The person who made this video probably grew up in the 80s, because using your FM radio at the drive-in didn't become a thing until then. Speakers were on a pole that you hung on your car window.
@@reallyseriously7020 Once a pay phone stole my money. I attached a thick, strong tow strap to my trailer hitch, the other end to the handpiece, drove off. SNAP! Left it there along with a note saying WHY.
@@jasonrodgers9063that was wrong to do. All you had to do is call the phone co. from that area with the number of the phone, and they would mail you your money back via check. Some people would try to use a slug, (a washer the same size as a dime) to trick the phone for a free call. Most would never work and the slug would make the phone not work. I never had a pay phone not work.
In the 60s and 70s all you needed for awesome music was a little portable radio because the music of all kinds was so good! FM was also wonderful when it started.
I worked at this one place that had an old late 1970's stereo system. The sound was just incredible. People have no idea how much better a full size speaker can be.
I was hoping to see this comment. Back in the summer of ‘80 we had stacked TV’s. We had to change channels on both for different shows. Oh yeah, I was the remote control!
Sears started losing business to the "big boxes" like Home Depot and Walmart long before Amazon emerged. Combine this with decades of mismanagement, and a leveraged buyout left them in no shape to take advantage of e-commerce. The ultimate irony: my local Sears is now an Amazon Fresh store.
Sears, at one time, sold houses you could buy and then assemble after delivery. Montgomery Ward (aka Wards, also Monkey Wards, although I never understood that; it wasn't malicious) sold farm items, ponies, dogs, harness, saddles, etc., in addition to clothing, housewares and seemingly everything. I loved looking through the catalouges for bot hcompanies, and the Christmas ones were special fun. Diane, using Joe's tablet.
#8 no, you did not pull up to a spot and tune your radio, at first it was a speaker that hung on a pole that you then hung on your window for sound, then it was a wire you attached to your antenna of your car to tune the radio to a certain station to then get the sound and now finally your just pull up and tune your radio to the drive in's station to get the sound. Drive In's still exist visit your closest one today!....
Can't take your advice to visit one now. By the time the sun goes down and the movie starts, I'm already asleep. And the nearest one is like an hour away and to far for me and the wife to make it home safe, because we are both to sleepy to drive the hour home. But, if you are someone who can stay up late, go and experience it, you won't regret it. Those were beautiful times back then. But, with our children and grandchildren today, these are just as beautiful times today.
Radio frequency for drive-in movie sound?!! Must have been the richer neighborhood. Our drive-ins had speakers hanging on poles that you could hang to your car window on the inside...then roll it up to keep out the mosquitoes. They were very tinny sounding too.
We had a milk man, I was a paper boy, we went to the drive inn on dates. Only "bad girls" went past 2nd base. Was a boyscout and a safety patrol at school. Went to church, shoveled the neighbors snow if they had no male children. Played little league, got in fights and played together the next day.
@@josephbreaux2668 gotta admit I went haywire and rock n’ roll after that and rounded 2. base a couple of times and didn’t regret it. Oddly enough I’ve been married for 20 years now. Don’t regret anything
You know you’re old when you watch an old television show now, and aren’t phased when someone has to find a phone booth to make a call. I still am in the habit of carrying change in case. I need to make a phone call. (Plus I have an iPhone)
I've watched modern reactors watching "Superman" with Christopher Reeve, and they don't get the tongue-in-cheek scene where Clark Kent runs outside, only to find a little phone kiosk instead of a phone booth in which to change into his tights. So the filmmakers had to get creative with his costume changes.
6:43 The payphones I used spit the money back out if the call didn't go through or nobody answered. If your phone company kept your money they ripped you off.
If you were heard saying a nasty 4 letter word in public, most adults would reprimand you and some would call your parents to report it. It happened to me on the way home from the community swimming pool in about 1972. I was 3 blocks from home and I let an obscene word fly on Front Street. The pharmacist heard it and by the time I traveled the 3 blocks, my mother was waiting.
One of the beauties of the card catalog and browsing the shelves looking for the book I wanted is that my interest was always piqued by other authors and book titles. Often I left the library with more books not on the subject I was researching that on.
Most Television stations signed off around 2:00 a.m. after Johnny Carson and The Tonight Show at 11:30 p.m. after him a few miscellaneous programs like Alfred Hitchcock, Twilight Zone, The outer limits or a movie. I'm early Generation X and remember these things. Furthermore, it was not a few coins in the Payphone it was a dime 10 cents. I love how the ones that weren't even born yet make videos on the past like they were there.
