Remembering Things Past

Pagers. Driving here in Florida at night when you drove past a business and it was lit up in purple neon it was either a strip club, a pawn shop or a pager store.
 
sukie said:
Pagers. Driving here in Florida at night when you drove past a business and it was lit up in purple neon it was either a strip club, a pawn shop or a pager store.
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Heh, Troost Avenue in midtown Kansas City. Not only was it the racial dividing line (most people who lived east were black, most who lived west were white) but it also had within about five miles about a half dozen adult bookstores and adult movie theaters and a Planned Parenthood too. The Hyde Park Neighborhood Association didn't care about Planned Parenthood, but they did care about closing down the adult bookstores and adult theaters. So they routinely took pics of license plates and go figure most were from Johnson County, Kansas and the burbs in Jackson County. As it happened, and why does this always happen, a funny thing happened, one of the protesters at Planned Parenthood? He was captured on camera a couple hours later with something he bought at the Adult bookstore. Hey hipocrisy is awful. It can also be amusing.

Well back in the 80s there was a bookstore in downtown KC called News of the World. For a little kid like me, it was awesome because it had newspapers and magazines from all over the world. For my mom and dad? It had shall we say more uh "sophisticated" reading material. . . . Its gone now, the Sprint Center stands were it used to be.
 
herodotus said:
Most of these come from the 1980s and 1990s because that's when I was a child and teenager

Pogs

Surge

Book It (see Pizza Hut)

Trapper Keepers

Fruitopia

Pizza Hut having sit down Restaurants that were special occassions. Your book it coupon hit differently when you were there. The red glasses, the pizza was actually fresh made

Pizza Hut's Land Before Time puppets (oh the stench of those things)

Saturday morning cartoons

Disney Afternoon (being a kid can suck, you get home from a tough day at school and there was Ducktales, Darkwing Duck, and Tailspin)

History on the History Channel

AMC showing movies like TCM & without movies

Educational programing on TLC

Music on MTV, and Beavis and Butthead (wasn't allowed to watch that, but I did. Only in recent years did I realize what a social commentary it was), and Aeon Flux

Beakman's World

Batman the Animated Series

The Simpsons (those first 10 seasons)

Not having internet at home until high school (1998, AOL still can hear that cross between a conch shell and stepping on a phone

Clear phones where you could see the diodes and circuit board

iMac bondie blue (my first home computer, Christmas 1998).

Being overawed in spring 1995 in Seventh grade when my Science teacher in Kansas City sent his friend an email to a friend of his at NASA in Florida and getting a response back in the same 45 minute class period. You had to be there, trust me it felt like we had all seen the future.

A double quarter pounder extra value meal supersized at McDonald's for 6 bucks, and the way the fries used to taste

Being able to get 2 weeks of mostly healthy groceries (meats, veggies, rice, beans, pasta, fruits, and chips, pop, ice cream [like I said, mostly healthy, I was a kid) for two people for 60 bucks

Mom being in between jobs and not being hungry at dinner. I didn't piece together what that meant until years later. Its why mom lives with me after her stroke. She went without food so I'd have enough to eat. The least I can do is make sure she wants for nothing and has some dignity in her older years.

Christmas of 1993. No gifts, no fancy holiday food. Mom had just gotten a new job and her first paycheck was not in the bank yet The gifts mom could afford were the mortgage, the light, and heat and basic food on the table so we didn't go hungry. Well its Christmas eve that year, and it's getting to be about 9:30 or 10 at night and I hear the sound of someone knocking on the door. It was my uncle and aunt from Saint Louis. They had bought us a turkey, stuffing, pies, fruitcake, board games, legos, a science lab kit, and 300 hundred dollars "don't even think of paying it back. we don't want you to mother of Gibby."
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TLC had educational programming?

What year was that? 🤣
 
HipKat said:
The Transit Drive-in in Lockport is still open
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Right around the corner from me!

I should send my drone over there and I watch them for free! 😆

It reminds me of when I was around 14 years old. We lived in Tonawanda, and the I-290 drive-in was around (there’s a trampoline park there now, think it was a BJ’s before that). Remember Twin Fair?

There was a cut-through in the neighborhood that would lead us to the fence line of the drive-in. A couple guys from school said they were going to sneak out at night and wanted to know if I wanted to go. Knowing what was going to happen when I got home, I snuck out anyway. So we get there, and Keith climbs the fence where there wasn’t a lot of cars, and unhooks the speaker and drags it towards the fence and climbs back over.

We couldn’t really hear it good, but we didn’t really care. The movie?

It was Russ Meyer’s “Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls”.

A veritable boobfest. A feast for our eyes. And, not that I knew what it was, but they had lesbians, bisexuality and all kinds of debauchery. Our eyes were as big as saucers. 👀 All we had to do was watch for…….ah fuck, here comes a flashlight! They used to send an old man down the fence lines just for finding sneaky bastards like us!

Well, off we scurried like rats, but that day, I fell in love. With boobs.

The End.
 
I remember Twin Fair. That drive in became Fun and Games Park right behind the Whale Carwash.

Rem over how huge Two Guys was? Boulevard and Sheridan. Near the Ground Round and Alice’s Kitchen
 
JC-3122 said:
Right around the corner from me!

I should send my drone over there and I watch them for free! 😆

It reminds me of when I was around 14 years old. We lived in Tonawanda, and the I-290 drive-in was around (there’s a trampoline park there now, think it was a BJ’s before that). Remember Twin Fair?

