Remember When

[orin stepanek]

Hudson Oil: Gas prices 11.9 cents! Cars lined 2 blocks! They were called gas wars.
If you wish; post another memory

[orin stepanek]

When I was a kid Mom put real candles on the Christmas Tree. It was a sight to behold. The candles had to be placed very carefully so the flame wasn't close to any of the branches. It was very pretty; but I wonder how many fires that started/
http://www.wikihow.com/Image:Christmas-Candle.jpg

[BMAONE23]

Then: Gas prices .29.9 per gal, coffee .25 per cup, movies .50 for a double feature and a cartoon, Drive-in movies.
Now: Gas prices $2.99 per gal, coffee$2.50 per cup, movies $10. for one (and no cartoon) Drive-ins all but gone

[Chris Peterson]

Then: Gas prices .29.9 per gal, coffee .25 per cup, movies .50 for a double feature and a cartoon, Drive-in movies.
Now: Gas prices $2.99 per gal, coffee$2.50 per cup, movies $10. for one (and no cartoon) Drive-ins all but gone

Then: median household income $4,000 per year.
Now: median household income $40,000 per year.

(In other words, while comparisons like these are amusing, they are pretty useless without converting the numbers to standardized dollars.)

[owlice]

Orin, some years ago (has to be at least 18 years, since I was not yet a mom!) my then-beloved-but-now-ex-husband #1(who I still am very fond of, as he's a good guy) and I went to a restaurant in Shepherdstown, WV in December for his birthday, and the ginormous tree in the dining room was lit by candles. It was lovely. It also made me nervous as the dickens, because it's not as though the tree was tucked in a corner or anything -- people were seated right next to it, servers and diners had to slide past the tree to get from one part of the dining room to another, and so on. I was sure someone or something would end up in flames!

(Maybe I was hyper-aware of the candles because I once caught myself on fire, which, speaking of dickens, scared them right out of my then-roommate, who started screaming when I walked into the foyer from the kitchen with my back on fire from my rear to my neck. Not from candles, but from the gas stove, which I'd backed into, apparently. I wasn't aware of the extent of the blaze, so I was perfectly calm... until the screaming started. Had to repaint the foyer AND shampoo the carpet, because they both ended up with Owl-shaped soot marks on them. A few weeks later, I got a package from my computer science buddies back in MD: a fire extinguisher, except everywhere the phrase "fire extinguisher" appeared on it, they had applied a little editing to make it read "Owlice extinguisher." But I digress.)

I remember that we had a few bubble lights on the tree when I was little. I also remember that fresh trees that were spraypainted pink or blue were (unfortunately) in vogue for a couple of Christmases when I was a child. Another year, it was aluminum trees that were stylish. We were too poor to be able to indulge in an aluminum tree; I do not regret that!

[BMAONE23]

Then: Gas prices .29.9 per gal, coffee .25 per cup, movies .50 for a double feature and a cartoon, Drive-in movies.
Now: Gas prices $2.99 per gal, coffee$2.50 per cup, movies $10. for one (and no cartoon) Drive-ins all but gone

Then: median household income $4,000 per year.
Now: median household income $40,000 per year.

(In other words, while comparisons like these are amusing, they are pretty useless without converting the numbers to standardized dollars.)

BUT
Then $1.00 = $1.00
Now $1.00 = $0.37

And with trillions of incurred national debt
$1.00 = $0.00001

[mexhunter]

In the sixties, $ 1.00 american dolar was $ 12.50 pesos.
Now, $ 1.00 american dolar is $ 12.03 pesos.
But our currency subtracted three zeros.
So $ 1.00 american dolar would be $ 12,030.00 pesos.
All by excessive government debt, now almost controlled.
Greetings
César

[emc]

I remember when I thought it rained and the sun shined everywhere at the same time. I also feared the expressway at night on long trips… I thought that the road would suddenly end at a cliff and we would plunge in to a dark abyss… so I usually looked out the back window because I figured it was safe.

[orin stepanek]

I remember that we had a few bubble lights on the tree when I was little. I also remember that fresh trees that were spraypainted pink or blue were (unfortunately) in vogue for a couple of Christmases when I was a child. Another year, it was aluminum trees that were stylish. We were too poor to be able to indulge in an aluminum tree; I do not regret that!

I'm glad you survived the fire and hope you didn't have any serious burns.
I never did like the aluminum trees! I still have a set of bubble lights. I haven't used them for a couple of years. You can still get them. Right now; I prefer the miniature lights. Sometimes I pot the flasher lamp in. This year I have them on continues and multicolor.

[orin stepanek]

I remember when I thought it rained and the sun shined everywhere at the same time. I also feared the expressway at night on long trips… I thought that the road would suddenly end at a cliff and we would plunge in to a dark abyss… so I usually looked out the back window because I figured it was safe.

