The "50's 60's"

Growing up in urban northeaster New Jersey in the early/mid 1960's, there was so much of the 1950's that was still part of our everyday lives.

I still fondly (and clearly!) remember:

"Five & Tens"

Corner drug stores (many still equipped with soda fountains!)

Neighborhood candy stores ("penny candy" still abounded!)

B/W prime-time TV shows.

Cars with tailfins

10 cent bus fares

Clotheslines (and wooden clothespins!)

Coal furnaces

Doo Wop

Annette Funicello/Frankie Avalon beach party movies

Reruns of the original "Mickey Mouse Club"

"Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color"

Ed Sullivan

Getting dressed up to go shopping and, of course, for going to curch

45's

LP's

"Hi-Fi's"

Reel-to-reel tape recorders

8mm home movies

Slide projectors

Sunday dinner with the family/family outings on Sunday afternoons.

Movie theatres with one HUGE screen

Mickey Mantle touting "Yoo Hoo" chocolate drink

Character actor Jack Gilford doinf "Cracker Jack" commercials on tv

"Funny Face" fruit punch mix

"Fizzies" soft drink tablets

Propeller airliners

Transatlantic ocean liners

Buses and trains with windows that could be opened

Gas at under 32 cents a gallon

Ahhhh, man, do I REALLY feel old now....(!!)

 

I also remember............

Tube testers at hardware stores, auto supply stores, and discount department stores

TV's that actually had DIALS!! ("Don't touch that dial!")

Rabbit-ear antennas

Peering into the back of the set to watch the tubes glow and light up (radios, too)

"Chili joints"

Pet shops (including the pet departments at Woolworths)......goldfish, 59 cents!

Drive-in movies

 

Non-electronic "pedestal" traffic lights with relay boxes that clicked and clunked as the lights changed

6 for 25 cents candy bars

Autos with vent windows and REAL fenders

Using the term "jalopy" to describe an old, beat-up car

12 cent comic books

Buster Brown children's shoes

Wooden escalators in department stores and subway stations

Christmas and Easter Seals

Advertising cards inside of buses and subway cars for "UNICEF"

Trading stamps (Plaid Stamps/S&H Green Stamps)

Horns and bells on tricycles and bikes

 

I remember Amos and Andy
Howdy Doodie
The Micky Mouse Show with the Mouseketeers including Annette Funicello.
78 records.
A guy pushing a cart through the side streets shouting "Mackie's Tools!"
Milk and Seltzer delivered to my door.
Playing handball against the wall of my apt. house.
15 cent subway tokens
Hot pants
Big heavy schwinn bicycles that you actually had to pedal to make them go.
Delivering the Daily News at 4am in snowstorm at 12 yrs old.

 

Night Owl ("Bulldog") editions of the New York Daily News, prior to midnight

Chuck McCann's "Let's Have Fun" on Sunday mornings (WPIX-11)

Cap'n Jack McCarthy hosting "Popeye", and Officer Joe Bolton hosting "The Little Rascals" (WPIX-11)

Subway trains with rattan seating and STRAPS to hold onto!

New buses lettered "AIR CONDITIONED"

Record listening booths at record shops and in department stores.

Jimmy Dodd playing his "Mouse-geetar" on the "Mickey Mouse Club"

15 cent hot dogs and 15 cent orangeades

The Jackie Gleason Show

Mitch Miller

Corvette Stingray

Baby carriages

Air-raid drills ("duck and cover" drills at school)

"Fallout Shelter" signs in department stores, office buildings, and subway stations

 

Corvair
15 Cent pizza slices and 15 cent sodas
Coke machines with bottles
Tab with cyclamates, yummy!
Avanti coupe
My uncle's Rambler
Hai Karate
Photo developing
Kodak instamatic
Polaroid land cameras
Flash bulbs
Cheetah and Crawdaddy magazines
Chinese laundry

 

Jade East men's cologne

MAD Magazine (LOVED "Spy Vs. Spy"!)

Polaroid Swinger (only $19.95!)

Tinted plastic sheet to put over screen of b/w set to make picture "color"(!!)

Aluminum Christmas trees with rotating color "wheel"

My old man's two-tone green '55 Mercury Monterey

My aunt's '57 (and '58) Ford Ranch Wagons

My cousin's sky-blue '66 Mustang

Buses with pull cords to ring bell, alerting driver that you wanted to get off at the next stop

ESSO ("Put A Tiger In Your Tank!")

Plastic green army men (w/ accessories!)

Chinos

Narrow neckties

Crew cuts

LIFE and LOOK magazines

 

Woody woodpecker.
Cracked magazine, now online.
Clam diggers
Cool whip
My-t-fine pudding
Boones Farm wine
Mateus Rose
Phone switchboards and operators
Not a single electronic device in schools
Hookers working Times Square
Big family dinners

 

Rotary dial phones

Telephone exchanges with letters (HEnderson 4-6632)

Princess phones ("It lights!")

