For Old Guys Only

I had lots of Tonkas. Everything from dump trucks, road graders and front loaders. My Dad took them all and painted them a school bus yellow and with a tiny paintbrush and black paint, hand printed on the doors my initials and "Construction Company" I had my own fleet of heavy equipment.
Darn, I haven't thought of that for many years. There's nowhere else I'd rather share that memory than with you guys.

Tom
 
That is awesome!

http://www.mining.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/960e1.jpg
960e1.jpg
huge mining truck the Tonka classics were similar to. Article about the high-tech truck, here http://www.mining.com/2008/06/02/komatsu-america-corp-announces-new-960e-1-mining-truck/

Yes, it's so big, that cab actually seats 2 men.
cat2.jpg

http://www.downloadmunkey.net/images/cat2.jpg
http://www.downloadmunkey.net/2007/04/caterpillar-793d-mining-truck/
 
You guys talking about tonka trucks got me thinking, I had one and kept it tcked away somewhere till my son was old enough to play with it. I looked in the wood storage crate thats been in the corner of our garage for over twenty five years trying to find it, it was gone but found something that qualifies as old. A steel ribbed coffee can.
 

Attachments

  • securedownload can.jpg
    securedownload can.jpg
    245 KB · Views: 125
Bikeguy Joe said:
Or the girls with the really low cut bell bottom pants...Yowza!!!! 1976.
I used to wear silk shirts that I embroidered with eagles, and such, and I had "stacks" (platform shoes) And finally, who had a stud/rhinstone machine from ronco?

I still have a hat i did in 1974....the girls always give me **** for it, but it's part of my history. Wanna picture?
Click to expand...

I cannot, in good conscience, publicly admit to owning any of these.
 
Bikeguy Joe said:
Who remembers the Texaco gas tanker with the cab that steered the truck? I used to ride mine for endless hours in the living room.

How about the "ONE Man Army gun" (Tomy) 400++ bucks on ebay now.

How about All the great Tonka trucks, loaders, back hoes, ect.?

What about Corgis? I have recently beeen "recollecting them" on ebay.
Click to expand...

Dammit, I remember loving my old steel Tonka trucks. They were toys my brothers and I couldn't hurt.
And I still own, in a box in Mansfield, an original Corgi Batmobile (the one from the 60s TV series) as well as the Batcopter and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and other regular production cars.
 
Speaking of coffee cans do you remember the old coffee cans, canned hams, sardine tins ect that had the key on them with the slot in it so you could fit it on the tip of the strip of tin and wind it around the tin to open it up.
Then there was the joy of the tin strip snapping and you had to get a pair of pliers to finish the job and not spill the contents.

Steve.
 
fasteddy said:
Speaking of coffee cans do you remember the old coffee cans, canned hams, sardine tins ect that had the key on them with the slot in it so you could fit it on the tip of the strip of tin and wind it around the tin to open it up.
Then there was the joy of the tin strip snapping and you had to get a pair of pliers to finish the job and not spill the contents.

Steve.
Click to expand...
LOL, I always thought there had to be a use for that thin curl of metal that was left on the key. I used to save them but, alas, I never found anything to do with them. :) The keys were neat too but I never found a use for them either.

Tom
 
RicksRides,
Laughing about the rednecks and the bombs. My uncle was still selling wood off the 1,000 acres that was the family saw mill business and also cottage lots on the river they used to run logs down.
He would use the dynamite to clear out beaver dams amd move stumps when he was road building or clearing cottage lots for people. He had to keep a record of what he used and where and my cousin caused some paper work that he had a hard time covering up.

My cousin being a big shot thought he'd show the city cousin how it was done in the country. We were 15 at the time. I think when Uncle Birk got through with him, he ever even looked in the direction of the explosives shed incase his Dad was watching him.

Steve.
 
Oh Lord, you to Tom. I had a pile myself but never found a use either. Did you learn not to mess with them with out wearing gloves and heavy ones at that.
They were the first cousin to a razor blade when it came to sharpness.

My poor Mother had bandaids for my brother and a huge package of gauze and a large roll of tape for me. :) She would refer to me as the "difficult one of the two".
I preferred "adventuresome" myself.

Steve
 
Remember my granda having dynamite fuse that you shoved into the open end of the dynamite cap and crimped it with a plier`s. He told us not to crimp the wrong end, it would be painful. It was burning fuse that you lit, just like Clint Eastwood did! lol
 
I was working on getting ready to go to Silverbears bike camp and I thought of my Dad taking me to the drug store below his office and we would have an ice cream sunday. I was 6 or 7 so this was the early 50's. Anyone else remember when every drug store worth it's name had an soda fountain.

