The Good Old Days (early sixties)

Aside from remembering all 26 of them, anyone else remember the old water filled coke (or soda) machines? By the time you got the one you wanted up to the takeout slot, your hand was so cold, your hand was so cold you could hardly hold the bottle.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

I was there, and I remember them well only because I never used drugs like many of my friends.

I was in the poolroom (skipping school) when the news came on the B&W TV that Kennedy had been shot.

A bunch of us celebrated Inauguration Day 1965 by getting drunk, riding around in a Land Rover (two wooden bench seats facing one another down the sides in the back), rocking the car back and forth by coordinating our motion, making a wrong turn in DC and being surrounded by Secret Service agents because we ended up in LBJ's parade.

1964 World's Fair in NYC (We went in 1965)
Richard Montgomery High School wouldn't sponsor this Senior Class trip so we recruited some teachers to accompany us as "chaperones" for our stay at the Astor Hotel in Times Square.......male teachers on the boy's floor.....female teachers on the girl's floor.....one of the teachers got pregnant during the trip.....Mr. Beers, Chairman Emeritus of the Astor, and in his 70's knew every girl on Broadway.....you wanted a date, you asked Mr. Beers.....a little deli on 39th & Broadway served a lunch of two huge slabs of roast beef, mashed potatoes & gravy, green beans, rolls, dessert and drink for $1.19.......and of course, on the fairgrounds, the Brass Rails sold a 32 oz. cup of beer for 25c......every time your cup was empty......there was another Brass Rail!.....the only thing I don't remember is what the darn World's Fair was all about.

I didn't go to Woodstock because I hated hippie music, but I was in Chicago gambling in a poolroom in 1968, and even though I was a Rebublican, I decided to check out the DNC........I love Chicago's Transit Authority Prologue.....The whole world is watching!

 

Cool Ford Galaxy 500 memory cpm!

My dad bought a 1961 Ford Galaxy (not a 500). It was white with fins in the back -- the taillights looked like a round rocket exhaust (everything was rocket/space designed in the early 1960s). I can't remember if it was later or earlier that the fins got HUGE on some cars.

I remember as a kid sticking my hand down in the crack in the bench seat to pull out coins (SILVER!) that would fall out of pockets.

 

Yep! There was an ESSO gas station not far from school that had one outside of the office. Our hands would be so cold that we could make a girl pee just by touching her.

Chris

 

The '60 had short horizontal fins that extended out toward the side of the car with taillights that looked somewhat like half-opened eyes (droopy eyelids).

 

The car I used to learn how to drive was a 1965 Galaxy 500. It got all of 9 miles per gallon. We had to get rid of it during the 73-74 oil crisis because it just guzzled too much gas!

 

Wow, I guess I must be older than dirt then! LOL.

 

My father was a Chrysler fan. That is a 1963 300J for those who do not remember. Not ours, but very similar - color and all. Maybe it was ugly, but it moved. The fastest I ever got it up to was 120 and that was on an old country road.

 

Gee, I was only 1 when this car came out. The cars of the early '60s were really neat because they were big, comfortable and made of solid heavy metal. Not like these plastic and aluminum cars we have now-a-days. Anyway, my best friend would feast on this car. He loves those old cars and knows all of the names and years at a glance! It's amazing! After reading some of these threads I'm not feeling so old now as I have been feeling. I just turned 50 in September. Harsh!

 

Air conditioning - I don't remember when we got our first AC. I do remember going with my family to the local park to sleep on the grass because it was too hot to sleep indoors.
There would be lots of families in the park on very hot nights. And remember spending all day Saturday at the movies watching cartoons, newsreels and a cowboy movie because it was the only air conditioned place available to kids.

Somebody mentioned vacuum tubes. When I had the following tube on display I would put a little vacuum tube about 1" tall on the base. it really made the 12" tube look pretty big.
It was awarded on October 31, 1928.
A few years ago, somebody told me the tube is getting valuable. Who would've thought that.
I started collecting tube radios some years ago. When I listen to them now they have nice mellow analog sound that takes me back decades.
I'm not a big band person but I listen to them and search the dial for old shows on those old radios. Go figure.

