Tulsa TV Memories


Lost Cultural Aspects of the
'50's Generation in Tulsa

By Frank Morrow


LOST CULTURAL ASPECTS OF THE '50's GENERATION IN TULSA (7/27/00) [#1]


("*" = before or during the war)


watermelon stands

Red Rover/Kick the Can

chlorophyll toothpaste

Sock-hops

hay rides

Van's Hamburger stands

Fudgecicles/Eskimo Pies

*Watching the "mail plane" (DC-3) come in

Sunday afternoon drives

Norman Luboff Choir

the Mann Act

Delaware Punch

"Move it over, Rover!"

Joe Linde's band

football players had to play both offense and defense

Hugo Winterhalter

Black Cows (They recently came out with tiny ones.)

*Guess-whats

pony ride rinks

Slenderella

Dollar pancakes at Bishop's Restaurant

*the square ice signs in windows

the Humane Society animal shelter was called simply "the dog pound"

Christmas tree burning at Boulder Park

Energine Cleaning Fluid ("Keep it clean with Energine.")

"Aw, your father's mustache!"

glasses of honey with honey combs inside

Tulsa's John Zink race car won the Indy 500

Pennington's Drive-in

Ritz, Rialto, Orpheum, Majestic theaters

Ritz Week

cinnamon toothpicks

"No soap!"

*ladies hats with veils

pasteurized milk with the cream on top

girdles (called "foundation garments")

*"Kilroy was Here."

spitballs

spitbaths (frantically administered by mothers before you got out of the car)

donkey softball games

tuffskin, applied to athletes' feet to prevent blisters

"gownless evening strap"

"Modess----because"

"Eggs at Eight" (with Simms & Teas) on KVOO

argyle socks (frequently knitted by girls for their boy friends)

"The Hole" (sometimes called "The Smoke Hole," across from Central)

floating schedule at Central

the famous Tulsa optometrist shop, Seekatz and C. Moore

"Weekly Reader"

"8-page bibles"

*"Mow your lawn for a cup-a-coffee?"

VPL (visible panty line)

BIKE (the jock strap)

Nash, Studebaker, Packard, La Salle, Crosley, Kaiser-Frazier (& the Henry J.)

Grady Skillern's sex lectures at Central

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LOST CULTURAL ASPECTS OF THE '50's GENERATION IN TULSA (7/27/00) [#2]


life before bikes with shifters

coaster brakes

Hamms, Blatz, Stag, Carling Black Label, and Griesedieck beers

*air raid drills

poodle hair cuts/poodle skirts

Vaseline hair tonic

Wild Root Cream Oil ("You'd better get _ _ _ _ Chaaaarrrrllie!")

Central High School social clubs: Kings, Delta Pi, Tops, Ramps, Emanon, Pirates, Earls, Broncs, Squires, Lancers, Pharaoh, Eclat, Barons, Tarantella, Gents, Rajah, Breezers

The "Dirty Dozen"

Saddle shoes

Loafers (with the mirrors)

pedal pushers

*jodhpurs, knickers

lollipop pants

"You'd better walk the chalk!"

The "Windows" at Central

the Blue Moon

push-up or uplift bra/"falsies"

*Quisling

Veterans' Cab Co. (with the light on top)

Wagles' & Hucketts' bowling alleys...25 cents for one bowling game, and the proprietors gave free lessons

The Quaker Drug Store

"soda jerk" (Ollie, at the Quaker)

The Coliseum

the Easter Pageant at Memorial Park

"Experimental Theater of the Air"

"KVOO DAY" (or "Central Day," if you worked at KVOO)

the beautiful old Tulsa skyline

double circle skirts

Club car honks: - - . . . or .. .. .. or ..- ..- ......-

"Fifty cents worth of gas, please."

*spinning the propeller to start an airplane

"Eeeeeppaaarrr!" (Epar)

Froggie the Gremlin, and Buster Brown Shoes ("There's only one kind of shoes for me...")

*"Twice 55" song book

"Stag"

"Hag"

"stud" (as in, "He's a stud baseball player.")

program dance

Skilly's School of Ballroom Dancing

Lincoln Logs

*Liberty Magazine

Bar-B-Q bologna at Latimer's Bar-B-Q ("medium" sauce would raise your head off your shoulders; "hot' sauce was fatal.)

