There is this topic on at Shooters.com but you can't get there anymore. For us more expenerinced shooters, how about tales of old. Don't be afraid, I'm reaching older than dirt.

Chic..... remember when Dusty burgers were the best in the world?
How about the Owl Drug when it was on the west side of the street and a small(and really good) root beer only cost a nickle
How about Black Jack gum or Beemans?
10 cent Cokes?
29 cent gas?

Going to Sears with your mother just before school started and getting your new school clothes. And they wraped them up in paper and tied with string. Remember the markets with wood floors downtown with chickens hanging from racks and white pans with different kinds of meat in them.Man I must be old. S

Guess just dating myself.

How about when 11 tickets to the Saturday matinee at the Fox Theater cost $1.00.

"Going to Sears with your mother just before school started and getting your new school clothes"

Been there, done that. Man I can remember when Coke was a drink and you could get one for $0.20 My brother and I use to walk the roads on Saturday afternoons looking for bottles. The guy at the little one room country store would give us a nickle a peice for them. I miss that simple time in our lives. Mr Fred knew every body who walked in the door by name. I went back by there a few years ago, Mr Fred had died and his kids had tore down the store. This was a landmark, how could they, I was so disappointed. Kids today don't know what they are missing God, I'm getting old.

Speaking of which, this Saturday I'll add another year to the total.

[ 05-29-2003, 15:38: Message edited by: mark65x55 ]

I remember gas at .17 a gallon, Pepsi at .05 for a 8 or 10 oz bottle, and my folks buying a new '58 chevy for something like $1200.

I also remember visiting relatives in Kansas and the speed limit on the turnpike there being 80 mph but I also remember the terrible wrecks we used to see on them too.

[ 05-29-2003, 17:31: Message edited by: Elkslayer ]

How about the $.06 cent cokes that had the states on the bottom. Having your car filled up and getting change for a dollar bill. Steele pennies, anyone remember them. Trading 5 steers for a used Case tractor. Buying sugar and flour in cloth sacks and having your mother make dish cloths out of them when they were empty. Home made bread. Test patterns on the TV. Party line telephones with the crank on the side.

Best wishes to all.

Oh yeah, well I remember the school they tore down to build the old school... and when rollerskate wheels sparked when you hit and excess of 15mph... and hunting mammoth on the grassy steppe with nothing but a buckskin jockstrap and an atlatl with a few preassure flaked flint-tipped bolts.

Cokes out of a gas station vending machine in Texas were 5 cents - the first McDonalds - burger, fries, milkshake and get change back from a dollar, my first new car - a chevy Vega (piece of crap) for $1900 - before that my high school car a Beetle with the flip lever on the floor to get gas from the reserve well when the engine quit - who needs a guage? Remington 722 in 257 Roberts - first gun - still have it. Taking trips on piston powered airplanes across the country. Hanging canvas water bags over the grill of my dad's new Caddy so we could add colt water to the radiator on hot days. Slide rules when I was a college freshman. God we had it good.

I remember Double Cola 16 oz was 10cents Basket of fries were 25 cents and a burger wes 30 cents. Also I remember colecting beer and pop bottles and got a new 300win mag BAR for 189 dollars.
Fuzz

What a bunch of old farts!

I LOVE my $1.60 gas with soon to be coming summer prices of $1.80. And my $1.25 DIET Cokes and no change from my dollar bill and sheeeeooot, I really like standing in line at the pharmacy watching the snotty Yuppie wives treat the nose pierced clerk like trash cause their kid has a runny nose and...... blahhhh blah blahhhhhhhhhhhhh

4th Grade... Our after school "Knife Collecting Club"... we brought our knives to school (yes Margaret, on the bus) and kept them in our desks until the bell rang... we then got them out to brag, compare and trade (kind of like here!)... I trumped everyone as I had a Puma "White Hunter"... Crocodile Dundee would have thought that a "real knife!"

Of course the same teacher who headed it up also once handed out a good spanking with a paddle in front of the class to an unruly lad.

