# Things aint what they used to be.



## Olly Buckle (Jul 19, 2015)

The inspiration for this came driving home after visiting the in-laws. A long drive on a summer evening and we still had a clear windscreen at the end of it, I can remember when it would have been covered in dead insects, scary.

Thinking of insects, or the lack of them made me think of those insectivores, hedgehogs. They also used to be frequent victims of road traffic, haven’t seen one in years, are there none left? Or only the ones that learned about roads?

Animal behaviour does change, badgers used to be shy animals that would leave a wood if people walked through it too often, now they too are frequent victims of cars, maybe people walk in all the woods nowadays.

When I was a kid we used to collect Jay’s feathers, the ones with the electric blue stripe in them, they would be all over the farm where we went on holiday, but I never saw a jay. They must be rarer now. I live in the country now, but rarely find a feather. I have, however, I keep seeing jays in suburbia when I visit, they seem to have lost their shyness.

Some things change without changing, I worked in a petrol station when diesel went over five bob (twenty five new pence) a gallon, (four and a half litres); the taxi drivers swore it would drive them out of business, I heard one doing the same when it went over a pound a litre, and they are still there

There are a number of older members here who can see how things have changed, sometimes for the good, sometimes for the bad. So what else is new in the your lifetime you oldies?


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## midnightpoet (Jul 19, 2015)

Just recently, before the severe drought here in Texas - we used to see overflights if sandhill cranes, and our backyard feeders would be full of all manner of different birds - bluebirds, yellow-headed blackbirds, and so forth.  Now we're lucky if we see a cardinal or hummingbird.  Mostly it's those pesky sparrows. One year a flock of wild turkeys wandered about a half-block from the house.  Another time I saw a large hawk in a nearby tree, and deer were seen in a city park. Going home one night I surprised a herd of deer, a buck and several does. We rarely see anything like that nowadays.  We're in a small rural town, close by a large pasture.


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## LeeC (Jul 19, 2015)

*Olly*,

I've observed the stages of what you mention all my life. What you're seeing is the kind of thing Rachel Carson detailed in "Silent Spring." 

It's a pity human potential seems to stop short of real understanding, but the natural world's physical life continuum will struggle on regardless until the biosphere is no longer conducive. 

"_If all mankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed ten thousand years ago. If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos._"  ~  E. O. Wilson

There's change aplenty in being raised mostly on a reservation in the wilds of the Rockies (learning how things were before) and moving forward in the steps of the predominate culture to get on, in my case to the sardine can world of the Northeast, then trying to escape to a farmstead in the less populated woods of NH. So much change I wouldn't know where to begin ;-)

"_Probably the most visible example of unintended consequences, is what happens every time humans try to change the natural ecology of a place._"  ~  Margaret J. Wheatley

It's your fault getting me started Olly   I'll crawl back in my hole again.


*midnightpoet*,

Luckily, we still see wild turkeys, black bear, moose, and many other wildlife forms pass through the yard here, if one gets up early enough


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## escorial (Jul 19, 2015)

i can remember when a bag of chips was wrapped in old newspaper and now they come in poly trays and plastic blue forks


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## KLJo (Jul 19, 2015)

I remember the first thing I ever looked up on the new internet machine at school...
Everything Bart Simpson ever wrote on the blackboard. It took 10 minutes to load.

Sure it doesn't play with THIS crowd, but my grandkids are gonna LOVE that story.


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## KLJo (Jul 19, 2015)

Also, I have a vague early childhood memory of resenting a friend for having TWO zeros in her phone number, and wanting _me_ to call _her_ during commercial breaks of our fav tv show.

Honestly, who had the time?!?


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## Olly Buckle (Jul 20, 2015)

escorial said:


> i can remember when a bag of chips was wrapped in old newspaper and now they come in poly trays and plastic blue forks



As a boy I used to sell newspapers to the chip shop, I got a half penny a pound if they were whole, but if I sliced all the pages separate it was a penny. The fishmonger liked them because Dad read the Manchester Guardian, as it was then, as it was then, large size and quality paper, the chippy and the fish shop were the same place.

Everyone has mobile phones now, I remember when most houses did not have a phone, we were an exception. If you phoned from a public call box you put the money in, dialled the number, then pressed button 'B' to be connected when they picked up the phone, if they didn't pick up, press button 'A' and get the money back. We kids never passed a phone box without pressing button 'A', just in case.


