Have you lived?

uppermich · Nov 20, 2001

It's been a long time, but if my memory isn't too foggy...... they were a way of getting iodine in your diet before iodized salt was common.

Pat (Techno-Tractor Mom)

PitbullMidwest · Nov 20, 2001

I had the milk breaks, but we got cookies, not goiter pills. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

How about fallout drills? Everyone to the basement of the school with books covering their heads and then curled up on the floor? Maybe this is a regional thing since the DOE/AEC operated an atomic warhead assembly plant 10 miles outside of town.

AndyR · Nov 20, 2001

Fallout drills were pretty common. The thing I remember most was when they required the younger kids (like me) to be covered by an older kid - who inevitably had not used deoderant or showered for quite some time! /w3tcompact/icons/frown.gif 

We lived just west of Stewart Airbase and I have vague recollections of everybody being pretty cranked up about Cuba...{i.e. the missle crises}

Andy in NH

PitbullMidwest · Nov 20, 2001

AndyR
Growing up during Viet Nam it was a commonplace sound to hear the ordinance plant firing tank rounds, TOWS and other munitions on the test range. 3-4 times a day you'd here a big thunder sound and all the windows would rattle. New kids would move in to town and ask "what was that?" and you'd realize that you hadn't even heard it, it was so common.

Pop worked there for 20+ years pouring TNT and doing "other" jobs. The biggest conventional shell they made were battleship rounds for the 16" guns on the Iowa, Missouri and New Jersey.

MossRoad · Nov 20, 2001

Pop worked pouring TNT and "other jobs"!

Man, don't you know it. My dad was, among other things, a demolitions officer in WWII. We never had a normal leaf fire or cookout. Several visits from the fire department. One time, according to my sisters, he set the yard on fire. Almost lost the house. My mom complained to the fire chief that she had to run to the end of the block to the fire alarm pull box(remember those?). They came out the next day and installed a pull box at the end of our driveway! "Just for you, ma'am".

Dad was also an architect and worked on some munitions plant designs in Kingsbury, Indiana after the war. Always talked about being aware of where the blast doors and bunkers were in case something went off in the plant.

 MossRoad

PitbullMidwest · Nov 20, 2001

Pop showed us boys how to make a carbide cannon from an old tabacco can. M80s are for wimps compared to that cannon. The police were regulars at our family 4th of July gatherings! Oh no officer, I assure you we don't have any fireworks here. /w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif

Pop died in '83 from a mysterious illness that we found out last year from the DOE/AEC was chronic beryllium diseace.
He wouldn't tell his doctors what chemicals he worked with or what he actually did for a living. We now know that he assembled/disassembled atomic warheads for 20 years and his security clearance forbid him from talking to anyone about it (mom didn't even know.) He went to his grave refusing to break this oath for fear it would put his country at risk.

dmccarty · Nov 21, 2001

PitBullMidwest,

Speaking of the Viet Nam era. One of my memories is from the late sixties and early 70's. I would visit my family in Orlando, Fl, and I had a cousin whose house backed up to a cemetery. It was very common to hear the rifle salutes being fired all day long. /w3tcompact/icons/frown.gif Course that the time it really did not register what the salute REALLY meant for the families. For us it was just shooting behind the house. We would walk through the cemetary picking up the spent 30'06 shells......

I was at the same house the day John Wayne died. I still might have the newspaper with the front page story. Ironic in some ways I guess....

Later...
Dan McCarty

MossRoad · Nov 21, 2001

Yeah, my dad passed away at age 76 from complications associated with multiple myaloma, a red blood cell cancer. Apparently 90+ percent of the cases are due to radiation exposure. He said he volunteered for experiments on the effects of nerve agents on humans. My guess is it was something else. Anyway, he never regretted it, only regretted he couldn't live longer. He had a living will with a no revive clause. The doctor discussed it with him. He said he meant to use it when he was old! He fought it and was revived 3 times over a 5 week period and each time he revoked it again. He finally OK'd it with me and my sisters and died the next morning. A great inspiration for me. Never complained once. WWII vets , and most other vets for that matter, that I've met, are just plain amazing. I often wonder if I could do the same.

 MossRoad

MossRoad · Nov 21, 2001

If you type in Studebaker in Microsoft word, it wants to correct it with "Stud baker". Yeah, I remember my sisters talking about that big stud baker down at the bakery...??

