OT: Bygone Behaviors

[RegisteredUconn]

Skitching. Don't know if that's how it's spelled, because it never was, only said.

Hanging onto the bumper of a car and sliding behind on the snow/ice down the street. Quicker way to get home from school.....as long as the driver didn't notice you. Then they'd stop and yell at you as you ran off, cutting through houses, yards (which people don't do much of now either).

We called it "hopping cars."

 

[RegisteredUconn]

Gas options: Regular or Unleaded.
going to get milk from vending machines on the corner (Quarter or Half Gallon)
People stopping by to get fruit from the tree in your yard and getting a pie in return. (we had a pear tree and next door was a cherry tree)
Making your own toys. (taking and old skate and piece of wood to make a skateboard; Rubber band, clothes pin , tab from can to make a gun), digging holes for a game of marbles.

Most gasoline brands didn't even offer unleaded until laws were passed. Only Amoco, I think, and they only had unleaded.

We had a woods that was mostly pear trees. We ate green pears all summer. I don't think I ever had a yellow pear unless it came from the store.

Making much less elegant versions of Soap Box Derby buggies from a crate, a 2x8, a couple of 2x4's and wheels from somewhere. Put a bolt through one end of the 2x8 and attached the 2x4 for steering, used our feet and a rope.

I probably shouldn't admit this, but filing the rim off a penny and using it in vending machines to get a Coke. Anybody know the statute of limitation on things like that.

 

[RegisteredUconn]

...digging holes for a game of marbles.

How did you play marbles in a hole? Every spring the chief of police (actually, the entire force...and he didn't wear a uniform that made him look like Ike in WW2) organized a tournament to crown a school champion (girls too, although mostly boys). Winner went to Wildwood (NJ) to play for the national championship. A kid from our school, "Ducky" somebody-or-other, won one year. We all went down to the school auditorium to see him and his new bike. I wanted to win in the worst way.

 

[wire chief]

Once upon a time there were chestnut trees. On the 8th grade playground boys would compete with a shoe string through a hollowed
out chestnut. Boy A held his motionless while boy B would swing his downward, hoping to smash the rival's.
You accumulate points for the victory, including the points the vanquished chestnut had previously.

 

[RegisteredUconn]

Other games played, usually in the spring.

Tops - someone chosen to be first one in placed one of his tops on a hard surface, usually blacktop or concrete. Everybody else wound his top, took aim, and fired at the offered top. If you hit on the throw, you were safe. If you missed, you had to scoop it up in your hand and carry it to the offered top and drop it on. If you missed, or if your top stopped spinning before contacting the other top, you had to put your top up. It was considered cool if you split the other guy's top on the throw.

Dogfight - played with balsa wood planes. Somebody tossed his plane lazily in a straight flight. The others would throw their planes at it. Again, bonus points is you broke the other plane.

 

[reno tony]

I can't remember anyone putting salt on a driveway or even shoveling one. You just drove over the snow. Roads too.

When, where and with what car was this?

 

[VAMike23]

Ordering a cup of coffee.....

- and not having to elaborate on what size, which roast I want, or whether or not it should be poured 'with room.'

 

[CL82]

Letter writing. I receive a letter from my cousin about once a month. I cherish every single cross out, scribble, misspelled word and silly animation.
Its the way she chooses to stay in touch, I love it.

For decades, my dad and I exchanged letters with the odd article, newspapers clipping etc, but mostly just it was just an on going conversation. A lot of sage advice in those letters. My dad still with us but now we keep in touch by phone. I do miss those letters. My bride still has the letters I wrote to her before we were married. There's something about a handwritten letter that makes it more intimate than emails.

 

[RegisteredUconn]

When, where and with what car was this?

A variety. Two I most remember were a 1950 Jeepster and a 1953 Mercury woody. Did we spin wheels sometime? Sure. Even got stuck once in a while and had to dig ourselves out. But remember front/4 wheel drive doesn't help with 2 of the 3 driving essentials: steering and stopping.

 

[uconnell]

There was a huge hill in our neighborhood, someone would stand and the bottom to let us know no cars were coming. We would form a train by booking our feet into the front of the sled behind, usually 10 or so sleds and down we go. Then the town trucks would come and throw clinkers on the road. Boo.

