Vague memories of my youth

[red_zr24x4]

This is a running joke in my family.

My dad loved the ham sandwiches from the K-Mart Deli. They shoved 5 of them in those long popcorn bags, mustard smeared down the inside, thin, nasty tomatos. He loved bringing those home for "treats" for us. I can not help but smile when thinking about him and those awful ham sandwiches.

Man I haven't thought of those in years!
Reading that I could almost taste one

 

[Lmo1131]

I just flashed back on this one; the Little America Amusement Park at 62nd and Keystone.

"Kiddyland" (pony rides, a train to ride, a small roller coaster, self-propelled handcars), and adult activities (golf, bowling, shuffleboard, badminton, ping pong, horseshoes, archery, and tennis), as well. My great aunt used to take me.

 

[indyblue]

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 those days, you could get all the ingredients from your local Hooks drugstore. I still have some of them from my teenager days stored in a box.
We used to try to make gun powder but only ended up making green powder most of the time which burned slowly and very smoky and sulfery.


One of my favorites was the five cent bottle rocket, using Durhams hard rock putty for the rocket nozzle and some craft tape wound around a dowel with a nail sticking up through a board as a mandrel.

I even used Ladyfinger fire crackers mounted to the top for a report.

 

[Bugzilla]

When my dad and uncles cleared their land in Schererville, most likely after the war, they bought dynamite. Still can’t figure out how a bunch of Polacks blowing up tree stumps all made it out alive!

 

[Bollorollo]

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.

the army/navy store in downtown Hammond

Great memories of all these places. I loved when my dad would take us to the Army Navy Surplus Store here. Then we would go to Molenaar Harley Davison to look at the bikes.. I bought my 1st Harley from Molenaar HD in 1988 when turning 21.. For several years I would go there on a week day morning when off from work and talk with Harry Molenaar for hours. Harry Molenaar had so many amazing stories to tell about his experiences with his shop which he opened up in 1933. Plus the storys he had about going to Milwaukee to meet with the founders William Harley and Davison Brothers.. Many great times and memories! Then I moved to the Indy area in the early 90s and ended up hangimg out at Randy's Cycle Shop on West Washington St. Sad how all the places are gone now..

 

[BigRed]

Sears actually being a store worth going to.

Still miss the real Craftsman tools.

 

[BigRed]

Polish Cannons.

 

[JMSnodgrass]

Galyans Trading Post in Plainfield.

Ditto. My grandparents bought the very first I/O to come out of Galyans after they bought out Jayhawk and modified one of the outboard molds. Last I knew that boat was still sitting behind my cousin's home in Bloomington, but hadn't ran in probably 30 or 40 years. Loved Galyans, hate Dicks. I won't darken their door.

 

[Steve]

What a great thread!

Still remember 24.9 cent gas prices as I sat on a Bridgestone 125 motorcycle and thinking I could go anywhere because I had not 1, but 2 quarters in my pocket! Of course, I was 10 or 11 years old at the time. But the seed was planted and has flourished over the years. And having to lick sheets of S&H Green Stamps so they could be put in Mom's Green Stamp books so that she could trade them in for a variety of merchandise. Being a paperboy and collecting 60 cents a week from my customers for a week's delivery of the Indpls News comes to mind as well.

 

[VostocK]

Still miss the real Craftsman tools.

I remember when you could walk into any sears with a broken craftsmen tool and they would replace it on the spot, no questions asked. You would be in and out within 5 minutes.

 

[jerrob]

What a great thread!

Still remember 24.9 cent gas prices as I sat on a Bridgestone 125 motorcycle and thinking I could go anywhere because I had not 1, but 2 quarters in my pocket! Of course, I was 10 or 11 years old at the time. But the seed was planted and has flourished over the years. And having to lick sheets of S&H Green Stamps so they could be put in Mom's Green Stamp books so that she could trade them in for a variety of merchandise. Being a paperboy and collecting 60 cents a week from my customers for a week's delivery of the Indpls News comes to mind as well.

After my Grandma had passed, we found boxes of S&H books filled with stamps in her closet.
Thanks for that memory Steve, gonna text my siblings later and have a good laugh about Grandma's "stamp books".