 MossRoad

ERNIEB · Nov 21, 2001

As it happens, we have a few ex Studebaker owners right here on TBN. Remember these.
Packard, Kaiser, Frazer, Willys, Nash, Desoto.
When I was a kid we had a neighbor who had an Allstate. It was a Henry J. with different logos. I guess they were sold by Sears. I do remember they sold Scooters, Mopeds and even small motorcycles, that they kept on display in their stores.

Ernie

Bird · Nov 22, 2001

Ernie, I've driven all the cars you named, except the Allstate; owned one Studebaker Silver Hawk, and I've ridden both scooters (3hp) and motorcyles (250cc) that were Allstates. My cousin still has his '56 Allstate scooter.

CamshaftLF · Nov 22, 2001

Great memories, I remember going to school and at recess time you could go to the local store and buy, that penny candy. If you had a penny, nickle, or dime, and if you had a quarter you where a big spender. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif And at lunch time you could walk home for lunch, and sometimes I take a friend home with me. Life was so simple then. And I'm only a "57" model. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

Anonymous Poster · Nov 22, 2001

My uncle was a Studebaker man. Won 2nd place at nationals for his restored 1959 pickup. He died last month and they carried his casket to graveside in the bed of his truck. His son has a beautiful Silver Hawk that has won a number of awards.

Beautiful vehicles.

PitbullMidwest

ERNIEB · Nov 22, 2001

I remember sometime in the past you mentioned owning a Silver Hawk.
Can You guess the make and model of this car?

Ernie

ERNIEB · Nov 22, 2001

I have a very clear memory of going with an uncle to a Studebaker dealership in Devine TX. We drove home in a brand new 58 Scotsman pickup. It was a sorta light grey, and a plain jane. He paid $1500. for it./w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif Wish I had that truck now. He traded it in on a Dodge pickup in 69.

Ernie

Anonymous Poster · Nov 22, 2001

Lets not forget Hudsons and Nash with the reclining front seats so you could save on a motel and "sleep" comfortably. How about glass wax, and Bon-Ami. Clear unleaded AMOCO gas. Halls and Hathaways trucks that brought baked goods to your door, and Cook Coffy and Jewel Tea. Fuller & Johnson pump jack engine pumping water into the night to fill the stock tank, and irrigate the table garden. The first electric refridgerators with a freezer big enough for 2 trays of ice cubes, and the frozen storage place where they lifted colums of lockers up out of the floor with an overhead crane, so you could get your frozen food out of your locker. How about alcohol antifreeze that you had to check every week to make sure it hadn't evaporated off.

Bird · Nov 22, 2001

No, Ernie, I don't think I know, or remember, what it is. It does look familiar; not a Fraser is it? My '57 Silver Hawk was a bit unusual (I couldn't afford the Golden Hawk that I really wanted). But my Silver Hawk had the 6 cylinder Champion engine, manual transmission and overdrive.

ERNIEB · Nov 22, 2001

Close Bird. It's a 54 Kaiser Darrins.
The designer Dutch Darrins also did some design work for Packard before moving to Kaiser. The production model came with a six. I have read that after Kaiser dropped it, Darrins made a few on his own, and equipped them with a super charged six, and even a few with Caddilac V8s.

Ernie

MossRoad · Nov 23, 2001

I live in the home of the Studebaker, South Bend, Indiana!!! There are still quite a few driving around. There is a huge parts distributer still in operation here in town. Most of the old plant that closed in the 60's is still standing, although they are finally starting to tear it down. Everyone wants to maintain the Studebaker legacy, but these buildings are decrepit, run down, rat infested shells that have been near empty for close to 40 years. Its time to let them go. There was an old joke that went like this: Do you work at Studebaker? Reply: I'm employed at Studebaker, no on works at Studebaker. You can still find Stude parts laying around in every woods, ditch, ravine and dry creekbed in the county. It was a tremendous blow to the economy when they closed. Something like 12 thousand workes out of jobs in a town of 100 thousand. Some politician, mayor maybe, made a famous quote. "This is South Bend, Indiana, not Studebaker, Indiana." Well, the town survived, but is very different. White flight to the county. Every major artery into the town is through a bad neighborhood, except from the north. When the president comes to town to visit Notre Dame, they don't even bring him through the town, he makes a round about way. They say due to security, but it is really due to embarassment. Anyway, I feel bad about bashing my home town, but it is borderline hell hole, with a few nice attractions. Anyone else want to bash their hometown? And this, the day after Thanksgiving. I'm ashamed /w3tcompact/icons/blush.gif.

 MossRoad

Mike_Dumond · Nov 23, 2001

Speaking of Studebaker, how many remember the Weasel?? Extra credit for any who know it's claim to fame during it's development.

Keep the greasy side down.
Mike