Old guys can still remember........

[Dave Bryce]

[quote]Originally posted by MindDrive: [b]do your remember: Dr Shock how about Gene London.....and the Golden Fleece, Quigley Mansion[/b][/quote] Hell, yes!! Gene London!!! Quigley Mansion!! Ack!! Talk about areas of the brain that I haven't visited for years...next, you'll be asking if I remember Sally Starr...or Pixanne!!! :D dB

[Jeff Leites]

[quote]Originally posted by Dave Bryce: [b]Talk about areas of the brain that I haven't visited for years...next, you'll be asking if I remember Sally Starr...or Pixanne!!! :D dB[/b][/quote] I used to live in the Phila area too. I also remember Wee Willy Weber, and Sally Star, she show the Popeye cartoons. As long as we're in Philly mode, how about Chief Halftown? "Ee-sah-sha-sesaway" or something like that. Then there were the local bands of the late 60's, Elizabeth, Woody's Truck Stop, and of course Craig's band, Mandrake Memorial playing a places like the 2nd Fret, The Trama, and The Electric Factory.

[Chip McDonald]

[quote]Originally posted by Tom Capasso: [b]My son started driving a stick shift car, and I was trying to explain about these models I build that had a long, curved shifter with an 8-ball on the end, and with a giant RatFink driving it !! He doesn't get it, and I don't have any pictures anymore... [/b][/quote] Hilariously ironic... just talking about Rat Fink with a room mate last night. His girl friend bought him these little Hot-Wheels-like cars with oversized tires/blower that are actually quite detailed, much more so than Hot Wheels ever were (keeping in mind I'm 34 and he's 36...). Cragar slot mags, uncapped headers (you can see the flange), Roots blower with the correct offset, things like that. So we're talking about how Hot Wheels always screwed up stuff like that then we started talking about the old Revel Rat Fink model kits. He says that guy died just this year?

[conceptDIGITAL]

How about Vacuforms, Johnny Seven OMA's, Varrooms (bicycle accessory), Viewmasters, etc... Winning countless (mostly awful) singles and irritating local DJ's with AM radio call-in contests... "Sunshine of your Love" and "Groovin' on a Sunday Afternoon" on the jukebox at the local public pool on a beautiful summer's day... Getting a sunburn from being out in the sun all day on a long day's excursion to Lakeland amusement park outside of Memphis. Calling DJ's to play "Get Together" by the Youngbloods every hour on the hour (How did Jesse Colin Young get that wonderful guitar sound, anyway?). The first time I heard the studio version of "Maybe I'm Amazed" from the first McCartney album. Socializing at the sometimes roughhouse rollerskating rink. 2001 (first run) at the local theatre, about a year after it was originally released...

[BOOKUMDANO]

I remember all my third-degree burns from touching the center plate on my Vac-u-form. Then I remember all my third-degree burns from touching the center piece of my Hasbro cotton-candy machine. Then I remember getting cut up on the metal edges of my Tonka dump trucks and tractors. About the age of ten, I couldn't take it anymore, so I started playing guitar. And about Shindig and Hullabaloo...I thought they were so cool when they were on...now I watch the shows that I've collected and they are SO obviously run by the record "biz" of their day.....same situation, different era.

[Tedster]

Hey, Tom...I believe if you do a search on Ed "Big Daddy" Roth, you'll come up with a Rat Fink fansite. Not sure, if he's dead, he died recently. I think I was on that site last year sometime. And, all the coolest car models were made by (remember?) AMT, out of Troy, Michigan. I think Aurora bought them out.

[Tedster]

[img]http://www.mooneyes.com/REL001.GIF[/img]

[not coaster MODERATOR]

Safety features for toys? Ha!! Used to burn the fingers daily on the old thingmaker. And that plastigoop was something else. Those 5 speed stick shifts that looked so cool on our stingrays nearly cost us our reproductive abilities from time to time. What was a Vacuform..I vaguely remember. Playing baseball with a Baby Indoor.

