Just like the title says, what defined your era growing up into adulthood?

A couple of things to jog your memory are:

Now and Later candy, Salt water Taaffe, Tang, Pop Rocks, Big League Chew, RC Cola, Drive in movie theater popcorn, Coke with real coke in it, Grape Nuts.

Bell bottoms, Polo shirts, power sweaters, parachute pants, leg warmers, head bands, Tie-Die shirts, Members Only jackets, Polyester leisure suits, High-Top sneakers, Beetle Boots, Bowl cuts, High and Tights.

Kodak Disk Cameras, Kodak Brownie Cameras, Kodak Polaroid cameras, Walkmans, 8-Tracks, vinyl, Satellite Car phones, Motorola Brick Phones, Pay phones, winding ringer phones, Hi-FI Solid State Stereos, Station Wagons, Tupperware parties, manual typewriters, kerosene lanterns, phonographs.

Roller Rinks, Strip Malls, Art Deco, Post Neo Modern Eclectic Architecture. Sky Scrapers, Nuclear Fallout shelters, diners, traveling circuses and rodeos.

Swing, Ragtime, Disco, Break Dancing, Flower Power, Reggae, “Classic” Rock, Metal, “Country Western,” hippies?

Social/civil unrest, mass protests, AIDS, Herpes, Global Warming, Global Cooling, Smog, killer comets and asteroids, valium.

Playing cowboys and Indians, scrabble, chutes and ladders, cap guns, cherry bombs, Lode Runner on your Apple PC or Commodore 64, Banana seat bicycles, and big wheels, when Sesame Street came out.

What do you associate with your upbringing?

H&K-Guy

Coke with real coke in it? How old do you think I am?

I graduated HS in '65', so hippies, Vietnam and social and civil unrest were all going on. Interesting times for sure.

Jim

Men and women... you didn’t have to guess which were which.
The space race.
Work... no sports for me I was on Dads construction site, or mowing yards from very young.
No allowance and no pay for chores at home.
NO AC at school or at home.
Vietnam. Missed it but my buddy across the street didn’t and he died there.

Halter tops and the burn your bra era for the girls, did wonders for a young man.

The Beatles, Beer (18 in Wisconsin then), playing rock ‘n roll in every bar in the area. All before joining the Navy.

Moving to a rural area of NJ when I was twelve. Had BB guns, Pellet rifle, then a .22 rifle, with land to hunt and roam on. Decent fishing nearby. All my friends nearby had horses, so we all rode.

Then later CARS were THE thing. Been a bad car guy for over 50 years.

Like others my age; Vietnam, civil unrest, riots and the hippie/Peace movement was there too.

NO complaints. I had a great childhood and teen age years.

MTV and VH1 played music videos, Pepsi Clear, Dodge Neon was a cool car, and dial up internet

Hyperinflation, most people not having tattoos, no one in my HS class smoked (tobacco or weed), alcohol was sold freely to 16 year olds, extreme social inequality (in my native country), nothing was affordable, I had to wait MONTHS for a book to arrive from France or the USA, internet was at its infancy etc etc.

Marveling at all the hamsters and fish on display in the Woolworth's pet department.

Riding my banana skateboard and banana bike down the neighborhood hills sans safety equipment (leading to my one-and-only hospital stay in my life so far, of course).

Sneaking up after my parents had gone to sleep to watch the movies that HBO would show "only at night" before they signed off at midnight.

Watching MTV all hours waiting for that cutie VJ Martha Quinn to pop up.

Sex, drugs, rock & roll baby!

We had Neons, too, but we called them Darts then. The new one ain't the same thing.

Viet Nam. The rest is hazy. Okay, marijuana, too.

Wars - cold mostly but even more worrisome when hot by proxy.

Theaters when intermission was still a thing.

A fortune spent on candy and arcade games.

Finding someone to buy booze until I turned 21.

Graduated in 1968.

