Old Timers Unite---Give it Your Best Shot

[Art Burtt]

American Band Stand when it was in Phiadelphia. Our youth group
went there 3 times. I remember the place was really small and Dick Clark had a big head for the size of his body!!

[dkjos]

That reference to the new car introductions brought back a memory! In the fall of 1966 the local Chevy dealer had a black and white two-tone Bel Aire two door '57 hardtop on the showroom floor- with fuel injection! We all rode our bikes there many times to drool over it and imagine how totally perfect life would be if only we had that car for 15 minutes.

[Cal Metal]

Let' see. The Xmas year progression of presents as a youngster

1) Lionel Train set
2) Erector set (A.C. Gilbert)
3) Chemistry set
4) Aurora slot car set

[Dan Semko]

Cal,
What about the American Flyer sled, the slipper sox, a Daniel Boone Coon skin hat and the magnefying glass?

[petek]

Chemistry sets... reminds me of the time we were all to do experiments in Chemistry class. I decided to build a rocket motor using an expended CO2 cylinder, sulfur, and aluminum powder.

My Chemistry teacher signed off on the project and noted that another person had attempted the same experiment years earlier without success. That was all of the incouragement I needed!

My test bed was a length of board, a rollerskate, and a spring scale, all viewed with a mirror from the other side of a brick wall.

I milled the sulfur and aluminum powder down until they were like dust. Mixed everything in a wood bowl with a wood spoon. Filled the CO2 cylinder and tamped the mixture down pretty darn good.

Igition via a small charge of BP and nichrome wire to a 12 v transformer.

Worked like a champ. I don't remember how much thrust the thing put out but I do remember the roar and the foot long flame!

Many years later I learned just how dangerous and sensitive to static electricity the propellant mixture was. Apparently I was lucky not to have the thing blow up.

Then again, as I think back, there were an alarming number of times I could have been injured or killed with the stunts I pulled with any number of things... including cars!

[Edley Rondinone]

What was..."As much fun to make, as it is to eat!"?

[Rick Parker]

Playing "Doctor"!

Making a tree house and spending hours up there. The land lords wife finally offered me 25 cents if I would take it down because she thought it would harm the tree.

Rick......

[casaleenie]

"Shake and Bake" and I helped!!!!

[EdOrlando]

How about " You Bet Your Life" with Grocho Marks. Can anyone remember the bird's name that came down from the ceiling?
There weren't many programs on then but this was popular.

Then there was Ed Sullivan's talent show. I really remember the first show with Elvis Presley. While Elvis was on a few shows before Sullivan, I think Sullivan was the most notable.

[Bumpster]

I don't remember the bird's name on "You bet your life", but wasn't it a duck? I don't think it had a name.

Bumpster

[golfnutjetsfan]

I,m so old I remember when a tuneup meant replacing spark plugs, air filter. fuel filter, distributor cap, rotor. wires, points(whats that) setting the dwell?, timing, cleaning the carburetor and choke and then road testing it ( preferably an italian tuneup at this point) and the whole thing only lasted about ten thousand miles and you had to do it all again.... frank

[BO DUTCH]

Ed,

As to "You Bet our Life", I don't know or remember if the Duck had a name but I do remember Grocho's side kicks name !!

George Fenniman !!

[Mark IV]

.......you mean......CREEPY CRAWLERS?!!!!!!!!!

I'm too damn old........I remember when CS was respected and a "kit car" came in an AMT box and cost 99 cents.

Our local "50,000 watt giant" was WKBW, one of "America's two great radio stations" (they never said what the other one was) and listened to George "The Hound Dog" Lorenz who was one of the three people responsible for making Rock 'n Roll popular. The Hound was friends with Elvis, could make a record a hit and didn't care if you were black, white or green as long as your music had something going for it. He is in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The Hounds daughter married my wifes cousin and I was excited that I would meet the legend at the wedding...alas he died the week before the wedding and I never got to meet him.

I remember when you could buy a car for $100.00 that might actually run when you bought it, more than likely it WOULDN'T run when we got done "tuning" or "improving" it.....One of my buddies bought a 1962 MGA Mk II for $100.00, we towed it home, he took of the Goodyear Bluestreaks that were on the car, sold them for $50.00 and bought some recaps for $40.00. We installed new rocker panels, using sheet metal screws as none of us could weld or braze, filled the dent in the right rear quarter with about 3 gallons of filler (never occured to us to bang it out first) and painted it BRG. Paint was old straight enamal and came out a LOT better than we ever thought it would.....Jim drove the "A" for 3 years and sold it for $1500.00, he thought he had scored big time. We loved cruising in that car, problem was if we had ever actually hooked up with some girls, where were we gonna put them? We never did have the problem.....