[RobT]

[quote]Originally posted by Hippie: [b]here's a few of my old favorites: Underdog Kimba the white Lion Adam Ant (up & adam, adam ant!) Mighty Mouse (here I come to save the daaaaay!) Dudley Do-right VaVoom - does anyone remember?? John Doormat - a great short-cartoon, does anyone remember??? Matt[/b][/quote] Underdog with his secret ring and pill Loved the opera references in Mighty Mouse VaVoom was hilarious. He could knock down a mountain with just his voice. How about: AstroBoy Speed Racer Tom Terrific Fractured Fairy Tales

[Tom Capasso]

Tedster - thanks for the reference on Roth. I know what I'll be looking up this weekend. Vacuform was a device that (looking down on it) was a rectangle with a center spine - attached to that spine was a frame that had a hinge - you could swing the frame from one side to the other (like turning over a pancake, except instead of flipping it in place, you go from one side to the other). You put a thin piece of square plastic into the frame, and put the frame on one side, where there was a heater (hence the burns). The other side had a holder for different mold shapes (no not mold spores). when the plastic was hot enough, you flipped the frame over onto the mold, and the plastic because that shape. you could then cut off the edges, paint it, and so on. The molds were limited, and the real fun was in the heat and the whamming the frame. I can't remember what any of the results looked like. The only thing I remember was that the only color replacement plastic you could ever get was called "olive drab" for good reason. About two years ago, I assembled a group of people to play Mille Bornes at lunch on Friday. What a hoot !! Coworkers who have to play like a team during the day loved giving flat tires and accidents !! Tom

[RobT]

[quote]Originally posted by Tedster: [b] Well, 'Rold, what do you old Canadian guys remember? How about "The Friendly Giant" for one? I spent my teen years on the Michigan/Ontario border, so we watched Canadian TV from time to time... [/b][/quote] How about CKLW The Ghoul Sir Graves Ghastly and Keener 13 Former Detroiter... RobT

[Tedster]

HIYA HIYA HIYA...HI THERE GHOUL... Whoa...it's FROGGIE (firecrackers...BANG!!!) Sir Graves...Yep! Grant Hudson, CKLW 20 20 News...Geez...CK was THE station, until we all discovered WRIF... Keener 13, yep! Okay, how about (nasal voice) "Year after year you can trust Belvedere...call TYler 8-7100"... It's a bird, it's a plane, it's SUPER FRETTER!!! "I'll give you five pounds of coffee if I can't beat your best deal"

[Hippie]

[quote]Originally posted by Cereal: [b]Safety features for toys? Ha!! Used to burn the fingers daily on the old thingmaker. And that plastigoop was something else. Those 5 speed stick shifts that looked so cool on our stingrays nearly cost us our reproductive abilities from time to time. What was a Vacuform..I vaguely remember. Playing baseball with a Baby Indoor.[/b][/quote] Ceral, No doubt! Remember chemistry sets? Man, I made some serious 'fart cocktails' with those. A neighbor kid down the street literally caught his house on fire with a chemistry set and a Bunson burner. Fire trucks and all, it was great fun dogging him about that stupid move. He is probably a biological engineer today. -Or a fireman. :D The toy companies have really taken the fun out of being a kid. Matt

[not coaster MODERATOR]

And we were just as dangerous outside too. Slingshots were worn like sidearms on my block. And what's a growing boy 'posed to use for ammo? Rocks Pods Coins Marbles Dog Doo Bugs

[Chip McDonald]

Some of the old toys were pretty dangerous, and probably toxic as well... I remember this one thing that was basically just a big chunk of styrofoam and a pencil iron/soldering gun, and you were supposed to carve the foam out with the soldering iron... Chemistry sets that included various poisonous compounds, not to mention strips of magnesium that you could set on fire - that don't go out (and probably burned a blind spot on my retina)... What's up with plastic models these days? Can you still get model glue? What about paint? Then there was gas powered glow-plug model airplanes and cars; used to be able to buy the fuel in places like K-Mart... probably not anymore, huh? Which leads me to the following: [i] Kids to day have little to zero self-motivation.[/i] Two things I've noticed have changed dramatically: When I was a kid, I wanted a skateboard ramp. So, I built one. Found the wood, nails, built it. Ended up building a lot of them, eventually had a full on half pipe. Same deal with bikes: if you want a track, you found a vacant lot somewhere, got some friends together with shovels and BUILT it. We'd ride our BMX bikes 10 miles across town with shovels just to have a trail "just so". Talking to kids today, you hear "man, there's no place to ride" (which is true to an extent; every place I used to ride is basically built over now, BUT...). Or "there should be a skate park here". "Well, why don't you build a ramp?" "ah man, I don't know how to do that!" I once in a guitar lesson drew up plans for a mini-ramp because a 14 year old kid couldn't figure it out. Bizarre. THE OTHER THING: Neighborhood football. When I was a kid, you'd always have people playing football games in someone's front yard, or 2 yards. A driveway was always an endzone; out of bounds was if you ran into the house or off the curb on the other side... I haven't seen kids playing football in a front yard in.. maybe 10 years? Man, we used to have little teams, played guys from all over town - basically no rules (that sucked at my size...). It seems kids today don't have the motivation or the organizational drive to do such a thing. Or they're convinced at school that they shouldn't play football anymore, unless they're picked for the school team? Otherwise they play soccer AT SCHOOL? Kids do *everything* at school now! All of them! Then they go home, study, and go to bed. What's with that????? It's really creepy, [i] they're not acting like human kids anymore...[/i] But neighborhood football - weird. Used to be at Christmas vacation you'd always see a lot of kids playing football in front yards, outside doing things. Do kids go outside anymore? The skate kids are about the only ones left... and they don't bother to build ramps unless it's those little sketchy launch ramps... and it's not because they're stoned, because I knew guys that were always stoned (still stoned today, and basically waste products) but they still wanted to to make something cool like at least a quarter pipe to stick in the road, maybe a little 6 foot high affair, SOMETHING... Why is it stoner kids when I was young seemed to get out and do more than kids today?

