older runners will smile at this

We didn't start the fire...

......when the future high school distance stars were found in the Jr. High gym class runs.

Art Vandelay wrote:

Does anyone remember the first indoor tracks? I don't - would be interested to know more about their history

IMO This Question needs it's own thread, I have no idea but they were around at the turn of the last century as attested to by Millrose Games 100 years. I'd suspect a connection to velodromes but I do not know.

When I was growing up on the Northside of Chicago as a kid I remember many sights and sounds that have long since disappeared. Let me share a few with you and maybe you'll recall these sights and sounds.

There was the horse-drawn junk man. Now you must realize this is not his hay-day (pardon the pun) but actually the last couple of years that any one would hear, 'Old Rags and Iron' or as we kids would say 'Old Rags Alion.' He was usually along driving his horse up and down the alleys looking for just about anything thrown away to pickup and put on his big dirty wagon. You could always tell he'd been by because of the road apples left behind.

There was also another horse-drawn wagon. The fruit and vegetable man. Now I don't know what happened to the junk man, but the fruit and veggie man became motorized and soon he was doing his route in a truck with the same old metal scale for weighing things, but much cleaner than that old wagon loaded with baskets of vegetables and apples, oranges in wooden crates. It was quite a surprise to see the change. I mean one week he had a horse-drawn wagon and the next a big truck! Progress!? It was this same man who a couple of years later actually opened his own 'supermarket.' This was only a few blocks away.

We would wait patiently for the veggie man because he would give us the empty orange crates. Believe me this was better than finding an empty quart pop bottle (worth 5 cents deposit at any store. The smaller 8 ounce pop bottles were only worth 2 cents). With this empty orange crate we used our imagination and created numerous playthings. The one that really stands out is the 'Roller Skate Box.' Let me try to describe this work of art.

You take the orange crate made of wood and found an old 2 x 4 piece of lumber and some nails. The 2 x 4 would be nailed to the box at the bottom to form kind of a scooter. Then you would take one old roller skate and if you remember these were operated with a roller skate key to fit your shoe and the skate would come apart into two sections. One section nailed at the front of the 2 x 4 and the other at the rear. Now this is more than just a scooter because you had the big orange crate that could carry numerous things (like old pop bottles). To the top of the crate we would attach 'handles' which would give us some steering ability. If you had it, you could paint your new vehicle, but for the most part (except for 'block parades') we were ready to go and go we did.

People could hear us coming down the sidewalk over a block away. Lucky thing we lived on side streets so we were able to ride on the 'tar' which would be much quieter! But, of course, not quiet enough. I still to this day don't know howafter building and riding all day and coming home to dinner; listening to our favorite radio shows; going to sleep and waking up the next day our 'scooters' would be gone! Lucky thing roller skates came in pairs and orange crates were plentiful!! (I guess as kids 'we just didn't get it!) That was the Christmas I got my first bicycle. While true it was a girl's and had a 'buddy' seat over the wide rear tire, it was still MY BIKE.

That didn't mean I knew how to ride it! Too bad Christmas comes in the Winter. I had to wait almost two months before learning how to ride. Just about everyone where I lived learned the same way, unless you were a sissy. The sissy's had training wheels and were a couple of years younger. WE learned the hard way. You go into the back alley and lean up against a fence or telephone pole and push-off! Chances are you would go a couple of feet on two wheels and then down you go on your knees and rip go the Levi's. If you had to learn to ride in the summer as some of my friends you would end up with bloody knees. After a couple of days you were on your own and riding all over the neighborhood; exploring places we've never seen before. The bicycle, what a great invention; next to my first car definitely the greatest!

Hey, does anyone out there remember?

Comments

YOU FELL OFF THE BIKE!!

YOU DIDN'T HAVE A HELMET OR KNEE PADS?

HOW DID YOU SURVIVE??

I was a sissy with training wheels. Actually, I'm still afraid of bikes. I know too many runners who've met their end on them.

We also had a junk man in our neighborhood who had a horse drawn wagon and I think there was briefly a guy who sold produce out of a horse drawn wagon. I also recall that once in while there was a train that was pulled by a steam engine. It was a rarity, but I did see it.

I guess I was a half sissy, my Dad left one training wheel on till I quit falling. Cool bike too, it was black and silver and I'm pretty sure the name was Roll Fast.

When the training wheel came off I was fine......till I started to learn to ride with no hands.

When I learned to ride a bike without the training wheels, my dad would tell me "don't hit the mailbox". He says that before I figured it out, I hit every mailbox on the street.

Years later, in a high performance driving school, I learned why. When you're driving a car fast (or anything, really), you look where you want to go. The car will follow your eyes.

My dad had so impressed me with the fear of mailboxes that I would look at every one, and then of course, run into it. :-)

Rowan & Martin's Laugh-in: The introduction to the world of Tiny Tim.

