Places Archives
The Libraries of Our Childhoods This will be a fun write, almost 100% from memory, no research needed! My favorite type of I Remember JFK article. Okay, transport yourself back to, say, 1967. You are entering an imposing building: your own local public library. One of the earliest concepts that you learned as a child...
Expo 67 About 1998 or so, we took a trip to Orlando. I figure every kid ought to see Disney World at least once in their lives, even if it nearly bankrupts the parents. Anyhoo, we went to the Epcot Center one sunny day, and I had a distinct deja vu feeling...
Shrinkage Seinfeld added a large number of terms to the English language. One of these is "shrinkage," but the shrinkage that is the subject of today's piece has nothing to do with cold water in swimming pools. If you're like most Boomers, you don't live in the same house in which...
Rexall Drug Stores We grew up with drug store chains. Drug stores were one of the earliest types of retail establishments to form franchises, and by the 50's and 60's, the US was covered with them. Osco, Katz, Longs, Walgreens, the list goes on and on. Some survive today, others vanished with bad...
Summer Camp Many a Boomer kid has recollections of at least one summer spent at some remote location, either on a river or a lake, likely surrounded with lots of woods, getting away from city life and experiencing the mixed joy of summer camp. I say "mixed," for, just as in Allen...
Vanished Restaurant Chains As long as there has been human society, there have been eating establishments. Let's face it, some nights, cavewomen just didn't feel like cooking. We Boomers grew up with a lot of familiar names on billboards which have sadly slipped from the scene. The good news is that some of...
Photos from the Past, in the Style of Awkward Family Photos First of all, let me state that the names have been changed to protect the innocent. A good e-friend of mine turned me on to Awkward Family Photos, and I'm hooked. I've been looking for a suitable substitute to Mirsky's Worst of the Web since he decided to hang...
The Soda Fountain When you were a kid in the 50's, 60's, or early 70's, and you had a thirst, odds are a soda fountain was located somewhere close to your parched self. Time was when soda fountains were part of the services offered at drug stores, dime stores, department stores, and other...
The 1960's Arcade A kid with a dime had many diversions to choose from when LBJ was President. You could trek down to the corner grocery and buy yourself a couple of candy bars. You could feed a plastic capsule machine and maybe get yourself a prize worth twice that much. Or, you...
Digging in the Dirt If it was a warm, sunny day, a 60's kid would be expunged from the house by a mother who was tired of her child watching television. After all, she grew up without TV, and knew the value of playing in the great outdoors. She knew, way before it became...
Our Parents' Favorite Restaurants One of the most sacred rituals that I recall from my childhood was that of getting into the car and driving, sometimes over an hour, to a favorite restaurant. The delicious saturated-fat laden food was a particular delight to my parents, who could remember the very lean times of the...
The Ups and Downs of Downtowns The communities that we live in have been evolving since time immemorial. No facet of American culture has undergone more transformations than the downtown business district. Every town with more than a couple hundred residents has one. And the odds are that it has seen its share of ups and...
Florida of the 1960's I was very fortunate to be a change-of-life child. My older brothers weathered lean financial years growing up, typical of young families. But by the time I came along (mom's surprise at the age of 37!), the household I was born into was a comfortable middle-class situation with dual incomes....
The Shoe Store Kids grow fast, and so do their feet. That means that most of us Boomers made frequent trips to the shoe store while we were growing up. I say MOST of us, because those of us who had an older sibling just ahead of us instead received hand-me-downs. But that...
Flying in the 1960's Traveling long distances commercially took an awkward twist during the 1960's. Our parents (and we older Boomers) rode the rails during the 50's. But passenger service was being phased out by the railroads. The government bailout known as Amtrak was far off in the future. So by the time the...
Growing Up in Tornado Alley Miami, Oklahoma was located just beyond the eastern end of Tornado Alley, as defined here. The little burgh had a history of tornado touchdowns, even though they were more rare there than any typical Kansas community. But the possibility of a tornado destroying our house was terrifying to me. And...
The Downtown Movie Theater It seems that every single town in the US with a population of at least, say, 2,500 had a single-screen theater located in its downtown area circa 1960. In the Northwest Arkansas area where I make my home, that was the case with every community. Unfortunately, it is also the...
Holiday Inns Ah, life on the road circa 1967. Where would we spend the night? Would dad pull an all-nighter and get us somewhere early in the morning? That was known to happen. Or would we stay at a nice, clean, cheap, joyless motel without a pool? Or, would dad, feeling flush...
The Automotive Store Time was, usually located on Main Street within walking distance of the Dime Store, there was an establishment that carried generic automotive supplies like oil, gas treatment, tires, freon, anti-freeze, windshield wiper blades, and wheel covers. Additionally, they offered diverse non-automotive items like lawn mowers, gardening equipment, higher-end toys (e.g....
See Rock City In the summer of 1967, we traveled to Montreal to see Expo 67. On the way back, I got to see some pretty amazing stuff, including Niagara Falls, the Great Smokeys, and about a million painted barns and roadside signs imploring me to See Rock City. Well, guess what. It...
Dog n Suds Dining out on a budget in the 50's and 60's involved jumping in the car and heading to the drive-in. And you had lots of choices for food to be delivered to your car via roller-skate-wearing-carhop. For example, there was A&W. In Oklahoma, we had Sonic. And there was yet...
The Old Abandoned House in the Neighborhood People build lots and lots of houses. And sometimes, a few of those houses may become abandoned. Once that happens, it doesn't take long for them to quickly deteriorate into an eyesore. Or perhaps a better term may be a really cool place for kids to play. Miami, Oklahoma, population...
You may use any images you find on my site on your own personal site. COPY the images to your own server, PLEASE. If you link directly, you will likely get a logo encouraging others to visit I Remember JFK instead of the graphic that you expected. In return, I request that you include a link back to I Remember JFK. Fair enough?
Browsing for Candy:
A nickel was a fortune in 1967. You could choose from dozens of confections that virtually assured that you would also have mercury-laden fillings in your teeth by the time you were a teenager. Oh well. We may have ugly gray dental work, but we also have priceless memories. Let's...
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