Old Timers Unite---Give it Your Best Shot

[Ron61]

Pin ball games for 5 cents. Win a bunch of games and sell them to your friends at 2 games for 5 cents. Milking by hand and cranking the old milk & cream seperator by hand because we had no electricity. Digging cicterns to hold water for drinking and flitering it through rocks. Making home made bombs from cow manure, carbide, & water.

Ron :

[Trans-Am Jim]

I can remember riding with my neighbor in his XK 120 down to Thompson, CT. and watching as he strapped on his helmet, took second place in the feature road race, then driving back home again on a glorious June Saturday.

I can remember getting my 911S' motor pulled, new heads bought and installed (old ones burnt up from running too much Av gas) and reassembled, all by a Porsche Dealer, for $450.00.

I can remember our team (UOP Shadow) snatching the pole from Peter Revson's McLaren on the last lap in qualifying at the Elkhart Lake Can-Am in 1971 and then proceeding to drink ourselves silly that night at Siebken's.
A feat, oft repeated, (getting silly-drunk at Siebken's, that is!) but never with the fun and friendship of that evening.

[cobrashoch]

1- Sky King, Capt. Midnight, Howdy Dudey! and others
2- 10 cent saturday movie matinee w/ Buck Rogers (continued next week)
3- Loose girls that wore nylons
4- New cars in any color as long as its black
5- Bill Halley and the comets at a shool dance
6- 16 cent gas
7- watching Offenhouser(sp) debut at Indy
8- Military surplus Jeeps for 25$
9- 3 wheeled "cop" Harleys
10- War surplus shops with k- rations (or was it "c" rations?)
11- 6 inch t.v.'s
12- Radio serials with "The Shadow knows" and many others
13- Big band dances
14- No Marvel comic books
15- Licorice flavored bubble gum- horrible stuff!

What a neat thread!
cobrashock

[cobrashoch]

Jimbo- I remember those Shadows kicking the 917's tails in Mid Ohio about then. Not to much later they were banned, I seem to remember. Could it have been a "little"anti American bias was popping through there? Really neat Chevys those cars were, and I liked their logo too!
cobrashock

[Trans-Am Jim]

Ron:

During my tenure with the Shadow team (late '70 thru '71 season) the car unfortunately didn't kick anyones tails, except for maybe us mechanics'.

Other than the pole at Elkhart and third place later in the year at Edmonton and, the season was pretty dismal. We finished but one race (Edmonton).

Interestingly, the Shadow's designer in '71 and '72 was Peter Bryant, who was responsible for all the initial CAD work on the Shelby Series One.

[petek]

"Licorice flavored bubble gum- horrible stuff!"

Wasn't that gum called "Blackjack"?

[Dan Semko]

Pete,
You're right it was called "BlackJack". I've been wracking my brain trying to think of the Yoyo manufacturer that was so popular and finally the synapses fired....it was Duncan. They had the entire market cornered when I was a kid with butterfly yoyos, singing yoyos and even had the early ones that illuminated when they spun. Remember Tommy Smothers as "The Yoyo Man" on the Smothers Brothers Show. The guy is probably one of the best yoyoers in the country. I tried a few of his stunts when I was young and still can't think right from the concussions.

[G.R.]

Duncan YO-YO's--when my Dad sold our old home several years ago he found a box stored in the garage ,a bunch of stuff that belonged to my brother and I that my mother had packed up and put away after we had moved away from home--most of it junk, lots of comic books, Pez dispensers, some Hot Wheels cars , football/Baseball trading cards ,a "Makaha"skateboard and a Duncan yo-yo--a Metallic Blue Spinner--my brother took everything else but I got the yo-yo and the skateboard-- he didn't want them and I didn't care at the time

My brother got the best end of that as he's made about $1,500 selling the other stuff to collectors


Now where did I put that yo-yo

[petek]

Duncan yoyos! I even had one of those ones that would illuminate (AAA batteries if I remember correctly).

Hey, remember those gyroscope tops, zippers? zingers? (Quick Internet search ensues..) AH-HA, Wizzers!