My brother and I were literally laughing so hard we rolled off our small-sized TV chairs, in completely paralyzed hysteria...tears of laughter rolling down our cheeks. We could barely breathe.

The look on Dick Martin's face will stay with me to my dying day.

Dan Rowan please call home.

I love these stories of yore about how people learned to ride a bike. Here's mine:

My dad took me out to the alley and held on to the back seat of the bike while jogging beside me to keep me steady. He did this 4 trips down the alley. On the 5th trip towards the end he was jogging beside me and said: "Son, guess what. I haven't been holding on since the Harris's house." I freaked and fell into some bushes. But, from then on I could ride.

Another thing different "back then" was neighbor supervision. As kids we were allowed to run all over the place without our parents following us everywhere. However, if a neighbor or someone else's dad caught us doing something "bad" they would take it on themselves to punish us. Later they might call the parents and say what happened or maybe not. I remember one time when I was 7 I was walking down the street with a friend. I was yelling out the "F" word (not really knowing what it meant--which nowadays everyone even at that age knows). My friends dad heard it and came out, grabbed me, put me over his knee and whacked me twice on the behind hard as could be. Nowadays, parents would probably sue the guy. Back then he was just doing his job as a good neighbor. My parents would have done the same thing.

Candy cigarettes made with wintergreen...I'm still addicted. Any attny's out there looking for a landmark case?

wineturtle wrote:

DO YOU REMEMBER WHEN...?

All the girls had ugly gym uniforms?

It took five minutes for the TV warm up?...

http://www.frontiernet.net/~jimdandy/specials/remember/remember.html

Then along came the Nation Wreckers, the red diaper kids and grandkids. The hypocritical whiners who destroy everything and hate all people. Now we have one big mess in the US and people are too scared to say it out loud. Instead they'll lie and say things are great! If you don't agree, you must be a hater! The brainwashing and/or cowardice is breathtaking.

Well said. I have been trying to put those same sentiments into words. The nation is full of hatred. If you disagree, you must hate. Even in sports (and yo'll see it on this board so often) for one sport to be elevated, another has to be brought down.

How were P.F. Fliers for track workouts ?

Reading each friday how many kids were killed in Viet Nam usually around 200 or so. it just became another headline.

Robert F Kennedy getting shot, the next day the headlines said "KENNEDY CLINGS TO LIFE"

MLK Getting assasinated...Sl-350 Hondas (well maybe that was a year ot two later)

The good times....weren't.

lots of media stuff here

You'll wonder where the yellow went

Schlitz, the beer that made Milwaukee famous

Kruschef hammers his shoe

The thrill of victory … the agony of … that ski jump guy – every week

Color TV for rich people only … then

Only her hairdresser knows for sure.

… a little dab l do ya

polio shots

Davy and his coonskin caps

Spin and Marty

Kapn Kangaroo

hula hoops

3-D movies

Disneyland opens

Jack LaLane

Sputnik (I saw it!!!)

Dragnet

Every Thursday siren and practice for nuclear protection – under the school desk!, to the bomb shelters

Bandstand – American syle

Annette Funicello

Fats finding his thrill …

Roy Campanella tragedy

“Look ma … no cav …

Propeller powered trans-continental travel – and then the jet

Drive ins

… a San Fransisco Treat

the day the music died

Hoss, Little Joe (the javelin thrower) …

We have a “reeeeely beeg show”

Same show - keeping the camera up above waist

THE Blob

Twenty mule team …

Gunsmoke

Awwwww Pancho …. Awwwww Sisco

Russian distance runners … conquered by Gerry

Roy Rogers – Dale … His horse _________ and dog __________

LOOK!! . up in the sky, it’s a bir …….

Bozo

Sea Hunt .. “Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit …”

Hitchhiking

Most of that before I reached 10yrs old but still remember

The six mosty terrifying words from my youth that are never used today:

"Wait 'til your Father get home".

Now on the rotten sitcoms on TV Fathers are chronically portrayed as twits and bumblers. You lose your center, things fall.

Kids can't be allowed to go out to play for fear they may get scrapes and bruises, can't rides bikes without wearing armor plating all over their bodies and now can't be pried away from the PlayStations.

Yank wrote:

Now on the rotten sitcoms on TV Fathers are chronically portrayed as twits and bumblers. You lose your center, things fall.

I still think 'Married With Children' is pretty funny :) And I too am from the 'seahunt' 'cap'n kangaroo', '77 sunset strip' era.

>>>The six mosty terrifying words from my youth that are never used today:

"Wait 'til your Father get home".<<<

My opinion:

I for one have never though any kind of corporal punishment involving hitting, slapping, strapping, caning, even punching & hair pulling like I once saw happen has ever had any positive effect as disciplinary action for wayward kids or teens...Does this not teach that violence is the best answer as a corrective measure to keep kids in line if they step out of line?

I think not even though I was raised & to a much greater degree schooled under that kind of philosophy. Hence I have always had such a problem with authority & given to fits of anger.