I was never a Twinkie fan.

But I do like Ho Ho's--though I rarely eat them.

Back in high school, I had electricity class third period with Mr. Shoopman. That was the time the Hostess truck usually came by to deliver the Hostess products to the lunch room. A couple of times Mr. Shoopman let us go buy stuff from the Hostess guy. I'd get a box of wholesale priced Ho Ho's and keep them in my locker. Good times.

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Time Life Book Series Commericals


This commercial scared the beejebus out of me when I was younger.

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In elementary school, at least in the early grades, we had milk break every day. (I guess the dairy industry was well taken care of then.) we were offered white or chocolate milk. No one drank white milk.

The original cartons were a box and one corner would pop up to drink from. At some point they changed to the shape that is common today. The early ones had a metal strip that was part of the seal. We would tuck it under our lip and pretend we had braces. I don't remember when we stopped having milk breaks.

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Ownership
As a collector of things, I find myself becoming an anachronism.

At some point I realized the answer to the rhetorical joke question, If you had everything, where would you put it? That answer being: Right where it is now. You would get it when you needed it. The lesson is that for most of human history possession equaled timely access. You owned things you needed and if you had the means, you owned things you would need in the future, or even might need in the future.

But it is fast becoming an "on-demand" world. Obviously, media is already there in large part. Netflix gives me access to a huge number of movies and shows, some that I can get instantly. The internet has made many home reference materials obsolete with information available at all times. But Ebay has even made most objects available all the time--even somewhat rare things. The bottom line being there is less and less reason to own things.

But I can't shake that desire for ownership. It just feels good. I imagine the kids growing up now will see ownership differently than I do. I doubt the desire to own will go away, but I don't think it will be the same.

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The dead of night
A friend who works nights posted about how desolate the 1-5am hours are on her nights off. This made me think about how much better those hours are now than they were when I was young. I remember when not only wasn't there an internet with people at all hours, the TV stations would all sign off by 1am or 2am. I remember how depressing it was when the last station would sign off when I was stuck awake. That's a large part of my attachment to cable (satellite) TV--24 hour availability. I didn't have cable until well into my 20s.

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Clackers
Anyone here old enough to rememebr clackers? I was pretty young when they were popular but I remember them vividly.

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When cancer was cool
My sister reminded me that there was a smoking area outside our high school. You had to be 3 feet from the doors--there was a yellow line. I doubt that happens outside Kentucky these days.

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Spare Tires
Remember when a spare tire was actually a tire, and not a toy car donut-y thing?

I got to thinking on this yesterday when I got a flat.

Current Mood: cold

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Very cool retro website
The Museum (and gift shop) of Mid-Century Illustration



The site has fantastic vintage/retro illustrations, including an entire page devoted to Vegetable/Fruit crates.

Check it out.

Current Mood: distracted

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Torpedo away!
In vintage_ads someone posted this pic:



As with many ads in comics, I wanted one of those. My mom, used her usual clever ploy, convincing me it was nothing more than a refrigerator box with some paint. And now on, the same comm, someone posted a picture of the actual product:



Now I really wish I'd gotten one!

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Rot your teeth the old fashioned way!
Check this place out! ;)

Current Mood: amused

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Check out this blog (if you haven't already)
One of my fave cartoonist/illustrators, E.V. Phibes, has the coolest retro blog: Retro Life.

Chicken salad pie?? Housewifery was really weird back in the day.

Current Mood: cheerful

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I wasn't totally deprived
I did have the pleasure of a couple of fun foods.

I loved Space Food Sticks! Of course I loved everything space then.


They're actually making them again for us nostalgic baby boomers.


I was also a big fan of Koogle "peanut butter."



I can just picture myself in some old age home with me and the rest eating Freakies cereal and Space Food Sticks and Koogle and every other crazy food fad from our youth.

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On the subject of snack foods...
Does anyone else remember Jell-O 1-2-3?



Or should I maybe phrase that, did anyone else like Jell-O 1-2-3 besides me?

Current Mood: cheerful

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Snack Pack Pudding
Do you remember when this was first introduced on the market? It came in small cans with a pop-top lid.

