[John_W]

I was in the 3rd & 4th grade when the Baltimore Colts won the 1958 and 1959 Championship. I thought that's what teams did every year. Then in the middle of the 4th grade right before Christmas my dad quit his job as a welder at Bendix Radio in Baltimore and we moved to St. Petersburg, florida. What a change. I went from a brand new school with air conditioning, a huge playground and a couple thousand students.

In St. Pete my elementary school only had 1 class of each grade 1 thru 6. The building was about 100 years old, no A/C and wood floors and all the windows were open everyday. Our playground was completely asphalt, besides kickball and tetherball, 4 square become mine and many others favorite sport. It's 4 boxes painted on the ground and you bounce a ball one time to any square until someone misses. We got so good, we played only using our feet. In the 6th grade I was one of only 2 Fire Marshalls, so one day a month me the other guy would mess around all day while we were checking fire extinguishers and exit lights, which took 10 minutes.

If anybody knows anything about big department stores, or Webb City. It was a department store in St. Pete that started as pharmacy by Doc Webb in the 1920's. By the 60's it was 4 buildings. The main building was 4 stories, with a cafeteria in the basement, it had a huge grocery store, a 120 seat lunch counter, a barber shop with 40 barbers, a beauty salon, there the trading posts which I use to buy gas for 19 cents a gallon and sporting goods, fishing and automotive. There was also Boat City and Furniture City, which was 7 stories. They were Walmart before Walmart but even bigger, this is a Webb City 35 cent haircut, I've got my Fire Marshall Belt.



If you ever go looking for the Old Webb City, they closed in the 80's and it was at 9th St. and 1st Ave South, not far from where Tropicana Field is now.

[LI SNOWBIRD]

Originally Posted by collector0915

How about Davy Crockett on "Walt Disney Presents," the Spin and Marty serial on "Mickey Mouse Club," watching "Sergeant Preston of the Yukon," going to the Drive-In movie early to play on the playground equipment at the base of the screen, listening to weekly Top 20 countdowns on your transistor radio. Those were the days...………

On "Spin and Marty " there was a cow-hand o that show that had a catch phrase "Well, I'll be a blue nosed gopher"
Thanks for the memory

[Aloha1]

Originally Posted by manaboutown

I was born in 1942 so I remember when TV first came out. My dad's boss had one, must have had an 8" screen. lol. We watched football on it, one team of little fuzzy blobs against the other.

Howdy Doody was not my thing, but I enjoyed the after school weekday programs showing old westerns, Tom Mix, Hopalong Cassidy and of course Roy Rogers and Gene Autry. A kid I knew was the "sidekick" on the show and later on while in our teens we used to tease him a little about that. We were a little jealous, of course.

I had a gunbelt with two holsters hanging on it holding 44 Colt revolver style cap pistols. I think it was a Lone Ranger item. I also had a pump action Daisy BB gun which I dearly loved. My brother and I played cowboys and Indians for hours, often switching roles.

You forgot Sky King.

[manaboutown]

Originally Posted by Aloha1

You forgot Sky King.

and Lassie as well.

This is a nice recap of the top ten TV shows of the 1950's and a few honorable mentions. It brought back some nice memories. My mother loved "Alfred Hitchock Presents". Top 10 Decade Defining TV Shows: 1950s - YouTube

[Aloha1]

Boy, these posts bring back a lot of memories. What we all miss here is that our Grandchildren, and to some extent our children, never experienced the freedom to wander around without fear like we did. That makes me sad.

On a lighter note, A couple years ago my 10 year old Grandson was at our house and spotted the stack of LP's in our family room. He asked my wife, "What are those?" My wife pointed to the record player and explained that we put them on there to play music because we didn't have iPods back then. On a roll, she explained how when we were his age, we had 4 channels on the TV, no Microwave Ovens, and no cell phones. After a silent minute, our Grandson replied: "How could you live like that?". Boy have times changed.

afterword: I assume I don't need to explain the term LP to anyone here!

[Aloha1]

Originally Posted by manaboutown

and Lassie as well.

Gangbusters and Rocky Jones, Space Ranger. Also Space Patrol

[John_W]

Saturday mornings was Sky King, Circus Boy (Mickey Dolenz) the Lone Ranger and the Howdy Doody Show. Those were four great shows. Mickey went on to become the drummer of the Monkees.

[dillywho]

Remember the 50's? I grew up in the 50's.