Growing Up in the '50s and '60s

Remember when it took three minutes for the TV to warm up?

Nobody owned a purebred dog? A quarter was a decent allowance? You'd reach into a muddy gutter for a penny?

Your Mom wore nylons that had two pieces?

You got your windshield cleaned, oil checked, and gas pumped, without asking, all for free, every time? And you didn't pay for air? And, you got trading stamps to boot?

Laundry detergent had free drinking 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 then 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?

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?

Lying on your back in the grass with your friends and saying things like, 'That cloud looks like a...'?

Playing baseball with no adults to help kids with the rules of the game?

Stuff from the store came without safety caps and hermetic seals because no one had yet tried to poison a perfect stranger?

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?

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.

...And then there were summers filled with bike rides, Hula Hoops, and visits to the pool, and eating Kool-Aid powder with sugar.

Didn't that feel good, just to go back and say, 'Yeah, I remember that'?

Remember that "perfect age" is somewhere between old enough to know better and too young to care.

Remember Howdy Doody and The Peanut Gallery, the Lone Ranger, The Shadow Knows, Nellie Bell, Roy and Dale, Trigger and Buttermilk ... Sky King ... Zorro ... Bat Masterson ... Wyatt Earp ... Gunsmoke ... Bonanza ... and the Ed Sullivan Show?

Remember the Tonight Show with Jack Paar, if you were allowed to stay up late?

Candy cigarettes, wax Coke-shaped bottles with colored sugar water inside?

Remember when soda pop machines dispensed glass bottles? Coffee shops and diners with table-side jukebox controls?

Blackjack, Clove and Teaberry chewing gum? Sen-sen?

Remember home milk delivery in glass bottles with cardboard stoppers?

Telephone numbers with a word prefix, like Yukon 2-6021? And party lines?

Peashooters ... rubberband pistols?

Hi-Fi's and 45 RPM records?

Remember 78 RPM records?

S&H Green Stamps?

Mimeograph paper? And the smell of ditto fluid?

The Fort Apache Play Set ... Lincoln Logs ... Tinker Toys ... and if your parents had a little more money, Erector Sets?

Do you remember when decisions were made by going 'eeny-meeny-miney-moe'? Mistakes were corrected by simply exclaiming, 'Do Over!'? And 'race issues' meant arguing about who ran the fastest?

Remember when 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?

When Saturday morning cartoons weren't 30-minute commercials for action figures?

When 'oly-oly-oxen-free' made perfect sense?

Spinning around, getting dizzy, and falling down was cause for giggles?

The worst embarrassment was being picked last for a team?

When 'War' was just a card game?

Baseball cards in the spokes transformed any bike into a motorcycle?

Taking drugs meant orange-flavored chewable aspirin?

When water balloons were the ultimate weapon?


If you can remember most or all of these, then you have lived, my friend. And it makes me sad to know that there are generations of young people out there who never knew such innocent times.

I Was So Much Older, Then

Back in the day, it was a Statement. These days, it's more like wishful thinking. Sigh...

My Automotive History, Part 2

Part 1 is here.

 

The linked post took me up to 1979, so here we continue:

 

1974 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme - had a 350 ci engine with a 4-bbl, but couldn't get out of its own way. Since that was pre-Internet, I found out only later that '74 was the worst possible model to buy because of all the mandatory smog controls. Detroit didn't have the technology then to overcome the handicap, and the thing just didn't have any power.

1979 Plymouth Horizon TC3 - after the success of Chrysler's K-cars (due to the gas shortage earlier in the '70s), economical cars were all the rage. In those days of less-advanced technology, that meant smaller & lighter, rather than more efficient. Ours had no power equipment of any kind, clear glass, and no A/C. We were in college at the time (early '80s); the Midwestern sun made it so we could only make long drives at night. It got 35+ mpg, but was made of pot metal. That was back in the days of the CB radio craze, so I used a center punch to make a dimple for drilling an antenna mounting screw. The punch went all the way through. :^(

1983 Jeep CJ-7 - this is our actual Jeep, rather than a "close enough" internet grab. It was the first vehicle we bought new, and I thought I was King of the World. That's when I learned about the windshields on those things, which leaked like the disaster scenes from Titanic. The heater also produced enough heat to melt the snow from the toes of my boots in winter, but not much else due to the single-wall body tub, no insulation, and a one-layer vinyl roof with loose-fitting doors. I loved it!

