irememberjfk_l6fq3c – Page 35 – I Remember JFK: A Baby Boomer's Pleasant Reminiscing Spot

Staying Cool Before Air Conditioning

Air conditioning has become a ubiquitous part of our lives. We work in it, drive in it, and live in it in our homes. Even the cheapest built tract homes have central heat and air installed. And most older homes have had air conditioning added, whether central or with multiple window units.

But go back to our childhoods, and odds are there were a lot of windows open and fans running in the summertime.

We thought nothing of speeding down the highway with all four windows down in July. Sure, mom’s hair would get messed up. But she would much rather deal with that than burn up in the heat.

And school in September! There we were, miserable after that much-too-short summer vacation, and to top off the agony of being back in class, it was at least 90 degrees in the room!

Evaporative “swamp” cooler, another heat buster

Most tract homes built before the mid 1960’s simply didn’t include the expensive option of air conditioning. Our home, built in the late 40’s, had a floor furnace for heat. That was it. Summers involved having every window in the house open, and fans running everywhere. At night, a fan would be placed in a window to draw the cooler night air in.

And you know what? We didn’t sit around complaining about how hot we were. We got used to it! It was life.

In 1967, dad sprung for an evaporative cooler like the one pictured. The concept is simple: water runs down big panels on each side of the unit. A large fan inside draws air through the water, evaporating it and getting cooled in the process. The cooler air is circulated through the house. You opened a window at the other end of the house to let the air escape.

They work very well in dry air, not so well where it’s humid. Northeast Oklahoma is a humid place, but the swamp cooler did cool the air down enough that it was a good buy when air conditioning was still prohibitively expensive.

Movie matinees were another welcome summertime diversion. The tickets were discounted, and you got to sit in cool heaven while the movie played. Of course, that made the heat at home seem temporarily unbearable. But, you soon got used to it again.

I get a kick out of folks with narrow ranges of comfort. Every office has them: freezing at 70 degrees, burning up at 73. Ironically, many of these permanently dissatisfied individuals did just fine as kids when the living room temperature was in the upper 80’s.

Spirograph

A collection of plastic gears and colored pens caught the attention of a generation of youngsters in the 60’s and 70’s. If you were patient, you could create some amazing drawings that would look great festooning your bedroom walls. But it did require patience, something that not all of us came by naturally.

A British electronic engineer named Denys Fisher invented Spirograph in 1962. In the tradition of Super Glue, Velcro, and Teflon, it was created for a strictly-business use which ended up making its mark as a lighter-weight product.

Fisher’s family noticed that one of his geared creations aimed at manufacturing industrial products made some cool patterns in you traced their motions. They convinced him that he had one cool toy on his hands, and he listened.

Eventually, Kenner Toys grabbed the design and started marketing it in 1966. It sold untold millions, including two sets bought by my wife and myself when we were tots.

The tool required patience, indeed. My problem, being a hyperactive child (i.e. a future Type A), was that I would go too fast and screw the drawing up. Eventually, I learned to patiently and slowly trace the mathematically set routes and create some cool images.

The best toys would teach a lesson. This one did just that.

You also learned that math didn’t suck. I always hated math, it was by far my worst subject. Yet, the gorgeous patterns you created were based on good old math. The fact fact that you could vary the size of your drawings by using different holes on the geared wheel was an almost transcendental bit of knowledge. You walked away realizing that math could be applied in ways that were pretty cool.

Spirographs are still available in vastly inferior forms to its glory days when it was a very hot item. The cheap Chinese-made versions are an insult to its legacy.

In fact, the numerous Java-based Spirograph applets all over the web are a more honorable tribute to this classic plastic toy. They make full use of the mathematical principals which Mr. Fisher uncovered so many years ago.

Space Invaders Invade

Ever heard of Tomohiro Nishikado? He was probably a significant influence on your life, especially if you are a younger Baby Boomer.

In 1978, when I was eighteen years old, Nishikado created Space Invaders for the Taito Corporation. The game was released in Japan, and proved to be such a hit that it made it over to the US in short order. The lives of teens and younger would never be the same.

