Remember when?

[Pam]

Originally posted by leslie flenner
!
Tom jones is doing well with his cd with KD lang! They have been on pbs several times and I cannot believe how good he looks!

Now that you have brought the conversation back to "Tom" I have a little humor to add to the mix. Recently he was on TV doing an interview with someone (I can't remember who, except that it wasn't Barbara Walters). Anyway, the interviewer asked if people still throw their underpants on stage and he said "yes, but today they throw thongs!" Well, I was telling my daughter this and when I said "what do you think people throw at him on stage these days?" Her reply......."Depends!" Geesh I guess Tom and I look really, really old to a 27 year old!

[sirrahbed]

SPOOLIES!! OMG how could I forget spoolies?? Remote control - YES we had one - really fancy but it had a long cord that connected to the TV but we thought it was pretty cool!
Did you guys wear GYM SUITS for PE? They had to seriously shop for the ugliest things they could find. One school we had puke green one piece numbers with tabs on the side to pull in the waist and bloomer-like bottoms of the legs. HID - E - US beyond belief!! Did you have reading level groups at elementary school? Like the Robins, Bluebirds and Canarys, etc. Did you have milktime where someone would bring in the case of milk - some special government program I think and it came in little glass bottles with a cardboard top that if you didn't get the tab just right, the cardboard went IN and the milk shot OUT??
Tuesdays were savings bond days so we could bring in our dimes or quarters to pay on our savings bonds...
Did you iron your long hair to straighten it? Wear fishnet stocking?? Oh those were SO COOL but they hurt when you bent your knees!! My legs were...uh...plush..and stuck out the diamonds..YES and textured nylons!!!..they were sheer but had fancy patterns in them. TROLL dolls with that fuzzy long hair on top? Thumbelina and Chatty Cathy - I think CC had a baby brother too?

Back with a few more!...I remember in elementary school having drills for tornados and also films about nuclear fallout but I never knew what it was but only it was scary and we had to have drills for that too, and our basement at home, my mom kept water and groceries in case we had "fallout"

Macrame!! Cords and beads to make these plant hangers and also beads on strips to put up in doorways - that was WAY COOL!!

Something to play with was a tub of powder and you added water and it made SLIME - Fun!!!

[tuxluvr]

Oh dear lord, the GYM SUITS! Gad, those were awful - I suspect the same people who designed jail uniforms moonlighted as gym suit designers. Ours were those gakky one-piece double knit jobs with orange and grey striped tops and orange shorts....URK URK URK...

Fishnets, yes...and I remember the "hair ironing'...also the infamous trend of rolling long hair up on soda or beer cans.

Troll dolls creeped me out - I just couldn't deal with them, although they were certainly popular. I had a Chatty Cathy, and the obligatory Barbie doll, as well as the little sister, friend or something named "Midge" - freckle-faced red head doll.

There was also Betsy Wetsy (messy messy)

We didn't have reading groups that I remember, but I distinctly recall in grade school, grade 1, 2 and 3, there was the "Humpty
Dumpty Wall of Shame".(they didn't call it that at the time, that was my addition)..each person had a Humpty Dumpty paper cutout pasted above the chalkboard with our name on it, and if you didn't clean your plate at lunch, your Humpty Dumpty got turned upside down. Imagine if they did that today?

There were also clearly displayed paddles, one I remember being labeled "the board of education". Yes, teachers actually paddled children in those days if they were REALLY BAD.

And the CAFETERIA FOOD - good lord what were they thinking? They used to announce the school lunch menu on the local radio station, and my brother and I used to laugh at the "Beenie Weenie" announcement. We had something called "Peanut Butter Balls"....they were literally quarter sized round wads of peanut butter rolled in cereal flakes. And it wasn't Jif or Peter Pan-we referred to it as "industrial waste peanut butter"...UGH

[tuxluvr]

Silly Putty, Slinkies, Super Balls....and remember "Knockers"???

Before you raise eyebrows, "Knockers" were these heavy hard plastic balls a little smaller than a baseball, attached by a large cord with a loop in the middle - the trick was to hold onto the loop and try to "knock" the balls together...BRUISES GALORE with this ingenious toy, and if an observer got too close, a black eye or mild concussion...I think they didn't last long.

Then there was the "Slip n Slide", Twister, Chinese Checkers and the commercials

"Plop plop, fizz fizz, oh what a relief it is!"

"I can't believe I ate the whole thing!"

[Pam]

And for TV viewing, remember Red Skelton (Clem Kadiddlehopper, et al) Dinah Shore (she always ended her show with "see the USA in your Chevrolet"), Ed Sullivan, The Honeymooners (gosh I LOVED that show! - Bang Zoom Alice - right to the moon!)