Viet Nam. The Draft. Riots.

But also Muscle Cars, Squirt Lemon soda, Vernor's Ginger Ale, REAL A&W Root Beer, Dog 'n Suds drive-ins, Muscle Cars, Mini Skirts, pickup softball games in the hay field after it was mowed, Drive-in movies (and the back row!) 35¢ gas, "dragging main" all night on a Friday night.

In that time and place and with my parents, long hair, bell bottoms and pot were Da Debbil and only morally bankrupt pinko commies had anything to do with it.

Once I joined the Navy and discovered that Dad's Way was NOT the Only Way, a lot of that changed.

quote:

Originally posted by Kuisis:
Coke with real coke in it? How old do you think I am?

At least in your 80s. I'm 82 and barely remember it.

To the OP: walking to grade school, and lunches at home. Father working (12 hrs/day) and mother at home. Lots of reusing stuff, and saving it for the war effort; rationing. Toys with no metal in them (made of pressed paper--plastics not yet in use). Roller skates with a key (clamped onto your street shoes--they had hard soles).

In my case, playing with first cousins. My mom had 2 sisters and a brother living in the same city, and I had 5 cousins living nearby. We did everything together. The families would gather for every holiday and family event, and several times a week to play cards (kids played board games--TV wasn't in every house yet). Playing croquet in my yard with my cousins. (Many squabbles, because we all had sets with different rules.)

I did manage to get a pair of blue suede shoes once. I liked them. Eating out was a real treat. My dad liked to bring in fish & chips from a local place (real British style), but most meals were cooked by mom at home.

While pre-teen I remember bathing in a big galvanized steel tub in the kitchen, using water heated in a kettle on the stove. (This was in Detroit, Michigan, too.) Some years later we got a stall shower and a water heater that was an uninsulated tank with an outboard gas burner with a coil of pipe through it--when hot water was desired, the burner had to be lit an hour in advance. That stall shower was installed in a part of the house that was not heated by the gas floor furnace in the kitchen, so in the winter it was not real great to use it.

We did have a telephone (party line). It hung on the wall in the kitchen. Saturdays I spent listening to all the kids shows and soap operas on the radio--my folks had a wooden console radio that tuned AM and shortwave; it had a built-in 78rpm record changer, too--I loved watching it cycle as a kid. Favorite radio show was "Let's Pretend"; later, in college my favorite was "Adventures in Good Music" with Karl Haas. (His theme music was the middle movement of Beethoven's "Pathetique" piano sonata--still my favorite piece.) FWIW, he was a fine pianist and actually performed his theme live at every episode--no recording.

Church on Sunday, usually chauffeured by my Aunt Edna (dad worked on Sundays and mom didn't drive--we only had one car, anyway). Sang in childrens' choirs beginning at age 9 and have continued choir singing through the current day. ("As the twig is bent, the tree's inclined".

Never had a paper route but did have some jobs when in high school: grocery packer at Big Bear supermarket ($0.50/hr plus tips); telephone order taker and packer for Moy's Chinese Kitchen (only takeout there)--I think it was $1.50/hr plus supper.

Walked or took the bus everywhere in the city. Didn't even learn to drive until age 18 (my dad was getting worried about it; lessons from him were upsetting to both of us). Detroit did have an excellent bus system though, and it wasn't expensive--students got a discount.

Enough about me. You need to pardon me, I'm a bit egotistical.

flashguy

Vietnam. Apollo program. John, Martin and Robert.

Graduated college in January 2002, September 11 shadows everything from my early adulthood.

The Cuban Missile Crisis, the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs, Kennedy assassination, the British invasion (music, for you youngins), color TV sets, Kodak Instamatic cameras, 1968 riots, Vietnam war, hippies, anti-war demonstrations.

quote:

Graduated in 1968. Viet Nam. The Draft. Riots.

Holy crap!!!!! I'm as old as you are and these were my choices!!

Sloopy.