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## Olly Buckle (Jul 20, 2015)

KLJo said:


> Also, I have a vague early childhood memory of resenting a friend for having TWO zeros in her phone number, and wanting _me_ to call _her_ during commercial breaks of our fav tv show.
> 
> Honestly, who had the time?!?



Our phone had a dial on the front, put your finger in the hole and turn, each hole had letters and numbers, the first part of the dialling code was the first three letters of the district. Scotland Yard was WHItehall 1212.

Edit, that reminds me emergency vehicles did not have sirens, but bells, quite loud enough in that quieter world of little traffic.


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## Phil Istine (Jul 20, 2015)

Olly Buckle said:


> Everyone has mobile phones now, I remember when most houses did not have a phone, we were an exception. If you phoned from a public call box you put the money in, dialled the number, then pressed button 'B' to be connected when they picked up the phone, if they didn't pick up, press button 'A' and get the money back. We kids never passed a phone box without pressing button 'A', just in case.



The buttons had pretty much gone by the time I remember phone boxes, though there were still a few around in pubs and cafés.  My trick was to poke a lolly stick into the coin reject slot.  Occasionally something would drop out.


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## Phil Istine (Jul 20, 2015)

I'm not saying that I'm old but when my mum started learning to drive, she had knives sticking out of the wheels.


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## Kevin (Jul 20, 2015)

When I first moved to the Valley we had 'Smog Alerts'. In the summers, on those days when you couldn't see the mountains four miles away, my lungs hurt if I tried to inhale deeply.


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## midnightpoet (Jul 20, 2015)

Of course, as a kid being able to run all over town with no supervision (I wrote a long piece on the non-fiction board on that).  I've read several articles that the world really isn't all that more dangerous now, but no matter the statistics it's the perception that has brought about this helicopter parenting.  Are we more paranoid, more suspicious of strangers?  In some cases, yes.  Sadly, many times nowadays it seems to be vindicated.  However, I still think Big Brother needs to mind his own business.


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## John T. K. (Jul 20, 2015)

Playing outside.

I remember growing up in the bay area (Fremont to be exact) and playing for HOURS in the dried up reservior behind the house rhat carried out the melting snowpack and occasional rain. My mom didn't have to worry about a thing.

Today I'm afraid to let my kids play anywhere but in our own backyard.


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## Olly Buckle (Jul 20, 2015)

My mum took me to school the first day to show me the way, then I used to take myself, I was five, the route was through some disused allotments beside a small river, we played for ages on the way home.

I remember yellow London smogs before the clean air act when you literally could not see across the road, the bus conductor used to walk in front of the bus with a flare for the driver, when you blew your nose you would get huge, black bogies.

My parents both had driving licences, but neither of them had taken a driving test, they were simply bought down the post office originally, Dad was an awful driver. The first car I remember had windscreen wipers worked by a small electric motor on the passenger side at the top of the screen, it would only work for so long, then the passenger had to turn a little button like the one you set an alarm clock with to keep them  going. Summer holidays we used to camp on my uncle's farm down in  Kent, we had tents that had been bought as army surplus after the war, a bell tent for  my parents and a two man US army 'bivy' for my brother and I, It buttoned together down the middle, each soldier carried half a tent.


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## midnightpoet (Jul 20, 2015)

That reminds me, kids still use backpacks a lot nowadays, usually fancy or with logos like Star Wars; I remember getting my first backpack at an army/navy surplus store.  It was plain, of course. simple army green, but I used it fort years.  Other kids did the same thing.  I've read a lot of jokes about fathers telling their kids the went to school uphill both ways, but when your house is in a high part of town and you have to go downhill and the school is on another hill you go up again.  Did it every day, on my bike.


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## Foxee (Jul 20, 2015)

Love this idea for a thread, Olly, it's good reading.

When my parents moved into the house I grew up in not a single business in the tiny towns near us were open on Sunday. Businesses closed in the evenings on weekdays. The sole exception was the Italian bakery that opened riiiight after church and right next door to the church every Sunday. Traffic from one doorway directly to the other was pretty brisk because it was hard to ignore the amazing smells coming from their (open) door. Gotta watch those Italians, they're clever.