*shoe repair shops in department stores

the Kool cigarette penguin ("Smoke Kooools!")

the Apache Dance

*Phil Spitalny all-girl orchestra (with Evelyn and her "magic violin")

May Rooms

Swing Dance

"2-bits, 4-bits, 6-bits, a dollar!"

"2 bits!" (Yelled to someone who just shot a basketball, meaning you thought that the shot would miss)

"Off the table, Mabel. This 2-bits is for beer!"

Cimarron Ballroom

Cain's Dancing Academy (where you could find a fight any ole time)

scratching the palm ("Don't scratch for it like a dog. Ask for it like a man!")

a man giving his seat to a woman on a bus

the strange put-down by repeating a word but with "shm" at the beginning: "Nazi, Shmazi!" "school, shmool!" "book, shmook!"

Hawks Ice Cream, with the two-scoop, in-tandem cone

*Akdar Theatre

*Starlight Concerts at Skelly Stadium

Pee-Wee League baseball

burr haircuts

*The Honey Dripper

Malt-o-Plenty (at the corner of 6th and Boston)

waist cinchers

*25 cent weekly allowance, which was enough to take a bus downtown, buy some Milk Duds, see a movie, & take a bus back home.

Uncle Willy's Doughnuts

Cushman motor scooters

"Rag Mop"

*WPA ("We Piddle Around." or "We Poke Along." or "We Pee Anywhere.")

Independent Oil companies: B-Square, Tydol, Sunray, Warren Petroleum, Mid-Continent, Sinclair, Skelly, Pure, Consumers

bootleggers

Frank's Pig Stand (at 15th and Boston)

Crystal Ballroom

"Take it away, Leon!"

Johnny Lee Wills

*Post Tens, and Kel-Bowl-Pac

*Vims (war time vitamins, forced off the market by the medical profession)

Reservoir Hill

Tulsa Hotel

cashmere sweaters

"house party"

Green and Yellow and Thursday night (I.O.O.F., every Thursday night)

New Years Eve kissing parties (at Central only)

"Hey, four-eyes!"

aeronautics class at Central

*Lead toy soldiers

"scratch gravel!"/"lay rubber"

"She's built like a brick outhouse!" (only we didn't say "out")

"SBD" (Silent, but deadly)

graduate students at Central

"This is where we came in." (in movies when you entered after it started)

the main post office at 4th and Boulder

Hadacol

Serutan ("That's 'nature's' spelled backwards!")

Dunninger, the "psychic/mind reader" on radio

Autographed picture of Jesus Christ that glows in the dark, which you could get from the radio station in Del Rio, Texas

Oklahoma A & M ("OAMC, OAMC, .....etc.")

the single-wing, split-T, and the short punt football formations

drop kick

"I'll be a monkey's uncle!"

*"Git off of your big fat rusty-dusty!"

Honey Hudgen and her combo

the cocker spaniel was the favorite K-9 pet

15 minute newscasts on radio--frequently

prohibited words on radio: sex, pregnant, hell (unless you were a preacher), rape, and any mention of venereal disease

TV deodorant commercial caused a scandal because it showed a sculpture of a person with a raised arm, revealing the arm pit.

The Oil Capital of the World ---(really)

nickel bus ride

ten cent loaf of bread

pneumatic tubes running along walls and ceilings in department stores, through which your bills and payments were sent.

"carry a torch" for someone

Ernie Fields, the great Black dance band leader in Tulsa

Latimer's Bar-B-Q, Big Ten dance hall, Love's Lounge

Moton Memorial Hospital

the activity in the back rows of balconies at theaters

spittoons (also known in "polite society" as "cuspidors') Post offices had them.

"girls" bicycles

flat top haircuts

"Eat your dinner. Think of the starving children in (Greece, Czechoslovakia, etc, etc.)"

