Advertisements for portable radios would brag about how many transistors it had. Milk delivered by the milkman in the middle of the night. Looking through the holes in the floorboards for the optional seatbelts in my grandfather's Plymouth Valiant and watching the road go by. Car seats for kids hooked over the front seat back. The J. C. Whitney catalog with products like the reusable toilet paper oil filter. Pushbutton transmission on my father's Chrysler. A neighbor up the street had a BMW Isetta. I'd love to have that now.
How OLD are you.
- Thread starter Malo83
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I still have a skate key and the thing that goes into 45 rpm records and a church key.
We had oranges and walnuts too. The nuts we just put back in the nut bowl.
Oh boy. My truck has the dimmer switch on the floor.
We had a party line when I was very young.
I have started a truck with a foot starter.
I have pumped a gas pedal to keep a cold carbureated engine running .
I have installed ignition points pretty recently.
I have bought parts from JC. Whitney.
I have shopped @ Chief auto parts.
I have driven a peterbilt with no power steering.No AC, A 100% mechanical Diesel and a brownie transmission.
I got my first automotive job because I could drive a 3 on the tree.
Sickening!
We had a party line when I was very young.
I have started a truck with a foot starter.
I have pumped a gas pedal to keep a cold carbureated engine running .
I have installed ignition points pretty recently.
I have bought parts from JC. Whitney.
I have shopped @ Chief auto parts.
I have driven a peterbilt with no power steering.No AC, A 100% mechanical Diesel and a brownie transmission.
I got my first automotive job because I could drive a 3 on the tree.
Sickening!
Speedometers were horizontal things half way across the dashboard.
You are too young to be on this forum!
Me, too, for everything but the last three. I have however purchased parts from Al's Auto Supply before it became O'Rielly's, driven a GMC with a brownie and rode in the backseat during a road trip on top of a crib mattress.
I'm so old that I remember the big 4th of July all day celebration at the local park. In the afternoon we had a demolition derby figure 8 race on dirt. Sometimes they had a figure eight race without intention of demolition. And later the cars that still ran then did a demolition race. That was fun to watch. And of course at the end of the day fireworks.
I remember the light blue De-Soda my dad had. It had a voltage drop resistor that reduced the voltage for the ignition when running and bypassed that so full battery voltage went to the points ignition during starting. The dropping resistor was simply a length of flat braded steel wire that was mounted parallel and close to the firewall. One time dad left the keys on somehow after shutting off the engine and the points happened to be closed. The dropping resistor got so hot it was smoking, and dad thought the car was going to catch fire. We were at his parents house and he phoned his mechanic who explained what was going on to him.
That car also had a relay that controlled the turning on and off of the generator (not an alternator). There was a removable black painted steel cover over the relay and inside it had an adjustment screw on the spring tension so the trip voltage of the relay could be adjusted. When the battery voltage got high enough the relay tripped and opened the contact to shut down the generator. When the voltage was low the relay dropped the normally closed contacts and the generator would be energized if the ignition was on. This predated transistor voltage regulators. And of course the metal of the body of that thing was like a tank.
I remember the whole family mom dad and there 7 kids and a neighbor kid we always brought along piling into dad's big Chevy station wagon and going camping for 2 weeks in August every summer with no AC just the front windows open some and the back window of the wagon opened some doing 57 mph for 2 hours to go camping for 2 weeks. No 3rd row seats, just have kids sit on the metal back, and take turns of who got to sit in the second row. Mom alway brought along a small insulated bag with ice and some cold water and cold wet washcloth for the youngest kids and the very youngest sat up front between Mom and Dad. In earlier years we would go places for a day and Mom always held the baby. No child seats. They had not been invented yet.
I'm so old that I remember when politicins of both parties got along.
I remember the light blue De-Soda my dad had. It had a voltage drop resistor that reduced the voltage for the ignition when running and bypassed that so full battery voltage went to the points ignition during starting. The dropping resistor was simply a length of flat braded steel wire that was mounted parallel and close to the firewall. One time dad left the keys on somehow after shutting off the engine and the points happened to be closed. The dropping resistor got so hot it was smoking, and dad thought the car was going to catch fire. We were at his parents house and he phoned his mechanic who explained what was going on to him.
That car also had a relay that controlled the turning on and off of the generator (not an alternator). There was a removable black painted steel cover over the relay and inside it had an adjustment screw on the spring tension so the trip voltage of the relay could be adjusted. When the battery voltage got high enough the relay tripped and opened the contact to shut down the generator. When the voltage was low the relay dropped the normally closed contacts and the generator would be energized if the ignition was on. This predated transistor voltage regulators. And of course the metal of the body of that thing was like a tank.
