I remember 25 cent burgers, but they were about the size of a half-dollar….you could get a whole back for a couple bucks. My dad and my youngest brother loved them. Me, not so much, a MacDonald’s single for 50 cents kicked their arse. Keep your greasy brown paper bag of midget burgers…oops “little people” burgers.
When I got my license, I think Sunoco 190 was $0.29 per gallon. Cokes and Three Musketeers were a nickel. Comic books were a dime; Classics Illustrated were $0.15 i delivered a weekly newspaper and collected ten cents per week from customers. Payphones were a dime. (Remember payphones?)
@opipeman I'm oh man i loved those! I liked anything to do in with flying, shooting and blowing stuff up! 😂 Typical boy and I loved the woods! (Not so typical these days)
How about finding 2 tin cans, one slightly smaller than the other one. Punching a hole in the bottom of the smaller can and inserting a firecracker two thirds through from the bottom. Then filling the larger can half full of water, inserting the smaller can upside down into the larger one, making sure to keep the firecracker dry. Light the firecracker, stand back, and watch the firecrackered can blow anywhere from 20 to 40 feet in the air! Now THAT was fun!
@KA9FFJ Back in the 60s you could buy "real" fireworks. We could even buy "Cherry Bombs" that you could light and throw into a ditch filled with water and they would explode.
I forgot to mention all the fun we had with bottle rocket wars...
My uncle was napping in a corner bedroom of my grandfather's house. I was maybe 10 years old. I put a Cherry Bomb in the downspout on the corner of the house. When I peaked in the window after the racket, he was standing straight up in bed. God, those were good times.
I may have pisted this story before, but I couldn’t find it, so here goes. When I was about 16? My dad had a “Cherry Bomb” that had been in his top dresser drawer ever since I could remember. He had always told us it was a very powerful firework. We were always….nah, it’s a freaking smoke bomb, we had never seen a Cherry Bomb, they had been outlawed long ago. Well, this particular day he decided we could shoot it off. Mind you, it was summer, but it was not near the 4th of July. Even back then, shooting off fireworks in the city limits was “frowned upon”.
I had found an empty, little, tin steel, flat bottomed “Snappy Tom” juice can and proceeded to the end of our concrete driveway near the street…maybe ~50ft. from our front porch, which is where my dad had sat down with a beer (not his first of the day) in one hand and a cigarette in the other. I placed the “Cherry Bomb” (yea, right, Cherry Bomb my ass) under the can and lit it. Now, I’m not stupid, and I never knew my dad to fib, so I backed the hell away, just in case. BOOM, that can sailed up at least 100ft., probably more. I was watching the can up, up, up, then down, down, down. Curiously, one of the neighbor kids of about 13 years old was hauling ass down the sidewalk to his house, maybe screaming a little….scaredy cat. I will mention, he was not the brightest crayon in the box, aannd, he was standing kinda close <10ft. away. I watched the can land. It wasn’t the can, it was just the flat bottom of the can, which now had a substantial ~3/4” dome in it😳. The rest of the can had been shredded into various pieces of shrapnel, I think I remember there being 6-7 pieces?😳 There was also a ~1/4” chip in the concrete that had been blasted away where the Cherry Bomb (yep, it was a Cherry Bomb) and the can had been just moments before😳. I think I could still find the chip in the concrete today fifty years later.
We found out the neighbor boy had run home because a piece of that shrapnel had sliced the top of his left forearm about ~6” long and deep as hell. He ended up with many stitches. We didn’t get in trouble, we didn’t get sued, none of his medical bills had to be paid by my family. The other family was very cool about it, their insurance covered it.
He was warned to stand way back after all. Ahh, times were different then.
@RockyMountainBriar Holy crap! If you did that today, you be enamored by the neighborhood, damned, arrested, jailed, defamed on the news, lose your job, sued by kids parents, sued by the city, blackballed in the city, tried, found guilty, sent to prison, gangbanged in prison, threatened daily, beaten daily, and delayed release and life destroyed. Then when You finally get out, the damning starts on all over again. The world we live in.
If I let my kids do HALF the shit I did as a kid, I would probably be in jail for negligent parenting and endangering a child....yet somehow I made it to adulthood with all ten fingers and all ten toes.
@Londy3; You are totally correct. @Zouave; We were all lucky, but we survived. @RockyMountainBriar; That was totally irresponsible, stupid, careless, dangerous and inexcusable. if you ever decide to try it again, give me time to fly to Montana. I would hate to miss it twice.