Wat Henry Pontiac

George(?) Fuller Chevrolet

Charlie Shepherd Kaiser-Frazer

society editors of Tulsa Tribune and World--Billie Morris & Virginia Morris

Sam Avey: owner of the Coliseum, KAKC, & promoter of wrestling

local radio announcers: KVOO (Walter Teas, Cy Tuma, Frank Simms, Doc Hull); KTUL (Jack Morris, Ed Niebling, Roy Pickett, Al Clauser, Karl Janssen); KRMG (Keith Bretz, Glen Condon, Dave Croninger (Davis), John Doremus, Bill Minshall, Joe Knight); KOME (Greg Chancellor, Harlan Judkins, Dick Campbell); [and I on all of them at one time or another]

Loraine Bynum, the harpist at KVOO and the Tulsa Philharmonic

*the top pre-war sprint car ("big car") drivers: Dave Champeau, Harry West, Angelo Howerton

the top post-war Fairgrounds motorcycle racers: Fuzzy Weichman, Curley Sutton

"frozen custard"

persimmon, watermelon and pumpkin stands at the Sand Springs bridge on highway 64

Highway 66 ("Git your kicks... etc.")

the City Limit sign at 41st and Riverside Dr.

the long picnic drives out in the country to Memorial Dr. (Mingo Rd. was too far to go.)

floods on the Arkansas River

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LOST CULTURAL ASPECTS OF THE '50's GENERATION IN TULSA (7/27/00) [#3]


Hardin's Hamburgers

Fanny Brice and "Baby Snooks" (The father was played by Handley Stafford.)

raw sewage floating on the Arkansas River

*Dixon Laddie pencils (along with Big Chief tablets)

posture pictures in jr. high

Vigo dog and cat food

*"Breakfast at Sardies," with Tom Brenneman(?)

"Eat a Weenie!"

Kellogg's "Pep"

*street racing in cars

mercurochrome and merthiolate

*Cut someone's water off ("John sure cut Frank's water off!")

old record labels: Okeh, Bluebird, Decca

Mexican jumping beans

the sexist put-downs by men: "panty waist," "Mama's boy"

First Piano Quartet

ladies wearing hats and white gloves

"brown noser"

*mills (1 mill required with a 5 cent purchase; 2 mills for a dime purchase). The one mill was dark white; the 5 mill was red--both made of paper/cardboard.

*"That's a Deusey!"

coontails on cars. Occasionally they were red, white and blue

knock-knock jokes (My kids still told them.)

moron jokes

*scrap drives

*hoarding, and the Black Market

Brown Airport

Commercial Airport

clocks, visible from the streets, in business establishments

Ryan's Hamburger Stands

Hamburger King at 34th & Peoria (10 cents for a huge one)

Stop-n-Shop across the street from Hamburger King

Piepgrass Restaurent (Mark's folks) at 33rd & Peoria

"KVOO, Philtower, Tulsa"

the "old" KAKC

Sportscasters Jack Charvat (KTUL), John Henry (KVOO), Mack Creager (KAKC and KRMG), Tony George (KOME, KAKC), Hugh Finnerty

*U.S. War Stamps

"Send 50 cents in coin or stamps to _____ for _____" (on the radio)

Newblock Park Swimming Pool

Horace Mann's swimming pool

Central's TWO auditoriums (Okay, Miss Beckington,--"auditoria")

elevator operators ("2, please! Sporting goods, boys' clothes"!)

Kresses, Newberry's

*liquid ladies "hose"

"pre-parties"

"LS/MFT, LS/MFT"

*"Who do you think you are? Barney Oldfield?"

crooners and torch singers

kites came only in three types: 2-stick, 3-stick, and box

"pogie bait"

one-car families

cars with tail fins

cars with big grills

"all-day sucker" (The Black Cow was best.)

5 & 10 cent stores

crinoline petticoats

*Captain Midnight rings

"Railroad Crossing. Look Out for the Cars!"

*Argyrole

Wigwam Bakery

El Wino and Ne-Hi soft drinks

*"Quality" milk

petticoats which showed on purpose (in jr. high)

ice houses

pink panties and "panty pink"

paperdolls

jax (babies, pigs, ladies, etc)

"Step on a crack; break your mother's back."

spoonerisms (like "sick thoup" or "gree peen")

men wearing hats

card games: spoon, pig, old maid, canasta, crazy 8, war, casino, and the most infamous--52 Card Pick Up

milkmen who not only delivered, but put milk in the refrigerator, sometimes entering your empty house and using the note of instructions left on the kitchen table

corner grocery stores that delivered

cheap "tennis shoes"--a generic term

cuff links

"I Go Pogo"

"Snookie" Lanson, the male singer on "your Hit Parade"

dancing cheek-to-cheek was a big deal (and the girls would often duck or turn their heads when you tried to do it).

gray flannel suits

button flies

*"Keep 'em Flying!" and "Keep 'em Rolling!"

