Gadgets – Page 12 – I Remember JFK: A Baby Boomer's Pleasant Reminiscing Spot

Chemistry Sets

Man, the things our parents let us play with in the 60’s and 70’s. I haven’t looked at modern-day chemistry sets, but in a land where you can’t get authentic Kinder Eggs because of the fear that you may be stupid enough to give the hidden toys inside to a child of less than three years of age, I can’t imagine either of the two chemistry sets I once owned being offered for sale today.

More’s the pity, because a chemistry set, circa 1970, made you more mature. Read on for more details.

My first set was a Skilcraft my parents bought me in 1970. I was ten years old. The manual that came with it was divided into two sections: lightweight magic you could perform with chemicals, and more serious experiments that would teach you about chemistry.

Kay chemistry set, possibly 50’s vintage

The magic tricks consisted of stuff like preparing two test tubes of clear liquids (one contained phenolphthalein solution, I can’t recall the other needed chemical) which you could mix together to magically form “grape juice.”

You can see where this is heading. Today’s poor, stupid, coddled youngsters, upon being told that they could make chemical “grape juice,” would obviously gorge themselves on it, necessitating an emergency room visit, as well as lots of legal action.

At least that’s what our modern society would have you believe.

The more serious section of the Skilcraft manual taught you how acids and bases would interact, how you could use red and blue litmus paper to detect them, how you could mix two liquid chemicals to immediately form a solid precipitate, and how it happened at the molecular level, stuff like that.

As much as I ate that stuff up, I’m surprised that I never pursued a career in the field. In fact, I never even took chemistry in high school, despite the urgings of the teacher to do so. Don’t ask me why.

But I seriously loved messing with my chemistry set when I was ten. Eventually, it fell into disrepair and vanished. But when I was TWELVE, I got the most equipped Skilcraft set that they made!

I was in heaven. This incredible set even came with a balance beam, so you could compare the weights of chemicals! Cool stuff indeed.

Just think for a moment about what kids were given: Chemistry sets came with an alcohol lamp, which you filled with the flammable liquid, lit with a match, and used to provide intense heat for experimentation purposes. They also came with glass test tubes, which could shatter upon impact, or even from heating them too fast. They came with lots of chemicals, most of which were relatively harmless, but a few of which (e.g. cobalt chloride) had long, finely worded warnings printed on the back of the bottle warning of dire consequences in the unfortunate event you poured them into your eyes, or ingested them. And carelessly mixing benign ingredients without guidance could create harmful reactions, as well.

Ergo, a ten-year-old with a chemistry set instantly became a mature young man who knew how to safely handle fire (the enclosed manual stepped you through it), potentially dangerous chemicals, breakable glassware, and also knew enough not to venture too far in experimentation.

It’s a pity today’s ten-year-olds aren’t given the opportunity to do the same

Cardboard Records

As a borderline audiophile who used to spray his records with a preservative that would supposedly extend their lives, I am a real fan of digital music. I love the fact that my extensive mp3 collection is backed up four ways, unlike my old record albums, which either wore out or were warped by leaving them in my car on a hot day. Just dropping an album might result in a permanent skipping spot, as happened with my original Rickie Lee Jones debut album. Right at the end of Company, too, my favorite song!

But there is one area where analog record album technology has it all over digital. That’s in the case of cardboard records. Yeah, let’s see you digitize THAT!

You probably remember these on the backs of cereal boxes. That’s where the depicted Archies album came from. Larry Staples, who, BTW, designed this site’s logo, and who came up with this column idea, once owned the very record depicted here. He nearly wore it out, as a matter of fact.

And wearing them out was a real possibility, too. They were nothing but a thin coating of vinyl affixed to cardboard. It was up to the music fan to cut it out perfectly, smooth out the warps, and liberate the music from its crude container.

While cereal boxes were the commonest place to find these puppies, I remember MAD Magazine would sometimes include one. The one in particular I recall was some song called “Makin’ Out”.

Another phenomenon was the flexi-disc, which was a thin piece of vinyl frequently featured in magazines. I won’t talk about it here, as I feel it warrants its own column at some future date.

The Archies became superstars via cardboard records, even though they never accomplished existence in the real world. They were simply a collection of studio musicians whose makeup varied from session to session. Hmm, maybe they need their own column too.

