regular cost between seventeen and nineteen cents a gallon. The gas was dispensed from a pump similar to this.
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^^ ninja:d on the TV theme as I wrote :)

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In my day, there were colours only in my local area and anywhere my parents drove to on the weekends.

I really didn't want to visit America or England until around 1969/70 when finally colours were introduced globally. It looked like a drab and dreary world. up til then

Tennis players could finally see the ball better at Wimbledon, I remember that was the first thing I noticed on the TV.
 
In my day you could walk onto an airplane and you were allowed to see the cock pit of the plane to see the pilots and get to see all the tons of kick ass controls and I loved it! But was always scared I might accidentally push the wrong button / lever or something :D so usually like the chicken I am just took a quick look and happily went to my seat :)

I remember it well when I was a super small fry / lightie. :D

I was very young I think like 7 years old (and a little bit undisciplined) as well and I did some small experiments of frames of reference running up and down the plane isle and was extremely lucky because there were like only 2 people on the aircraft (I am literally not kidding! XD don't ask me why it was so vacant and why there were so little people lol I have no idea lol haha) in Dubai so I started running up and down the center isle feeling the speed increase as I ran "against" the plane and then struggling with strain to go forward "into" the plane.

It was very fascinating lol :D

But then the air hostess started yelling at me hahahahaha getting all cross with me XD but it was lots of fun though :D

It was just my brother and I and the sitter we had to look after us on the plane (my only sibling / brother is 2 years older than me so we were very very young) and I'd say about another 2 or so people ... I wonder why it was so extremely vacant / empty? But very interesting thought isn't it as to why the plane was so vacant?

And nope this is not a dream lol it was for real hehe :D

I got a very rare opportunity to actually do that kind of experiment with frames of reference running up and down the plane hehe - it was so awesome! :D

haha lol funny story :D

I don't think you'd be able to do this today though :D
 
It's a wonder, Mike, that any of us lived to tell the tale of all the leaded paint we chewed on as kids. I never had a toy piano. I did have a small harmonica that was a lot of fun. We all had a whistle. We made them from the metal strapping that crates were banded with back in the day. The strap had a hole in it every inch or so. We'd bend the strap at one hole and break it off at the other two holes. Putting the strap in one's mouth and a bit of practice you could produce a heck of a shrill whistle. What a memory lol.
 
I had but only a few battery operated toys. I recall a car that had a cable from the rear to a flashlight like battery controller. You turned it on and it's headlights came on and it moved forward. What was really clever about it was the trunk opened and within was a jack, tire iron, and a spare which could be used to actually change the tires.

One of my favorite toys would be far too dangerous for the market today. It was a wood burning set. It consisted of an electric iron much like a soldering iron. You could place different shaped/sized tips on the iron and you used it to burn art into wood disks... or your arm. :)

Speaking of burning... a little known fact: The lens from a discarded bathroom scale held at the perfect angle on a sunny day can reduce an ant to ash in nothing flat.

One last interesting fact: A really ripe watermelon will split open when slapped sharply as it sets in the field. I learned to slap, eat, and run very quickly in my day.
 
olbriar said:
One of my favorite toys would be far too dangerous for the market today. It was a wood burning set. It consisted of an electric iron much like a soldering iron. You could place different shaped/sized tips on the iron and you used it to burn art into wood disks... or your arm. :)
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I loved that wood burning set! And yeah, a few blisters never stopped us. It is a wonder, such safe toys and no supervision! Well, no helicopter parents like today.

My mom had a vague idea where we were but not really haha
 
Clementine_3 said:
I loved that wood burning set! And yeah, a few blisters never stopped us. It is a wonder, such safe toys and no supervision! Well, no helicopter parents like today.

My mom had a vague idea where we were but not really haha
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It was a great toy. I think they advertised it on the Woody Woodpecker Show. :) My sister landed a charcoal art set with easel, paper and coals of different shades that same year. That was our exposure to the arts and crafts lol.

And your mother didn't have to know exactly where you were every minute years ago. Certainly a different time.
 
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