I Remember

[Babe Ruth]

We did the crank calls also..

Yeah, the only time I really hear about crank calls anymore, is an occasional depiction on The Simpsons..
Seems like an antiquated cultural reference now. But at the inception of the show (late 8os), prank calls were big business; fun on a boring day. We used to single out goofy names in the White Pages..

 

[OK Jeff]

Or names we could make goofy

 

[Humble me Lord]

A fun thing my sister and I did with the old rotary, was to unscrew the part you speak into and remove the speaker. My mom would go to make a call and start talking loudly, "Can you hear me now?"
That was another good way to listen in on calls from the other room without getting caught.

 

[OK Jeff]

Every year about this time my grandma would bring home about a pallet of shasta soft drinks in assorted flavors. Cola, root beer, cream soda, black cherry to name a few. Better not get caught with a cream soda. They we’re grandad’s and not community property.

 

[Christian_Follower]

I remember going to the payphones and always EVERYTIME (never a time I skipped) I ALWAYS checked the coin slot for money lol

I did good too

 

[Southernscotty]

I remember going to the payphones and always EVERYTIME (never a time I skipped) I ALWAYS checked the coin slot for money lol

I did good too

Lol, I did that too, And the glass candy machines too. about 50% of the time I found something lol

 

[Christian_Follower]

I also remember walking home from school with my friend and we would occasionally go to the laundry-mart and we made a KILLING (in the sense we were kids) He'd tilt the machine and I would grab the cash that fell under.... $5 here $20 there ( and in the 80s, as a kid, that was money ) and LOTS of quarters

 

[Southernscotty]

I also remember walking home from school with my friend and we would occasionally go to the laundry-mart and we made a KILLING (in the sense we were kids) He'd tilt the machine and I would grab the cash that fell under.... $5 here $20 there ( and in the 80s, as a kid, that was money ) and LOTS of quarters

Yeah that would buy a whole lot more in those days. lol

 

[mama2one]

Life really is easier with the caller ID. I decide if I'm gonna answer or not! Or if I wanna mess around with a telemarketer! )

I learned that you can have your phone no. in phone book under a pseudonym (so essentially it's keeping your name private)
so whenever we get a call for mrs so and so, I can say they don't live here and be telling the truth

what's funny is we get junk mail addressed to the pseudonym name now

 

[OK Jeff]

Lol, I did that too, And the glass candy machines too. about 50% of the time I found something lol

Also be sure and push a button. Once in a great while someone had put in the money and walked away. What a treat when you push the Dr Pepper button as you walk by and actually get one.

 

[Christian_Follower]

I remember, getting gmail and using the free internet phone icon they had on there and randomly call people who couldnt hear me because i didn't have a mic set up and the # that showed up on caller ID was a # you couldn't call back..

oh wait, i did that just the other day lol

 

[Babe Ruth]

I remember going to the payphones..

Another vintage feature I remember about pay phones, was their long distance call..
In the mid 9os I was temporarily living about 4 hours from my girlfriend.. I didn't wanna run up my hosts' phone bill. So I'd drive up to the pay phone @ the mall w/a baggie stuffed w/quarters. About every 3 minutes a voice would interrupt the call instructing to insert another 4 quarters to sustain the call. Calls would abruptly end when change ran out.
Good times.

 

[WannaWitness]

Movie theaters still showed double features.

Cracker Jack still had good prizes inside.

Lucky Charms only had five marshmallow shapes (hearts, clovers, stars, moons, and diamonds).

Owning a turntable record player with four speeds (16, 33.3, 45, and 78). And sometimes, I'll admit, it was a lot of fun to play records on the wrong speed!

 

[OK Jeff]

Points and condenser, carburetors, and three pedals.

 

[WannaWitness]

Library books still had pouches on the inside cover containing a card on which the librarians stamped the due date.

Drive-in movie theaters still existed (that's where I saw E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial).

Captain Kangaroo (yes, it ran until 1984!) and the Picture Pages segment.

"He likes it! Hey, Mikey!" (It was released in the early '70s, but this commercial continued to air throughout most of the '80s, so therefore, I remember seeing it a lot growing up.)

 

[*LILAC]

"Mikey eats everything!" Yep, still clear as a bell here, too!

 

[mama2one]

Drive-in movie theaters still existed)

and still do

one fond memory of childhood;so told husband we must go

only thing is now, you can't park where ever you want
SUV in certain places and cars get the better spots

our child loved it and we brought our lawn chairs

 

[Babe Ruth]

Library books still had pouches on the inside cover containing a card on which the librarians stamped due date.
"He likes it! Hey, Mikey!" (It was released in the early '70s, but this commercial continued to air throughout most of the '80s)

Witness, good post.
For some reason, I used to like looking @ the history of previous check-out dates..

I also remember the Mikey cereal commercials running into the 8os. But the 8os campaign I remember most is the (claymation) California Raisins.

 

[WannaWitness]

and still do

one fond memory of childhood;so told husband we must go

only thing is now, you can't park where ever you want
SUV in certain places and cars get the better spots

our child loved it and we brought our lawn chairs

That is very nice to hear, and also good to know that some places still have them. However, there are no more in my neck of the woods.

Witness, good post.
For some reason, I used to like looking @ the history of previous check-out dates..

I also remember the Mikey cereal commercials running into the 8os. But the 8os campaign I remember most is the (claymation) California Raisins.

I also remember the California Raisins... what '80s kid didn't? They were right in there with ALF and the Cabbage Patch Kids.

 

[WannaWitness]

And we cannot forget the show Press Your Luck... you know, the one with the Whammies! I used to watch that as a kid (along with other popular game shows) and recall that whenever a player received four of them during the course of an episode, they lost their money and automatically out of the game. Really fun to watch!

This video contains 15 minutes of Whammy fun, courtesy of Youtube (where we can find pretty much anything)!