Then Sheetz (gas station and convenience store) mushroomed up and was the first 24-hour place. It was groundbreaking, it was always open, you could get gas and food at the same time (which would result in 'gas' in both senses of the word) and you pumped your gas yourself, a new concept. It seems like that marked a huge change in the area overall, boosting even that backward little town into the era of the 24-hour market, chain stores, and Wal-Mart. Not nearly as placid.

I remember when mom and dad moved into that house, the first time we went to our new front door. They'd bought 20 acres and the house was so bad it had been thrown in for free. You opened the door with a skeleton key (something I found fascinating but it was changed almost immediately) and for the longest time I thought that everyone put mixing bowls and buckets around the house to catch the drips when it rained. If you tried to make a phone call you had to pick up the receiver and listen to make sure no one was already on the party line before you made the call. Our neighbor was housebound and was always tying up the phone for hours at a time. She would also sit at her picture window (that overlooked my parents' house) and report on the doings of the whole neighborhood to anyone who would listen. My parents were a great disappointment to her as they never got up to anything nearly as interesting as what happened on her soap operas but instead she had to be content with reporting that they'd gotten a load of hay or that they were planting the garden. Tough times.

Edit: Midnightpoet, I carried a retired diaper bag for my schoolbooks pretty much all through elementary school. Baby-blue vinyl. Stylin'


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## dale (Jul 20, 2015)

when i was young, geese used to fly south for the winter. used to watch them every autumn fly in large v-shaped
flocks. now they just hang out all winter and annoy everyone blocking traffic.


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## Kepharel (Jul 20, 2015)

I may have posted this about a year ago so I doubt anyone will remember it .  Anyhow, it was a piece that summed up for me what it was to be adolescent in an age of innocence and respect for your elders; when big men in big boots manned shipyard cranes, filled and emptied ship holds, laid railway sleepers the hard way and dug deep mine coal.  Most of it to vanish in little more than a decade and finally disappear in the Battle of Orgreave.
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*The East End Educational & Progressive Club & Institute
*​A lovely,warm, June evening in 1966 is drawing to a close as I pull open the door to the Progressive and Educational Club for Working Men, barely glancing at the cloth cappy doorman. I'm a full fledged card carrying member now for God's sake, despite my tender years! I take in the surroundings of the Saloon Bar, looming into focus out of the ash blue smoke drifting upwards from a score of hand rolled Golden Virginia inspired cigarettes. To my left is the bar and I make my way over to Dutt, the Club Steward, toothless as usual and with, as always, an approximation of a Clark Gable moustache holding on for dear life to his rosy, pitted nose above.
"Pint of Union please Dutt." I glance over the bar and check out the shiny, baggy black trousers and toe peeper slippers. No change in his attire since I started coming here, maybe he has trouble undressing, goes to bed in them perhaps. Asking Dutt to pour a pint is much like asking Michaelangelo to paint an Italian Chapel ceiling so, to stave off the boredom, I turn around to see who is and who isn't in their designated places, straining my eyes in the 40 Watt bulb lighting dangling from a heavily nicotined ceiling.

Nearest me, Kostas the Greek, a hunch back with a check shirt fetish, is sat alone as always, doing the Times Crossword, as always. At the table nearest the door to the snooker room sits Tommy Irish and Paddy Mulligan, fleecing a card school of their hard earned in time honoured fashion, while Bunga See looks on from behind thick black rimmed glasses, held together with Sellotape and first aid bands. He's a jolly fat man with a florid blotched face from drinking rough cider since he was a pup like me. I often imagine he could have been Billy Bunter in his formative years but somehow taken a wrong turn in life after leaving school. In the distance, holding court, is the Club Secretary and assorted Committee acolytes basking in his reflected glory and hanging on to every Confucian pearl of wisdom. You can only sit there with an invite apparently.
I call over to Bunga See, "Pint of Rough Bung?

