^^^^^ My mother would give me 35 cents for mowing & cleaning the yard. I would walk about half an hour to the movie theater, where the admission was also 25 cents. I could buy two candies/candy bars with the leftover ten cents. It was a whole afternoon with the movies, news reels, cartoons. Good memories. When you went to the restroom, there would be a whole crowd of boys in there smoking cigarettes.

I’m old enough, I just can’t remember! 🤪

So you couldn’t make a call. Probably for parental control. You’d also see them in some businesses. There was a way around it. All you had to do was lift the receiver and quickly press the hang up button for each number.
eg if the first number was 5 you would press the button quickly 5 times, then wait a second if the second number was 3 you would press the button 3 times. You would do this for all the numbers.
It worked every time.
I also remember taking tv tubes to the drug store and use the tube tester
I remember pumping gas for $1 per hour.

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I remember many things posted here - such as your Mom yelling at you while you were on the phone to a relative "Don't talk too long it's LONG DISTANCE!".

Things like the smart phone and modern medicine are huge advantages to growing up today but I think kids today have it way worse off. I'm glad I grew up when I did (born in '67) but I actually wish I was born 30 or 40 years earlier.

Anyone else remember white bread and sugar as a snack? When we ran out of butter Mom would sprinkle sugar on a slice of Wonder bread as a snack for me and my friends playing stick ball out in the street.

Kurt, two of our neighbors were children in the 30s. They contracted polio and it resulted in the typical damage to their legs. I remember helping my dad in the cemetery and noting the small stones near larger headstones of families. Dad informed me they were marking stones of children who died in infancy. Without vaccines or antibiotics families were often torn apart when diseases we casually dismiss passed through their community.
He used to say, "Anyone who talks about the Good Old Days wasn't there."
Sure there were good things about each period, there were also terrible costs.

Best
Les

As kids we would get home from school, change clothes from school clothes into the play clothes, and head out on our bikes. I had to be home for dinner at 6:30, not 6:31 or I missed it. Dad liked punctuality, and 6:30 was dinner time. I would snark down a full plate and maybe have seconds, and wait an eternity for mom and dad to finish, then out the door again.

The iron clad rule, be home before the street lights come on. A group of boys would pedal on our bikes all over the place often miles from home, go to the woods and climb trees, and have adventures. Mom and da had zero idea where we were, or what we were doing.

I got really good walking in the door seconds before the street light across the street came on. Dad would sometimes look out the door as I came in to check the light, and watch as it turned on with me inside the house for just seconds.

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I grew up near the Passaic River that flooded every summer. We had several kids in our school crippled by polio. I still remember lining up to get the sugar cube.

Yep, we did it at school. The entire school was "forced" to eat a sugar cube. Not a tough sell to a kid. It sure beat the heck out of a shot. Not one kid complained.

I got the small pox vaccination which did hurt, and scabbed up and I still have that scar. In 1970, as we were moving from Hawaii to Alabama the USAF required us to get another small pox vaccination. There was no small pox in Hawaii or in Alabama, but the rule book said it was required, and changing the rules was not going to happen. The second vaccination did not "take" as I was still immune. I had a scab, but it healed and left no scar.

Les, you are so correct about, "the good old days." Sure, there has always been happiness mixed in with sadness throughout time but some of the advantages of being alive now are completely lost on people. My parents had several friends who were permanently crippled from childhood polio but still went on to live very productive lives. I am forever inspired by men walking with those wrist crutches but wearing a nice suit and with a big smile on their face. One was a physician and lifelong friend.

What I don't get is people who complain endlessly about modern life or this country. I don't want to send this to the sewer, (PARF), but there is a politics of grievance and people who are just bound and determined to be miserable and complain while living in the best time ever to be alive. Life is great and this country is great. I'm filled with gratitude. The World Series is being played right down the street at Dodgers Stadium and I'm about to walk out into the warm sunshine that is always L.A. and go to the coffee shop where I will be greeted warmly by the young people who work there and the other regulars. I will almost certainly get to pet some dogs and see some acquaintances. There might even be an attractive woman in sight...who am I kidding, there will be many. :)

Life was great in 1967 when I was 8 years old, (that's me on the left on 4th of July), and life is great now. If you're healthy and can be of usefulness to your fellows, life is great. :)
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^^^ Remember the 10ft weather balloons a person could buy in the same magazines for $10?
$10 was a lot of money in the early 60's and my neighbor and I split the cost and ordered one.

We used his fathers air compressor and inflated it....once. It touched the side of his barn door and exploded. We almost cried.

My dad was born iin 1930. He escaped polio partly because his parents did not let him out of the house for a year. His dad had a "mild" case of polio, and it affected his hand. His hand was messed up from then on. He was lucky it did not get to his legs.

My dad's best friend in grade school died from lockjaw or tetanus from stepping on a rusty piece of metal.

The age before antibiotics was the period where many people died from a simple infection. There is no doubt, I would not be alive without antibiotics. I had phenomena twice as a kid, and had to live in an oxygen tent for several days as a kid on two occasions.

So, yea I had a great childhood, in the Leave it to Beaver era.

You make some excellent points but I think most people here would argue that growing up as a kid was simpler years ago. Our schools weren't surrounded by eight foot fences and we didn't practice active shooter drills. I could add more but it would be off to PARF.

I remember when you could go to the local school and shoot basketball, these days, you even after school and weekends, the gates (which didn’t exist when I was in school) chained shut.

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This was the "good old days"!

^^^ Rum with a little Coca-Cola :)
The gal in the front looks to be enjoying it!