Old Enough To Remember the '60s?

[BLSamuel]

My mom saved enough Top Value stamps she got a brand new blue Huffy bicycle bike with a white seat.

We had gas and diesel delivery - the gas tank was in ground with an old Sinclair electric pump with an on/off switch in the basement stair well. Maybe in the 90's long after Dad had dug up the in ground gas tank when getting gas delivered was too expensive, some punk filled his gas car from the diesel tank... he caught him in the act and the Sheriff found him a few miles away. I guess diesel gums up a gas engine pretty well.

I remember the gas war signs. 19 cents a gallon.

10 cent sodas (though we called them pop then)

Mom and Dad watched Lawrence Welk every Saturday (?) night.

Real steel and rubber Tonka toys.

Toy tractors and implements - we had a set of orange Allis Chalmers and red International Harvester

A lot of memories but I was pretty young being born in 1961.

Anyone else have Toggle Blocks? They didn't seem to last long. We also had Tinker Toys and Lincoln Logs.

Eating out was rare. Pop to drink was rare. The well water tasted very good.

The news was scary but so far away.

Walter Conkrite.

Black and White TV

Schwinns were made in the USA - many things were made in the USA

The moon landing.

Car radios were AM and AM actually sounded pretty good back then - don't know why but usually crappy nowadays

Looking at the 1961 Radio Shack catalog they sold Sherwood, McIntosh, University, Harmon Kardon (Citation kits) Dynaco (Stereo 70 kit $99.95), Eico, Scott, Fisher, Bogen, Electro-Voice, Jensen, KLH, Bozak, Wharfedale, Altec, GE, Garrard, Webcor, Rek-O-Cut, Ampex.

Our church growing up had a Garrard changer and Bogen amplifier (tube I think) with a speaker in the bell tower - used to play bell carilon LPs when people were leaving church. The Garrard is in need of repair. The old Bogen still works with a cheap Realistic tape player hooked up to it. The last I heard they used it to play taps for a military funeral ([:@] - couldn't even get at least a high school trumpet player!?) for one of Dad's cousin's neighbor's - tough old guy teared up telling me that...

[fini]

My folks saved enough Raleigh cigarette coupons, they could have bought an iron lung.

Ah, the good old days...no such thing as "second-hand smoke"...

[oscarsear]

Late to this party. The music. Roy Orbison with Pretty Woman and Roger Millers stuff. The 'Happy Organ'. The Battle of New Orleans'. I have a black and white photo of me with Bob Denver taken when he was Maynard G. Krebs. It was a promo done at my elementary school's annual fair. Speaking of schools remember paper drives? My cousin attended the same school and his Dad (my Uncle) was an LA Times dealer. His homeroom always won and I was not in it. My parents bought some D130 JBL's and had my grandfather build the speaker enclosure per a JBL design, in cherry veneers. The had a Fisher 500 and a Garrard spinner. I recall my dad listening to the Sonny Liston/Cassius Clay fight on AM radio. Each year my brother and I studied the new car styles visiting every dealership and collecting tons of promo stuff (it would be worth something today had we kept any of it). Living in So. Cal we visited Disneyland often and watched it change over the years. Early on the Mickey Mouse Club people would just roam the park and visit, signing autographs and doing caricatures (for free). Born in 52' and the 60's fleshed out my teens. The early 60's were pretty fun. It got crazy later on especially with Viet Nam. We also had the race riots in LA (Watts in 65'). I was home from school sick when JFK got assassinated and remember the early reports and how the story evolved throughout that day. Nearby where I lived we had a dam break (Baldwin Hills) and it was a mess. We also had the big fires in the hills around LA. The we had the LA music with Morrison, the group Spirit. My high school had the Strawberry Alarmclock and Hugh Masekalah play. The schoolgirl who fell flat on her face in Hitchcocks, The Birds was a classmate. Strange, memorable days indeed.

[oscarsear]

My folks saved enough Raleigh cigarette coupons, they could have bought an iron lung.

Ah, the good old days...no such thing as "second-hand smoke"...

The Emerson Company who built most of the Iron Lungs manufactured them well into the 80's. And there was tons of 2nd hand cigarette smoke. Every place where adults gathered was a haze of tobacco smoke. Ashtrays were everywhere. Great big ashtrays. Seat belts were new and most people did not use them.

[BLSamuel]

I can find my first stereo in the 1978 Radio Shack catalog.... a Realistic STA-52 receiver (which still mostly works and is currently in use - low fi I know...), a Realistic LAB-52 changer, and a pair of Realistic MC-1000 speakers.

Back in the day when cheap receivers and speakers had walnut veneer on 'em. My older brother had gotten a Clarinette-98 all in one with a pair of speakers a few days or couple of weeks sooner. I think I spent $20 or so more and didn't get cassette but boy did it sound a LOT better. And I got some real walnut veneer rather than woodgrain vinyl. I think I had started reading Stereo Review and Audio in the school library around this time (before or after?) maybe before as I think I thought about getting one like his but still decided the "component" route was a better way to go. I first read about the Klipschorn in Sterero Review (Julian Hirsch) around this time and remembered thinking ... someday, it probably doesn't get any better than that. Still no Klipschorns but they're still at the top of the heap of most desirable and best sounding speakers.

[dtel]

Also I remember having a toy that you plugged in and it heated up and had about a 3" square of thin plastic which you pulled down over whatever you put on the base then it would make a vacuum and suck the hot plastic around what you put on the other side to mold it as a copy. (kind of Hard to explain)

Vacu-Form. I still have one.

That was in the days before people worried about unsafe toys.

Greg

That must have been it, I can't remember the name.

