Test patterns. Watching the little dot disappear on the tv. Walking or riding bikes by ourselves to school, uptown, friends’ houses, or just around.

Nope! I still play jacks. I still roller skate. I've been known to play outside. I think I quit jumping rope when my sister came over from the Philippines, and she showed me really cool ways to use the hula hoop instead. I was so good at tuning an antenna on TVs, even after I left home, my mom would get me to come over to her house and fix it in the evening.

I don't miss being told I can't talk long distance on the phone; I love texting my daddy. I missed him a lot when he was overseas. I don't miss going to the bank in person and standing in line; I love pulling up the app and transferring money from one account to another with a click of a button. I don't miss having to collect pieces of paper and submitting them to the bank to get my house refinanced, done within a few days, not weeks.

So many changes that have made life better, so many things that were fun, that I've hung on to. Managed to keep the good and say sayonara to the bad!!!

I'd tell you, but I forgot about those things!

old telephone's. Having to stretch the cord into a closet or something to get privacy. Party line, 5 digit phone numbers. Calling "time' for the exact time of day. Calling for weather.

Chasing the mosquito spraying truck.

Playing "Kick the Can" with the neighborhood kids in the evening, and when

the porch lights went on, it was time for the kids to all run home for the night.

We lived in the country and walked a couple of miles to school. It was a one-room school, and I spent my first 4 years there. I loved that in the fall the teacher would cancel the afternoon classes, and we'd all go outside and rake and play in the leaves. Same as the winter, we'd make snow forts etc.

We lived with my grandparents and I remember the little toaster with the sides that flipped down to turn the bread over.

More recent......the horrible screeching announcing that you're on the world-wide web.

Roller skates. Outhouses. Kerosene stoves. Wringer to wring out clothes before hanging them to dry. Milk truck delivering milk. Polio vax on sugar cubes. Giant pink plastic rollers to set hair. Old fashioned nylons and garters. 'Going steady". Having cramps.

Party Lines, being given free rein in the neighbourhood and my mom never worrying as to where we were, 6cent popsicles and penny candy, hair dryers with the hose and bonnet.

What it feels like to have a body with no aches or pains.

All the things I earned to understand and laccomplished while becoming an excellent GIRL...made redundant at age 11 when I had to start all over again to become a passable WOMAN.

Beatle cards and penny candy: bazooka bubble gum, wax lips, fake cigarettes, stretchy candy necklaces, fireballs...

Having a school assignment to watch TV! Okay, so it was a National Geographic special. But still! And watching tv as a family, special events on tv, and talking about it the next day at school. Premier week! Yeah, I was a tv-generation kid.

Shouldn't a list of things you've forgotten about be blank?

Hey, you’re right! But sometimes, you know, you go through your life, adjusting to new things all the time, and one day think hey, it sure is nice/confusing to have more than two channels!

Giant cellphones without texting/internet. TV remotes with a cord. Dial-up connections. CRT monitors. DOS. Cars without air conditioning and automatic windows.

Saturday morning cartoons! Sit-com reruns in the afternoons after school, so get that homework done, so you can (again) Love Lucy, try to get off Gilligan's Island, escape with Hogan's Heroes, etc.

Sitting down as a family after dinner to watch Flintstones. Walt Disney's Wonderful World on Sunday nights - sometimes the neighbor kids came over in pajamas and we got to have popcorn while we watched.

We had a little neighborhood grocery up until just a very few years ago. Great for that can of tomatoes you thought you already had, or a can of condensed milk....walking distance, wooden floor, bell over the door. It's a private dance studio now.

Hot fudge sundaes or cherry cokes at the lunch counter in the sporting goods store downtown. It belonged to our mayor ;0)

Saturday afternoon skating parties at the roller rink. As young marrieds, we rented the rink for an adults party with a large group of friends one weekend. I didn't know DH didn't skate. He grew up on a farm and nothing was paved. He just assumed (wrongly) that he could. And by the end of the evening he could indeed skate but it wasn't quite the second nature he imagined ;0)

Only metal ones will do!

