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Hi, I'm Darryll and I live in Pullman, Washington with my wife and two kids. I'm a licensed Architect and am employed as a Project Manager at Washington State University. In addition, I have my own business doing residential designs in the greater Palouse area. I am a self-taught pianist, song-writer and singer and am involved in the music department at my local church.

Sunday, April 11, 2010

5 Blasts From The Pasts this ‘70s guy misses seeing…

I took this idea from my friend Darrin over at Dad’s Dish Retro

5 Things This Retro Dad Misses Seeing...(another GREAT blog). Here’s a list of great everyday things gone by…


Lemonade Stands:


These were every bunch of neighborhood kids’ idea of striking it rich in the summer, and we did it all by ourselves! All we had to do was get mom to get us the glasses, make up the lemonade for us, help us find a table and some chairs, bring everything out and set it up at the curb for us, and we were set! Spend an entire afternoon selling cups of lemonade at 5 to 10 cents each and we might make $2 to $3! Split that 4 or 5 ways and were “rich”.


Record Parties


Did you ever do this? A bunch of us would get together and all bring all of our latest records (often just 45’s) and spend a whole evening listening to them together. We’d usually sing at the top of our lungs, and sometimes have a big pizza party, too. Great times of make-believing that we were rock bands, and dreaming of the day when we were really gonna be a band!


Variety Shows


These are now only known by this generation if they happen to linger on a late night ½-hour pitch by Guthy-Renker. Watching Andy Williams, Dean Martin, Carol Burnett, Sonny and Cher, Flip Wilson, etc – so many more than can be listed here. These were awesome and we were treated to a plethora of the big star actors, actresses and performers of the time. There’s no way to even compare these shows to anything today. And what was so amazing about the stars back then is that they could all dance, sing and act and were all good at it!


Kids Dressed up for Things


When was the last time that you saw a family out for dinner at anything but a high-end restaurant and the kids were dressed up for the occasion? Not pressed shirts and ties, but at least clean, well-fitting and nice looking clothes. We used to do this to go out to Denny’s or even a buffet-type meal. Other things we’d dress up for: Dinner at the Grandparents’, shopping downtown, going to a movie, family birthday parties – or a friend’s birthday party – and other gatherings, visiting family friends. It was never an option to NOT dress nicely… it’d sure be nice to see this on some level in society again.


Good Cartoons


Every Saturday morning! They were the good old fashioned ones – deemed too violent for kids today because a certain coyote would get squished into an accordion, or fall to a canyon floor only to emit a little poof of smoke upon impact. They were simple, funny, entertaining and carried no hidden messages. If Mel Blanc were to see what passes for cartoons these days, he’d surely roll over in his grave a FEW times!

10 comments:

Pat Tillett said...

Hi there, I spotted your link at "tales of a fourth grade nothing." I thought I'd take a chance and see what was here. I'm glad I did. If you don't mind, I'm going to tag along!
thanks
patricktillett.blogspot.com

Blast from the Past said...

Hi, Pat! Thanks for coming to take a gander - glad to have you along... feel free to chime in any time. The more the merrier!

Darryll

Connie Moreno said...

AMEN!!!

Unknown said...

I've wanted to post articles about EVERY one of these retro things that I miss.

I miss that a lot of ADULTS don't dress up anymore.

Cartoons.. I own the Johnny Quest Boxed set. What a cartoon!!

And variety shows.. I don't think we'll ever see them again. At least not good ones. Remember Tom Jones.. Dino.. Carol.. Donnie and Marie.. The Mandrell Sisters!?!

When did true talent and real comedy start going unappreciated? I'm watching Tivo'd shows with my wife as I'm surfing, and there have been bold sexual situations in two of the shows in the last 15 minutes. I'm no prude... but this is considered family entertainment!! We sure have fallen a long way since the 70's in many many ways.

Blast from the Past said...

Darrin: I'm always amazed at how much sex they throw into all the shows these days. The old shows (like when we were kids) were so funny, and without all the sex. SNL is the best bad example of this. 95% of every show is disgusting "humor". Well - I guess we'll just have to reminisce and watch old reruns.

Ally said...

So true! I miss lemonade stands. I've blogged about them. Getting dressed up, oh yes. I remember that too and Carol Burnett (blogged about her show before as well) ... I miss it all so much!

FourthGradeNothing.com

Amy said...

Do kids really not have lemonade stands anymore!? This makes me so sad!

True story: when I was younger, me and some neighbourhood kids had a lemonade stand and no one was buying. So one of the other kids (I swear!) said we would make waaaay more money if we told people we were raising money for starving kids in Africa. So we did... and made a whole lot of money. Then our parents found out what we did, and made us actually donate all the money we made to a charity. A local paper picked up on it and did a whole story about these selfless little kids who raised money for charity... if only they had known what selfish little brats we really were...

Blast from the Past said...

Amy: Tsk tsk! Well? did you learn a lesson from that? :)

I remember one time we had a lemonade stand going and we were doing ok, but then the parents of one of our friends (who was also "running the stand" with us) stopped by and bought a few glasses, and gave us like $10! We were stoked until they said "Oh, this money s just for our kids!"

We couldn't believe it! That was the beginning of the end of our great friendship with them... (yeah, they were totally with their parents and had no qualms about it)

LaraAnn said...

I totally agree with you. My family and I used to love The Carol Burnett Show and other variety shows. Cartoons these days are mostly stupid. My brother and I loved the Hanna Barbera cartoons especially Scooby Doo and also the Pink Panther.

Main Line Sportsman said...

cartoons....nothing better than Saturday a.m. with the line up...
And some of the weird stuff...Puff N Stuff...Land of the Lost.....