The old days are gone forever.

[Dogshooter]

Guess all us oldtimers can remember when, as a young lad, our Mom would give us a Ten dollar bill and send us to the local grocery store for a few things. We would come home carrying two LARGE grocery bags, overflowing with good, wholesome food. Sure can't do that these days. The local grocery stores have been replaced with big chain stores that all have too damn many security cameras.

[Old Fart]

And then there's the wholesome food thing also......

[Land_Owner]

you mean you KEPT the $10?

[Dixie Dude]

I remember growing up in the 60's getting $0.50 for allowance in jr. high.  My friends and I would catch a bus for $0.05 and go downtown to see a Saturday afternoon movie.  We would return the same way.  Movie was $0.05 or $0.10, can't remember.  Sometimes I could walk to the Woolworths or Elmore store and get a model, paint, etc. with leftover money if I didn't get a drink, popcorn, or a dill pickle. 

[teamnelson]

I remember open carry as a matter of fact ... riding my bike with change in my pocket to the 7-11 to get a big gulp or a candybar, standing in line behind a mom with a hip holster and a small child in tow. I remember learning how to box, wrestle, archery and wood & metal shop in grade school. In fact I was telling my son yesterdat about how the park next to my grade school had after school sports programs, or a bunch of us would just play football or soccer in the open field until it got dark and then we'd go home. None of the kids in our neighborhood do that; I see them shuffling slowly from the bus stop, headphones in, thumbs at the ready over their texting device, barely able to move as their pants are either too tight or too loose. I swear I saw a girl painting a guys nails at the stop where the jr. high school kids get picked up.

[Rex in OTZ]

In the old days you could snowmobile to the Hansons store to pump and pay for your gas, could unsling and lean your deer rifle in the corner by the front door nodody'd touch it while wateing in line to pay at the register.
Alaska Commercial Company was the same 20 years ago, they used to sell body grip and leghold traps one isle over form the bread.

[Dogshooter]

you mean you KEPT the $10?

Naaahhhhh. Spent it on fish bait and 22 shells.

[powderman]

YEP. A 50 cent allowance was good money back then. I got another 50 cents cutting Grandmas grass as well as other yards around town. Did a lot of farm work and odd jobs too for cash money. My brother and I saved our money all summer and bought a brand new Schwinn bike, we earned it. Don't see kids doing any manual labor anymore. Like TN said, too many electronic gadgets and cell phones makes em lazy. POWDERMAN. 

[Old Fart]

This is how I would pay for BSA summer camp back when I was a kid.
Mow lawns, sell vegetables, and other manual labor jobs.
One summer I made enough to go to a national canoe base.
Another year/earned I saved enough for National Jamboree in Idaho.

[243dave]

Wow !!! You guys are old !!   

[Dixie Dude]

I remember about 12-14 walking through the neighborhood going to nearby woods with our .22 rifles to go rabbit and squirrel hunting.  People just said to be careful.  Noone called the police. 

[Land_Owner]

Wow !!! You guys are old !!   

Yes, we are.  Thank you very much!  We picked up discarded soda bottles along the roads to be exchanged for the $0.02 deposit on each at the 7-11.  In a half hour and with a Red Ryder wagon full of deposit bottles you could get a real tummy ache in 16 oz. cola flavored Slurpies, Wrigley's chewing gum, Sugar Daddy's, Tootsie-roll pops, string licorice, and still have some change left over.  Flavored shaved ice (Sno-Cone) was sold in the mobile concession stands that came to the beach every morning and left before the high tide.  We took a piece of discarded plywood, cut the edges into a hexagon, and skim boarded the day away along the beach's low tide mark.  When my sister wasn't watching, we 'appropriated' her shoe skate, disassembled it, nailed the pieces to the bottom of a 2 x 6, and became a part of the East Coast skateboard craze! 

