My first job after high school was at a big corporate law firm on Wall St. in NYC. Yes, back in the 50's we wore dresses, skirts and blouses, heels and stockings to work. If we worked on Saturday I usually wore a casual outfit of slacks with a matching sweater or sweater set. I didn't like wearing hats but wore gloves all the time as accents to my outfits or coats. I had lovely slips trimmed with lots of lace and ribbons. Most gals wore girdles with snaps attached to hold up their stockings. Back in those days I didn't need a girdle so I wore a garter belt to hold up my stockings.

Late 60's- early 70's changed everything, you wore panty hose with your dresses and in some work places could even wear pant suits so out the window went slips, girdles, hats and gloves. Can't say I missed them much but miss buying the lacey slips.

Yes, $1.00 per hour was considered good pay for a beginning position in early 1950's. $37.50 a week, 15 to Mom for the house, another 5 that she put in the bank for me (banks closed at 3pm daily and don't remember if they were open on Sat.) and the rest was for me for lunch, carfare, movies, clothes, etc. May in Jersey

Man will this tell on me. I remember when Daddy would give my brother and me 50 cents. we would ride the bus to downtown Dallas,go to a movie,buy popcorn and a candy bar,and a drink,ride the bus back home on the old Dallas Ft worth road. rolof. Oh yes the little town I was from in West Tx ,had one filling station, one cafe, a school ,and a church. I had the same first grade teacher that my parents had, her name was Mrs, Flowers will never forget. The last thing I have heard of from there, was an article in the Dallas Times Herald was there was 1 graduating senior that year. Now dont ask what year that was because I cant remember, A senior moment or what.?

Every summer my sister and I would go to my greatgrandmother in Pulaski Va, we would stay all summer and walk to town to go to the movies ( only had two in the town). We were from a lot bigger city and it was so much fun to be able to go to town by ourselfs. We look forward every summer going to the small town. I still have a aunt in Dublin which is even smaller. I still like to go see her in the country. It really hasn't change in all this time. I think the movies has closed down.

Granny k

What memories! I grew up in the late 50s - 60s. Collecting pop bottles to turn in at a little store for a loaf of Wonder bread and a pound of sliced bologna that we fried and made sandwiches (Yummmm!).

Wearing pants under our dresses when we walked to school in the winter. Putting bread bags on our feet before putting on boots to go play in the snow. Making snow ice cream. Walking to and from the movies - if it was after dark on the way home, we always ran as fast as we could past the creepy funeral home!

As teenagers, getting 50 cents of gas on Friday and driving around town all weekend long. After we were married and DH came home from Vietnam, we were stationed in Virginia - we were shocked that gas there was 30 cents a gallon (about 5 cents higher than at home)and his pay was about $320 a month and our rent was $150!

My dad worked for the power company so we got transferred about every 3 years. We moved from a little town in Ky to Steubenville OH. What a culture shock. Movies went from 25 cents to $4.50! Will never forget the first time we had to pay that!

I remember when I went to a party with my father and came home with my mother!

Tah Dum!

Edie

I remember when I went to a party with my father and came home with my mother!

Tah Dum!

I remember when my sister and I would pick potato bugs and my grandfather would give us a penny for every 10 we would pick. Then we would tear down to the dime store and get a book of paper dolls for a dime!

I remember trying to teach my grandfather's chicks how to swim.

Edie

We actually bought a pet alligator there!!

My favorite memory of Woolworth's is the tuna sandwiches they had. They were so yummy. We only got to go when my grams would take us. I remember they would have balloons blown up and tied around and inside would be a piece of paper with a price on it. the price was what you had to pay for your banana split. My grams was the one that always took us to the dentist. She would take us there after the appt. to get ice cream. It was hard to eat because your face was numb and it would melt and run down your chin.

