Thank you for this reminder!Originally Posted by The Grey Badger
I've noticed a difference between Boomer and Xer women and their involvement in sports. Title IX, which passed in 1972 but didn't really get implemented until 1975, made it law that girl's sports in public schools got as much money as boy's sports. My high school gym classes in the early 70's were much more like GB's than those of just slightly younger women.
Same here. We got tennis and soccer, and that was it.
GB, great post. You outlined my mother's life perfectly. I still have many of her suits and dresses from the period. Oh, but you forgot the gloves!
"The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them." —Albert Einstein
"The road to perdition has ever been accompanied by lip service to an ideal." —Albert Einstein
"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex... It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.” —Albert Einstein
You're right. I did. And the hats with the little veils.Same here. We got tennis and soccer, and that was it.
GB, great post. You outlined my mother's life perfectly. I still have many of her suits and dresses from the period. Oh, but you forgot the gloves!
And this was if you were lucky enough to be born white.
You might be a Silent or older if you ....
Know what a house dress is.
Still wear nylons or panty hose under what you still call "slacks'.
Still wrestle with bobby pins and brush rollers and wear a bandanna over your hair to protect your hairdo. Or remember doing so.
Ever had to squish the bag full of lard-colored oleo until the little yellow food coloring capsule broke, and then keep on squishing it until the oleo was uniformly colored.
Know how Blackout Curtains originally got their name and why it was important to have them.
Remember seeing your father in a war news segment of a newsreel before he came home. And couldn't remember seeing him in person before, just the photo your mom had.
Had a big old vacuum tube radio by your bedside and kept it tuned to the various dramas like "The FBI in Peace and War."
Had to share a bedroom with your sister as a matter of course.
Were totally convinced that any misdeeds that came to the attention of the school would go on your permanent record. And any misdeeds outside of school meant - you thought - risking a stay in "juvie." (Not that it ever happened.) And never once stopped to wonder what size bureaucracy it would take to keep all those permanent records and what a wonderful job opportunity for a file clerk it was.
Taking an aptitude test in high school, and because you were so verbal, being told you should go into clerical work. Note: they did not mean the kind that called for a Roman collar. They meant the kind where you found the place in the file cabinet alphabetically and put the file folder back.
Didn't people always have carbon paper and yellow second sheets when they needed to write something that wasn't personal?
Remember what a wonderful invention wite-out was?
BTW, how would you describe the most typical 24 y.o. of 2010?
You might be a Boomer or older if...
1. You remember black-and-white televisions.
2. You remember TV sets without UHF channels... and only three channels of broadcast TV (unless you lived in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, or some place between two big cities).
3. You remember some local character on local broadcast TV, some "Cowboy Carl", "Ranger Ralph", "Pirate Pete", or the like who had a "clubhouse" that showed cartoons.
4. You remember when most radios had only AM frequencies.
5. You remember when every radio station at night had very different programming.
6. You remember how bad the Kansas City A's and Washington Senators were.
7. You remember when the AFL and NFL were rivals.
8. You remember variety shows on network TV.
9. You remember when the Beach Boys were a phenomenon.
10. You actually used a hula hoop.
11. You remember a long trip (500 miles or more) mostly on two-lane highways from town to town.
12. You remember hearing of the "Jet Set" when air travel was supposedly glamorous instead of Greyhound in the Sky.
13. You remember Captain Kangaroo and thought Sesame Street "kid stuff".
14. You remember when you could tell the difference between cars of the same model from year to year and between companies (instead of accidentally trying to your Chevrolet car keys into the key slot for a KIA as I recently did!)
15. You had a stay-at-home mom.
16. You missed Andy Griffith because you had to go to bed at 8:30.
17. The Draft that could most affect your life wasn't by MLB, the NFL, the NBA, or the NHL even if you were 'only' a sports fan.
Not so funny --
18. You remember November 22, 1963 as if it were yesterday.
19. You remember some official-looking people pulling a bullet-riddled 1964 Ford Galaxie out of the water near Philadelphia, Mississippi.