Anyhow, if you managed to hold on to any cardboard records from the 60’s or 70’s, they are highly collectable. Just like those Reggie Jackson rookie cards I attached to my bicycle to be beaten to death by the spokes. (sigh)

Black Light Posters

The perfect accompaniment to the Seven-Up flicker light circa 1972 was a room full of black light posters, along with WLS on the radio. Now, according to That 70’s Show, marijuana smoke would also be a part of the ambiance. But I grew up in small-town America, and while pot smoking was certainly something we had heard of, the fact is that junior high students in northwest Arkansas simply didn’t commonly engage in the act.

But we did love turning the bright lights off in our rooms at night and laying back and enjoying some good music, with the black light making our posters glow beautifully, and perhaps a candle or incense completing the perfect sensory experience of relaxation.

Black lights first appeared in the 60’s. According to BrainyHistory.com, the first black light was sold on May 27, 1961. Hmm, I guess it would be as hard to argue with that factoid as to prove it. But by the mid 60’s, concert posters frequently featured fluorescent colors that looked great in regular light, but shined like beacons under the influence of ultraviolet light.

UV light can be weakly produced by an incandescent bulb. That was the first experience many of us had with black lights. It simply required a purchase of a special bulb for about three bucks, and unscrewing the old 100-watt job in the desk lamp, and replacing it with the tiny 40-watt generator of purple photons.

But that little bulb made a world of difference in how Led Zeppelin or the Rolling Stones looked on those posters. However, the ULTIMATE black light experience required the purchase of a fluorescent fixture.

My older brother worked at an electrical supply outlet after he was discharged from the Navy, and he was kind enough to provide me with a 4′ light fixture, complete with black light bulb, that absolutely horrified my parents. But they tolerated my little journey to the wild side, and my room was turned into a perfect mellowing-out spot to lay awake at night and listen to great tunes on the radio and think about a certain brown-eyed young lady who shall remain nameless.

Today, black lights continue to entrance teenagers in love, but they just don’t have the sex appeal that they did in our youth when they were wild, new, and perhaps slightly shameful.

Dime Store Gliders

When we were kids, our options at the local neighborhood grocery or the dime store were manifold. Most of the time, we walked out with candy. But sometimes, we would invest our hard-earned (or begged) coins on magical little flying machines made of balsa wood.

They came in little clear plastic packages with cardboard at the top. The hole in the cardboard allowed them to be hung on a rack, frequently at the top of the candy display, as I recall. The plain ones cost a dime, the fancier rubber-band driven models were 29 cents, as best I can remember.

Since I usually was given two nickels a day, buying a glider meant making a tough decision. I had to forego my morning candy fix and come back later in the afternoon in order to have ten cents to purchase my flying machine.

But as much as I loved the elegant little airplanes, I made the tough call many times, and walked home proudly carrying my plastic-wrapped wooden prize.

My craft of choice was usually the simple ten cent glider, for obvious reasons of affordability. However, sometimes I would manage to cajole mom into springing for a rubber-band powered model at the dime store.

The propeller-driven plane was seriously cool indeed. The fuselage was a simple square stick that held a hook on the rear and a slide-on red plastic propeller holder on the front. It had its own hook, and the special long thin rubber band stretched the entire length of the stick.

The plane also had wheels. I guess a more skilled pilot could make it take off or land that way, but not me.

Powering the plane involved patiently turning the propeller backwards. The rubber band would become evenly twisted, then would take on a new shape as the twists would be transformed into large knots. When the entire rubber band was a series of large knots, it was time for the flight to begin.

Letting the plane go on its own on concrete would generally result in it running rapidly along the ground and eventually smashing into something. So I would launch the plane by throwing it skyward, just like it was an unpowered glider.

Eventually, the rubber band would break. That was not the end of the fun, though!

You could open the window on the car and hold the rubber-band-less plane into a thirty MPH breeze and the propeller would spin rapidly, as your imagination filled in the rest of the WWII battle scene taking place outside the Plymouth’s window. At some point, the wings might rip off in the stiff breeze. By then, however, I had gleaned many hours out of a 29 cent investment (that would be thirty cents including tax).

