I remember growing up that all the school busses were manual transmissions and manual actuated door openers.

Riding in the back of friend's pickups like it was nothing.

Leemur said:

quote:

Cruising the “strip” from 8-11pm every Friday and Saturday night.

When I got my driver's license in 1965, that was the Thing to Do.

I came home on leave in 1973 and got my first really "cool" car, a '69 Nova SS and couldn't wait to go cruising.

Nothing. Not a car. No kids. I was seriously bummed.

Paregoric
Nurses uniform was all white dress, hat, stockings and shoes.
45 RPM singles
Having to rent your rotary phone from the phone company.
Brick cellphones

Cool music videos on MTV (especially hosted by my '80s crush Martha Quinn).

Meticulously compiled and elaborately decorated mixtapes.

Tower Records.

Video arcade.

Video rental store.

Woolworth's.

Malibu Grand Prix / Castle Golf n' Games

Adventures through Inner Space and Captain E.O. at Disneyland.

The Coronet Theater on Geary in San Francisco - the best place to see a Star Wars movie (and Die Hard too!).

San Francisco Gun Exchange (A massive gun store in the middle of downtown SF? How can that be?)

quote:

Originally posted by YooperSigs:
Drive in movies.

We still have a drive in in SLO.

ETA:

Buying 22lr at The Mill (a long gone local feed store) as a young teenager.

Wind wings. Nothing like cold air blasting in your face to keep you awake on a long drive while the heater fried your feet to keep you from getting cold.

Three on a tree manual transmission. Can’t say I miss this one at all. Never saw one where the linkage wasn’t somewhere between 95 and 110% shot.

Going out to a meal and seeing people at other tables actually interacting with the folks at their table instead of being surgically attached to their phones.

quote:

Originally posted by Kraquin:

quote:

Originally posted by Graniteguy:
Drive In Theatres

There's one about 5 miles from my house. Been there for at least 50 years. We go about once a summer. Have taken grandkids and their friends. They think it's incredible that you can bring your own popcorn, drinks, lawn chairs, coolers and watch movies outside.

There were 2 drive-ins within walking distance of my house where I grew up. My dad was an LEO in town so I would have to double check his weekend schedule to make sure I didn't end up at the wrong theatre !

Sure do miss those days.

Car and truck windows you had to manually roll up or down.

The headlight dimmer switch on the left side floor.

Wadcutter .38 reloads for $34 per thousand.

Able Team and Phoenix Force.

quote:

Originally posted by LastCubScout:
San Francisco Gun Exchange (A massive gun store in the middle of downtown SF? How can that be?)

That place was awesome. I used to go in there to look at the wall-to-wall ARs before I was even interested in guns. And 2 blocks from Market Street!

Female pubic hair

quote:

Originally posted by TMats:

quote:

Originally posted by Beancooker:
Flushing enzymes for the septic

You mean like Rid-X? Still a monthly ritual.

quote:

Originally posted by Sunset_Va:
Watching bull bats and chimney sweeps outside at night , around dusk.

I don't know the correct name for bull bats, but they were large black birds about the size of a seagull, with long thin wings.

Chimney sweeps were swallows, small black birds, that chased insects in the evenings. I seldom see these anymore, been decades since I've seen a bull bat.

No catbirds around anymore.

Nighthawks, and I think you mean “Chimney swift.”

Sorry you don’t get to see, and hear them anymore. They add a lot to my enjoyment of summer.

They were fun to watch while sitting outside in the evening. We always called "Chimney Swifts" , Chimney Sweeps" guess just my families and areas description.

Just sad to me, that so many birds I used to see growiing up aren't around here anymore. I do see the "Chimney Swifts" in a local small town sometimes late in the evenings, I guess there aren't enough open chimneys in my rural area anymore to support them. They caught a heckuva lot of mosquitos and bugs.

Which brings up another thing in my youth your never see anymore.

Sitting outside in the evenings. I live in a really rural area, and growing up, we sat outside in the evenings a lot in the summer. Many times local friends would see our family sitting outside while driving by and stop and talk, maybe share a Coke. After it got dark, is when we went inside to watch tv. And we got up early to work on the farm.

I still love to sit outside in the evenings in the summer, most of the times however, its either just me and my cat or me and one of my dogs.

A fading pastime. I never see people sitting outside just enjoying the evening in the summer anymore.

Nickel cokes and candy bars.

OK - Here you go....

Milk delivery boxes on the front stoop, with glass half-gal bottles

Honest news reporters

Grit newspaper (I sold and delivered it)

Playing cards clothes-pined to our spokes

Banana seats

Hand operated grass clippers (I hated that chore)

Pioneer SuperTuner car 8-Track players

Facing backwards in the fold up seat in the back of the family station wagon

Saturday morning cartoons

Mr. Greenjeans and Bunny Rabbit

Boots, Chuckas, Dress Shoes, and Shower Flip-Flops in Basic Training.... Not a tennis shoe around

Running around in a plain white t-shirt, playing during the summertime

More later....

Hot ladies WITHOUT tattoos.

Pee Wee Herman

quote:

Originally posted by Sunset_Va:

Sitting outside in the evenings. I live in a really rural area, and growing up, we sat outside in the evenings a lot in the summer. Many times local friends would see our family sitting outside while driving by and stop and talk, maybe share a Coke. After it got dark, is when we went inside to watch tv. And we got up early to work on the farm.

I have similar memories. I remember laying in the warm grass with my cousins on the farm and looking into the sky for satellites. We saw quite a few. Far more than the shooting stars we saw.

Conventional Mobile phones (before cell phones)
Hi-Fi Stereo
Walkman
TV's with tubes
Tube testers in hardware stores
Montgomery Wards
Water Beds
Bias Ply Tires
Studded snow tires
Swatch
Trapper Keepers
PDA
Police carrying night sticks and saps
Police using revolvers as their primary weapon
Party lines (phone)
Hand written memos
Mechanical & electric type writers
Drafting boards (mechanical drafting machines or T-squares & triangles)
Calculator watches
Large GI Joe action figures, costumes, equipment
Atari Game systems
TI-99 computers
Printer paper with index strips
Northwest Airlines
Carbon Copy paper
Ditto copies in school
Blue print machines
My High School (torn down and replaced)
Pop and candy machines in schools
Bumper jacks in cars
Beep only and voice pagers in common use
Break Dancing
Tail boards on fire apparatus that you could ride
Open jump seats on fire apparatus
Jet-Axe
New Coke
Bicycles with banana seats
Dictaphone machines
Hand written accounting ledgers

curb feelers
$.25 hamburgers
not having to listen to other peoples phone conversations
full fat meat
beef tallow cooked mcdonald's frech fries

quote:

Originally posted by LastCubScout:
San Francisco Gun Exchange (A massive gun store in the middle of downtown SF? How can that be?)

Originally posted by kkina:
That place was awesome. I used to go in there to look at the wall-to-wall ARs before I was even interested in guns. And 2 blocks from Market Street!

That was the first place I ever saw pistols and revolvers from the Smith & Wesson Performance Center. I thought those were completely badass.

At least the San Francisco Gun Exchange is immortalized on film, as it's right next door to the liquor store that Dirty Harry drives his car into in 1976's The Enforcer.

Metal toothpaste tubes with winding key.