Calling all older folks

[doowdniw]

I was born in the very early 50's. I grew up in a new suburban neighborhood in an all white town in NJ that had 230+ houses. Dad was a WWII combat vet.

The neighborhood was almost all skilled blue collar. There were lots of kids, and clothes and toys got passed around as we grew. We didn't have play dates; we just went outside and "called for" our friends by knocking on their doors. Our streets were safe and we had a wooded area ("the woods") at the edge of the development. Everyone had a bicycle, and we got around the neighborhood just fine. As kids, we were always busy with something, even if it was just digging a big hole. We went to school on a school bus. When it snowed, we had to listen for the siren at 7:00 AM. If there was a siren, there was no school.

None of the mothers worked or drove. The milkman brought milk to us, and there was an endless parade of produce, meat, fish, and other vendors in trucks or old school buses. In the summer, 3 different ice cream trucks came every day at different times. On Friday night, a truck with a whip ride came, as did a little 3 wheeled vehicle with a cotton candy machine on the back. Once a week, a knife sharpening guy would come around. Each vendor had a signature bell or horn on his vehicle.

When someone's car broke down, it became a neighborhood project for the dads to fix it. Parts were obtained from a junkyard ("the junky's") where they had to remove parts from junked cars themselves. When someone's TV broke, a few dads would get together to try to diagnose the problem (and have a beer or 2), and they always ended up taking out all of the tubes and going to Walgreens, where there was a tube tester.

On weekends, city dwelling relatives would visit and we'd have cookouts, sometimes including neighbors and their extended families.

There were several Jewish families in the neighborhood, and we often went to events at their synagogue and were invited into their homes for holiday celebrations, as were they into ours.

A day that's burned into my memory is October 24, 1962. My mom was crying as she sent us off to school with instructions to stay there if we had to shelter until she or our dad came for us. The school had a supply of cots, drums of water, food and Geiger counters. She already had a blanket over the kitchen table to shelter under when the bombs started falling.

I had it pretty good. I have no tales of childhood woe. I grew up in an environment of strong traditional families, and it worked well for us. We didn't have a lot of money, and our parents did the best they could with what they worked hard for. I truly believe that their generation is deserving of the Greatest Generation label.

Holy crap, we could have been neighbors! Except I spent most of my early years shuttling between the UK and Long Island. And no synagogue visits. But the rest is spot on - and who can forget duck and cover drills during the missile crisis in preparation for when they dropped "the big one". As if hiding under a school desk would do a lick of good against a nuclear attack.

 

[PWilton]

Dear God, I thought you were kidding.....

Yeah, that's it! Things I wish I had saved....

 

[bbx56]

In HS, I went to an all boys school. I had no idea what a woman was. When I got to College I saw what was described to me as FEMALES....they had things sticking out of their sweaters....WOW!


In those days there was SCREW magazine and another one whose name I forgot, that allowed personal phone numbers to be put in the personal area....WOW!

I signed up month after month...I got an answering machine, a luxury at that time so I dont miss any calls....

My ad was something like this

18 yrd old College student wants to fuck anywhere, anytime, will do anything to anyone, D and D free, No men please!

The amount of calls was amazing. I actually met some women in their late 30"s early 40's that were FAMOUS...I only knew that when I met them, names that most would rcognize

I musta have had dozens and dozens....Then I fucking got married and the fun stopped

 

[oggbashan]

Learning to drive/ride

My parents were in their 40s when they got their first car in Gibraltar. But neither of them had passed a driving test. Their first lessons started with a hill start, essential in Gibraltar.

There was only one driving instructor on Gibraltar in the early 1950s. He was also the only driving examiner. If he, as instructor, thought you were ready to pass the driving test, short of stupid mistakes - you would. If he thought you weren't ready but you insisted on taking the test anyway? You would fail on the three-point turn if nothing else.

The instructor charged a fixed fee for however many lessons you needed so he didn't make more money for failing you.

My mother was more cautious. She needed more lessons before she was confident enough to agree with the instructor that she was ready to take the test, and she passed.

