Your Childhood Memories

[MelMariah]

Hey Everyone!
I've come to notice the age variations on this website, so I was wondering... What are your childhood memories?
Please, tell us what was 'cool' back when you were young?
What were some highlights?
Fashion..? Traditions..? Schooling...?
Mention anything that comes into your mind!

Mel.

[Bighuey]

Good topic. I remember when WW2 ended and when the Korean war started, the radio programs before TV. Amos and Andy, the Whistler, shows like that. Where I lived there wasnt any TV until I was a teenager. The big thing in fashion in school were DA haircuts, Poodle skirts I believe they were called for girls, Elvis, Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry and other early rock and roll. Chopped and channeled cars, you never see that any more. I just thought of this, when I was in about the 2nd grade on we had to write with ink pens. Every desk had an inkwell and you would dip your pen and write, dip and write and so on. Ballpoints had just barely come out, but we were not allowed to use them. According to one of my teachers, only lazy bums used ballpoints. I remember the Saturday afternoon movies, kids would save their money all week to get 25 cents to go to the movies. If you had an extra nickel you could get a Tootsie Roll at the snack bar. They had the cowboy movies mostly, Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, Johnny Mack Brown, The Durango Kid, Jimmy Wakely, Eddie Dean and many more. Before the main feature they had the serials, a different chapter every week. Superman, the Rocketman serials, Batman, Flash Gordon, I dont remember what all. Would Rocketman stop the evil Dr. Vulcan from blowing up the world with his Atomic Destructo-Ray? See the next exciting chapter at this theatre next week! Great stuff back then. Anyway, those are some of the things I remember.

[MelMariah]

Wow, that's really interesting Bighuey, thanks for the input.
Writing with ink pens is so beautiful, I imagine you have nice handwriting.
Mmm.. I myself am not a fan of the cowboy movies but oh, my dad loves them! He can't get enough..
I love knowing that things like Batman and Superman were popular back in your childhood and yet they are still producing different versions and sequels of them and are still very popular. It's interesting they carry on throughout the years.

[Bighuey]

Well, my handwriting is not exactly the best. Ive still got an old fountain pen but I dont imagine you can get ink for it anymore.

Batman and Superman serials were made in 1949 or 50. They were kind of crude compared to the modern versions, but still fun to watch. The best ones were Rocketman and Captain Marvel. They had special effects that were way ahead of their time. True, some of those things are timeless and will be around for a long time.

[Wannabe]

My childhood was spent in the sixties (born in 1957) but I was too young to get much out of that decade! We also emigrated from England to Australia in 1966, and that kinda sliced my childhood in half. My early memories are of Dr. Who and the Beatles (not together - that could be interesting). Daleks were the coolest thing on the planet - in Britain they took them "on tour" to the schools, although I didn't get to see them. Then, in the mid-sixties there was Star Trek.

The books I started out with were largely the British classic children's books: Enid Blyton (Famous Five, Secret Seven); the Just William books (Richmal Crompton - another woman), and the Swallows and Amazon books (Arthur Ransome). Then sci fi hit me in a big way, with 2001 in 1968, of course, the moon landing in 1969. After that it was Clarke, Asimov, Heinlein for me.

-- 23 Nov 2012, 11:07 --

My childhood was spent in the sixties (I was born in 1957) but I was too young to get much out of that decade! Furthermore, in 1966, my family emigrated from the UK to Australia, which kinda sliced my childhood in half. My earliest memories are of Dr. Who and the Beatles; the Daleks were the coolest thing around. They were taken "on tour" around the schools, but unfortunately I didn't get to see them. Then, in the mid sixties, Star Trek happened.

My earlier reading was mostly of the English children's classics: Enid Blyton (Secret Seven and Famous Five series), the Just William series (another woman, Richmal Crompton), and the Swallows and Amazons series (Arthur Ransome). Then sci fi hit me in a big way, with Star Trek first of all, then 2001: A Space Odyssey in 1968, and the moon landing in 1969. After that it was all Clarke, Asimov and Heinlein for me.

[Geneen Karstens]

My childhood was very similar to Bighueys. Except for he inkwells. We used pencils until high school when we used fountain pens. I do remember WWII. I suppose because both of my brothers were in it. One was in the Navy and stationed in the states because he was a welder and with the US being unprepared for the conflict, their ships were in terrible shape. My other brother was a paratrooper with with 501st battalion and jumped on D- Day, and in Holland, Belgium and Germany.i remember how sad our Christmas was when he was in the Battle of the Buldge. I remember his writing home about all the things he saw in England. While his buddies were in the pubs, he was sightseeing. I was so jealous at the time. I lived in a very small town with a very small library but I think I read most of the books. When the librarian wanted time off, she's ask me to take over for her. I was quite young and so very proud! Oh, the good old days!

[Bighuey]

Geneen, thats some story. Wasnt the 501st Battalion the one featured in the Band of Brothers series? My cousin was the only one in my family who was in the military at that time, he served in Italy. I remember rationing from those days and the ration stamp books you had to use for buying food items. Meat was rationed except for horse meat. There were a few times we ate that. As I remember it wasnt so bad. We saved tin cans and kitchen grease, they would come around about once a week or so to pick it up.