Armistice Day

wearing a jock under your jockey shorts (just to be SURE)

Wasserman tests, which were mandatory before you could get married. ("It's better to have loved and flunked your Wasserman than never to have loved at all.")

the Shmoo

Sears AND Roebuck

*Ringling Brothers WITHOUT Barnum and Bailey

water guns with only three shots

the Liberty Broadcasting System, with Gordon McClendon. (Otherannouncers were Al Helfer, Lindsay Nelson)

Acme cab company"

The Three Suns

Morton Downey (Sr.)

Offenhauser engines in the front of race cars

music listening booths at Jenkins

the piano player at Jenkins who would play your sheet music for you

the buses for black people: Greenwood and Lansing.

the many types of city buses: Twincoach, Mack, Yellow, Fitzhugh

*food and gasoline rationing (A and B cards, etc.)

*35 mph nationwide speed limit

Lydia Pinkham

Mail Pouch Tobacco (with its logo painted on sides & roofs of barns)

life without television

"Too old to cut the mustard"

steam engine trains

courteous truck drivers

cabooses (also used to refer to the female posterior)

*"Lucky Greens" have gone to war"

*"A slip of the lip can sink a ship."

dumb songs: "Mairzy Doats," "Flatfoot Floogie" ("with a Floy Floy"), "Doggie in the Window," "Hutsut Ralston," "Chickery Chick," "Open the Door, Richard," "One Meat Ball," Cememt Mixer, Putty, Putty," "Hoodle Addle"

razor blades which could be used only once

"peach fuzz" (before your first shave)

"The Life of Riley," with William Bendix (and "Digger O'Dell, the Friendly Undertaker")

cars with running boards, knicker knobs, coontails, igniting engine exhausts, "leaded-in" rear windows, head and leg room, "cat whiskers," and big, white sidewalls

names of car automatic transmissions: hydramatic, fluid drive, dynaflow

oil company logos: Pegasus, Flying A, Dinosaur

Phillips 77 (their "Ethyl" gasoline); Phillips 44 (their oil)

pocket watch

watch pocket

Shinola ("He don't know shit from Shinola!")

Spike Jones: Chloe, Beetlebaum, Willie Bill Hickup, etc.

"One Man's Family" (Any sexism here??)

Hoosier Hotshots

*Olson and Johnson in "Hellzapoppin'"

football helmets without face guards

*midget auto races inside the fairgrounds pavilion during the winter

the sidekicks: Tonto, Jerry Colonna, Ishkabibble (Kay Kyser Show), Cato, Arnold Stang (Henry Morgan Show), Billy Batson, Lothar (The Phantom)

"Half-n-half" Bread

"You're a nice guy, Morrow. Trouble is, there's no market for nice guys."

"I just saved your life, Morrow. I killed a shit-eatin' dog!"

college humor magazines: "Aggievator," "Rammerjammer"

fountain pens

"Parker 51" pens

ink pens and ink wells

"Let's don't, and say we did."

"It takes one to know one."

"brushing your teeth with a comb"

*Oleo, with the little red-orange button of dye to color the product

veterinarians worked only on big animals, not domestic pets

the Fuller Brush man, the Watkins man, the Jewel-T man

" more radio shows: "Mirth and Madness," "Queen for a Day" "The Breakfast Club" with Don McNeil (and his old band leaders: Walter Blaufuss, Joe Palikio, Eddy Valentine)

baby sitters cost 50 cents an hour

"Your room looks like Fibber Magee's closet!"

comic books: Plastic Man, Submariner, Green Lantern, Capt. Marvel, The Saint, The Phantom, Mandrake the Magician

the gesture of pride: blow on the finger nails of your right hand, and "polish" them two or three times on your upper chest

the gesture to indicate male homosexuality: lick the inside of your right little finger, and smooth down your right eyebrow with it

The Ink Spots ("Now, Honeychile ......")