 

[reno tony]

A variety. Two I most remember were a 1950 Jeepster and a 1953 Mercury woody. Did we spin wheels sometime? Sure. Even got stuck once in a while and had to dig ourselves out. But remember front/4 wheel drive doesn't help with 2 of the 3 driving essentials: steering and stopping.

In East Hartford we had to shovel the driveway because the streets were plowed and it was a good 2 or 3 foot berm to drive through. We had VWs and they are pretty good on snow... with the engine over the drive wheels and all. I was just curious... thanks.

 

[DaddyChoc]

Skitching. Don't know if that's how it's spelled, because it never was, only said.

Hanging onto the bumper of a car and sliding behind on the snow/ice down the street. Quicker way to get home from school.....as long as the driver didn't notice you. Then they'd stop and yell at you as you ran off, cutting through houses, yards (which people don't do much of now either).

bumper-sledding on the public city buses

 

[DaddyChoc]

Gas options: Regular or Unleaded.
going to get milk from vending machines on the corner (Quarter or Half Gallon)
People stopping by to get fruit from the tree in your yard and getting a pie in return. (we had a pear tree and next door was a cherry tree)
Making your own toys. (taking and old skate and piece of wood to make a skateboard; Rubber band, clothes pin , tab from can to make a gun), digging holes for a game of marbles.

sling-shots... homemade with tree branches, rubber bands and shoe-patches

 

[DaddyChoc]

I hate this game!!!

very competitive... with 8 guys playing we had to wait for 2 more to show up so we could play a "whole court"

 

[UConnChapette]

When the latest popular movie came out you, if you wanted to see it you went to the theater. Otherwise, you would wait a long time before it would be shown on tv - and not every movie would make it on tv.

And on a related topic - drive in movies were EVERYWHERE. A fixed cost for the car, no matter how many people were in it. My parents would take my sister and I and we could each bring a friend in the family station wagon. The kids would wear our pjs and bring sleeping bags and pillows and take positions on the roof (laying on our bellies or my mother would shame us for blocking the view of the cars behind) or on the hood with our backs against the windshield while my parents sat in the woven mesh lawn chairs in front of the car. Most of the time there was a cooler with Shasta soda of various flavors - orange, grape, strawberry, lemon lime, black cherry, root beer. We would go to 7-11 before the movie. My parents would give my sister and I a dollar each to get a bag of penny candy - Jolly Rancher fire, watermelon, cherry and sour apple stix, pixie stix, tootsie rolls, milk duds and we would share it with our friends. We would come away with a full bag because, like someone else said penny candy really did cost a penny. Usually got to buy a box of popcorn at the concession stand to share among the kids - there was only one size in those days. On rare occasions, we would skip dinner before and get to buy a hot dog at the concession stand - now THAT was special! We would get there at least a half hour before sunset to get a parking spot in dead center - always a few rows in front of the concession stand, and then play on the play ground in front of the screen - yes, in our pajamas like every other kid there. Then, the playground lights would flash and a countdown would show on the screen. We would trek back to the car weaving between cars and over the mounds of parking spots. The speaker would be affixed to the partially rolled down window, pointing out like every other family there so everyone outside could hear the movie. Except...there were always a couple of cars that, after dark, seemed to have no one in them, the windows were rolled up with the speaker on the post and depending on the temperature - a bit steamed up. (Never understood the meaning of that at the age I was). Always a cartoon before the first G rated feature film, typically a Disney movie, cartoon usually Woody Woodpecker. Then, after the family movie was over, the dancing hotdogs, sodas and popcorn boxes would dance to the "Let's go out to the lobby and have ourselves a snack" jingle - which always made me laugh because there WAS NO lobby! Always took a trip to the bathroom between the first and second feature. By that time it was getting cooler, so us kids would retreat to the car and wrap ourselves in our sleeping bags - two in the back seat, two in the "back to back" seat. Much as we tried, we rarely made it past the first 10 minutes of the R rated "parents" movie and fell fast asleep. Usually, would wake up when we got home and then our friends would sleep over.

Man, that was a fun trip down memory lane!