Pong was the first video game to see wide release in this country, back in 1974. It was a hit, but graphics technology was improving rapidly. It was time to take electronic gaming up a couple of notches.

Atari’s Tank, released that same year, was the first to show objects that looked “sort of” like what they represented. The next year, Taito released Gunfight, which pitted two cowboys that looked a little more like cowboys than Atari’s tanks looked like, well, you know.

Games kept trickling out, including Atari’s Breakout, released in 1976, designed by a couple of dudes you might have heard of: Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. But video games, while popular, were still found mainly in bars, arcades, and bowling alleys.

That changed in 1978. Space Invaders caught the public’s imagination like no video game had yet succeeded in doing. In Japan, the game caused a shortage of yen coins, to which the government responded by quadrupling their production. In the US, its estimated first year revenues were in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

So what was it that made this game so stinking much more popular than its predecessors? Probably a combination of these factors:

Great graphics. The invaders were the most detailed images yet, and were in “color” (actually colored by a green overlay, red at the top for the spaceships).
Potential unlimited play for a quarter. You kept playing until your three lives were expended. An ace could play for fifteen or twenty minutes for 25 cents. Novices, myself included, made a much higher contribution to the hundreds of millions of dollars the game raked in.
Killer sound. Who can forget that bass heartbeat that quickened as the invaders drew ever closer?
The high score history. If you were the baddest Space Invaders player in town, you had proof, immortalized on the screen!
Hackability. The geekier gamesters noticed that you could get higher sores for blasting the spaceship by carefully counting your shots.

Space Invaders brought video games to restaurants, convenience stores, waiting rooms, and just about anywhere else that a person might have five minutes to kill.

Atari licensed Space Invaders for their home systems in 1980. The Atari 2600 began being sold with a Space Invaders cartridge included. The idea that you could play your favorite arcade game on television for free doubled the gaming consoles’ sales that year.

Many games came afterward, but most of them followed the trail blazed by Space Invaders, i.e. the features listed above that it pioneered.

So here’s to a creation by a Japanese engineer that brought the video game industry to its glory achieved during the 1980’s, and which, in good part, continues today.

Slinking Panther Lamps on the TV

Perhaps the single biggest change in the lives of Boomers and their parents was the widespread introduction of the one-eyed monster, and its subsequent presence in the majority of homes in the US.

Along with the television came the necessary accompaniments to the electronic device itself. For instance, many a 50’s or 60’s home had a lamp perched on top of the idiot box designed to provide a pleasant ambient light to accompany one’s viewing.

And in a large number of cases, the lamp took the form of a slinking cat.

Sometimes, the cat would simply be an ornament, with no capability of providing illumination.

But that doesn’t change the fact that, for many Boomer kids, viewing the television included occasionally acknowledging the presence on top of the set of a feline protector of the dear investment that dad had made.

The cats frequently took the form of the depicted image. This particular one had a cavity on its back side that would hold a night light bulb. When switched on, it would provide a nice indirect illumination bouncing off of the living room wall, perfect for cutting down on the unpleasant glare that the set would create in a totally dark room.

Of course, that’s not to say that EVERY TV lamp was shaped like a panther. But when one looks back, it seems like a majority took that form. The panther was popular with everyone, from grandma to Aunt Sophie to dear old mom.

I recall seeing a TV lamp or two from my childhood that took the form of a covered wagon, its canvas providing a perfect shade to soften the night light bulb’s brightness.

Some would take exception as to what constitutes a TV lamp. This particular blogger states that a TV lamp must provide back lighting in order to qualify. In other words, if a shade is required, than the lamp is not truly a TV lamp.

I must respectfully disagree. If it sat on top of a TV and provided subtle light during the Jet Age or the Space Age, it’s a TV lamp.

Interestingly, although my own childhood home was classical 60’s atmosphere, we never had a TV lamp. But I saw them at friends’ houses, along with various figurines that would perch upon the wooden cabinet that housed the electronic works.

And yes, many a figurine was a slinking panther.

The panther pictured at the beginning of this article was a gift from my daughter. It’s hand-carved onyx from Mexico. However, many of the intimidating predators were either made of cast glass or painted ceramic.

