"When You Wuz A Kid"

[ira]

What are some things you REALLY enjoyed "When You Wuz A Kid"?

List memories...candy bars...TV shows...anything.

Me First 'cause I started the thread.."Nyah Nyah Nyah"....

1-I used to LOVE Nestle's Crunch Bars back when they wuz good for you .

2-My "Marx Toys'" "Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots".

3-Comin in from playin' outside at 5:00 or 6:00 O'Clock in the afternoon on a Sunday in the winter or fall after it got dark and catchin' the end of an old AFL football game on NBC that always seemed to feature either the San Diego Chargers or Oakland Raiders.

(I stiil enjoy comin' home late afternoon Sundays and catchin' the end of a late game and some highlights.)

What are some things you loved "When You Wuz A Kid"?-Ira.

[AnneG]

1) My father reading to me at night. Especially when we were at the beach and the combination of being in the sun all day and his melodic voice lulled me into a very restful sleep.

2) Taking apart my ViewMaster and using the tiny light to read at night when I should have been asleep.

3) Falling asleep to my radio under the pillow.

4) My Uncle taking me for ice cream sodas.

5) NASA and all those glorious missions.

[blackhawkpat]

Batman, The Beatles, Milky Way bars, grape sherbert (can't find it anymore), coming home from playing outdoor hockey with near frost bite but feeling great, Garfield Goose puppet, Monkees tamborine, Archies records, John Lennon hat, listening to Bears and Blackhawks home games on transistor radio with the earplug in, listening to the "dreaded underground FM radio" that played "Rubber Soul" and "Beatles 65" almost every Sunday afternoon (God, I was hip!)

[angelina]

Brooklyn pizza under the Sheepshead Bay train station in the winter. I'd get two slices, fold them on on top of the other...and eat them both..on the way home to DINNER!!! You could do that as a teen. I could still feel the charred skin on the roof of my mouth.

Rollerskating in the street. I'd tighten those old skates so hard around my Chuck Taylors.

Yummy jawbreakers, paper dots, $100,000 candy bars...and baseball card packs!

Finally, racing NYC buses home from school..just to tick off the passengers for paying a whole 20 cents while I ran all the way for free.

John

[GMan]

One of my fondest memories was playing stickball in the schoolyard. We'd make a strikebox on the school wall with a piece of brown brick or if we were lucky, one of the girls would have a piece of chalk. We'd then scrounge up some change and buy a couple of "Spaldeens" and then I'd go home and find an old broom and saw off the handle...voila!! there was our bat! I remember my mom yelling that I took her good broom! lol Oh! the arguments we would have over balls and strikes. HEY!!!! Just look at the ball....it's got chalk on it!!! End of argument. God...those were the days.

[hollies65]

Great Shakes

Shindig, Hullabaloo, Upbeat

Man From Uncle

Land Of The Giants

Wide World Of Sports

My dog, Duke

Battle of the bands on WIXY

Burger Chef

Fan Tan Chewing Gum

Red Hot Dollars

Frosty Root Beer, Teem

Rocky Colovito,Vic Davalio, Chuck Hinton, Fred Whitfield

Paul Warfield,Bill Nelson,Leroy Kelly

Luther Rackley, John Warren,Walt Wesley

Harry Jones Mudcat Grant

[GMan]

Hey John....did you tie your old "cons" together and throw them up on the telephone wires???? Remember doing that????

[GMan]

Hey Steve!!! Fred Whitfield!! Lmao...I remember him so well. Lefty 1st baseman for The Cleveland Indians and man was he a YANKEE KILLER!!! Boy, do I remember him and all the others you mentioned!

[dianed]

1. Every Sunday, my dad and I sat on the living room couch (complete with plastic covers) and watched the ONLY movies that were worth watching, Abbott and Costello, The Bowery Boy and Humphrey Bogart.

2. Riding my bicycle up and down the sidewalk (never the street), but I was only allowed to ride up to a certain house, then I had to turn around in the driveway and come back. I did this for hours.

3. “Chunky†chocolate bars with raisins !! Yummy !!

4. Sunday night was “The Ed Sullivan Showâ€. Entertainment at its best !!

[hollies65]

Ha! Whit field could ONLY hit against the Yankees! He killed em. I loved him for that.