Am I dated yet

Old enough to know better too young to resist.
I remember when Colored People and White People had there own water fountains,bathrooms and resturants.
You could get alot of candy for a penny.You could take your shotgun to school and set it in the corner so you could go squirrel hunting after school without having to go home to get your gun.
The 4-5 Grade teacher bought our muskrat,mink,coon,fox and possum pelts and read us stories everyday from Outdoor Life,Field & Stream and Sports Afield.
And that wasn't all that long ago really.
I was born in 1958

ed,

My girlfriend's 91 year old grandmother remembers her mother making little dresses for her younger sisters out of those flower sacks. I have photos of my grandfather and his brother (at about age 4)in Crete wearing burlap sacks with neck and arm holes cut out. Interestingly, their older brother (about 15) is standing to the side of their father in beautiful wool and velvet Cretan military regalia (cartridge belts and all) with a hell of a nice nickle plated break-top smith and wesson stuffed in his belt to go with his Turkish Mauser.

Best Regards,

JohnTheGreek

While we're pining for the "good ole days", lets remember Polio. And a kid with diabetes usually didn't live to reach voting age (21) and had to live a "glass house" existance. Homes and blocks quarantined because of measles and a pletora of other common diseases unheard of today. Rickets. Mumps. Birth defects that weren't corrected by simple surgery. Like harelips and club feet. Kids that went barefooted until Christmas and shoes were their Xmas present. Picking coal along the railroad right of way (sometimes when the fireman saw us, he'd throw a shovelful out of the cab.) Having a big kid punch you in the face and take your coal. Wishing you had a nickel to buy a coke with. Wishing you had a couple of pennies for candy.

Boys, I'm 65 and there is a lot wrong with the world today but I truly believe the "good ole days" is right now. I have hunted and fished over a great deal of the USA and Canada and Mexico. I have a pretty fair collection of guns and enough fishing tackle to be ashamed of myself. I remember my Daddy not being able to hunt because he couldn't afford shells for his gun. And I remember when the gun was turned into money to pay doctors bills for my baby sister. IMHO, the good old days were a son of a bitch!

Beemanbeme,
Your post brings back stories my parents told me.Dads 79 and Mom if still here would be 81.
I think you are so very right in that these are the good days.I remember Mom telling that the only thing they could afford to take to school for lunch was onion sandwichs if they even had that and that she wore jar rubbers on her shoes to keep the soles from flapping.I've looked at the few pictures we have of them as kids and you can see they were dirt poor with tattered clothes and big grins.
Your post has brought tears to my eyes remembering Mom and her stories,damn you but thanks its good to remember!!!

I can remember when you could order guns through the mail.
I used to take my 22 and my double 20ga. shotgun, but them on my bicycle and ride the bike through the city to just north of town to go shoot and or camp. We would ride our bikes to the 7-11, buy some 22 and shotgun shells, some candy and head on out.

My in laws from WV say things haven't changed much down there, eh.

I can remember when my dad came home from the big war,when there was white and colored fountains and bathrooms,would get a drink of water out of the colored because I thought it ment it was colder,when you could get a coke and candy bar for 3-cents each,when if you dug enough gin-sang and blood root you could see a roy rodgers or gene autry movie with drink and box of pop corn for a quater,when we didn't have electricty,you cooked on a wood stove and used a kerosine lamp for light at night,when we used a spring house for milk and eggs root sellar for potatoes and such,the out house and the sears catalog,mon and dad didn't get an inside bathroom till after I was married in 65. Looking back I think those were the good old days,you didn't hear of dope,kids killing kids and etc.

i remember going to the grocery store on my way home from hunting when i was about 14. i would walk around the store with my S&W 22 6 shooter on my hip and nobody even noticed(if they noticed they didn't say anything )....bud

I seem to recall having a better memory, but its a little foggy..

