New Scaratings

This is a thread for older folks, who remember things that are no more. Things we used to take for granted. Things we never dreamt that would be gone, while we were still alive, but they are. Try to Remember...

I've got a very long list, and I'm sure that some of you will add to it.

Seeing that I have started this thread, I guess I should go first.

How many of you remember the milk man, who actually delivered milk to your house? (In the winter time, I had to go out and bring it in, before the bottles froze and shattered.) There are so many other things that are gone today, and I would love to hear the things that you remember that are gone.

I think this nostolgic thread needs a theme song. Here it is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_COP3cyN7zg

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"The game is afoot."

I remember the STRAP in school. 1960's Ontario Canada. Grade school. No more than 10 years old. A lone child standing at the front of the class, hand outstretched. The teacher would bring the 3" by 12" leather belt overhead, and whip it down on the poor child's tender hand. The sound was enough to frighten the devil. It was never a single strap. Always two or three wallops. And the child, no matter how tough to begin with, would slink back to his desk in tears.

I wonder how many "lessons" were learned, and if all those kids still remember the "good old days" when things were simpler.

We still got "whacks" when I was in school in the mid-70s. A hardwood paddle right across the bum. And some of those teachers went all out with their paddles too. Some had cut fingergrips in the handle and some had holes in the paddle to cut down on wind resistance. Regardless, all of them thought they were babe ruth hitting one out of the park with their "board of education". LOL While I'm glad to see punishments that can hurt a child or leave a mark have since gone by the wayside, I do wish they had other forms of punishment that were effective. Most kids today do/say whatever they want in school and there really isn't anything the school can do about it. It's kinda gone from one extreme to the other.

Cheers,
--Tony

Although not as senior as some on this board, I do remember things from years ago that don't exist, and am amazed at what does exist now compared to when I was a kid.

While watching an episode of the Jack Benny show, I noticed things like a telephone with a dial on it, a television on a stand with rabbit ears, and cars with handles on the door to roll windows up and down. Try to explain them to an 11 year old

Today, I look at my step kids, and see them with iPod touches, and could never have imagened something like that when I was their age. On my cell phone, I have emulators for Atari 2600 with 650+ games, and MAME where I can play 2200+ arcade games.....ALL ON A CELL PHONE!

To think that things like color television and portable radios was "cool" in my day but taken for granted today, makes me wonder what will be so advanced in the future that the iPhone and LED television would be considered "antiques"

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(o\_!_/o)

We still got milk delivered to my house as recently as 5 or 6 years ago. It's definitely not common anymore, but not completely extinct either.

At least one school here locally was paddling as late as 85-86 here. I know that one for sure. Yowch!

Not only do I remember the milk man, I remember the Good Humor man and several other ice cream men, the ice man, the vegetable and fruit man, the watermelon man, the junk man, the oil and coal men. In the early 50's several of these guys were still working from horse drawn wagons in my neighborhood in Chicago. We had a few old ladies in my neighborhood who still had real Ice Boxes and had ice blocks delivered once or twice a week.

In my area, We do still have home delivery milk from Oberweis. http://www.oberweis.com/web/default.asp

It is very good but expensive.

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"Truth Like Football. Gets kicked around much, before reaching goal." - Charlie Chan

" Don't look back, The bastards might be gaining on you." - Satchel Paige

Frank

You will have to be pretty old to remember listening to radio dramas. That was a time before television pretty much put an end to them in the mid to late 1950's. I was very young, but I can still remember listening to "The Lone Ranger", "Big John and Sparky" ("Big Jon and Sparkie"), and "Sgt. Preston of the Yukon" ("Challenge of the Yukon"). We had a radio that was about four feet high and about two and a half feet wide. It was a lovely wood cabinet, and a proud piece of furniture in my parents' apartment in Geneva, NY.

It kind of looked like this:



Here are links that will let you listen to all three of them. Close your eyes, go back in time, and listen:

"The Lone Ranger":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nlB99fX7z8

"Big John and Sparky ("Big Jon and Sparkie):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvYGM6NbYMs

"Sergeant Preston of the Yukon" ("Challenge of the Yukon"):

http://archive.org/details/otr_challengeoftheyukon
(Pick any of the five episodes offered on the upper right of the screen.)

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"The game is afoot."

Love Theater of the Mind. I have many .mp3's of old time radio shows, and listen to shows via my cellphone's radio app. There are several places that broadcast the shows.

I was working with my step son on a science project today, and he had to write facts on index cards from 10 sources on the internet. He would make mistakes, and had to use Liquid Paper to fix mistakes. He will have to type the report on a computer, which will check his grammar and spelling, and print it out neatly on the ink jet printer.

As if WE had something like that.