[tuxluvr]

Originally posted by Pam
And for TV viewing, remember Red Skelton (Clem Kadiddlehopper, et al) Dinah Shore (she always ended her show with "see the USA in your Chevrolet"), Ed Sullivan, The Honeymooners (gosh I LOVED that show! - Bang Zoom Alice - right to the moon!)

Red was the best...remember the seagulls "Gertrude and Heathcliff" ??

[Pam]

Originally posted by tuxluvr
Red was the best...remember the seagulls "Gertrude and Heathcliff" ??

Sure do! You just don't see that kind of humor on TV any more!

[trayi52]

I have several Chatty Cathys now, and the other family members that was in the chatty doll line. I always wanted one as a kid, and never got one, LOL, now I have at least 4 of these dolls along with the big sister and the baby brother and baby sister. Oh how I love those dolls!

Do you remember those little cheap dolls that had a pony tail and when you took her hair down, she was just as bald in the middle of head as she could be. I think they went for about 50 cents back in the 60's. I found one at an antique store, kept watching for it to go down in price, they wanted 10 dollars for it, I finally got them down to 2 dollars on her, I was patient, but I wanted her so bad.

We had gym suits too, ours was a navy blue, with elastic at the waist, and snaps in the front. The girls and boys were separated during gym, but you could always look over at the divider and see boys eyes looking at the girls working out! We had seperate home rooms too, boys in one, girls in the other.

LOL, because of my name being a boys name, they always got mixed up and sent me to the boys home room. I was so young I would get so embarassed over the whole thing. Hmmmm, I should have went.....

Fishnet hose, yes I remember, and Leslie I remember that shampoo and the creme rinse too. I wore the bell bottoms, mohair sweaters that itched you to death!

I remember girls ironing their hair to make it straight, I never did because my hair was so straight, not even a hint of a curl in it!

If I get a chance I will make some pictures of my Chattys, oh they have the prettiest eyes! I really lucked up and got a brown eyed one too! I have dolls of all kinds, that I know a lot of you will remember. I do need to make pictures of all my baby dolls!!

[moosmom]

How about the Tiny Tears doll??? I had one. She had short red curly hair and eyes that closed when you laid her down. My Airedale, Tinker, chewed her when he was a puppy, left her with no nose and a section of her hair ripped out. I still loved her!! (was pissed at the dog, however for a long time)

Oh those gymsuits!!! I used to get a wedgie everytime I put it on!!! How I hated them!

How about Crazy Foam?? It was foam soap for kids. I used to beg my Mom to buy it for me when she went grocery shopping. I think it's still on the market.

Remember when they had "savings day" in elementary school?? You'd bring in (it was always $1.00 for me) money and your bank book. The teacher or principal (not sure, THOSE memories were kinda fuzzy) would take it and then you'd get your passbook back showing the deposit was made.

[trayi52]

Donna, I am going to look and see if I have that doll, it seems like I do. I have so many dolls, you would think you were in heaven and a little girl again! Short red curley hair. I will look and see if I have her, if I do I will send her to you. Just let me see and make sure. I just have so many, its hard to remember all of them. I am like a kid when I start looking at my dolls.

Willie

[Corinna]

Since we are talking about bad hair products How about those wonderful( ) Toni home perms? I only got 2 but I remember my mom and grannie holding this tom boy down to give it to me.

[tuxluvr]

Originally posted by Corinna
Since we are talking about bad hair products How about those wonderful( ) Toni home perms? I only got 2 but I remember my mom and grannie holding this tom boy down to give it to me.

Ahhh, Toni, the bringer of "brillo pad head"! Man did those things STINK!

[sirrahbed]

Dipity=do? something like that pink gel in a big jar - I'm not even sure what it was but FOR I think just like a hair gel like now. Yes, I had Tiny Tears Moo!! I also had a couple Toni home perms - I think they made a special one for kids - extra gentle but I still looked like a brillo. My brother had a CREW CUT and he used something called butch wax in a tin that looked like shoe polish
Did your moms made lots of casseroles with cans of Campbells soup? The worst one I remember we called tuna wiggle and it had tuna (of course) noodles, cream of mushroom soup and crushed potato chips on top. I actually made it a few times when I first got married but my husnand HATES it so it's a joke now - if I want to go out to eat and he asks what is for dinner I say Tuna Wiggle and he knows we are going out to eat!
YES I had a GIRDLE too and yes it just pushes the fat around to somewhere else - finally they got fancy and modern and there was a *panty-girdle* and it moved the fat around a little more evenly.
Well might as well get personal. but they did not have peel and stick kotex so we had to wear elastic belts with garter things front and back and kotex that were the size of duffle bags with long tabs that made wedgies Mom said nice girls did not wear tampax!! I was only 12-13 and did not know why they sold them then but was always embarrassed to walk by them!!