I was born in 67 and can remember when I could take the .22 rifle to school and leave it in the principle's office until after school, buying ammo at the hardware store no questions asked. When a bottle of coke was something special you had on Sundays and you got to share it with you brothers and sisters. It was really great when you only shared with one other because it was a special occation. When Pong first came out, when a 64K computer was considered fast and a lot of memory, when having dual floppy drives was considered cutting edge. Ordering rifles through the mail. I remember cutting grass, shoveling snow and doing other odd jobs to help pay the family bills. Growing food in the garden because it fed the family. Catching blue-gill all summer and cleaning hundreds of them because it fed the family.

Yes many diseases were more common and I am glad for the advances in medicine. One other thing I can remember most of all is that people had a greater sence of respect and responsibility and took responsibility for their actions and believed it was their job to raise and discipline their kids and not the schools job. Paddling at school was OK and meant you would get paddled at home also.

54,
Well said.
I remember when I was a kid and I screwed something up, who ever was in charge wacked me and I got wacked again at home my Mom and if it was really bad I got it again when Dad got home.

Remember getting a bottle of pop for $.10
Twinkies for $.13
Take a girl on a date with $5.00 and have a great time with money left over.

Could go cruising all night on $5.00 of gas

My first new sportscar...a Porsche 356 w/rag-top......out the door for $4500.00.

I also remember when Krieghoff K32 San Remo's were less than $500, a new Browning Superposed was $198 and you could buy a Perazzi Comp 1 for $500 or an MX-8 for under $900.

Remember when McDonalds first came out their nickname was "5 For" because you could get 5 hamburgers for a dollar or 5 burger, 5 fries and 5 cokes for $2.50. Regular gas was 19.9 cents a gallon and "Ethel" was 21.9. How about being able to take a rifle to high school shop class to customize it and get credit for it as a shop project? Built up a Remington 1917 Enfield for my father in shop my freshman year. When you pulled into a gas station they waited on you. One to wash your windshield, another checked the air in your tires while still another filled your tank. Service not self service. Lawdog

Where's Ray?

I can't wait for him to tell us about loading up all those animals before the flood...

He remembers when the Dead Sea was just sick...



Rick.

.06 cokes and .09 gas, Elvis was in the future and you could hunt/fish about anywhere with success. The first phone was black, just like everyone else's. No school zones and sometimes...well that's why we have them now I suppose. Always wondered why we interfere with Darwin's Theory. Jet's just happened and Drive-In movies, complete with mosquitoes. The good ol' days are now...

When I was about 5 years old, I remember my mother encouraging me to go out and ride my bike around the block. I also remember finding a dime and then walking about three quarters of a mile to the "Handy Pantry" with my best friend to spend it. We got two packs of M&M's for ten cents (no tax!). No one ever thought about crime back then.

I also remember the "duck and cover" exercise we use to practice in elementry school in case of nuclear attack.

How about 5 cent cokes! We had 4 daily papers in Wash. D.C. The Daily News was 2cents,
the Evening Star was 3cents, the Washingtoin Post and the Times Herald were a nickle. McDonalds had just opened and hamburgers were 10 cents. So was a loaf of bread. At the movies, matinees were 25 cents for kids. That was for 2 feature films, newsreels and cartoons.
Cigarettes were 14 cents a pack. The only long cigarette was Pall Mall and there were no filter tips yet. I could go on and on, but I feel old enough already.

Happy trails to you,
Cal - Montreal

A nickel could buy you a tube of BB's that looked like a roll of dimes.
The JC Penny's, Sears, and Montgomery Wards catalogs had all their gun pictures in color and all had their own house brand of firearms, such as Western Field, JC Higgens, Ted Williams.
We had "duck and cover" drills in school incase there was a nuclear attack
I turned down a cherry 57 T-Bird in HS cause I didn't have $1,200. Instead I bought a 56 Ford Fairlane 500 for $350.
My first new car was a decked out 67 Mustang ragtop with High Preformance 289 and an 8 track tape for $3,100
I bought my first new deer rifle ( Marlin 336, 35rem)at K-Mart for $67 and paid $2.87 for a box of Remington Core-Lok (I still have the gun and the half box of shells )
I remember the good stuff but seem to forget the bad. My father died when I was 10 (1954) of a heart condition that today would be very treatable.

