It took five minutes for the TV to warm up.
Mom was home when you got home from school.
A quarter was a decent allowance.
Nylons came in two pieces.
All your male teachers wore neckties
Female teachers had their hair done and wore high heels.
You got your windshield cleaned, oil checked, and gas pumped,
without asking. You didn't pay for air. And you got trading stamps to boot.
Your laundry detergent had free glasses, dishes or towels hidden inside the box.
It was a treat to go out to dinner at a real restaurant.
A '57 Chevy was everyone's dream car.
Cruising, peeling out, and laying rubber was cool.
We went submarine race watching! Couples went steady.
No one ever asked where the car keys were because
they were always in the car, in the ignition, with unlocked doors.
You and your friends would lay in the grass saying things like "That cloud looks like a . . ."
We could play baseball with no adults helping us with the rules of the game.
Stuff from the store came without safety caps and hermetic seals.
Decisions were made by "eeny-meeny- miney- moe"
Mistakes were corrected by simply exclaiming, "Do Over!".
"Race issue" meant arguing about who ran the fastest.
Catching the fireflies could happily occupy an entire evening.
It wasn't odd to have two or three "Best Friends".
The worst thing you could catch from the opposite sex was "cooties".
Having a weapon in school meant being caught with a slingshot
A foot of snow was a dream come true.
Saturday morning cartoons weren't 30-minute commercials for action figures.
"Oly-oly-oxen-free" made perfect sense. War was a card game.
Spinning around, getting dizzy, and falling down was cause for giggles.
The worst embarrassment was being picked last for a team.
Baseball cards in the spokes transformed any bike into a motorcycle.
Last years baseball cards were thrown away when the new one's came out. (ouch)
Taking drugs meant orange-flavored chewable aspirin.
Water balloons were the ultimate weapon.
Summers were filled with bike rides, baseball games, bowling and visits to the pool.
Soda pop machines that dispensed glass bottles with bottle caps.
Milk was delivered in glass bottles with cardboard stoppers.
Telephone numbers had a word prefix. (Beachwood 4-5789)
Coffee shops had table-side jukeboxes.
They showed news-reels and cartoons before the movie.
And you saw two movies for the price of one!
Riding in cars with no seat belts or air bags wasn't against the law.
Riding in the back of a pickup truck on a warm day was always a special treat.
Our Moms didn't need cell phones or beepers to call us, just a good set of lungs.
We rode our bikes, with no helmets.
Do You Remember?:
War was a card game. Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys,
Laurel and Hardy, Howdy Dowdy and the Peanut Gallery,
The Lone Ranger, The Shadow Knows, Nellie Bell,
Roy and Dale, Trigger and Buttermilk
"Look up in the sky! Is it a bird? Is it a plane? NO! It's Superman!" Wax Coke-shaped bottles with colored sugar water inside.
Party lines, Operators connected your calls. . "number please"
P.F. Fliers, Candy cigarettes, Blackjack, Clove and Teaberry
chewing gum, Pea shooters and water pistles.
45 RPM records and 33 1/3 RPM LP Albums and Hi- Fi's,
transistor radios. The Bond Bread Man, The Fuller Brush
Man, S&H Green Stamps and Metal ice cubes trays with levers.
"I'm Buster Brown, I live in a shoe! Here's my dog Tide, he lives there too!"
Beanie and Cecil, Winkie Dink, Gumby and Pokey, Captain Kangaroo.
"Hey Boys and Girls! What time is it?"
Studebakers, Washtub wringers, Rollerskate keys, and Mimeograph paper.
American Bandstand, Spin and Marty, Drive-in Movies and Root Beer Stands
Reel-To-Reel tape recorders, Tinker toys, Erector Sets, Lincoln Logs,
Roller skate keys, and Cork pop guns."Born on a mountain top in Tennesee."
5 cent packs of baseball cards with that stale slab of pink bubble gum.
Penny candy, "Coon" skin caps, 15 cent McDonald hamburgers,
Paying 25 cents a gallon for gasoline.
Ed Sulivan's Toast of the Town on Sunday nights.
Double-dares and I double-dog-dare-ya!
No child-proof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets.
"Tag! Your it!" Building go-carts out of scraps, rode down hill
remembering we forgot the brakes.
Playing Dodgeball, Hide and Seek, and Cops and Robbers
success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all. This generation has produced
some of the best risk-takers and problem solvers and inventors, ever. And you are one of them.
And remember that the perfect age is somewhere between old enough to know better and young enough not to care.
MUSIC FROM 1963!
PART 2
LET'S DANCE!
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