Yes and think they are experts 😊 Not. Good deal for straightening him out on some things. Heaven help today's youth if the grid ever goes away for an extended period.
Hi Tara! I read your profile. I would say that by today standards your life is spectacular! Congrats on staying married since you were 18 and having many children! You see so many divorces and broken relationships out there now. Cheers!
8 tracks came out while cassette tapes were already out. They failed because people could record their own playlists on cassettes and 8 tracks did not have that capability.
Nope, wrong! Cassettes preexisted 8 track but were originially intended for voice recording and thus had crappy fidelity. 8 track tapes recorded (and played back) at twice the tape speed of cassettes with more surface area to record on and therefore produced higher quality recordings. It wasn't until cassette manufactures started producing better tape and recorder makers changed their technology that cassettes began to rival 8 track! And yes you could record your own 8 track tapes, substantually cheaper than buying them in the store.
As a kid growing up in the southern US in the late 1950s and early 1960s TV programming ended with beautiful scenery while playing the instrumental to "Dixie"
More intangibly, people weren't afraid all the time. People from 50 years ago would be amazed (and many would be very disgusted) at how fearful, cowardly and safety-obsessed people are today. Back then, people would make fun of the frightened and timid. We've turned into a society of neurotically scared old ladies or little girls.
I can't say it enough: YOU ARE EXACTLY RIGHT! Yes, we lived with the threat of nuclear annihilation, but truthfully that's still completely possible anyway. But I think back then we could think about how bad that might be, and everything else in life looked pretty tame by comparison. On the other hand, with so many fewer luxuries and almost no tech other than a 3-channel TV and a radio, people just weren't oblivious to most hardships like they are today. Don't get me wrong: I'm by no means a wealthy man, but I've got it a lot easier than the average working stiff had it back then as far as the pleasure/pain ratio goes. The maintenance of life in general is just easier now. Tech carries the burden so people have gotten coddled, so every little pinprick now engenders complete worry.
@dixonpinfold2582 that's what happens when you celebrate mediocrity and give everyone a trophy. You raise a generation of man-ginas and overtly masculine women.
The Yellow Pages were also pre-internet, as in, you could locate b&m businesses by alphabet. It was a paper search engine. As recently as 2006, I kept a YP, just in case of internet outage.
I remember the smell of my little red am only transistor radio,3 channels on the black and white tv,the milkman and my parents complaining how spoiled rotten we were
Ordering from the Sears Catalogue and receiving the order in a "couple weeks"? Allow 6-8 weeks for delivery was the norm. And we were damn happy to wait two months for that item that was probably going to be damaged beyond use when it finally did arrive. Now get the hell off my lawn! 😁
But it's irrelevant The website of the retailer not really so much Sears these days but any given retailer is the catalog in fact I can remember back in the late '90s if you went to the Sears website it would talk about the catalog it would be a drop down and then you would pick what department you wanted to shop oh and by the way they had the capability of shipping either directly to you or in the store it's the same concept it's just you use electronic device rather than a paper catalog it's more efficient... NEXT!
@@janeflip1 I always "helpfully" dog-eared the pages of things I wanted so mom would have an easy time of it. Got maybe one thing out of 63 items, but hey...had to give it the effort lol.
Couple of weeks? That's what Amazon takes, or worse. EBay sellers? Maybe days, maybe months. I remember from catalog buying days that a Priority package mailed on Wednesday in Massachusetts would reach Honolulu on Saturday.
@@hollyingraham3980 well the distance between China and the United States and then of course depending upon your location in the United States will determine exactly how long it really does take the item to get to you if it's something that Amazon has in stock already here stateside then really you should have it within 3 to 4 days so actually two weeks that's going to be for stuff that you're specifically ordering from China by the way from vendors in China because Amazon is not just Amazon there are independent business owners that sell through Amazon much like eBay... So the difference between Honolulu to Massachusetts in 3 days is simply the distance between China and America which depending upon how quickly your item gets loaded depending upon when that ship leaves yeah it could take up to a couple of weeks but that's the difference.