'65 Ford Mustang - while we had the Jeep, my sister decided she needed a larger vehicle, and sold me her 'Stang for $1.00. It was only the six-banger, rather than a V-8, and had been driven mostly to death, but it was still a Mustang. We eventually sold it for cheap to a high school automotive program. Those kids fixed everything that was wrong, including a bent frame from an old accident, and made it look like new.

1988 Dodge Dakota 4x4 - when the Jeep began showing signs of an early death (at 4 1/2 yrs old, and only 33,000 miles), we traded it for a new Dakota. It helped that my dad worked at the St. Louis Chrysler assembly plant, so there was a substantial discount available. We drove it for 5 years, and then sold it to my dad. He kept it until his death in 2011; I helped my mom sell it to a local youth pastor, and it's still on the road down in southwest Missouri ... as far as I know.

1978 Ford Fairmont Futura - somewhere in the mix, we bought a used Fairmont from a buddy, and drove for a few years. It wasn't a bad car, but I don't remember much else about it.

1987 Dodge Shadow - We liked this little pea-sized car, and drove it happily for a couple of years, until our first daughter came along in '89. That's when we discovered that the car seat was too big to fit in the back seat, which otherwise held 3 or 4 bags of groceries. But it was a tight fit. :)

1991 Dodge Spirit - a four-door car was definitely required, and we were determined to remain loyal to Mopar as long as my dad worked for Chrysler. The Spirit had a very spirited V-6, which I also enjoyed. That little sucker would scoot! We put some 130,000 miles on it, and drove it until the transmission stopped working.

 

1996 Chrysler Town and Country - ours was teal, but otherwise identical to the one pictured here. By this time we had two daughters, and needed the extra space. It was roomy, got pretty decent mileage, and made a good cruiser. The girls liked it when I discovered that the 3rd row seat could be removed, and the middle row could be moved half-way back. That gave them about five feet of leg room, and - more importantly - put them farther away from Mom and Dad. :)  We drove this one until it was time to move to Alaska.

 

1999 Ford Escort ZX2 - while I drove the minivan, my wife drove this little scooter. It had a 4-speed stick, got great mileage, and made a good commuter vehicle. I could drive it comfortably enough, but had trouble getting in and out of it.

 

1998 Ford Expedition - we bought this one a few weeks before driving to Alaska. It had to be something large enough to hold the four of us, our luggage, a couple of coolers, while pulling the ZX2 on a two-wheel dolly from St. Charles, MO to Anchorage (3,850 miles). We - okay, I loved that truck, and drove it until four years ago when I rolled it.

2007 Ford Taurus - this was the replacement for my wife's ZX2. Larger in every regard, it was a great highway cruiser, got 23 mpg, and ... and turned out to be a bad choice for Alaska. It simply didn't like winter AT ALL. The defroster couldn't keep the windows clear, no matter what. And it could not maintain traction on ice. It was an original Skidmobile, even with aggressive studded snow tires. She drove it until last year, but it was never a great car.

2006 Ford Explorer XLT - this is the replacement for my trusty Expedition. It's not quite the truck that Big Green was, but it does what it needs to do, and provides reliable transportation. Reasonable mileage, and has room to haul cargo as needed.

And that brings us to the most recent acquisition:

2014 Ford Escape - we bought this one in '15, and my wife loves it. Good mileage, purrs right along, and has a surprising amount of room inside. Due to the redesign from the traditional boxy style, there's nearly as much interior space as in my Explorer. Comfortable ride, too.

 

And thus concludes our little trip down memory lane. I appreciate your continued interest and/or patience, if you made it this far.

 

Thanks for stopping by, friends. Have a wonderful Friday, and an even better weekend!

TBT: Graduating Class of '84

Posted in lieu of actual content:



Graduation from Missouri Highway Patrol Academy, 1984
(We were mostly employed by local PDs across the state; went to the academy for training.
And I'm just left of the tallest guy in the back row.)

Since We're Talking About Auto Repair

then let's talk about what it was that we worked on. This is, as best I recall, a complete record of each type of auto that I've driven/owned. These vehicles are NOT the ones I had; most of these are in better shape!

1961 Chevy Bel Air - had the "old school" third row seating with the back seat facing the rear window. Dad let me borrow the keys when I turned 16.

1965 Dodge Custom 880, a slightly up-scale version of the Polara. As nearly as I could tell at the time, the only difference was the small fixed windows behind the back seat windows. It had a de-tuned 383 engine, and I thought I was king of the hill ... or something.

