"William Sommerwerck" wrote in message
. ..
Things I remember from the 60's:

Television worth watching, where the most violence you saw
was on Road Runner cartoons.

An odd remark, as we're now living in the Platinum Age of television...
The
Soparanos, Mythbusters, and The Simpsons/King of the Hill/South Park, to
name just a handful of great shows. I ought to throw in the live version
of
The Tick, one of the most wonderfully written TV shows I've ever seen.

When we were kids, William, shows like those you listed would never have
been allowed on television, let alone during primetime or any time kids
would be watching. And that includes "The Tick" (which, BTW, I agree with
you that it is a very well done show. Patrick Warburton does The Tick to a
tee.. he was made for the part). But it would never have passed the
Television Code.

A hamburger was 19 cents. * If you wanted fries and a Coke,
it was 45 cents. If you felt like going to eat at a real cafe, sit
in a booth and have someone serve you, the price went up to
a dollar.

You're looking at Ye Olde Days through rose-colored glasses. How did those
prices compare to your disposable income?

Actually pretty favorably. As a preteen/early teen I spent a lot of my time
working and earning money. At 12 I worked the strawberry fields (ate up half
their profits... LOL), at 13 and 14, I worked in the (sugar) beet fields.
Early season I would thin (weed), late season I would help with the harvest.
I made up to $8 a day. That may not sound like much, for so much work, but
for a kid back then, it was a lot of money, considering our largest outgo
was 10 cents for a bottle of soda from the machine (5 cents if we bought it
by the glass in a cafe) or a nickel for a candy bar. For the 'bad kids',
the big money was 30 cents for a pack of cigarettes from a machine (a
quarter if they could forge a note from mom or dad and buy them at the
store..)

* More like 15 cents.

The 19 cent figure was at Dee's (at the time the only chain in the Salt Lake
Valley) at a time (1968) when I was actually interested in going to fast
food places.

You weren't worried about whether your neighbor was a serial killer,
abductor, or politician.

grin


You could go out all day, and never lock your door.

In Bermuda, perhaps, but that was hardly common in the US.

In most any place, except maybe the larger cities. Nobody in Salt Lake ever
locked their doors (except businesses), let alone any of the several small
towns I lived in growing up. It was also quite common for people to leave
the keys in their car or pickup so they didn't have to look all over the
house when they wanted to go out. I actually lived in houses that never had
a lock on the front door at all.