Remembering The Past

[KJRR]

Toughskins jeans were mentioned earlier. I had toughskins corduroys
for the winter months. I remeber the swishing sound they would make as you walked through the cavernous halls of the school.
And the snow today reminded me of the time I hooked up our husky to my sled and took off down the sidewalk. Didn't end well as the first telephone pole became a sudden stop.

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[Big Blue]

Remember these?

Another fond memory was being the technical sort I was always sent to do the mimeograph lessons. I used to get high as a rat doing it too. Being a hyper kid think the teacher figured out it calmed my ass right down for the balance of the day!

Yeah, I was the AV kid in grade school. Got to go down early and set up the 16 mm projector for movies. Remember the film strip projectors too.

That mimeograph fluid was wild, but the masters were really messy when they were new.

And, yes I had a Whee Lo.

 

[Nellieg]

Wheel o ...twirly bird... Yoyo... That thing you would spin on the ground (not a bottle) ...whirling derby.... Anything that moved...playing poker on the school bus

 

[gfitzge2]

Remember these?

Another fond memory was being the technical sort I was always sent to do the mimeograph lessons. I used to get high as a rat doing it too. Being a hyper kid think the teacher figured out it calmed my ass right down for the balance of the day!

Had a 3rd grade teacher that smacked you with a wooden (oak) 12” ruler on the back side of your hand while flat on the desk. Or if you really pissed her off got the earlobe yank out of the room.

Had not thought about that in forever, but now that you mention it, I can absolutely remember that mimeograph smell. One of those things that you can't un-smell.

And yes I remember that toy.

 

[SemperVee]

Wait now, if your dad was a doctor that doesn't count ?

Nope. My dad was a house painter.

 

[gfitzge2]

Lots of guns since, but my first BB gun had one amazing trait. It was a lever action with a spring not much bigger than a ball point, you could actually follow the BB out of it if you watched quick, but it held 750 BB’s. BB wars were great. I had to stay low until someone had to reload their 40 shot, but I rounds for hours. ?

With the spring type we would play a count to 10 before shooting you in the rear game. They were not very powerful but it still stung. It also trained us to sprint faster.

 

[Grumpaw]

Nope. My dad was a house painter.

Speaking of which....I remember helping my dad scrape the wooden siding of our house in New Orleans. Was just a little guy and could only reach a few feet off the ground. Getting all those paint chips all over me and the ground.
And then helping paint the outside.....this was in the mid 50's so it was all with...OMG...lead based paints !!! Could not even begin to imagine all the paint chips/residue and paint fumes we inhaled !!!

 

[gfitzge2]

I am old but still have all my marbles from the early 60s. ( some would say otherwise)

The opaque ones on the left came from the dump. I would rip open old spray paint cans I found in the piles while my dad talked with the gate keeper. Ohhh was that messy at times but it helped grow my collection.

We would put them in the freezer and then drop them in boiling water. They would shatter on the inside but still remain in one piece.

 

[gfitzge2]

As one who was intimately involved in the Y2K remediation effort, I can tell you categorically that the reason it was not a big deal was because of all the hard work that was done. There were some critically bad bugs identified only months before the rollover that were fixed. Had they not been fixed it would have thrown all sorts of companies into a huge tailspin.

People say Y2K was no big deal but that is not true - had it not been made such a priority it WOULD have been a big deal. And the issues were myriad on how it could manifest itself - it wasn't just interpreting 2000 as 1900. I'm not one to exaggerate things, but this WAS a big deal, and I'm glad companies took it seriously.

I can verify that.
As an electrician at Ford we spent a few weeks loading software upgrades to robot controllers and PLCs to prevent the Y2K problems

 

[Fawnbuster]

Used to make parachutes out if handkerchiefs and tie them onto my big army men on throw them up in the air.

Squirt lighter fluid on a tennis ball and light it on fire and hit it with the racket, really cool at night, looked like a meteor from a kids eyes

 

[Grumpaw]

Used to make parachutes out if handkerchiefs and tie them onto my big army men on throw them up in the air.

Squirt lighter fluid on a tennis ball and light it on fire and hit it with the racket, really cool at night, looked like a meteor from a kids eyes

Did the parachute thing too...if you got lucky and it was windy, a good gust would lift that thing and carry it for a block, usually to land on someone's roof...

 

[Grumpaw]

Anyone remember these...the tethered cars and planes with the Cox Baby Bee .049 engines ?
Had the plane pictured but never had interest in the cars. Would pester my dad for an extra .50 cents to get fuel, but snuk the big old 9 volt battery out of the house flashlight to start it.

 

[RedlandRanger]

I can verify that.
As an electrician at Ford we spent a few weeks loading software upgrades to robot controllers and PLCs to prevent the Y2K problems

I spent a very boring 6 months applying fixes from IBM for the mainframe system at the company I worked at the time. We got a phone call from someone at IBM urging us to apply a particular fix IMMEDIATELY - it was really bad and IBM was personally calling sites to make sure they applied it - it was about 6 months before Y2K, so it wasn't found out until very late in the game. That is but one example of many - had the hard work not been done all sorts of weird and wacky things would have occurred.

I get a little worked up when people say Y2K was overblown since basically nothing happened.... Nothing happened because of the tremendous amount of work that was put into making SURE nothing happened.

 

[RedlandRanger]

Anyone remember these...the tethered cars and planes with the Cox Baby Bee .049 engines ?
Had the plane pictured but never had interest in the cars. Would pester my dad for an extra .50 cents to get fuel, but snuk the big old 9 volt battery out of the house flashlight to start it.

I had a couple of the planes and I actually built an "air car" with one of the motors. I think I crashed the plane and ended up building a tower on a plastic model car. I also built an air boat too. Those were a blast to play with!

Do they still make them?

Edit: I just googled and apparently not - about all you can buy is old parts and whatnot - Estes (who bought Cox) stopped making them in 2006:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cox_model_engine

 

[Nellieg]

I spent a very boring 6 months applying fixes from IBM for the mainframe system at the company I worked at the time. We got a phone call from someone at IBM urging us to apply a particular fix IMMEDIATELY - it was really bad and IBM was personally calling sites to make sure they applied it - it was about 6 months before Y2K, so it wasn't found out until very late in the game. That is but one example of many - had the hard work not been done all sorts of weird and wacky things would have occurred.

I get a little worked up when people say Y2K was overblown since basically nothing happened.... Nothing happened because of the tremendous amount of work that was put into making SURE nothing happened.

Agreed... Network timing In some cases had issues flipping the century .. improperly coding for leap day with the skipped leap year... Single precision dates based on Unix date of 1/1/70 is approaching.... Dealt with both AOL and IBM at that point in my career... It was very real and I was on duty that year to reboot and respond as needed...fun fun fun...

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