Vague memories of my youth

[DoggyDaddy]

I was from the far south side, like Nashville.

Wow! So you and your dad made quite the drive!

 

[Cameramonkey]

Yep, and you could buy everything you needed to make it at your local drugstore!

BTDT. And smoke bombs, and some were even self igniting. Some Potassium Permanganate melted into the top of the melted sugar/Saltpeter concoction. Just pour Glycerin over the top and run.

 

[DoggyDaddy]

Slot cars for me. I bought one cox car from there with money from my paper route. Lived in the apartments behind there for years.

They had a big slot car track in the back of the store, didn't they? I was into HO cars/tracks but they had the 1/32(?) track.

 

[Cameramonkey]

The best carmel corn in the world from GC Murphy's in Lafayette square.

 

[DoggyDaddy]

BTDT. And smoke bombs, and some were even self igniting. Some Potassium Permanganate melted into the top of the melted sugar/Saltpeter concoction. Just pour Glycerin over the top and run.

I remember trying to get my high school chemistry teacher to tell me what I had to add to the basic mix to make it more explosive. He (wisely) refused to tell me.

 

[Cameramonkey]

I remember trying to get my high school chemistry teacher to tell me what I had to add to the basic mix to make it more explosive. He (wisely) refused to tell me.

The only deeper I will go into this tangent of the topic is a smoke bomb made with a 5lb bag of sugar makes a LOT of smoke. I dont think the statute of limitations is up on some of my stories.

 

[DoggyDaddy]

Slot cars for me. I bought one cox car from there with money from my paper route. Lived in the apartments behind there for years.

Oh yeah! I forgot about Cox cars and planes! It was pre-RC so you usually had to fly the planes on a tether. I had one car and it had eyelets on the bottom. You would stretch a long line of string in a parking lot or something (we did it at my old grade school parking lot) and the string would go through those eyelets to keep it going straight.

 

[DoggyDaddy]

The only deeper I will go into this tangent of the topic is a smoke bomb made with a 5lb bag of sugar makes a LOT of smoke. I dont think the statute of limitations is up on some of my stories.

All of mine turned out to be smoke bombs (very sulfuric smoke bombs), but the biggest ones were made in one of the empty sulfur, potassium nitrate or powdered charcoal jars (unless we used sugar) jars.

 

[Bugzilla]

Purple Martin dial a tane. Mainly on Friday nights.

 

[Jaybird1980]

Fetla's Trading Post.

When all of the stores were still open in Toto.

Caudills Fishing and Firearms

Alt's

Coast to Coast

Sears actually being a store worth going to.

 

[BigRed]

And they were parked in school parking lots and no one cared.

Yes

 

[HoughMade]

Fetla's Trading Post.

When I first moved to Valpo, Fetlas was still going strong. I passed on a nice SKS for $79 because I was a poor student with no extra money.

 

[flatlander]

I remember trying to get my high school chemistry teacher to tell me what I had to add to the basic mix to make it more explosive. He (wisely) refused to tell me.

We figured it out on our own

 

[Sigblaster]

I both love and hate recalling my early memories, because it brings me joy to think about the great and innocent times of my youth, but also reminds me of how many good memories have been lost, and people along with it.

My earliest memory, believe it or don't, is from my crib. I can still hear the pling pling pling of a mobile, and faces leaning over and peering down at me. I think it was my Mom and my two aunts. It's very much ingrained, but a bit blurry. I remember them talking in the way people talk when they're looking at a baby in a crib.

Another is when I was 2 or 3. There must have been a raging lightning storm going on that scared me so my dad came and laid in my bed to get me back to sleep. I vividly remember one huge flash of lightning that lit up the room, illuminating the colored wooden blocks I had built on my dresser. Dad passed shortly after.

The first time I carried a girl's books home from school in 2nd grade, amusement parks, family trips, building models with my friends, G.I .Joes, slot cars, friends I haven't seen in over 45 years that were my best friends back then... The list goes on.

 

[Sigblaster]

When I was a kid, my Mom worked on the 6th floor of the Wilder Building in Rochester NY. You can google it, it's still there. I used to hop on the city bus and ride it downtown to hang out there after school until she got off work. There was a little building next door that was a hamburger stand. She would give me money to go down and get a burger, and I swear, I don't remeber having and burger in my life that tasted better than these burgers. Never, to this day have I had a better burger.

I just googled it myself, and it looks like the building is still there, but it's a Chinese food joint now.

There used to be an Army surplus store on the ground floor of the Wilder building where me and my best friend Dave would hop a bus and go to to get gear to play Vietnam when we were kids. His older brother was an Infantryman in Vietnam, and we used to play Vietnam all the time. Thankfully, his brother came back.

 

[actaeon277]

the army/navy store in downtown hammond.

 

[Bugzilla]

the army/navy store in downtown hammond.

That and two theaters and a Chinese restaurant with delicious shrimp egg foo yung. Still have a Colman 2 burner stove I got at the Army Surplus.

 

[rhamersley]

The best carmel corn in the world from GC Murphy's in Lafayette square.

Being able to GO to Lafayette Square and not worry about being shot...and they had real stores in there to go to. Spent many hours in Waldenbooks.

 

[jason867]

I really miss going to the Sky-Vue drive-in theater in New Castle. Have fond memories of going there with my parent, friends, and girlfriend.

Also, loved going to muncie and richmond malls years ago, when it was worth going.

 

[printcraft]

The only deeper I will go into this tangent of the topic is a smoke bomb made with a 5lb bag of sugar makes a LOT of smoke. I dont think the statute of limitations is up on some of my stories.

Adding the contents to a slit open tennis ball that would catch fire and you could throw turned up the fun level… or so I’ve heard.