Nostalgia on Steroids

Once upon a time in a world far far away....There were things we deemed modern that by today’s standards that are almost laughable.

As I aged I tried to keep up with the times. I like to say how my generation invented cool. I was using computers when they still had cranks. But recently I received an e-mail (electronic mail? who would have thunk it?) Anyway, listed was all the things I remember from my youth. At the end there was a score and if you remembered a certain amount you were considered older then dirt. Well I guess my generation invented dirt too, because I was there.

One of my earliest childhood memories was being bundled up sitting on the stoop while my older sister jumped rope with her friends. There were other kids whose sister had to watch them also. I remember eating sweet candy cigarettes and making believe we were smoking. Do they still have candy cigarettes? Teaching toddlers to smoke was acceptable as in those days cigarettes didn’t cause cancer. As I read on it got me thinking about all the things that were familiar to me that today are not around anymore or have changed with the times so they are unrecognizable.

Let’s start with Luncheonettes, or as we called it, the Candy Store. They had a counter with all the syrups to make any phosphate drinks you could want. Cherry Cokes were my favorite and of course the all important Egg Cream. For those that don’t know what an Egg Cream is, it was a chocolate phosphate with a splash of milk. A penny candy display with jelly beans 4 for a penny. Strings of licorice and long strips of paper with button candies struck to it. There was the all important Juke Box and for a dime you could hear 3 songs. An arm came down and plucked the .45 record from the rack and it played your favorite tune. You could order lunch, a tuna salad sandwich and fires, or a burger.

My Mom, when she worked, was a sandwich maker at the Automat. Remember those, put the money in open the door and get a sandwich out? The Automat was the predecessor to the vending machine. There was an entire wall of doors and when one sandwich was sold someone in the back put another in. She once told me never order tuna salad in a restaurant I heed that warning to this day. She knew! Going to the movies, wow what a treat. For .35cents you got two feature films, a few cartoons and a Newsreel. A box of Goobers or Ju Ju’s with a drink. Godzilla anyone!

As time went on the modern world began to amaze me. Our first TV was 13” round screen Dumont. I remember my dad sitting there watching the test pattern. I think there were 2 channels and one was off the air most of the time. Progress brought us the soaps and Tide commercials. The antenna was on the roof with a wire that came through the window. One of my dad’s favorite shows was the farm report, never mind we lived in Brooklyn. Not many farms near our apartment unless you count the old Italians that grew grapes in their back yards for wine. Shows were mostly news and then came the variety shows like Ed Sullivan, Milton Berle and of course Red Skelton. I can still remember 1964 seeing these mop top guys singing and rocking on the Ed Sullivan show and saying who the heck are those guys?

We had a milk man that delivered quarts in bottles, metal ice trays with levers, blue flashbulbs wow the flash cube was all the rage. There were cigarette machines, cars with fender skirts and lake pipes that roared. Clips that held your pants legs so they wouldn’t get caught in the bicycle chain, until they invented the chain guard. Cars had ignition buttons on the dashboard, the dimmer switch was on the floorboard. My dad had a '49 Pontiac with 100,000 miles on it. Held together, with wire and tape (before duct tape). The wipers only worked when the car was running they ran off air being pumped from the carburetor. Do cars still have carburetors and generators? He never used the turn signals, the window went down and the arm went out. Seat belts? Huh what was that, child seats are you kidding you were supposed to hold on to the seat in case of a crash. I remember that old car dearly.

So I look around today and see all these wonders of the modern age it makes me just a bit nostalgic. It also makes me wonder what things will be like in a hundred years. How they will look back and say “those were the good old days”.

I know I must have missed a few but hopefully you get the gist, the 50’s weren’t so long ago. I have tried to keep up with the times like the song say’s “you better start swimming or you’ll sink like a stone cause the times they are a changing”. Yes the times are changing and I wonder what will be the next “big thing”.