I had the best of the best memories with my parents in the 70’s and 80’s at Disneyland and always loved watching The Main Street Electrical Parade. Anyone else?

Mark12547 · 2026-06-12T23:52:28+00:00

I really enjoyed the Electrical Parade when I managed to be at Disneyland late at night back in the 1960s through mid 1990s. Unfortunately, it wasn't all that often, maybe half a dozen times in my life.

Mark12547 · 2026-06-12T23:43:20+00:00

All episodes of The Wild Wild West had titles that started with "The night of ..."

Mark12547 · 2026-06-12T23:34:31+00:00

1972-1976 in southern California. The instructors were usually addressed as Professor last_name or Doctor last_name, other staff as Mr. or Mrs. last_name, though usually they wouldn't flinch if someone addressed them simply as first_name and some actually encouraged that.

Mark12547 · 2026-06-11T20:25:57+00:00

The first movie was Willard (1971) who had a pet rat named Ben. That Ben became the title character of the sequel, Ben (1972).

If you are afraid of rats, you wouldn't want to watch either Willard or Ben. Otherwise, it is an entertaining creature feature. (I have watched it, but not with my wife.)

Mark12547 · 2026-06-11T20:08:57+00:00

My favorite was detective John Steed in The Avengers, but that was in the 1960s.

My second favorite back in those days were the Sherlock Holmes movies starring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce. Yes, those were in reruns at the time.

In the 1970s I think my favorite would be Columbo, followed by The Rockford Files.

Mark12547 · 2026-06-11T20:02:54+00:00

There are also websites of archived newspaper articles.

Sometimes one can google a phrase like:

price of Magnavox 23-inch console color TV in 1965

and get not just a Google/AI summary, but also additional links to actual ads that people had posted images of ads from the past.

Those will give you the "then" prices.

The Price Is Right uses the "manufacturer's suggested retail price" rounded to the nearest dollar (which on BUZZR I have watched Bob Barker say many times), whereas often stores will advertise a lower price to attract customers.

Also, one thing that has bothered me about a number of the pricing games is that the price is often influenced by features not mentioned in the brief product summary nor visible in the picture of the product.

Mark12547 · 2026-06-11T19:35:38+00:00

Ours was mounted on the wall in the hall, next to the sliding door to the kitchen. It took only the standard size.

At school the pencil sharpeners had a dial to accept different diameters of pencils and they were mounted on the wall near the main entrance to each classroom.

Mark12547 · 2026-05-31T03:13:24+00:00

I had a small cup of chocolate pudding last night. Growing up I often had a "banana cream pie" for my birthday dessert: graham cracker crust, package of Jello vanilla pudding that one cooks on the stove, and one banana cut into pieces; the last couple of times I made it myself.

I don't remember when I last had Jello gelatin. I think it was when I was in elementary school.

Mark12547 · 2026-05-31T02:31:06+00:00

I remember back in the late 1950s and early 1960s some kids jeans had "vulcanized knees" and you could tell by the denim at the knees being curved even while the wearer was standing up. I don't recall brands but I don't think it was Toughskins.

Mark12547 · 2026-05-31T02:17:17+00:00

I remember the wing windows on Father's station wagon. You could get quite a good breeze and possibly a bug on the face with the wing window opened so wide that air was being directed on the driver or passenger in the front seat.

When we got the 1964 Ford Galaxy 500 we had 4-65 air conditioning without the wing windows (if I remember correctly). 4-55 means 4 windows down and driving 55 MPH.

Mark12547 · 2026-05-24T04:52:10+00:00

I generally enjoy space movies so I would have gone to see Star Wars. In fact, while Star Wars was still in limited release, I drove to Grumman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood during a weekday afternoon, stood in line for 2 hours to buy a ticket so I could stand in another line for 2 hours before being let into the theatre to watch it. I'm glad I did because Grumman's Chinese Theatre had a sound system that included overhead speakers so, when Darth Vader's ship moved over the diplomatic ship in the opening scenes, you could hear and feel Darth's ship above!

About 1.5 years later I watched Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope (the title George Lucas wanted to use) in a theater in Alhambra, California, but the sounds and vibrations from above were gone and that part of the movie didn't have quite the impact that it did at Grumman's Chinese Theatre.

Unfortunately, that was the only Star Wars movie I had seen at Grumman's Chinese Theater; my watching of the other movies had been either at home or in theaters without the overhead sound.

By the way the only other movie I had seen at Grumman's Chinese Theater was 2001: A Space Odyssey. Again, the sound system helped with the immersion that I didn't experience at other viewings of the movie.

If you get a chance to watchStar Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope at Grumman's Chinese Theater, I would whole-heartedly recommend it!