[angelina]

Hey G.....for a few years I played basketball @ St. Mark's in Brooklyn. We had these green and gold uniforms. Needless to say...there were plenty of green cons hanging from electrical wires and telephone wires in the old 11235 zip code.

LOL

BTW G....what about pense pinkies...they were spaldeens/spaldings rival.

John

[MJ]

I have way too many fond memories of my childhood - I think every kid who grew up in the 60's had it made baby!!!!

But the best stuff - the endless summers - playing kickball,stickball, baseball in the road in front of our houses - massive block long hide-and go seeks - the Good Humor Man - ice skating and sledding on Tom's Lake every winter with my dad - in the summertime when we first moved to Wayne getting wheelbarrow rides in the grass down to the dumping sight down the street from us.... transistor radios.....all the great music tv shows... my brother's 45 collection....dippidy do and my cousin's coming over rolling their hair in cans... Creature Feature and Chillsr Theater (Yes Giro & Bernie) the Bowery Boys Movies... Wonderama.... Susie Homemaker appliances.... there's just too much to talk about here!!!

[Bessieboo]

After church on Sundays we go to the Dolphin games. My sister and I would sit there in our little dresses, fishnet stockings and patent leather shoes.

We both had our own binoculars to watch the cheerleaders and the crowd and anything other than the game. Daddy would keep saying "the game is over here girls".

On the way home we would stop at Carvel for an ice cream, my favorite was pistachio dipped in chocolate and then sprinkles .

I would play with my very strange looking Malibu Barbie, I had colored her hair black with a laundry marker because my sister told me that dark hair was ugly and no Barbie came with dark hair - I showed her!

[Laura]

I used to play softball and football with all the neighborhood kids-I had 3 older brothers. I played tackle football until I was 13 and my brother knocked the air out of me tackling me.

Catching "lightning bugs" (fireflies) after dark.

Building snow forts and having snowball fights.

I had a Barbie, but my little sister chewed off her feet! Popsicles on a summer day.

Penny candy.

Night crawler hunting so we could go fishing the next day.

Listening to the top 40 songs on my transistor radio.

[raspberrywolf]

Going to our 'corner store "Veneruzzo's" trading in 'pop bottles' for bags of 10 cent mixed up candy...one day a buddy of mine and I really outdid ourselves and bought an entire bag(about a pound I am guessing back then) of DoubleBubble gum. I

used to love chewing gums or candies with 'bizarre' flavors like BlackCat Chewing Gum or Beehmans,Sen Sen (which for some strange reason tasted like soap but was oddly enough appealing to me then?? LOL) Pixy Stix, Bottle Caps, Pop Rocks, and my favorite 'chocolate bar back then is still my favorite today it is something called "CoffeeCrisp" not sure if they make them in the states or not.

My bestest friend when I was quite young was a 'Talking WoodyWoodpecker' which I still have!

Everyone being able to come home/be home together for Christmas.

Going to our camp every summer and collecting 'frogs'at night with a flashlight. And living in the water for two months because everyone use to say I was a 'fish'.

Riding my ultra cool shimmering purple bicycle complete with banana seat and back rest until the handle bars actually rusted off...and Even then I still could be seen riding it around 'showing off' LOL!

Living with first my lil blue transistor radio everywhere I went until I graduated to an very cool 'ghetto blaster' LOL which at that time was one of the first around my block and had stereo speakers, am/fm radio and an '8-track' ROFLMAO!!

Going down across "The Border" into the states because we would go for "California Cheeseburgers in a Basket and Milk Shakes" and honestly you guys also had theeeeeeeee best selection of 'candy bars and candy '

[boopell]

Taking our pajamas and pillows to the drive-in.

Homemade ice cream--my dad, granddad and uncles taking turns turning the crank.

Playing in the woods--I was Daniel Boone.

Sunday dinner(lunch) at my grandparents after church.

Mud puddles.

The entire family getting together once a year to watch a flower bloom. Can't remember what it's called, but it was a big deal and there are plenty of old snapshots around here to prove it.

Jumping in piles of leaves.

"Helping" my grandfather work on his car.

Touch football with my mom, dad and sister.

The toy rack in the grocery store.