 

[UConnChapette]

Being left alone on summer days when my mom had to work. My sister and I were 10 and 8. We had chores to do to keep us busy and out of trouble, but once the chores were done we could hang out with our friends - even have them in the house without our parents around. If we did all our assigned chores, on Fridays we would get money to go to 7-11 to get penny candy and a coke slurpee. That dollar went a looooonnnnnggggg way back then.

 

[HoopsHoppy]

The red sign with black numerals in the kitchen window giving the price size of the block of ice to be brought into the ice box through the always unlocked kitchen door

 

[JRRRJ]

In East Hartford we had to shovel the driveway because the streets were plowed and it was a good 2 or 3 foot berm to drive through. We had VWs and they are pretty good on snow... with the engine over the drive wheels and all. I was just curious... thanks.

You had different snow than we did, apparently. Must have been really dry most of the time. Where was it?

I remember more than one occasion when, for some reason, we had a need to go out before the snowplows came through in the morning (we were on a back street). At least once with the Beetle and once with the monster '49 Chrysler Windsor DeLuxe, the front bumper pushed up a pile of snow that, getting under the car, provided enough lift that the rear wheels just spun, barely contacting the ground. We had to get out, grab the shovels that were always in the car in the winter and shovel snow out from under the rear axle and throw sand on the street (sometimes from buckets in the car, sometimes from sandboxes on the side of the street provided by the town) in front of the wheels to get going again. That wasn't often but, as I said, it was more than once. I suspect this was the heavy, crusty snow we got when a wet evening storm froze on top overnight, but my memory isn't that detailed.

 

[reno tony]

Re-reading my post... it wasn't very clear. We had the wet snow most of the time, and if the plows hadn't come yet we could get out of the driveway... most of the time. But once the plows came, the driveway had to be shoveled to get in or out. My family had VWs which were okay in the snow, but I had a 69 Firebird... most useless car in the snow made by man. This was circa 1975.

45 TO GO​

 

[JRRRJ]

A variety. Two I most remember were a 1950 Jeepster and a 1953 Mercury woody. Did we spin wheels sometime? Sure. Even got stuck once in a while and had to dig ourselves out. But remember front/4 wheel drive doesn't help with 2 of the 3 driving essentials: steering and stopping.

Yeah, I quoted the wrong post. My response just above was actually to what RegisteredUConn had posted.

 

[ctfjr]

Hitchhiking home from school in Boston. The Pike wasn't finished then so we took the T to Riverside Station, the last stop. That was where the Pike started (or ended, depending on your destination). We would stand at the entrance to the Pike with a sign that said 'Waterbury, CT'. Always got a ride and often the driver would take me right to my parents' house but mostly would drop me off at an exit in Waterbury & I would call home for a ride (from a phone booth).

 

[Waquoit]

In East Hartford we had to shovel the driveway

That's East Hartford. Try that in West Hartford these days and you might get tazed by the cops.

 

[reno tony]

That's East Hartford. Try that in West Hartford these days and you might get tazed by the cops.

Wow, tough neighborhood.

 

[MJS UCONN'73]

In the late 50s- early 60s, movies (double feature, cartoons) were 25 cents, but Disney movies were 50cents. First movie I saw when the price went up to 35 cents was " Battle in Outer Space". Movie theaters packed every Saturday. In the winter, going into the theater at 1pm and coming out in the dark........walking home 2 miles in the snow.

Walking 1.5 miles to my elementary school (few kids took bikes). Elementary Schools didn't have cafeterias- so at lunchtime you walked all the way home for a sandwich and then walked all the way back again.........all in 1 hour and 15 minutes. For me, it was a total of almost 7 miles a day.....and could be a tough slog in the Winter.

Neighborhood stores located on the first floor - or slightly below ground - in 2/3 story houses. The only "supermarkets" we're " downtown". When the first supermarket - a "First National" - was built closer to home.......most of those mom and pop stores began to struggle and eventually disappear.

When the first editions of Playboy were published - sneaking peaks in the back of the local Rexall Drug Store with my other degenerate 10 year old friends, and then running outside and laughing like crazy. And then going back in to buy our nickel candy or Popsicle.or bag of Stateline potato chips.