My auction buddy Janet sent me one of those chain emails that urges you to pass it on to other people. She apologized, noting that she doesn’t usually forward these but she couldn’t resist because this one was oh-so-true.
It was titled “Your entire childhood in one email.”
I usually delete these chain letters, too, but since the no-nonsense Janet passed it along, I figured I’d scroll down and see what was what.
I chuckled as I went through the list and photos of things from my Baby-Boomer past. Some of the items meant nothing to me, while others brought back memories. I not only recognized some of them, but I also saw some items I had picked up or seen at auction.
Here are the items on the list:
45 rpm spindles. I definitely remember these, but they are actually adapters or inserts. The rod on the turntable is the spindle. I don’t have any of the flat plastic ones but I do have their later cousin: a round brown plastic circle with a hole in the center.
Green stamps. I found several books of S&H Green Stamps in a box lot I bought at auction two months or so ago.
Metal ice cube trays. Don’t I remember these! We’d fill them with water, wait until they solidified and pull the lever to release the ice cubes for our iced tea or plain cold water. Did you know that the first stainless steel tray was made in 1933?
Beanie and Cecil. Never heard of them.
Roller-skate keys. I grew up in a rural area, and there was not much need for roller skates. Janet, who grew up in Brooklyn, NY, remembered wearing the key around her neck. Kids used the key to attach their roller skates to shoes. At auction once, I did find four Chicago Skate Co. roller skate wheels, heavily used.
Cork pop guns. Don’t remember these, but I do remember BB Guns. My male cousins had them. The girls didn’t.
Marlin Perkins. From the TV show “Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom.”
Drive-in movies. I went to one of those as an adult.
Drive-in restaurants. We couldn’t afford to eat out.
Car hops. See above answer.
Studebakers. These were very popular cars, but we didn’t have one. I do recall in the 1960s, though, that my sister won a Rambler (a station wagon, I believe). She couldn’t drive it but our male cousin Raymond could.
Topo Gigio. Ed Sullivan’s little Italian talking mouse. Who could forget him.
Washtub wringers. Our wash container was a big black pot in the yard and plenty of hot sudsy water.
The Fuller Brush man. After coming across two plastic letter openers, I blogged about him in May and a woman who also sold the products.
Sky King. I remember watching the adventures of Sky King, his niece, his nephew and his plane Songbird.
Reel to reel tapes. I remember these on elementary school projectors. We watched a lot of educational films.
Tinkertoys
Erector sets. These come up quite often at auction.
Lincoln Logs. And so do these.
15-cent hamburgers
5-cent packs of baseball cards
Penny candy. We’d buy candy from a girl in high school who sold them before class: Now and Later, Mary Jane, Tootsie Roll, Fireballs. As I recall, her mother owned a store.
25-cent-a-gallon gasoline
Jiffy Pop popcorn
5-cent stamps
Gum wrapper chains. Never made them.
5-cent Cokes. At auction, I have picked up a Coke bottle opener and other items, and recently, a Coke wallet. I blogged about Coke paraphernalia, too. I do remember buying Cokes from a machine in the hallway in my elementary school. Don’t remember the price, but they were cheap.
Speedy Alka Seltzer. I definitely remember his wide grin and his “Plop, Plop Fizz Fizz, Oh what a relief it is.”
Cigarettes for Christmas
Falstaff Beer
Burma Shave Signs. They were ubiquitous. You couldn’t get away from them (like the man – representing Death- whom the woman couldn’t shake in the Twilight Zone episode “The Hitchhiker”).
Brownie camera. There are plenty of these at auction, including the Brownie Box camera (the earliest), Hawkeye, #2 Folding Camera, Reflex, Junior, six-16 and Fiesta.
Flash bulbs. At auction, these are usually still in the original box with a camera. They are among the things we buy too many of (for those “just-in-case” times), then are replaced by something more advanced and stored away on the top shelf of a closet.
TV test patterns. It was the last thing we’d see when TV stations went off the air after midnight.
Old Yeller. I didn’t see this movie until I was an adult.
Chef Boyardee. We didn’t eat much pasta in a can when I was growing up. That would come later. A group of cookbooks I got at auction once did yield one by Chef Boyardee, who was a real chef from Italy named Ettore (Hector) Boiardi.
Fire escape tubes. Must’ve been an urban thing. I do remember fallout shelters, though.
Timmy and Lassie. Yep, I remember them.
Ding Dong Avon Calling. I wrote a post in April about Avon products after tons were sold at auction. The products are very collectible, but the collection won’t bring you riches.
Brylcreem. “A little dab’ll do ya.”
Aluminum Christmas trees. Some people still have them.
The email ends by saying:
“If you can remember most or all of these, then you have lived! Pass this on to anyone who may need a break from their “grown-up” life … Double-dog-dare-ya!”
So, Ms. Baby Boomer, how many of these do you remember?