Bunga raises his hand. "Bunga See, son, sinka sy"

That's all Bunga ever seems to say, hence the nickname. I call a pint of rough cider for Bunga and lift my pint of bitter before making my way through the bar into the snooker room. Crossing the threshold I catch sight of Joey Fyffe, skinning a rabbit which has, thankfully, already been gutted elsewhere. The sunlight is streaming through an array of fanlight windows and onto the snooker table, causing havoc for the couple of chancers blinded while trying to play. In the opposite corner Henji Stevens, Wally Nunn and his crew are armed to the teeth with sewing needles, dipping into a bucket of freshly cooked periwinkles, pulling the little cork-screwed, snot-like creatures from their shells and downing each one with elaborate head tilting gestures. 
Life was just about perfect in 1966!​


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## LeeC (Jul 20, 2015)

No matter how much things change, history shows how behaviors go through cycles just like the weather. 

Earlier in this thread I mentioned Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring" as an example of why we see so many changes. To put it into perspective, you might recall how Aldo Leopold's "A Sand County Almanac" was a defining moment in the environmental movement, yet hardly a decade later we needed Rachel Carson to remind us with "Silent Spring." Since, though the "-cides" and approaches have changed, we're still doing very much the same thing. Odd in that our very existence is dependent on rich biodiversity in the natural world. Just one example is the collateral damage manifesting in pollinators, without which we'll see widespread upheaval in the food chain.

"_I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority._"  ~  E. B. White

"_It is, of course, one of the miracles of science that the germs that used to be in our food have been replaced by poisons._"  ~  Wendell Berry

Environmental and ecological issues aside, the mention of schooling herein brought to mind another behavioral aspect. If you'll forgive me, I see predominate culture schooling as much propaganda as furthering education. As an example, how many of you were introduced in history class to the cruel and demoralizing treatment in American Indian boarding schools in the late 19th and early 20th centuries? 

Of course such was the predominate culture imposing their will without regard to tolerance through seeking a middle ground of best values, as has occurred many times over in human history. Even today, though disguised as minority factions trying to assert their values, it's still the same intolerance and narrow-mindedness. 

Humankind has the potential to be more than it is, yet inculcated cultural dogma handicaps objective perspectives. 

Enough said, sorry to bother you with my thoughts.

Peace  



Now I can remember riding horseback fourteen miles to a one room schoolhouse through raging blizzards   [Hey, it makes for a good story.]


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## midnightpoet (Jul 20, 2015)

I think you just won the most interesting memory post (so far).  When I think back the stuff I did was pretty common with small town America; still, sharing common backgrounds is interesting, everyone brings at least something a little different.


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## musichal (Jul 20, 2015)

I liked it when telephones had wires, and their plastic construction was bulletproof.  They had cool ratchet dials that outlast todays bubble buttons a thousand to one, too.  People had manners, and would just let it ring if there were visitors present, saying 'they'll call back' unless they were expecting an important call, then you said 'so sorry, but I need to get this, but I'll be brief' or similar.  When not at home pay phones were everywhere and all you needed was a nickel, or make it collect.

Cars had spaces around the engine so that it was usually much easier to replace hoses and belts, or even alternators, distributors, manifolds, whatever, with a basic tool set of 3/8, 7/16, 1/2, 5/8, 9/16, and 3/4 inch wrenches and sockets, a few screwdrivers and a pry bar enough to perform most jobs.  Plus they had turn-crank manual windows, and a vent window.  Gas was cheap.

One store in my neighborhood stayed with five-cent cokes all the way to 1970 - if you drank it there to avoid the two-cent bottle deposit, which rose to a nickel by '70.  As kids we'd pull our red Western Flyer wagon (from Western Auto) downtown, collecting bottles on the way.  Once we had a quarter each, we watched a matinee movie for a dime, coke and popcorn a nickel each leaving another nickel to buy a wooden top at the drugstore.  I saw Jason and the Argonauts there.  Wow.

There were four of us kids, and we won the lottery for parents.  Stable, hard-working, frugal people who loved us and sacrificed for us as a matter of course.  Mother cooked fresh biscuits with scrambled eggs and bacon, or sausage, every single day.  She kept an immaculate house - OMG was I shocked when I saw how some of my friends lived.  I thought all parents were like mine.  We all went to college and earned degrees, and they helped pay for it, though I was generally able to do that for myself.

Not everything was better, but a lot of things were.  Things one bought tended to be more durable because materials and labor were affordable.  Of course, we only received three or four channels on TV, but that meant we all saw the same things across the country, and in some ways that was better, too.  All in all, though, things would still be pretty great if we had avoided cell phones and texting.  They only serve to teach people to be thoughtlessly rude.


