Hello Mr. Milkman.....

As you slam the door, there was a resonance you just don't hear anymore . It was on the front door of homes and lots of mom and pop corner grocery stores.....I'm talking about wooden screen doors. Now it is a sterile aluminum frame that just doesn't have that mellow slam.....

Glass milk bottles that were perched on the outside porch for the milk delivery man to pick up and replace. Some homes had a pass through where you left the old bottles and the milkman would open the outside door, replace what was needed and you opened the little door and fetched your new supply of milk or eggs for the day or two.
The Milk truck was the Clover Dairy, and the milkman actually lived down the street. His name was Frank Beeman and occsionaly he would hand out little tubs of ice cream to the kids on holidays.....what a concept.
The El Tapatio Hotel in Guadalajara still has these pass through where room service can leave your tray and you can get it without opening or seeing the delivery person....

Bakery Delivery Trucks.
3 times a week the Colonial Bread truck would come down our street, fresh breads, rolls, and donuts and pastries would be available. A loaf of bread was 25 cents.....

Dumbwaiters......no not the smartalec guy who doesn't deserve a tip, these were miniature elevators in older homes that had several stories. You sent stuff down from upstairs to the basement, or the kitchen. They were next to the laundry shoot. You could also put your used dishes or dirty laundry and set them out of your life, to someone else where they would have to clean or wash them.

In older two story homes, there were two staircases. One formals wide one for all to uses, and a skinny steep (servants staircase" one that usually emptied out into the pantry or kitchen area. It was specially designed for the house help, you know, butler, maid, cleaning person, they were standard in all the Victorian homes or any mansions.

Steam radiators.
I remember in my first grade these hissing clanking radiators were the source of heat for the hold room. Now everything is central heat or air, with huge air returns and large channels....

Sold walls that you couldn't hear through. I grew up in a flat in the city that had lath and plaster walls. They were about 8 inch thick and once you closed the door, which was a solid wood door, not a hollow veneer, the room would be very quiet. Now drywall walls allow sound to pass easily unless they take extra precaution to insulate and put plastic sound barriers in the wall.....

Houses had deep overhangs, since most homes never had air condition, the eaves of the house extended far out from the roof line on all sides to protect the house from the summer sun.

Vegetable gardens. As a kid almost eveyton in the neighborhood had them. After you sowed the seeds, you would stick the empty envelop on a stick in front of the row so you would would know what you planted....oh the seed pack were 5 and 10 cents a pack.

A hand pump water pump in the front yard of a farm house. The water was cold and tasted great. You had to work for the water to arrive at the spigot, Something so simple now, everyone has running water inside the house.

How times change....

Please deposit your nickel , sir!

Hello Operator, I would like to make a person to person call to 213-277-9291, and talk to Mr. Elliot Singer please. ......
"You can call me back at TUxedo 5-4544.

Yes sir will do as soon as I get them on the line.
Thank you
"You're welcome"

A person to person call?
Whats that?
What's an Operator?
What's a dial phone?
When is the last time you heard a telephone bell ring?
Or if you were really hip you had a telephone company calling card....
In your wallet next to your Bank of America Visa Card, or your Master Charge Card
in the same wallet as your Standard Oil Card, that you could use at Standard Gas Stations, that were across the street from the Signal Oil stations or the Atlantic Richfield Station down the street from the Philips 66 or the Mohawk station.....
That is were the phone booth was usually located where you could make your phone calls when you were out and about.
Before Cellphones.......ages ago.
Not really....

Could Kids survive nowadays?

I keep hearing how tough life is, it's not fair that someone has to sacrifice something like not going to the movies 3 time a week, down to twice or limiting the cell phone use because the last bill was $200 dollars....
Kids......
They think they have it tough.

They should have grown up when if you wanted to communicate with someone, you sat down , got a piece of paper or if you were lucky enough stuck it into a typewriter and spend some time writing down your letter, then folded it up and stuck it in an envelope.
Then you put a 10 cent stamp on it, and you walked down to the post office, or if you were lucky your parents or neighbor would give you are ride to the post office and you would mail it.
It took a week or so for the person to get it.
Now they have the Internet , and they complain when the page takes too long to load.

Some one would call you on the phone and if you were on the phone or your parents were using it, the caller would get a busy signal. They would have to hang up, return to the phone later and dial the number again.
No call waiting,
No last number dialed,
No Caller ID, so you would have to answer the phone, each time, even if it was your school or boss, ......maybe you called in sick, so you better sound sick.....