The 50's and 60's were a great time to be me as a kid.  Not so great a time in the 60's for the older boys as I watched my older brother's friends graduate High School and leave via the Draft for war in Vietnam.   I saw and heard the jets overhead practicing touch and go landings at the Naval Base for the all too soon carrier landings and sorties they would make over hostile territory.  I fished and played the days away with my peers and friends, the children of the Air Force family renting the house across the lake, and suffer in my own way, as do they, ever since their father, a Naval Pilot, was shot down in Vietnam, reported MIA, and never returned.  Tragically, they lost their Mother 2-years later to a head-on car collision outside of New Orleans, LA heading to Grandmother's House the day before Christmas leaving my best-friend Charlie and his two sisters injured, orphaned, and disillusioned for all time.  Me too...

[scootrd]

I remember growing up in the 60's getting $0.50 for allowance in jr. high.  My friends and I would catch a bus for $0.05 and go downtown to see a Saturday afternoon movie.  We would return the same way.  Movie was $0.05 or $0.10, can't remember.  Sometimes I could walk to the Woolworths or Elmore store and get a model, paint, etc. with leftover money if I didn't get a drink, popcorn, or a dill pickle. 

+ 1
My grandmother started taking me to Woolworths as a youngster when she would go "up street" as she called it to do her shopping.. I would sit at the lunch counter on the blue swivel bar stools and order a banana Split. Loved it. Great memories !!!! Woolworths also had the best model selection in town.

[Dixie Dude]

Yes I remember the glass soda bottles.  I took my wagon all over the neighbor hood and collected a wagon load, then sold them for $0.02 each at the local grocery store.  Used that money with my allowance to spend on Saturday afternoons at the theater and Woolworths. 

[gypsyman]

I remember saving up to buy a Rem.1100. Wasn't old enough to actually purchase it, as the 1968 Gun controll act had just passed. So my dad and I went into the Woolworth store so he could ''buy'' it for me.
They had 2 large cardboard barrels next to the counter. One was full of M-1 carbines, the other was M-1 Garands. Carbines were I believe $69, and the Garands were $99. I remember my dad saying, carried one of those,(Garands) for 4 years, won't carry one again. Now I wish I had bought a couple of those carbines instead of the 1100. gypsyman

[Ron 1]

im old enough to remember when as a teen i would return empty pop bottles in the eight packs for gas.
i even remember when you could stop in at the gas station and pump $20.00 and even see the gas gauge move.  kinda scary to think what it is gonna be like in 10 more years for our kids.
       rw

[Dixie Dude]

I remember when gas was $0.25 a gallon and you could fill up with $5.00 and get your windshield washed, oil checked, and air checked in your tires.  Air was free.  This was when I had my first car in the early 70's.  By the mid-70's gasoline had doubled, by 1980 it had doubled again.  Stations cut the freebees to keep their prices down.  I do remember when it was $0.25 you could get S&H green stamps to fill a book.  Then you could trade the books in for things at the redemption store.  We also had an A&P supermarket and they gave plaid stamps.  When we lived up north when I was a kid, A&P was the only supermarket that had grits in Dearborn, Michigan. 

[scootrd]

I remember when gas was $0.25 a gallon and you could fill up with $5.00 and get your windshield washed, oil checked, and air checked in your tires.  Air was free.  This was when I had my first car in the early 70's.  By the mid-70's gasoline had doubled, by 1980 it had doubled again.  Stations cut the freebees to keep their prices down.  I do remember when it was $0.25 you could get S&H green stamps to fill a book.  Then you could trade the books in for things at the redemption store.  We also had an A&P supermarket and they gave plaid stamps.  When we lived up north when I was a kid, A&P was the only supermarket that had grits in Dearborn, Michigan. 

I Moved back north less than ten years ago after leaving the military to be close to family. I had been away 20+ years , and in my travels down south and through Texas I was introduced to grits.  Love 'em .. That and Pioneer country Sausage Gravy (which they don't have up here in the north) on Biscuits is one of the best gravy's ever made.   - 

sorry Digressed from original post.

My mom would collect S+H green stamps and  A&P as well , I think our Kitchen plates and glasses we ate and drank from as kids came from S+H stamp redemptions.

[Old Fart]

My mom would collect S+H green stamps and  A&P as well , I think our Kitchen plates and glasses we ate and drank from as kids came from S+H stamp redemptions.

