These are things that I have actually seen, done, experienced..
Cigarette machines in every restaurant (1940s–1980s)
Doctors making house calls (1940s–1960s)
Drawing from a well & using a long-handled dipper to get the coolest, sweetest drinking water you’ve ever had (pre-1960s rural)
Outhouses (up to the 1960s)
Ringer washing machines & me getting my arm caught in one which luckily wasn’t broken (1940s–1960s)
Teletype machines (1940s–1970s)
Party Lines (1940s–1970s)
Uniformed elevator attendants — complete with shoulder epaulettes — who would press the floor you wanted, many times in older styled “bird cage” cars (1940s–1970s)
Blacklisted celebrities suspected of being a communist i.e. Leonard Bernstein & Charlie Chaplin (late 1940s–1950s)
The Cold War with the USSR when finally we saw the dissolution of the USSR (1947–1991)
Beatniks and coffee houses (1950s–early 1960s)
Marilyn Monroe (1950s–1962)
Walter Cronkite’s signoff “And that’s the way it is!” (1962–1981)
Dick Clark’s Bandstand (1957–1987)
Black & white TVs (1950s–1960s)
Telephone books & the Yellow Pages — “Let your fingers do the walking!” Also 411 Information & telephone operators along with telephone booths on street corners and pay phones in restaurants (1950s–1990s)
Skates with a key (1950s–1960s)
Awful tasting Sanka instant coffee which my grandpa drank everyday (1950s–1970s)
Avon Calling (1950s–1970s)
Ambush, Taboo & White Shoulders (1950s–1970s)
Drive-in movies (1950s–1970s)
Elementary school “Duck & Cover” drills (1950s–1960s)
Lived in constant fear of “The 2nd Red Scare” because of the relationship between the US & Russia (1950s–early 1960s)
JFK assassination (1963)
Castro & the Cuban Missile Crisis (the closest the USA has ever come to nuclear war; It was a terrifying time! (1962)
Martin Luther King, Jr. & Civil Rights: segregation to desegregation which included the time Alabama Governor, George Wallace, showing up to the University of Alabama to prevent a black student from entering (1955–1968)
Walk-outs, sit-ins, love-ins (1960s)
LSD & psychedelic music (mid-1960s)
Flower Power (1965–1969)
Hippie movement exploded with the Haight-Ashbury Summer of Love (1967)
Bell bottoms, mini & maxi skirts, suede fringed moccasins, headbands, go-go boots, cowl neck sweaters, dickies, hot pants, clogs, stilettos, knee high, leg fitting vinyl boots, tie-dye (late 1960s–1970s)
Twiggy (mid-1960s)
One Way / Jesus Movement (late 1960s–1970s)
The birth of hard rock music (late 1960s)
The Beatles “invasion” (1964–1966)
The military draft (1964–1973)
Hullabaloo (1965-1966l
Seat belt mandates (1968)
1st Movie Ratings (1968)
1st man to walk on the Moon (1969)
The Brady Bunch (1969–1974)
Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin passed away within weeks of each other from an overdose of sleeping pills and heroin respectively (1970)
Roe vs Wade (1973)
1st gay rights parade (1970)
Nixon’s reduction of the speed limit from 65 to 55 to help with the energy crisis (1974)
Watergate (1972–1974)
DDT banned (1972)
Disco (mid-1970s)
Mood rings & pet rocks (mid-1970s)
CB radios. My handle was Dixie Trixie; Trixie was my mother’s nickname (mid-1970s)
Casey Kasem (1970s)
Incense cones & sticks largely associated with hippies (1970s)
Beaded interior “doors” (1970s)
Lava Lamps (late 1960s–1970s)
Crushed velvet bedspreads (1970s)
A lengthy gasoline shortage causing prices in ATL reached a terrifying 53¢ a gallon (1973)
The ORIGINAL Saturday Night Live with “The Not Ready For Prime Time Players” made up of Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, Chevy Chase, Jane Curtin, Garrett Morris, Laraine Newman, & Gilda Radner (1975)
Legionnaires disease (1976)
Atlanta Child Murders (1979–1981)
The Iranian Hostage Crisis when 55 Americans were held for 444 days (1979–1981)
Walkmans (1980s)
Pagers (1980s–1990s)