"Going to town" every Saturday with my mom, grandmother and great-grandmother.

And many of the things already mentioned by others.

I could go on and on!

[darlene]

I was absolutely fascinated with kaleidoscopes, my View-Master (with those beautiful scenes and blue blue skies!) and my Cousin Bobby's stereoscope with variable focus, which he used for eye exercises for his strabismus. My Aunt Helen would hand it to him and go out to the kitchen, and since he hated doing those exercises, he'd hand it to me and I'd look at all of the funny old fashioned sepia pictures that came with it.

I loved Remco's Sneaky Pete's Magic Show and Slinky and Click-Clacks, which also fascinated me.

I loved to roller skate and ride my bike and eat

Necco Skybars till they came out of my ears.

I adored my pets (our beautiful blue parakeet, Tippy and our sweet dachshund, Jingles, whom my mother named).

I loved Sundays because family came from both my mother's and father's sides for dinner, usually spaghetti, and my mother always invited a young businessman my Aunt Dorothy had a crush on because we wanted to get them together.

When I was a teenager I adored going down the shore to Seaside Heights with friends and going to sleep at my aunt's (because she let me stay out later than my mother did) with a transistor radio under my pillow listening to WLS. I thought it very exotic that I could listen to a Chicago station. I loved listening to music and I loved listening late at night to Jean Shepherd (anyone remember him?). I'm *still* waiting for the end of that story about his friend Bruner (as in, "to tie on a").

--Darlene

[Jay52]

Ira..you sooooo touched a nerve here..

Coming home from school for lunch and watching WGN TV's Bozo The Clown show...spending afternoons with Clutch Cargo, Space Angel, The Three Stooges, Bugs Bunny, Garfield Goose...

Dinner and more tv with my parents...

The train whistle and Petticoat Junction, watching Red Skelton with my grandmother, Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea, Batman, Lost In Space..

Sunday night tv at its finest(especially if I knew I was sick and staying home on Monday)..Lassie, My Favorite Martian, Ed Sullivan, Perry Mason, What's My Line and CANDID CAMERA with the crazy car that split in two...

The feeling of clutching "Meet The Beatles" under my arm and walking home in the dirty, slushy winter snow of 1966 I will never forget, and the joy of watching A Hard Days Night for the very first time in my bedroom on late night tv.

The thrill of listening to WLS and WCFL radio and waiting for my favorite songs to come on, the

excitement of hearing Hey Jude for the first time and going nuts over Pictures Of Matchstick Men and so many others...

Ridng my bike with my friends to places that seemed they were in another galaxy, yet only a few miles from home.

Having my entire family and my parents friends around..my Aunt and Rabbi Uncle who was probably the smartest man I have ever known....

Hots Dogs, corned beef, chicken soup, kishke(sp?)

ice cream from Carvel, Brachs Choclate Stars and my little black truck....

IRA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I think of those days alot....

[darlene]

Brach's chocolate stars! WOW! I forgot about them but I LOVED them so much!

--D

[Julie]

I'm going to share one of my husband's memories of childhood that he shared with me often.

He grew up in this house and he had 5 sisters (he was the only boy--spoiled rotten!!!) The 4 older sisters would put him in a Radio Flyer wagon and take him 4 miles down a gravel road (yes--4 miles!!!!--I have measured it with the odometer!) They would take him to the little hamlet of DePew, Iowa and go to a little store there and get ice cream. Sometimes they would walk all the way back as well.

Julie

[Jay52]

Darlene...those chocolate stars were the greatest! I could never get enough of them!

[AnniekNY]

What a phenomenal subject!

OK...candy: Chunkies, Boston baked beans, Necco wafers, Lifesavers Butter Rum, Pixie Stix, Jolly ranchers (watermelon!) wax lips or bottles, Reese's Peanut Butter cups. Bazooka bubble gum.

TV: Batman (with my younger brother in our matching Batman pajamas...true trivia: Burgess Meredith lived a mile away) Gigantor, Speed Racer, Land of the Lost, Romper Room, Dark Shadows, Topo Gigo on Ed Sullivan, the Carol Burnett Show, Lost In Space, The Wonderful World of Disney, The Courtship of Eddie's Father, Family Affair, Partridge Family.