There was a cut-through in the neighborhood that would lead us to the fence line of the drive-in. A couple guys from school said they were going to sneak out at night and wanted to know if I wanted to go. Knowing what was going to happen when I got home, I snuck out anyway. So we get there, and Keith climbs the fence where there wasn’t a lot of cars, and unhooks the speaker and drags it towards the fence and climbs back over.

We couldn’t really hear it good, but we didn’t really care. The movie?

It was Russ Meyer’s “Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls”.

A veritable boobfest. A feast for our eyes. And, not that I knew what it was, but they had lesbians, bisexuality and all kinds of debauchery. Our eyes were as big as saucers. 👀 All we had to do was watch for…….ah fuck, here comes a flashlight! They used to send an old man down the fence lines just for finding sneaky bastards like us!

Well, off we scurried like rats, but that day, I fell in love. With boobs.

The End.
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I used to go see Talas at that Drive-in on Saturday evenings. That was after Hard Rock Quarry closed
 
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Who remembers these? ;)

Electric can openers with the spinning 'grindstone' knife sharpener in the back?

Aluminum trays for your tv dinners?

Tube televisions and radios?

Console stereos?

Wall mounted rotary phones?

Treadle sewing machines?

Wringer washers?

Saving S&H stamps?
 
HipKat said:
Who remembers these? ;)

Electric can openers with the spinning 'grindstone' knife sharpener in the back?

Aluminum trays for your tv dinners?

Tube televisions and radios?

Console stereos?

Wall mounted rotary phones?

Treadle sewing machines?

Wringer washers?

Saving S&H stamps?
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Down in the storage area of the first apartment I lived at after college there was an old radio with vacuum tubes. I had so badly wanted to rescue that thing and get it back to working order but the apartment property management threw it out before I could salvage it. Probably for the best though, it was heavily water damaged, the speakers were gone and the knobs and tuner were gone too.

Not so much a tube tv, but yeah even in the 80s and early 90s, televisions (especially Zenith, you remember them?) were still in a nice wooden case. They were nice.

Console stereos? Every so often I see one up for sale on Facebook marketplace.. Once the city gets done with its water main replacement project and my basement is no longer in danger of flooding, I would love to pay to get one of them in by basement.

I don't have a wall mounted rotary phone, but my landline is a rotary dial candlestick phone.

treadle sewing machine? Grandma had one of those.
 
sukie said:
I remember Twin Fair. That drive in became Fun and Games Park right behind the Whale Carwash.

Rem over how huge Two Guys was? Boulevard and Sheridan. Near the Ground Round and Alice’s Kitchen
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Before that Fun and Game Park was there, an old man had a goat farm on a big strip of that land. I think they were waiting for him to croak to build something on it.
Remember Twin Fair burned? It was arson, and everyone knew who it was but couldn’t prove it…
 
herodotus said:
Down in the storage area of the first apartment I lived at after college there was an old radio with vacuum tubes. I had so badly wanted to rescue that thing and get it back to working order but the apartment property management threw it out before I could salvage it. Probably for the best though, it was heavily water damaged, the speakers were gone and the knobs and tuner were gone too.

Not so much a tube tv, but yeah even in the 80s and early 90s, televisions (especially Zenith, you remember them?) were still in a nice wooden case. They were nice.

Console stereos? Every so often I see one up for sale on Facebook marketplace.. Once the city gets done with its water main replacement project and my basement is no longer in danger of flooding, I would love to pay to get one of them in by basement.

I don't have a wall mounted rotary phone, but my landline is a rotary dial candlestick phone.

treadle sewing machine? Grandma had one of those.
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more 80s and 90s nostalgia:

Anyone remember Empire Sports Network?

Reebok pumps anyone? Not sure what those were supposed to do, but every kid wanted and had those

the original mobile phones? Not the Nokias of the late 90s which you could drop from three or more stories up and then pick up off the ground where they had cracked the sidewalk and still use (as opposed to modern cell phones that crack if you drop from three feet) but the originals that looked like what I imagine HipKat'a field radio looked like from his army days.

Stovetop popcorn (it came in an aluminum pie plate thing and you popped it on your stove

1970s appliances. You know the ones, they were horrifically colored, burgundy red, some sort of yellow, or avacado green, made in America out of American steel (as seen by the steel mark) in the inside of the door. Tough and long lasting, the fridge in the house I grew up in didn't die until 1998 and the range lasted until we moved in the early 2000s. Damn those were good appliances

That light wood paneling

Flannel upholstery couches and living room sets

sick days with the Price is Right

NFL playoffs at noon and 3

Playoffs on network television

When Coca-Cola made 3 liter bottles

American Gladiators (and American Gladiators live)

WWF (Jake the Snake, Hulk Hogan, Earthquake)

Peter, Paul, and Mary

When SNL was funny and late night comedy shows were worth staying up for (Carson, Leno until about 2000, Letterman)

The Dana Carvey Show?

Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood

The Arsenio Hall show

Homicide: Life on the Streets
 
herodotus said:
that was a cable tuner, I remember having one of these in the late 80s when we first fot cable. We had American Cable Vision and you had to set the tv to channel 3
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My dad had one with an added little toggle switch and if a channel was scrambled, toggling that switch unscrambled it
 
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Gym class. Every year got a new pair of Pro Keds
 
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