Making out and keeping the boys hands to themselves,lol. Sitting in the stands in the open night air and enjoying life. We had a Dixie , TwinStarlight, Glenwood, Hwy85,Thunderbird Drive's Inn's. I think the Twin Starlight is still there or it was several years ago.
I don't know when the Dixie went out of business but progress surely had something to do with it, AKA McDonalds. lol. The Dixie had great burgers but they weren't .15cents like McDonalds.
Oh yes, Rich's ,Mountgomery, Wards, Macy's. So sad all those stores are goign out of business or already long gone.
The big cast iron stove we had in the kitchen. We would put tangerine or orange peels on it and it made the house smell so good.
Back then, newspapers wanted we kids to get new customers. I managed to sign up enough customers, the paper paid for that fine meal. I think one of my parents got fed as well. I was too young to drive and somebody drove me to downtown Oakland from Hayward, CA.
Oh my parents used those stoves until i was in the 6th grade. Except for the time around 1943 they purchased a small 2 br house in a new tract of homes. I can't recall that stove yet doubt it was wood burning. Great way to make the house smell good. I don't think Mom knew that trick. We left Oakland before WW2 ended.
I never heard of those stores. As poor as we were, can't recall where Mom shopped for a lot of things.
I now live within walking distance of a Walmart. Never heard of them until maybe 1980. We have 2 in my city now.
I was class of 56. I should have bought a new 57 Chevy since they were out, bought a last model 56 Chevy instead. Mom said I was crazy. And she was right.
My first 40 hr week job was pumping gas for Craig Oil here in CA. I worked later for a Mobile Oil for a few months. We had to wash your windshield and add gas to your gas tank. And check your tires air pressures. The job called for us to automatically check your oil and even your battery.
I liked them both, use to drag race in a 55 Chevy. One day a station wagon pulled up to me at a red light racing its motor. I told my friend LOL "I'll leave that thing in the dust". It was a Nomad and all i saw was smoke when the front end almost came off the ground. My friend was almost in the floor laughing her butt off at me. I didn't even get to second gear with that 327 4 in the floor. I bet he had a 396.
I owned 2 56 Chevy's. First was the 4 Dr Bel Air Hardtop. It had the 265 V8 and ran 88 mph in the 1/4 mile. I modified the engine and it ran 98 mph in the 1/4 mile. Back then, that was enough to tromp many kids cars. Next was a 2 Dr 210 Del Ray Coupe and it was that car that I built the approximately 450 hp engine and raced it. Then the Army nabbed me. I never raced once I came home from the Army. This was the car that would have gone 114 in the 1/4 mile and had ET in the low 11 second times. Which was very quick at the time.
Nice pics. We mostly street raced but did face the xmas tree a couple times at drag race events. Of course it was my ex SOS aka son of satan who did the work on the cars. I liked the looks of the 56 Fords too. But mostly we liked Chevy cars and Ford trucks and vans. I've always had a Ford van to this day. I use to have play pens in the back of my van that would roll back and forth as excelateion;s and braking's of course I wasn't racing with babies in the vans. .
I remember milk man delivering chocolate milk. I remember taking public transportation to and from school when I was in grade1 and nobody thought it was irresponsible. I remember 300 baud acoustic modems and selling 256K of 16 bit memory for $5,800. But the thing I remember most warmly was taking my 1 dime a week allowance, going to the corner store and getting a big bag of candies that lasted at least 3days/
We had a '56 when I was a small child, maybe 5 years old. Dad traded it in on a brand spanking new VW bug.
Neisners and McCrorys were what was known as 5 and dime stores, now we have dollar stores. How times have changed. There were also Kresges,W.T. Grant, Ben Franklin and Woolworths, do they sound familiar?.
