Wouldn't Trade My Childhood For Nothing

[joelayres]

Other TV shows that were a part of my childhood.
Flip Wilson
Hee Haw
Swat
Kojak
Get Smart
Avengers
The Green Hornet

My dad was a fan of western movies.
All the John Wayne western's were watched.

You forgot:
Sanford and Son
The Jackie Gleason show
Rawhide
Gunsmoke
The Rifleman
Batman
Bj and the Bear (LOL)..
Laugh in
The Nightstalker (Kolchack)

Lest we forget:

All in the Family
M.A.S.H.
Planet of the Apes
Bonanza
Ironside
Cannon
Baretta
Lost in Space
The Munsters
Happy Days
Leave it to Beaver (gotta love Eddie Haskall!)

And the best part - all of these shows on three channels!

[jgcable]

That's a damned lie!

It's funny, but a lot of us older farts here at the JCF have experienced things in our youth that would blow these youngster's minds. I guess it's that way with every generation. But I can honestly say, I wouldn't trade a bit of my childhood experiences for what kids see and do these days!

Here's a few random thoughts that ran through my head while typing this crap! Some of it carries over into being a young adult.

Remember wooden tennis rackets?

Before backhoes, we used sharpshooters.

Remember black & white TV?

If you don't remember Red Skelton, boy have you missed out on "true" comedy.

8-tracks

Visiting grandparents who didn't have indoor plumbing. Ever wiped your ass with a corn cob or a page from the Sears Roebuck catalog?

Rotary dial phones

Column shift vehicles

Filling up the gas tank on a Honda SL 125 for $.32

Watching The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show

Silly Putty and Slinkys

The Mod Squad, Combat and The Rat Patrol

$.25 lunches at school, extra $.25 would get ya an Icee, a candy bar, and some bubble gum after school.

Banana seat bikes (yea fuckers, we started BMX)

Going to church on Wednesday nights, twice on Sunday, and Monday night choir practice whether you wanted to or not.

Riding the school bus.

Model airplanes and ships (build them then blow them up with firecrackers)

Cokes in glass bottles, 6 1/2 oz, 10 oz, and 16 oz ($.05 refund on empties)

Leisure suits

Remember when McDonald's hamburgers were $.19 each?

Remember when Playboy and Penthouse were the only skin magazines?

Remember Christmas tree forts?

And finally, no computers, no Internet, no cell phones. Give us a pile of dirt, a spoon, some plastic army men, and we could entertain ourselves for hours. We had wonderful imaginations!

Add to the list, I know you can!

Mark, are we the same person or what. I remember all of that..

How about drive in movies
WHT (the first cable movies)
Monty Python on channel 13
Wetsons
tapping your carb with a hammer to unstick the float
manual chokes
CB radio
slot car tracks
flyers up
red light.. green light
ANTHONY!!!.....................
Wednesday is Prince Spaghetti day
Being in the cub scouts was cool
bell bottoms
Pro keds
Jean Jackets
the wars between the Led Zep and Kiss fans
When the first Honda Civic came out
The Plymouth Superbird
How about when school was
Kindergarden through 6th grade was Elementary School
7th through 9th was Junior High School
10th thru 12th was High School
Wonderama
The infamous Apollo Mach 5 bicycle with the 5spd, bananna seat, sissy bar, shocks in the front and that bad ass slick with the red pin stripe on the rear.
Building your bicycles from parts at the junkyard
Building your own go carts out of any wood you could find and shopping cart wheels
How about how it used to snow tons back in the day and we used to make snow forts that would last until almost March
BB Guns
Burning ants with a magnifying glass
Major Matt Mason
GI Joe
Hot Wheels
How about your first paper route? I worked 6 days a week and took home $13.00 per week. That was enough money to allow me to buy a pack of Suzie Q's and an RC Cola with the look under the cap and a nice model to build every week along with putting around $10.00 in the bank!
Chocolate Ice Cubes were .02 ea
We used to drive around in my 68' Dodge Dart all night long on $5.00 worth of gas.
The coat room in your elementary school
The Pinewood Derby was a huge event
Cox Pop up campers
The Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser
Air Raid Drills
The Space Pen
Popeils Pocket Fisherman
Bruno Samartino
Ivan Putsky
Capezio Shoes
Disco's
Listening to the Mohammed Ali/Joe Frazer fight in Minila on my dads UHF radio in the living room
Snorkel Coats
Party Lines on the telephone
Having milk delivered daily by the Delwood Milkman in a glass bottle stored in a metal Delwood container that was on the front porch.
When the first Solid State TV came out!!!
Turbo Ovens
Fondue
Mood Rings
Pet Rocks
Feather earings

[Cleveland Metal]

Damn, you guys are old.... hehehe....

[Carbuff]

Mark, are we the same person or what. I remember all of that..