I had just about forgot about s&h green stamps.
Seems like times would be right for something like this to make a come back.
The original miles program.

[Land_Owner]

Redemption "points" are offered today by credit card companies, which are similar to green stamps.  The more you buy the more points you amass, redeeming them for goods through on-line "purchases".

[AtlLaw]

Gettin up before dawn to slop the hawgs, feed the chickens and milk the cow, then walking 5 miles to school (all uphill), coming home to plant, cultivate and pick cotton (by hand) and tend the truck patch, Christmas consisted of getting a new set of bibbs...    Yup, sure miss the "good old days!"   
Richard (AKA Patches)

[bulletstuffer]

I used to walk 3.5 miles to my friends house to hunt carrying my 12 gauge pump uncased and slung over my shoulder.  The walk was all on paved major roads that ended at the city limits where we used to shoot rabbits, quail and squirrels.  Part of the woods that we hunted backed up to the elementary school.  It was a small farm back then that has been turned into condo land   

That walk today would probably end with a swat team, helecopters and 3/4 of the police force surrounding that 15 year old kid     
How did this happen in just 3.5 short decades    My boy has even said he wished he grew up in my era!  We all want our children to grow up and have more and better opportunities than we had.   

Keep your fingers crossed for the country!

Bulletstuffer

[gypsyman]

Reading some of these posts, reminded me of pumping gas at my dads carryout. Earlyist I can remember is about 1961 or '62. Gas we sold was called Fleetwing, had a red horse with a wing(Pegasis, I imagine). Regular and Ethyl,(now called premium). I believe it was .25/gal for the reg., and .27/gal for the Ethyl. Wasn't old enough, or big enough to check the oil, but loved to pump the gas.
I get a kick out of buyers at gun shows remembering primer price's at $7-$8 a 1000.  Didn't start buying them by the 1000 until I was well into reloading. Usually just bought 200-300 at a time, and they were a little over a $1/100 with tax. First time I bought 1000 at one time, was CCI sm pistol, believe they were $8.95 plus tx. I remember thinking they would last me for years. Now I wish I had bought 20 or 30 box's at that price. gypsyman

[Old Fart]

Now I wish I had bought 20 or 30 box's at that price. gypsyman

Ain't that the truth.

[oldandslow]

Gypsyman, you were selling Mobil gasoline. The flying red horse, Pegasus, was their symbol. I read a story about when Mobil built their office building in Dallas, TX. they put that flying red horse on the top of it and it could be seen for many miles. There was a lot of competition between Dallas and Fort Worth then (long before it all became the Metroplex mess) and Fort Worth said that it just proved Dallas was a one horse town.

When I first started driving in the 50s I could buy regular gasoline for .20 cents a gallon if it wasn't from one of the major's (Mobil, Gulf, Texaco,etc.) stations. When someone would start a gas war it would drop to .17 cents. Of course minimum wage then was less than a dollar an hour too.

[Range Rider]

  We had some real good friends back in those days. Like these guys.  Hell today they have been repalced by Rappers.

RR

[powderman]

In a magazine I recently saw advertized a RED RYDER bb gun in UGGGGGGGHHHHHH, PINK.
ATLAW. Sounds like you had a good upbrining and gave you a better appreciation of everything in your life, ya did good.
Remember the old Barney Miller show when they had an old Amish farmer that had been robbed and a homeless man who needed a place to stay??? Barney got the 2 together and the old farmer offered to let him earn his keep. The guy says, what will I do??? The farmer says, Milk the cows, slop the pigs, feed the chickens, gather the eggs, tend the garden and plow a few acres. The homeless man says, sounds great, then what??? The old farmer says, why breakfast of course. POWDERMAN.  

[kitchawan kid]

powderman,that was one of the best,hope they bring back miller.

[blind ear]

And no air conditioning!

[AtlLaw]

ATLAW. Sounds like you had a good upbrining...

Well, I may have taken a little bit of literary license in the recitation of the circumstances of my youth...    But I DID get presents on Christmas!