My father was too impatient. He insisted on trying to take the test early. He would have failed for several errors but the three-point turn was the final straw. The road always used by the instructor/examiner was a dead end that had walls narrowing you drove down the road. If he felt you ought to pass he would ask you to do the turn at a wider part of the road. If he thought you should fail he would ask the driver to attempt the three-point turn at a narrower part of the road where it was just possible if you were careful. Hitting the wall was an instant fail. My father hit the wall on his first four attempts. Eventually he passed but he was never as good a driver as my mother.

My motor cycle riding tests were a disaster. The first test was done in driving rain. I fell off on the emergency stop - instant fail. The second test was aborted. It was also during heavy rain and when I came out to start the motorcycle the electrics were soaked and had shorted out. I had to push the bike back home.

For my third test, instead of a small solo motorcycle I had a large bike with a single seat sports sidecar. The examiner sat in that sidecar for the test.

Half way through the test my clutch cable broke at the handlebar lever. I continued, doing clutchless changes until close to the end the examiner asked me to do a hill start. I explained that I couldn't because the clutch cable had broken some ten minutes earlier. He passed me anyway because if he hadn't noticed my clutchless changes a hill start would have been easy for me.

The rules for learner motorcyclists had changed a couple of years before I started. Previously a learner could ride any size of motorcycle if displaying L-plates but could only carry a qualified pillion passenger. If a combination - the person(s) in the sidecar did not need a licence, but a pillion passenger did.

The requirement when I took my test was that a learner could ride a solo motorcycle up to 250 cc but still any size bike with a sidecar. Whichever you chose, the licence was the same when you passed the motorcycle test.

One of my older office colleagues had inherited some money from an elderly relation when the old rules applied. He went to the local motorcycle dealer and bought the fastest Triumph motorcycle he could. He had never ridden a motorcycle. The dealer gave him the handbook, showed him the controls and left him to ride away. He crashed the expensive machine on the first corner, pushed it back to the dealer's premises for repairs, and agreed that he should have accepted the dealer's recommendation for a motorcycle training course.

 

[ryan8558]

You had a professional come fix your TV set because there was nothing "portable" about them physically, and there was nothing user friendly about them electronically. There was no "plug and play" or integrated circuits. The earliest home TVs predated the commercial implementation of transistors by almost a decade.

Do it yourself? Fine, ma'am. Your problem is in here somewhere:

https://www.boxcarcabin.com/rca-ctc-16-round-tube-tv.jpg

If a tube wasn't lighting up or was cold, you could always run it past a tube tester,

https://photos.offerup.com/V8DopabOpQp6rAoPuqC4RInB5s8=/600x960/99f0/99f07b1ab9ad4ebe8e984fe0fb36a841.jpg

 

[Gamine67]

If a tube wasn't lighting up or was cold, you could always run it past a tube tester,

https://photos.offerup.com/V8DopabOpQp6rAoPuqC4RInB5s8=/600x960/99f0/99f07b1ab9ad4ebe8e984fe0fb36a841.jpg

Tube tester!

Yes, I love seeing one again, that’s exactly what I was talking about. Kewl

 

[ryan8558]

Tube tester!

Yes, I love seeing one again, that’s exactly what I was talking about. Kewl

yes, the tube tester saved us service calls more than once.

 

[jaF0]

TVs were almost more user fixable then than they are now. You could replace tubes, tuners, power supplies, sound boards and a few other things in just a few minutes. And many of them were standard across different brands and models which made it easier to swap parts.

The only thing you didn't want to mess with was the CRT (picture tube). They involved very high voltages and were most of the weight of the set. Trying to take one out without knowing what you were doing could almost be life threatening.

 

[jaF0]

I think Sgt. Preston was better than the Lone Ranger in some ways.

 

[ryan8558]

Liked the Lone Ranger, but I was always a Sky King fan.