Like so many of the common household objects we grew up with, vintage TV lamps are hot collectibles. At presstime, I spotted a black panther indirect lamp from the 50’s on eBay with a buy-it-now price of $39.99. That particular lamp probably cost less than five bucks new, forty bucks is certainly a reasonable price for such a piece of history.

The problem is that many of us have sprung for thin-paneled high-def TV’s, which have finally become affordable enough to supplant the bulky tubed models that we have had from time immemorial.

As nimble as panthers are, it’s nigh impossible for one to sit on top of a 48″ LCD screen.

Thanks to TVLamps.net for help in researching this piece!

Silly Putty

WWII brought about shortages of many basic commodities. One of these was rubber. Rubber was needed for military purposes, and there wasn’t enough of it.

A Scottish engineer named James Wright was looking for a man-made rubber substiitute. He was trying all sorts of mixtures of chemical compounds at the General Electric laboratory in New Haven, Connecticut.

Wright combined boric acid and silicone oil in one experiment. To his delight, it polymerized into a rubbery substance! He excitedly shared his creation with his employers and they began sending samples to other engineers all over the world, looking for a proposed use of the hard-won artificial rubber.

The results were silence. Not one practical idea for the bouncing putty emerged from the educated minds.

Nobody could think of what you could use the rubbery blobs for, but all enjoyed playing with them very much.

Peter Hodgson, an unemployed advertising man, was the man behind the marketing of Silly Putty. Hodgson had marketed the bouncing putty for a New Haven toy store. It sold well. But the store’s owner decided not to market it any more for some strange reason. So he borrowed some cash and purchased a large quantity of the goo from GE for $150. He also purchased a bunch of little plastic eggs and put a dollop of the putty in each one. He sold them for a buck a pop.

At the New York International Toy Fair in 1950, he introduced Silly Putty to the world. It was well received, and sales were steady, but not spectacular.

Then, in August, Silly Putty received a boost similar to the one Yours Truly was fortunate to get earlier this year with the mention on CBS’s The Early Show. In Hodgson’s case, it was an ad in The New Yorker extolling the bouncy putty. Within three days, he had received a quarter of a million orders!

Then, the Korean conflict almost killed his thriving business. Government restrictions on silicone usage in 1951 forced him to carefully parcel out 1500 lbs. of Silly Putty. The next year, restrictions were lifted, and production ramped back up.

Silly Putty appeared in television commercials beginning in the 60’s, and that caused sales to climb ever higher.

Interestingly, Silly Putty saw the demographic of its customers reverse early in the game. When it was introduced, it was a novelty that appealed to grownups, accounting for 80% if its sales. But within five years, the buyers were 80% children! The ratio has stayed there ever since.

Silly Putty could bounce. It could stretch. It could flow slowly like a thick liquid. And, of course, it could pick up ink, as in images from comic books and newspapers.

It was (and still is) small, cheap, and perfect for lots of imaginative uses. It’s also completely useless for any practical purpose other than entertainment. But it’s absolutely perfect for that.

And today, an old goat who just turned 48 keeps a container of Silly Putty in his desk drawer to play with during conference calls and the like.

It’s as much fun now as it was about 1967.

Robots on TV

CRUSH! KILL! DESTROY!

With those words, The Robot on Lost In Space would begin the terrifying act of waving his (I guess The Robot was a he) arms. When those arms waved, you’d better clear the area. That meant rays were about to be shot and explosions were about to be set off as the mechanized bodyguard of the Robinsons was about to get good and mad.

We grew up with all sorts of robots gracing our black-and-white TV’s. My personal favorite was the Lost in Space model (and no, his name wasn’t Robby. Robby will rate his own future column). Of course, 1960’s TV foxes June Lockhart and Angela Cartwright didn’t exactly keep me away from the show, either.

My best buddy had a miniature LIS robot, and it was pretty cool. Additionally, on the schoolyard at recess one of our favorite pastimes was walking around in robotic fashion, waving our arms and hollering, well, you know what we were hollering. 😉

Robots were pretty easy to make. All it took was a suit made of metallic parts, perhaps even wooden boxes spray-painted to look metallic, big enough for a man to fit in. Add some battery-powered flashing lights and a robotic-sounding voice, and you had yourself a star for a kiddie show.