Red Ingle and his Natural Seven (with "Cinderella G. Stump," who actually was Jo Stafford)

Hooper Ratings

*gremlins

toss your cookies

get your cookies

old companies & products: Nash-Kelvinator, Bendix, Necchi-Elna, Maytag, York air conditioners,

Admiral TV

the "Lux Radio Theater" (with Cecile B. DeMille, "Greetings from Hollywood, Ladies and Gentleman.!")

Mad Man Muntz

Leroy McGuirk (a Central graduate), the Junior Heavyweight rassling champ

Fred Waring and his Pennsylvanians

Arno Lamb, the softball pitcher

"Bill Grogan's Goat"

"dip your wick"

Burt's "Good Humor" Ice Cream

milquetoast (also, "Casper Milquetoast")

78 and 45 rpm records

"Cute as a bug in a rug!"

Andy Andrews at Tulsa athletic contests, with his famous yell: "Aaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyy. Let's gooooooooooooooooo Tulsaaaa!"

"Sixteen Tons"

the cricket invasion of 1953 (or was it '54??)

"Get your ashes hauled."

the smell of burning leaves

smooch, neck, pet, court, ("spoon" and "sparkin'" in our parents' time)

make out---when it meant "going all the way," not just "necking."

"bucket suckin'" (In basketball, staying at the offensive end, not going back to play defense.)

more radio personalities: Robert Q. Lewis, Galen Drake

"long-hair music" meant classical, not rock

five-digit phone numbers (24381 was for time?? Or was it mine??) You could ring your own number--or your party line--by dialing 1141. Private lines were luxuries.

Sports writers: Jack Charvat, Tom Lobaugh, B.A. Bridgewater, O.O. Keeler

Homer 'n Jethro

"The Rambler" (the daily column in the Tribune by Roger Devlin)

the Liberty Broadcasting System's re-creations of baseball games.

The Liberty Minstrel in the mornings (with its tap dancer!).

Robert Hall (with the "plain pipe racks")

Ella Fitzgerald, Dinah Washington, Sarah Vaughan

the Dionne Quintettes

cold showers

OTASCO meant Oklahoma Tire and Supply Store

Three-hole and Four-hole Buicks

*"Major Bowe's Amateur Hour"

"Ted Mack's Amateur Hour"

"late date"

Candy Candido's main line on radio: "I'm feelin' mighty low."

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LOST CULTURAL ASPECTS OF THE '50's GENERATION IN TULSA (7/27/00) (#4)


*Pre-war Tulsa Oilers: Eddie Waitkus (1st base), Don Johnson (2B), Lennie Murillo (SS), Rip Russell (3B), Ed Zydowski and Mel Steiner (catchers), outfielders: Whitey Platt, Barney Olson, Gordon Donaldson; pitchers: Emil Kush, Hank Wise, Clair Bertrum, Julian Tubb, Paul Erickson, Bert Barkelew, and even Dizzy Dean. (Dave Manners was the sportscaster for the games)

"Bear Tracks" Greer: (pitcher when Dizzy Dean started his first game for the Tulsa Oilers in his attempt to make a comeback after injuring his arm.)

"pocket pool" ("What are you guys doin'? Playin' pocket pool?")

"blanket party"

gasoline tanker trucks with their chains dangling on the pavement from their

rear axles to "dissipate static electricity"

the Golden Drumstick

other kid games: "May I?," "Anti-over," "No man standing," "Tackle the man with the ball"

Billboard companies: Schleppey, and Knapp Advertising Co.

the Four Aces, the Four Lads, the Hilltoppers, the Crewcuts

Some of the post-war drivers of midget race cars: George Binnie, Cecil Green, Bill Rudolph, Ted Parker, Jud Larson, Bud Camden, Tommy Vardaman, Leland Musick, Cotton Musick, Lloyd Ruby, Ernie Booth, Jay Booth, Dick Sharp, Jay King, the Howerton brothers, Ben Harleman, Tex West, Buddy Cagle, Marcel St. Crieq, and forty more

tiger, leopard and zebra jockey shorts for men

the Great Gildersleeve ("Leeeeroooy...!)

