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Crap, I am really old.


jsharr

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My first car in 1967 was a 65 VW Beetle.  4-spd and 40 HP.   :)   I don't think it even had seat belts.

 

 "Ralph Nader cited Ryan's work in Unsafe at Any Speed and in 1966 President Lyndon Johnson signed two bills requiring safety belts in all passenger vehicles starting in 1968"

 

I remember sometime in the mid-60's my dad buying a pair of seat belts and installing them in a Plymouth Valiant.

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When I was a kid, our phone was on a party line.  Several other homes were on the same line.  You could pick up the phone and hear other people talking.  Each party line participant had a special ring so that you would know the call was for you.

 

Our family always had B&W TV until I bought them a color set in 1967.  A 20" Zenith table top color TV with all vacuum tubes that got hotter than hell and cost me $399 in 1967.  That's probably equivalent to at least $2K in today's money.

 

I still use rabbit ears on a couple of my sets.   :)

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I remember when the seat belts clipped to the roof to keep those useless annoying things out of the way.

My 68 Road Runner had a harness belt that fastened from the mid-roof to the A pillar near the visor and a separate seat belt that you always sat on because they were not retractable in those days.

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When I was a kid, our phone was on a party line.  Several other homes were on the same line.  You could pick up the phone and hear other people talking.  Each party line participant had a special ring so that you would know the call was for you.

 

Our family always had B&W TV until I bought them a color set in 1967.  A 20" Zenith table top color TV with all vacuum tubes that got hotter than hell and cost me $399 in 1967.  That's probably equivalent to at least $2K in today's money.

 

I still use rabbit ears on a couple of my sets.   :)

 

We had a party line.  Interesting times.  Dad bought our first color TV in about '70. 

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We had a widowed neighbor that had an outhouse (and was well used) and had no running water in her house.  She had a hand pump just outside her kitchen door.  When I was a teen I would stop buy to fill her 'drinking water' bucket for her.  Her water was full of minerals and tasted great.

 

She had no phone, she heated with a potbelly stove in the living room and a wood fired cooking stove in the kitchen.  She did have electricity.  She lived there in that great old farmhouse until she passed in about 1971.

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Her water was full of minerals and tasted great.

 

At the house I grew up in we had a well, and at some point my dad bought a hand pump for it.  With one of those aluminum ladles so you could always get a drink.  That was the best-tasting water, always cool and clear.

 

I haven't thought about that in a long time - this thread is a walk down Memory Lane.

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We had a party line when I was a kid. When you gave your number to someone, including the operator when calling long distance, it started with letters. Our number was jo1-2547

Yeah.  Phone numbers used to have exchanges, I think they called them.  Numbers in my neighborhood used to be like EX3-1234.  "EX" stood for or was interpreted as "Export".  When you told someone your number, you said "Export3-1234".  Later, the numbers remained the same but the EX became 39 (same as) and the whole number was then 393-1234.

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Yeah.  Phone numbers used to have exchanges, I think they called them.  Numbers in my neighborhood used to be like EX3-1234.  "EX" stood for or was interpreted as "Export".  When you told someone your number, you said "Export3-1234".  Later, the numbers remained the same but the EX became 39 (same as) and the whole number was then 393-1234.


I remember the lady up our road used to listen in to our phone calls. When we knew she was on we would start talking about nasty things and you would occasionally hear her gasp on the other end.
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I remember the lady up our road used to listen in to our phone calls. When we knew she was on we would start talking about nasty things and you would occasionally hear her gasp on the other end.

 

We had a party line at home as well.  We finally got fed up with it and had a private line installed after some rude clown jumped into the conversation shouting "Mr. Watson!  Come here!  I want to see you!". 

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Yeah.  Phone numbers used to have exchanges, I think they called them.  Numbers in my neighborhood used to be like EX3-1234.  "EX" stood for or was interpreted as "Export".  When you told someone your number, you said "Export3-1234".  Later, the numbers remained the same but the EX became 39 (same as) and the whole number was then 393-1234.

 

They're still called exchanges.

 

Ours was Glendale4-nnnn  GL4-nnnn  I don't remember the last 4 digits.

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I remember when we could dial the last five digits for a local telephone number and eight for long distance within the province. Ah, those were the days. Today we have to dial 10 digits for a local call and 11 for long distance.

I also remember dialling just one digit for directory assistance.

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I remember when we could dial the last five digits for a local telephone number and eight for long distance within the province. Ah, those were the days. Today we have to dial 10 digits for a local call and 11 for long distance.

I also remember dialling just one digit for directory assistance.

The worst was that temporary aberration where we had to use calling cards for long distance with their big-ass numbers to dial. :D

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I remember a rental place at the beach that rented motorcycles to anyone with a drivers license.  Our state didn't require a special license for motorcycles and there was no helmet law.  It's a wonder anyone survived.  A bunch of guys from school would drive up to Erie and they would all rent motorcycles which they treated like rentals.  My second car was a 55 Chevy with power windows, tube radio and a generator.  If you parked the car somewhere in the winter and left it run with the heater and radio on (think date) when you took your date home and shut the car off and went into her house for a bit when you went to leave the car wouldn't start.  It's embarrassing to have to ask your girlfriend's dad for a jump and he says "Next time don't park your car so long with the radio and heater running, the generator won't charge the battery at idle."  Busted :blush:

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I remember a rental place at the beach that rented motorcycles to anyone with a drivers license.  Our state didn't require a special license for motorcycles and there was no helmet law.  It's a wonder anyone survived.  A bunch of guys from school would drive up to Erie and they would all rent motorcycles which they treated like rentals.

That was an incredibly eville business! 

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Lots of things have changed.

 

Imagine a 15 year old boy walking to school with a cased Remington Woodsmaster in 30-06 over his shoulder. Rifle CLub at the high school pic day for the year book.

 

Or every wednesday dropping your .22 off at Mr. Garcia's classroom till after school, 'cause we were going to the police staion range to shoot.

 

Push button "Princess" phones were the bomb for the young ladys at the time.

 

Cop/ambulance/fire truck sirens sounded different.

 

I grew up on well water. It was very good. Now my G'parents over in Lapeer Mi. had a well. Their water was horrible nasty stuff.

 

I miss the pace of life from back then.  Much to rushed nowadays.

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I used to go to bed with the bedroom window open during the summer, no A/C, and have my little AM radio with an earpiece, one ear mono, and listen to the Chicago White Sox games.  J.C. Martin was my favorite player, which may be why I grew up playing as a catcher, not that he was that good of a player. 

 

Of course, in1965 J.C. set a major league record for passed balls as a catcher with 33 passed balls, after having 24 the previous year.  Due in large part because he was catching knuckleballers Hoyt Wilhelm and Eddie Fisher.  :P 

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