A favorite memory... reaching the age when I could walk from my house to the town square with my cousins to the 5& Dime called Mary's Variety. You could get a tiny brown bag filled with peanuts for a nickel. The toy counter was full of things for under 25cents. Rubber balls, jacks, cards, tops, jump ropes, rubber bugs, plastic dolls, GI joes. I wanted a hula hoop but they cost a dollar.. But I did eventually get one and boy did I ever love that. I tried one not to long ago .. it is my grandaughters.. lets just say I shoudnt have.. lol

Am glad I'm not the only one from that time era. Boy talk about same things different town. My children always marvel that I had to help mow the grass (for not only our lawn but 3 other connecting neighbors) and my mom would give me a dollar to fill the gas can , and I would ride my bike down the 3 or 4 blocks, fill the can and still have enough(I think it was a nickel) to buy peanuts out of the "vending machine". It was one of those glass filled jars that you put a coin in and turned the crank, like a gumball machine. I ate so many peanuts from that gas station(one of 2 in town) the owner called me peanuts! We never locked our doors, always played outside till the street lights came on, cause then you knew it was time for supper, divorce was something nobody did, and instead of harvest gold, our kitchen was BRIGHT yellowand the playroom was BRIGHT orange. AAAAGH the 70's. I know there' lots more but I won't bore you any further.

I won't be bored!! I was born in 55 and I remember alot of similar things. We love to hear these stories so tell as many as you like!!

I am enjoying all the stories too. :)

I remember buying a candy bar and a coke for 10 cents. Playing outside till we were made to come in. Always wearing dresses. Having a prayer and saying the Pledge of Allegiance every day I went to school. Splitting a half gallon of ice cream between the five of us after church on Sunday night. Visiting Grandparents every Sunday. Driving a 1964 Volkswagon for a week on $1.60 in gas. We were not rich in money but we were rich in the love we had for each other. I have so many wonderful memories I could never list them all. I am very thankful for all of them.

I was born in 43 and lived in a small town called Pine Bush N.Y We went to school on a school bus that let all the dust in from the dirt roads.On Sunday my parents would drive me to sunday school and after they would give me a dime for a candy and comic book. Summers where the best we would play outside all day and have lemomaid on the porch. We had a kill running in the front and one in the back a short distance from our house. We played there all summer and had such fun!!!!What "MEMORIES"

It needs to be said - in this day,. we have all seen the awful life that the average person endures, I wouldn't trade the 50's and 60's with anyone. It is quite sad that our grandchildren could not experience the innocent times that we had lived back when ---- remember when everyone was quaranteened from polio? We all managed, didn't we? The family unit was BIG, morals were high, and life was so much better, wasn't it?

Growing up in a small town ---

* The post office was the front room of a ladies house.

* My mother named the street - until 'they' realized the name everyone was using wasn't actually the real name of the street.

* We had 7 bars, no schools and no churches in our town. (according to my dad - I only remember 1 bar not 7)

*Everyone seemed to be related to each other in elementary school

* Our 'block' was 9 miles around!

* There were no Fast food places in the area.

* The mall was 30 - 45 miles away

* There was no Dairy Queen, just a place called the Char-Bar owned by... yes, Charles and Barbara

* We had Redi Killowatt statue that was put on the lake each winter and we had a contest to guess when he would fall into the water when spring came! I won second place one year!

* We had 4 households on our party line phone and Daddy put us on a 10 minute limit on phone calls because he was Fire chief and needed to be able to recieve phone calls, even though we could hear the fire house siren from our house - Mom and I used to follow the fire truck to watch the bigger fires.

* Daddy new when anyone got a new car by the time of day they drove past our house

* It was BIG news when our garbage man married one of the

* I remember my closest friend my age lived 10 +/- miles away.

So many memories....

I remember watching Carol Burnett with my dad and watching Lawrence Welk on Sat evenings with my grandparents.

I remember playing croquet as a family grandparents aunts and uncles and cousins.

There were 2 five and dime stores in town. Harrison's had several tables that had glass dividers and in the spaces created they had all kinds of kid things. Whistles,combs, mirrors, little dolls, purses, tin stars,yoyos, jacks, marbles etc lots and lots of things.
You could buy dishes or clothes or baby items or boots or just about anything there.
Penny candy galore. You could get a handful of candy for a penny.

Hoaglin's was the other one on the opposite side of the square. they had a real monkey in a cage at the back of the store.