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## midnightpoet (Jul 20, 2015)

Lee

I'll agree about the schooling.  I was smart and sensitive enough to haunt my local library and find out more of the truth about history and society.  I would hope the internet could do that for this generation, but it only provides more disinformation I fear.


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## Deleted member 56686 (Jul 20, 2015)

midnightpoet said:


> Lee
> 
> I'll agree about the schooling.  I was smart and sensitive enough to haunt my local library and find out more of the truth about history and society.  I would hope the internet could do that for this generation, but it only provides more disinformation I fear.



The internet can do that if people decide they want to see the truth whatever that may be and not simply what they want to hear. That's true whatever your political stripes are.

You're absolutely right about the library. It seemed that there were a lot more books then. Also, you had to play outside because all you had at home was Saturday Morning cartoons. So we played baseball or rode bikes all day. It seemed like there was more human interaction.


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## LeeC (Jul 20, 2015)

mrmustard615 said:


> The internet can do that if people decide they want to see the truth whatever that may be and not simply what they want to hear. That's true whatever your political stripes are...


Very true if one has the inclination to look at all sides of an issue. Unfortunately too many are limited to the horse blinkers of subjective perspectives ;-)


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## musichal (Jul 20, 2015)

LeeC said:


> Very true if one has the inclination to look at all sides of an issue. Unfortunately too many are limited to the horse blinkers of subjective perspectives ;-)



I agree one hunnert percent. I know exactly what you mean. If people were more open-minded then they'd realize I'm right.  :icon_cheesygrin:


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## LeeC (Jul 20, 2015)

musichal said:


> I agree one hunnert percent. I know exactly what you mean. If people were more open-minded then they'd realize I'm right.  :icon_cheesygrin:


Nothing like being married a long time to see things with such clarity ;-)


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## Phil Istine (Jul 20, 2015)

A lot of things were better way back, and plenty were worse too.
I remember treat day every few months.  We had electric and gas meters that were fed with two shilling and one shilling pieces (10p and 5p).  Once in a while, some guy would come around to empty them.  They were always set so that you had to pay more than necessary so meter man day was refund day - and treat day.  I think he was the only guy in uniform who was ever allowed past the front door (except when we had a fire).


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## Phil Istine (Jul 20, 2015)

Kepharel said:


> I may have posted this about a year ago so I doubt anyone will remember it .  Anyhow, it was a piece that summed up for me what it was to be adolescent in an age of innocence and respect for your elders; when big men in big boots manned shipyard cranes, filled and emptied ship holds, laid railway sleepers the hard way and dug deep mine coal.  Most of it to vanish in little more than a decade and finally disappear in the Battle of Orgreave.
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> <SNIP>​ Life was just about perfect in 1966!​



I loved your post Kepharel.  Have you seen a film called "Pride"?  I saw it at the cinema a while back and most of it is centred around the time of Orgreave.
1966 was a good year for many things.  England won the World Cup, I went to Wembley Stadium for the first time and I finally got my own bedroom.
But, although I was a few hundred miles away, it was the year that I was ripped out of childhood by the events at Aberfan.  Some things just leave a stain that never fully goes away.


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## ShadowEyes (Jul 20, 2015)

mrmustard615 said:


> You're absolutely right about the library. It seemed that there were a lot more books then.



It's sad how in America the government funding for libraries is diminishing, but their use is increasing about 200%. They're the only government-funded institution that actually stays on top of technology.

Regardless, I'm not that old; however, I distinctly remember that my hometown used to have a few huge piles of coal about two blocks away from my old house. They must've taken it, and now we have a new development for the rich, wide, British-inspired lawns that require constant watering without the constant British rain.

I asked my grandmother about her youth and she would tell me how the town was divided amongst racial lines. The Italians in one section, the Polaks in another, the Jews owned a nickle-and-dime grocery story on every corner. A man used to ring a bell and buy rags from houses, the "sheeny-man," for some reason. Milk came in bottles with cream on the top. Kids were poor and no one had shoes. She used to have to eat ketchup sandwiches and steal the hot bathwater from her siblings.

I'm not sure that everyone is worse, but I'm not sure that everything is better, either.