 

[CandiCame]

I'm loving this thread but can we backtrack a second to the CONCEPT of the knife sharpening truck? Because that's the most horrifying thing imaginable. Gather round children, that blaring Heavy Metal music means it's time for the knife truck. Little Billy thought it was an ice cream truck once and he was never seen or heard from again.

If anybody ever told me that they sharpened knives out of a truck... Goddamn y'all will trust anything. No wonder there used to be so many unsolved murders.

"Well now, last I saw him, he was walking up to the knife truck."

 

[CandiCame]

When I was about 14 I got my hands on a Sinclair ZX-80 kit with my own money.

The kit cost < $100 and you could save programs (maybe) on a audio cassette and see it on you TV. That was big money for me but I’d never had my hands on an actual computer and that little 8k ram chip was the portal to my future.

FOR I= 1 to 10
PRINT I
NEXT

I just kept doing that over-and-over, it was simply amazing and it did exactly what you told it to do. If you knew how to tell it.

Pretty soon “memory” was an issue and I learned “machine code” to minimize storage. It was great training because I always wrote tight code, something common in people who learned it in the early years.

That little $100 Sinclair should be In the Computer Hall of Fame, like a lot of other people I couldn’t afford a $1800 Apple and my school didn’t have a computer.

That little do-it-yourself kit opened a whole new world. I wish I still had it.

Later I’d have a HP 10 scientific calculator, the big leagues at the time, RPN and just about every function a science nerd could want.

I think my mom had one of those or something similar. I just remember finding an old computer and her writing the hell out of code while I was trying to watch The Great Mouse Detective.

 

[RobDownSouth]

I think Sgt. Preston was better than the Lone Ranger in some ways.

Liked the Lone Ranger, but I was always a Sky King fan.

Hateful comments like the above are why we can't have civil discussions on Lit.

Hi-Yo Silver, Away!

 

[dolf]

I'm loving this thread but can we backtrack a second to the CONCEPT of the knife sharpening truck? Because that's the most horrifying thing imaginable. Gather round children, that blaring Heavy Metal music means it's time for the knife truck. Little Billy thought it was an ice cream truck once and he was never seen or heard from again.

If anybody ever told me that they sharpened knives out of a truck... Goddamn y'all will trust anything. No wonder there used to be so many unsolved murders.

"Well now, last I saw him, he was walking up to the knife truck."

A knife sharpening bicycle. He stops, puts it on a stand, flips a lever, and the pedals drive a grinding wheel.

 

[CandiCame]

A knife sharpening bicycle. He stops, puts it on a stand, flips a lever, and the pedals drive a grinding wheel.

I don't know if that's more or less terrifying. Y'all couldn't sharpen your own knives? How could there possibly be an entire service to replace a fucking rock? You can sharpen a knife with shit you find on the ground.

 

[thør]

yes, the tube tester saved us service calls more than once.

I checked the damn TV tubes too damn many times.

 

[thør]

I don't know if that's more or less terrifying. Y'all couldn't sharpen your own knives? How could there possibly be an entire service to replace a fucking rock? You can sharpen a knife with shit you find on the ground.

When I was 11 years old (through about 16 years) I used to have a round wear spot in a rear pocket in my jeans, much like a can of chew would leave, but it was from carrying a round stone for sharpening my knives. Patching gill nets required a very sharp knife.

 

[coati]

TVs were almost more user fixable then than they are now. You could replace tubes, tuners, power supplies, sound boards and a few other things in just a few minutes. And many of them were standard across different brands and models which made it easier to swap parts.

Yeah, but the thing is TVs and radios broke down more often back then. Those suckers developed a lot of heat and depended on some fine filaments in the vacuum tubes.

Same thing for cars and trucks. You'd be lucky to get 100,000 miles out of a vehicle. People used to say, "Oh Volkswagens are so easy to work on!" Well, it better be easy, because you had to work on them all the time, adjusting the valves, cleaning the ignition points, changing the oil every 1500 miles, and then you might only get 50,000 miles on that air-cooled engine in the heat of the Southwest.

It's stuff like that plus outright apartheid that I don't miss.

