It sounds a little sorta sad now but I guess I don't remember it that way. There wasn't a lot of money for toys so I bought my own with an afternoon paper route, mowing yards and washing cars on weekends and pulling a wagon around and asking neighbors for pop bottles then pulling it to grocery store and cashing in at 2¢ a pop. I spent all that money on candy, kites, model cars and Converse sneakers etcetera. I also hot rodded my Sears Spyder bicycle with parts out of the catalog. There was a KKK guy on my paper route who was a painter and I paid him 6 bucks to paint the frame and forks Petty blue. Then I fitted it up with a long gooseneck and ram horn handlebars; a tall seat post and spring seat, and I used model car paint to white letter the tires. I think maybe I posted a pic of it years ago with my old pal Toby tethered to it under the clothesline.
As a side note, back in the 70s I gave that bike to a kid. Around 20 years ago I had a dreams about it being in the crawlspace of of that house and went to see if it was there. I told the current residents the story and they let me look under there but alas...
why do I want to cry all the sudden Lol... I guess it could be a Rosebud type situation but there's no castle full of art or cavernous fireplace...No dream come true, no Xanadu...
I suppose I lusted for a mini bike or go cart but the closest I got was an old riding lawnmower my uncle gave me. It wasn't very fast of course but I took the deck off and rode it in the woods a lot. It popped great wheelies.
Ah to be alien and 13 again...
edit- no I didn't have to walk 5 miles through the snow barefoot to school lolol
edit- no memorizers were converted to hatred by KKK house painters in the telling of this mansion...
And if I had one today, I'd annoy the shit out of my colleagues with it at work.
I had a Lite-Brite; it was actually more fun than it would seem. Once I got used to it I started making up my own pictures. I had it for years until I gave it to a niece or nephew. The light pegs would get all over the place and/or vacuumed up but toy stores sold new sets of pegs as well as different, themed picture "templates".
I had one... Quickly ran thru the flavor syrups and they made a mess anyway (Pro tip: Don't tear them open with your teeth when you're standing on the shag rug), so we were reduced to using powdered stuff like Tang and Jell-O. I think you could order new syrups from the company for like 35¢. Grape Tang was the secret tho. It actually worked pretty well except Dad kept the freezer set to about -50 so you had to let the ice warm up for a while.
Decades later, we came into possession of a rotary crank cheese grater like they use at Olive Garden and it gave me Grape Tang flashbacks.
Location: No longer in a hovel in effluent Damnville, VA Gender:
Posted:
Apr 7, 2016 - 11:12am
KurtfromLaQuinta wrote:
Must of been a east coast thing. Like Engineer Bill was a California thing. I watched that show faithfully for quite a few years back in the early 60's.
No it was definitely from California and even had some good guest stars, and I lived in Chitcago when it was out.
