Do You Recall These?

A while back, I wrote on this blog about going with my dad to replace the vacuum tubes in our old television when I was a kid. Thinking about that caused me to remember some other things that those of us who have reached "middle age" may recall that our younger friends and neighbors may not have any recollection about. Do you remember the following things? I do!

• Adjusting the "vertical hold" knob on the TV to stop the picture from rolling.
• TVs and "Hi-Fis" were built into a piece of furniture.
  
• Stacking records on the "changer", and using the fat spindle that went over the small one. The skinny one was for 33 rpm "LPs", while the fat one was for "45s". Then there were those "78s".
  
• Gathering pop bottles to return to the store for the 2 cents per bottle deposit refund.
• Regular Cokes came in 6.5 oz. bottles, King Size was 10 oz., and then they started making the extra tall 16 oz. bottles.
• Coke bottles has the name of the city where the bottle originated on the bottom.
• Bottle caps had cork inside rather than plastic.
• Appliance cords that had cloth insulation around them rather than plastic.
• Trading stamps, such as S&H, Top Value, and Plaid.
• Service station attendants who checked the oil, the tires, and pumped your gasoline for you. They also actually had service bays and mechanics on duty.
  
• Free road maps available at service stations.
• U.S. Currency was usually "Silver Certificates", redeemable on demand in pure silver.
• Ben Franklin silver dollars, Mercury dimes, indian head nickles, and wheat pennies.
• U.S. coins from before 1964, when they were not made of layers you could see on the edge.
• The NBC peacock on the TV, while the announcer intoned, "The following program is brought to you in living color on NBC". In our house, it was black and white anyway.
• Parents warned us that sitting too close to the TV would ruin our eyes, as would watching it with the lights off. (Come to think of it, I DO wear glasses!)
  
• Baby car seats that just hooked over the back of the seat, and had little steering wheels on them so the baby could pretend to drive.
• Tricycles, wagons, and such were made of metal. So were Tonka Toy trucks.
• Getting a polio vaccine, first as a shot, then on a sugar cube. Also getting the smallpox vaccination.
• Tinker Toys, Lincoln Logs, and Erector Sets (yeah, these are still around, but not so popular anymore).
• You could get spanked at school, and if you did, you'd probably get another one when you got home.
• TVs were made in the U.S. by companies like RCA, Zenith, Emerson, and Philco.
• AM radio was king, and the band entended only to 1600 kilocycles per second, now called kilohertz.
• Celsius temperatures were called Centigrade temperatures.
• Air raid drills at school where you crawled under your desk, tucked your head between your legs, and placed your hands over the back of your neck.
• A fun passtime in the spring was flying a kite, and the best ones were homemade.
• Clock radios with hands, before those "digital" ones came out with the flip digits.
• Radio was local, rather than the same syndicated junk coast to coast.
• Many drugstores had soda fountains where you could get something to eat and an ice cream treat.
• Fishing was catching a fish with a long bamboo pole, line, hook, a bobber, and a worm.
• Shampoo came in glass bottles that were easy to drop and break in the shower (e.g. Prell and Breck).
  
• Pycopay toothbrushes ("Get a Pycopay today!"), Pepsodent and Ipana toothpaste. ("You'll wonder where the yellow went, when you brush your teeth with Pepsodent!")
• Brylcreem ("A little dab'll do ya!"), Vitalis, and Rose hair dressing for men.
• Five Day deodorant pads.
• Rotary dial telephones.
• Big Ben alarm clocks.
• Cigarette commercials on TV ("Over, under, around, and through; Pall Mall delivers flavor to you."; "Winston tastes good like a cigarette should."; "I'd walk a mile for a Camel!"; "Happiness is the taste of Kent"; "Show us your Lark!"; "LS/MFT, Lucky Strike Means Fine Tobacco"; "Come to where the flavor is, come to Marlboro Country."; "You can take Salem out of the country, but...you can't take the country out of Salem"; "Chesterfield 101s, a silly millimeter longer!"; "You've come a long way baby, now you have your own cigarette...Virginia Slims!")
• Flat tires were not the rare occurrence they are today.
• Chrysler experimented with an automatic transmission controlled by push buttons rather than a gear shift lever.
• Cars that you had to push a button after turning the key to start the engine.
• High beam switches on the floor board of cars.
• Those little spinner knobs people put on their steering wheels.
• Comic books were a dime, then went to 12 cents. Comics like Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse, and various western and science fiction comics were popular, as well as Superman and other super hero titles.
• A nickel Hershey bar that was bigger than the ones we have now for over half a dollar. The dime size was more than a kid could comfortably eat at once.
• A quarter was a good weekly allowance for a kid.
• Pic mosquito coils burned at the drive-in theater to keep the bugs at bay. The drive in also had playground equipment, and featured cartoons between the two main feature films.
• Dentists had drills run by an electric motor and a belt. You had to spit in a sink with swirly water, and the tray was rimmed with white pointy porcelain that looked like pointed little teeth.
• Movie monsters like Dracula, Wolfman and The Blob were scary!

What things do YOU remember?

Another Republican President, Another Erased Tape

Philosopher George Santayana was right, when he wrote that "Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it." The Bush administration appears to be fulfilling this sobering statement in many ways. If only President Bush had paid attention to the lessons of the 1960s & 1970s, he would not be taking the nation down a misguided path we have traveled before.

First, the involvement in Iraq and the saber rattling against Iran are reminiscent of the divisive Vietnam War and the expansion of hostilities into Cambodia and Laos. Now we have a Nixonesque incident involving the erasure of White House tapes.

This time, it is the recycling of email archival tapes that were a record of White House communications over eight months in 2003. This should be considered destruction of evidence, as the time period in question would have email related to both the military action in Iraq, but also the unmasking of CIA agent Valerie Plame. One has to wonder if this is not accidental, but rather done to protect those involved in the outing of Plame, including Scooter Libby and possibly others in the administration.

If our senators fail to impeach Bush and his cronies, the nation owes an apology to President Nixon. In this writer's humble opinion, the current president has committed acts far worse than those allegedly done by RMN. This in no way excuses President Nixon for the Watergate cover up, but merely points out the fact that if his actions deserved impeachment, then certainly those of this administration deserve no less.

It get back to the Watergate-era question . . . "What did the President know, and when did he know it?"