 

'
Very interesting bunch of memories!
I started searching cent rolls in 1969, riding my bike to three of the banks in town within a mile. I estimate I looked through $1500 of cents that summer and don't think I ever found an IHC, but lots of wheats. My other job that summer was mowing and watering our lawn. We still had a B/W TV, but we listened to the stereo radio/record player more than the TV. That year Dad bought a new car, a Plymouth Fury, and a pickup, a Ford F-250. He added an 8-track under the dash of the Fury and A/C under the dash of the pickup, not much leg room for the passenger. My favorite toys were an HO scale race track layout and a two-speed Schwinn bicycle.

 

Nice sentiment Jim and I second it

TODAY. Now just be patient and it shall become "the goodleday". What I mean to express is: These ARE the good ol' days, if only we had the good sense to know it B4 they're gone!

 

Sounds like a Carly Simon song.....

 

My dad didn't get our Galaxy 500 until 1964. We had to wait for the Plymouth to wear out.

 

Anticipation... is making me wait...

 

You'd be surprised what kind of milage you could get out of those old cars if you ignored the factory specs. My first car was a 72 Delta 88 Oldsmobile with a 350 cubic inch rocket engine. It had been my fathers car and he never got better than 9 or 10 mpg out of it. I played with the timing and the fuel mix and the dwell for awhile and with over 100K miles on it I had it up to getting 23 mpg and it still had all the power it needed. OK so it was now 0 to 60 in 7 seconds instead of 6 so what. I don't know why the fuel mileage on the cars went down so much in the 60's. I was listening to an episode of Gunsmoke from 1961 last week and they were advertising a 1961 Buick with a V8 engine that they claimed got 29 mpg. In 1989 I was watching a PBS show called last chance garage and they were showcasing 1950 Hudsons. A 2 1/2 ton steel behemoth with a 400 straight eight engine. They asked the owner what kind of mileage he got and he said 20 mpg. 60 years or engineering later and Detroit is proud of getting 23 mpg.

 

>They asked the owner what kind of mileage he got and he said 20 mpg. 60 years or engineering later and Detroit is proud of getting 23 mpg.<

Those suckers were big cars.
In 2007 I traded in a 16 y/o Saturn SL1 standard shift, that averaged 25MPG with mostly city driving, for a 2007 Hyundai Elantra Limited. The window
EPA sticker states 27MPG city and 31 or so highway. Driving the same route as the Saturn I'm averaging 20MPG city. Tried everything, overinflating
tires by 5-6pounds, depressing the gas pedal very gently, taking all the crap out of the trunk except my gym bag and donut spare. Took the car to
the dealer twice to get it checked out. Nothing helps. However, .it does get >30mpg on highway trips.

 

In 1964 the old man got VW Beetle. 28mpg? Dang, can't remember, but that car was passed on to me in '68 when I started college. Served me well right up untill the time I got married in '73.

 

Wow, I can't say nothing other than I like to collect items from those times

 

I always get a kick out of people reminiscing about old cars. The exteriors looked cool but when it comes down to it, that's about all I can say for them. Granted, I'm not from that generation, but I'd be curious to know anybody who was happy about the comfort of those cars, in comparison today. Who had a comfortable one? No AC. Stiff leather bench seats. Crappy suspension. Thin, hard steering wheels. No sound proofing. No power steering. No power anything. A crappy AM radio. I'm sorry, but no thanks!!

I'll take my '07 trailblazer over anything from that era. I'm too used to AC, a quiet, comfortable ride with push button auto 4wd, and power everything including adjustable foot pedals. Maybe it's made me too soft? lol I put a Pioneer touch screen receiver in it last year.

Have since become accustomed to my entire Ipod playlists at my finger tips, hands free bluetooth phone calls, satellite radio, music videos, occasionally DVDs and of course 2D or 3D GPS navigation at the same time,with turn by turn directions and a backup camera for safety. I'm actually disappointed that I can't bring up a live weather radar on it. Well, I could but I didn't purchase the MSN bar for it and accompanying internet subscription, but I had to stop somewhere.
But yeah, this is the first vehicle my kid will grow up with and some day they'll probably think it sucks too. Maybe because you have to drive it yourself. lol