"Friday Night Fright Night" on WKBW-TV. After the late news all the classic Horror/Monster/Sci-Fi movies. Wolfman, Attack of the Giant Spider, Creature from the Black Lagoon, Frankenstein, The Mummy, Invasion of the Bodysnatchers, Night of the Living Dead, Rodan, Godzilla (there goes Tokyo AGAIN...B.O.C.)The Blob (with STEVEN McQueen) and all those other great, bad and just scary "films". These taught us that teenagers will ALWAYS go into a dark cave despite a giant spider roaming the area, scientists are ALWAYS gonna screw with the enviroment or DNA or sumpthin' and create, waken or summon some sort of giant/deranged/vengeful entity that will eat/stomp on/melt the local populace.

Dang, did I mention I was old.....


Rick

[Gordon Claunch]

Edley, would that be "Jiffy pop, Jiffy pop the magic treat as much fun to make as it is to eat"

[Gordon Claunch]

Flyin Freddie, nice to have a fellow Parrothead around!!!

[G.R.]

Gordon and Freddie,

You guys got another Parrothead here--

My tag line below came from the Volcano album shot of Buffet on the back cover, on top of the volcano on Monserratt(before it blew)--like that philosophy no matter what--"Ain't Life Grand"

[thecobraguy]

I am so old that I remember that my 1912 Model T Ford Touring was called a "foredoor" (note spelling) because the front (fore) doors were ahead (in front of) of the rear doors. These "fore" doors could be removed along with the entire cowl side panels to give a more open feeling. This was Ford Motor Company's nomenclature, not generic or slang or just a nickname! The carbide generator on the left running board produced acetylene gas to fuel the headlamps by having a small bucket filled with water slowly drip down on a metal basket of carbide rocks. Contact of the water w/ the carbide rocks produced the acetylene gas which then was gravity fed by rubber and brass tubing to the headlamps. The headlamp doors opened to allow lighting the burner. This same set up was used on early Harley-Davidson's as well.
Jim
thecobraguy

[COBRA427]

I'm so old, I remember walking into a Ford dealership showroom in '66 or '67, on Ventura Blvd. in Encino, CA and seeing a red 427 Cobra with a price tag of $7,000.

[Excaliber]

I was SO young...

I spent two years in Key West,,,,one of many "Margaritavilles" I've tried around the world.

I DID cut my heel on a pop top and had to cruise on back home, LOL.

Da Kine flip flop? I no like blow out my rubbah shlippas....

We going Aunties Wedding? Gotta dress up brah, wear matching color rubbah shlippas and tee shirt with no pukas (holes).

Ernie

[TomH]

Old?...

I realized how old I was when I went to the Ford Museum / Greenfield Village and realized how many of the cars I had actually driven!

Muntz is spelled with a "Z" and was the name of Madman Muntz, a Chicago entrepeneur.

Wolfman Jack came to life on XERF out of Del Rio, TX. Late at night and long before American Graffitti. (XERF was the Tex/Mex border equivalent of North Seas "Pirate Radio" in Europe.)

A bucket of beer used to be a pail and had a lid on it. Cheaper than bottles and the predecessor to MGD at home.

Gas was bought $2 at a time and that was good for the weekend.

Smokey Yunick used to write a monthly column for Mechanix Illustrated.

Chris Economacki wrote for the weekly Competition Press before being acquired by Autoweek.

The black & white pictures in Hot Rod had a green tint to them.

A "coffee grinder" was an essential rallying tool.

Radials were radical, but not as radical as Jim Hall and his (Soon to be banned) Chaparrals.

Luigi Chinetti controlled Ferrari in the US and Max Hoffman controlled BMW. Great cars were matched with great people and their egos. Sports Car Illustrated covered it all.

Flipping the lid on the air cleaner of your dad's car improved it's sound at the drive-in. (Mc Donalds @ 15¢ and White Castle @ 12¢)

Slicks were called "Cheater Slicks" amongst the street racing crowd, and were often installed after the bet was made.

High powered V8s in small flexible chassis also lived in the Sunbeam Tigers, MGB-V8s, Hemi/440 Darts, and 427 Camaros.

Sunoco 260 was readily available and you could see the ground when you looked down in an engine compartment.

Acting and commercials got in the way of the Vette on Route 66.

Balancing Webers, or SUs for that matter, was a black art. Lucas earned the "Prince of Darkness" moniker.

The best Duncan YoYo was the Imperial.

...Old; naw, just rode hard and put away wet.