life before Novocain dentists

Jimmy Gicaletto (Class of 49 or 50) racing motorcycles at the fairgrounds

polio scares (then called "infantile paralysis,") with the closing of swimming pools

*the years when there were only 3 brands of cigarettes: Lucky Strike, Camels and Chesterfield

20 Mule Team Borax

the Louisiane restaurant near "The Quaker"

*Athletes doing ads for cigarettes

"What am I running--- a chow-house?!"

mangles (to do the ironing)

Will Rogers hang outs: The Cavalier, The Blue Stem

basketball players were known as "cagers" & the games were "cage" games

making lightning bug lanterns and rings

"to boot" meant "also." ("He's poor, and he's ugly, to boot")

"geetus" (for money)

the "facts of life"

other theaters: Delman, Plaza, Cozy, Uptown, Admiral, Brookside, State, Tower, Pines, Apache (Only the Circle is still there)

life without air conditioning

tooth powder (Kolynos)

other table games: Contact, Chinese Checkers (popularly known as "Chinkercheck")

"hubba-hubba"

"The smeller's the feller."

"It takes one to know one."

soap: Dreft, P & G, Bon-ami

cow-catchers on trains

life without shopping centers

All-purpose Rit

"It Floats!" (Ivory Soap)

special handshakes: the bartender, the woodsman, etc.

Carter's Little Liver Pills

"Smoke, smoke, smoke that cigarette!"

the "double standard" between boys and girls (although it's coming back)

Silver Castle cafes

Sadie Hawkins Day

Sons of the Pioneers, Riders of the Purple Sage

"physic" (enema)

"morphodite"

the ultra-violet lights (purple) in a department store in the ladies' johns to "sterilize" the toilet seats

Barnes-Manley Laundry, with "Smiling Dan, your laundry man" on radio

*Bob Burns and his musical instrument, the "bazooka"

fat footballs

two-holed bowling balls

pinboys

Gravel Girtie, Leena the Hyena, Chief Wahoo, Gus Goosegrease, B.O. Plenty

golf: the 2-wood was the "brassie;" the 3-wood was the "spoon"

sand greens on golf courses

knee-guards for basketball players

narrow 3-second lanes in basketball

Tulsa hockey players: Nick Knott, Gus Mortsen, Claire Dillon, Bud LaMarche

Freckles Little. (And who could ever forget the meanest guy in the league--Harry Dick, who did not play for Tulsa.)

"T'aint funny, Magee!"

3.2 beer

fly paper

"Monkey Grip"

"You dumb Palooka!"

lightning rods

the characters on "Allen's Alley" on the "The Fred Allen Show:" Mrs. Nussbaum, Senator Claghorn (Kenny Delmar), Titus Moody, the man from Vermont whose first words were "Howdy Bub!"

Burma-shave signs (Ex.: "Look here, birds, these signs cost money. Roost awhile, but don't get funny.")

the characters from "Fibber Magee and Molly:" Doc Gamble, Wallace Wimple (with his "bird book" and his "mean ole wife, 'Sweetie Pie'"), the Little Girl (played by Molly), Nick Da Populus (who always had "a check for a short beer" in his pocket), and Gildersleeve.

Charles Atlas and "dynamic tension"

*Fitch Shampoo ("So, if your head scratches, don't itch it - - - Fitch it")

"goody-goody gumdrop!"

"goody two-shoes"

coffee came only in "drip grind" or "regular"

life before "the pill" ("Vatican roulette")

*Chase and Sanborn coffee sponsored "Edgar Bergen & Charlie McCarthy."

"good/nice girls" (the ones who wouldn't "do it," no matter how hard the boy tried)

"bad girls" (the ones who finally did succumb to their natural desires)

Brilliant Bronze, Lion, Clark, Cosden brands of gasoline

Holy Family was red, and it was a high school

"punch the ice-box"

"One potato, two potato, three potato, four"

*"Maggie's drawers" (referring to Jiggs & Maggie: the white flag which would be waved if you missed the target at the Army shooting range)

"apple core, Baltimore. What's you're trade? Lemonade."

the first self-winding wrist watches

Pearl Hotel

"TILT!"

cars without turn indicators (called "blinker lights")

a religious person, particularly a fundamentalist, was said to have "got religion," like a disease.