The simple glider featured instructions that allowed you to move the wings forward and back in the slot cut into the fuselage. This would cause the plane to do loops or streak straightly. You could also bend the horizontal stabilizer in order to cause it to turn to the right or to the left.

Eventually, the piece of metal at the front would dislodge, and we would learn how important it was for an airplane to be properly weighted in order to function. I remember it was a real eye-opening experience for me to learn that a plane could actually be too light to fly!

Another lesson that the cheap gliders taught us was that wonderful things came in small, inexpensive packages.

You can still find balsa wood gliders at the toy sections of many stores. The dime stores and the corner groceries are long gone, though. So is the ten-cent price. But you know what? It’s nice living in a rapidly-moving modern world with the added luxury of having memory banks full of wonderful moments from our childhoods.

Baking Powder Submarines

In the tradition of coonskin caps, today’s memory is one that was before my time. However, due to popular demand, I present it anyhow.

They were called baking powder submarines, as well as baking soda submarines. However, loading baking soda into one of them would cause it to sink straight to the bottom and await rescue. No, it was baking POWDER that the minuscule watercraft required for propulsion.

Baking powder, you see, is a combination of sodium bicarbonate (a base, chemistry fans) and cream of tartar (an acid). You kids who had a Gilbert chemistry set (which will be my next article) know what happens when you mix an acid and a base. Fizz!

The fizz causes the submarine to rise. As the bubbles beak at the surface, the heavier-than-water sub sinks back down, only to have more bubbles form on the bottom, causing the cool process to repeat.

Freshly arrived from Kellog’s, baking powder subs and a diver!

The first baking powder submarines were introduced in 1954. The nation was buzzing about the first nuclear powered submarine, the timing was immaculate. They cost a quarter, and required a cereal boxtop to be mailed in. Within a couple of weeks, the miniaturized vessel would arrive in the mail, to the relief of the child who had been checking the mail box for thirteen days.

In short order, a sink would be filled with water, mom’s baking powder would be “borrowed,” and the submarine would begin one of hundreds of voyages.

Inevitably, the baking powder would run out and baking SODA would be tried. Within minutes, mom would be notified of the need for more Clabber Girl.

The subs were a huge sensation. The sub’s manufacturer, Hirsch labs, went from a cosmetics maker to a toy maker. They created a smaller version intended to be a giveaway, cut a deal with Kellog’s, and started cranking them out by the millions. Other Hirsch creations would include diving frogmen, magic moon gardens, and more neat toys.

Kellog’s sold several tons of cereal thank to those little submarines. Eventually, models were sold that ran on tablets, actually compressed baking powder. The invention of the diving sub by Hirsch resulted in nice profits for themselves, Kellog’s, and Clabber Girl. It also resulted in cherished memories for the founding members of the Baby Boomer generation.

For a much more detailed account of baking powder submarines, check out this excellent site.

The 1960’s Arcade

A kid with a dime had many diversions to choose from when LBJ was President.

You could trek down to the corner grocery and buy yourself a couple of candy bars. You could feed a plastic capsule machine and maybe get yourself a prize worth twice that much. Or, you could slide that dime into the slot of a loud, mechanical, wonderful arcade game.

Arcades have been around since the 19th century. But it was the prosperous Boomer generation, with pockets full of change that were unprecedented in history, that caused arcades to explode in popularity.

I don’t recall any self-sufficient arcades in 1960’s Miami, Oklahoma, but they could be found in larger nearby towns like Joplin and Tulsa. We did have arcade games in the local bowling alley, as well as certain restaurants and businesses that might attract teenaged crowds.

The games were a magnet to anyone between the ages of six and sixteen. If you were old enough to see over the top (perhaps with the aid of standing on a metal chair), then you could feel the draw of the machine.

We are talking about real machines here, with moving parts. Electrical solenoids would operate with a subtle “ka-chunk!” as points were tallied, runs were scored, or moving targets were shot.

You could actually feel the gears and such operating through your interaction with the periscope handles, the lever that operated the baseball bat, or the button that shot the basketball.

Sea Devil was one of the first that used any sort of electronic graphics. You would launch your torpedo, leading the ship just enough, and would hear a “whoosh” as it sped towards its goal. A hit would be accompanied by a deep “boom!” and flashing lights viewed through the periscope.

