I very rarely indulge in nostslgia for more than a few moments, despite my lack of youth and vigour tomorrow is still more important than yesterday. However, there are moments when memory makes one smile, or even laugh, and we all need that. And those yesterdays are the foundations for those tomorrows I suppose.
Take the matter of old prams, called "baby carriages" I believe over the Pond. The appearance of one of these, old, dented, scratched and dumped on the "bombsite" at the top of our cul-de-sac was a thing of beauty (and sometimes fights) to us lads in the 50s. Just so long as the wheels were straight and ran well in their axles.
With these and some wood scavenged, begged ot even stolen, a handfull of nails and a bit of clothes line we could create a "soap box cart" (go cart?) for hours of high speed fun (plus scrapes, bruises, the ocassional broken limb and, in one case, an arrest.) Our cul-de-sac was on a slight slope and, in those days, there were perhaps four cars in the whole street, all at work during the day. Milk and bread was delivered by horse drawn carts, coal very infrequently, by a slow old lorry. But you had to be able to stop before hitting the main road where there might be a vehicle along any minute!
The arrest? One of my friends ran over a bobbie, coming round the corner, who dragged him and the cart off to the police station for a good talking to by the fearsome sergeant.
Those carts, and Meccano, were my first practical attempts at engineering.
Do you remember when the sun turned on? (https://web.stardock.net/images/smiles/themes/digicons/Gagged.png)
Scooters, slingshots and blowguns in my long ago youth. Nail metal roller skate wheels to a board, erect a board at right angles to the wheel base...Voila! scooter.
We used to have Chinaberry trees. We also had bamboo. Cut a length of bamboo for a tube, Whittle a wooden plunger stick that could push a Chinaberry almost all the way through, but not completely through the bamboo tube. The green berries were firm but crushable to reveal a juicy flesh that sealed the tube rather nicely. Pound one Chinaberry into the tube. push it through untill it was at rest at the end of the tube. Pound another berry into the open end and use the plunger to push it hard. The first berry would exit at great velocity and make a popping sound. The second berry is now in place ready for the reloading of the next potential projectile.
At ten years old I learned my first lessons about pneumatics. I figured out that the longer the tube the more velocity for the projectile, and a few other things as well. One of the other things I learned is that I would get my ass busted for shooting at neighbors front doors, their automobiles, or their mother in law.
Chinaberries grew in great profusion but over ripe berries had an expiration date. If left on the trees they rotted and created a most unpleasant odor. Over the years the trees were cut down because of the nasty smell. I have not seen one of those trees in many moons. Old kid that I am, I would still like to make another Chinaberry gun. Too bad. There is no ammunition to be had.
The green berries used as bamboo gun ammunition were also ideal projectiles for slingshots. ...................Aaaah Nostalgia....... And no, we did not shoot at birds, squirrels, dogs, or any other defenseless animals. To do so was universally kid considered uncool and to do so was grounds for abuse to the offender, by the other kids. I lived in what would now be called a damned ghetto. The kids had a code of honor. We did not harm defenseless animals or people. As a matter of fact we would come to the defense of the victims, by no uncertain physical means. The world has changed a bit.
I remember going downtown to watch TV shows being shown on the display TVs in store windows. Some of the stores even advertised when a big event was coming up. I was 8 when my family got its first TV and somehow it just wasn't the same as communal TV watching.
Quote from: Icarus on November 15, 2017, 11:15:35 PM
We used to have Chinaberry trees.
The world has changed a bit.
I'm not familiar with these Chinaberry trees of which you speak but we had a berry tree in our yard, 7mm red inedible prolific things.
On the walk to school I'd play bombardier, drop a berry from on high aiming at targets on the ground.
You could attempt to throw or flick them into letter boxes, you could resupply on the way, no need to stint.
Young people these days don't have to imagine stuff, they've got the obligatory screen.
Who'd a thought
thirty fifty years ago we'd all be sittin' here drinking Chateau de Chassilier wine?
I remember when computers still came with a slot for floppy disks! Not exactly something I miss, though...
Making catapult/slingshot "paratroops", an invention of my own.
Make a parachute from a 3" by 3" square of old hanky with a lite cord at each corner. Tie these to about a foot of llght cord, or more, and attach a little "soldier" (roughly carved from wood, only lead soldiers around then and they were too heavy and rarely survived the landing uninjured). Wad the 'chute up and wrap the cord round it until you can hold the whole thing in the catapult's pouch. We made out own catapults with as much model aircraft elastic as we could just manage to pull an arm's length.
Fire the bundle and the cord unwraps until the 'chute opens and it drifts back down. On the aforementioned "bombsite" there were "mountains and valleys" of post-war rubble. That was our battle ground and the object was to try to land your paratroops as close to the designated DZ as possible.
As you said, BP, it was stuff like this that taught us all kinds of stuff, from how to think to applied science. There are problems finding enough candidates for technician apprenticeships who have the inherent aptitude. They did not grow into it.
Great thread idea, Dave - thanks!
I grew up on a cul-de-sac also. We used to make tennis ball cannons. This was when the cans were sturdier. Not sure if it would work now.
You'd take a number of cans, cut off the top and bottom with a can opener, then tape them together into a long tube. For the bottom can, you'd leave it intact, aside from a small hole poked in the bottom of it.
Place a tennis ball in the top, a bit of lighter fluid in the bottom small hole, light it and FOOM!
The tennis balls would get kind of crispy after a few firings. Fun and dangerous!
As for computers, I worked with some of the earliest home models. Helped build an imsai-8080. Had several early atari computers (800? 1200?), and used a cassette tape drive, floppy disks, and a very expensive 20 meg hard drive (wow! what space!)
ZX Spectrum. Nuff said! :grin:
Slide rules. Nuff said! :sad sigh:
8-track players. The Commodore PET and Tandy TRS-80
I remember when Pontius was a pilot.
Quote from: OldGit on November 17, 2017, 09:49:39 AM
I remember when Pontius was a pilot.
I remember when Pontius was a flight cadet.
Twizzle.
(https://cdn02.nintendo-europe.com/media/images/01_website_elements/hardware_1/hardware_2016_NintendoClassicMiniNintendoEntertainmentSystem_support_carousel_image.png)
Good times. :grin:
Christmas shipping meant having to get dressed and leaving the house.
Quote from: hermes2015 on November 17, 2017, 03:22:29 AM
Slide rules. Nuff said! :sad sigh:
Hermes, I still have a K&E Log-log-decitrig slide rule that I used in University. Just for the hell of it, and for the sake of appreciating my Casio fx9860 graphing calculator. (Similar to TI83) I sometimes get out the slide rule and and play with it.
The slide rule still has its' leather case with a belt hook. Engineering students used to walk around the campus with their slide rules dangling from their belt. That was thought to be a badge of superiority. What we engineering students failed to recognize is that the campus law students would be the ones to eventually make more money than an engineer could imagine.