What's THAT

Ohhhhhhhhhhh the good ole' days... One of these days... My grandkids will be like I was... curious to know... What was that? How did it work? Who used it? Why did you have to use that instead of what we have now? I can see one day.. bringing out the dial up telephone where there was a cord and no matter what you needed in the house was JUST out of reach when you were on the phone. We had a cord from the receiver to the phone and a cord from the phone to the wall.. Needless to say you didn't go anywhere when you had a phone call... you were stuck within a 5 foot radius... UNLESS... you did what we did, we had a 50 foot cord from the wall to the phone and a 15 foot curly cord from the phone to the receiver.. but I wont bother telling my grand kids all that .. they will just get as wound up with the cords as we did trying to reach and move around the house as they try to figure it all out .. Funny how we tried to be as free with that as we are the cell phones now.
My great grandmother talked of her davenport, and housecoat, and pocketbook, with oleo and ice box as if it were an everyday item... Of course I understood it,,, as it was relayed to me .. but to my grand kids.. its a couch and robe, and purse and margarine and refrigerator... And by the time my grandkids grow up they might have other names for them by then... Time does go one and changing the names of things as easy as changing TV stations...

Talking about TV stations... We had 3 channels with rabbit ears ... no remotes and no cable .. What???? seriously no cable .. hahaha... When I was a teen we got a local Tv station .. and got cable ... but remotes were a bit harder to come by... We had ABC, NBC, CBS and black and white TV. AND if by chance you wanted to watch public TV you had to change the whole TV settings to UHF and adjust the rabbit ears until you were blue in the face.. OR you'd have someone go outside to move the antenna outside to see if you can get a better picture... To end every days broadcast every night at 11:00 PM the TV would go off playing the National anthem with a picture of the Waving American Flag!! and then at the end of the song... you'd hear kkkkkkkkkkkksssssssssssssshhhhhhhhhh and nothing on the tv but fuzz..
We got a color TV when I was in grade school .. Our first console tv (a HUGE box around a TV that was mostly used for a piece of furniture that you could put knick-knacks on ) It sat really pretty in the edge of the room where it was all nice and new... Mike had a set of cleats he was going to give to a girl... (Cleats... small objects you screwed on the bottom of football shoes (to make it easier to run in the dirt) ... .that you gave to a grade school girl like a class ring when you get older to let her know she was your girlfriend) I was running around the house with them on a chain.. swirling them in the air around my finger.. he was about to get to me so I slung them faster and faster... and they flew off my finger, right into the TV . Ohhhhhhhhhh I so thought I was dead meat! =| But .. I was told to be more careful and quit running in the house... (mom didn't say.. stop teasing your brother.. =) that was a plus) But for the life of the TV ... it had a crack down the whole length of the picture tube! =} I should have got it really good! I'm so glad I have a mom and dad that are full of Grace!!!

I remember in Jr High my dad brought in this HUGE metal box.... it must have weighed a ton... ok .. maybe 150 pounds ... a NEW state of the art... brand new Radar Range!!! Everyone was talking about the 'Radar Range', it was supposed to make a meal or heat your food in No time flat... It makes me laugh now to remember what we did before the 'radar range' We got this monster and sat it on the counter.. mom was so proud... she tried all kinds of things in it and seeing what all it would do... we came to the conclusion it was good for warming up food. Hundreds of dollars to do what we have always done on the stove. BUT in Record time!!! It states.. cook a 5 pound roast in 35 minutes... Mom got a corning ware dish with a browning circle on the bottom to 'brown the meat as it cooks because everyone know you can 'brown' anything in the microwave. I don't ever remember her making a 'meal' in the radar range .. but I know she must have tried!
Things we don't see every day now that use to be useful .... a dial Telephone (our phone number was 304-562-6481.... but in our town all you had to dial was 2-6481.. which meant .: dial, click, click, dial, click, click, click, click, click, click, dial click, click, click, click, dial, click .. well you get what I mean... each number had that many clicks... seemed to take forever in a world that was quickly becoming a hurry up world and do things fast.. I have somewhere to be... ) more things were manual and electric typewriters, cassette players and tapes, LP or 78s and 45s records, record players, 8 track tapes, VHS and Beta were the 2 most popular ways to watch movies if you didn't go to the theaters, phone booths (where you had to have the exact change to make a phone call started out at 10 cents .. went to 25 cents then 50 cents) and mail boxes on the corners and at gas stations, cameras with 35 mm film... 110 camera's and Polaroid cameras, pagers/ beepers, I remember when beepers were first out there.. dad was setting at his mom and dads house with his brothers... while they were sitting and talking everyone heard a beep and all the 'brothers' looked at their beepers to see who might need them .. of course it was only one that got the beep but all of them looked at their little tiny black box on their belt loop to see if it was Their pager that went off! Everyone belted out in laughter at the new technology and their response to it.