20. You remember Bull Connor and Lester Maddox making fools of themselves.
21. You remember April 4, 1968 as if it were yesterday.
22. You remember the Prague Spring as something other than a musical festival.
The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" (or) even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered... in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by (those) who do not need to raise their voices. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the office of a thoroughly nasty business concern."
― C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
Fun read. I'm a mere Xer raised by Boomers, but...
We had four or five channels, and my brother and I served as my father's "remote."2. You remember TV sets without UHF channels... and only three channels of broadcast TV (unless you lived in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, or some place between two big cities).
Ray Rayner...and his pet goose.3. You remember some local character on local broadcast TV, some "Cowboy Carl", "Ranger Ralph", "Pirate Pete", or the like who had a "clubhouse" that showed cartoons.
The Bozo Show with the 'Bozo Buckets' game. Toss the ball in Bucket One and win a bakery cake. Make it all the way to Bucket Six and win a red Schwinn.
...and all football seemed to be about either the Steelers or the Cowboys...while waiting for the Bears to do something.7. You remember when the AFL and NFL were rivals.
Oh, wait. I guess that wasn't just the 70s...
The most popular lunch box for girls in my second grade class was Donny & Marie.8. You remember variety shows on network TV.
No, but our Boomer gym teacher taught us the dance called "The Fonz."16. You missed Andy Griffith because you had to go to bed at 8:30.
"It's time to play The Grand...Prize...Game!" You came home for lunch from school and right after the Grand Prize Game was over, it was time to walk home. My neighbor had her name picked from the Bozo Drum.Fun read. I'm a mere Xer raised by Boomers, but...
We had four or five channels, and my brother and I served as my father's "remote."
Ray Rayner...and his pet goose.
The Bozo Show with the 'Bozo Buckets' game. Toss the ball in Bucket One and win a bakery cake. Make it all the way to Bucket Six and win a red Schwinn.
...and all football seemed to be about either the Steelers or the Cowboys...while waiting for the Bears to do something.
Oh, wait. I guess that wasn't just the 70s...
The most popular lunch box for girls in my second grade class was Donny & Marie.
No, but our Boomer gym teacher taught us the dance called "The Fonz."
And Garfield Goose and Friends with Frazier Thomas. And "Family Classics" that showed movies like "Mysterious Island." The 3:30pm movie after school where they showed Doris Day movies.
And Creature Features.
Ah, Chicago (suburban) childhood. With ads for Riverview--which now has a police station on it.
In High School we girls had to do jump rope routines to "Frosty the Snowman." My friends and I laughed so hard we couldn't hold our jump ropes.
This is cute. You also might be an early Xer if you remember these things. I remember all but about 3 or 4 of them.
That's pretty funny.High School we girls had to do jump rope routines to "Frosty the Snowman." My friends and I laughed so hard we couldn't hold our jump rope
Good list.
James50
The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected. - G.K. Chesterton
I do remember Family Classics! Alas, though my parents reveled in thier memories of Riverview, it had closed long before I could ever go.
Signs of the changing times, I remember when the final prize on the Grand Prize Game (thanks for reminding me what that game was called) changed from the red Schwinn to a ColecoVision.
Oh, yes, Creature Feature. Wasn't that the one that showed all those bad B, black and white horror movies? Like movies that had giant mutant ants that were terrorizing the town folks. Get the Raid!!!.. And there was another one that came on at midnight on the weekends in the Chicago area that was actually a series about a monster or vampire family. What was that one called? Or was the Creature Feature? I might be getting the two mixed up.
And remember the Empire Carpet commercials that came on constantly. All these years later I still remember the phone number from the jingle. Call 588-23 hundred, Empire
Them.
I think I was 7 or 8 when I saw that and it scared me to death. People getting clamped in half by the giant pincher....rather gruesome for an old black-and-white.
Or The Blob. I actually found that entertaining. A giant, spreading mass of gel that moved about as fast as spilled syrup. Terrifying.I'm reminded of those old zombie films, the kind where dim-witted teenagers find themselves 'trapped' in an old farmhouse near a cemetery when the bodies rise from the graves and...limp...slowly...left foot...right foot...stumble...left foot...right foot...to the house.
