What an awesome thread! I remember being able to play outside all summer, heading home when it got dark. No cell phones, no pagers - just run home at lunch and call your mom to tell her what you were doing. Commodore 16 was the new home computer. That was the 80's..

ps - thanks for making me feel like such a youngster :o)

Here's a little program I wrote that you may find amusing:

<b>ftp://67.72.88.51/lifespan.exe</b>

It uses the number of days since your birth as a &quot;measuring stick,&quot; then displays the date for one through ten lifetimes before you were born.

... I remember when this thread was young. :&gt;

Miles Archer was Sam Spade's partner-- I just watched the movie last week.
((c))

I just missed one on the history quiz.

I got my flatware, 1847 Rogers Brothers, with Top Value stamps. (They were yellow.) I have a box of dishes packed away in the garage that I got as premiums for buying gas back when they wanted you as a customer and pumped the gas for you, cleaned your windshield, and checked the oil.

My great-grandmother could remember hearing cannon fire from the Civil War. Neither of my grandfathers ever owned a car. My parents' first TV was bought after I left home.

My first plane trip was to join my young husband at Schofield in Hawaii when he was transferred from Korea. I bought a new dress for the trip and wore hose and high heels--not pantyhose, the real things with a garter belt. The trip took 24 hours.

Gosh, I'm old.

Dirt was clean when I was born.

Did you know that Little Beaver was played by Robert Blake of Baretta fame?

Yes, and don't I remember that Red Ryder and Little Beaver lived with a maiden-aunt type of lady called &quot;The Duchess?&quot;

Or was that some other cowboy and sidekick?

Byrd

This has to be the most interesting thread ever! The memories you all bring back is overwhelming.

I remember my aunt taking me on the street car from Albany to SF when WWII ended. It was a fantastic day. The confetti floating down from the offices in the Financial District. People crying. People dancing. People drinking.

Someone accidently (I assume) let a $10.00 bill drop from an office building, along with the confetti right in front of us. My aunt picked it up and then gave it a moment later to a young sailor with a thank you for his service to his country. I will never forget the grin on his face.

BTW, I remember I had on a wood princess style coat (with a dress of course) a matching hat with that horrible elastic under my chin and little white gloves and of course black patent maryjane shoes and little while ankles.

And the innocent years indeed. Everyone on the block knew everyone. Children played outside and the entire neighborhood kept an eye on them.

Do remember running home as quick as possible though when the airraid sirens went off. And the black shades and no lights allowed at all when this happened. Somehow though no one seemed afraid. Think our parents did an excellent job of keeping their fears to themselves.

And the fifty's. What a great time! Poodle skirts, saddle shoes, rolled down anklets, the poodle cut (which I ended up with after getting mad at my mother and cutting my hair off, LOL).

The Brownie camera.

In Oakland the original Genoa's Deli selling pizza. With anchovies. Too good!

SF, where everyone dressed up. And almost every woman bought a small posy of violets to pin on her coat or suit.

The hysterics over Elvis Presely on the Ed Sullivan show. And then the furor by the elders over the Beattles. And the summer of love in SF.

And the ducking under the desk during airraid drills. Does anyone remember the saying, &quot;put your head between your legs and kiss you a** goodbye&quot;. Thought my mother and aunts would pass out at the horror of that crude remark!

And during WWII. The uncles, cousins etc. coming home on leave. Going to Alameda Base to meet them. And when the National Anthem played everyone stopped, men took off their hats, hands were put over their hearts.

My dear grandmother not knowing how her family was in London. Others not knowing how their families were in Italy.

My Godfather, who seemed to have a &quot;strange life&quot;, said he was a typist for the government. But always going off on trips. Many years later learning he had actually been with Navy Intelligence, the &quot;typist job&quot; just a cover.

And family members at Hickman AFB on Dec. 7, 1941. And not knowing for days how anyone was.

My grandfather (born in Canada) was in the US Navy and met Teddy Rosevelt in Cuba. He spent years in the US Navy and also the Merchant Marines. He swore he heard the sirens singing off the coast of Capri. Too much rum maybe?

The Saturday Evening Post being such a fun magazine to read every week when I was at my grandparents who lived just a few blocks away. Better IMHo then TV and video games that we have now.

And my aunt who walked six blocks every school morning to put my hair in french braids because I had such think course unruly hair nothing else could be done with it. She came to our house, rain, shine or fog.

Black and white phots being &quot;colored in&quot; buy photography studios, which my aunt did. Have a few of those photos still.

Martinis, cigarettes, supper clubs with a band and dancing. The outdoor pavilion in Larkspur with their twinking lights and the band, everyone dancing and early morning then driving to SF to Chinatown to have a 2:00am dinner.

And North Beach in SF when it really rocked.

Oh, how about when women got permanents they were attached to those clippys that had cords going to the hood, in beauty salons. Wonder what would have happened if there had every been a fire?

