New Scaratings

You older guys and gals might remember the original soda and beer can pull tabs.

When you bought them, they looked like this:



After you pulled the tab off, you had something that was a lot shinier than the pull tab shown below, that must have been recovered from a landfill after sitting there for 50 years:



(Sorry, it's the best picture that I can find of one.)

The pull tabs were not designed to stay with the can after you pulled them back then. Most people just littered the ground with them, but some people found ingenious ways to be creative with them. I remember seeing them hooked together to make sparkling silver chains wrapped around peoples' Christmas trees.

_________________
"The game is afoot."

Stereoscopic viewers were pretty much gone before my time, but my grandparents still had one, when I was a little kid. The 3-D images that I saw looking through it amazed me. How easily we were entertained all those years ago.



................................................................... (Sorry, it doesn't show up in 3-D on the "ScaRatings".)

Did any of you ever experience the excitement of looking at pictures through a stereoscope?



.......................................................................................

.....................................................................................................Goodnight I'm going to bed.

_________________
"The game is afoot."

_________________

/```\
(o\_!_/o)

Ah, the View-Master... Maybe I was too old for them, or maybe my parents couldn't afford one, but I never had a View-Master. My kids got them though, but as I recall they were never very interested in them.

p.s. I just Googled View-Master, and was surpised to learn that its origins go back to 1939.

Here's a link that will tell you more about the View-Master than you ever wanted to know:

http://www.3dstereo.com/vmhist.html

_________________
"The game is afoot."

Does anybody but me rememember this from the 50's?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaUBpsn4QjQ

_________________
"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

Frank, yes I remember "Suzy Snow Flake". As a boy, it didn't do much for me back then, but I do remember it.

_________________
"The game is afoot."

I'm sure that most of you will remember the Norelco Sanrta Christmas commercials, that I believe started back in the 1960's.

Here's a link to watch a few of them:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y888mx7hMZ0

p.s. Seeing that I haven't watched any commercial TV since around 1980, I wonder if Norelco is still coming up with new commercials like the old ones these days.

_________________
"The game is afoot."

Didn't they change their name to Noelco during the holidays? Drop the "r" and make it more festive?

YODA, you are absolutely correct. The did...

_________________
"The game is afoot."

It seems like hitchhiking has become a thing of the past. For those of you who are around my age, I would have to guess that many of you once hitchhiked to get around. Most of us didn't have our own cars when we were in our teens or early twenties, and when we wanted to get somewhere that was a ways off we would stand by the side of the road and stick our thumbs out. We usually got to where we were going, and evey once in a while we had an adventure getting there.

We all have our own cars these days, so hitchhiking is a thing of the past for us. However, I don't think hitchhiking is just over for us, I think it is pretty much gone from our culture. I don't think I have seen a hitchhiker standing by the side of the road trying to thumb a ride for at least 30 years.

To the best of my knowledge, none of my kids ever hitchhiked anywhere. My wife and I would drive them where they wanted to go, when they were too young to drive. We would buy them airplane tickets when necessary. Later we would let them take one of our cars when needed, and then we bought them their own cars. Oh, the adventures they missed out on.

I had many interesting experiences back in my hitchhiking days. The worst was when I was abducted by three hayseeds, who pushed me out of their car way out in the country ten miles from the highway. The most exciting was when a salesman picked me up in a blizzard, and drove 90 to 100 mph at night on the New York State Thruway (Which had been closed because of the weather.) until a state trooper finally pulled us over at Utica. The trooper said that they had been trying to catch us for something like 50 miles. Luckily for me, Utica was exactly where I wanted to get off.

Any of you have any hitchhiking stories?

p.s. I understand that some people might still hitchhike today, but far, far fewer than used to.

_________________
"The game is afoot."

I hitchhiked back to Morgantown, WV from Bangor, Maine in 1989 or so.

I had a full duffle bag and a box of bootleg cassette tapes, standing in the snow, looking crazy with my dreadlocks, bandanna, and high top Chucks. There may have been some controlled subtances involved..."allegedly".

First ride was in a Mustang, where he guy was insistent on topping at at max speed. There was another ride that got me through into Connecticut. The next ride put me at Villanova University, whre a drunk priest hit the car I was riding in while we were in the parking lot.

I spent the night in a dorm and was dropped off on the interstate the next morning. Before noon, I got picked up by a guy dressed exactly like me, except for different colored Chucks. He had circled back after passing me because...he thought he had passed himself.

Turns out, were had mutual friend in Pittsburgh. We got off the interstate, got a case of beer, and took the back roads to Morgantown, right to the house I was going to stay at, and ordered pizza some pizza.

Despite some miserable time on the roadside, it ended up being a decent adventure.

TIEFLY, you've told me this story in person, and I'm reviewing it here again...

Is it possible that the accuracy of the story diminishes as it progresses? Was that last driver yourself in the mirror? Sharing a case of beer with yourself in...some car? And what's the symbolism of the drunk priest?

TANAKA, as the years go by, all of our stories get better. I would prefer to think that is because we remember things that we forgot to mention back when we first told the story.

I think this is the drunk priest that TIEFLY was talking about:



.............. "Symbolism...? What the Hell is that...? Feck off...! Burp."

_________________
"The game is afoot."

There was some off-color language from the priest. I'm guesing that he was part of the faculty there. Isn't 'nova a catholic school?

The guy that picked me up knew my firend David in Pittsburgh, where I used to get my Dead bootlegs. We stopped on the Yough River at Ohiopyle to check out the falls.

