Mom and pop convenience stores, where I knew the owners personally. The last one I frequented was in Sacramento, and it’s owner closed it down in '09 after he found out he had cancer. Luckily he made it, but he isn’t in good enough health to keep it open. Also, there’s a Wal Mart that’s too close by. Fuckers.
Record/Music stores that aren’t chains. I worked at a music store from the time I was 15 to the time I was 19. Loved every second of it. Lots of cool promotional stuff, and free tickets to see all my favorite bands.
Mom and pop book stores. Loved the one that was on Pacific Avenue in Tacoma.
Bike hills - There used to be tons of them for riding BMX bikes on. Local parents would take their equipment out and build up some jumps and paths in empty lots for their kids to ride on. Now, there’s too much risk of being sued, so they were all flattened out. A shame, I had so much fun riding those jumps and trails as a kid.
This reminds me of the old (stripped out) Martin B-57 bomber that used to be in Dennis the Menace Park/Sherman Park in Sioux Falls, SD when I was a kid. You could mangle yourself three-ways-to-Sunday playing on that thing (falling off of a wing, getting stuck in an engine inlet, catching a sharp edge in the cockpit), but man … was that ever fun.
As I recall, they had an old Armored Personnel Carrier, a fire truck and even an AAA gun on site, too. Try getting away with any of that today.
Well stocked inde records stores. There a chain in my home town, one shitty one here full of hipster crap.
The ice cream shop at the lake
gas @ .99c
totally rad toy commercials.
When WWF didnt suck (RIP Machoman!)
When metal ruled the earth
Knowing all the neighbors
You could get in a fight at school and they would only call your parents.
Analog sound. Vacuum tubes still rule the world of guitar amps for a reason.
When my family was still awesome and every weekend was spent at the lake/motocross track
When small .22 rifles didnt have plastic parts.
A car you could fix with your ear and a screw driver vs. a computer.
Oysters and shrimp as affordable lunch and beer snacks @ $4 a basket instead of $1 apiece.
Anything cool and antique Americana not being bid up to Gucci price level.
Makarovs, AK kits, FAL kits for less than $100.
Public schools not being run by far left communists, producing normal people with real grasp of the world.
Entire schools full of kids without numerous psychological diagnoses w/ accompanying medications and bizarre food allergies.
…Actually, screw accepting this. We need to get it back. I don’t know who of us requested this wholesale scrapping of the America we know, but it sure as hell wasn’t me.
gas prices that were so low…they were not a constant concern.
The notion that everything was “ok” and that America, American culture and life as we knew it would just go on forever and was not being threatened at every turn.
The crappy part about this is that the Russians or Libyans or some other nut job elsewhere in the word is no longer the biggest threat to our way of life.
The biggest threat to America and our way of life is our own government. Now that sucks…
Nope, the biggest threat is the large number of our own citizens that believe the progressives and leftists and their lies.
The very people living amongst us that believe that everything was Bush’s fault, that taking away guns is ok and are largely detached from the reality of the growing and oppressive govt. that they voted for.
THEY are the biggest threat…because they now outnumber us.
Paper and plastic cups, boxes, containers of all kinds that weren’t so flimsy that you can easily crush or damage them and spill your stuff.
Coca Cola with real sugar in it. Drink a Coke made in Mexico for a reminder of what Coke is supposed to taste like.
Things that used to be made to last–like out of steel or wood–and are now made of plastic or some other cheap material. I have a set of card table chairs that were probably made in the 1940’s and are still going strong. I watched a more modern set of chairs made of thin tubing that only lasted a couple of years.
Things that used to be made in America but are now made in China.
Cars that with some tools and some knowledge you could work on in your garage. Now you’ve got to have diagnostic computers and the whole shebang.
Women without tattoos that didn’t shave their nether regions.
The expectation of good customer service rather than the expectation you’re going to be given the runaround.
The general lack of having to worry about everything you eat, drink, breathe, or touch.
One working person could have enough money for the car, the house, and sending the kid’s to college. Now both spouses work and they can’t make ends meet.
TV shows that stayed in a time slot and didn’t get moved around like pieces on a chess board.
Much of what you guys are listing is alive and well and in the small towns of the midwest, and other places. It is endangered even in many of those, but it can be found.
One park had a WWII Sherman that you could actually play in/on, as well as some artillery pieces of the same vintage. But, believe this or not, one of our elementary schools (not mine) had an F-86 Sabre on the playground! Cockpit open and all. My oh my, if I had a dollar for every imaginary Mig I shot down with that baby.
Now parents would crap gold bricks if their kids climbed up on those things. My son actually got in trouble in like 3rd grade for “hostile imaginary play” for pretending to be a Jedi on the playground. Holy shit, I wasn’t aware there was another kind of play as a small boy? Seriously.
And for me, the drive in theatre. A tornado finally took ours out like 5 years ago, but I truly miss that old dumpy drive in.
More good childhood memories than I can put into words. My wife and I would go almost every weekend when we were first married. Two or three movies with popcorn and sodas for $10. Boy do I miss it.
There used to be an old WW2 fighter plane laying in a field by my grandma’s house. When she’d babysit for us, she’d take us down there to play on it. Since then, I’d always wanted to be a pilot. She also cooked at the local VFW & American Legion. We’d go with her occasionally & play on the cannons & other militaria. I was so young & it was so many years ago, I don’t know any of the model designations of the plane or canons. Too bad all that stuff is long gone. There’s a highway running through where the plane was & the Legion was torn down for an apartment building. I’m not sure kids would care about that stuff anymore, they have Xboxes now.
And that is what warped your brain and gave you a fondness for Tarantino movies.
As kids we played on a civil war cannon and a WWII artillery piece at the Iowa Veterans home. There is an honest to god F-4 phantom near the golf course but they have a high fence around it. Probably necessary these days.
From an adult perspective it had to be somewhat therapeutic for a person who served on a tank or bomber crew to see their children play on or in the same vehicle that was associated with what was likely the most stressful events of their lives.
While it wouldn’t make you forget, I’m sure the alternate association was appreciated. I also think it laid the foundation for those kids to respect what their fathers and grandfathers actually did.
