BB Collective Nostalgia

She just turned 24.

I remember handheld funeral fans in church because we didn't have central a/c.

I remember the deacons sitting on the back row. Chewing chaw and spitting in empty folgers cans.

I remember living in a pull along hitched to the car. We took showers in church members homes.

 

Deacons who used drugs?? Ewwww!

 

Yep. And they wore their Sunday School attendance pins on their lapels.

 

I love grits, Diane...and I was born and raised in FLorida! Another Southern gal like you.

Nancy

 

Do you remember these? I did in the 1970s (I was a kid) -- I'm 33 years old:

1. 8 track tapes (I remember playing a Ray Charles song on one of them).

2. Ice Cream truck coming down the street and running to it with the neighborhood kids.

3. Had a 45 record of "Macho Man" (sung by Donald Duck) which was a parody of "Macho Man" by the Village People.

4. Your older brother likes Captain and Tennelle and Freddie Prinze's songs. This is before we all know about Freddie Prinze, Jr. (he played Fred in the new Scooby Doo movie recently). I also remember he had a Happy Days record that had a song about Fonzie (my childhood hero).

5. School buses did not have seat belts back then.

6. We did not use seat belts in cars in the 1970s.

7. My classmates and I did not have the Internet or the computer to do our homework on...we had to use the library or by word of mouth.

8. We had to use those long library card drawers...we didn't have the computers at the time to look up a book we need. Our names were in a catalog on PAPER CARDS.

9. We had RECESS (going to the playground!). We didn't have those "Safety" playground items then.

10. We never talked back to our teachers or being loud in the cafeteria in the 1970s (that was my experience back then).

11. We had to say the Pledge of Allegience to the Flag, UNDER GOD....

12. My classmates and I watched 1960s movies (like Disney movies) with a REEL PROJECTOR! Today, kids watch movies on VCRs.

13. We didn't have those digital cameras or VCR cameras then....we had to use blue flash cameras (that BLINDS YOU) with those flash bulbs, or traditional film cameras that makes 8 mm reel films...you should see some of them when I was very young....at the end, the screen just burns and makes a hole and you can watch that! Ha

14. With those reel projectors I watched with my class, at almost EVERY movie, it showed for one minute a "beautiful woman" flirting to the audience. I remember the whole class went "WHOOOOOO!" and wolf whistles before the movie actually started!

15. We had those flouride treatments in little Dixie cups! We had to rinse them and then spit them in those cups, and then go to our class.

and the most MEMORABLE THING I remember in the 1970s:

16. I wore a "body worn hearing aid" from 1972 to 1978! These are hearing aids that should now be in a MUSEUM.

God bless, and ENJOY THE MEMORIES,
Nancy

 

Wow! What a great thread!!! I remember:

Penny loafers - with a real penny in them

Tent dresses

Green stamps

Things you could get when you bought gas - my dad actually got me a whole set of china from filling up with gas!

McCall's magazine paper dolls

Mimeograph machines

Telex (TWX) machines - the kind where when you typed, it punched holes in tape and to send a "TWX", you dialed the number and fed the tape through the machine.

VBS parades

Spoolies

Hair dryers in a "suitcase"-looking box that had the hose connected to the "bonnet" you put on your head. Really cool when they came out with the nail dryer in them!

Saddle oxfords - the clunky ones - with bobby socks - ugh.

I'm sure I'll think of more!

CJ

 

Anyone remember Choo Choo bags? Purses that looked like little travel cases?

 

Yep...and pillbox hats, manual typewriters, carbon paper.

 

Remember when ladies always had shoes, hat, purse and GLOVES to match when they dressed up? (even in the summertime)

Nylons instead of pantyhose.

Nice girls did not leave the house without a girdle! (had to hide any jiggles)

I was not allowed to wear slacks or shorts uptown (and my folks weren't even Christians)!

Playing army in the dirt using bottle caps for soldiers.

Sliding down the 'fire escape pole' on a school building 3 stories high. (got in trouble every time for that one)!

Pogo sticks

Hula Hoops

Little red wagons

 

Does anybody remember when we used to "sprinkle" clothes before we ironed them? We had a "sprinkle" top with a cork that fit into the top of a coke bottle. We filled the bottle with water and sprinkled the clothes, rolled them up and put them in a pillow case until they were damp, then ironed them! (Long before the days of "wash and wear"!!)

CJ

 

My grandma used to do that.

 

I remember that CJ! And that is after we brought them in off the line. Remember when there was no 'spray starch' and you had to actually starch the white shirts by hand? UGH!

How about the pants stretchers that we put levis on before we hung them outside so they wouldn't shrink?

Bring frozen clothes in off the line and standing them up so they could thaw out before you ironed them?

Washing clothes in a large metal tub on a washboard? Oh, the blisters! OUCH!

Finally got a new fangled invention. The wringer washer! We didn't have a basement, so ours set on an open back porch.

 

We sprinkled our clothes before ironing them with water kept in a coke bottle with a corked sprinker type head stuck in it too, C.J.!!

Remember how we used to mix up the liquid or powdered starch in the sink and dip the clothes. When they were almost dry, we'd put them in the fridge until we were ready to iron.

Dippity Doo? Brush Rollers? Teasing your hair til it was a mile high! Laquer hair spray!

My family was quite poor. We made our own washable feminine hygiene products. Had many an accident but saved money.

We drained bacon on newspaper.

My 'roller skates' were adjustable to fit my shoes and had a big key we kept round our neck on a string. Never locked our doors except if you went on vacation. The insurance man came weekly to pick up his 50 cents. Used pots and pans could be bought off the junk mans truck.

Diane

 

We drained our bacon on the brown paper bags we got from the grocers.

We also cut up the bags and used them for wrapping paper (used newspaper for that too).

We used those brown bags for a lot of things, including trash bags...no plastic back then!

 

At my school, we sat at long benches with a desk in front and an inkwell. No ballpoint pens or even fountain pens in those days. It was a straight nib, dip and write, dip and write..then blot.

Cheers,

Jim

 

We had separate desks, but we still had ink wells.

Yes! I have had my pigtails dipped in the ink wells many times. Those darn boys!

 

Never had girls in class to distract us. We were always little gentlemen.....well, we had masters with rods to keep us in line.

Cheers,

Jim

 

They lined us up in the cafeteria and gave us polio shots! I also remember being forced to eat every bite on my plate at lunch and throwing up on the teacher. She made me eat creamed peas with small onions.

Diane

 

Well, it was a lot of fun at my Grandma's house in Southern Illinois(Marian) she was a little behind us where we lived in NC Indiana...she had a pump handle installed on her kitchen sink we had to prime..and when the ice man came around in his wagon drawn by a large grey horse...well, her ice box was a few centimeters shy of fitting the fifty pound block into..so it was my job in the summer to sit on the block in the yard til it would fit! All of us cousins used to visit Grandma at once..we had to sleep on "Baptist Pallots" quilts piled up on the living room floor. We had to be on the porch when the corner streetlight came on..as a rule!

 

Faith: I live in central Illinois and I have been to Marion. My daughter lives in Merrilville, Indiana.

I remember visiting my Aunt in the country and she had one of those pumps in the kitchen sink and was THRILLED to have it... It was a modern convenience back then!

We did not have a pump, but I can remember that we only had COLD water until I was around 12. We had to heat water for dishes, baths, washing clothes etc. on an old (and I mean old) gas stove.