I wouldn't trade the 50's for anything either. I do remember the year the Minnesota State Fair closed down - I think it was in 1949 - because of Polio. I had it that year. Not bad, but I was one of them. I remember a popular song was "I'm a Lonely Little Petunia in an Onion Patch - Oh won't you come and play with me" and nobody could. But I still wouldn't change anything. If one little teeny thing had changed, (think about this), we'd never know our husbands/wives, our children, our friends and all of you! Edie

It was the same way here. Got a lecture from the person who saw and then was told "I am gonna tell your momma". So then you caught hell from your mom too. I do this to this day to the neighborhood children. lol It still takes a village to raise a child. Still have the ice cream truck driving through the neighborhood, saw them Tuesday!!!!
Did anyone have a "fog truck" for the mosiqtoes (sp)? We used to run after the truck. God knows what we were "sniffing" then (this was over 40 years ago). Swimming in the ditch when we had a really big rain, as they were really deep on the sides of the road. :mrgreen: :shock: :roll: :?: :-(

So what was the BIG news about the garbage man marrying one of the........or do I know :lol:

Those were the days.

Yes

I remember spending my summers at my grandparents apartment house in brooklyn . they owened all of it. The pushcart men would show up and fresh fruit was sweet. I must have been only 7 or 8 and would take the two buses to get there. It was safe going by myself then,and I had a brown sack with some cloths and I spent all summer there. My great aunts taught me to sew and gram was good at everything. That was in the late 40s and early 50s. Travel in new york was very differant than now. Kids could travel alone and it was safe.

Does anyone remember Hallo shampoo in the ribbed glass bottle?It smelled so good and made your hair shine.Or playing hop scotch on the road because there were only one or two cars going by all day and they would'nt try to run you down like they do today!!!!!!

"Halo everybody, Halo~ Halo is the shampoo that glorifies your hair, so Halo everybody Halo.............remember the jingle??

I so forgot about swimming in the ditches. We would also go craw dadding and frogging in the ditches. We would disappear for hours and our parents didn't have to worry about us. My Mom always said that when I got hungry I would come home.

I remember felling so grown up, the first time i bought my own candy bar, with money I earned. I still remember the taste of that 'big hunk". They never tasted so good again. I was 8.

It's just that he had been single for sooooo long. He was in his 40's or even maybe early 50's? She was 27. Back then and for us it was news. We never thought he would ever get married because he was always working, didn't know he had time to date. lol

Does anyone remember:

Breck shampoo and hair setting gel products? Breck came in a glass bottle with a lid that had a slot in it to make it a 'piggy' bank. I still have it! - with coins in it!

Green Stamps? Mom saving them and us putting them into the books so she could go buy things.

M&H stamps at the filling station (remember filling stations?) and you could get dishes and glasses? Remember towels and washrags inside of laundry detergent? Remember putting peroxide on your hair to lighten it? Remember "Brush-a, Brush-a, Brush-a, with the new Ipana, "Cream of Wheat is so good to eat and we have it every day", "L-A-V-A, L-A-V-A" (It was a hand soap for really dirty hands and it had pumice in it to take the grime off), Ivory Soap - "99 and 100 percent pure"! Remember mixing Johnson's Baby Oil and Iodine together to make your skin look tanner? Remember putting bandaids around your boyfriend's ring when you went steady? Remember "Rock Around the Clock", "Unchained Melody", "Purple People Eaters" (Minnesota Vikings), "The Stroll", I could go on! "Blue Suede Shoes", "White Sport Coat and a Pink Carnation".

Some more? White Bucks, Argyle Knee Highs, Penny Loafers, Bernard Altman Cashmere Sweaters, Sweater sets (a short sleeved pull-over sweater and a cardigan in the same color), mint green sweater and a navy blue skirt,Poodle on a felt skirt, crinolines (who wore the most) ammo boxes (leather - from WWII purchased at a local army surplus store) to use as purses and they were too small, the high school homecoming parade and your parents letting you use the big family car and you decorated it all up and drove around showing it off and then loaded your friends in the car and was in the parade; drive ins, drive in movies, necking. Oh, I could go on forever. But I can't. I am 72 years old (in one week and one day) and I have to get back to my quilting. Reminiscing is so neat! Keeps one young, eh? Edie

