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Message: [QUOTE="RichZ, post: 3496076, member: 534"] The screen may have been that size, but the TV itself was closer to the size of an icebox. But in 47 Studebaker beat all the other car companies with a completely new postwar body style. The first with a trunk lid as long as the hood, which led to the common criticism "Can't tell whether it's coming or going." But the other car companies adopted similar hood/greenhouse/trunk proportions when they finally got completely new body styles into production several years later. But nickel candy bars were 6 cents at the movies, so we'd go out of our way on the way there to get candy at the local drugstore. In Bridgeport, before our first McDonalds opened, we had "Uncle Milty's" where a burger was 24 cents - two for a quarter, and they called it "The home of the 1 cent hamburger." I was in 7th grade the year Bridgeport changed the official closing trigger from 8" on the ground at daylight to 5". By the time we were headed home, it could be a way over a foot. Didn't matter. My wife worked part time at Kresge's after school when we were first dating, then went to work there part time again after we were married, when we were saving up for a down payment on our first house. Which we still live in, 53 years later. Kresge's eventually became K-Mart. To me, the best thing about Savin Rock was always Jimmie's Hot Dogs. That and the Wild Mouse. Many years, the week after school got out, we would drive up to the factory in Naugatuck and my brothers and I got new Keds for like 2 bucks a pair. And they'd better last us a year! I am left handed. The nuns insisted it was a sign of the devil. In 3rd grade, a nun tied my left hand to the leg of the desk to force me to write with my right hand. I got a zero on every paper/test, whatever that day. My father, also a natural lefty who had been mistreated by nuns because of it, went to the convent that night and reamed her a new one. He was president of the Holy Name Society and the local K of C chapter and thus involved in a lot of the parishes' fund raisers. I never had a problem being left handed again. A Spalding High bounce (aka Pinkie, and in Brooklyn, a "Spal[B]deen[/B]") was 20 cents. One stamped "2nd" was 11 cents. I don't think anyone I knew from the neighborhood ever had a 20 cent Pinkie. We used seconds, and that's what we called them. I went to the technical high school, and studied electronics. But at the time, it was called Radio & TV Repair. My first job out of high school was working for a Radio TV Repair shop. I also had a 3rd cousin (or was it a 2nd cousin once removed?) who ran a Radio TV Repair shop, and worked for him in the evenings when he was busy. My first job was delivering the "Bridgeport Sporting News" -- a single, brightly colored news print page, filled, except for a one column inch block, with restaurant and theater ads. The one column inch block would hold the the results and payouts from three random (fictional, for all I know) horse races that day. Reading vertically down the dollar column gave you the number for the day. Delivered it to every bar, barber shop, candy store, diner, etc. in the East End of Bridgeport, 6 nights a week. Made 8 bucks, a week plus tips. Started when I was 12 and did it until I was 15. If a regular one of my stops hit a big payout, I'd usually get a tip that seemed a fortune to a 12 year old in 1958. Rode my bike through some really seedy neighborhoods on my route, but never got hassled or robbed, even on collection night, when I might have a hundred bucks or more in my bag. Never occurred to me at the time that it was because of who I was working for. We still have a full set of glasses and goblets from DUZ detergent the first few years we were married. My wife often runs across one or two at tag sales, thrift shops, good will, etc., and always buys them to replace breakage. My first daily driver was a Studebaker. Also had a Henry J. Hydramatic was Caddy and Olds, while Fluid Drive was Buick, if my memory still functions correctly. But I never owned an automatic until the early 90s, and that one was stolen from me. Never owned another automatic until last fall. First live concert I ever went to. I was barely 13. My next door neighbor talked his mother into taking us to Hartford, ostensibly to see Bobby Darin. But going in I was more interested in the Cadillacs who were also on the bill. Coming out, all either of us could think of was Screamin' Jay Hawkins. Absolutely brought the house down. If our parents knew what the show was like, we'd never have been able to go in a million years. I was working at the under construction EJ Korvette store in the brand new Trumbull Shopping Mall, wiring their extensive Audio and High Fi department, so that any combination of components could be hooked up for demo purposes. When the news came down, everything just stopped cold. The most common reaction was people just sitting down and staring into space. Many cried. There was a coal bin in our cellar, but the house had been converted to oil heat long before my time. But our 2nd floor flat was heated by a rarely used kerosene space heater in the front hall, and a Gas and Oil stove in the kitchen. We had two 55 gallon oil drums in the cellar, and one of the kids had to go fill the tank 5 gallon tank and bring it upstairs every day. Of course being on the 2nd floor, we got a fair amount of heat from the 1st floor apt, too. The house was one of four virtually identical houses in a row. The rest of our block was factories. Some time around 2000, the neighborhood was being torn down to make way for a fenced in, park like "buffer zone"adjacent to the parking area for a new factory. For some reason, MY childhood home (not the 3 identical ones) was declared a historically significant architecture example, and was moved three blocks (to the site where coincidentally an old girlfriend's house had been) and it still exists, although the "historically significant architecture" is long since gone, as it's been remodeled and modernized beyond being recognizable. Or mimeograph machines. [/QUOTE]

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