(Note: there is a Disclaimer at the bottom of the page)
All the girls had ugly gym uniforms?
It took three minutes for the TV to warm up?
(and TV was received free, "through the air" – and you got more than a few channels –
some of them without "snow" – with a set-top "rabbit ears" antenna that had to be pointed
just the right way, perhaps with a bit of tin foil attached for better reception —
and when a TV tube blew out, you didn't call a TV repairman, you pulled out the suspected tubes yourself,
took them down to the drug store, tested them on the machine, and bought a replacement)
Or, "worse" — You used to watch the radio? (that took a minute to warm up)
Nobody owned a purebred dog? (except "rich people")
When a quarter was a decent allowance?
You'd reach into a muddy gutter for a penny?
Your Mom wore nylons that came in two pieces?
(and they might have been made of actual silk,
and there also might have been a contraption to keep them up)
You got your windshield cleaned, oil checked, and gas pumped, without asking, all for free, every time?
(sometimes by more than one person) And you didn't pay for air, or water? And, you got trading stamps to boot?
(and there were two kinds of gas: Regular and Premium, and gas cost less than 50 cents a gallon)
Laundry detergent had free glasses, dishes or towels hidden inside the box?
It was considered a great privilege to be taken out to dinner at a real restaurant with your parents?
They threatened to keep kids back a grade if they failed... and they did it!
When a 57 Chevy was everyone's dream car... to cruise, peel out, lay rubber, or watch submarine races, and people went "steady"? (Or "courted"? Or went "parking"? (at the lookout, or Lover's Lane))
No one ever asked where the car keys were because they were always in the car, in the ignition, and the doors were never locked? (on your car, or your house)
Lying on your back in the grass with your friends? And saying things like, "That cloud looks like a..."?
(and there were no such things as man-made "Chemtrail" streaks and toxic clouds in the air –
and the sky was actually blue (unless you lived in a BIG city))
Playing baseball with no adults to help kids with the rules of the game? ("pickup" games in the park... or an empty lot – and touch football)
Stuff from the store came without safety caps and hermetic seals because no one had yet tried to poison a perfect stranger? (or make it look like that to commit murder)
And with all our progress, don't you just wish, just once, you could slip back in time and savor the slower pace, and share it with the children of today.
When you could trust the news (perhaps naively so, but not anywhere like today)
because there were people with integrity, morals and ethics, like Walter Cronkite,
Huntley and Brinkley, Roger Mudd, Eric Severeid, and others reporting the truth
and reality of the world. (much more so than today — miss you guys)
When being sent to the principal's office was nothing compared to the
fate that awaited the student at home? (and "corporal punishment" didn't
mean an effective "death penalty for parents")
Basically we were in fear for our lives, but it wasn't because of
drive-by shootings, drugs, gangs, etc. Our parents and grandparents were
a much bigger threat! But we survived because their love was greater
than the threat.
...as well as summers filled with bike rides, Hula Hoops, and visits to
the pool, and eating Kool-Aid powder with sugar, and staying outside all
day and having to be called inside when it got dark, begging for just 5
more minutes because you can still see your hand in front of your face...
Didn't that feel good, just to go back and say, "Yeah, I remember that"?
I am sharing this with you today because it ends with a Double-Dog-Dare
to pass it on. To remember what a Double-Dog-Dare is, read on. And
remember that the perfect age is somewhere between old enough to know
better and too young to care.
Send a link to this page on to someone who can still remember Howdy
Doody and The Peanut Gallery, The Lone Ranger, The Shadow Knows, Nellie
Bell, Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, Trigger and Buttermilk. (or to someone
who doesn't, to share and to inform them about the "good ol' days")
How Many Of These Do You Remember?
Candy cigarettes
Wax Coke-shaped bottles with colored sugar water inside.
Soda pop machines that dispensed glass bottles.
Coffee shops with Table Side Jukeboxes.
Blackjack, Clove and Teaberry chewing gum.
Home milk delivery in glass bottles with cardboard stoppers.