Davey & Goliath

Gumby

"The Flinstones" (b/w) in prime time

"The Jetsons" in prime time

The NBC peacock

James Bond adventures starring Sean Connery

GREYHOUND "Scenicruiser" buses

CONTINENTAL TRAILWAYS "Eagle" buses

View-Masters

"Where's Huddles?" (football-themed prime-time cartoon by Hanna-Barbera)

Reruns of the "original 39" Honeymooners

"The Bugs Bunny Show"

"Colonel Bleep"

"Astro Boy"

"Speed Racer"

"8th Man"

"The Sandy Becker Show"/"Sandy's Hour" (WNEW 5)

Shari Lewis (and "Lamb Chop"!)

Wide-track Pontiac

VW Beetles and buses

Beechnut Fruit Stripe Gum

"The Super Chief"

"The 20th Century Limited"

"Lavoris" mouth wash

 

Remembering the wooden escalator in Packard Bambergers in Hackensack.

 

Ahhh, Packards!

Many people I worked with shopped there for decades!

Until Gimbels (Manhattan) closed, they still had wooden escalators in certain areas (I believe Macy's still uses a few)

The old (now gone) H&M (PATH) "Tubes" station at Journal Square (Jersey City) also had a wooden escalator that connected the (now gone) Public Service bus station with the H&M concourse; I remember it well, 60-odd years ago............

 

Used to be able to pull your spark plugs, take them to ---someplace--maybe gas stations or auto part stores, stick ém in a rubber sealer on a machine and clean them with hard blown sand. Now you just have to buy new plugs.

 

My dad drove trucks for nearly 40 years (retired 1968), and was also a self-trained mechanic.

Mom remembered him overhauling a Model "A" engine on their kitchen table, not long after they married in 1935; she was cleaning the spark plugs!

When I was growing up, one uncle owned a GULF station, while the other owned a SINCLAIR station.

I still remember, as a kid, the metal racks filled with road maps for every state, and the rubber hose that, when a car ran over it, rang a bell in the attendant's office!

My dad often spoke of "putting Neatsfoot oil on the clutch!"

I also well remember when all service stations had the wall-mounted air pumps for free air......man, it's like it was 1,000 years ago..............

 

10 cent phone calls (from pay phones)

"Fashion Color" kitchen appliances

"Stewardesses"(NOT "flight attendants!)

Corner fire alarm boxes

Traffic signals with only red and green lights

Cabooses on freight trains

Wringer washing machines

A&P

SEARS

BAMBERGER's

GIMBEL's

WANNAMAKER's

Doors marked "BOYS" and "GIRLS" over the doorways of older school buildings

Push-type lawn mowers

 

Long-gone airlines from the 60's:

TWA

EASTERN

UNITED

NATIONAL

MOHAWK

ALLEGHANY

BOAC

BEA

 

My late lady friend used a Maytag wringer type washer right up until she passed. There was a real reason for the saying--" tit in the wringer."

 

My first drunken adventure at 14 was with Orange Glow wine! There was lemon glow also. That shit was bad--especially after I drank a quart of it!

 

Back in the 60's, an elderly lady (a friend of Mom's) had an old "THOR" machine.

Young as I was, I can STILL hear the noise of the motor today:

"Choc-o-lat-choc-o-late-choc-o-lat-choco-late"

That machine had to have been about 30 years old, when I remember it!

 

Clothespins (wooden and plastic)

Clotheslines

Clothes poles (more seen behind suburban houses)

Amusement trucks (these small trucks would visit our neighborhood several times each summer, and had a small ride on the back (10 cents!)

Fruit/vegetable trucks (driven by local vendors, visting during the warmer months)

Ice cream trucks

Bait-and-tackle shops

Millinery shops (ladies hats, gloves, etc.)

Hula hoops

Pressed tin ceilings in older shops and stores

RIT fabric dye

BUFFERIN

CONTACT (remember the hundreds of "tiny time pills"in a capsule!)

Street games:

Stickball

Hide-and-seek

Tag

Giant Step

Red light/Green light

Giant step

Cars with METAL (NOT plastic!) grilles

Kellogg's "OK's" cereal (Yogi Bear on the box!)

 

Television repair shops

Reel-to-reel tape recorders

Transistor radios

Crew cuts

Vitalis

'lectric Shave

Bryl-Creem ("a little dab'll do ya!")

Imperial margarine ("tastes so good, you'll feel like a king!")

Kraft "Fudgies" (I LOVED these!)

Bosco

Coco-Marsh

Matey bubble-bath (with free toy on each box!)

NOMA Christmas lights/ornaments

"The Star Spangled Banner" (along with a montage of views from different places in the US) played when TV channels signed off at night, and signed on in the morning

Jack La Lane

Vic Tanny gyms