Then there were the driving games. No, I’m not talking about moving video displays of indy cars screeching by, I’m talking about cars mounted on a wire, which was actually moved back and forth by the motion of the steering wheel! One model in particular that I played at the swimming pool clubhouse at Bella Vista, Arkansas in the early 70’s had a landscape on an endless belt that featured a road with twists, turns, and hazards. If you hit something, the game would make horrifying crash noises. Maneuvering through the rolling display with your wire-mounted car would result in a score to be boasted about to your cronies.

I was impressed with a 1950’s vintage driving game called Motorama. I found it at a terrific website called Skooldays. Boomers, not all of the nostalgia there is from our generation, but much of it is. Go have a look.

My personal favorite arcade game was baseball. While individual designs varied, they were all pretty much the same. The pitched ball would pop up out of the floor of the game, and you would operate a lever to swing the bat. Various doors in the outfield were marked with single, double, out, etc. There was a ramp in the middle which, if the ball hit it with enough speed, would be launched into the stands for a home run! The momentous event would be accompanied by cheering noises and flashing lights, as well as a feeling of well-being that only a carefree kid growing up in a great era could experience.

Our grandkids are used to games with realistic HD graphics, surround sound, and everything else that state-of-the-art electronics can offer.

But our games had one big advantage. You could play them for a dime.

Aluminum Christmas Trees

Lady enjoying her aluminum Christmas tree

It was great growing up in the Jet Age, which melded seamlessly into the Space Age.

We took the Art Deco dream and turned it into real life. The ultra-modern, automated society that was envisioned by the generation that endured the Great Depression was becoming real for us, the Baby Boomers.

What better way to turn the old into new than to remove that messy firetrap known as the Christmas tree and replace it with a beautiful, shimmering aluminum model, complete with bright blue globes and a light wheel that would magically transform it into a rainbow of colors in a darkened room?

Thus did many of us grow up with memories of, not coniferous smells, strings of lights, or mom sweeping up dead needles on a daily basis, but instead, past visions of conical-shaped metallic tannenbaume that lived in boxes in the attics eleven months per year.

The aluminum Christmas tree can trace its “roots” (groan) to 1958. It all began in Chicago, when an anonymous enterprising Ben Franklin store employee created a small Christmas tree out of metal and put in a window display. Tom Gannon, who worked for Manitowoc, Wisconsin’s Aluminum Specialty Company as the toy sales manager, was in town for a visit, and he was impressed. So when he went back home, he pitched the idea of an aluminum tree to the company president. You see, Manitowoc was known as the Aluminum Cookware Capital of the World. So why not create a Christmas tree out of the same material, which could be used year after year, and which would leave nary a stray needle on the carpet?

The president was impressed, and designers soon set to work. By late 1959, the aluminum Christmas tree was offered for sale to the public.

Aluminum Christmas tree with color wheel

The tree was in a kit form that would be assembled by the homeowner. The package included a floodlamp with a rotating four-colored disk in front of it that would change the colors of illumination every fifteen seconds or so.

There was a very practical reason for the lamp’s inclusion. The first trees’ branches were made of aluminum-covered paper which was even more flammable than spruce needles. Not only that, but a broken bulb could cause a nasty short circuit amongst the metallic foliage. So customers were strongly discouraged from hanging any other types of lights on the tree. However, bright blue ornaments were encouraged (and included in many packages).

The trees sold fairly well the first year, but the 1960 Christmas season saw their numbers skyrocket. Thus did many of us have sweet memories planted in our young minds of glorious scintillating aluminum branches that magically changed colors before our very eyes.

The boom lasted for ten years. During this time, colored trees appeared with shades like blue, pink, and green (imagine that!). Then, closely paralleling the same fate and timeline of plastic pink flamingos, they fell out of style and began to be considered tacky.

But, like their polycarbonate avian brethren, aluminum trees have once again become fashionable in a retro sense. Thus, at least one brick-and-mortar museum dedicated to aluminum trees, ATOM (site has been shut down), exists, and vintage aluminum trees in immaculate shape sell on eBay for prices approaching four figures.

And yes, they are making them again. The ones our parents bought were less than ten clams. At this site (site has been shut down), (sale) prices range from 289 to 939 bucks.

