I'm old enough to remember when……….

Heres one that has gone by the wayside.

A mans handshake was as good as a contract. It was his word & bond.

Walking to school, whatever the weather.
And the toilets in the school were outhouse style.
Every fall we’d order our new school clothes from Monkey Wards.
Dad drove to town on Sundays for church and maybe once a week for groceries, etc.
The defroster was a joke. The fan squealed like a stuck hog. You had to have a scraper for the inside of the windshield.

Digging the outhouse hole didn’t have a indoor bathroom till 5th grade
Feeding the chickens and picking the eggs, folks would trade them for groceries at the small town store
Moving all the snow with shovels and a wheelbarrow, dad didn’t get a loader tractor till 10th grade.
A snow day from school meant 12 hours of chores.
Didn’t kill me though.

Went to stay at grandma and grandpa farm on greyhound bus. Killing and eating chicken for dinner. Catching bullheads and feeding the guts and skeletons to the hogs . Going to st Paul and getting french fries at 1st McDonalds on 7th st and filling water jug at Schmidt’s brewery. Being on first youth hockey team kids from 4th grade to 7th on one team. Walking down street with shotgun to go walk railroad tracks for pheasants. Bring shotgun to class to do speech on how to clean it. Board games on rainy days. Whole different world now

Penny candy was a 2 for.
Corner grocery stores where you bought hotdogs by the individual link.
Gas was .15 at times.
Kennedy’s assassination, both of them.
John Glenn’s first trip around earth.
Going home at noon and warming spaghetti and meatballs each day for lunch when I was in the 4th grade.
Skating rinks on school playgrounds. Warming houses that were hardly warm.
The black and white TV that got two channels, maybe.

When we got a boat that was on a trailer.
Sky King
Roller skates that clamped on your shoes.
3 speed bike was the Cadillac model.

Getting a free Fish Finder Magazine was my window into the wonders of fishing in MN.
Tackle boxes were made out of metal.
Gas shortages were a thing.

Smudge pots in the streets to mark road repair before the saw horses with flashing lights! Yes I’m old!! I’m guessing Google is going to get some hits on smudge pots!

Ice Cap wrote:

Smudge pots in the streets to mark road repair

Sooty and stinky. Remember them well.

One of my first memories as a kid to this day was my mom driving me to daycare and telling me the twins had won The World Series and Dan gladden had hit a home run. I didn’t understand it at the time, but what an awesome first memory and an awesome mom.

Every piece of furniture or carpet was green, orange or brown.

Cars had wood grain exterior

Flintstones Rocked!

When you could buy a hopped up 69 Camaro for $1500 then go cruising in it with no police harrassment within reason (if they were harassing you- you were the reason)

PF Flyers (red ball jets)

Red wool hunting clothes from Bemidji Woolen Mills.
Green or maroon Johnson outboards.
Dacron fishing lines.
Buckhorn with pull tab cans.

blackbay wrote:

Red wool hunting clothes from Bemidji Woolen Mills.
Green or maroon Johnson outboards.
Dacron fishing lines.
Buckhorn with pull tab cans.

First time I ran into that was on Grandpa’s cane poles. Black as I remember. Worked best with any color DareDevil as long as it was Red or Black.

The city steam and water plant had a large steam whistle mounted on the roof. It would blast everyday and noon and again at 5. When there was a fire emergency in town it would blast a code telling fire response people the address of the fire. We lived just down the block from it. Man that thing was loud. Our dog would just howl when that thing went off. Especially during fire calls because it would repeat the address like 3 times.

Outdoor rinks on every block warming shacks with a wood stove in them
renting a boat at the lake and only using oars to get around

Roller skating on Friday night in high school. Yup that was me.

-No Internet
-Cal Ripken breaking Gehrig’s streak (Lived in DC at the time and an O’s fan)
-Pledge of Allegiance each morning in school
-Doom on PC

.

Eelpoutguy wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>bigpike wrote:</div>
Roller skating on Friday night in high school. Yup that was me.

Got any Pics of you doin the hokey pokey?

Street hockey
Backyard whiffel ball.
Breaking windows with baseballs.

“River Piggin’” (what we called riding on fallen trees down the West Branch Rum River).

Sunday early morning drives with my dad through Sherburne Nat’l Wildlife Refuge when you could still enter from the North off County 3 and when it had still had dense oak forests and lots of deer.

Odegard’s, The Torch, Jack’s Outlet, Pizza Place, (Remember any of those Dutch?).

The transition to color TV was fun. We all may have a common memory…we survived the inevitable end of the world and every computer worldwide crashing, when 1999 ended. 2000 rolled in peacefully.

eyefishwalleye wrote:

“River Piggin’” (what we called riding on fallen trees down the West Branch Rum River).

Sunday early morning drives with my dad through Sherburne Nat’l Wildlife Refuge when you could still enter from the North off County 3 and when it had still had dense oak forests and lots of deer.

Odegard’s, The Torch, Jack’s Outlet, Pizza Place, (Remember any of those Dutch?).

Dutch may have consumed a beer in the Torch or a cocktail or 10,000 when the muni was downtown. Franks. Legion where the VFW was before moving into the present spot. The Curve.
Hell Dutch is old enough to remember when main street was Hwy 169.

I still deer hunt in red Filson pants and a red/black buffalo plaid Johnson Woolen Mills jacket. I throw a blaze fleece vest on top and am warm and comfortable.

snaps licorice, baseball cards with some gum in the package, still can remember that smell, duplicate baseball cards used for putting in your spokes on your bike, keys for your shoe mounted roller skates, 14 cent white castles, soda fountains with lime/cherry/lemon flavored cokes, limeade drinks. My first bass caught on a artificial lure at lake harriet, a Fred Arbogast frog colored hula popper. I am older then dirt

mahtofire14 wrote:

-Doom on PC

Great game! I am also a big fan of Duke Nukem, Wolfenstein, and Quake. All great 1st person shooter games on the PC. I wonder if we can even play them still on new PCs.

Eelpoutguy wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>eelpoutguy wrote:</div>

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>bigpike wrote:</div>
Roller skating on Friday night in high school. Yup that was me.

Got any Pics of you doin the hokey pokey?

Early 80’s so no hokey but I was trying pokey atleast that was in the plan.

The Maid Rite a couple blocks down the street from us to get that delicious steamed hamburger on a bun with mustard and pickles. My mom would make them at home too. She would give me a dollar and tell me to run to the Maid Rite and get a large order of fries to go. For a dollar you got a shoe box size container full of fries.