Loved the milk deliveries...the Sears Roebuck catalogue was the best reading in town...every Summer you joined a Summer reading program and agreed to read X number of books. At the end you got a certificate. Library cards were 25 cents. Tang sucked. I saw the first color TV in my neighborhood. You basically had three colors LOL You had three channels - 2,5,11 and three UHF and VHF - 17, 36 and 46 - they were scratchy. Knowing how to write was important. Your signature meant something. Flying was great - you got real food and the kids got pins and toys. Seat belts ROFL. Good times!
3:22 It's been found that "clicky" keyboards work better on Computers, it's NOT just a typewriter thing - and the BETTER typewriters were sometimes quieter than some of the early IBM computer keyboards.
@@stevedallas4942 It’s shocking to me that there are more and more people who cannot read or write in cursive. Their signature is barely legible printing.
Before watching, I assumed this would be crap like most of what I see on youtube, but this was a really good video and don't feel like my time was wasted. Keep up the good work!
I was just thinking about how if I could not read a map I would’ve followed directions given me…instead of Palm Springs to SanDiego I would’ve ended up in Mexico! And remember the desperate turning the radio dial in the middle of nowhere?! Hoping for Something! Or Anyone!
When I came home from Vietnam, I was suddenly a popular guy because while I was there I ordered a stereo with an 8 track player that also recorded 8 tracks.. NOBODY else had one. The first playlists!
I remember the stereo equipment the guys brought back from Vietnam and Germany. Very high quality stuff and they got it very cheap. Most of my friends had older brothers deployed.
I am Gen-X, and our milkman was named Mr. Sweet. For the longest time, I thought all sweet milk came from his company. There was also a potato chip company that delivered Charlie's Chips.
Growing up in the 60s and 70s here in Australia was basically the same. You’ve given me a blast from my past at 5:16 advertising the radio is Kiwi born Aussie Brian Henderson who hosted a show called bandstand. Later in his career Hendo was one of our best news readers RIP. Thanks for some great memories. It’s a real shame we’ve made life so complicated. Personally I could easily go back to the good old days.
I had a hand-me-down CURSIVE typewriter from my Grandpa which I used for decades; all my letters to him were typed on it. Wonder what kids would make of THAT, today?😮
Born in '52. I remember all those things well. Cigarettes were a quarter a pack. I can remember my old man grousing about the price when they went up to 30 cents a pack.
One year younger. I remember 25 cent cigarettes because my father would send me to the corner store to buy them for him. I also remember the him grousing about "What the Hell makes a hot dog worth 75 cents just because you're eating it at the ball park! Penny candy ("banana splits" were two for a penny), five cent candy bars, ten cent Cokes, a quart of milk was a quarter, and we would go to the gas station and get "a dollar's worth" if we ran short before payday. One other memory is laying awake in bed one night listening to the grown-ups talk in the kitchen. Someone mentioned a news article that in the (somewhat near) future a loaf of bread would cost $1. They couldn't imagine that.... people would be starving in the streets if bread were a dollar a loaf!
I was 13 and would ride up to the gas station to get cigarettes. I think they're about a quarter at that time.But I remember myself and other people saying that we were gonna quit smoking once it hit fifty cents😅
@@trudieristich795 West Coast Boomer Canadian here. I started smoking in 1967 at age 12 when cigarettes' were 50 cents a pack and quit a year later when I discovered a corner grocer a 10 minute bike ride from home that offered 8 scoops of ice cream on a double cone for 25 cents. I enjoyed these cones twice a week from my weekly 50 cent allowance.
Cheap cigarettes just encouraged people to smoke more and become addicted. Also there was this attitude in society that smoking cigarettes was grown up, mature , fashionable, sophisticated.
@@TheHistoryReserveIn the 80s, the family of my sister's boyfriend had a party line. They basically got a women chased out of town for listening in on phone calls and gossiping. Wasn't anything legally they could do. When they had proof she was spreading information she could only get by listening in, the town took care of making sure she wasn't welcome.
The early Polaroid pictures came out with the wet chemicals on the outside, and we shook them to help them dry. Later, the chemicals were contained within, so there was no need to shake them any more.
Don't forget the protective lacquer coating for the earlier (pre-SX-70) black & white ones that you apply with the supplied sponge applicator. That's what needed to be dried by waving around. Without the coating they would fade. As far as the SX-70 colour prints go, artist Lucas Samaras would push the still-wet emulsion around with his fingers and empty ball-point pens, before it developed. He got some surreal effects with it.