So, like many of our memories, you can once again enjoy this blast from the past. Just remember to bring a fat pocketbook with you…

A Step to the Side: Computer Advice for Boomers

Today’s column is going to be something different. It’s going to be advice for Boomers from one of their own.

I’m a professional geek. My specialties are web development, networking, and desktop support. The Fortune 500 business I work for runs 95% Windows XP desktops, 4% Windows 2000, and 1% Linux. My desktop and laptop machines are among the latter 1%.

Many of you are in the market for a new PC. Mine is a year and a half old, a dual-core AMD with two gigs of RAM, so I’m fine for a while. I’m not a gamer, I don’t create videos. My system (running Ubuntu Feisty) should be fine for years to come.

However, those of you who are buying new systems face a dilemma. Microsoft would like to see XP ride off into the sunset. It has made it clear that it feels that Vista is its future, and you, the consumer, will accept and embrace it.

My advice: Don’t.

I still need to run Windows apps. I run a Windows “virtual machine.” It’s a fully functional Windows XP machine running within a free product called VMWare Server (available at http://www.vmware.com/). I am using the licensed copy of XP Media Edition that came with my PC. I had to make an additional phone call to Redmond to activate it, but that was no big deal.

So, within my Linux system, I run Dreamweaver (for web development), Paint Shop Pro 7, and Quicken 2006. I could probably wean myself off of the latter two apps and use free alternatives, but they run so well, what’s the point? VMWare imported my existing Windows machine into a virtual one that will literally run anywhere, as long as I have access to VMWare Server or Player, both free of charge.

Why do I recommend staying away from Vista? To keep this as short as possible, let me concentrate on its hardware requirements, and why it demands so much horsepower to operate.

When I am running my Windows virtual machine with four or five apps open, and also have five more Linux apps open on my Ubuntu system, I might be using as much as 650 MB of my two gigs of RAM. That’s the most I’ve EVER managed to use. I might as well take the extra gig out and sell it to a Vista owner.

That’s because Vista can easily exceed a gig of RAM usage. Most reviewers recommend two gigs to run it, four is better. And if you’re not using a dual-core or quad-core processor, fuggetaboutit. Vista will routinely max out a single-core Pentium 4 processor when the most modest programs are launched.

You see, Vista was built for its “customers.” Not you, but the corporate entities of the RIAA and the MPAA. It’s loaded with enough DRM (digital rights management) to choke a horse. And it requires lots of cycles of CPU time and many megabytes of RAM to function.

No, you can’t turn it off. It’s there because forces much wealthier than you have demanded and gotten it.

Yes, it’s buggier than Florida night skies in September. But I’m not going there.

I suggest you avoid Vista because you are being forced to run a slow, cumbersome system by Microsoft’s “other” customers.

Since Microsoft has agreements with all of the major PC manufacturers to pre-install their operating systems, odds are any new PC you buy will come with Vista. You can attempt to get XP installed instead, but not for much longer. Microsoft has instructed the manufacturers of hardware to concentrate on Vista drivers ONLY. That means the odds are not good that the newest video cards, printers, etc. will be XP-compatible.

However, if you’re willing to learn something new, I recommend buying a bare-bones system without an operating system and installing Ubuntu Gutsy (the most cutting edge) or Ubuntu Feisty (the most reliable) on it. Tiger Direct, whom I have happily traded with for years, currently has this system, which is pretty hot, for 270 bucks. Install your downloaded Linux from a CD-ROM or DVD, and you’re off.

Sure, it looks a bit different. And you’ll have to paste a few error messages into Google at first. But stick with it, and experience the delightful world of free software. And you will also discover that Ubuntu is VERY well supported via various forums that Google will direct you to.

Microsoft hacked off the world a couple of years ago by installing Windows Genuine Advantage on user’s computers who had elected to automatically get updates for the perennially security-challenged system. WGA does the customer no good whatsoever, but it DOES alert Microsoft to what it considers signs that the copy of Windows that the consumer is running is pirated. And if the program decides that that is the case, it gives you a limited amount of time to “make things good” before it starts shutting things down.