Just run, woman. You don't even have to run. Trot. You'll get away. But, by all means, don't just stand there and scream for 36 minutes while they climb the porch.
So this moth is sick and he decides to go to the doctor. He explains his stomach aches and leg pains to the doctor and sits waiting for a response.
After a long pause the man in the white smock says, "I don't get it. Why did you come to me? I'm a dentist!"
The moth replies, "well your light was on!"
I remember watching Poltergeist when I was 8 or 9. It had just come out in the past year or two, and we walked into the living room of a friends house and Poltergeist was at when the coffins were coming up from the floor.Them.
I think I was 7 or 8 when I saw that and it scared me to death. People getting clamped in half by the giant pincher....rather gruesome for an old black-and-white.
Or The Blob. I actually found that entertaining. A giant, spreading mass of gel that moved about as fast as spilled syrup. Terrifying.
Just run, woman. You don't even have to run. Trot. You'll get away. But, by all means, don't just stand there and scream for 36 minutes while they climb the porch.
Also..I recall having just 5 or 6 TV stations. NBC, CBS, ABC, PBS, 18, and 24. I remember all of them off the air by 1AM. In fact, some of us might have seen this before the networks went off the air:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5bdonWlbL8
We did have a black and white TV. But we had a color one too, and my recollection was at one point the vertical kept acting funny, so we had to play with a knob at the back of the TV.
I did have a stay at home mom. Also during most days I was 'shooed' outside to play with friends.
I did not watch Captain Kangaroo, but I did watch Smurfs, also I remember "The Vegetable Soup" on TV.
I don't recall the show about the monster or vampire family, unless you're thinking of Svengoolie?
When a friend moved from Chicago to LA, she said that all former Chicagoans could sing the Empire commercial, too. Guess that advertising worked!
Since things like trying to remember what that show was, just bug me until I can remember, I started googling it. I found it. It was called Dark Shadows. It was a soap opera about a vampire family that ran from 1966 to 1971. They must have showed reruns of it late at night on WGN in the mid to late 70's.
Here is the link...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Shadows
Not that it matters at all. But at least now I know and I can quit thinking about it...
I was hooked on Dark Shadows in 7th grade back in 1968; all my friends were. At one point, it took place in 1898 (if I got the year correct), and I was fascinated by time travel when I was a kid.Since things like trying to remember what that show was, just bug me until I can remember, I started googling it. I found it. It was called Dark Shadows. It was a soap opera about a vampire family that ran from 1966 to 1971. They must have showed reruns of it late at night on WGN in the mid to late 70's.
Here is the link...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Shadows
Not that it matters at all. But at least now I know and I can quit thinking about it...
I want people to know that peace is possible even in this stupid day and age. Prem Rawat, June 8, 2008
My sister used to fly home from school to watch it, too. She was 15. Everyone had a crush on Barnabus Collins. I was too young--either that or my sister would tell me to get out of the room.
I think time travel is fascinating, too.
My (GI) grandma wore them when I was a kid.
My mom dressed this way for work when I was a kid. And yeah, my parents both still call them slacks.Still wear nylons or panty hose under what you still call "slacks".
They also call the sofa the "davenport" and the fridge the "icebox." They think it's important where in the fridge you put things because they can't help feeling like the cooling comes from only one spot and there will be big temperature variations.
My grandma did that, too.Still wrestle with bobby pins and brush rollers and wear a bandanna over your hair to protect your hairdo. Or remember doing so.
When my mom was a kid, her mom gave her rag curls. (For people who don't know what this means: Her mom would wet a lock of hair, line up a strip of rag with it, then wrap it around and around the rag till she got to the end of the lock. Then she'd take the part of the rag that was sticking out and wrap *it* back up toward the head. She ended up with a "sausage" of rag and hair. She'd keep making "sausages" until all the hair was wrapped, and then my mom would sleep on the rags, and in the morning when she took the rags off she'd have ringlets like Shirley Temple's.)
