Bigger IS better...

TVZ, yessir it is. I also remember when people hitchhiked all the time, and you thought nothing of picking them up.

Big fan of TVZ here. Speaking of hitchhiking, if you haven't read this story of how Joe Ely met TVZ, scroll about half-way down for a fascinating read.

/derail

Thanks for the link. Drunker than a waltzing pissant. . I had no idea Joe Ely sang the backing Spanish vocals on Should I Stay or Should I Go. Very interesting.

This whole thread just made me smile

Popcorn

95% of the weed came from Mexico and it was half seeds and stems.

But it only cost $15 an ounce.

Things got expensive when they figured out people would actually pay more for bottled water than they would for gas. When I was younger, pretty much everything was 99c and that was standard pricing for gas, cigarettes, milk, eggs, Big Macs, Woppers...

I can remember when MTV used to play music videos 24/7. I Want My MTV!

I can remember being 7yrs old and my mom would give me $1 to walk to the store(20 min round trip) to buy her a pack of cigs. I was allowed to keep the change and buy enough candy to last a couple of days.

When I was ten, my grandfather would have me run into the liquor store to buy beer for him!

At sixteen, gas cost 27 cents a gallon.

But one thing has never changed: I still don't understand women.

Same with college football, you got to see the local game and 1, maybe 2 other games the rest of the day. All that was on ESPN was CFL, college soccer, diving, and lumberjacking.

Had a black and white TV. Got 3 channels. My grandmother lived out in the country in Mississippi. Believe she also got 3 channels but they came from a couple of different towns. Had a big tall antenna on a metal pole with a handle welded on it. When you changed the channel on the TV you had to go outside and turn the antenna.

And Australian Rules Football.

lol! Where did you guys grow up that you could buy cigarettes and liquor when you were 7 and 10 yrs old? Sounds like you were born at the turn of the century.

I've got no idea where those guys grew up, but I grew up in a "dry" state in the South but beer was legal in some locations. In my town there were about a dozen "drive-in" beer joints (similar concept to current Sonics etc). It was quite easy not only to buy beer as a teenager, but to have it brought to you while you sat in a car. We'd cruise from one to another all night long just to see which friends were hanging out where. Beer was 25c/30c per can, 70c for a quart of Country Club malt liquor. Great times! BTW, driver's licenses were available at age 15, DUI BAC was 0.15, and drunk driving had practically no stigma at all attached to it.

In addition, bonded hard liquor was sold by about a half-dozen bootleggers who also had no problem selling to teenagers. A half-pint was $2. I remember several mornings going out to get in my dad's car so he could drive me to school on his way to work and there would be a case of bourbon in the back seat that had been delivered during the night. When liquor was finally legalized, my mother complained that the prices were higher than when the bootleggers were selling it.

My best friend smoked and chewed tobacco from about the age of 7 or 8, and he seldom had a problem buying either. Occasionally he had to tell the clerk that they were for his dad, but usually no questions were asked.

7 years old is like a 1st grader.

Beautiful downtown Burbank, California, at least for the ciggies. There was a corner store, the owner knew my parents, and I made a cig run for them every couple of weeks or so.

Mr. Curtis would probably be locked up now.

MM MD

Shops used to sell us cigarettes but not alcohol.

The high school smoking area was closed the year I got there. The store across the street would still sell tobacco to high school kids and let them hang out in front, effectively moving the smoking area across the street.

Yeah, cigarettes weren't nearly as big of a deal as they are now. I used to make the 20 minute walk for mom, too. You could smoke anywhere. Grocery stores, restaurants, even hospitals IIRC. Cigarette vending machines were everywhere, like soda machines nowadays. They closed the smoking court at high school the year I started, too. My mom used to babysit a bunch of neighborhood kids, and she would just sit there and chain smoke all day and nobody batted an eye.

Yep. I recall my parents laughing when a friend of theirs who was hospitalized was caught by the nursing staff holding her cigarette near her thermometer to "elevate" her temperature so she could remain in the hospital and torment the staff and aggravate her husband.

I grew up and still live in Louisville KY. The store was a small gas station near our neighborhood and the owner knew a lot of us kids by name. Smoking wasn't as taboo as it is now.

Another thing we'd do that would seem odd to a lot of people is lay down on the rear window deck behind the back seat of my grandmother's car.

damn you are old!