I don't know what my mom put in my hair back then, I was little. But I got in trouble in school for leaning back in my chair, I was the last chair in the back and was leaning back, my head hit the chalkboard on the rear wall and left a grease mark. The teacher was not happy and I was in trouble. [:$]

[twistedcrankcammer]

How about Charles Chips? The potato chips that were delivered to your door. I knew exactly when he'd deliver to my brothers house and made sure I was there. They came in a big beige can. They were sooooo good.

I think Mom still has two of those cans that she uses to store things in.

Roger

[twistedcrankcammer]

Anyone else have Toggle Blocks? They didn't seem to last long.

What were toggle Blocks?

Along with tinker toys, lincoln logs, erector set, and Legos, I had some giant blocks, single row, and th long ones were at least 2 to 2.5 feet in length. They were white styrofoam, but they were cool as heck because I counld build forts I could go into with them. I have no idea what they were called, and wonder if anybody knows what they were called or if those are your "toggle blocks". All I know is I spent tons of hour building and playing with them when I was real small.

Also used to be these little round bugs, looked like lady bugs, one was green with black dots. They had a pair of wheels under them, and you would push, push, push them a couple times then let them run across the floor.

Had a dragster with a pull string that was called "Hot Shots". You pulled the string out and it would zip across the floor. It had a metal piece in back to keep it low because it would actually pull a wheely, and it had flints in it so it would throw sparks as it ran across the floor.

Still have my Popeye doll from when I was a baby, has soft fuzzy body, with rubber head, hands, and feet. Head has a mouth closed on one side with a small brown pipe, and open on other side.

Roger

[oldtimer]

Peyton Place. Man how I hated that show, with the parents monopolizing the tv for it.

[thebes]

OMG!

Sorry, 1971. Doesn't count.

Technically the 60's didn't really end until 1974 or was it 1976?

No comb over Harry. That's the way I wore it. Drove my travellin companion nuts cause I wore it that way. We we were in Europe and that pic was for a student pass and taken in either Greece or Turkey. The nadir of my hair.

From then on it was all downhill. Ya know, like an American Flyer on a snow-covered hill.

[neo33]

Anyone who is living in the SF Bay Area old enough to remember this?

[HarryO]

OMG!

Sorry, 1971. Doesn't count.

Technically the 60's didn't really end until 1974 or was it 1976?

No comb over Harry. That's the way I wore it. Drove my travellin companion nuts cause I wore it that way. We we were in Europe and that pic was for a student pass and taken in either Greece or Turkey. The nadir of my hair.

From then on it was all downhill. Ya know, like an American Flyer on a snow-covered hill.

Just messing with ya Marty,

I envy those of us that have enough left over for a combover. The last couple of years has left me folically challenged

[WS65711]

Kinda makes you wish you could go back....... [O]

[BLSamuel]

What were toggle Blocks?

Quote

They were square hollow plastic blocks about 3/4" or 1" cube with a hinged side that opened and a pin on one end or 2 pins on opposing ends with a hole in each side without the pins including the door. Also come with separate pins and girders, wheels, axels, the deluxe set had a battery operated motor. And plastic tubes about the size of a drinking straw. Also tubing and bellows. I don't think they lasted long. I had a small set and a large set.

Toggle blocks Doesn't seem to be much info on the web. A link at the previous link lists this in commercials:

57) TOGGLE BLOCKS: Mattel building

blocks that encourage you to "do your own thing"

I recall playing with mine quite a bit. I'm not sure what happened to mine but think my brother's first wife pitched them out of Dad's attic. Other than the batteries corroding they would've been in pretty good shape unless some rodents chewed up the box... but at the link about it says it had a wind up srping motor.

[russ69]

I envy those of us that have enough left over for a combover. The last couple of years has left me folically challenged

Back in the day, I had hair like Peter Frampton, unfortunately now I have hair like Peter Frampton!

Thanx, Russ

[oldtimer]

As long as you don't have music like peter frampton consider yourself lucky!

[CECAA850]

Here's a memory I'm not entirely proud of[:$] but I'll claim ignorance of youth, Do you remember the soda vending machines where the bottles laid in a horizontal row with the bottle caps facing you? You'd put your coin in, open a glass door and pull the bottle out. The tops of the bottles where you grabbed were exposed. When you put your coin in, the U shaped holder would swing out and release the bottle. Well, we never had any change, but we'd carry a bottle opener and remove the caps while the bottles were still locked in the machine. You could get about 2/3 of the bottle to pour into a glass. For those of you who haven't seen that type of machine, picture a bottle laying on it's side with the cap off. That's how much we could get. My father would have torn me a new a$$ if he ever found out what we were doing.

[HarryO]

Here's a memory I'm not entirely proud of but I'll claim ignorance of youth, Do you remember the soda vending machines where the bottles laid in a horizontal row with the bottle caps facing you? You'd put your coin in, open a glass door and pull the bottle out. The tops of the bottles where you grabbed were exposed. When you put your coin in, the U shaped holder would swing out and release the bottle. Well, we never had any change, but we'd carry a bottle opener and remove the caps while the bottles were still locked in the machine. You could get about 2/3 of the bottle to pour into a glass. For those of you who haven't seen that type of machine, picture a bottle laying on it's side with the cap off. That's how much we could get. My father would have torn me a new a$$ if he ever found out what we were doing.

You forgot the straw to finish it off with. At least there's a statute of limitations on cola pilfering

[bkrop]

I'LL paraphrase Bat Masterson from Dr. Strangelove:

"Now you're messin with the Coca Cola Company"

[russ69]

That was Bat Guano, if that really is your name.

Thanx, Russ