I remember the whole family mom dad and there 7 kids and a neighbor kid we always brought along piling into dad's big Chevy station wagon and going camping for 2 weeks in August every summer with no AC just the front windows open some and the back window of the wagon opened some doing 57 mph for 2 hours to go camping for 2 weeks. No 3rd row seats, just have kids sit on the metal back, and take turns of who got to sit in the second row. Mom alway brought along a small insulated bag with ice and some cold water and cold wet washcloth for the youngest kids and the very youngest sat up front between Mom and Dad. In earlier years we would go places for a day and Mom always held the baby. No child seats. They had not been invented yet.
I'm so old that I remember when politicins of both parties got along.
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Anyone here old enough to remember having an ice box instead of a fridge?
My first car was my grandpa's 59 Ford Galaxy. It was the early '70s. Had a two speed automatic, 300 cubic inch inline 6. No power nothing, even had the floor switch for the high beams. It was a tank.
I never saw one of those in use, but I have seen my share of "gas flame refrigerators". All were ancient, huge and immensely heavy.
My G'ma would take me to the Narrows. This was before the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge -opened 1964- was built.
There I recall meeting her 'friends'; men who had served in the Spanish American War.
I thought that was pretty cool at the time and my opinion hasn't changed.
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lol just yesterday when I told a coworker that I got a beatdown from NYPD, it's how it was then, he said what year was that? I said 1991 (I know he was thinking hmmm I wasn't born yet). Then another coworker said come over here.....he had brought up the LA Riots and we started to talk about them, that was 1992....let's face it. many of my coworkers are young enough to be my own kid. I'm ok with it. They're actually quite good workers (or they wouldn't be working with us). They do give me hope, seriously.
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Man I remember when that bridge was roughly $14 and I thought $14??!! Today that's cheap lol (well it's tolled both directions now).
Pre-pandemic we were still paying $6 (car pool rate >=3 people) to cross the Hudson, that's gone....
I'm so old I used to play "war" with my friends in the apricot orchard behind our house. Imagine that now, kids with toy rifles, playing outside, pretending to shoot each other dead. Now days someone would call the police and the SWAT team would be there in minutes. All of us fun loving boys would be forced to be evaluated by a "mental health professional".
As an aside, one of my neighborhood playmates in the mid '60s was the younger sister of Susan Atkins, of Charles Manson fame.
Scott
As an aside, one of my neighborhood playmates in the mid '60s was the younger sister of Susan Atkins, of Charles Manson fame.
Scott
Well, not in my neck of the woods, the kids use nerf guns, but the one friend has a whole armory of them wrapped in green camo canvas. I suspect airsoft is on his Xmas list this year...I'm so old I used to play "war" with my friends in the apricot orchard behind our house. Imagine that now, kids with toy rifles, playing outside, pretending to shoot each other dead. Now days someone would call the police and the SWAT team would be there in minutes. All of us fun loving boys would be forced to be evaluated by a "mental health professional".
As an aside, one of my neighborhood playmates in the mid '60s was the younger sister of Susan Atkins, of Charles Manson fame.
Scott
My car with wind up windows is a novelty for some of the kids friends though!
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Now days in my "forward thinking" state of California we would be rounded up like delinquents and put into "juvie" where we could play video games that would graphically show us blowing people's brains out. Things are so much better now. <sarcasm>
Scott
Really Pre-Pandemic, when the bridge collected tolls going westbound, they (the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Auth.) would leave the extreme right gate open, and we'd routinely go through without paying.
That money went into the tank.
SammyChevelleTypeS3
$50 site donor 2023
Now that is old. No matter what anyone else said! I recall the milk man deliveries. Us kids would run behind his slow moving truck and climb in the back. He would play like he did not know it and then slow down and toss ice at us. Then he would give us little glass bottles of chocolate milk. Super nice guy. I later worked with him as a stock boy (12 yrs old) at the local grocery store.
Ice cream and donut trucks used to cruise the streets of my childhood neighborhood. My Mom used to buy a donut for our German Shepard/Collie mix (Charcoal, RIP you sweet girl), who would drool in anticipation. I remember one time (early '60s) some wacko woman accused our canine family member of being rabid and fled the scene in terror. I vividly remember that for some reason.
Scott
PS Picture taken in front of our Hayward, CA home in 1958.
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