In 1960 a new house cost $12,700.00 and by 1969 was $15,500.00

In 1960 the average income per year was $5,315.00 and by 1969 was $8,540.00

In 1960 a gallon of gas was 25 cents and by 1969 was 35 cents

In 1960 the average cost of new car was $2,600.00 and by 1969 was $3,270.00

Some of my favorite TV shows were...

• Rawhide 1959 - 1966.
• The Monkees 1966 - 1968.
• Ironside 1967 - 1975. .
• Hogan's Heroes 1965 - 1971.
• Lassie 1954 - 1973.
• Flipper 1964 - 1967.
• Bonanza 1959 - 1973.
• The Brady Bunch 1969 - 1974.
• Gilligan's Island 1964 - 1967.
• Gunsmoke 1955 - 1975.
• Columbo 1968 - 2003.
• The Virginian 1962 - 1971.
• Mr Ed 1961 - 1966.
• The Twilight Zone ( Original Series ) 1959 - 1964.
• I Dream of Jeannie 1965 - 1970.
• Bewitched 1964 - 1972.
• Get Smart 1965 - 1970
• Green Acres 1965 - 1971.

My favorite past times were Annie Over where we had 2 people on one side of our detached garage and 2 on the other and we would yell.. Annie Over and throw a ball... no one on the other side of the roof would know where it would be thrown way to the right or way to the left or in the middle ..but the object was to catch it and not let it hit the ground.. no score was taken but it was fun playing it for hours.. We lived in a neighborhood with kids everywhere.. we would leave after school and be home before dark.. Mom always knew where we were but we didn't' have to be in seeing distance.. but we knew when we heard mom say dinner.. we'd come running... then out again to play with our friends. We would play 4 square until we couldn't see the ball.. we'd play chase, freeze tag, cartoon tag, we would ride out bikes all around the neighborhood.. and when it would snow enough the mom down the street that worked for the police dept. would block off our street and everyone for 4 streets over would come to sleigh ride down our street. It was perfect.. the really steep to get started and then a slop at the end to get a safe stop! Nothing was funner than that!!! Mom always had a hot pot of chocolate milk ready for us when we'd need to come in and warm up a bit. We'd play outside all day.. and we didn't get frost bit or frozen.. We had snow forts and tunnels and the imagination was unlimited!!! We had a tree house where the boys were allowed MWF and the girls had it TTS ... one day JB Burdette was going up in it on the Girls day... so I went in the house and got Mikes Be-be gun and shot him right in the butt..... I don't know what got in to me but here again another instance where I should have got in real trouble but didn't.. actually mom laughed... she didn't know I saw her but she did!!! Although she was the one that had to contend with JB's mom!!! Bless my mommys heart.. she took up for me.. I did have to say I was sorry.. But everyone knew I wasn't ! =)

Those were the days! Im sure my grankids will say that for their day too!!! I know they have lots of opportunities in the days and years ahead!

Posted by Kim Ellis at 7:53 AM 0 comments