Hold on to what is good even if it is a handful of earth.
Hold on to what you believe even if it is a tree which stands by itself.
Hold on to what you must do even if it is a long way from here.
Hold on to life even when it is easier letting go.
Hold on to my hand even when I have gone away from you.
- Pueblo Blessing

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Sunday, Apr. 25, 2004 - 12:35 a.m.

OK, here is the Dim Memories entry finally... where I shall throw myself into my dimmemories survey. Do it now do it later, just do it!

So just what DO you remember? When chocolate bars were ten cents? When pigs roamed the streets of Montreal eating the garbage? When Captain and Tenille were actually a hit? Tell me some stories if you remember.

So here we go.... my answers and links galore!!

1. Do you remember when there were milkmen who delivered milk to your door everyday? And milk bottles were glass, and they were washed and refilled? And they came with foil over cardboard caps that lifted when the millk froze outside?
Oh yes, I remember this well! The milk bottles that were empty, as well as a list of desired items was put into a little metal rack, and the milkman would drive around in a little truck like Fedex, and bring you all the goodies you wanted. Fresh milk daily. We used the glass bottles for various things in the fridge too. My grandma's house had a little door in the outside wall where the milkman would put the milk, so it was sort of "in the wall" and wouldn't freeze. Very cool. Sometimes there were "specials" such as when the orange-flavoured "BEEP" drink came out, and we were all given little samples on our way home to lunch. YAY! I dunno, but the company sterilizing and refilling the bottles must have been way more ecologically sane than recycling. Of course what we had in the interim between reuse and recycle was the glorious days when milk companies divested themselves of cleaning bottles, and everyone merrily threw the new disposable bottles in the trash. Apparently some companies still make the bottles, and some dairies are bringing them back! Yay!

2. Do you remember when communism, not terrorism was the biggest threat? When the soviets were the horror of the world and the Berlin wall was standing?? When we were afraid of the USSR and not the "axis of evil" nuking us?
Um, most definitely. It seems that at that point, Muslims and Arabs really didn't figure on the agenda. Sure there were hijackings of planes by the Palestinian Liberation Front, and things like Israelis being shot at the Olympics. But it was just a bleep, like a holdup at your local gas station, and not a reason for global war. On the other hand, being a member of the communist party, or wanting to visit the USSR were reasons to suspect you were anti-american. Anything Soviet was the equivalent of politically satanic, and reason to invest huge amounts of moulah into farfetched missile and nuclear weapons plans. Now interestingly enough we have not become any happier in the world, we have just changed the reason for arms production. BTW arms production is a very good place to put your stocks and bonds investments. Pretty much a surefire thing always. Of course you can still run around fighting commies.

3. Do you remember when Chastity came out with her Mom and Dad while they sang "I got you Babe"? Did you ever think she'd grow up gay and her dad would go into politics and die skiing?
OK, so most of you who responded to this question think that the only way to come out is to reveal your gayness. Well, Chastity used to come out on stage with her parents at the end of every episode of their Sonny and Cher show when she was like 2 years old. They would sing "I've Got You Babe" together (around 1971), and hold her hands, and she was very shy, never really smiled, had huge eyes and very very very blond hair, which really contrasted with her mom's dark good looks. So, the answer is, No, you DON'T remember when Chastity came out with her parents. BTW she was born in 1969. Unfortunately I cannot find any online photos of her at that time.

4. Do you remember what you were doing after John Lennon was killed, while church bells were ringing "Imagine"?
It was in December 1980, and I was done highschool. I was going to the library, and had to walk across a snowy park with barren black trees downtown, next to a church that had beautiful bells. For once instead of church music they were playing John Lennon's songs. It was very cold and beautiful and made me very sad.

