What’s that?

How many things that were common 50 years ago are unknown today?

My brother Pete mentioned “Fender Skirts” to me the other day. I remembered taking them off to remove/repair tires when I was working in the garage. They were the hook on metal pieces that covered half the rear tire on each side of the car. They were usually easy to work with until the car got older and rust became a factor. When Pete mentioned the skirts he encouraged me to think of other things from our era that younger people are not aware of.

How about Phone Booths, Neru Jackets, Wall Phones, Party Lines, Air Planes, Percolator (Coffee Pot), Castor Oil, The word Supper, as opposed to dinner, getting free matches when you bought cigarettes, cigarette machines, lunch counters in drug stores, serial radio shows (Little Orphan Annie, The Lone Ranger, The Cisco Kid etc), door to door salesmen, penny candy, 5 and dime stores, full service gas stations, what am I missing?

Here are some more for your consideration, remember when people got excited about “Wall to Wall” carpeting to completely cover that unsightly hardwood? By the way that’s the same hardwood, in many cases, that we are now paying people to reveal by ripping the “Wall to Wall” carpeting up. I also remember when my friends were watching “Color TV” and bragging about it for years before my parents finally caught up. It’s just TV now, they’re all color. I remember when my mom’s friends were said to be “in a family way” because the word pregnant seemed too harsh. Do you recall “Store Bought” candy and clothes as opposed to candy and clothes mom would make in the house to save money. I still remember the time my dad borrowed a sausage grinder from the next door neighbor to save a few bucks. I’m glad he thought it was too much work because the home made sausage really wasn’t that good.

If we could hop back to cars for a moment, does anyone remember curb feelers? Those pieces of metal that extended beyond the tire that would make a noise when they came in contact with curb. These were designed to help people park without scuffing the extremely wide white walls that were so popular back in the day. If you don’t remember curb feelers, or even if you do, you might remember steering knobs. These attached to the steering wheel and made it easier to turn the wheel before all cars were equipped with power steering. And wasn’t the driver’s side floor awfully cluttered with the clutch and dimmer switch squeezed in along with the gas and brake pedals? I remember seeing a lot of cars with “running boards” they were actual boards wide enough to stand on that were on each side of the car, below the doors. They came in handy when all cars had manual transmissions and push starting cars that had bad starters was still common practice. What about “Continental Kits” the spare tires that were attached to the trunks of cars. I also think of the push button transmissions on the Dodge products, I don’t remember anyone else having that. This is probably related to the price of gas and the fear of pollution but, do you remember “Cruising the Town” ala “American Graffiti”? We would ride around town all night looking for girls or parties and then pitch in a buck or so to refill the gas tank at the end of the night.

It was a fun walk down memory lane for me. I hope it brought back good memories for you too. I’m sure some of you are yelling at the screen right now, “You forgot @#$%^%$&*&^” let me know what that is. We’d all like to know.

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