I do miss the fact that there used to be much more natural coastline and wilderness than there is now, and there were far less instances of domestic gun violence and less friggin' humans overrunning the planet.

 

[Que]

When I was 11 years old (through about 16 years) I used to have a round wear spot in a rear pocket in my jeans, much like a can of chew would leave, but it was from carrying a round stone for sharpening my knives. Patching gill nets required a very sharp knife.

A lot of things that look easy really are not. I've had a couple of friends they could put a surgical edge on any knife. I watched one do it with the bottom of a coffee cup.

Even with good equipment I can never seem to get that edge.

 

[thør]

A lot of things that look easy really are not. I've had a couple of friends they could put a surgical edge on any knife. I watched one do it with the bottom of a coffee cup.

Even with good equipment I can never seem to get that edge.

You needed a better grandfather.

 

[CandiCame]

You needed a better grandfather.

Right? That was literally my first thought.

Them: -Pays money to the freakishly creepy knife truck/bike-
Me & Thor: -have childhood memories of an old man going, "Youngun hand me that rock."-

You know what I am bad at regardless of how many times my gramps showed me? Lighting fire with sticks, like those friction sticks. I can do that with rocks, my glasses and the goddamn LIGHTER I always keep on me though, so I'm good. I can do it with ice it I can find a clear one.

But I can't do it with sticks. None of us could. Me and my brothers get lost in the woods naked with just sticks I guess we'll just freeze.

But also like I don't know how that would happen. It's not a useful skill so I'm not ashamed of not having it. And I gave up REALLY easily.

Edit: Also I'm assuming these are kitchen knives and not like hunting or pocket knives because my dumb ass never knows one of those is dull unless I'm actively cutting with it. I would be the shittiest knife assassin.

Me: -comes up behind a guy and puts a knife to his throat- Your money or your life
Him: Not my money!
Me: -tries to cut into his throat- Oh... oh shit just... any chance you'll just stand completely still for a good ten minutes? Hey! Hey where are you going! Shit. Shoulda brought a gun. I keep telling myself, "Candi you need to bring a gun when you rob people."

 

[CandiCame]

Yeah, that's it! Things I wish I had saved....

Wait why did a cowpoke have an A-bomb? I might have fundamentally misunderstood the Lone Ranger.

I thought it was on some RedDead shit.

 

[jaF0]

Somebody never watched 'The Wild, Wild West'.



--------------


Anybody in the US remember these?

http://www.michigancivildefense.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/Photos/.pond/ChryslerS3.jpg.w560h420.jpg

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/f7/8e/d4/f78ed4b8a03e05fd51705c14c222e762.jpg

 

[oggbashan]

Somebody never watched 'The Wild, Wild West'.



--------------


Anybody in the US remember these?

http://www.michigancivildefense.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/Photos/.pond/ChryslerS3.jpg.w560h420.jpg

In the UK we had much smaller ones, many hand-cranked because we might not have power at the time of an air raid. We didn't have enough gas to run petrol-powered ones.

https://cdn.globalauctionplatform.com/08df1077-60cc-48c3-9039-a51e00c4daf9/92703c76-7b1f-411c-b9f7-6c96a1f0c6b0/540x360.jpg

The sound:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erMO3m0oLvs
They were an improvement on the Air Raid Warden's whistle.

 

[oralaccents]

One of my older office colleagues had inherited some money from an elderly relation when the old rules applied. He went to the local motorcycle dealer and bought the fastest Triumph motorcycle he could. He had never ridden a motorcycle. The dealer gave him the handbook, showed him the controls and left him to ride away. He crashed the expensive machine on the first corner, pushed it back to the dealer's premises for repairs, and agreed that he should have accepted the dealer's recommendation for a motorcycle training course.

I sold a 1200 sportster to an old guy who revealed while leaving he hadn’t ridden since his teen years.

He insisted on riding it, so i stepped back and watched him miss the first corner, drive over the curb, destroying the front end and tossing himself about 10-15 feet in the air with solid hang time.

No life threatening injuries, but his pride was pretty banged up.