How about drive in movies
WHT (the first cable movies)
Monty Python on channel 13
Wetsons
tapping your carb with a hammer to unstick the float
manual chokes
CB radio
slot car tracks
flyers up
red light.. green light
ANTHONY!!!.....................
Wednesday is Prince Spaghetti day
Being in the cub scouts was cool
bell bottoms
Pro keds
Jean Jackets
the wars between the Led Zep and Kiss fans
When the first Honda Civic came out
The Plymouth Superbird
How about when school was
Kindergarden through 6th grade was Elementary School
7th through 9th was Junior High School
10th thru 12th was High School
Wonderama
The infamous Apollo Mach 5 bicycle with the 5spd, bananna seat, sissy bar, shocks in the front and that bad ass slick with the red pin stripe on the rear.
Building your bicycles from parts at the junkyard
Building your own go carts out of any wood you could find and shopping cart wheels
How about how it used to snow tons back in the day and we used to make snow forts that would last until almost March
BB Guns
Burning ants with a magnifying glass
Major Matt Mason
GI Joe
Hot Wheels
How about your first paper route? I worked 6 days a week and took home $13.00 per week. That was enough money to allow me to buy a pack of Suzie Q's and an RC Cola with the look under the cap and a nice model to build every week along with putting around $10.00 in the bank!
Chocolate Ice Cubes were .02 ea
We used to drive around in my 68' Dodge Dart all night long on $5.00 worth of gas.
The coat room in your elementary school
The Pinewood Derby was a huge event
Cox Pop up campers
The Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser
Air Raid Drills
The Space Pen
Popeils Pocket Fisherman
Bruno Samartino
Ivan Putsky
Capezio Shoes
Disco's
Listening to the Mohammed Ali/Joe Frazer fight in Minila on my dads UHF radio in the living room
Snorkel Coats
Party Lines on the telephone
Having milk delivered daily by the Delwood Milkman in a glass bottle stored in a metal Delwood container that was on the front porch.
When the first Solid State TV came out!!!
Turbo Ovens
Fondue
Mood Rings
Pet Rocks
Feather earings

Wow, I remember all of that stuff. I delivered the Long Island Press till it went out of business. I won the pinewood derby twice!! I still have the trophys. Remember cutting the forks off a bike and bolting them on the end of yours to create a "chopper" That thing was impossible to control. AFX cars and drinking yoohoo from bottles because it was cool. That milk box got really gross inside. It was a tin box lined with styrofoam. Drive inns ruled. We hid people in the trunk and shit. Then we poured beer on the car and told them that it was raining. The rubber seal was gone, they got wet, but hey, they didnt have to pay. My friend had an Indian motorcycle. Man that thing was broken 90% of the time All the controls were opposite. Fun times indeed. 4 wheelin, Lawn jobs, ( I dont mean mowing the lawn). Wow this could go on forever.

[UFORocks]

Man, you guys are making me reminisce. I remember I got my first BMX bike when I was about 7. My step-brother Jack and I used to spend literally hours riding around this construction site behind his grandmother's house. We'd come home with skinned knees and elbows all covered in gravel. My old man would check our helmets for cracks and make sure the bikes still went straight and then send us up to get showered and ready for dinner.

I picked my first car out of a junk yard at age 15, which my dad and I spent a year rebuilding together.

I saw one of the first porno sites on the net in 1997. It had maybe 100 pictures on it and took about 2 minutes to load the home page at 33.6. I was 16.

I got my first cell phone in 1999. It cost me $30 a month, had 150 minutes, and I couldn't pass the credit check required for long distance so it was useless outside of my state.


I could go on like this forever. Man... I hope my kids are as tough as I was as a kid. My brother's got good kids, but they're fucking sissies compared to he and I when we were little.

-Steve

[SEEGERMANY]

Ok, try to follow along. As kids, we'd scour the countryside looking for old swing sets that had the attachment where two kids sat across from one another. The picture above is sort of modern, but if you'll notice the long poles directly in front of the seat, that's what we would take our hack saws to. Once we got them apart, we'd slide those long poles onto the ends of our bike forks to make banana seat choppers! That front wheel was so far out there, it had its own time zone! Eat your fucking heart out Jessie James!

[Endrik]

we used to swing with those

[SEEGERMANY]

Remember when your parents would drop you off at the State Fair with $30 and you could ride all day, eat all day, and use the pay phone to call them at when the fair closed late that night? Guess what, you normally had several bucks left over!

Someone mentioned TV shows. Gotta mention these. (this should give you insight into my warped sense of humor)

The Three Stooges (Curly, Larry, and Moe)
Welcome Back Kotter
All In The Family
The Jeffersons
Mission Impossible
Hart To Hart
The Flying Nun
Hawaii Five-0 (lived for this show)
Johnny Quest
Dick Van Dyke
Andy Griffith
12 0 Clock High
Sonny & Cher
Lucille Ball Show (primo comedy)
The Glen Campbell Show (primo guitar picking)
Looney Tunes
Lost In Space
Room 222
Laugh In
Kung Fu
The Big Valley
Palladin
Bonanza

[Endrik]

Bonanza was the best, I wouldn't miss an episode.