A '70 Ford Galaxie 500 was the first car I ever bought, on Adak. Mine looked ... well, ragged. It had apparently been a taxi, and there was bright yellow paint peeking out from under the robin's egg blue that the thing had been painted, poorly.

I mentioned this '67 Bronco, which I bought for my second winter on Adak. I'd gotten tired of having to jack up the Galaxie to put chains on, every time it snowed. And it snowed a lot.

1968 Dodge Super Bee. This one's much like the one I owned, but mine had a white vinyl roof (remember when that was a thing?) and white bumble bee stripes around the tail. 4:10 posi-trak rear end, 383 Magnum generating 400 hp ... sigh. Drove it for a couple of years, and sold it only because I couldn't keep my foot out of the 4-barrel. I still miss it.

Next was a '69 Bronco, which I thought was like the one I brought back from Alaska. Only not so much. It had a 302 V8, where the older model was a 289. It wasn't that the engine didn't run; it's just that it had originally been equipped with a V6, and someone shoehorned the larger block into the space. Had a rev limiter, and just wasn't the truck that the first one had been. I didn't keep it very long.

This gets me up to about 1979. Blogger won't let me add any more photos to this post, so I'll wait to see if anyone likes this before I scrounge up more car pics. For all I know, I've put all y'all to sleep.

If you made it this far, thanks for stopping by. :)

Auto Repairs & Yesteryear

From a comment from Proud Hillbilly on a previous post about vehicle maintenance:

Once upon a time I did some of the basic stuff on my vehicles. Now all I can or am inclined to do is open the hood and go "Yep. That's an engine." 

And it seems that's a deliberate design imposed by the manufacturers: the professional repair folks don't want the average driver to do any work themselves. Less money in their pockets, you see. Having said that, I also note that many new vehicles systems are so complicated that the average shade-tree mechanic is no longer able to work on them. At least, not with ordinary tools.

And of course, there are exceptions. Some people think nothing of tearing into a recent model car or truck and doing all sorts of things.

But it reminds me of arriving back in the Midwest, when I got out of the Navy, with a '67 Ford Bronco that I shipped from Adak to Seattle by cargo ship, and then drove home to the St. Louis area.

My '67 Bronco outside the Longview Barracks on Bering Hill, Adak. It had body damage - common on Adak - but good wipers, lights, two gas tanks, and a strong heater/defroster. All good things to have, in the Aleutian Islands.

I backed it into my dad's carport, whereupon I replaced the oil, all the u-joints in both driveshafts, rebuilt a front hub and the rear axle, and replaced the rear leaf-springs. Adjusted the clutch, rotated the tires, and drove it for another year before replacement.

I did all that work in less than a week. Looking back at the past weekend, in which it took two of us nearly five hours to access and replace six plugs, due to components which were in the way.

I finally have all the tools I'd ever wanted back in the day, and a few more besides, and there's less and less upon which I can use them.

Sigh...

Remember When ...

USS William M. Wood (DD 715)

Menton, France - located halfway between Nice and Monaco - was a fantastic port of call

My apartment in Elefsina, Greece, with views up and down the street

Navy buddies Steve Maxwell, Russ Haxton, Joe Cloninger, and Rick Corbett

The Parthenon, 1974

Me playing in the squadron band, and back at the apartment

At my parents' house in '75, on my way to Adak. I was promoted to E-4 while in transit, but didn't find out for a couple of months.

Sunset in the Mediterranean, c. 1974

Livestock Rustling (Sort of), Back in the Day

threecollie's post here reminded me of something that happened when I was in high school.

Yes, they had high schools back then. The last dinosaurs were gone, and it was safe to emerge from our caves. Get offa my lawn!


Er ... back to the story. We lived in farm country, and the FFA program* was a huge part of the local school system.

One of the local farm boys had a prize-winning sow that he was planning on entering for a second time in the local livestock contest. A couple of his classmates decided that, what the heck, it would be fun to make the sow go missing.

All in fun, you understand. They'd bring her back after a suitable interval of time ... really, they would.

So under cover of darkness, they did the deed.


In due time, the farm boy in question arose in the wee hours to feed the cattle, slop the hogs, et cetera, and discovered the empty pen. He promptly called the sheriff and reported the theft.

The other boys, with very large (and pregnant) sow in the bed of their pickup, were pulled over by a deputy in short order ... and taken to jail.