"I got dibbies (or dibs) on that one!"

"Huggin' and chalkin'"

Marquette High School

Henpecked

"grind" (a person who studied a lot)

"modesty panels" on the lower front of girls' bathing suits

"Reddi Kilowatt" (of the Public Service Co.)

"Goose Mother" jokes

"He's slicker than snot on a glass doorknob."

Sponsors of Junior and Senior League baseball teams: Buda Engines

Magee's Sporting Goods, W.C. Norris, Progressive Brass

Brown-Dunkins, Frougs, Vandivers, Clarks Clothes, Harringtons ("The Store for Son and Dad"), Renbergs

of the Mid-Continent refinery across the river

If you mailed an envelope without sealing it, the postage was less.

Matchbooks with the striking surface on the side with the opening flap

Hugh Breeding gasoline trucks ("Pulling for the Oil Industry.")

Spanish Fly

two and four-party telephone lines (and eavesdropping on them)

get "skunked" (score no points)

"cute lil booger"

vegetable corsages for Sadie Hawkins Day dances

peasant blouses

boys bringing cows' eyes to school (in jr. hi.)

"Your ass is grass, and I'm a lawn mower."

"She's 'in a family way.'"

"Can o' Corn!" (Yelled out when an easy fly ball would be hit to the outfield)

" ugly on an ape!"

Roy Ball, who played Jesus in the Easter Pageant

Bob West, who narrated the Easter Pageant in the late 40s, early 50s

Oklahoma car tags started with a number which represented the county's population. Tulsa started with 2; Okla. City with 1, etc.

Using dry ice to keep things cool. (Even for car air conditioning.)

eye glasses were "cheaters" (and eyes were "peepers")

*the local radio program in which the announcer read the names of products,

the names and addresses of advertisers, and short sayings. If you wrote them down correctly, and mailed in your work, you would win a prize.

Phillips 66 Oilers were the best basketball team in the country, and the AAU ("semi-pro") league was better than the NBA

There was a difference between Levis and Blue Jeans. The former were tight fitting and the latter were loose.

"Push-pull, click-click. Change blades that quick."

John Martin's English Ford

*the x-ray machines in stores into which you could stick your feet in order to see if your shoes fit. (The small kids could get their whole heads into the machine.)

"He's got Roman hands and Russian fingers."

"H-E-double toothpick!" (The word "hell" was considered naughty.)

two mail deliveries a day, except Sundays

skywriters (usually "Phillips 66" or "Pepsi")

advice to bald guys: "Let your eyebrows grow out, and comb 'em straight back."

the Red Shield Club

"bookworm"

the flooded underpass on Riverside Drive, and the Model-A Ford which towed stalled cars out because it was built so much higher.

my full, four-year TU scholarship was $1,600. Now it's $51,600!!!

"Put THAT in your pipe and smoke it!"

*gasoline pumps with big glass containers on top to hold the fuel. The attendant would manually pump the required amount of gas up into the container, then let it flow down into the car

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LOST CULTURAL ASPECTS OF THE '50's GENERATION IN TULSA (7/27/00) (#5)


Burma-shave signs (Ex.: "Look here, birds, these signs cost money. Roost awhile, but don't get funny.")

coffee came only in "drip grind" or "regular"

life before "the pill" ("Vatican roulette")

"Eat at the Y"

*Chase and Sanborn coffee sponsored "Edgar Bergen & Charlie McCarthy."

Brilliant Bronze, Lion, Clark, Cosden brands of gasoline

Holy Family was red, and it was a high school

"punch the ice-box"

"One potato, two potato, three potato, four"

pianists at music stores who would play the sheet music you were interested in buying (specifically at Jenkin's)

Weber's Root Beer-----non-carbonated, served by "car hops"

comic strips: Smilin' Jack (with the "lil de-icers"), Prince Valiant, Smokey Stover ("Notary Sojac" and the "Foomobile"), Nancy, Major Hoople (and his wife, Martha), Joe Palooka ("You dumb palooka!"), Andy Gump, Out Our Way, The Katzenjammer Kidz (with the cats who said "Meower fitz reower"), and its copy The Captain and the Kids (There was a law suit over that.), Alley Oop



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