Ya Tim McGraw wrote a song about it Back When, things sure have changed since then.

There were Ben Franklin Stores, with wooden floors

There were Piggly Wiggly Stores

When I was little, I could sign my name at the 'country store' and it would be put on my parents 'tab'

When we bought glass coke bottle from a machine and all you could get was... a coke

When people dressed up for church and special occasions.

If we forgot our hats in Catholic school to go to Mass we had to put a piece of tissue on our heads!!! I'm not joking :)

you could go to Woolworth's and buy anything from a parakeet to windmill cookies. And some of them had a mezzanine.

When I was 16 and a new driver in the middle 60's, my dad would give me a $1 and his car and I would go and buy a pack of cigarettes (25¢) and a couple gallons of gas (25¢ a gallon) and I would pick up a girlfriend and we would cruise around town and still have enough to buy a hamburger and fries and something to drink at a "drive in".

We had no locks that worked on the doors on our house. And when you called someone on the phone you told the operator what number you wanted or if you were a kid you just told her the name- and this was in a town of 50,000. And if someone offered you a ride home it was of course safe to take it even if you didn't know them because somehow they knew you and your folks and where you lived. Kids were safe all over town.

WITHOUT looking like street walkers!

Gas was 25 cents a gallon!!!!!!

In California, schools still say the Pledge of Allegiance every morning, I'm glad to say.