I remember looking forward to that Sept TV Guide that was the fall preview, reading about all the new TV shows coming on and figuring out which ones I was going to watch...make sure my homework was done before the show came on, or plead with my folks to let me stay up and watch a late one.

Loved going to new car showroom in September each year to see brand new car for coming year. We could not afford but quite a bit of excitement in our small town. Also first tv was at Western Auto store and we would go stand in front to watch.

My husband and I were talking about the past last night. We both went to the same high school.....no cell phones back in 1965...yet everything seemed normal....our kids (born in the 70's) didn't have cell phones either...it still is weird for us to see people holding their phones, talking, texting, taking pictures while walking around.

shopping down town--going to the movie on Sunday for .10+.02 tax--buying Blue Danube perfume for my mother at Christmas for .10. Duncan yoyo's. Those were the good old days. Of course I do like the changes we have now but so glad I experienced those days too.

Just yesterday I remembered something that doesn't exist/happen any more. I wondered how many other people would say, "Oh, yeah, I remember that!" Today, however, I cannot remember what I remembered yesterday. Erg, pitiful.

Rubber tired small covered wagons pulled by one horse going down most streets in most U. S. and Candian cities bringing bread, milk and ice (90 years ago - before there were refrigerators) to millions of households. Bread trucks and milk trucks serving rural households. Rural folks kept perishables in a pan of cold water in the basement.

Wooden box about two feet high and a foot wide fastened to the wall at head height with a metal stick like a tulip sticking out of the front and a U - shaped hook sticking out through a hole in the left side, with a tube on the end of a couple of feet of wire hanging from it.

If you wanted to talk to a close neighbour, you lifted the tube from the hook, which activated the system and turned a crank on the right side of the phone, which caused a ringing of a couple of halfmoon shaped bells near the top front of the box. Our code was three shorts and a long and when a neighbour wanted to talk to us she/he rang that code, which rang at their bells, our bells and those in the homes of probably half a dozen to a dozen neighbours on the same "party line". One of us'd walk to our box/phone, lift the tube/receiver from the hook, which enabled us to talk, put it to our ear and say "Hello" into the tulip.

Sometimes folks not called liked to listen to the conversation, so would put their hand over the tulip, lift the receiver from the hook and listen. They said that if too many did so, the volume of the sound went down quite a lot.

Dad's story was that once the other person said he couldn't hear very well, and when the caller said that if Mrs. So and So (who had developed a bit of a reputation) would get off of the line, likely he'd be able to hear better ... there was a snort and a click as a receiver got hung up.

Interesting ... that in such household dramas it's often the female that's out in left field.

To call folks on a different party line, one pushed a black button on the left side of the box while turning the crank that rang the bells, there was sort of a dull buzz from the bells, and the operator in central office answered, you'd tell her to whom you wished to speak, she'd plug you into their line and ring their code.

In some systems the office shut down through part of the night, but you could still call folks on your line.

Grandpa, who died in '42, would be astounded to hear our story!

He and dad each had a car called "Star" - his brother was really glad to have grandps's given to him after grandpa's death, just after the "Dirty Thirties".

ole joyful

Playing baseball in the street.

Building forts in the vacant lot.

Making stilts and walking all over the neighorhood.

I remember the milkman bringing milk to our front door, and I remember our local doctors making house calls.

Our milkman’s name was Emil, he usually came around when we were having breakfast.. The mailman was Tony, he came around noontime, when we were home for lunch. The doctor DID make house calls, so nice when all of us were sick at once.

I remember school days when so many kids were out with measles, or mumps, or chicken pox, or whatever was going around, that we didn’t move ahead with new lessons. It was fun for about half a day, but those of us still in the half-empty school were itching (so to speak) to learn something new! If your sibling was sick, you stopped by their classroom to bring home worksheets and books and assignments.

My parents remember quarantines. if there was measles or something equally contagious in your home, a yellow sign was posted on the door and no one could go in or out. I heard stories of fathers staying somewhere else, so that they could at least go to work!