[not coaster MODERATOR]

Right on Chip! The skateramp thing. It's not for the fainthearted. Last year my parner and I built several half-pipes, fun boxes and even a 3 foot mini bowl that took 2 1/2 months to complete. It had 178 double mitres and the corners were absolute glass. All this was for our church youth group. Some of the LA forum members may have seen the stuff at 20th & Wilshire in Santa Monica. It's gone now because they tore down the place to build a Walgreen. But man.....everyone wanted to ride but few would lift a finger to help build. There is definitely some kind of lazy spirit at work in kids today. Yes sir, front yard football in the rain was THEE thing we looked forward to all week. And nobody thought twice about riding the sting-ray ten or more miles just for the adventure. You know what I never see anymore? Kids with paper routes. We all had paper routes growing up. It was a sign of power. Used to pay for all our own stuff too. And the rubber band fights.... :D [ 12-21-2001: Message edited by: Cereal ]

[henrysb3]

The smell of burning leaves in the fall Laugh In 100 days ago If any of you get the Trio Channel, check it out. They run back to back Laugh In with Sessions at West 54th just about every day. Is the Jack Benney show in reruns yet?

[rold]

ROTFLMAO!! You guys kill me! Barbecueing ants and salting snails? We were blowing up seagulls with baking soda and flattening frogs under car tires.. :D hmm...Lemme see if I could scratch up some more memories... ColecoVision (remember the game with the two sticks and the pixel that was supposed to be tennis? :D ) Twisted Sister 3D movies at the theatre with those blue and red glasses damn...memory resources are low...ever notice the older you get the less you can remember?.. :D

[Philip OKeefe]

[quote]Originally posted by 'rold: [b]ROTFLMAO!! You guys kill me! Barbecueing ants and salting snails? We were blowing up seagulls with baking soda and flattening frogs under car tires.. :D [/b] Alka Seltzer tablets work best for the seagulls. Throw up a few quarter sized chuncks of bread first to get them "hooked" then sneak in an alka seltzer tablet. :eek: Another "bad boy" thing from childhood: using cherry bombs at the Hunington Bach pier. Lots of little fish congregate around the pylons.... we'd toss in some bait first, the fish would scatter then come back and feed. After a few times of that, we'd light a cherry bomb and drop that in. Fish would scatter then come back and BOOM! The water would muffle the sound, but the concussion would kill a few of the fish. Kinda the same concept as "fishing with hand grenades" but on a smaller scale. But I did sometimes feel guilty about things like that. A couple of neitghborhood kids stuck a firecracker up a stray cat's backside once.. I remember feeling really sorry for that cat, even though I had nothing to do with it, I still felt terrible... :( [b]hmm...Lemme see if I could scratch up some more memories... ColecoVision (remember the game with the two sticks and the pixel that was supposed to be tennis? :D ) [/b] We had the very first video game - "Pong" [b]Twisted Sister[/b] :eek: :eek: :eek: [b]3D movies at the theatre with those blue and red glasses[/b] Yup, they always hurt my eyes... What a fun thread! Thanks for all the momories folks! Phil O'Keefe Sound Sanctuary Recording Riverside CA http://www.ssrstudio.com pokeefe777@ssrstudio.com [/B][/quote]

