Old-Timey Stuff

I preferred our own comics, which have mostly died out with the sole exception of the Beano and ironically Viz, which is a parody of British comics read by people of my generation who read comics like that back I the day.

When I read America comics I tended to go for the marvel when older, although when I was really little I liked Batman and Superman.

Marvel reprinted a lot of their titles in black and white British comics like Mighty World of Marvel which normally had about two or three different stories going each week.

When I was twelve we got TV broadcasts for the first time in Fresno. All three networks shared one channel. Many of my favorite shows, such as Dragnet and Gunsmoke continued to be on the radio. When TV was new to Fresno, Dragnet was so popular it aired three nightss on the radio and twice on TV. In reruns it was retitled Badge 714.

On a positive note since we no longer have that static and snowy screen we no longer have to worry about poltergeist.

Before Fresno had TV we got to visit in San Jose once, where TV was already available. I saw Circus Time, Fearless Fosdick (string puppets), Beany and Cecil Time (hand puppets). The first face I saw on a screen was Art Linkletter. His show was Art Linkletter's House Party.

For the phones...I think my friends mom still has a rotary phone unless it finally died.

But I remember getting really excited when we got a very long cord for the phone so I could bring the phone into the other room, close the door so I could talk privately.

Also born in the 60s...I would not want to see our insides with all that chemical buildup from these processed foods that at the time seemed like good alternatives to feed children with.

But a better memory was when I was a kid we had one of the last real pharmacies close to our house. One of the regular workers there was a crabby old lady that would scowl and yell at the kids..but they had the best raspberry lime rickeys...made the way they were supposed to be...it had that old type of bar type place where you could get lunch or ice cream or real sodas.

Turns out the lard we cooked with was more healthy than the hydrogenated oil.

Around the mid-60s:

Hot cinnamon toothpicks - 5 cents

Mojos - 2 for 1 cent

Our postal code was a letter and a number, i.e. M4

Everyone was on a party line - lots of arguments in the neighbourhood about people being on the phone too long

Go-go boots and mini-skirts

We had 2 channels and watched The Wonderful World of Disney on Sundays, and some animal show that later turned out to be faked

Ed Sullivan

On Saturdays I used to see my stepfather build fires under a series of galvanized tubs. He would wash the clothes in a wringer washer and then wring them into the water two or three times to rinse. Mom would pin the clothes to clothes lines. Once she did a load on her own and got caught in the wringer. It pulled her in halfway to the elbow before she could trigger the release.

I remember when Converse All Stars were really the only tennis shoes that everyone wanted.

If you didn't have Converse All Stars tennis shoes, Pro-Keds tennis shoes were the next best thing.

I remember back when Nike, Reebok, New Balance, Puma, Adiddas, Air Jordans, and other brands didn't even exist yet.

I also remember when tennis shoes were only made with canvas material.

Leather material tennis shoes and suede material tennis shoes did not exist yet.

This is only based on my memories as a kid growing up during the 1970s.

People who remember using rotary phones will probably know what I am talking about regarding the rotary phones.

I remember whenever a phone number had larger numbers such as 8's and 9's took a lot longer to dial the number, because the 8's and 9's took longer to complete the dial with the longer clockwise dialing circle.

The smaller numbers such as 0's, 1's, 2's , and 3's had shorter dials because you didn't have to dial the whole clockwise dialing circle.

We couldn't dial the next digit until after you fully dialed the digit in the clockwise dialing circle.

And then you had to release your finger and wait until the rotary fell back in a counter-clockwise circle to the starting position before you could dial the next digit.

I really hated dialing phone numbers that had 8's and 9's in the digits.

The only thing I remember is having to pay $2.50 for a Miller Lite beer, and I didn't finish it because I didn't like the taste of beer

We had a tv that used a sonic remote so it was wireless. Think of a remote with trigger-buttons that made tuned metal bars vibrate at set frequencies…On-off, up-down channel, column).

More in a bit…

That's a good one

Yes, The Ed Sullivan Show!
Johnny Carson
All in the Family
Neil Simon movies
TV going dark at midnight

Yeah... and I think the show was Animal Kingdom and they used zoo animals in their show.

The early Star Trek with it's rocking cameras, lol
Captain Kangaroo
Soupy Sales (Razzle Dazzle)
The Sandbaggers (UK show which I absolutely loved)
Absolutely Fabulous (AbFab - again, loved)
I Love Lucy
Laverne & Shirley - just fun
The Carol Burnett Show
Sonny & Cher
Rowan & Martin's Laugh-in

Ozzy and Harriet
The Life of Riley
Father Knows Best
The Great Gildersleve
Baby Snooks'
My Favorite Husband
Fibber McGee and Molly
Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy
Jack Benny
Hopalong Cassidy

Whenever people talk about refugees today, I remember my childhood at the beginning of the 1950s: in addition to my grandparents, my great-aunt, my aunt and my parents, four refugee families (I still remember 12 persons of them vividly) lived in our house.
The only irritating thing for me was that the older ones spoke a "strange" German. It was good that I could always choose "the best" at lunchtime (which is traditionally the main meal of the day in Germany).

What made it seem "strange" German, Walter? Was it a regional difference?

Well, it was the dialect, more or less the same as their ancestors spoke when those emigrated in the 17th/18th century.