Most of the highways were graveled and at night it was pretty spooky going over a hill. They did indeed look like there was a sudden drop off after the summit. We lived in a small town and used to visit the other small towns around so there was quite a lot of night driving. The small towns sponsored outdoor movies to attract business. We went to a lot of those since the movies were free. The guy with the movie projector hung a sheet between two poles for a screen.

[bystander]

From an email I recently received

If you are 35 , or older, you might think this is hilarious!

When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were. When they were growing up; what with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning.... Uphill... Barefoot... BOTH ways. yadda, yadda, yadda

And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way in hell I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on my kids about how hard I had it and how easy they've got it!

But now that I'm over the ripe old age of forty, I can't help but look around and notice the youth of today. You've got it so easy! I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a damn Utopia! And I hate to say it, but you kids today, you don't know how good you've got it!

1) I mean, when I was a kid we didn't have the Internet. If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the damn library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalog!!

2) There was no email!! We had to actually write somebody a letter - with a pen! Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox, and it would take like a week to get there! Stamps were 10 cents!

3) Child Protective Services didn't care if our parents beat us. As a matter of fact, the parents of all my friends also had permission to kick our butts ! Nowhere was safe!

4) There were no MP3's or Napsters or iTunes! If you wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the record store and shoplift it yourself!

5) Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio, and the DJ would usually talk over the beginning and @#*% it all up! There were no CD players! We had tape decks in our car. We'd play our favorite tape and "eject" it when finished, and then the tape would come undone rendering it useless. Cause, hey, that's how we rolled, Baby! Dig?

6) We didn't have fancy crap like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called, they got a busy signal, that's it!

7) There weren't any freakin' cell phones either. If you left the house, you just didn't make a call or receive one. You actually had to be out of touch with your "friends". OH MY GOSH !!! Think of the horror... not being in touch with someone 24/7!!! And then there's TEXTING. Yeah, right. Please! You kids have no idea how annoying you are.

8) And we didn't have fancy Caller ID either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! It could be your school, your parents, your boss, your bookie, your drug dealer, the collection agent... you just didn't know!!! You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!

9) We didn't have any fancy PlayStation or Xbox video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games like 'Space Invaders' and 'Asteroids'. Your screen guy was a little square! You actually had to use your imagination!!! And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen... Forever! And you could never win. The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died! Just like LIFE!

10) You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on! Channel surfing? You had to get off your butt and walk over to the TV to change the channel!!! NO REMOTES!!! Oh, no, what's the world coming to?!?!

11) There was no Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons on Saturday Morning. Do you hear what I'm saying? We had to wait ALL WEEK for cartoons, you spoiled little rat- _____________ !

12) And we didn't have microwaves. If we wanted to heat something up, we had to use the stove! Imagine that!

13) And our parents told us to stay outside and play... all day long. Oh, no, no electronics to soothe and comfort. And if you came back inside... you were doing chores!

14) And car seats - oh, please! Mom threw you in the back seat and you hung on. If you were lucky, you got the "safety arm" across the chest at the last moment if she had to stop suddenly, and if your head hit the dashboard, well that was your fault for calling "shot gun" in the first place!

See! That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it too easy. You're spoiled rotten! You guys wouldn't have lasted five minutes back in the 1970's or any time before!

Regards,
The Over 30 Crowd

The '70s? oh my!

[emc]

LOL Bystander...

It doesn’t matter what anybody else says. I'm not old until I say so.

[orin stepanek]

We didn't have any electronics when I was a kid. The only thing that electricity was used for was lights until we got a radio; and Mom got an electric range to replace the wood/cob burner. I was starting Jr. High when we got a Black and White, But no; it wasn't tough! We had a lot of games we played with the neighborhood group. I remember many of these. http://www.beinghealthynaturally.com/sp ... sgames.php Sometimes we added our own varieties. Like in The Fox and Geese; we made two pies in the snow connected by a path between them. If you got caught between the two pies; your chances of becoming It was very imminent.

[owlice]

I remember when I had whole days to spend roaming, and afternoons when I had the woods all to my dog and myself! The elementary school I attended ended classes early on Fridays, so I'd walk home, get the dog (oh, such a happy, pretty mutt! Joy on four paws!), and go walking in the woods. All the other kids were still in school; we had the woods to ourselves! I'd walk along the creek on the dirt path, almost to the meadow, with the dog running happily alongside, and then sit on a particular rock, which was huge and loomed over another path, and sing while the dog played in the creek. She always had a merry laughing expression; it was fun to watch her doing battle with bubbles and bounding through the shallow water!

[emc]

I remember when I was afraid of girls. They seemed like aliens… not hostile mind you… but they appeared to possess a much greater social skill set than me. Kind of like advanced aliens (say, is neufer an advanced alien?) would know more about the universe and so on… it took some doin’ but I eventually developed enough “learn from my mistakes” mistakes to be somewhat successful at helping forge a successful relationship. I finally learned that girls like to help and I need lots of it.