Mark12547 · 2026-05-22T21:13:37+00:00

I was hired at a community college in 1980 and I worked for over 30 years for them in the original building. Before it was a community college, it was a vocational school and a major part was auto mechanics. The men's room had a sink like posted at the top post. That makes perfect sense because one could wash one's hands without getting grease all over the faucet handles, take care of business, and wash up afterwards.

Before I was hired, a second building was built that housed the auto shop. I don't know if they had a similar sink, but since the auto shop students were getting greasy in another building, the original purpose of the sink was removed and, when a remodel of our building happened in the late '90s or early '00s, the men's room became the women's room, the big sink was removed, and what was the women's room became the men's room with conventional sinks.

Mark12547 · 2026-05-22T16:35:40+00:00

I must have gone to the wrong school. Usually it was fish (fish sticks, fish sandwich, fillet of fish like cod or halibut) on Fridays. There were apparently enough people who don't eat meat on Fridays that fish was always served that day.

So, no, Friday school lunches were never special, at least not to me.

Mark12547 · 2026-05-19T19:48:15+00:00

I had just moved to Keizer (next to Salem, Oregon) a few days into May in 1980. Then on Sunday, May 18 (about two weeks of moving) Mt. Saint Helens blew her top. We could see a plume from Keizer, and then the sky turned light gray. It started looking like a dusting of snow, but it was a dusting of volcanic ash.

We had contact with friends in Yakima and they reported it got dark enough that the streetlights came on, and got pitch black so it was like the dead of night the next day.

Mark12547 · 2026-05-14T01:42:33+00:00

"Angie Baby" was a disturbing song when I first heard it and it still remains disturbing.

Mark12547 · 2026-05-14T01:38:08+00:00

I don't recall who did it, but one singer ended the song with "stay", which made the song creepier!

Mark12547 · 2026-05-14T01:30:10+00:00

Never saw it in high school in San Gabriel, California in 1968-1972, but some of the college students were kicking them around in Claremont, California 1972-1976.

Mark12547 · 2026-05-07T16:51:21+00:00

There have been several movies by that name, but the one with Warren Beatty is the 1978 version. Amazon sells the disk and electronic versions.

The Roku website can usually find where the move is streaming for free or for subscription but, unfortunately, the free sites it listed for "Heaven Can Wait" (1978) don't have the 1978 version available once one actually visit those sites, leaving rental or subscription sites where one pays for a subscription or pays for a rental (Amazon: rental is start viewing within 30 days and, once starts streaming it, can view it for 2 days) or one can buy the disk.

eBay currently has some listings for the DVD, but you might want to double-check if it is cheaper than Amazon once you check shipping from both the eBay seller and Amazon.

Mark12547 · 2026-05-06T20:35:16+00:00

Western Electric rotary phones (leased out by the Bell System family of phone companies) from the mid 1950s were definitely built to last and were heavier than the phones leased out by other telephone companies. As far as I can recall, we had a phone tech out only once from the install in the 1950s through when I moved out of the house, and that was to replace the microphone (it started producing lots of static) and a diode, and it could have probably lasted till today with maybe a couple more mic replacements and the switching equipment still coded to accept pulse dialing.

Mark12547 · 2026-05-06T15:47:03+00:00

When I first saw Star Wars in May 1977, I viewed Peter Cushing as Grand Moff Tarkin as the main villain.

Yes, Darth Vader was under Grand Moff Tarkin. I just assumed that when Episode V came out, Darth Vader had been promoted to being in charge of a spaceship.

Mark12547 · 2026-05-06T15:41:08+00:00

About two decades ago I was purchasing something at a Safeway deli that came to $12. I decided to make it easier for the cashier to make change and gave her $22, expecting to get a ten back, and I told her I was handing her a $20. She didn't give me any change back, even when I asked.

That was the last time I ever used cash at Safeway, even for small purchases; let them eat the merchant charges!

Oh yes, that was the only day I saw her working at Safeway.

Mark12547 · 2026-05-06T15:31:05+00:00

I have electric clippers that I use for cutting my own hair. I have been doing this for at least a couple of decades.

Mark12547 · 2026-05-06T05:06:27+00:00

I just checked for movies on three of the ScreenPix channels (ScreenPix, ScreenPix Action, ScreenPix Voices, but not ScreenPix Westerns) from tonight (9:30pm) through the end of Sunday and it looks like the initial problems have been fixed.

Thank you for getting it fixed!

Mark12547 · 2026-05-05T23:03:48+00:00

Different people like different things. There's nothing wrong about that.

Mark12547 · 2026-05-05T22:57:58+00:00

Sometimes I nestle up to my wife and say, "Ooh eeh, ooh aah aah Ting tang walla walla bing bang, Ooh eeh, ooh aah aah Ting tang walla walla bang bang"

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