I took a typing class as a filler my last year in high school. Probably the last year this class was offered. Computers were just coming out. The typing class ended up being one of the most useful high school classes I took. Using pc’s in college I could type 20wpm+ while most were hunting and pecking.
My school never had duck and cover drills. But we did have fire drills where we had to practice getting out of the building as quickly as possible and then stand out in the lawn and hope that the school building would burn down, but it never did. 😂
We had duck and cover drills in Los Angeles. They doubled as earthquake drills. On the same block as my elementary school there was an air raid siren that was tested every Friday. It was there for civil defense in case of nuclear attack.
We had a party line. We had a medical energy and they refused to give us the line to call for help. My uncle died from that heart attack a few weeks later in hospital. He might have been saved if the gossipy neighbours got off the line. It's was a sad day.
#24? Nah. Totally wrong camera. You were talking about having to send films to a lab to be developed and printed, but showed a Polaroid instant camera the whole time.
You forgot, before third wave feminism, women were nice, liked men and were not covered in tattoos nor piercings. Just simple ear piercings. And they knew how to cook, dress nice and how to keep a home clean. They cared about their community and wanted to have children Indy of abort them.
My dad was the chief engineer at an Atlas missile base when the Cuban Missile Crisis hit. I didn't realize it but they had armed the missiles with nuclear warheads, we were that close to the war to end all wars I didn't know this until he told me that just a year ago. He is 92 years old now
Remember when if you didn't have the coin for a payphone, but needed your parents to pick you up, you call collect? Then record "Movie's over! Get me at the mall "
I remember when I was a kid around Christmas getting the Sears catalog and being told circle the things you want Santa to bring you I miss a lot of things in this video
An old boomer here. I remember all those things mentioned in this video. Playing outside was imperative and we loved it. We played all sports throughout the year. Yes, there was bullying and we had to deal with it and we did. Today I live in a nice middle-class neighborhood in the US. In my current location for 26 years, I have never seen a young kid or teenager even mow the yard. We did that with those manual push mowers with rotating blades as soon as we were old enough to use those manual mowers. Ranking leaves or pine straw, clearing off snow from driveways, washing cars, plus doing our share of the house chores were required as part of our contribution to the family. I am so glad I was part of the era. The greatest music ever to be heard was in the '60s and '70s It was great and much better to grow up then than the kids do today.
Drive Inns used the corded speaker boxes not radio that came in the 70’s. TV was 3 network stations and PBS although the dials had 56 stations. I was one of 9 TV remotes for my Dad whoever was closest. Cartoons were only on Saturday mornings and 2 hours on Sundays. Street light curfew or Dad’s whistle. We would pack 9 kids and Mom and Dad into a station wagon, no seat belts. Gas was $.32 a gallon in 76’, you could get 4 burgers, 4 small frys, and 4 drinks at McDonalds for under $10.
The worst thing about the television back then? Vertical hold! I swear that thing had eyes because it would start slow just as you got comfortable to watch tv, then it would speed up to get you off the couch. When you got up to turn the knob, it would slow down, it took forever to get the damn thing fixed, only for it to slowly start up again as you'd try to ease back the couch. Most of the time you missed half of the TV show fighting with the vertical hold. I think that was really the first video game! 😂
The gas for the car in that time was also filled with lead. Unleaded gas became a thing in the 1970s. You can still buy lead fuel supplemen fluids for classic cars in auto parts stores today.
And in spite of all these archaic things we did...we did fine, and were happy--- MUCH happier than people nowadays who can't talk to their friends and family because they can't get their face out of the cell or laptop.
Flying was certainly an experience back then. There were no long security lines. But, then again, there were no muhammadan terrorists back then. That unfortunate trend started on 1976.
Coke bottles had the city of manufacture on the bottom. This led to pools where the person who had the farthest city would get their coke paid for by the other members of the pool.
I remember being so excited in high school getting a very early adaptation of the "word processing typewriter"... It had a TINY window that displayed ONE LINE of text before printing 😂
In 1967, I worked at a Standard station - regular was .35, premium '38, and Custom Supreme ( for Corvettes and such) was.40. Of course, I never bought gas there - I would go to the self service cheapo station - gas there was more like .25. Sometimes there were gas wars and I saw as low as .19. Of course, minimum wage was 1.25...
As well as a milk man who delivered fresh milk daily, the neighborhood i grew up in as a kid back in the 60's also had the "egg man" as we called him. He would deliver farm fresh eggs weekly. He would bring in a big basket of eggs and set them on the kitchen table and my mother would pick through them. They were farm fresh brown eggs. No bleached white eggs you would buy at the store. And let's not forget about the Fuller Brush Man back then making house calls.