During my month in the hospital in November after the toe/foot amputation & December while waiting to get the OK to go back to work, I had time to reflect on some of the stupid things I'd done (way too many to reflect on them all in only a two month time frame). I don't know if I missed details in telling the story to Bill, but this is what I recall...allegedly.

Did any of you take the Iowa tests back in the 1950's? They were a big deal when I was in grade school in Upstate New York. They tested you on real stuff that you should know. Back then they were the best evaluation of what students had learned, and many states used them. However, as time passed states came up with their own tests, and I feel that there became a dumbing down of standardized testing.

I know that none of my kids ever took the Iowa tests, and it looks like that even though they have hung on in some places to today, that the Iowa Tests may soon be gone as we once knew them.

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/02 ... rooms?lite

Reading what the above link said, only confirms my fears of the direction that the American ecucation system is headed.

.........................................................

...................................... Goodnight I'm going to bed, before I see how much trouble I've gotten myself into.

_________________
"The game is afoot."

I remember taking those when I was a kid; I particularly remember them in third or fourth grade before leaving Connecticut for New York and later Ohio.

Honestly, "real stuff that you should know" is different in the 2010s than it was in the 1950s and '60s. I would be more concerned about our country's educational system if we still took the same standardized test that we did a half century ago. The link you provided indicates that today's educators are trying to stay with the times.

-- RWM

_________________
"...It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED...."

ZOG, I'm gonna disagree with you a little bit. With the exceptions of advances in science, new events in what are now history, countries that have changed their names, new literature, and perhaps a few things I've overlooked, the basic things that the Iowa Tests tested us on have as much meaning and importance today as they did back in the 1950's.

I really liked the analogy questions like:

Sock is to foot as

A- Shirt is to tie
B- Pants are to belt
C- Boot is to shoe
D- Finger is to toe
E- Glove is to hand

Yep, that was an easy one, but I'll bet you that it wouldn't be too hard to find some kids in the third grade these days, who would get it wrong.

You may think that I'm full of old fuddy duddy baloney, but it's my opinion that changes in standard testing are designed to cover up kids lack of basic knowledge, or the ability to reason from that knowledge, so our education system isn't exposed for failing to teach kids the basics that they need to know.

I was about to hang it up, until I noticed your post, which I thought deserved a reply. Now that I've done it, yep you guessed it:

....................................................

................................................................. Goodnight I'm going to bed.

_________________
"The game is afoot."

Remember when......

Fast Food restaurants had burgers for 25 cents, cheeseburgers for 30 cents, and shakes were about a quarter?

Today, it's hard to find a menu item worth eating under a dollar. Way-back-when, it was hard to find something on their menu for more than a dollar

Does anybody remember the Fanner 50.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hR9ojNddiSI

Unbelieveable by modern sensibilities, including mine and I had a Fanner 50 in the 50's when I was 10 or so.

_________________
"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

YODA, you are too young to remember back when McDonald's was known as "The home of the 15 cent hamburger." French fries and small cokes only cost a dime. Don't know what shakes cost back then, because I seldom had more that 35 cents in my pocket back in those days.

_________________
"The game is afoot."

I never got anything so fancy, when I was a kid. I'm envious. As I recall I had a Hopalong Cassidy cap gun when I was in the 2nd or 3rd grade.



p.s. Hoppy never shot anyone to kill them. He would just shoot the gun out of their hands, or wing them. When I and my six and seven year old friends strapped our six shooters on and had a gun fight, no one ever got shot. Why not...? We would just yell back at each other, "You missed!" and the gun fight went on until we ran out of cap rolls to reload with.

_________________
"The game is afoot."

You young guys and gals won't remember the old beer cans, but old farts will. There was once a time when beer cans didn't have pull tabs, and you needed a church key to open them. They were made out of steel back then instead of aluminum, and only real men could crush them with one hand.



.................... (I don't think this is an old can, but it's the best picture I could find.)

p.s. I believe that there actually is a Churchkey Pilsner beer that comes in a steel can that requires a church key to open it today. Think I'll try to find a case of it to drink, so I can crush the empty cans with one hand, just like I did in the good old days.

_________________
"The game is afoot."

"Life", "Look", and "The Saturday Evening Post" were the big three magazines that arrived regularly at our house in the 1950's and 1960's. Best I can tell, all three of them are gone today. What a loss to our culture.

I suspect that the few that are left won't last too much longer.

I heard that "Newsweek" went bankrupt a couple years ago, but somebody bought the company for $1.00. As I understand it the last publication of "Newsweek" was the December 31, 2012 issue. (Actually, I won't miss that one.)

Having once been a Boy Scout, I sure hope that "Boy's Life" never goes away.

_________________
"The game is afoot."

Soda fountains have been part of American culture for probably more than a century. They were places where teenagers would go on dates or to just meet their friends. Every city and town had them. You would usually find them in drug stores and five-and-dime stores. They were starting to disappear in the 1960's, and now they nearly entirely gone. I still remember the last time I went to one. It was in the summer of 1963 in Madison, Connecticut. A group of us went to one after watching "Bye Bye Birdie" at the movie theater. I had cherry Cokes from the fountain that evening.

It is sad that what had been part of our culture for such a long time has pretty much disappeared.

I'm sure you older guys and gals still remember them.

_________________
"The game is afoot."

Not sure if these have been here, but I'll toss them out

- White wall tires.
- A crank to roll up/down a window in a car
- Cars with two-tone paint jobs (top half was lighter than the bottom half)
- Crushed velvet seats


Yea, I'm in an OLD car feeling. Give me an 8-track player, mono speakers, and a V-8 that gets 8 miles to the gallon, and I'm there