And they complain when they have to leave a voice mail message.....

If you were lucky your television set had 3 channels on it.
ABC, NBC and CBS.
Later PBS came into play, but that was it.
If you missed the TV show, your neighbors told you about it,
Now you TIVO it, or 20 years ago you could set your VCR to record it.
Now if there are 4 things that conflict with what you want to record,
They complain...........

You fill up the gas in your car, and every other time you either had to put in a quart of oil, and walk around the car adding air to the tires......
Now the new cars hardly ever use oil, you never have to pump up your tires and all the cars have air conditioning.
But still they complain......


They also complain that homework is to tough. Tough? We had no Internet so any research we had to walk down to the library, look up the reference material , get the books, and if you had a library card you could take the books home to study......
But they complain...


If you liked a song on the radio, you could do one of two things. Listen to it again and hope that you will hear it when you have your tape recorder handy or go down to the record store and buy the record.
Now they complain if they can pirate the song or the album, or steal it of the Internet to play on their MP3 player.
The real hip people had a Muntz 8 track installed under that dashboard. You bought the 8 track tape and every 4 or 5 times you would play the cassette, it would eat your tape.
But they complain when they can load their MP3 player fast enough.

Kids complain too much, or I am too old.....take your pick!

What? Savings........what's that?????

I figured out the reasons and causes of the financial crisis all by myself!
It is something that kids nowadays have never ever heard of, something that the last couple of generations have not heard of or forgotten.......

Savings accounts.

When I was in grammar school, in the Haight Ashbury in the 50's the school was named after Dudley Stone, who ever that was, I had Ms. Brown as my first teacher.

School was neat, we lived about 5 blocks from school and my mother walked me to school every day, and the days I liked the most is when it rained.

We would get out early.......why I haven't the slightest idea.
Anyway every two Fridays there would be a person that would come around and collect your nickels, dimes and quarters.

You were something big if you had a quarter. Those usually only appeared after your birthday or Christmas or special days.

If you had a quarter, you would pass it around, the kids would look at it, and say that they would have one next time. 'They usually didn't.

Anyway, the person that came around was a Bank of America representative. They would allow you to bring a card home which your parents would sign, and there was a space on the card for you signature.

My Signature?

How about my printing?

It was a savings account that Bank of America sponsored that was available for every child going to school. Some kids had a dollar or two in there, some had 20 or 30 dollars in there.

The ones with 20 or 30 dollars where the rich kids.......I think I had about 3 bucks in mine. My brother had about 7 in his.

Now a days that wouldn't be allowed because it may make the child feel inadequate for not having the same money as the next kid.........One of the problems facing society nowadays......

So, we would give the person our dimes, nickels ( remember nickles, both buffalo head and Jefferson?) you don't see nickles nowadays, for some reason, must be the metal is too valuable....

So after the school year ended, we looked at our savings accounts and got some kind of prize for the one that had the most saved during the year........what a concept.

The other thing was neat was Christmas Clubs.......you would save money throughout the year so that you would have enough to buy your family some gifts........what a capitalistic motivation....

I see that lay-a-way programs are coming back. Another novel idea from the past. Imaging the concept of paying for something or better yet , waiting to get something until it is all paid for!

You would value the item so much more since it took you a long time to get it. The only thing you would borrow money for, after you had saved up a 30 % down payment was to buy a car....
or if you were really in the chips, a house........
But why would you buy a house? That was for rich folks......We lived in a flat, a half a block away from Golden Gate park, on the second floor. The flat had 5 rooms. Rent was $60 dollars a month.

There were no credit cards.........there was no financial collapse or at least the credit problems we face nowadays.

What a concept.

Remember piggy banks?

Heathkits, Knightkits and Eico

I got into electronics not by going to school for it, but by buying KnightKits first.
KnightKits were a product marketed and made by the Allied Radio Company of Chicago. For some reason I was enamored by spending all my time not on Marvel or Dell Comics but by perusing the pages and pages of neat stuff in the Allied Radio Catalog.
My first Knight Kit was a Tube Tester.
Anyone remember the tube testers that were in the drug stores, supermarkets and five and dime stores?

Just think of the last couple of generations, they do not even know what tubes were. They will miss out on the experience of burning the tips of their fingers when you take the tube out of a working piece of equipment........
Well I just had to have one they made a small version with just 4 tube sockets a meter and a whole bunch of switches.
I don't think it worked the first time I built it, I made some wiring mistakes, after all what did I know I was a 8 or 9 year old kid.
The kit cost 19 dollars. that was a whole bunch of money in them days.