There was a used bookstore in my hometown I used to haunt quite regularly. It had been there since the late 1800's. They had stacks and shelves full of old books and magazines from early times for anywhere from 10 cents on up. I bought old pulps like Astounding Stories, Thrilling Wonder Stories, Galaxy, Fantastic Universe, and all kinds of old books that would probably be worth a fortune now. I bought one book there called Beggars of Life by Jim Tully for 10 cents. It was the autobiography of a hobo. I had it for years, dont remember whatever happened to it. I saw on Amazon or some book website, dont recall which one, that same book and it was worth something like 1200 dollars.

I remember early TV, shows like Sid Caesar, Lucy, Colgate Comedy Hour, Ed Sullivan, Studio One, Dragnet, Milton Berle and many more. There was only one station for a while and they added two more later on. It didnt come on until about 4 in the afternoon and finished up with the Late Show around 10 or so. We got the shows late, Christmas shows we got about the middle of January. They showed a lot of old movies from the 1920's until about 1943. There was a law back then that a movie couldnt be shown on TV unless it was 10 years old or older. Things sure have changed. But in those days things didnt seem primitive at all.

[Geneen Karstens]

We lived in a town of about 400 people so we had very little entertainment. They showed free movies on Wednesday night inthe summer, outside, brought chairs or a blanket and your own popcorn. Mostly westerns, Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, etc.we always found things to do,didn't even know what a TV was. When they did come into our area, we couldn't get more than one station and that was snowy and about the time I graduated and left home. The Band of Brothers they had on TV was about the 503rd, but Alton would have gone through the same things they did. He told about looking for food and found a stray chicken which they butchered after a fashion and ate. He said he didn't know if he could ever eat chicken again, but at the time they considered it a feast. He didn't talk a lot about the war when he came home. It was pretty hard on him. He went in a 19 year old kid and came home an old man. I feel so bad for these boys in Iraq and Afghanistan. The suicide rate is terrible among the boys coming home, and I don't think our government is taking it seriously enough.

[Bighuey]

I heard just the other day that the suicide rate among returning veterans is higher than it ever was in previous wars. I wonder if its because in WW2 and even Korea, they knew what they were fighting for and who were friends and who were enemies. Fighting terrorist organazations is a lot different that fighting a single country or a group of countries.

When I was a kid we did things outside more. Fishing, hiking, building clubhouses and go-carts and just plain goofing off. I read a lot, we didnt have TV until I was about 14. Even then, I didnt watch it much. There were too many fun things to do.

[Geneen Karstens]

I'm sorry to see my grand kids sitting in front of the tv or electronic games instead of playing games outside. So many of them we made up. I had an old bike my brother got in payment for some work he'd done for a farmer. It had narrow tires but I didn't care and when I beat the other kids with the balloon tires that were popular then no one made fun of me either. I remember being in a class in high school where the teacher said it wasn't possible to live on a certain dollar amount anymore and knew our income was below that and thinking " gee we're poor" but my next thought was "why don't I feel poor". I can contribute that to my folks. We always had a roof over our heads and plenty to eat..grew most of it. Anyway I guess I should hut up..I could go on and on.

[Bighuey]

I know what you mean. I also could go on forever. I came from a lower middle class family, but we got by ok. I used to get bikes and parts from the junkyards. My parents bought me a new J.C Higgins bike and I had to make it last as I would never get another one. There was a line from a movie, I think it was Melvin and Howard where Melvin Dumars wife is complaining that they are poor and Melvin tells her we may be broke but were not poor. That makes a lot of sense.

[clintessential]

The last two posts remind me of what Dwight Eisenhower said about his childhood: "I found out in later years that we were very poor. The glory of America is that we didn't know it." I'm not being disparaging. What I mean is that the posters and I grew up in a time when no one was demonized for being poor, or less well off than someone else. My earliest memories were of my father's '49 Mercury. It was huge! When
my brother and I sat in the back seat all we could see was the interior of the car. My father
was a career military man, so we moved every 4 years. I liked it, but my brother hated it.
Upon our arrival at The Grand Canyon, my brother was despondent. There weren't any
hamburger stands!! We agreed that pogo sticks and Hopalong Cassidy were cool. Milk
was delivered by a man in an All White uniform. Television really didn't factor in. We watched
what my father watched. He was the only one with TV privileges. So the family read. I read
mostly history and some "grown-up" books(which I didn't always understand). By 12 I had
read To Kill A Mockingbird, The Ugly American, and Profiles in Courage. I'm a Yankees
fan. I saw my first ML baseball game at Griffith Stadium in 1958. Griffith Stadium was home
to the Washington Senators. They played the Yanks, the Bronx Bombers. The Bombers had
5 Hall of Famers on the roster that day, including Mickey Mantle, my hero. Mick was faster
than a speeding bullet, could throw a baseball thru a brick wall, and could hit baseballs to the Moon. Mick's life after baseball was beset by tragedy, most of it brought on by himself. His love affair with the grape ended his life too soon. RIP, Mick.