You see, Missouri still had a rustling statute on the books. They may still have, but I don't live there anymore, and don't care to try and find it now. It established "rustling" as a misdemeanor, unless it takes place after sunset. Then, it's a felony.


So the sheriff considered the circumstances, and called the high school principal - at 3:00 o'clock in the blessed a.m. - and agreed to release the boys into his custody, IF the principal would come get 'em: a 24-mile drive to the county jail.

Mr. Principal was NOT happy. Neither were their parents. And it was the talk of the town for the next couple of weeks, what with them boys bein' felons, and all. :)


And I can't help but wonder how many state and federal agents, from how many Alphabet Agencies, would descend upon those teenage boys if it happened today ... but I'll betcha they wouldn't be released to the school principal.



* Future Farmers of America

Boot Camp Memories, Part 2

(Part 1: enlisting in the Navy and arriving at boot camp, here.)



The first two weeks of boot camp were spent learning to march more or less at the same time, salute properly, recognize Navy rank insignia, and things like that. There's a lot of classroom work, throughout.

What, you ask, is to "salute properly"? I'm glad you asked.

A proper salute should have the arm straight out from the shoulder, elbow bent at a 45 30° angle*, and the forearm, wrist and hand in a straight line up from the elbow to the outside corner of the right eyebrow. (Yes, this was all hammered into us in boot camp, and I've never forgotten.)

Some of the salutes offered by newer recruits were comical in the extreme. We saw thumbs up, down, under, folded, bent, stuck straight out, or ... well, some made you want to say, "I don't care what you think of the company commander, stop using your thumb when you salute!"

Strangely enough to the uninitiated, much time is spent learning to fold your clothes. You see, there's an old admiral in a corner of the Pentagon who invents fiendish ways to fold skivvies. He (she?) probably hasn't seen the light of day for decades. Okay, okay ... I kid.

Sort of.

On Navy ships, each person has a small locker. Officers have a little more space, but their quarters aren't as crowded. In the WWII era, that locker was about two feet square, and one foot deep. (My destroyer was launched in 1945, so I know this from experience.) Newer ships have actual beds, rather than canvas slings like we did, so the enlisted lockers are the size of a single mattress, and eight inches deep. Modern sailors should be glad they have no idea what the tiny lockers were like.

But uniform items must be folded just so, in order to fit in the space available. In fact, that space on older ships was engineered to fit uniforms which are properly folded, and not an inch more.  Fitting in civvies along with my uniforms was tricky, so eventually I gave up and folded all my clothes like uniforms, which made things easier. But I digress.

In boot camp, we had to hem our own pants, which made me bless my mother - she wouldn't let me leave home until I learned to thread a needle, sew a hem, and sew on a button.

Thanks, Mom. :)


The third week of boot camp was called "service week".  Recruits in their third week are referred to as "service weeks", and that's when they clean, mop, and staff the chow lines at the mess hall. They bus tables, wash dishes, and take out the trash.

But some of us didn't have to do that. Some of us, being of a musical bent, had other duties.

Those who could sing were encouraged to join the Navy Chorus, to perform the Bluejacket's Hymn at graduation.

Those who could play brass instruments were encouraged to join the Bum and Droogle Drum and Bugle Corps.  So while most of our companies were slinging slop in the mess hall, or worse, we few ... we fortunate few ... sat in an upper room, practicing a couple of marching tunes, listening to the radio, or generally lounging around. Since I played the French horn throughout school, guess which group I fell in. :)


But most of our days were spent in a classroom setting, learning all sorts of things. Electrical safety, Naval history, how to follow sequential orders ("obey the last order first"), and shipboard safety in general. We were tested to see who could swim**, and how to stay afloat by using our dungarees as a flotation device.

We spent two days learning to put out shipboard fires. This is a biggie. Imagine you're on a ship in the middle of the ocean, and a fire breaks out.

Who ya gonna call?

Neither the Ghostbusters nor a fire department are available, so you have to take care of it. We donned appropriate gear, learned to connect fire hoses, different types of nozzles, foam applications for flammable liquids, and put out fires. We learned that crews on ships have a set terminology for fires, so that commands in those adrenaline-pumping situations are understood clearly.

And think about this: it's important to learn how to extinguish a fire quickly, without flooding the ship. Generally speaking, introducing sea water inside the ship is a BAD thing. So you learned how to operate portable pumps, to get the water back out before the ship sinks.