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Cowboys and Indians, cops and robbers, learning to swim in rivers, creeks and lakes instead of pools, practically living at the roller rink in the summer, doctors smoking while they examined you, doctors making house calls, going to roller derby games, motorcycle hill climbing at the quarries, camping without reservations, being able to ride the Big Dipper roller coaster over and over without getting off, starting every school day with the pledge of allegiance, having to actually earn that ribbon or trophy.

Milk delivered at our door and in the winter it would be so cold that the top would pop up. There was always heavy cream at the top. 21 cent movies for age 12 and under. I was 5'5" at 12 and they didn't believe me. Catching lightning bugs and then freeing them, making snow forts in the back yard. Going to the Jersey shore every summer for a week. I like a lot about today's cool tools but probably would give it up for those more peaceful times. I walked a mile to school, back for lunch, back to school, and home. Four miles a day for a six-year-old totally unsupervised. Today parents wait for the school bus in cars so their darlings don't have to walk.

Waiting patiently for the Good Humor ice cream truck to come down the street. Weekly TV guide, playing with Spirograph (I still have mine), princess phones, Trick or Treating past dark

Going to the A&W for a frosty mug of root beer on a hot summer's night.

MDLN: In my school we were not taught "duck and cover". Were told if the bomb hit we would go and meet Jesus.

Yeah. It's funny now.

A lot of houses here still have the milk doors on the houses.

Etch-a-Sketch (do they still make those?)

Lawn darts

No bike helmets

Brownie camera

Getting milk delivered.

Bench seats in the front of the car.

No car seats.

High school kids smoking in front of the school.

Only one phone in the house.

Party Lines for the phone.

Having school clothes and play clothes.

Suicide knobs, shifting, no power steering, hand signals, two speed wipers, On and Off.

"those more peaceful times" ... yes. Looking back as an adult, now I see the troubles and tribulations and inequities and injustices .... But back then, kids my age and, *sigh* my color and class, weren't expected to know or understand why Nixon was so despised, why Black kids lived over there not here, that a mushroom cloud meant lots of people would die, or anything about a ton of other "adult" problems. Innocence -- I miss the innocence of being a kid young enough to be unaware of real problems. That's why lists like these are enjoyable, they bring back those innocent times, for a moment.

It took me years to understand why the only black person in my farming neighborhood refused to tell me his last name and wanted me to call him by his nickname. I had been taught only to use Mr, Mrs, Miss with a last name. Apparently I had been given a strong spanking for not doing this because one of the things I remember saying was that I would be spanked for not using his last name. We finally settled on using Mr in front of his nickname. Yep those were the good old days.

mushroom cloud

I remember a 'bomb shelter' in the basement, with a 5 lb bucket of peanut butter. I didn't really understand nuclear warfare, I can only think that the peanut butter was our parent's way of reassuring us that they had taken care of the issue and we didn't have to worry.

No seat belts

No helmets for riding a bike or roller skating

Walking alone to the school or the library as a young girl, safely.

Hardly any tv channels, but do remember Howdy Doody, Milton Berle, Lone Ranger, Sid Caesar, Pinky Lee, Kukla, Fran & Ollie, Captain Kangaroo, Hopalong Cassidy and a few others.

Candy, cake, soda, ice cream and other treats were for special occasions only.

Singing My Country Tis of Thee in school regularly. We also looked forward to reading the Weekly Reader. We learned to read with Sal,y, Dick, and Jane.

Stomping on a soda can so it would stick to our shoes and walking around making noise.

Checking the coin slots in pay phones for change

Silly Putty glowed in the dark

Clipping a playing card to our bikes to brush against the spokes so we could pretend our bikes were motorcycles

Women shopped with curlers in their hair

Some people gave out apples for Halloween

Finding the produce man at the store to weigh the bananas and write the price on them with a black marker

Department stores had shopping bags for sale near the escalators

Making ‘collect’ calls

Making ice in metal trays and pulling a lever to release them

Ice cream came in rectangle cartons

Everyone automatically had a glass of water put in front of them at restaurants

Having to get up and manually change the TV channel

Pull tabs on canned drinks that came off and sometimes littered the ground

Having no idea who was calling when you picked up the phone