In 1965 as a freshman at Texas A&M University, my college tuition, room, board, laundry, lab fees, and everything except books was $450 a semester.

My entire undergraduate education ran just over $5000.

Today, most college kids couldn't rent a decent apartment for $450 a MONTH, and textbooks alone run about that much a year.

Of course, back then a high-paid executive made $20,000 a year.

Everything's relative.

Late 20's damn I'm getting old!!!!!!

I remember when cars were fast, gas was cheap, and girls said "no". Jeff

MENTALLY- I still think I can do all the things I did when I was 30

physiologically- because of all the fights, accidents, violence and resultant injuries as a result of 20+ in the ghettos and about 10 years in other policing, the body thinks it is about 150

based on maturity, according to my wife I am about 12

who knows the real age any more?????

I remember a $1 worth of chips (fries to you yanks )would feed the family, Now $3 will feed one!
20c worth of lollies would get you a bag, now it won't get you one

Bakes

I'm as old as my hair, but older than my teeth. And my memory is shorter than my winkie.

16 when I go to bed, 60 when I wake up, and 46 in real time. - Dan

Whoever came up with this topic, what a great idea.

Someone mentioned when you could go cruising all night for $5.00. Heck I remember when the gas prices had finally risen high enough to put $5.00 in the VW I owned.
I remember driving from college in Boston to visit relatives in Atlanta, leaving campus with $20.00 for the trip to pay for the gas.
I remember when a $50.00 car lasted me at least six months. A $100.00 to $250.00 car lasted you several years.
Fighting the draft, staying in college and making sure I was 2-S deferment, instead of having to go to Vietnam and coming home in a bag like many of my friends did.
I remember living in Northern VA, in Arlington County and everyone actually spoke English, and did it with a drawl.
I remember the best place on the face of the earth was going to my grandparents in West Virginia and the worst thing was going to have to go back home to Arlington and be a "city slicker" again.
I remember when the KKK burned down the Black Kids school so they had to attend our school and it was split up and the white kids could not go on their half and they could not go on ours.
I remember that year being beaten by the principal who looked like Whistler's mother and kicked out of school for two weeks because I was caught playing marbles with the black kids on their playground at recess.
I remember my dad taking me out to shoot a shotgun when I was 10. It was a 12 gauge, and he wanted me to shoot down a hornets nest out of a tree in the fall. I pulled the trigger and the gun knocked me back and broke the dogwood tree I was learning back into and how my dad laughed so hard at my misfortune.
I also remember him quit laughing when the bees from that hornets nest started coming after him and he could not get in the car fast enough and get the windows rolled up.
I remember people coming into my grandfathers little store in WVA and getting gas and groceries and said they would be back before Friday to pay for them.
I remember riding in the back of my grandfathers 1948 Chevy pickup over to my cousins farm to help him and my uncles haul in the hay.
I remember being amazed that my grandfather's beagle Blackie was older than I was and he also got to eat chicken bones and never choked to death like city dogs were suppose to if they ate chicken bones.
I remember beating the shit out of my younger brother when he pissed me off, but then again beating the shit out of the kids at school who picked on him.
I remember when I believed in my government
I remember when I believed there was a right and wrong.
I remember when integrity was not for sale to the highest bidder.
I remember being sent to WVA during the Cuban missle crisis because my parents wanted to protect me and my brother in case Washington DC was attacked with nuclear missles.
I remember my grandfather telling us how he captured the entire German army during WWI, and we believed that Indians were really wild and their purpose in life was to come in the middle of the night up from Indian Creek and abduct kids who had been bad, or were not asleep.
I remember when I like the Arabs. there was no reason not too.

Let's see. How about when baseball was a game played in a field by kids with no adults, uniforms, or umpires? When calling your field, ghost runners, and pitchers hands allowed 4 kids to play a full game. When you quit becuse fly balls disappeared in the twilight.

A time when mom had no real clue where you were but God help you if you didn't beat feet for home when she rang the bell on the back porch.

I have lots more good memories, many have been touched on above. For all the nostalgia though life is now and it is what you make it. I find people who constantly live in the past very sad.

Jeff