[orin stepanek]

Hey! Remember the nickel; 6for a quarter jukeboxes! [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfiwDRDv ... re=related[/youtube]

[emc]

I remember when juke boxes were popular… and I remember hearing that song too! There was a restaurant we used to dine that had juke box programming stations at the tables. I thought that was cool… now some folks have their own private “juke box” that fits in a shirt pocket!

[orin stepanek]

I remember when juke boxes were popular… and I remember hearing that song too! There was a restaurant we used to dine that had juke box programming stations at the tables. I thought that was cool… now some folks have their own private “juke box” that fits in a shirt pocket!

What's the world coming to?

[owlice]

My best friend, any of her family who was around, sometimes another friend or two, my son and I used to have dinner every December 23 at a favorite DC restaurant, an Italian place that looked like a hole-in-the-wall but had fabulous white pizza and fried zucchini. We'd eat lots of garlicky pizza, open crackers (and wear our paper crowns), exchange and open presents, and then go to the Kennedy Center for the Messiah singalong.

The free tickets for the singalong used to be distributed on the first Saturday of December, which required getting to the Kennedy Center by 6:30 AM or so to snag a place in line. Some people would camp out all night for this; we knew where to stand so we were out of the wind coming off the Potomac, and would let the back of the line reach us. We always got tickets.

When my son was old enough, he got his own Messiah score; the adults in the party -- my friend, her sister, their parents, a few others -- made a big deal of this, all making little speeches and turning this into a Presentation and Ceremony. This is a hard crowd to sing with if one hasn't sung this work before, since my friend (an alto), her sister (a soprano), and I know the score really well, and their dad (a bass) is pretty familiar with the music, too, and sightsings well. The kid has turned into a bass; he needs to learn a new line.

Now, tickets for the singalong are handed out the day of the event, which for those who work is hard to manage, and the restaurant closed down a few years ago when the owners were offered lots o' dough for the property. We haven't quite figured out a new tradition. In the meantime, I've taken the kid out for dinner on December 23, and we still open crackers and wear our paper crowns while we eat. I take extra crackers with us and share with people (strangers) at the tables around us; some are not enthusiastic about this, but others are delighted enough to make up for the unenthusiastic folks. Surely do miss going with my friends, though, and miss getting together with 2000 other folks to take the familiar path through a Handel score.

[owlice]

.... dogs could run freely through the neighborhood? And so could children?

[Céline Richard]

my son (...) the adults in the party -- my friend, her sister, their parents, a few others -- (...) all making little speeches and turning this into a Presentation and Ceremony. This is a hard crowd to sing with if one hasn't sung this work before.

This is a tradition -i mean making little speeches while almost everyone listen- which also exists in United Kingdom, Australia... but not in France. I would like people begins to sing in my family, but this is really unlikely to happen.
Maybe later, when i would have founded a family, when i will have a husband, he will like singing for Christmas

[owlice]

Céline, if you were here, you could join us for caroling! My group of friends has a long-standing tradition of door-to-door caroling. The caroling party was started by one of the guys when he was in high school; even after he'd finished college and moved out, his parents' home and neighborhood were still the base for this holiday event. After his parents sold the house and moved, another friend and her husband offered to host, so they've been hosting for 18 years now, I think it is.

Their children, my son, the offspring of other long-time friends have all grown up going to this caroling party. I don't know whether one of them will continue this tradition once my generation reaches its dotage; they don't have the same bonds with each other as their parents have, but I would like to think they at least will have fond memories of this event when they have families of their own.

[Céline Richard]

Hi Owlice,
Caroling is a "song of prey or joy"? I googled it just now. I have the impression it is a party.
I know what are "Christmas carols", but i am not sure you speak about Christmas Carols. You told me your friends have a long "door to door" tradition: does it means you come with them, to the house of different people, for instance your neighbours, to sing Christmas carols for them?
Thank you a lot for saying me i could join you, although France is little too far away!
Have a very very good day,
Céline

[owlice]

Yes, Céline, I mean Christmas carols; actually, just holiday songs, as they aren't all carols. Singing Christmas carols for the enjoyment of others is "caroling." This can be done by standing in a public place and singing, or going door-to-door to sing for the neighbors, or going to some place like a nursing home or hospital, which we have also done, to walk down the halls to sing for those who are there.

After we have sung for the neighbors, we return to the hosts' house to warm up and for a party -- lots of food and conversation and laughter, with music and/or movies in the background.

[orin stepanek]

Somethings have survived the past! Drive in Theaters http://www.driveinmovie.com/mainmenu.htm
Radio Wagons http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Flyer
Hay rack rides
Tailgating
etc.