Edie, You and I have a lot of the same memories. Earth Angel was 'our song". Was there when Rhythm and Blues became Rock and Roll. Used to listen to Moon Dog, aka Alan Freed, on the radio for our favorite songs. Glad that I can remember more of the good times than the bad ones (like air raids because we thought the atom bomb might be dropped on NYC and other big cities). May in Jersey

When I started to work in 57, I used to go to the Horn and Harded automat for lucch. I ccould put a few nickels in a slot and out would come a sandwich ,only for four or five nickels. That was cheap for the time,Manhattan was a lot pricey and I just had a half hour for lunch. The automat and Chock ful of nuts coffee made my work day.
Times were simple and we didnt have things we have now ,but I wouldnt change a thing. Except IM older now .

Capizzios

I forgot about Capezio's. How about Packard-Rellin's - a shoe store in Milwaukee. Anybody who was anybody either had Capezio's or Packard-Rellin's, except me, of course, I was from St. Paul and we always got Red Goose Shoes - having to measure our feet from the foot xray machine. Edie

Oh I remember the service stations! My dad worked at a service station and when I was 9 he got his own. I grew up in a Texaco service station. Gas was 35.9 and by 72 it was 45.9. Self service hadn't been thought of. They started out with full service. You checked the oil and the battery every time. you wiped the windows and gave green stamps. There was only one kind of gas. NO ethanol yet. Then came full service or mini service. You pumped gas but no washing windows or checking the oil etc. Self service had not been started yet when my dad closed his gas station in 1974. Gas was 59.9 for full service or 54.9 for mini service. I learned to check oil at the age of 9 and worked at the gas station cleaning and running errands from the time I was about 10. I started pumping gas at the age of 12. The Texaco Star still brings chills to my soul as my dad has been gone for 20 yrs this Dec and it always brings back so many memories! The smell of oil and gas brings back so many memories of the gas station.

We gave green stamps at the station and I went with Mom to the distribution center to pick them up alot of the time. When I stayed at my grandma's she had a big deep drawer she saved all her stamps for whem my cousin Jim and I to put them in books when we came. The Hyvee gave out the yellow Crown stamps and there were about 4 or 5 differant stamps you could get depending on where you shopped.

Pop was only in glass bottles. Royal Crown Cola -Double Cola(tasted like Dr. Pepper and Coke mixed) -Grape Nehi -Orange Nehi -Coke actually had a bit of cocaine in it then(that is where the name came from originally) Coke started out as a syrup for coughs and colds. My grandma used to make homemade root beer. and she made popcorn balls my favorite!

Nancy Drew books The Hardy Boys The Bobbsey Twins Rough Rider Lassie Five Little Peppers Little Women

Mickey Mouse Club Cartoons on Sat morning Capt Kangaroo
Archie Comics

Loved Horn and Harded's (sp?) macaroni and cheese. Although I've tried many recipes that claimed to be the 'orginal' recipe they all fell short on taste and texture. I think H & H had a huge pot of mac and cheese in the back, slapped some into the little casserole dish, ran it under a broiler and put it in the little window. All the recipes I've tried called for the mac and cheese to be baked and that dried it out.

Chock Ful of Nuts is that Heavenly Coffee, or so their theme song said. Back in those days department stores were only open late on Thursday nights. That was the night I would stop on my way home from work in Mahattan to shop the department stores in downtown Brooklyn. I often stopped at Chock Ful of Nuts near the train station for coffee and a donut or at Nedick's for a hot dog and an orange drink. Remember the tall thin glasses they had for their orange drink? My Goodness each new post brings back another memory, May in Jersey

When my husband and I were getting married ,my sister in law gave me 30 books of S and H green stamps for our wedding ,it got a lot of things we needed. I still have the ironing board by proctor that I got for a book of them. They just dont make boards like that any more. I just never thought to get any new one. This one will still last for another lifetime or two.

I still get back every few years and then get to go to Nathans.Nothing can beat those hot dogs. They have them here but I dont think they taste the same. I miss some things about N>Y> but I dont miss those awful winters.

You have to go to the orginal Nathan's in Coney Island for the best tasting ones, must be something about the salt air there that makes them taste so good. May in Jersey

I was wondering the same thing?