(and butter and cottage cheese and other dairy products)
Newsreels shown before the movie. (Or cartoons? Or double features?)
Or you could drive to the movies – and watch them from your car!
Telephone numbers with a word prefix... (Yukon 2-601).
Or Party lines.
Peashooters.
Hi-Fi's & 45 RPM records.
78 RPM records!
Green Stamps.
Mimeograph paper. (and when there was no such thing as a "copy machine")
Your "computer" was a mechanical adding machine, that also subtracted, and had a handle
that you pulled like a slot machine.
The Fort Apache Play Set.
None of your toys required batteries, and you learned how to count,
and the machinations of giving and getting change were learned, through
family game nights playing Monopoly.
Do You Remember a Time When...
Decisions were made by going 'eeny-meeny-miney-moe'?
Mistakes were corrected by simply exclaiming, "Do Over!"?
'Race issue' meant arguing about who ran the fastest?
(and a new pair of Keds sneakers made you run faster)
Catching fireflies could happily occupy an entire evening?
It wasn't odd to have two or three 'Best Friends'?
Having a Weapon in School meant being caught with a Slingshot,
and the only guns being shot around town were pump BB guns?
Saturday morning cartoons weren't 30-minute commercials for action figures
and other merchandizing schemes targeting the multi-billion dollar kids market?
"Oly-oly-oxen-free" made perfect sense?
And Red Rover wasn't just the name of a dog.
Spinning around, getting dizzy, and falling down was cause for giggles?
The Worst Embarrassment was being picked last for a team?
War was a card game?
Baseball cards in the spokes transformed any bike into a motorcycle?
Taking drugs meant orange-flavored chewable aspirin?
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Water balloons were the ultimate weapon?
If you can remember most or all of these, Then You Have Lived!!!!!!!
Pass a link to this page on to anyone who may need a break from their "Grown-Up" Life...
(and to your children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren —
and don't forget to remind them that, "In our day, we had to walk to school,
and then back home after a long day's school-work. – 3 miles! – In the snow!
– In the dark!! – Up-hill both ways!!!
(and then we had to do our after-school chores before we did our homework, and then had supper)")
I Double-Dog-Dare Ya!
To learn about Dares, Dog-Dares, Double-Dares, Double-Dog-Dares, Triple-Dares, and Triple-Dog-Dares, see the 1983 "cult-classic" holiday film "A Christmas Story". (I Triple-Dog-Dare ya!) The film is partly based on Jean Shepherd's books "In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash" and "Wanda Hickey's Night Of Golden Memories and Other Disasters". In the movie, the city locale is Hammond, Indiana, (circa mid-1940's) the city Jean Shepherd grew up in, although it was not filmed there. The movie ostensibly inspired the 1988 TV series "The Wonder Years", which took place during the 1960's.
Dialogue from the film "A Christmas Story", wherein one boy dares another boy
(surrounded by a group of boys on a snowy winter school playground) to stick
his tongue to a frozen metal flag pole:
Flick: Are you kidding? Stick my tongue to that stupid pole? That's dumb!
Schwartz: That's 'cause you know it'll stick!
Flick: You're full of it!
Schwartz: Oh yeah?
Flick: Yeah!
Schwartz: Well I double-DOG-dare ya!
Ralphie as Adult: [narrating] NOW it was serious. A double-dog-dare. What else was there but a "triple-dare you"? And then, the coup de grace of all dares, the sinister triple-dog-dare.
Schwartz: I TRIPLE-dog-dare ya!
Ralphie as Adult: [narrating] Schwartz created a slight breach of etiquette by skipping the triple-dare and going right for the throat!
An illuminated Nehi logo "award" from the movie "A Christmas Story", and signage. (remember Grape Nehi?)
(Disclaimer: Some of these are obviously idealized and particularly 'innocent' and 'naive', so you will have to play along, perhaps engage a certain level of "suspension of disbelief", especially if you are non-white and/or minimally aware in the reality sense)