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## Terry D (Jul 20, 2015)

I remember when the U.S. flag had just 48 stars, when air-raid sirens were tested each Saturday at 10:30 AM, when the 2 cent refund for an empty pop-bottle would get you 4 pieces of candy, when there were 2 beaches at the local lake; one for whites and one for African Americans, when a pregnant teen was forced to drop out of school, when a movie cost 25 cents and the theater had a balcony. I remember being scared shitless by the Zanti Misfits on the Outer Limits, and watching the Wonderful World of Disney in color for the first time on a neighbor's TV. I remember when Bic pens were new and 65 was old. I remember the nasty smell of the red granules the janitor would use to sop up some kid's puke from the classroom floor. I remember streets hooded by elm trees and playing on the stumps of those trees after the Dutch Elm disease took them all. I remember smallpox vaccinations and kids with polio, Fizzies and Hula-Hoops, Bat Masterson and Peter Gunn. I remember the space race being born and John Kennedy dying.


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## Kevin (Jul 20, 2015)

> we have a new development for the rich, wide, British-inspired lawns that require constant watering without the constant British rain.


Yes, we used to have a thing called lawns. They went out back in o-15, once the water all dried up. 

 When I was a kid they had these lawns that weren't even grass. 'Dicondra'! It was awesome; they were little plants that grew to certain height and stopped, all uniform. You never had to mow. Course, you couldn't  walk on them much, or they'd get bald spots, and you definitely didn't want to play football or any kids' games.


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## JustRob (Jul 20, 2015)

I can remember the earliest pocket calculators that didn't have a keyboard but just contacts that you poked with a stylus. Nowadays pocket devices don't have a keyboard but touch screens that are sometimes so small that you have to poke them with a stylus. We've come a long way then.


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## Olly Buckle (Jul 20, 2015)

Phil Istine said:


> 1966 was a good year for many things.  England won the World Cup, I went to Wembley Stadium for the first time and I finally got my own bedroom.
> But, although I was a few hundred miles away, it was the year that I was ripped out of childhood by the events at Aberfan.  Some things just leave a stain that never fully goes away.



By then I was teaching water sports in Spain, but I know what you mean about that sudden awareness of events, for me it was the Hungarian uprising against the Soviet Union. Kids my age were fighting Russian soldiers, everyone was saying how brave they were and gow good their cause, but no-one helped them



> when there were 2 beaches at the local lake; one for whites and one for African Americans,



That just seems wrong, either,
when there were 2 beaches at the local lake; one for whites and one for blacks

or

when there were 2 beaches at the local lake; one for European Americans and one for African Americans,

Why should people be spoken about differently because of their race?


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## KLJo (Jul 20, 2015)

I remember when we used to rent a VCR on weekends and rainy days from our convience store because my father thought it was a fad, and didn't want to waste money.

I remember when CD cases had locks, and the pride I felt when, for my 10th birthday, he showed me where we kept the key.


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## LeeC (Jul 20, 2015)

*Terry D*,

Segregated beaches, great American (though hardly limited to) tradition. In the late fifties on maneuvers in South Carolina (damn Chiggers, more formally known as Trombiculidae), our team went into a small town to use the laundromat. To our surprise, one team member that was black wan't allowed in the laundromat so we did his washing for him. I'd of course heard of such things, and even experienced something akin when with my Shoshone friends out west, but it made me wonder even more about my military service. What the hell was it we were really protecting? 


*Olly*,



Olly Buckle said:


> By then I was teaching water sports in Spain ...


Hmmm ... that's a euphemism for chasing bikinis isn't it


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## Olly Buckle (Jul 21, 2015)

LeeC said:


> *Terry D*,
> *Olly*,
> 
> 
> Hmmm ... that's a euphemism for chasing bikinis isn't it



Nope, I taught kids swimming first thing in the morning, then sailing, water skiing and diving. Mind you, being the sun tanned hunk on the beach they chased me at times, and I didn't run too fast


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## escorial (Jul 21, 2015)

Everyone has mobile phones now, I remember when most houses did not have a phone, we were an exception. If you phoned from a public call box you put the money in, dialled the number, then pressed button 'B' to be connected when they picked up the phone, if they didn't pick up, press button 'A' and get the money back. We kids never passed a phone box without pressing button 'A', just in case.


i have never seen a phone box being emptied of it's cash by bt..pre-mobile phones..a great mystery...


