I Remember
I remember stupid stuff from my youth;
stuff that my kids would not remember.
Why am I posting this stupid stuff?
Why not, it is fun to remember.
Oh and thanks to blog buddy “fishducky” http://fishducky.blogspot.com/ for an email which stirred some
of these stupid memories.
I remember:
Lucky Strikes were the cigarette of choice. Their slogan was L S M F T which stood for “Lucky Strikes mean fine tobacco.” To adolescent boys, it stood for “Loose straps mean floppy tits.” This was always followed by giggles.
Lucky Strikes were the cigarette of choice. Their slogan was L S M F T which stood for “Lucky Strikes mean fine tobacco.” To adolescent boys, it stood for “Loose straps mean floppy tits.” This was always followed by giggles.
If you saw an empty
Lucky’s pack on the street you could step on the big red spot, yell “Lucky
Strike” and belt your friend on the arm as hard as you could…hey, it was a
rule.
If you saw a
car with one headlight out you yelled “Pididdle” and you kissed your girl
friend. If you were driving with a dude,
you belted him on the arm as hard as you could.
If you could
fake hit a friend and he flinched, you yelled, “Made you flinch” and you
hit him on the arm as hard as you could.
An alternate rule had you yell “Two for flinching” and you could hit him
twice, but not hard, then you slapped him and hollered "have to wipe it off"…rules were rules, it was all very clear.
I remember
we hit our friends on the arm a lot.
On a close
play in baseball, “Tie goes to the
runner.”
Fourth down
in touch-football you had to declare if you were going to punt or go for a
touchdown. The team on defense always
yelled, “Kick or stick?”
I remember singing stupid jingles:
“Pepsi Cola hits the spot, makes you
vomit on a dot, looks like water, tastes like wine, Oh my gosh it’s turpentine.”
“Whistle while you work, Hitler is a jerk, Mussolini
bit his peenie, now it doesn’t work.” The war was over before we were born and we still sang this…go figure.
“No more pencils, no more books, no
more teachers dirty looks” after the last day of school.”
We had a
refrigerator in our kitchen, but mom and dad always called it the “Ice Box.”
Our 1955 VW
Bug had a 32 HP engine. It did not have
a gas gage; it did have a yard stick in the trunk which you stuck in the tank
to see how much gas was left. If you ran
out of gas, you flipped a lever allowing you to use 1 ½ gallons in a reserve
tank. That was good for about 50 miles.
I remember Birthday
parties without goody bags.
I remember holding
on to the TV “Rabbit Ears antennae” during a crucial game because if you let go
the reception sucked.
We stuck baseball
cards in our bicycle spokes with a clothes pin to make your bike sound
like a motorcycle.
I remember picking
deposit bottles from a construction site to turn in at the grocery store to
buy candy with the profit…2 cents an empty.
I remember listening
to the radio the morning of a snow storm to find out if you had school or not.
I remember
my Dad coming home from the hospital after almost dying from a heart issue. He brought home a pack of Kent cigarettes. They were safe because they had this funny
thing on the end called a filter.
I remember
following the DDT truck around the neighborhood as it sprayed all the trees…sure
smelled good.
I remember
lots more stuff, but this post is getting too long.
What stupid stuff do you remember?
"We stuck baseball cards in our bicycle spokes with a clothes pin to make your bike sound like a motorcycle."
ReplyDeleteWe used old playing cards, then learned how to tie balloons to make it sound even more awesome.
I remember some of these too, but at 63 I should. We have some boating friends that have a Willard that has and icebox. No fridge just the icebox.
ReplyDeleteHave a fabulous day. :)
Pinch, poke, you owe me a Coke....maybe more of a girl thing but I thing the rule was to do it if we said the same word at the same time.
ReplyDeleteI remember EVERYTHING!! Why, I even...who's calling, please?
ReplyDeleteHeh, all of the above!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the memories Joe.
You covered most of them. I remember if two of you spotted a VW you had to say VW simultaneously in order not to be punched in the arm by the person who said it first. More rules.