We were on a party line for a while and it was really annoying. I worked at a full service gas station in high school. The thing about doing your research at the library, or in my case, a very small town library, was that there weren't that many sources. I remember me and some buddies pulled together and went to a couple of different libraries in order to get our projects done. We lived in a very small Texas town out in the middle of nowhere and had to drive an hour and a half to get to Amarillo.
My oldest son just can’t imagine how I could watch a hockey game on my grandparents 14” TV in black and white and my sister in law just don’t understand how I can live with a TV that’s is less than 48” (we’re 18 years apart) ours is 28” and we don’t need it bigger
I remember wearing nylon slacks as I was driving and took a sharp turn to the right and slid across the vinyl bench seat until my butt hit the opposite door trim. I craned my head up to see over the dashboard and pulled myself back with my right hand. (We are right hand drive here in Australia.) Later I learned that guys would take a sharp left turn to get the girl they had just taken to the movies to slide up against them. Great memories. The only better memories are the ones I have not yet had.
My mother once was driving Dad's pick-up while her car was in the shop. She had made a casserole for a potluck at work that day, and she picked up a co-worker who also had a casserole. Both Mom and the other lady were "plus size" as we say now. They put the casseroles on the bench seat between them, and Mom slid over as far as she could to make room. She was leaning against the driver's door, and as she took a sharp right, the latch came loose and she slid out onto the pavement as the truck kept on going.
@@bobunderwood803 I'm glad you brought that up. It was a hazard in the early days of driving and your mother could have been hurt badly. I hope she wasn't. At least when cornering in those old tanks it was necessary to slow down quite a bit to make the turn. Though the possibility of going under the wheels of the car behind was always there.
We had hamburger restaurants, they actually came to your table. They had real plates and cups. But the greatest was the drive in hamburger restaurant! We loved watching the waitresses or waiters come over when you flashed your car headlights. They usually served in rollerskates. And put the food on the car window with a hook. A&W Drive In had root beer served in heavy glass mugs! They served more than hamburgers, like fried chicken.
Ah, memories... We still have Sonic drive-ins, though the waitresses don't wear rollerskates anymore. A&W had different sized mugs; poppa bear, momma bear and baby bear. We had a collection of them (you could buy your mug). Kept the root beer frosty. One day I was about 12 and my dad and I stopped at A&W on the way home from work. He sat drinking his rootbeer while I had hotdogs. After I asked for the 3rd one, suddenly I felt guilty. Here I was eating all these hotdogs... could my dad even afford all of them? I mean, they were like 35 cents apiece! So I apologized, saying I didn't understand why I was so hungry. He said to me, "As long as you keep eating them, I'll keep ordering them" That, for me, was my "As you wish" moment. (If you've seen The Princess Bride, you get it). I had two more before I was full. (you have to understand that my dad grew up in the Depression; he knew real hunger. All of our dogs always got fat; At one time, we had a pony, and the feed store guy asked if we had a pregnant mare, we bought so much food for it. When we were babies he would feed us until we threw up unless my mom stopped him. He wasn't being sadistic or cruel; food was how he showed love, and nobody he loved was EVER going to be hungry.)
TV stations turned off earlier, but it should be mentioned that they did so in black and white for many boomers. Also, many boomers like myself had crystal radios, no cord, just sweet, sweet AM.
2:28 Benjies Drive-In Theatre- the largest screen on the east coast. Located in Middle River, Maryland and still in business. I saw all the Marvel movies there! Epic
I never knew anyone who had a partyline after the fifties. The drive-in theater was seldom 'the PERFECT outing' - weather, faulty speakers, overcrowding, mosquitos and noisy neighbors could ruin it. Nobody used 'the radio' to listen to it! We had speakers on poles you hung on your car window - don't drain your battery listening to it on some radio station (musta been an '80s thing).
Great, until your parents realized they didn’t check to see what else was playing on the adjacent screen. More than once my religious mother was shocked to find an X-rated movie playing on the screen to our left. She made my older brother cover the side window of the car with a blanket so we couldn’t see!
Am i the only one surprised by the mentions of photocopy at the time where people shared single vired phone with neighbors and mechanical typewriter was most advanced personal "device" owned by some folks ?