[Silk]

Great thread! Brings back some fond memories. A couple more:

Debating with fellow gearheads back in the 50s which trans was better/smoother – the Buick Dynaflow or the Olds Hydramatic.

And in late 1969 going to look at a 1966 427 street car that had been hit on the drivers side at the door hinges – fairly minor damage. Asking price was $4,000. Might as well have been $400,000 back then. If only I’d been smarter at the time. Then again, my kids wonder why I’m not smarter now!

[G.R.]

Whizzers $0.50 you could order them from a mail-order house often advertised on the back page of some comics, along with "real" Confederate dollars, and Jack ARmstrong(?) body builder course--Kick sand in you face or some such


This is great

[Dan Semko]

Hey Guys,
We hit on a subject very close to home. We have a grand national yoyo champion in our midst, can't reveal his real name but if we ask the "originator" of this thread, we may learn some very interesting facts. It is an absolute art form watching an experienced yoyoer walk through the paces effortlessly. I wish I had that talent rather than being a target!

[G.R.]

Oh .... CAL...

Your input and public is calling

[Art Burtt]

My fathers 46 Chrysler Windsor that had a speedometer that went from green to red as the speed increased and how mad he was when he was passed at 100 mph by a 48 Jag xk 120. Never told mom about that one!

[Excaliber]

Duncan??? Didn't they go into doughnuts?

3 cents for a glass pop bottle. My sister and I would walk to the public pool (10 cents apiece to get in) and try to "score" enough bottles on the way to sell at the local store. The garbage cans in the Park would often produce the desired results. Hot time in the summer time!

Ernie

[EdOrlando]

This thread just brings back some memories.

How about the card game of the 50's. Canasta. Is there anyone that plays it now? In the summers at the cottage in Northern Michigan my brother and I played it every night with Ma and Grandma.

How about the windup record players (Victrolas?). We had a couple in the cottage. There also many one-sided albums. (78's) If we only knew to keep them. We listened to the original Inkspot records all the time.

[Dan Semko]

I remember a neighbor that had a Studebaker Golden Hawk with dual exhaust and positraction. His brother had the first edition Avanti with the overhead console controls. One of my girl friends fathers had a 1963 Rivera with a 425 and factory dual quads. The tape player was located under the glove box. He could smoke the tires at will. What a great period of automotive history. Do you remember the Pontiac 421's with 4 bucket seats and factory tri-powers? or how about the Chevy Impala SS 409 with the console that ran from under the front dash all the way between the back bucket seats. A particular favorite was my 65 T-bird with vacuum door locks, a swivel drivers seat and sequential rear turn signal lights. Every automobile had an identity and a separate personality. Fizzies came in flavors during that time also!

[petek]

Fizzies!!! REAL Fizzies, not the pseudo fizzies they have today (with nutrasweet). Rootbeer fizzies really didn't taste like rootbeer, but I liked 'em anyway. (My grandmother's homemade rootbeer put A&W to shame!)

How about Space Food Sticks?

[Dan Semko]

How about that really nasty stuff in the cobalt blue bottle that your parents used for upset stomachs....remember Brioski?
I think the crystals were the precursors to Alka Selzer and good old "Speedy" commercials.

[G.R.]

How about Malt-O-Meal and Cream of Wheat and the original TANG--corn meal mush,first for Breakfast, then leftovers dried and fried served as either breakfast or dinner

Wanting Chrome reverse rims W/"baby moons"-- you couldn't afford the rims so you painted your rims black and put on the baby moons, turning your white walls around so you had blackwalls like the" racers" in the the car mags.

Envying the guys that could afford chrome reverses or--CRAGARS

Cutting the stock mufflers off ,along with the tailpipes, then putting on "Cherry Bombs" or Thrush mufflers, then cutting up the tailpipes do you could exit the exhaust in front of the rear wheels--of course you clamped everything down w/muffler clamps 'cuz you couldn't afford to have it welded

Putting the "three-on-the-tree" on the floor with a Hurst conversion that you always had to adjust 'cuz it never shifted just right---then found out that it interfered with your "lovelife"