🤔 1923-1973 Do You Remember...

[Anonymous]

👍Tell us about YOUR "good old days"......

BORN: Age 50 - 1973, Age 60 - 1963, Age 70 - 1953, Age 80 - 1943, Age 90 - 1933, Age 100 - 1923.

[LisaS961881]

  Lee, Vexed, and MsStretch,

     While they do look like those old CB radio thingamajigs, those are indeed those clunky drive-in movie speakers !  

      And what an experience it was!  The drive-in charged by car, rather than by individual, so we would bring a friend and pile in the station wagon with pillows and blankets.  And yup, we’ve come such a long way since these, but it still beats watching a movie on your phone!  😉 🍿 

[SereneSeagull]

As kids we’d get on the roof of the car to watch the movies.  

[GailL1]

TALK ABOUT DANGEROUS - Who defied death and road one of these - ?  My Cousin did - down a big hill - paved road - IT STOPPED and HE DIDN’T - lost at least 1st layer of skin from head to toes. Amazingly,  no scars.

[MsStretch]

Gawd, we were fearless! 😃

[papawofboo]

Never seen one of these. Looks like it was made for broke bones, knocked out teeth and all the other fun things of childhood.

[SereneSeagull]

I’ve never seen one those either.  Looks like a sled on wheels and a lot of fun!

[LisaS961881]

   Wow!  I never saw one of these, but I would have jumped right on and earned a few more battle scars!  ….and the lever turns the front wheels?  Yup - great scary fun!

[GailL1]

You could sit on it and guide with the handle but the more courageous would lay down on it (stomach down) close your eyes and just let ‘er go -  Could you even imagine this getting to a store today? 

But we all made it - 

[SereneSeagull]

Close your eyes and hope there’s no tree, I bet!

[GailL1]

Called a FLEXI-RACER - I don’t remember it having any breaks - you just turned the wheels towards something that would stop you !!!

The size and material of what stopped you, determined what got knock out or broken.  My cousin elected to loss skin since the flexi-racer stopped at the curb and his body was propelled forward over the racer and onto the pavement.  

I guess the danger was also determined by the size of the hill that one elected to conquer. 

[LisaS961881]

[SereneSeagull]

That was when salesman had what seemed like knowledge of the products they sold.  Hard to find now.! 

[MsStretch]

Remember those foot 'gauges' you had to stand on to measure your shoe size and then when you tried the shoes on, you walked around the store to see how they felt, but there was always the "obligatory" break-in period so the walk-around was sort of a moot point?

[GailL1]

Wasn’t there some sort of an X-ray machine in the shoe store to check out your feet - for what?  

[papawofboo]

I never saw one. 

My mother wanted the width of her thumb between toe and end of shoe.

[SereneSeagull]

I still see some parents doing that today.  The ol’ thumb ruler!

[LisaS961881]

    Yup!  To give you “some room to grow! 😊

[GailL1]

This was it “A Shoe Fitting Fluoroscope”   Pic of the machine and below that is a pic of how it was viewed and what they saw.

We got hit with a lot of radiation when we were younger.  

[LeeS4949]

 OK ! Have to admit I was stumped.. ( a common occurrence for me, just sayin ) Based on it 's function I'm sorta glad i missed this one.

[GailL1]

@LeeS4949 @MsStretch @papawofboo @LisaS961881 

The shoe fitting fluoroscope had to have been around 1953 - 1957 - we were also very poor - so who knows, maybe we were the test subjects.  

At the time, I thought it was cool - now, well, definitely not so much.  But that is why I remembered it - but I did need to look it up to determine if my memory was correct. Like I said earlier,  I was very, tiny so maybe they just wanted to see if my feet were formed correctly.  This pic came from a museum - Oak Ridge Tenn. 

My Dad was a brickmason and he did some work on something nuclear in OakRidge, TN.    Maybe now I know why I am not only  tiny but also glow in the dark 😲

Oak Ridge, TN was evidently a big nuclear/ radiation site and I guess still is - lots of history.

Oak Ridge,TN.gov - About Oak Ridge - What Makes a City Great 

from the link ~

Oak Ridge was built under a cloak of secrecy by the United States government during World War II as a major site of the Manhattan Project, the massive wartime effort that produced the world's first atomic weapons.

US Dept of Energy - Oak Ridge, TN 

[LisaS961881]

 Geez Gail, you’re right - looking back, in those days everyone was just more trusting.  
At the time, It seemed like this machine would revolutionize the process of finding the perfect fitting shoe.

 I found a bit more info in this Smithsonian article:

Better Feet Through Radiation

[MsStretch]

@GailL1 , these X-ray machines were definitely after my time.  Oh my, this must have been one of those "state-of-the-art" "modern-day" (at the time) contraptions when I was still getting fitted. We never had anything so futuristic in the shoes stores I went in. 😁

[papawofboo]

Never seen one or heard of one. Course I grew up in a very small town that didn't have a doctors office much less a shoe store.

[LisaS961881]

….that gave me a giggle - I remember 2nd grader me sitting in the chair at the dentist thinking, “Hmmmm….if this this so safe, then why are they all running out of the room before they do it to me?

[SereneSeagull]

Yes, So true and obvious, and yet we had to listen to elders and not question! 

[MsStretch]

@LisaS961881 , I still think that. Drape me with a leaded heavy bib and then leave, before they zap my mouth, an open orifice to the innards of my body, with those "dangerous, radioactive" x-rays.  Talk about moot points, what good is protecting my chest going to do? 🩻

[GailL1]

Evidently they are still around for history buffs - $ 90 on ebay - Maybe that was when shoes were all made in one country and size was more standardize - I don’t find that anymore.

[SereneSeagull]

I still see these in some stores!

[LeeS4949]

 I'm not exactly sure why but getting this used on me was fun somehow.. I guess its use faded away with family Sunday dinners,Drs who made house calls, and courtesy to strangers.. sad..

[LisaS961881]

    I certainly do remember that “break-in period”!  And I usually chose Mary Janes anyway.   Mary Jane’s and white ankle socks - with or without lace….