ReplyDeleteseveral of these made me laugh. the vw sounded sorta fun. :)
ReplyDeleteThe rules that involved hitting one another had to be strictly "boy territory." I don't recall a single one. But I do remember walking home from school and hearing, "Step on a crack, break your mother's back." Now that made sense. (!) I remember many of your others, including candy that was either a penny or 5 cents for the really big chocolate bars. And how it took my sisters and I some 20 minutes to decide how we'd spend 7 cents each!
ReplyDeleteThe thing I would have been most grateful for is no "caller ID." We were experts - EXPERTS - at the fine art of prank calls and would have been denied many hilarious hours of totally free entertainment while mom and dad were blissfully unaware, shopping at the grocery store, thinking we pleaded to stay home so we could finish "homework."
What about "party lines," sharing your phone with a perfect stranger. Kids today would be freaked out to reach for their phone and hear someone already talking on the line.
ReplyDeleteSome of these I remember doing, some I don't. I do remember when you saw a Volkswagon Bug, if you saw it first, you yelled "slug bug" and hit the arm of whoever you were with.
ReplyDeletebetty
L.oose S.uspenders M.ean F.alling T.rousers!
ReplyDeleteBoy did you bring back memories. Never got into the hitting games but loved seeing my brothers whale on each other. Revenge with out lifting a finger.
ReplyDeleteI remember a lot of those.. but not all. I was born the same year as your VW. ;)
ReplyDeleteReading some of your playful lyrics (some of which we sang) for the different product jingles, it brought to mind...
"You'll wonder where the yellow went when you brush your teeth with Pepsodent." to which we sang "I wonder where she went last night when she brushed her teeth with dynamite."
Yeah, I remember all those things, too. I guess that makes me old as dirt.
ReplyDeleteHow about when cold weather made the caps pop off the top of the milk bottles delivered to the front porch by the milkman, and they'd sit atop an icky blob of semi-frozen cream. (gag)
Or pitching pennies or baseball/football cards?
Playing curb ball in the street?
Good times.
My memories are a little different, since I grew up in Germany. We never had milk deliveries. We had beer deliveries instead. The beer truck stops by your house once a week, in its regular route, and the guy would ask what you wanted and how much. Typically, it was always the same stuff and the same amount, so if nobody happened to be home, the beer guy would just leave your normal order at the front door.
ReplyDeleteI remember five of yours. I have a poor memory, so I am pleased with that!
ReplyDeleteI remember phone numbers and zip codes from when I was seven, but have trouble with the current ones.
At my grandma's she had an ice box, wore a house coat and sat on the davenport. :) My mom always sang that same Pepsi jingle. :)
ReplyDeleteI remember birthday parties without goody bags! The eating of birthday cake signalled the end of the party, and every child was sent home with another slice of cake. If there were siblings at home who hadn't attended the party, slices were cut for them too.
ReplyDeleteI also remember our ice-box with the huge block of ice that melted and kept the cabinet section cool.
I remember our pale blue panel-van with the door handle that didn't catch properly so when my dad turned into the driveway it swung open and my sister fell out.
I remember when coke introduced those little plastic re-sealer caps inside the main cap, so you could press it on to "save the bubbles".
I remember my brother and his mates taking the bottle outside and shaking it so the gas would build up and pop that re-sealer top right off.
I remember "rainbow" ice-cream in cardboard containers which dad would cut into slices making sure we each got a bit of each flavour. The favourite was always the chocolate part, nobody much liked the strawberry.
I remember jawbreakers that were actually impossible to bite into
ReplyDeleteI remember my aunt baking a coin into my birthday cake and wishing it was me who got that piece.
I remember cinema popcorn with real butter squirted over the top.
I remember when Coke decided to change its recipe and ended up reverting to the old recipe, calling it Coke Classic.
I remember playing Nicky Nicky Nine Doors (knocking on a door and running away)
I've taught my kids to yell out Punch Buggy [colour] when they see a VW bug (doesn't happen much though)
I remember spending a fortune in quarters on the video games at Al's Burgers - Ms Pacman and Galaga were the pocket-emptiers of choice.
How about "McDonalds is my kind of place, they feed you rattlesnakes...they go between your toes! Last time that I was there, they stole my underwear, McDonalds is my kind of place!"
ReplyDeleteSuch great memories Cranky!