Last Entry of the year (probably)

Since we are at the end of the year, the new year coming is the beginning of the second decade or the 21st Century, I decided to geeze a little and see how much of my memories some of you may share.

 Here 'tis, do you remember?

 Rabbit Ears
 A coat hanger with tinfoil when your Rabbit ears broke
 Your antenna could only pick up one television station, if you were lucky, you could get all three.. (ABC, NBC, CBS)
 Brought to you in living color!!
 Black and white TV
 Reruns..
 Nothing on worth watching on Sunday until "Mutual Of Omaha's Wild Kingdom" with Marlin Perkins,"The Wonderful World of Disney", or "The Ed Sullivan Show"
 TV Couples Slept in Twin Beds
 UHF was 'New' or So that's what that other dial is for!!
 Cigarette commercials
 AM Radio
 Transistor radios
 American Top 40 with Casy Kasim, listening on Sunday to find out what was the new #1 song in the nation
 45 RM records which you couldn't play unless you had the Square adapter for your turn table or one of the little plastic gizmos for the hole
 If someone was "High Tech" they had a "Reel to Reel" tape recorder (My dad got one in '67 I think it was)
 Televisions and Stereos were furniture and came in big wood cabinets or "Consoles"
 You had to 'Turn the Dial' to change channels and the fine tuning was a larger wheel around the dial
 Invariably, the dial was lost and you had to use pliers to change the channel
 If you had a Remote control it was mechanical, and turned on the TV to Channel 2, it then had to 'clunk' through each channel and when it made it back around to Channel 13 it turned off (My Dad used to hide ours)
 TV stations went off the air at midnight with the National Anthem and the Poem "High Flight", they didn't come back on until 6 am. They either broadcast "Test Patterns" or shut down completely
 Cartoons were only on on Saturdays until 11 AM
 Nobody wore seat-belts
 Riding on a hot summer day with all of the windows down.. 4/55 Air conditioning, four windows down at 55mph
 Wing Windows, or as my wife calls them Fly Windows, the small windows in the front of the car on the Diver's and Passenger's doors that you could open to direct air in. Adults that smoked used them as ashtrays
 Hand-crank windows, it was a big deal to have electric windows
 Cars that had Ashtrays, in the front and back
 It was exciting when a neighborhood Family brought home a new car
 New Car models Came out every spring and it was a cool to see what they looked like
 Gas Stations gave away freebies (Glasses, Plates) to get you to come in
 Full Service gas; they Checked your oil and cleaned the windshield
 Your car couldn't hold five dollars worth of gas even though it was a land yacht with a 20 gallon tank
 You really didn't care about your cars gas mileage
 It was cool to have an 8 Tack Player in your car and you had to wedge a matchbook in it to get it to play correctly when it got old
Drive in Movies, going in your Pajamas and falling asleep in the back seat
 Everyone's Mom and Dad Smoked
 Everyone Dressed up to go out to dinner
 Movies almost always began with a cartoon, especially Disney movies
 All of the old Disney Classics were re-released every 4 years
 Singing Christmas Carols in the School Christmas Pageant, my second grade class practiced Greensleeves every morning after we said the Pledge of Allegiance and sang My Country Tis of thee.
 Halloween Pageants, Marching around the school in your Polyester Halloween Costume with the plastic mask. The costume was sold in a windowed cardboard box that only displayed the characters face.
 Home made costumes that you had to explain what you were
 Soaping a houses' windows when they didn't give out Halloween Candy (I learned the proper technique from my big brother)
 "It's (time) do you know where your children are?"
 Playing hide and seek on a summer night with all of the kids in the neighborhood.
 Freeze tag
 The Good Humor Man driving his white truck ringing the bell
 The first time you rode in a car with AC
 The first time you went to Someone's house that had central air conditioning
 The first time you saw a Garbage disposal, or a Dish washer
 Stingray Bicycles with Banana seats
 Hot wheels car sets, I had a "Johnny Lightning" racetrack
 Wham-O! made all of the cool toys
 Beatle Boots (My big brother had some)
 Jeans with the legs "Pegged" so tight you couldn't get your foot through them (My brother again)
 The Saturday night "Creature Feature" that showed all of the cheesy horror movies, it usually had some guy dressed as a Vampire for a host
 McDonald's was new and had only 'X' millions served, it was a big treat to go
 Apollo 8 Circling the moon at Christmas

 Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year from the BigMan.. And Big Mama (Just a nick name not a description) too!