And five and dime stores. More fun then Walmart. And lunch counters where one could order a tuna or deviled egg sandwich and a coke or cup of coffee for about 30 cents of so.

Blums in SF, which was where the SF Macy's store is now. Everything was pink! They had the most fantastic desserts.

And stores that had sales clerks that were there to assist you, not just a cashier to take your payment. Those were the days my friends.

Memories - again, PalQ, thanks for starting this thread. I have enjoyed everyones posts so much.

And just think, someday our little ones will be longing for the days of their youth. Isn't life interesting.

Ira wrote:

&gt;&gt;How far back do you have a link?&lt;&lt;

Pancho Villa was a ranchhand for my family before he was a revolutionary. When the Madero revolution was about to explode, he came back to the rancho to warn my family to return to the US for safety.

I have a picture of him teaching my great-grandfather (as a boy) how to play marbles.

And before he was famous, Lawrence Welk was the accordion player in my great-uncle's band in Minnesota.

This thread is great, DH (31) and I (25) really enjoyed reading about many things somewhat hard to imagine for us. I am sure that in the not too distant future, we will have some of these &quot;remember back when&quot; memories ourselves. Thanks for sharing everyone.

krix, two very interesting connections for sure!

My mother would be quick to point out that when tuna sandwich lunches at Woolworth's cost 30&cent;, my father was maintaining a family of 4 on his radio announcer's salary of $35 a week.

When my great-grandmother was twelve years old, she and a little slave girl climbed on the roof of the chicken house on her father's West Tennessee plantation to watch the the smoke from the cannon fire at the battle of Shiloh.

I have an old plantation account book which my great- grandmother and her cousins( all aged 10-12) used for a sketch book during the Civil War. They drew pictures of slaves, plantation houses and gardens, and the day the circus came to town!

I can remember( and I'm really not that old!) seeing a parade with several really old men who were Confederate veterans- This was probably during the early 1950's.

Actually my great-grandfather was a drummer boy in the Civil War when he was a young teenager. He was captured early in the war and spent most of it in prison.

For travel related memories, I have my New York great-grandfather's journal of his Grand Tour to Europe in the 1880's. This is when he met my great-grandmother- to- be while hiking on a mountain trail in Switzerland!

One of my favorite travel memories is up in my attic. It is my grandmother's suitcase, well decorated with stickers from all the many places she traveled to!

I remember when Rock and Roll hit Plymouth, Michigan, my home town. It was when Elvis' Jailhouse Rock hit the local cinema - the P &amp; A theater - we were sitting in the balcony and i was only there because my older brother had to take me with him. Elvis gyrating on the big screen, not censored like on Ed Sullivan, which only showed him from the waist up and not his provocative hip swivels - anyway when the theme song from the movie, Jailhouse Rock was sung i remember that the whole theater, all of young folk, stood up and start dancing - rocking and rolling - this is when Rock and Roll hit a sleepy midwest town. I can't imagine this type of spontaneous 'joie de vivre' ephinantic type of event happening today - a whole theater being enfused with that type of energy. Has the world becomd too blase? anyway i've so enjoyed the many personal stories that are in and of themselves so engrossing.

LoveItaly,

Did you grow up in Albany, CA? I did too, but in the 70s. My mother didn't drive, and she rode her Schwinn to the market with me on the back, in what passed for a child seat in those days - a metal &quot;L&quot; shaped seat with plastic vinyl over it. Solano Avenue had cobblestones in the crossing zones and it was very bumpy and jarring, but I would laugh and beg her to cross the street over and over. I loved the Dime Store on San Pablo Ave and Solano. I drove past the building just yesterday.

Hello Krix, yes I did live in Albany Ca.

Born in Oakland Ca.

I went to Marin Elementary. The old school is not there anymore.

I lived on Key Route Blvd.

Solano Ave. and San Pablo Ave., know it so well.

Where the Safeway Store is on Solano Ave., it use to be Dagna's. My aunt and uncle lived on Evelyn. And my grandparents lived on Taylor.

So you still live in Albany? Or around there? We need to get together dear one. I now live in Vacaville. Albany is still my special place. Let me know. The whole area has changed in a way but in another way it has not.

I spent hours and hours in the children's floor in the Berkeley Library. And the small library in Albany on Solano took up some of my time also. And Tilden Park. And have family buried up in Sunset Cematary.

I will look for your post. Take care.

I'm in Oakland near Piedmont. I grew up on Talbot and Marin and went to Cornell. My grandparents lived down the street from the school. My father had a print shop on Solano Avenue at Ramona, which is now Britt-Marie winebar. I have family also at Sunset.

I'm in Vacaville &amp; Fairfield quite often, so we should get together. Feel free to email me off-list at: [email protected]

August 14, 1945, Brooklyn NY

Sirens bells and whistles throughout the day.

Late afternoon, all of the men began setting up trestle tables in the middle of the street.

That night there was a &quot;block party&quot; that stretched for about 5 blocks.

We kids were allowed to stay up until we collapsed from exhaustion.