PS Yes, Barbies redhead friend with freckles was Midge - I still have her and the little sister was Skipper!! I LOVED my Barbies and still have them!!! Some look pretty bad because I tried to give them haircuts and makeup OH OH! TRESSY!!! She was like a Barbie but not made by Barbie and had a piece of hair on top you could pull on and it would get really long and then you spread it all out like she had long hair. Then I think you pushed a button or something to make it go back into her head so she had short hair again

[jonza]

Oh no, we shouldn't do this, I'm getting some really weird flash backs.

Do you REALLY want to go this far back in time? There'll be no mention of shampoo and stuff, since we had no hot water and could only bath once a week anyway!

I remember my very first day in primary school. I was absolutely scared stiff. My mum delivered me to the entrance of the school playground, a mad noisy place with kids racing around all over the place. I was tightly holding on to a mug and an empty tin which we took with us for the cocoa distribution. We used to get gift parcels from the Red Cross, and cocoa was distributed in school. The first thing that happened when i ventured out into the playground was that someone ran into me and I dropped the mug. I was destroyed! No cup of hot cocoa for me! What was this harsh world I was being forced out into!

In grammar school, if you were really naughty, you got 3 or 6 of the best, with a long bamboo cane, VERY hard. The gym teacher would also regularly beat us with our gym shoes. The maths teacher was a genuine sadist. His reaction to a wrong answer would be to stab the pointed end of a pencil into your scalp. That really hurt!

"CAFETERIA FOOD" - oh my goodness, the school meals! If you didn't eat it all up you got beaten. I remember seeing one poor kid forced to eat the dessert and immediately spewing it all up again. The one that we all really hated was semolina I think. We used to call it "frogs spawn" and it was absolutely disgusting.

There was also the inescapable, pervasive fear of "The War". I can remember regularly seeing the whole sky full of low flying bombers (ours luckily!) on their way out to Germany, since we were right under the flight path. The noise was amazing, and the ground literally shook under our feet. Once when I was about 5, I was in the garden playing in the late evening. I asked my mum why the sky was all tinted red on the horizon. The answer? "Oh, that's London burning". Such things do tend to make an impression on a young kid.
Since there was so little food and nobody had any money, we kept chickens and rabbits in the back garden, and had a vegetable patch. Sometimes I would have to go with my mum to a sort of soup kitchen, a huge barracks building with long tables where hundreds of people would sit in rows and eat their cheap gruel.

We didn't have "knockers" but we had "conckers". They were hardened chestnuts (on a string too), and they certainly gave us some decent bruising! You hung your concker on a string, and your opponent tried to destroy it with his concker. One mean trick was to soak them in vinegar overnight, so they went rock hard and could almost break your opponents finger!

We had no television in the house until after I left England, but my friend just down the road had one (wow!), so I used to go down there every tuesday (I was about 12 to 14 I would imagine) and see "The Quatermass Experiment", a real sci-fi horror series. I used to take my evening meal down there on a tray (always fried eggs on fried bread!), and we'd make model airplanes and stuff. I can remember being totally freaked out by Quatermass, and running frantically back home in the dark with my tray rattling away, shaking like a leaf!
We also had an old wind up gramophone and played 78's in a tent in his back garden. My favorites then were The Sheik of Araby and Stardust, probably by Mantovani or some such dance band. Later my taste developed to the blues, then rhythm and blues, rock & roll and goodness knows what!

So I'm afraid if there are any kids out there that think they're having a hard time nowadays, I have little sympathy! Admittedly it's a tough world, but as far as I can see, the majority of problems we have nowadays are self inflicted or what I call "luxury problems".

[jonza]

I noticed this on CNN. Slightly off topic, but it seems as if those fishnet stockings haven't gone out of fashion after all!

French policeman arrested driving in fishnet tights

PARIS (Reuters) - A French policeman faces trial in a police court for driving under the influence after he was stopped at the wheel of his car drunk and wearing only a pair of fishnet tights, a prosecutor said Friday.
The man admitted he was a part-time prostitute after fellow police chased him through the Bois de Boulogne, a wooded area on the outskirts of Paris reputed as a nighttime hangout of transsexual prostitutes, in the early hours of Thursday.
The policeman said he needed the extra income. If convicted, he could lose his driver's license and be fined.
Prosecutors said there was not enough evidence to try him for passive soliciting, which is punishable by prison in France.

So there you have it - different strokes for different folks!