Thus, many of us Boomers have memories of Saturday afternoon shows featuring local TV station personnel, including, possibly, the sportscaster in a robot suit.

The photo is from the Big Bill and Oom-A-Gog show, broadcast on Tulsa’s KVOO in the 60’s. Thanks again to my buddy Mike Ransom over at Tulsa TV Memories for the image.

Channel 2 came in a little fuzzy at my house, but I still remember the name Oom-A-Gog, so I must have caught an episode or two. That robot certainly looks familiar. As Mike’s article points out, he was seen at many televised Tulsa events of the decade.

Not sure if it was Oomy, maybe a reader can help, but I recall a local TV robot singing “Bingle Jells” around Christmastime one year.

Weird, wonderful stuff.

There were robots in the cartoons, too. Perhaps the greatest of them all was Rosie, from The Jetsons.

My all-time favorite SF book is Robert Heinlein’s The Door Into Summer. This amazing little novel details the story of an inventor who builds (and loses) a fortune based on two models of robots that assist in household duties. Indeed, the idea of a robot like Rosie, who keeps things neat and in order at her (no doubt about what gender this robot is) futuristic home seems like a very practical place for humans to some day utilize robotic technology.

Rosie had lots of attitude, like all great fictional robots. She even had a love life, of sorts, as I recall that she had the hots for another (presumably male) robot.

Nowadays, robots are commonplace in industrial applications. And shades of Heinlein’s Chore Girl, there are robotic vacuum cleaners that run all over the house on their own looking for dirt. There is even a self-willed lawnmower.

But hey, it’s the 21st century already. Where’s the bodyguard I was promised? Where is the automaton playmate that our grandkids were supposed to have? Indeed, where’s our metallic maid?

I guess we’ll have to settle for the one prediction that did come true: a computer in every home.

Push-Button Telephones

There are a lot of young folks out there who have never seen a rotary-dial phone. In fact, some have never heard a dial tone! That is a pretty amazing fact for those of us who can remember when touchtone phones, or push-button phones as we knew them, were a rare sight.

Rotary phones were the standard, and some of our homes had phones that dated back to the forties or fifties. After all, the phone belonged to the phone company, not us. We had them replaced if they broke. And they were amazingly reliable pieces of technology that simply didn’t break.

But seeing how the times were a-changing, the telephone technology itself was modernizing. In fact, entire generations can see quantum leaps of how we communicate by voice over wires. Our grandparents didn’t have phones. Our parents had to crank a handle to reach an operator, who would then connect them to the party they sought. We were spoiled, indeed, to merely dial a number.

Today, of course, our kids know about cell phones and VOIP. But touchtone phones were a big deal to us. It was so cool to hear tones play! Songbooks were even released, so we could make music while making calls that, if they connected, reached perfect strangers.

The first AT&T touchtone phones were introduced with ten numeric keys only in 1963. It took five years for the pound and star keys to show up.

Adoption was steady, but it took a long time for them to appear in some areas. My small town first offered them in the mid 70’s.

Nowadays, it’s probably been a while since you’ve called a business and heard a recorded voice say something like “if you have a touchtone phone, you may dial your extension now.” And rotary phones won’t even work on many phone companies’ lines any more.But once upon a time, the touchtone phone was new, cool, and hard to find.

Punch Card Bills

We enjoy a love-hate relationship with our computers. When they work well, they’re our pets. But when the act up (generally because most of us are stuck running Windows), we fantasize about throwing them in the nearest body of salt water.

But by and large, we were exposed to computers in some form or another at an early age. And we accepted their usefulness, and ran out and got our own as soon as they got cheap enough. Now our Depression-surviving parents were another matter. For the most part, they had a deep-seated distrust of thinking machines that came along well after they had learned how to get along, and especially pay bills, without them.

In fact, if there was any sort of technological glitch, they were quick to blame those blasted computers.