Many were taken out by the 60's to make room for merchandise since they had out lived their usefulness but maybe some of you had one in your town.

Steve.
 
Drug and dime store soda fountains were a staple for those of us who grew up in those good old 50s. They typically had the best hamburgers in town and the best ice cream.
I loved the stools, usually on a white tiled floor the ones with red vinyl seats and chrome edging. The counter tops were usually red too and they had that polished stainless steel waffle pattern wall behind the counter and one of those carousels where the waitress would clip your order and spin it around so the cook behind the wall could retrieve it.

If you were lucky you had those juke box things where you could select a record from a list that you flipped through, like turning pages of a book and the remote record player would play your selection. Oh, wow. Now we're going back there a few years.

I was recently in an antique store and saw one of those record selectors along with several speakers that you used to hang on your car windows at the drive-in movies. Anyone ever forget that speaker and drive off with it still hanging from your window glass?

I don't know about the rest of the country but in Miami Florida we had a mosquito trucks that would drive down the isles of the drive-in during the movie spraying a fog that was so thick it obscured the screen for a few seconds. God only knows how much DDT I inhaled during my youth from those things.


Tom
 
Last edited:
2door said:
I was recently in an antique store and saw one of those record selectors along with several speakers that you used to hang on your car windows at the drive-in movies. Anyone ever forget that speaker and drive off with it still hanging from your window glass?

Tom
Click to expand...

You would have to remind me of those chunky-looking, big, cast aluminum drive-in speakers. I will never forget them as long as I live. Although, I did forget one of them once.
I was dating a rather attractive lady at the time, somewhat older and more experienced than myself. There was a mutual decision to leave the drive-in early. She still had the presence of mind to hang up her speaker. My mind was, of course, elsewhere. Those speakers were solid, their cords stout and well-mounted. My '76 Camaro was a potent beast. The driver-side window - not so much.

The next day, my dad saw me taking a few clean towels out to my car, it having rained the night before. He asked why I hadn't learned to roll up my windows when I parked my car. I knew he'd see it with the window wide open for a few days until I could afford replacement auto glass. So I told him it was broken. He mentioned clear plastic and duct tape. I told him that looked trashy. He said no, it looks like somebody broke a window and wants to keep the rain out. "So," he then asked, "how DID you break the window?" I told I was just too embarrassed to go into it. I think my old man figured it out anyway somehow.
 
Last edited:
You guys had all the good stuff, 2 speakers...I can remember we
had to change spots lots of times to find a speaker that worked
or didn't crackle to death!
 
fasteddy said:
I was working on getting ready to go to Silverbears bike camp and I thought of my Dad taking me to the drug store below his office and we would have an ice cream sunday. I was 6 or 7 so this was the early 50's. Anyone else remember when every drug store worth it's name had an soda fountain.

Many were taken out by the 60's to make room for merchandise since they had out lived their usefulness but maybe some of you had one in your town.

Steve.
Click to expand...

We had a drug store in town but it never had a soda fountain or candy in it and it was closed more than it was open because the drugests kept O.D.ing on their candy!
Get a new drugest and within 3 months another O.D.

Rick
 
Last edited:
I remember when the first piece of pavement was laid down in my town.
It was a 1 block stretch right in front of our house. They blocked off the
road on both ends of the block so it could dry.

After it got just hard enough so my bicycle tires wouldn't sink in I road
around and around on it and I thought it was some kind of magic!
Like rideing on a cloud compared to gravel !

It was such a big deal that when they took down the road blocks
everyone in town would go round and round the block just to ride on
the pavement. Most traffic I ever saw in front of our house!

Rick
 
I was traveling across Texas, and somewhere (Marathon, I think) had a wonderful little soda shoppe, complete with real, working furniture, equipment, and tile from the 50's, even the twisted handle spoons and glassware. It was a time warp! http://www.foodry.com/restaurant/Johnny-Bs-Old-Fashioned-Soda-Fountain-Marathon-TX/169926

image013.jpg
http://www.perkowitz.com/raam/images/day9_files/image013.jpg (not my photo)


fasteddy said:
I was working on getting ready to go to Silverbears bike camp and I thought of my Dad taking me to the drug store below his office and we would have an ice cream sunday. I was 6 or 7 so this was the early 50's. Anyone else remember when every drug store worth it's name had an soda fountain.

Many were taken out by the 60's to make room for merchandise since they had out lived their usefulness but maybe some of you had one in your town.

Steve.
Click to expand...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top