[Tedster]

Chip, I blame just about all of what you're talking about on Nintendo. Not only not building skateboard ramps and treeforts (when you're younger) and not playing football outside...but stuff that put a family together. Remember BOARD GAMES? Monopoly, Life, Risk, all that stuff? Kids got together (usually when the weather was crappy outside) and played board games...together. Everyone took a turn. And when the neighborhood kids weren't there, you played with your siblings or parents. Nowadays, it's like two kids playing video games, one kid's "turn" can last up to a half hour before he "dies" and the other kid has usually gotten bored and gone home to play his own Nintendo. Beautiful weather outside...kids with that dull stare on their face, thumbs flapping, trying to get Mario to save the Princess or whatever. Being a forum junkie is actually more productive, 'cause at least you're interacting with people, even if you're just B.S.'ing. The other thing, paper routes. Now papers are delivered by adults. Can't believe the world was actually a safe enough place 30 years ago to let a kid go off on his bike by him or herself through neighborhoods to total strangers' houses. Nowadays there are too many f***ing maggots who would do something horrible to a paperkid.

[Chip McDonald]

[quote]Originally posted by Cereal: [b]. It had 178 double mitres and the corners were absolute glass. [/b][/quote] Nice. I've rode some really nice and plush ramps in my late 20's - we never had anything as nice as some ramps these days. I remember thinking "man, this ramp is really fast - nothing but 1/4" panelling patches on the transition!". Or the days of "well, we only have enough plywood for a 6 foot transition... push it up so that you still get a foot of vert across the top"... Never mind that made it a pain to ride.. In fact, the first time I rode a masonite ramp I wiped out really bad it was so fast and slick - not to mention these little 99 durometer wheel condoms they call "wheels" these days. I still think Gyro 66's are the best all around, although way too heavy by today's standards... I still get the jones to skate. Still can't pass a lumber yard without thinking "man... I could build a whole skatepark out of that..."... [b]Santa Monica. It's gone now because they tore down the place to build a Walgreen. But man.....everyone wanted to ride but few would lift a finger to help build. [/b] You're in Dogtown, the HOME of vert skating - and kids don't even know or care??? Typical! [b]There is definitely some kind of lazy spirit at work in kids today. Yes sir, front yard football in the rain was THEE thing we looked forward to all week. And nobody thought twice about riding the sting-ray ten or more miles just for the adventure.[/b] Right... I think it's a learned process that's missing from early childhood developement: the appreciation for kinesthetic "art". Kids that grow up the first 5-6 years of their life inside - maybe they don't learn to appreciate the fun of doing something physical that has an artistic angle to it. I can't fathom flatlanders. But I don't understand road bikes, either... [b]You know what I never see anymore? Kids with paper routes. [/b] That's how I paid for my first car, first guitar and amp (partially... parents helped). Having a paper route SUCKED. But I learned important lessons: rich people are generally tightwads and tend to want to get away with not paying if they can, poor people are much more honest and pay on time. There's a lot of Buddy Rich complexes residing in the nicer parts of town it would seem. The problem with the world today is that the profit margin has been whittled down to such a bare minimum that perhaps the enthusiasm that creates the incentive to work is gone. Throwing newspapers - it's was so barely marginal, I feel so sorry for people that try to live on that existence. It's got all the bad aspects of delivering pizza - like having to deliver 1,500+ pizzas by throwing them out the window, without any break time, and no tips. Freezing your butt off because you have to have the window open in the car, getting up Christmas day at 3 am, having to go back out and hand deliver 20 news papers because some people didn't want to walk more than 5 feet from their front door - or heaven forbid the paper land on their perfectly manicured yard! Whatever. It paid down a car and a Hondo Explorer. Whoopee.