So when many of their bills started showing up in the mail during the 60’s as punch card bills, they were quick to scorn the newfangled things.

It was a no-brainer for utility companies to send out bills on cards that could be inserted into a reader for quick data entry, as opposed to paying someone to hand-type the payee’s information in (and increase the risk of errors). But that didn’t mean our parents had to like it.

They were used to seeing newspaper stories about folks getting billed a million dollars and some change for a month’s water usage. And of course, the accounts always blamed the problem on a computer error.

The truth be known, the mainframe computers in use were some of the most reliable machines man has ever built. The error was invariably the fault of a programmer or someone’s mistyped data entry.

Punch cards used to be one of our most common sights. Dumpsters outside office buildings would contain hundreds of thousands of them, long before recycling caught on.

Nowadays, you can buy them on eBay as collector’s items. But we Boomers can remember mom or dad opening those bills and griping about how computers were taking over the world.

Portable Eight-Track Players

We had some great radio in the late 60’s-early 70’s. If you lived near the middle of the US, you got WLS at night, the greatest rock and roll station in history, IMHO. But daytime was another matter.

The FCC directed WLS to throttle its power way back in the daytime. In my small town, FM was in the future. AM was country music. An honorable genre loved by its fans, it was hated by me.

That left one alternative: the portable eight-track player.

In this day and age of hundreds of hours of music that fits in a player small enough to clip to your belt, eight-track tapes seem prehistoric. But they were cool to own circa 1971. Sure, they faded in and out between switching tracks (creating some unique memories of songs that now don’t quite sound right without it!) and were prone to breaking after many playings, but we still loved them.

Hundreds of thousands of portable players were sold so we could take our music with us wherever we went. Like the tapes themselves, they were of great mass. Big enough to run on four or more D-cell batteries, call them alpha-version iPods.

The coolest ever designed was the pictured Panasonic Plunger. Switching tracks was like blowing something up! Does that rock, or what?

Of course, portability meant not only toting a player. You also had a suitcase full of tapes to listen to. That meant somebody else had to carry the cooler and towels to the beach.

Eight-track tapes still have their fans, and some bands are even releasing new music in the venerable format! For everything you ever wanted to know about the plastic containers of music, visit http://www.8trackheaven.com/.

Popperknockers

Popperknockers. We loved ’em, we just didn’t know what to call them. They were officially known as “Klackers,” but most of us who carried the noisy, infernal, dangerous things around made up our own names, some a bit on the racy side. I preferred popperknockers.

According to Wikipedia, other names included Klick-Klacks, Whackers, Ker-Knockers, Whack’os, Bangers, Poppers, Knockers, Bonkers, Clackers, Clack Clacks, Crackers, K-Nokkers, Knockers, Mini Poppers, Popper Knockers, Rockers, Super Clackers, Quick Klacks, Quick Clacks, Quick Wacks, Wackers, Whak Kos, and Zonkers. Yeesh!

Their premise was the height of simplicity. Two acrylic spheres on a piece of string with a plastic handle located in the middle. They hung straight down, and upward and downward motions of your hand made them pop into each other, making one of the most familiar sound heard in the 60’s and 70’s.

They came with an instruction sheet, but there wasn’t a whole lot of technique involved. Sure, you could do the razzle-dazzle stuff like reach back between your legs and do 180 pops, aka the surfer, of move 180 pops around in a big vertical circle, aka orbiting around the world, but for the most part, we pacifists used them as therapy. The steady pop-pop-pop assured us that all was well, and we walked around the streets and hallways (until they were ultimately banned from school) producing the soothing cadence.

Of course, not all popperknocker owners were so peaceful. Bullies relished the toys as weapons. Many a fat or skinny kid suffered black eyes or bruises at the wrong end of the plastic orbs.

Thus, they were eventually removed from all of our hands. In today’s society where every item we buy comes with a warning label designed to keep drooling morons from injuring themselves with, say, a roll of toilet paper, the idea of heavy hard balls suspended on a string seems ridiculous, particularly in the hands of children.

Too bad. We stressed-out, overworked Boomers could sure use a reassuring pop-pop-pop to tell us that all is still well.