5. Do you remember when the Vietnam news was on the front cover of Life magazine every week with horrid photos of dying soldiers and vietnamese?
I remember this very well. I was born in 1963, so am about the same age as the little girl who was running naked after being burnt in airfire. Every week in Life Magazine there were fullpage photos of tanks with the tortured heads of Viet Cong on them, filthy soldiers holding their dying comrades in their arms in the blood and mud. It really was enough to turn a kid off of the glories of shooting people and making exciting bomb explosions I tell you. I wish they still covered war like that. It would be a little less glorious for young people and soldiers would feel a bit more like their friends and family at home were completely living in another world, with no clue of what they were living. Oh well. Apparently it cuts the population's appetite to kill. Funny that.

6. Do you remember when comic books were twenty five cents? Which ones did you collect?
At this moment in this entry I'd like to swear a little wee bit. Cuz i SWEAR I bookmarked a bunch of webpages to use for exactly the purpose of putting links in this entry when I finally wrote it. But I cannot find the f'n links. So I have to regoogle everything. Damn. So, YEAH I remember when comic books were 25 cents. And I remember when they were ten cents and 12 cents and 15 cents. They were 25 cents when I was about twelve, and then went up to 35 cents which was a pain in the ass cuz I couldnt get four for a dollar anymore. I collected Archie, and Betty and Me, and Betty and Veronica. I had EVERY issue for like three or four years. I sold them at a garage sale to a kid when I was like 25. She was THRILLED!! Holy Bajoly look at the price they go for NOW!!

7. Do you remember the Bay CIty Rollers? Did you see them in concert? Did you wear plaid?
OMG, the Bay City Rollers. Now these guys were the idols of all 11-14 yr old girls who read Tiger Beat in 1974, and had a couple famous songs including "Saturday Night" "S-A-TUR-DAY--NIGHT!!" that we all danced to at preteen dances. The local radio station had astrology sign buttons that if you were spotted wearing, you could win 6-packs of Mountain Dew or a Bay City Roller album. They played the Summer Exhibition in 1975 I believe, and screaming fans wore plaid in whatever form they could find. Just to give you an idea... it says on Amazon that people who bought their music also bought music by: "Shaun Cassidy. Partridge Family. Andy Gibb. Captain & Tennille ,Bobby Goldsboro " How can you beat that lineup?? No I never saw them in concert, but I won a record from wearing the button!

8. Do you remember when man walked on the moon the first time? How old were you?
I do, I do!! I was nearly 6 years old in July 1969. Our tv was in the basement, and my parents woke us up to bring us downstairs to see the first man walking on the moon, all grainy in black and white.

9. Do you remember hearing Petula Clark singing "Downtown" on the radio when it first came out? (not on oldies!)
Well, it turns out that this song came out in 1964 so I was under a year old when it first came out, so I imbibed it with my mother's milk. It is very nostalgic and warm and fuzzy feelings for me. I actually remember it being on the radio when I was like three or four and playing in the kitchen. Someone who answered this survey said he didn't listen to Petula Clark and other hippies like her. Downtown is something that could have been written by the Better Business Bureau ("don't hang around and let your problems surround you there are movie shows... downtown"), and was more of a Doris Day type than a hippie type. sort of like the beatles compared to the rolling stones in the 60's. Cheery pop.. you can hear it here.

10. Do you remember Don Messer's Jubilee?? Wasn't it like the most tacky thing you ever saw, or did you love it??
OMG none of you remember this and THANK GOD!! This was like the only thing on the tv some nightsif you didn't have cable. It was something straight out of some hellhole imagination of an aged uncle. Old men with fiddles and dancing middle aged ladies with laquered hair and matching crinolines dancing (music on this link) to "Roll Out the Barrel, We'll have a Barrel of Fun". Shudder shudder shudder. Apparently icons of an era. Shudder yet again.