My Grandfather had a creek running a few yards west of his house. He called it "The Old Branch" and I played in it every chance I got. I'd catch Crawdads, Turtles, Snakes and Minnows. My first experience in Red Neck Fishing was in the biggest pool of the Branch, maybe 10'x8' and 2-3 feet deep. I weighted down a Cherry Bomb and tossed it in. There was a big bubble followed by several minnows floating to the surface. It wasn't until I was an adult that I realized that everyone up stream drained their septic tank into the Branch. Maybe that's why I don't get sick every often, developed an immunity to a lot of stuff.
Yep. Had a creek on my Grandaddy's tobacco farm. Found a lot of arrow heads cool looking rocks I collected back when I was 7 - 12... Don't know how I kept from getting snake bites. Lord knows there were plenty of them in the area.😬
Creeks, drainage ditches (some of the ditches alongside the train tracks were 10 - 15 foot deep) Texas size mud puddles and what we called sand pits (others called them borrow pits because they were dug to build the overpasses on the interstate.)
Yep! Woods, creek, river, lake, beach, waaaay up high in a tree for a summer nap, all outdoors! No cell phone, no helmet for me while riding my clean and waxed bike. No my mom never knew where I was but I'd be home in time for a hot home cooked Italian meal baby! Life was great! Would never change a thing. Incredible boyhood I had.
@KA9FFJ@opipeman And to think, the same government that told us a school desk was adequate protection from a nuclear blast wanted us to believe that a piece of cloth would protect us from a bioengineered virus.
Comments
I remember 25 cent burgers, but not 15 cent burgers.
Yep...
Cokes and Three Musketeers were a nickel.
Comic books were a dime; Classics Illustrated were $0.15
i delivered a weekly newspaper and collected ten cents per week from customers.
Payphones were a dime. (Remember payphones?)
Yes Sir to all.
I liked anything to do in with flying, shooting and blowing stuff up! 😂
Typical boy and I loved the woods!
(Not so typical these days)
Yeah but did you ever tape a bottle rocket to the top of a Hot Wheels or Matchbox car to see how fast it would go?
Now THAT was fun!
Imagine my surprise.
We could have become explosives experts based on our early years of experiments.
Back in the 60s you could buy "real" fireworks. We could even buy "Cherry Bombs" that you could light and throw into a ditch filled with water and they would explode.
I forgot to mention all the fun we had with bottle rocket wars...
When I was about 16? My dad had a “Cherry Bomb” that had been in his top dresser drawer ever since I could remember. He had always told us it was a very powerful firework. We were always….nah, it’s a freaking smoke bomb, we had never seen a Cherry Bomb, they had been outlawed long ago. Well, this particular day he decided we could shoot it off. Mind you, it was summer, but it was not near the 4th of July. Even back then, shooting off fireworks in the city limits was “frowned upon”.
Holy crap! If you did that today, you be enamored by the neighborhood, damned, arrested, jailed, defamed on the news, lose your job, sued by kids parents, sued by the city, blackballed in the city, tried, found guilty, sent to prison, gangbanged in prison, threatened daily, beaten daily, and delayed release and life destroyed. Then when You finally get out, the damning starts on all over again. The world we live in.
You are totally correct.
@Zouave;
We were all lucky, but we survived.
@RockyMountainBriar;
That was totally irresponsible, stupid, careless, dangerous and inexcusable. if you ever decide to try it again, give me time to fly to Montana. I would hate to miss it twice.
I
I posted these together, because......well,.... you know.
🤣😂 Oh yeah!
been there done that more often than I can remember.
My Grandfather had a creek running a few yards west of his house. He called it "The Old Branch" and I played in it every chance I got. I'd catch Crawdads, Turtles, Snakes and Minnows. My first experience in Red Neck Fishing was in the biggest pool of the Branch, maybe 10'x8' and 2-3 feet deep. I weighted down a Cherry Bomb and tossed it in. There was a big bubble followed by several minnows floating to the surface. It wasn't until I was an adult that I realized that everyone up stream drained their septic tank into the Branch. Maybe that's why I don't get sick every often, developed an immunity to a lot of stuff.
Don't know how I kept from getting snake bites. Lord knows there were plenty of them in the area.😬
Kinda reminds me of the effectiveness of masks.
And to think, the same government that told us a school desk was adequate protection from a nuclear blast wanted us to believe that a piece of cloth would protect us from a bioengineered virus.