What a difference 50 years makes

I found this on the Internet and had to share it with you!

School 1959 vs 2009

Scenario: Jack goes quail hunting before school, pulls into school parking lot with a shotgun in gun rack

1959- Vice Principal comes over, looks at Jack's shotgun, goes to his car and gets his shotgun to show Jack.

2009- Schools goes into lock down, FBI called, Jack hauled off to jail and never sees his truck or shotgun again. Counselors called in for traumatized students and teachers.............


Scenario: John and Mark get into a fistfight after school.

1959- Crowd gathers, Mark wins. Johnny and Mark shake hands and end up buddies.

2009- Police calls, SWAT team arrives, arrests Johnny and Mark. Charge them with assault, both expelled even though Johnny started it.



Scenario: Jeffrey won't be still in class, disrupts other students.

1959- Jeffrey sent to office and given a good paddling by the Principal, Returns to class, sits still and does not disrupt class again.

2009- Jeffrey given huge doses of Ritalin, Becomes a zombie, tested for ADD. School gets extra money from the state because Jeffrey has a disability.



Scenario: Billy breaks a window in his neighbor's car and his Dad gives him a whipping with his belt.

1959- Billy is more careful next time, grows up normal, goes to college, and becomes a successful businessman.

2009- Billy's dad is arrested for child abuse. Billy removed to foster care and joins a gang. State psychologist tells Bill's sister that she remembers being abused herself and their dad goes to prison. Billy's mom has affair with psychologist.



Scenario: Mark gets a headache and takes some aspirin to school.

1959 - Mark shares aspirin with Principal out on the smoking dock.

2009- Police called, Mark expelled from school for drug violations. Car searched for drugs and weapons.



Scenario: Pedro fails high school English.

1959- Pedro goes to summer school, passes English , goes to college.

2009- Pedro's cause is taken up by state. Newspaper articles appear nationally explaining that teaching English as a requirement for graduation is racist. ACLU files class action lawsuit against state school system and Pedro's English teacher. English banned from core curriculum. Pedro given diploma anyway but ends up mowing lawns for a living because he cannot speak English.



Scenario: Johnny takes apart leftover firecrackers from 4 th of July, puts them in a model airplane paint bottle, blows up a red ant bed.


1959- Ants die.
2009- BATF, Homeland Security , FBI called. Johnny charged with domestic terrorism, FBI investigates parents, siblings removed from home, computers confiscated, Johnny's Dad goes on a terror watch list and is never allowed to fly again.




Scenario: Johnny falls while running during recess and scrapes his knee. He is found crying by his teacher, Mary. Mary hugs him to comfort him.

1959- In a short time, Johnny fells better and goes on playing.

2009- Mary is accused of being a sexual predator and loses her job. She faces 3 years in State Prison. Johnny undergoes 5 years of therapy.



Tell me it isn't so.....................

My First Transmitter Multi Elmac AF 67

Ham radio was a hobby which is now almost gone. The crux of the hobby was to sit and talk with someone, across town , down the state or across the world, via radio waves.
Multi Elmac was a company that made electronic stuff in the 50's. The were big manufacturers of garage door radio transmitters and receivers. The unit went in the trunk and had a few tubes that would transmit about 100 ft if you were lucky.
Lots of hams had other transmitters that were made by companies like EICO, Heathkit, EF Johnson actually made a kit form of their famous Viking line of transmitters. Then there were the really high priced units that rich guys had, brands like Collins and Hammerlund.
I had a Multi Elmac AF67. I got it used for 25 bucks, and made a power supply for it from old TV power supply transformer parts. 600 volts DC at about 125 milliamps, equated to about 65-70 watts of power......
The unit was a universal unit which also could be mounted in a vehicle. Image the angst my mother had when I tried to mount that thing in our family station wagon?
The antenna looked like a 8 ft broom stick attached to the bumper.
Thanks Mom, she did, I probably wouldn't have allowed my son to do that, but then again I never had any kids......maybe a good thing.
Anyway, the transmitter used tubes, about 10 of them. It also had a VFO, that allow you to dial in any transmit frequency you wanted to use.
Now a days the whole unit, transmitter and receiver, no tubes is the size of a cigar box........
You do remember cigar boxes don't' you?