The Good Old Days

Sam and I were discussing Mark's "I remember post" and we came up with more stuff that we remember about the "good old days".

1. I remember the "gas crisis" in the 70's when gas went up to 50 cents a gallon. (Oil was up apparently to a whopping $12 barrel due to some maneuvering by OPEC). I remember lines of people waiting to fill up their cars, gas stations running out of gas, etc. Although most of that didn't happen in my hometown, the places where the lines were worst were all over the news. I just remember being annoyed because it was taking an entire $5 to fill up my Datsun B210 Honeybee. That's was 10 hours of babysitting!

2. Which reminds me...I remember when babysitters made 50 cents an hour, didn't matter how many kids they watched. The going rate here is now $4/hr for 1 kid, $1 more for each additional. According to a friend who just moved here from the East Bay area, it's more like $7 up there.

3. I remember the first time I heard Dolby sound. The first Star Wars movie opened in 1976/77 ish, only playing in one theatre in town, The Cine Capri. That was an incredible theater with the biggest screen in the valley, curtains that went halfway around the theatre and opened up for the show. I didn't even want to go to see the movie, but my not-quite-old-enough to drive brother was dying to see it and finally bribed me to take him. (My only sci-fi experience prior to this was the first Star Trek series on TV and I hated it, so I was not interested). From the first time a big ship flew over my head in that movie, I was hooked.....on Dolby AND Star Wars.

4. I remember when you could drop little kids off at the movie and not worry about them. There was an old theater in Phoenix a couple of blocks from a JC Penney. Mom and Mrs Ozias (our next door neightbor), would drop us off with the Ozias kids (I was the oldest at about 9 yrs old) to watch a movie while they went shopping at Penney's. I saw Snow White at a matinee at that theatre....The Fox, a great old fancy theater with the balcony and murals and chandeliers, etc etc Sam remembers going to the matinee at the Tejon theater in Bakersfield...you got a double feature for 40 cents. They even had ushers with flashlights to show you to your seats. And if you wanted, you could stay and watch them again.

5. I remember my mom pulling me out of school for my birthday, when I was in kindergarten. We went to a matinee of a new Disney flick, "Mary Poppins". That's the earliest movie memory that I have. Sam remembers going to the movies to see the Sinbad movies.

6. I remember Dad waking me up to watch when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon.

7. I remember when we got our first color tv, when I was 16. So we missed the Disney/Tinkerbell color thing Mark was talking about. We had a black/white Curtis Mathis that wouldn't quit working (dang it all) so my parents couldn't justify a new one. Dad got rear-ended in his '66 Datsun, and the insurance payout bought us a new COLOR Curtis Mathis. He called it his "pain and suffering" prize....I'm sure mom would have chosen a different prize, but Dad won out that time.

8. Sam remembers when the Kern county fair had freak shows. (so politically incorrect, now) and you could pay 10 cents to see the bearded ladies or the sword swallowers.

Ok, that's all for now, it's time to get these guys outta the house for the day.....