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## walker (Jul 21, 2015)

I remember there being more space. Places where I used to play as a kid are now developed. Beaches, riverbanks, and woods, that used to be wild, are now parking lots or subdivisions. 

I remember the low prices, like everybody else. I remember 25 cent candy bars, 25 cents for a pack of cigarettes, and the shock and dread when gas reached $1 per gallon.

I remember a world without cell phones, and personal computers. The only computer I ever saw in school was a refrigerator sized thing in its own room. You typed commands out on cards, and could do simple math.

I remember writing letters to friends, waiting for a month until the return letters came back, and savoring every word of their replies. I remember knowing what my friends' handwriting looked like.

I remember the Beatles, protests against the Vietnam War, Kent State, and landing on the moon.

I remember being handed copies of Animal Farm and 1984, to teach us  how bad a communist and socialist state would be.

I remember jukeboxes, and the excitement when Pac Man came out. I remember playing Pac Man, Donkey Kong, Asteroids, and more on arcade-sized machines in a real arcade, because that was the only way you could play the games, not because it was a retro experience.

I remember disco, and how we all lamented the death of rock and roll. I remember when musicians played their own instruments, instead of programming sounds from a computer.

I remember the local bookie on Main Street who would always give me a carton of cigarettes on credit before payday, because he knew where I worked and because he trusted me.

I remember the three big networks, ABC, CBS, and NBC. There were two choices of what to watch: Take it or leave it.  I remember TV sets with rabbit ears and snowy reception.

I remember LPs, and the art on the covers. I remember that you were pretty special if you had a copy of Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, and nobody else on the block did. Your friends would have to come over to your house to listen to the music.

I remember guys who used to walk around with boom-boxes the size of a microwave oven on their shoulders.

I remember when Rubik's Cube came out, and trying to solve it without the help of Internet or any other source.

I remember having boxes full of cassette tapes of music that I taped from the collections of friends.

I remember being snowed in for a week, and not having any way of finding out what was going on in the rest of the world. Were they snowed in the next town over? Was the whole state snowed in? What was traffic like? There was no way to find out.

I remember newspapers, and how every section was important. I remember the daily crossword, the comics, Dear Abby, and the sports columnists, who were mythical figures to me. Most of those columnists are probably out of a job now.

I could go on and on, but this is too long already. Best, Bob.


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## Kepharel (Jul 21, 2015)

Hey Walker !

I pretty much agree with everything You say..except maybe animal farm and 1984. Loved the post man!


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## Olly Buckle (Jul 21, 2015)

Walker; letters to friends reminds me of my mother, she wrote half a dozen letters every day. I remember when they brought out 'Air letters', it only took a fortnight to speak to someone in Australia, and she had a reply within a month, she was astounded, it seemed things couldn't get much faster.


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## walker (Jul 21, 2015)

Olly Buckle said:


> Walker; letters to friends reminds me of my mother, she wrote half a dozen letters every day. I remember when they brought out 'Air letters', it only took a fortnight to speak to someone in Australia, and she had a reply within a month, she was astounded, it seemed things couldn't get much faster.



It was called "Air Mail" here in the U.S. There were special stamps. Otherwise, I think they carried your mail by Pony Express.


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## walker (Jul 21, 2015)

Kepharel said:


> Hey Walker !
> 
> I pretty much agree with everything You say..except maybe animal farm and 1984. Loved the post man!



I think the people that handed me those books are the same people who design today's surveillance programs. I could be wrong.


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## Blade (Jul 21, 2015)

walker said:


> It was called "Air Mail" here in the U.S. There were special stamps. Otherwise, I think they carried your mail by Pony Express.



There were special lightweight "Air Mail" envelopes as well, light blue as I recall. (Canada)

"Pony Express" was found to be deficient in delivering mail to Australia.:stupid:


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## Sonata (Jul 22, 2015)

I am far too old and have a memory going far too back to list everything that ain't wot they used to be.

I quite like the present time though.


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## Lewdog (Jul 23, 2015)

I remember as a kid trying to collect pop bottles so that I could go redeem them for baseball cards mostly to get the gum inside.  Now you can hardly find a pop that comes in a bottle and gum no longer comes in a pack of cards.