And Mom wore bloomers and knee socks, while younger girls wore panties and bobby socks.
My mom's (Lost) dad was too old to fight, so he trained troops. They kept moving him to different bases -- my younger uncle was born at one, and my mom at another. My older uncle remembers a horrible trip on the train to join their dad after he'd been moved again: My younger uncle was a toddler, and they were expecting my mom any day. Older uncle was supposed to be watching the toddler, but he lost sight of him, and then the train started up...after a frantic search they found him in the baggage car.Remember seeing your father in a war news segment of a newsreel before he came home. And couldn't remember seeing him in person before, just the photo your mom had.
Every time my dad is ever inspired to say, "Who knows?" he can never, ever resist adding, "...what evil lurks in the hearts of men? Only the Shadow knows!"Had a big old vacuum tube radio by your bedside and kept it tuned to the various dramas like "The FBI in Peace and War."
He also liked "Sky King" and "Challenge of the Yukon." My mom listened to those too, but her favorite was "The Lone Ranger."
Well yeah, my mom did, but I had to share with my brothers too.Had to share a bedroom with your sister as a matter of course.
There was one kid in my class at school who didn't have to share with his brother. He was "the rich kid." When I went over to his house, his bedroom was bigger than our living room. Also: his parents had a computer, and then he had his own computer too. (Reminds me of Back to the Future. 1955 teen: "You have a television set?" 1985 teen: "Yeah, in fact, we have two of 'em." 1955: "Wow, you must be rich." 1955 mom: "Oh, honey, he's teasing you. Nobody has two television sets!")
My mom would definitely agree with that.Were totally convinced that any misdeeds that came to the attention of the school would go on your permanent record. And any misdeeds outside of school meant - you thought - risking a stay in "juvie."
That too.Taking an aptitude test in high school, and because you were so verbal, being told you should go into clerical work. Note: they did not mean the kind that called for a Roman collar. They meant the kind where you found the place in the file cabinet alphabetically and put the file folder back.
Which is sad, because she now realizes she should have been an architect. But it never even occurred to her, of course. "The only reason a girl went to college was to become a teacher...or get her M-R-S degree."
My parents had those when I was a kid.Didn't people always have carbon paper and yellow second sheets when they needed to write something that wasn't personal?
I understand all these thing since I had silent parents and GI grandparents. On the hairdo thing. When I was a little girl I remember going to the beauty shop with my mother for her weekly set and style. One of my grandmothers use to wrap her hair in toliet paper every night before she went to bed to protect her beehive hairdo. Because of this, one of my uncles affectionately called her...Shithead. Honestly, no offense of was taken. It was family joke.
We just had a black and white TV when I was little. It had room for about 13 channels -- each channel had its own little elongated oval with the channel number displayed there. You opened a little door at the front and slid in little plastic numbers to correspond to the actual channels you got...and you had to adjust it somehow (I think by turning tiny knobs??) so that each label corresponded to the right channel.
It was annoying to play with our Atari 2600 on it, because even though the 2600 did have a black and white setting, some games (such as Starmaster) really relied on color, even to the point of using the color/bw switch to choose options within the game.
When we got a color TV, it had clear square buttons which I think Dad had to take off to put in the plastic channel numbers. When he put them back on, light shone through the plastic to show you what the numbers were. When you selected the channel, you pushed the button in and it *stayed* in to show you which channel you were watching (as opposed to nowadays when anytime you push the button on something it pops right back out again). Still no remote.
For a long time we just had rabbit ears; it was a big deal when we got a rooftop antenna. You adjusted it by turning a dial with compass markings on it. You would turn the dial to where you wanted the antenna to point, and then the motor would move the antenna and a little metal strip would move around the dial to indicate where the antenna actually was. The strip moved in discrete steps, like an old-fashioned (non-sweep) second hand on a clock, and made noise: chunk, chunk, chunk. When the strip finally caught up with the dial, the antenna was where you'd set it to be. Of course that didn't always mean the channel would come in as you'd hoped! Time to adjust it again: chunk, chunk, chunk.
Ah, nostalgia...