I don’t know about you, but that seems like a pretty crappy way to treat customers, especially when WGA has proven to be notoriously unreliable. Type WGA into Google and see for yourself what sort of returns you get. And Vista is even more draconian in its treatment of customers whom it doubts to be legal. In some cases, you get THREE DAYS to fix things before features are shut off.

That’s a long weekend, during which you might not even be home!

You’ll never get that treatment from the Ubuntu folks. Ubuntu comes pre-installed with Firefox and Open Office, two more free products whose creators simply appreciate the fact that you choose to use them.

And if you can’t do without certain Windows apps, you may be able to run them with Wine (it tricks Windows apps into thinking that they are in a Windows environment under Linux). Or, you can purchase a basic copy of XP and install it onto a VMWare virtual machine.

It will take a week before you have everything tweaked right, and you’ll spend lots of time on Google. But compare that to the weeks of agony that Vista owners are experiencing. I’m willing to wager that you won’t go through any more trouble than a user with a brand new Vista machine. And you will have the same wonderful, warm feeling I have, knowing that the very fact that I use free software and promote it helps its cause.

And no, I haven’t mentioned buying a Mac or installing Apple’s OS-X on a PC. That’s because I’ve never done either one. But they are both excellent alternatives to putting up with Microsoft’s intentions to please fat corporations at the expense of you, the consumer.

Come on, guys, we’re Boomers. We never did trust the Man. Don’t purchase a computer loaded with his software.

A Little Extra

I’d like to take a minute and reflect on what has happened since I woke up in the middle of the night last November with the thought “I Remember JFK! Now THAT would be a cool name for a Boomer nostalgia site!” To my delight and surprise, the domain name was available.

I just received my Google ranking, and it’s a pretty good one. That was my initial goal when I put this site together. I’m now getting good, steady traffic from the king of search engines.

What I never envisioned was the response I’ve received from Boomers. I’ve always had a slightly better-than-average memory. The cumulative effect over the years is that my wrinkled bald head is filled with all sorts of trivial recollections that have proven to have an emotional impact on many who had long since forgotten similar events from their own childhoods.

And the fact that I have been the extremely fortunate recipient of traffic blasts from Pirillo’s Picks, CBS News, KSDK TV in St. Louis (GO CARDS! Tony! Can’t you afford a cab??), and the lovely Kim Komando. That last one alone was worth a cool 18,000 visits on March 20 (2008). Glad I switched to a dedicated server last year!

It’s given me a pleasure that I have never attained with any site I conceived of or hosted in my ten years in the business. I can’t wait to get home from work each day and write a new I Remember JFK reminiscence! And the slew of comments from you wonderful fellow Boomers shows that you’re enjoying this ride, too.

I figure I’ve tapped perhaps 1% of my childhood memories. So keep tuning in every day, and sign up for the emailed summary of each day’s article, if you haven’t already!

And thank you so much, all of you visitors who make this so rewarding.

45 Inserts

You never had enough of them. The antithesis of coat hangers (which reproduce on their own), they would vaporize soon after purchase, and you didn’t have enough to stack all of your 45’s on your changer.

Also known as adapters, inserts, or spiders, they were essentials pieces of hardware to have long before we started packing literally days of music on our hips in packages smaller than a carton of cigarettes. Portable record players had to have them to work.

Many home stereo systems had built-in adapters of various types. The one we had featured a disk that could be pulled up and rotated slightly to lock in place. that allowed for single play. You still needed inserts for multiple play. Other changers had a rectangular piece that fit over the spindle and allowed the 45’s to be dropped one at a time, allowing multiple play. But for portables, you needed these devices, period.

If you want to have fun, offer one of the classic Jasco yellow inserts pictured here to your teenager and ask them to identify it. Only the ones who are most savvy of vintage equipment will be able to do so. When we were teenagers, we knew what they were for, and that they disappeared as fast as we could buy them.

I love waxing nostalgic, but I really don’t miss those 45’s that much. My digital music is now backed up four ways. Nothing short of a nuclear catastrophe could cause me to lose it all. Those 45’s would quickly become covered with scratches that produced clicks and pops that accompanied our favorite tunes. In fact, sometimes a skip would become so much a part of a song that it just didn’t sound quite right when we heard it on the radio, free of the blip.

But seeing one of those yellow inserts immediately takes me back about forty years.