11. Do you remember when only really rich people had color tv? Did you have one?
Interestingly I did not actually LIVE in a house with a color tv until my mother bought me one for my birthday or somesuch in about 1997. Yup. My family got color tv after I left home. I believe that my stepmother had one, and I do remember watching Roots on color tv, but pretty much everything else was black and white. I had a b&w twelveinch tv in the 80's that I almost never watched. Even now that I have a color one, i mostly use it for videos when I rent them. Strange, given that as a child the tv was always on it seems. Also strange to think that all those shows WERE in black and white, since they seem so vivid in my imagination. Apparently the first color tvs were invented 12 years before there was regular color programming to be SEEN with them... NBC went all-color in 1966. When I was 7 or 8 (ie about 1970), only one girl had a color tv, and her father was a dentist, her mom a ballet teacher, and she was the only child we knew to have a nanny.

12. Do you remember when computers had punch cards? Did you make crafts out of them?
This is funny. Many people don't remember these. These cards were light cardboard, about 3x6" and had little square holes punched in them (for binary code)... they were only used for data entry and then scrapped, and so were a popular item for crafts. We would make Christmas wreaths out of them at school... Take two corners and staple them together to make a cone shape. When you have a bunch, staple all the bases together in concentric circles. Add pinecones. Spraypaint red, silver or gold. Wow eh! I also used the baby blue ones to make doll house furniture for some ugly little monster toys we got with toothpaste. I would add ruffles made of white kleenex. Real suzy homemaker I was. Now no more punch cards. It is harder to make cool crafts out of old cds. Sigh.

13. Do you remember when spies on tv shows and movies had microfiche? Whatever happened to microfiche?
Ah, of course I remember. As some of you answered, some spies used microchips and microfilm. But there were still a slew of spy movies with microfiche(scroll down to see). And yes, it has ended up in many libraries where you have to zoom up and down nasty plastic sheets of paper in a reader to see things like old newspapers. Someone will regret one day that all these old newspapers were trashed. It is not the same thing. But I can live without microfiche in general.

14. Do you remember how 8-track tapes went caklunk when they changed tracks? Which ones did you own?
Egads. 8-track tapes. I am not sure why it seemed a cool thing. Maybe cuz at the time we usually had vinyl records, and 8-tracks were portable and recordable. We used them to record off the radio on New Year's ... the "top 100", with the dj talking over the starts of the songs etc. We also had Buddy Holly and a couple others. The Moody Blues I think. Kaklunk!

15. Do you remember seeing the Sound of Music and Oliver when they were FIRST RELEASED in the theater?
I actually do NOT remember seeing the Sound of Music in the theater...I guess it came out in '65 so it is unlikely they dragged a two year old. I have seen it so many times on the tv. But I did go to see it on the larget screen at "Sing Along Sound of Music" in London UK in 1999. I forgot how breathtaking the opening scenes of flying over the Alps was. Wow. I always loved this movie. All of it. Sigh. Such a geek. I wanted to BE Julie Andrews in this movie.

And Oliver I remember VERY well... we got there when the previous showing wasn't done yet, and I remember looking through the window in the door from the lobby and seeing the Artful Dodger and Fagin skipping down the streets in the last scene before we went in to see it. I went with my little brother, who mustve been tiny at the time. I was totally in love with Oliver himself who was so sweet and just old enough to be my beau. Yes I am a suck. And was so in 1968 when I was a whole 5 years old!!

OK< I have only done up to the end of Question #15 and I have run out of steam looking for links. More another day. Cuz I know by now YOU are also overloaded on links. ZZZZZ!!

Well, I will write another entry about my day/s. Please look at my "Pickupablility Rating" in the previous entry. Tah!

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previous meanderings - future past

Goodbye Michael. May your next life be kinder to you. - Thursday, Jun. 25, 2009
Taking Care of Your Cows - Thursday, Jun. 25, 2009
Saint Joseph robs the cradle and eats spaghetti - Sunday, Jun. 14, 2009
sticky notes and broken irises - Friday, Jun. 12, 2009
The FOODCOMMANDER - Monday, Jun. 08, 2009

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