See? I told you it's a bad thing. :)


We marched and marched and marched, practiced the 96-count manual of arms ... what? You don't know what that is? You've seen drill teams slapping rifles to either shoulder & going through elaborate exercises in unison. Like that, without the twirling or tossing rifles back and forth.

96 consecutive moves, in unison, performed by all 80 men. We practiced until it was in unison ... and heaven help you if you dropped your "piece" (1903 Springfield battle rifles with the firing pins removed).


The final week of boot camp ... when the company no longer swayed in preparation for the first step ... when everyone started on the same foot, classes were finished, shoes were polished, creases were sharp enough to shave with, salutes were crisp ... all of which meant that we could properly follow orders ...

All this meant was we were qualified to join the fleet, and start learning what the Navy is really like. That's when our education began in earnest.

Some went to ships, but most went on to training school to learn the basics of their chosen field. But we were sailors, and life would never be same again.


* My 40-year-old memories of the situation were just corrected by PioneerPreppy in comments, below. Thanks, my friend.

** Contrary to what one might think, non-swimmers were not exempt from shipboard duty. Sailors go on ships, after all. But their service records were stamped in big black letters: NON-SWIMMER. I'm sure this made a difference to them if their ship was sinking.

Attention, Motorheads

A friend just sent me this link.

This is a web-site featuring the original factory brochures for nearly every American car you have ever owned. Go here, and enjoy!

What Are The Odds?

In August 1962, a seven-year-old boy on summer vacation between 1st and 2nd grade mailed a post card to his teacher, and never thought about it again.

In 2013, a woman from his mother's hometown was shopping in a flea market some 300 miles away in another state,  and found the card. She recognized the boy's name, and bought the card for couple of bucks.

Yes, my last name is painted out for this post. Spots in the corners appear to be where the card was affixed to a photo album or something similar.

Returning home, the woman contacted the mother and asked if it was from her son. That mother then sent it to her son to ask if he remembered it.


No, I don't, but I thought the world of Ms. Gillespie at the time.  She's long gone, of course, and the card must have been part of an estate sale. What a strange chain of events has returned the card to me, 51 years later. And to think she kept the card ...



p.s. I'm looking at the card as a snapshot from an America that has all but passed from memory. Note the lack of zip codes, the three-cent postage, and the inscription ("In God We Trust") on the stamp.

Musing

The graduation of my youngest had me thinking back over the last 23 years since becoming a father, and remembering.

When the nurse handed me our firstborn and said goodbye, I was struck by a wave of panic. "What do you mean, goodbye? I'm just supposed to take this little person and leave? Isn't there an owner's manual or something?"

Flash forward six years to the next birth. As we were chatting with the OB nurse, a more practical type, she asked if we'd heard her advice for new parents.

"If the baby turns red, she's hot.  If she turns blue, she's too cold. If she's green, she's sick.  Your job as parents is to keep the baby from changing colors."

Good advice.

Topsy-Turvy Weather Continues

We got up to 48 degrees for awhile today, while the winds continue to bluster and blow. The streets, sidewalks and parking lots are icy, sloppy, and generally unpleasant.

Added to the general mess and poor driving conditions, we had cross winds coming off the mountains, gusting to 30 mph or above, causing highway to change lanes involuntarily.

Let's just say the drive to work this morning wasn't much fun, although yesterday's ice-skate was worse. But enough about that.

Other than weather-related closures, there's still not much local news that seems comment-worthy. We're watching the building furor, hubbub and excitement on the east coast with wonder, curiousity and ... I'll admit ... some head-scratching.

Judging by the breathless gushing of the MSM, it appears that the United States is about to inaugurate its very first President. I cannot otherwise explain the grown men and women who burst into tears at the mention of the event, as evidenced on the evening news. I've always thought we did this every four years, but what do I know?

The first politicial event of which I have clear memories was the inauguration of JFK. I remember seeing him, along with President Eisenhower, riding on the back of a convertible in the parade, waving to the crowds. I remember also the discussions that took place during the campaign regarding President Kennedy's affiliation with the Catholic church, which struck me as a strange thing to worry about, even then.

I remember seeing bits of the televised Kennedy-Nixon debate, as well, although I wasn't really interested in the discussion. I remember that my parents liked Nixon, though.

I didn't set out to talk about the 1960 campaign, so I'll stop - and probably not a moment too soon. I'm discovering that it's awfully easy to swerve into a "remember when" session ... which I never understood when I was younger. Oops.

Take care, friends!