[Shiver]

so i'm NOT the only ex-skater who still drools everytime he sees a long concrete step, a smooth curved marble wall, and a big stack o' plywood!!! You wanna know what makes a great bowl? A fiberglass 4 panel satellitel dish tipped on it's side....but man does it go fast, and you really get a taste of that when your trucks slip off the edge and you finish the last 12 feet of it on your bare shins......brutal..... ...and am i the only one who smoked beef jerky? what about ferns? c'mon, somebody musta smoked a fern before?......please? shiver

[Philip OKeefe]

Okay, it's skateboards? I'm going to really date myself here... by first board was a homemade job built by my uncle and me. It had a cool two tone gold / green paint job and CLAY wheels (all that was available back then...). I still remember my first set of urethane wheels - Cadalics (sp)? Boy, what a difference! I grew up in San Dimas CA, in a little area up in the hills called Via Verde. It was a fairly new area back in the early 70's, and had LOTS of hills on streets where the houses were still under construction, so no real traffic, but lots of "road hazzards". I still bear the scars. :) Ramps? We didn't have any ramps... we lived for new (or drained) swimming pools... And I'll spare you the stories of our homemade downhill go- carts and the races we used to have (sans any reasonable braking systems...) :eek: You youngsters don't know how good you have it! Skate parks? ;) Phil O'Keefe Sound Sanctuary Recording Riverside CA http://www.ssrstudio.com pokeefe777@ssrstudio.com

[Shiver]

you know, i never really made it far in the homemade go-cart field, but my old man had a couple real doozies....i wish i could have been there to see some of those. More than once he's told me the story of how they made their first engine-pwrd one, of course with a lawn mower engine, but not just the engine....nope, they took the handle off the mower, threw it away, and then basically strapped the whole rig sideways onto this wooden frame, blades and all......then they (his "friends") slapped a helmet on him, tied him in with ropes, and sent him screaming down this insane hill....and oops...no one put in steering....so he flips, and he's totally roped into this thing, face first in the dirt with these mower blades strapped to his back doing about 50,000RPM and just plowing him into the mud..i think it basically functioned more as a hovercraft than a go-kart.......paints a real safe picture doesn't it? shiver

[Mats Olsson.]

[quote]Originally posted by Shiver: [b].......paints a real safe picture doesn't it? [/b][/quote] If you like that kind of stuff, [url=http://www.srl.org/][b]here\'s[/b][/url] some more (not for the faint-hearted)... /Mats [ 12-23-2001: Message edited by: mats.olsson@rockfile.se ]

[Philip OKeefe]

Thanks for the laugh Shiver! You painted a beautiful mental image for me. Pretty scary. It's amazing more of us weren't killed as kids / teenagers! Phil O'Keefe Sound Sanctuary Recording Riverside CA http://www.ssrstudio.com pokeefe777@ssrstudio.com

[not coaster MODERATOR]

Shiver that takes the cake! Why not just strap the engine to your back and use the blade as a propeller while skateboarding ! There is a satellite dish in Westchester (near my house) that guys ride in. No coping. Watch those shins... Chip-On the six footers we used 7 1/2 radius for trannys. Almost vert but not quite. On the 3 footer stuff we went 6 foot radius which was about right. I built an 6 footer with an 8 foot extension for Peter Norton's kid last year. Used Skatelite instead of masonite. $100 a sheet! And believe it or not it still swelled at the seems. For the most part all the old Dogtowners are gone from SM/VENICE area. I still bump into Jim Muir and Ray Flores but haven't seen T Alva or J adams in years. I still have old videos of us skating at Paul Revere. And yes it was the Cadillac wheel that launched us into the modern age. As for me, I won't get near one of those contraptions I've built! Things don't heal at age 43 like they used to.

[Hippie]

[quote]Originally posted by RobT: [b] How about CKLW The Ghoul Sir Graves Ghastly and Keener 13 Former Detroiter... RobT[/b][/quote] I grew up on CKLW ('The Big 8' was better than most FM stations, today) The Ghoul Rocked! Sir Graves must have been on LSD, bizarre! Keener 13 started the 'Paul is dead' rumour, If I remember correctly. [ 12-23-2001: Message edited by: Hippie ]

[Chip McDonald]

[quote]Originally posted by Shiver: [b]You wanna know what makes a great bowl? A fiberglass 4 panel satellitel dish tipped on it's side....[/b][/quote] (edit) I've skated in a "quite large fibreglass bowl that may or may not have been used for commercial satellite communications" briefly, I'd better leave it at that... Of course that's what I still think about everytime I see one of those huge radio telescopes. I know Areceibo is made of metal mesh, but MAN if you were to spray it wit gunite...

[Dave Bryce]

[quote]Originally posted by pokeefe777@msn.com: [b]We had the very first video game - "Pong"[/b][/quote] Wasn't that thing called an "Odyssey?" IIRC, it had a few games that all revolved around the white cube moving around the screen, except there were a few different overlays for the TV that made it sort of into different games. They were all basically Pong, though... dB