I could never figure out if Howdy Doody looked like Alfred E. Neuman or vice-versa.
Coupl'a more thoughts:
The crossover phenom is old hat - we used to call them family station wagons. Cars were big and lanes were wide. You didn't park your car in the garage, you parked it in the carport. Leather wasn't an option on a pick-up truck, and your vehicle damn well didn't talk back to you or tell you where to go.
Recycling meant returning your glass soda bottles for the 5-cent deposit, not organizing your trash six different ways at additional expense. "Green" was what was in your wallet or yard, not your politics or philosophy. When you were a kid short on cash, you spent the morning combing the streets for discarded soda bottles to redeem for the deposit. Then the surly guy behind the counter would try to gyp you out of half of them because they had little chips. I really hated that guy . . .
Telephones made . . . phone calls. And only phone calls. And you usually did it on a clickety-click rotary dial. Even in that thing called a phone booth - I think it's in the Smithsonian now. And remember the exchange call-words - like, "my number is Drake-8, 8108"?
There used to be two types of guys in the world - the Gilligan Test. You were either a Mary Ann kinda guy or a Ginger kinda guy. Now I guess Gilligan and the Professor are in play. I'd prefer to never meet the Skipper kinda guy . . .
Men didn't drink wine, and Schlitz and PBR were "premium" beers. An imported beer was from another state. You bought beer at the liquor store, not the grocery store. Grocery stores sold groceries. And only groceries. You wanted medicinals, you went to the drug store. Same for film, hardware, gardening, books, and toys. You went to that appropriate store. The closest thing to a variety store was the good old five-and-dime (Woolworth's ring a bell?). Condoms were kept discreetly behind the counter, not displayed for impulse-buy at the damn register in VIBRANT COLORS ("Daddy, what are these?"). Bread came in white, wheat, and buns. Period.
Polyester and Polaroids were cool, labels and instructions were in English only, and fireplaces burned wood. A trip to McDonald's was an EVENT. You were embarrassed to be caught driving a Toyota, and Honda only made lawnmower engines. If your Datsun (Nissan) was anything other than a Z, you hid it. Ford, GM and Chrysler actually turned a profit without govenmental handouts.
Skateboards were for leisurely riding down the sidewalk, not to hospital emergency rooms. I never - ever - saw anyone wearing a helmet while riding a bicycle. They would have been laughed out of school. Roller-coasters were all wooden and it didn't cost an average worker's day's pay to get into an amusement park.
Peyton Place would be PG now, Dark Shadows is still cool, and Future Shock came and went. You didn't need a license to drive a boat or own a gun (that was for you Cali folks), and the weatherman was no more off-target than he/she is today. And Sean Connery is the one and only 007.
Oh yeah - and there were a greater percentage of us out in the wilderness and national parks . . .