Movies: anything at the drive in with our jammies(thank you boopell!), Herbie, The Gnome Mobile, The Sound of Music, Wizard of Oz (every Thanksgiving eve) March of the Wooden Soldiers,

Summer evenings playing in the yard, catching lightning bugs. The smell of leaves burning in the fall, the smell of new crayons and school supplies. The family trip to pick out pumpkins for Halloween. The bats flying overhead in the sunset while we trick or treated and got homemade caramel apples and popcorn balls.

Turkey sandwiches on white bread with mayo at 7 pm on Thanksgiving.

Waiting for Christmas.

Swanson TV dinners on the nights my parents were going out and we were going to have a babysitter.

Playing Barbies and stealing my brother's GI Joe and making him turn into Ken.

Lincoln logs. Creepy Crawlers. Easy bake Oven.

what a trip....

[ira]

Listening to the new weekly countdown on your favorite A.M. Radio Station and praying that the new song by the "Four Seasons" or the "Beach Boys" or "Jan and Dean" was marchin' up the charts.-Ira.

[Danny S.]

I have so many memories...a few that stand out:

playing whiffle ball all day long,going to the pool,and having to be home before the street lights came on,working on peoples cars in the driveway(Dad was a mechanic),

Every November putting the studded snow tires on all our cars(remember that?)"Sunday Sauce"(All you Italians know what I mean),Visiting family on Sundays(all the stores were closed, and thats what we did on Sundays)Listening to the WIXY top 100 countdown every New Years Eve, trying to guess which song would be #1

Those were such simpler times...how I wish times were like that now...

[Paulie Mississippi]

Great thread...

1. Baseball... going to minor league games at City Island Ballpark in Daytona Beach with Dad, seeing the hometown Dodgers play... the players who passed through and made it to the majors were a source of wonderful memories and nostalgic conversations with my Pop the rest of his life... and of course having the Braves game on the radio... listening to Milo Hamilton and Ernie Johnson draw the pictures with their words of "...all the excitement of Major League Baseball..."

(To this day I love baseball on radio... and can also recall keeping my own little transistor radio with me in bed... and late at night being able to pick up faraway stations... and hear teams like the Brewers or the Reds or the Phillies play... especially when they were on the west coast and a game ran extra innings... )

2. Comic Books & Baseball Cards... 25 cents could buy you one of each... a pack of cards with it's slab of glue-like gum and my favorite Aquaman or Spiderman comic book... or even "Hanna-Barbera's Super TV Heroes", which featured the exploits of their "Saturday Morning" lineup... the Herculoids and Space Ghost and Mighty Mightor... The television was so important, but not the only thing in life... Saturday morning TV and the few shows that I really liked as a youngster... The Monkees (of course)... Batman (OF COURSE!)... Remembering my Mom thinking that "That Girl" was "Bat Girl" and turning it on for me... LOL... of course the baseball nut HAD to watch the Major League Baseball Game of the Week... 'cause unless you lived near a major league team, you had to read the sports page or listen on the radio... or tune in every Saturday afternoon...

3. Slurpee-brain-freeze after a "hard day" playing baseball in the summer... I was in heaven one year when my folks sprang for me to go to a baseball camp... played every day for four or six weeks during the summer... would be so hot and tired when we finished up (around noon each day) that Mom would stop at 7-11 for a Slurpee... and wouldn't you know... that was the year they started having "Baseball Trading Cups"... so I built my collection... sure I had Pete Rose and Willie Mays... but I loved the Hank Aaron cup (he was a Brave)... and treasured my Nate Colbert cup... the former slugging first baseman for the San Diego Padres... had a "doubleheader" to remember... hitting 5 home runs over the two games against the Braves one night and the next day, as I recall, I found his cup in the tube at the store...

Ah... wonderful stroll down memory lane...

I also remember "WMFJ"... now a christian talk station but before it was the AM rock and roll station... the Top 40 hits... it's where I first heard "Raspberries" play... I remember going down to the station occasionally and picking up their weekly "newsletter"... though that's not what it was called back then... basically a single sheet of paper folded in half... but on part of it was the line up of when the main DJ's shows were on... as well as their own weekly top 40 list...

Yes, things were so much simpler then...