My mother would always yell at me for licking the excess pudding off the lid, saying I was going to cut my tongue.

Current Mood: nostalgic

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Perhaps you have seen this before...
...but a relative emailed this to me and I thought it to be so true.  Especially now that I have an eight-year-old, I see just how much things have changed!  I used to be happy with having only a Lite-Brite and a half-naked Barbie doll...how different than the kids of today! 

Those Born 1930-1979
TO ALL THE KIDS WHO SURVIVED the 1930's, 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's!!

First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they were pregnant. 
They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and didn't get tested for diabetes.
Then after that trauma, we were put to sleep on our tummies in baby cribs covered with bright colored lead-based paints.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking.
As infants & children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, booster seats, seat belts or air bags.
Riding in the back of a pick up on a warm day was always a special treat.
We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle.
We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this.
We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank Kool-aid made with sugar, but we weren't overweight because,
WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!
We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.
No one was able to reach us all day. And we were O.K.
We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we
forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.
We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 150 channels on cable, no video movies or DVD's, no surround-sound or CD's, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet or chat rooms.......
WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!
We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.
We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.
We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays, made up games with sticks and tennis balls and, although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes.
We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them!
Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!!
The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!
These generations have produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever!
The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.
We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL!
If YOU are one of them CONGRATULATIONS!
You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated so much of our lives for our own good.
Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn't it?!

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Vacuum tubes
Vacuum tube boxes, various manufacturers, 1950s-1970s (Click for larger versions in new windows):

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Party lines
I don't remember when we got a private phone line but it was close to when I was ten. Up to then we had a party line. We shared the line with several neighbors. It was odd. One got used to listening for a dial tone before dialing--though sometimes the neighbors didn't. It seems so wacky now--especially with how much time people spend on phones today.

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Redux
I just saw a new report about "wheeleys," those sneakers with a wheel in the heel. I know if I were a kid I'd want a pair--despite (if not because) they're dangerous. Hell, most of the activities I engaged in as a kid were dangerous. We were constantly thinking up even more dangerous things to do. Modern parents would have a coronary just imagining what we did.

This brought me back to "clackers." I understand they were known by many names but that's what I knew. A simple device--two colorful plastic balls joined by a string with a plastic ring in the middle to fit on a finger. The idea was to get the balls smacking together. I remember I was in fifth grade and the talented sixth grade girls would charge us a penny for a show of their clacking talent.

I had a pair but never got very good because my mom took them away as some government agency proclaimed them a danger. It must have been a serious message since my mom was never too swift to worry about danger to us kids. She worried enough but didn't freak out like it seems later parents have. I have, of course, been fascinated by them since.

I have no doubt that wheeleys are dangerous. Who knows, maybe more than the crazy stuff I did. But we never wore helmets or other protective gear and we seemed to have survived for the most part. Of course those kids imitating Jackass and insane wrestling are skewing the curve.

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Geeky computer recollections
It all started with the Trash-80 I borrowed for the weekend from my high school computer club. Though it would be quite a few years before I owned my own computer I managed to find others to use. The first I owned was a Commodore 128D. Impressive looking at the time (to me anyway). Went a long way to helping me get through college. My typing skills are lousy (worse then) so being able to edit saved me huge amounts of time. And who didn't love playing with margins to squeeze some extra pages for a term paper. Then graphs and pictures--worth a thousand words! ;)

The power supply finally crapped out on it so I got my first PC. A Gateway 2000 286-20. That's 20 Mhz baby! Not that slow 16. I had a friend who had gotten a similar machine just before and he had a friend who was an experienced computer geek. So we were getting new software from this guy it seemed like every day. We loved it. I found the local bulletin boards. Experience the excitement of connecting to the outside world. Downloading at 2400 baud. Took forever but that was the best there was for the average user. Then Compuserve before the Web took off.

I remember when I discovered what the BIOS was. Disturbingly, that was when the BIOS forgot everything and I had to figure out how to put the information back in.

That was the last computer I bought complete. After that I have put together and upgraded many computers for myself and others. I often feel sorry for young people who never experienced the days of very slow computers. Even though I curse when my computer slows down, I know how much worse it could be.

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