I remember going to see every single movie that came to the cinema and not paying ridiculous prices and usually the movies didn't suck. I remember that in one cinema my family always had the best seats and a table on the balcony. No such things anymore.

I remember seeing Fellini films on TV.

I remember when there was no reality shows and 15 min commercials.

[VitaminG]

Damn, you guys are old.... hehehe....

I'll say! They all sound like my old man:

Back in my day, we had to walk to school in neck deep snow, up hill in both directions in the blinding heat. Of course, we had no public transport system - none of these fancy pants buses - so we'd have to leave the house at 4.30 just to make it school by 8.00.

On weekends, your grandma would give me tuppence to go to the flicks. That would be enough to pay for the feature, a box of popcorn, a large sarsparilla float & a choc-top ice cream. And still leave me with enough left over to drop into the local knock shop for some slap and tickle on the way home.

[SEEGERMANY]

Back in my day, we had to walk to school in neck deep snow, up hill in both directions in the blinding heat.

I knew you guys had extreme climates, but hot snow?

[SEEGERMANY]

Upon reflection, there was very little pressure for me growing up as a kid. Yea, I had a shitload of chores, was expected to do well in school, give my best effort in sports, stay groomed and mind my manners. But the one pressure that we didn't have much of was the pressure to have SEX.

Todays youth is surrounded by sex. Television, video games, every form of media focuses on sex! Young pre-teen girls look like they're twenty and if they don't measure up, society labels them as weird, mal-adjusted, and tells them to go puke their guts up till they look like a string bean! I was recently at a friend's house and his two boys were playing some violent video game where half the characters were half dressed, big boobed bimbos. I thought the two kids were gonna blow a load playing a stupid video game! Sorry, but imagine the lack of respect these kids are going to have for women as they grow older.

But seriously, back when I was growing up, I think I had "sort of" a girlfriend in junior high school and a couple girlfriends in high school. In all honesty, girls were a distraction from sports and hanging out with my buds (who had buds, cough cough). I didn't give a shit who "popped" Mary Jo Rotten Crotch or whether Skinny Penny put out! I was more concerned whether Brad Lackey was going to win the 500cc World Title. Or who was going to replace Ritchie Blackmore after the album Stormbringer. Or where the fuck was Michael Schenker? I remember this one kid, his name was Kenny, would stop by my house on Fridays after school. I'd be getting my Elsinore ready for Saturday and Sunday races. He'd fire up a cigarette, take a toke, then would ask me if I was gonna get my middle finger stinky over the weekend. My hands would be covered in grease and chain lube and I'd be thinking "well, yea, seems I have a pretty good start!"

[nhspike]

Digital clocks with the leafs that flipped down to change the number.
Steel-wheeled skates that you strapped on to your Converse sneakers.
Tube socks, the long ones with the thick stripes.
Power Passers.
Battery of the month card from radio shack.
Whirly Birds.
Dolby B.
Drawing the Kiss logo on your blue cloth covered three-ring binder.
Cleaning the ball-bearings on your skate board wheels.
The first "kick tail" skateboards.
Taking a torch to our skate board to try and make it a "kick tail" (doesn't work, and stinks up the whole house)
Sitting through Lawrence Welk.
Watching Hee Haw and wondering why Dad was laughing his ass off.
Wondering what it was about Elvis that made Mom act so strange.
Shag carpets.
The smell of leaded gas.
Paper air planes.
Real BB gun fights with the neighbors (and having your brother pick BB's out of your ass cheek)
Freshin Up gum (with the green-goo inside)
Bubble Yum
Vespa scooters
Big puzzles
2001 a space odyssey
Walking on the moon
Camaro vs. Mustang
Bell bottoms
Puma sneakers
Thinking pepperoni was hot

Ahhhhh youth!

[SEEGERMANY]

Excellent list!

"shag carpets" Oh shit, did your parents have a carpet rake?

[SEEGERMANY]

Real BB gun fights with the neighbors (and having your brother pick BB's out of your ass cheek)

I remember when I shot Jim Sanders in the hip with my BB gun. The fat fuck ran home and told his mom. About an hour later, I was sitting in my room and the doorbell rang. I heard my mother talking to someone and then I heard "Mark Brian, come here now!" I don't know about you cats, but when your middle name was used, your ass was grass!

"Did you shoot Jimbo in the leg"

"Yes ma'am"

"Don't you realize that you could have hit him in the eye?"

"I wasn't aiming for his eye"

Yessir, that last comment got me grounded for about six weeks!