Personally, it was the encyclopedia, pencil, and hand-write things. Yea, we had a typewriter by the time I was in high school, and used a paper with white "chalk" on one side that you use to strike over to "erase" a spelling mistake, or else retype the page. Couldn't tell you how many times I had to retype a page to fix mistakes. No such thing as the internet back then. Had to do research in the library or break out the encyclopedia if you had one at home.

FrankC, yes I remember the Good Humor man. It was in the early 1950's, when I spent my summers at my grandfather's beach house on Long Island Sound in West Haven, Connecticut. The Good Humor man came down the street every day. When I heard him coming, I would run to my grandmother, and she would always give me a quarter. Sometimes, I got back out too late, and he was gone. No problem, clasping that quarter firmly in my hand, I would just run down the seawall to the next street, where I knew he would be. To this day, I do not think I have ever tasted better ice cream.

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"The game is afoot."

Who remembers the coffee can key? You youngsters are shrugging your shoulders, and asking, "Coffee can key...? What kind of nonsense is this?" Well, not so many years ago coffee came in a can that provided you with a metal key to open it. The key had a small slot in it, into which you inserted a small metal tab that was near the top of the coffee can. Once you had it inserted, you wound it around the can, until it was opened.

I have searched Google looking for a picture of a coffee can key, with no luck. So here is a link to a guy, who will tell you that they did exist:

http://www.tommcmahon.net/2005/06/memories_of_tho.html

(If anyone can come up with a picture of a coffee can key, please post it up here.)

(Very belated edit: I found a picture of the coffee can key still attached to the can. Here it is:)

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"The game is afoot."

I remember opening tuna cans with a key, ,but can't say I've seen coffee that way

YODA, that's because you are too young. Now that's an accusation that I doubt you will hear many times over the rest of your life.

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"The game is afoot."

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liljol, still residing in a humble lil abode in Buzztime's Backyard, San Diego County, in The Horribly Site-Poor Golden State, California...

<--805 NTN Buzztime sites visited as of 11/13/2018...

F CUBS!!!!! FBOSOX!!!!!

FPDRES!!!!! FCHGRS!!!!!

LilJol, you had to be very cautious opening it. The metal ribbon that wound around the key was very sharp, and could give you a nasty cut, if you weren't careful.

p.s. I guess we're too late to sue Maxwell House for the wounds we received opening up their coffeee cans with the key.



(Actually, I think this shows the coffee can key winding the the metal ribbon around, on the upper right part of the can in the picture.)

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"The game is afoot."

How many of you remember when first class postage only needed a three cent stamp? Heck, that was back in the days of the penny postcard, which lasted for many a year.



Do you also remember when first class mail postage jumped to four cents...?

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"The game is afoot."

Maybe sardine and anchovie cans. I do not remember tuna cans with keys.

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"Truth Like Football. Gets kicked around much, before reaching goal." - Charlie Chan

" Don't look back, The bastards might be gaining on you." - Satchel Paige

Frank

Flav-R Straws didn't last long. As I remember they came out in the very late '50's or very early '60's. Basically, they were straws with a cartridge inside that contained either a chocolate or strawberry flavor. You just sucked on them from a glass of milk, and voila, all of a sudden you had chocolate or strawberry flavored milk.

p.s. I could be wrong, but I somehow remember that the straws might of had a small accordian like ripple in them near the top, that allowed you to bend them from the vertical for more enjoyable sucking.

(Does anybody else remember Flav-R straws, or have anything to add?)

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"The game is afoot."

Yes and they did bend.

_________________
"Truth Like Football. Gets kicked around much, before reaching goal." - Charlie Chan

" Don't look back, The bastards might be gaining on you." - Satchel Paige

Frank

What were the flavored Alka Selzer tablets called? Oh yes Fizzies. They were horrible.

_________________
"Truth Like Football. Gets kicked around much, before reaching goal." - Charlie Chan

" Don't look back, The bastards might be gaining on you." - Satchel Paige

Frank

You are right...sardine is what I meant to say, but my fingers had other ideas.....

Here's a good site to visit

http://www.skooldays.com/

Great information about Saturday morning cartoons, Primte Time TV shows, toys, games, arcades, movies, music and even lunch boxes from years gone by, broken up into decades.

Speaking of Saturday mornings, how about the original Fireball XL-5 series? I still remember having a plastic maybe 18-21 inch model of that as a kid as well

TCHCNB, I hate to disappoint you, but the original Fireball XL-5 series would be a new TV program for a 65-year-old. We old folks are more likely to remember "Howdy Doody" "Pinky Lee", or "Andy's Gang" kid's shows from the 1950's.

However, please don't be afraid to put what you consider to be things from the past that you remember. The old folks, who post here, will understand that there is such a thing as a generation (possibly two) gap, and we must respect, what you young guys consider to be "The Old Days".

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"The game is afoot."