The sixties did give us the muscle car era. The new cars are amazing with horsepower and drivability, but I still really enjoy my "Hugger Orange" 1969 Z28 and my SS396 1969 Pace Car. They are just plain fun to drive. I wish I still had my 1970 Red LS6 Chevelle back. You can't keep them all...
Isn't it funny that the 21st century is tasteless, boring and soulless?
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hamperf,
The first car I ever owned was a 1971 Dodge Challenger convertible. Beautiful car. I later sold it to my uncle for pennies on the dollar. He and his son completely restored it before his son went off to college, so now his son has a pretty slick piece of Hamtramck, Michigan iron to get around in. I drove that car across America while I was on leave from the Navy. The countryside is quite beautiful, too. Chicago in wintertime was downright terrifying with drum brakes, though. Sometimes I miss it, but I also enjoy not giving myself a heart attack through the miracle of modern brakes, an engine that starts immediately, a gas tank that isn't empty inside of 200 miles, little things like that.
The first car I ever owned was a 1971 Dodge Challenger convertible. Beautiful car. I later sold it to my uncle for pennies on the dollar. He and his son completely restored it before his son went off to college, so now his son has a pretty slick piece of Hamtramck, Michigan iron to get around in. I drove that car across America while I was on leave from the Navy. The countryside is quite beautiful, too. Chicago in wintertime was downright terrifying with drum brakes, though. Sometimes I miss it, but I also enjoy not giving myself a heart attack through the miracle of modern brakes, an engine that starts immediately, a gas tank that isn't empty inside of 200 miles, little things like that.
Apart from my family members who are gone now, real cars with iron engines, and real music, the things I miss most from America's yesteryears are definitely IBM Selectric typewriters and IBM PC keyboards. Who needs to store a file larger than 720K? Modems were magnificent and floppy disks were [email protected]$$, in my book. The offices from the 1960s and 1970s were delightful compared to the nonsense we have today. I definitely won't miss dot-matrix printers. The daisywheels were a bit more tolerable. We still had teletypes from WWII when I was in the Navy.
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I remember how proud I was to buy an IBM Selectric typewriter for my secretary (wife).
With the extra French ball so she could write letters home. And the miracle of the Fax machine so documents could be signed and returned without a trip to some remote office "downtown."
I did maintenance on the teletype machines in the Navy. Replacing the felt clutches on the main drive shaft was an exercise in organization and memory. The test run for a TTY was to run "a quick brown fox jumped over a lazy dogs back" repeatedly on a punch-tape reader.
Certainly a less-complicated life back then, although we didn't realize it at the time.
ellis
Technology has enhanced our lives in so many ways, but let's face it, sometimes it just s*cks. I drove a 1930 Model A Ford for my first car. It was neither safe nor reliable. If the internet had been around back then I could have solved many of the issues it had. It still would never have passed a "crash test simulation test" ROFL, but it would have been far more reliable. I needed to find a mentor to solve those problems back then. Now it is easy to search the internet for answers. This website is a perfect example of that. Sadly, many young people are so hooked on technology and they live in a fantasy world of games, etc. There is truly no substitute for real life learning and practical experience. A person can watch all the survival videos in the world and still not understand what is like to be truly cold and alone in the wild or how to simply make a fire and keep it going. Knowledge is all good and well, but application of that knowledge is a key to life. Common sense has become far more rare in todays world. Perhaps I am just living in the wrong part of the country. I live in Southern California. I would like to live someplace else, but family obligations have kept me here. My son in law has a Tesla and it does not bother him he cannot work on it nor can he buy parts to do so, even if he wanted to. He is a good person and very intelligent. There are things I own I cannot repair, but I like to think that is the exception rather than the rule. I am sure our parents and grandparents felt the same as we do. A lot has changed over the last 120 years.
ellis,
My refrigerator has a computer in it. That's just nuts. If only I could travel back in time to live through the 50s, 60s, and 70s, I'd be a happy camper. On second thought, I never thought much of punch cards. I write software for a living, but there's a limit to the amount of technology I'm willing to tolerate.
My refrigerator has a computer in it. That's just nuts. If only I could travel back in time to live through the 50s, 60s, and 70s, I'd be a happy camper. On second thought, I never thought much of punch cards. I write software for a living, but there's a limit to the amount of technology I'm willing to tolerate.
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It can probably be programmed to maintain inventory and re-order automatically from Kroger.
My wife worked for a Control Data Corp warehouse facility in Atlanta in the early '70s...They shipped and received punch cards by the tractor-trailer load!
Needless to say, Government at all levels was a big customer.
In the early '90's I knew someone who was in a position to know tell me that there would come a time, in my lifetime, when everyone would carry a cell phone no bigger than a pack of cigarettes that would have computer capabilities beyond anything we could imagine. This was a time when "Cell Phones" came in a case with shoulder straps and weighed about 10 pounds. And on-air time was $1.00 a minute. I just nodded, said nothing and thought "yeah, right! And we'll all be driving flying cars!"
And here we are!!!
ellis
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don't forget these:
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Do you have a surge suppressor on it? We had a lightning storm, and it fried the mother board on my fridge. New mother board, $650.
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Last year the day before Thanksgiving the igniter on our gas oven died so I called a repairman and he said I'm just down the street from you I'll be over shortly. The guy walks in removes the bottom pan of the oven (4 screws) unplugs the igniter and plugs the new back in, this was about 10/12 minutes work and charges me $175 ! After he left I checked Amazon, the identical part was $18, I ordered one that day!
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What you've never seen roller skates?Oh, my!!
ellis
Jigs,
We have a surge suppressor on the entire house. These days, it's truly "the only way".
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