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Remember when…

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We always think of the past as the good old days, but were they?

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How did we not slam our heads into the windshield on a daily basis in the 60’s and 70’s?

I grew up riding in the front seat of a 1962 Ford Falcon station wagon.

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And yes, my mother still had it after my husband I got married…. when we were dressed head to toe in stonewashed denim. ( In our defense… it was the 80’s. Denim ruled. 🤣)

It had vacuum wipers, a manual choke, the dimmer switch on the floor…. and no seat belts.

But mothers must have had quicker reaction times and more serious arm strength back then because mine drove me in and out of New Jersey and NYC with my cranium still intact. Impressive feat of parenting, that.

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To this day I don’t know the first names of my parents friends from back then. I was trotted out to shake hands with guests upon their arrival and taught to say how do you do Mr. and Mrs. Whoever before disappearing to my room never to be seen or heard from again. It wouldn’t have occurred to me to interrupt adults. Nope. Never.

Very different from today’s parenting where the world seems to revolve around a five year old’s desires.

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Ain’t that the truth? Run nonstop all day and fight going to sleep at night. Now I can’t get up off the couch without creaking and as soon as it gets dark? My pajamas are calling.

Maybe they were the good old days after all….

😉

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33 thoughts on “Remember when…”

  1. I think I had the same pair of 1980s jeans! My first car was a 1962 Chev that had been red but had faded to pink. It was a manual on the wheel also with a dimmer on the floor and no seatbelts. I agree, I don’t know how we didn’t crack our skulls at least twice a week. So, good old days? Not really but I hear you about that energy!

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  3. Ahhhh the good old days!!
    The worst braking accident I ever had was in a 1966 red Rambler Ambassador convertible with bucket seats. My son who was around five at the time, was standing in the back floorboard. A car stopped abruptly in front of me and I had to furiously slam on the brakes! He came flying up over the seat back, and landed on his head in the front floorboard.
    Luckily, he only got a couple of small bruises, but from then on, he sat in the seat with his seat belt fastened.

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    1. Kids.
      We were tougher back then. We climbed all over the car, stuck our heads and feet out windows and tea, took the occasional tumble.
      Our Falcon was a ‘62, no seat belts. Anywhere.
      🥴

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  4. I didn’t hit the windshield until my Toyota Tercel got flipped into a Jersey barrier by a dump truck. The seatbelt ripped out of the floor. I’m sure my mom would have stopped me.

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  5. Your pjs are “calling”? I’m only out of mine if I have plans to go somewhere, which is getting more & more rare.

    Our care was a Ford LTD that I hated so much that I swore to never own a Ford. That darn backseat floor hump was always in the way!

    My fam never wore denim – too hot for Cali? I know part of it, for me, was being too fat for most clothing. But I don’t think my parents ever wore it.

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  7. My mom once slammed on the brakes because a peacock was in the road. I literally flew into the back of the front bench seat, bounced off, and crashed back into the floor of the car (and was fine). I was four and I was pissed. Once TVs started running PSAs on seatbelts, we immediately began nagging our parents to use them. Saved my life several times.

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  8. And jean jackets always make comebacks and a good pair of jeans is always in style. Calling your parent or step parent by their first name, never. Times have changed. Wearing seatbelts was optional in the country.

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  10. Until the day she surrendered her driver’s license, my wife still used the arm bar. I told her I preferred she use both hands to control the car. After she rolled the car (no one else in it), that was no longer an issue.

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  13. I love that picture of the two of you!

    My grandmother had a Ford Falcon! I loved riding in that car with her. I called it the “Junker” – I was a little thing. Can you imagine! It was anything but. ❤️

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  14. I grew up in a pretty informal household; I even called my relatives by their first names. After my dad’s brother got married, they visited us once, and I made the mistake of calling him Joe. “That’s Uncle Joe,” my new aunt was quick to correct.

    (This did no good. He was never anything other than Joe, though she was always Aunt Pam. The woman was a little scary!)

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  15. I love that photo of the two of you.

    I still love denim, but not from head to toe—-it always makes me think of Dwight Yokum and Sharon Stone at some award show wearing denim head to toe.

    We usually called people Miss first name and Mr. first name. Not very formal in our family.

    My mom actually failed the seat belt test, and I hit the dashboard when I was 11 and broke my nose. A little bone came right through the top; Doctors didn’t want to fix it right away, since I was still growing, and I had to have septum surgery when I was 16 to repair it.

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