Mazoona , Butch wax has a different meaning today. On rainy mornings my Great Grand dad pulling up in his 59 Chevy pickup and rapping out the 235 6 to be sure we were awake. Good times.
I remember "hookin bumpers" in the winter and riding behind cars in the snow. (till my mom caught us). How about Port-a-Walls? And thinking a transmission with a synchromesh 1st gear was high tech!
Growing up in Detroit in the 50's they used to spray oil on the dirt side streets there in the summer. Had to avoid walking or riding your bike on them for a few days or face the wrath of Mom coming home oily.
Maricopa County (Phoenix) used to oil the dirt roads in residential areas, always made for some fun driving if it rained before the oil sank in...
Life rolls by Time sure do fly The world keeps on changin'...and only God knows why. Everybody asks, "Where's the time go?" It goes into the past...and it don't go slow. <!-- / message --><!-- sig -->
I remember how excited I was when I went from my $1.60 an hr. after school job, to my full time job after graduation; making $2.75 an hour! Man I thought I was rich, plus I was working at a real car dealership! Didn't get much better at 18 yrs. old! I also remember my rent back then was $50 a month for a one bedroom duplex. My car cost me $500 for a 11 year old '57 Chevy Belair with 65,000 miles! We actually had money to spend, and still money to save! When we ran my car at the drags it cost $5 entry fee, and less if you were just going to watch! A full set of new chrome reverse wheels was just under $100, and a set of tires was around $60! We used to take off work Friday afternoon and fill the tank up. Then hit the road for the entire weekend with no particular destination in mind. Just drive until someone came up with a good idea of where to go!
growing up in the netherlands I remember... coming back from our vacation in America, feeling like I visited wonderland and woke back up in my prison cell.. no cool cars, no cool appliances & tech toys.. no endless highways, mountains, deserts, forests.. just a hole in the ground with a bare lightbulb
" just a hole in the ground with a bare lightbulb" Gee, sounds pretty bleak. Glad you made it to the USA permanently.
Looking back there were advantages as well, but I didn't look at it that way at the time We didn't have a fridge. In the US people have refrigerators. Giant fridges, and freezers. I had never seen frozen bread before! And they automatically make ice cubes too! (one advantage was that if you bought ice cream, you had no choice but to eat it all right away ) We didn't have a car. In the US, all teenagers have a car. And not just "a car" but a bigger, nicer one than I had ever seen. So wide that 3 people can sit besides each other. (In the NL now you have to be 21 to drive a car that big) With electric windows, air conditioning, cruise control, automatic transmission , move the lever and the car smoothly starts moving . We had a washer, but it was manual. We had to pump the water from a well, then turn on the heater. Don't forget to turn it off or it would boil dry. In the US, the washers are 3x bigger and they are fully automatic, they even rinse and spin dry your clothes! We didn't have a phone. We had a box of quarters for the pay phone. In the US, everybody has a phone and can you believe you get unlimited local calls! I had to wash dishes on monday and tuesday, and dry then on wednesday and thursday. In the US, people have dishwashers! You put it in, it comes out washed, rinsed, and dried. It's magic. When we went camping, we had to bring a tent on a bicycle. If it rained, you would be wet the rest of that day. In america, folks have RV's and campers, you have a stove, fridge, electricity, heat, all these things, you don't have to sleep on the ground. They even bring a second car just for convenience! I just loved technology, and it seemed in America there was something magical in every room of the house, and on every corner of the street.
Anyone remember dingle balls around the windows and white rubber mud flaps with red and green jewel reflectors.
Sitting in my dad's '57 Plymouth and thinking how cool the dash was...the two-tone steering wheel, the snub-nosed bullet-shaped chrome knobs, etc. Then he and his buddy got it running after it had sat for quite a while in the garage. Vrooom! Vrooom! Errrrrrrrrrr! He zoomed outa there and slid sideways into the side yard. My brothers and I cheered. My mom got pissed. Dad was in trouble...lol.
Milk vending machines for 25 cents a quart in the early 60's. Sometimes it would just keep dispensing several quarts of milk for a quarter when it got stuck.
I remember the blue light specials well. there would always be a huge crowd in the isle where the special was located and all you had to do was look for the flashing blue light on a pole that they would roll into place near the item. that's when everyone shopped at K mart now days you can count the customers in the store at any given time on 2 hands.
I remember antifreeze coming in a can. Dad liked Zerex which was the premium version of Zerone, and both were made by Dupont. Here in New Jersey, your antifreeze had to be in around this time of year. I would help him reverse flush the system, then add the gallon can or more of Zerex and a bottle of rust inhibitor, and fill the rest with water. Then the battery would be teated and if it was up to snuff, it was cleaned and filled with distilled water. The snow tires were pulled out of summer storage and checked to see if they would last the winter. If they didn't look good, and if the money was low, Dad might replace them with "new" recaps. If the money was jumping, he bought new. His car was a 1959 Chevy Parkwood station wagon, bought new from Girard Chevrolet in West Philadelphia. Six cylinder, power glide, radio, heater, windshield washer, and white wall tires. The color was Shoreline Beige with a Bronze interior. Before the first freeze happened, he always washed the car, compounded the paint, and Simonized it. We never used the car wash during the winter, that was for rich folks, so if the sun was out and it was well above freezing, he would get his bucket and wash the road salt off his pride and joy. He gave the car to his younger brother when he bought a new GTO at the end of 1966, and I don't remember that Chevy ever having a spot of rust, or the paint fading. The good old GM Magic Mirror finish. I also remember: Army-Navy stores War Surplus stores Quonset Huts Mercurochrome Calamine lotion Iodine "Cross Your Heart with your Playtex Living Bra" "Winston tastes good like a (clack clack) cigarette should" "It's not nice to fool Mother Nature" (Loud thunder and lightning ensues) Go Go Go Go Goodyear, go with Goodyear snow tires. You Go in Snow, or We Pay the Tow. (BF Goodrich? Firestone?)
As a kid riding in the race car as my brother "flat-towed" it from Indy to Cincy. Later riding in the car strapped to the ramp truck. Those winding roads that lead to Edgewater Dragway looked soooo scary sitting up high on that truck.
I have a question for you older gentleman. What did cars smell like brand new in say the 50's or 60's? Did they smell like chemicals like they do now? I've always wondered about that. I realize a smell is hard to explain. Maybe it's wishful thinking but I always imagined it smelling really awesome. Lol Posted using the Full Custom H.A.M.B. App!
Go karts, mini bikes, dirt bikes and being able to ride them just about anywhere without to much trouble. Model car kits from Ben Franklin, Woolworth, or the hobby store. Minnesota Dragways. About a 3 mile bike ride. Or one of our parents would drop us off and pick us up. How the hell did we arrange that without a cell phone!? Air shocks, Keystone Classics, and Firestone Super Sports 10 junk yards (yes we always called them junk yards) within 5 miles
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