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## Sonata (Jul 23, 2015)

Is there anyone here who remembers their father following the milk cart and other carts, drawn by horses, with a bucket and spade to feed their "dig for victory" gardens?

Or who remembers whether they had a Morrison or Anderson shelter?


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## Olly Buckle (Jul 23, 2015)

Dad's allotment was in the school grounds where he taught, so a bit far away, the horse manure went on the roses. There was a rag and bone man and a baker who used horse drawn carts, the milkman's was special, it had pneumatic, rubber tyres like a car. The greengrocer had a converted furniture van for his produce and would arrive at the door with a large wicker basket, once a fortnight the laundry man would call and collect all the bed sheets and shirts, washing machines were non-existent or rubbish things that tied clothes in a knot. Lots of delivered goods and services, and no supermarkets. Mostly individual specialist shops, butcher, baker, tobacconist and sweet shop, he had a small pair of brass scales on the counter for weighing loose tobacco. 'Department stores' sold mostly household  goods asI remember, a bedding department, a kitchen department, a furniture department etc. My memory is a bit hazy, not very interesting to a small boy, but the overhead wires that whizzed containers with the cash in to and from a  central pay desk were fascinating.

Strange how the world became 'advanced' and we had to go and get everything for ourselves from miles away; now we order on line and it gets delivered again. It would be good to get my fuel pumped for  me again and not leave with my hands smelling of it.


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## Sonata (Jul 23, 2015)

We had a fairly long back garden and Father turned the furthest third into his own allotment.  Horse manure was for the vegetables - I know that there were roses around a - I forget the word - leading down from the kitchen to the path alongside the rest of the garden, but IIRC the manure was for the vegetables [and some fruit] that Father grew.

As for the over-head wires, later replaced by air-propelled containers carrying cash etc - I was amazed when in a very modern [now it has been enlarged and modernised] hospital at the beginning of May this year that a similar system is still used to send ??? to ??? and then whoosh, the correct ??? swooshed back.  As I have no idea what they were for, I have just put ??? in their place.

Sainsbury in Edgware was a stand and queue behind the counters as the assistants did everything.  Not even packaged butter, they would cut slabs off and weigh them.

And Home and Colonial sold broken biscuits by weight.

Come to think of it, even sugar was sold by weight.

A long time ago but oh have things changed.  Some, maybe most for the better, but not all.


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## Olly Buckle (Jul 23, 2015)

> I know that there were roses around a - I forget the word


 Pergola?

We still have telephone poles in this village, mains water only got here in the mid fifties, but it used to be they were everywhere, and rurally mains electricity came on poles as well, now most of it is buried.

Simply the numbers of cars, streets were not lined with parked cars, they looked so much wider. There was no national speed limit either, some friends of mine got hold of a Lotus Cortina engine and levered it into an Anglia. we got 125 out of it down the new M1 motorway before the front end started to lift and it stopped steering properly. Everything was much more casual about vehicles, no crumple zones, no strengthened passenger compartments, no seat belts, no MOT testing, basically if the engine ran it was okay. Attitudes have changed, when they introduced the Mini the petrol filler stuck out for ease of use, if you rolled it it sheared off and petrol was sprayed everywhere, when the designer was asked about it his response was that he had designed a beautiful car, it wasn't his fault if people misused it and had accidents.


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## Sonata (Jul 23, 2015)

Not a pergola - it was just a small arch over the path.  I just could not think of the word "arch".  And most electricity and telephone cables are still overhead here where I now live.

Cars?  Who had cars in those days.  

Yup - fings ain't wot they used to be.  But some things are so different.  Gas heaters in some stores with no visible means of ventilation.  And those XRay machines in shoe shops to measure childrens' feet.  Talk about elfin safety - it just did not exist in those days, and much as it is overdone now, nobody seemed to know anything about it then.


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## Olly Buckle (Jul 30, 2015)

My grandfather was a tailor specialising in officers dress uniforms, when I visited him as a little boy he would look at me and say, "That boy could do with some new trousers", then disappear into his workshop for a bit to reappear with  new pair of shorts. It was very handy, material was still on ration, for some reason they were always khaki


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