 

[two70]

I vaguely remember(some more vaguely than others) and miss:

Agan's Market-The absolute best potato wedges. I keep trying to find something comparable and keep getting disappointed.

The PawPaw Patch

A little country knickknack store in the middle of nowhere that had the most wonderful collection of interesting and useless junk that a kid could imagine (or at least I could imagine as a kid) which I can no longer remember the name of.

Cuzco Corner's general store- If my Grandfather wasn't working he could generally be found there playing poker in the back room. As a teenager it was a requisite stop after/during a trip to Patoka Lake for something cold to drink, snacks to keep us going, or a re-fill on bait.

 

[DoggyDaddy]

The PawPaw Patch

Way down yonder?

 

[Kernelkrink]

Shopper's Fair had a sub hunt game in the "lobby" where the carts were stored. My Brother had to hold me up to the periscope but I wasted a ton of quarters on that machine! Dad taking me to Blackburn's barber shop to get a trim, he had comic books laying out and an old Pepsi machine that had Fanta red cream soda in it. All we ever had at home was Coke or Pepsi so I looked forward to haircuts! Looked it up years ago, apparently Australia is the only place it's available any more. Almost worth the trip...

Eating at the A&W root beer stand, they really did have frosty mugs. Coldest best tasting root beer ever! Getting tenderloins at Custer's Last Stand drive in. I was too young and Dad was too old but it was the place to cruise back in the day. Our next door neighbor Loretta wearing a teeny weeny itsy bitsy bikini to lay out in her back yard, Mom always made us go inside when she came out... She did have a set of lungs on her!

Dad worked 3rd shift so he was gone or asleep most times I was home. He would pick me up for lunch every few days and we'd go to Arbys. Their roast beef was great with their seasoned salt heavily applied. Occasionally he would come home early in the middle of the night and we would watch Batman (Adam West) reruns on one of the UHF stations, it actually came in somewhat clear at night.

And we had a local S&H greenstamp store where you could trade them in for merchandise, I seem to recall there were yellow ones as well. Probably gave us all tongue cancer licking all those damn stamps to paste them in the books. I remember going in with Dad to buy something but can't remember what. I'm vaguely recalling maybe it was a large tent, something to do with camping anyway.

Mom always clothed the family from the Spiegel catalog, prior to 1968 they also sold guns. For a couple years after they included an FFL application in the big catalog, I guess the idea was all their customers would become FFLs and could still buy guns from them. I really wanted that $80 M1 Carbine! Spiegel had a local store too, pretty much just a delivery point for their catalog sales and you could return the wrong sized stuff there too.

I remember Dad buying his first "real" rifle (not a .22) a Glenfield .30-30 at JC Penny. IIRC, they were getting out of the sporting goods biz and had a nice discount on it. His previous rifle was a .22 Winchester sourced from K-Mart. Sears was downtown in an old building, three floors with an escalator!

Terrorizing my sisters who were deathly afraid of snakes. Found a length of a single tire tread that had peeled off a tire, all I had to do was toss it beside them when they were looking away, then wait for the levitation and screams as they suddenly saw the "snake" right beside them!

Dad always did his own car work, and I handed him tools. We had a weird green colored Malibu station wagon for a few years. After he did the bodywork patching up some rust he repainted. The local NAPA store had an endcap in the paint aisle that contained quarts and gallons of mis-mixed paint, returns, or just failed to pick up. Dad grabbed every green enamel quart on the shelf and mixed them together in a big glass jug. Never seen that shade of green before or since! We had a brown Oldsmobile painted with the same procedure.

 

[DoggyDaddy]

I seem to recall there were yellow ones as well.

Yep! Top Value stamps! Mom would save both them and the S&H Greenstamps.

 

[JCSR]

 

[thompal]

The Tee-Pee restaurant on the south side of Indy.

Cruising the Tee Pee, Steak and Shake, and White Castle one Friday and Saturday nights in the summer in the 70s and the throaty rumble of the cammed cars making the circuit.

 

[DoggyDaddy]

Cruising the Tee Pee, Steak and Shake, and White Castle one Friday and Saturday nights in the summer in the 70s and the throaty rumble of the cammed cars making the circuit.

That White Castle is now a liquor store.