Things you won't find anymore...

Grampa Don said:
Did you ever use one of these?

image.png


There was a fun zone in Long Beach called the Pike, and some of these were in a penny arcade. As a teenager I plunked some coins in to watch the naughty movies. There were also vending machines for risque postcards. These days they would seem pretty tame.
Click to expand...
OMG, I was at the Pike fairly often as an older teen, growing up in a beach town very near long Beach. We usually went for the rides mostly.
Apparently the Pike is now long gone.
 

Last edited:
mrstime said:
OMG, I was at the Pike fairly often as an older teen, growing up in a beach town very near long Beach. We usually went for the rides mostly.
Apparently the Pike is now long gone.
Click to expand...
Yes, the real Pike is long gone. It was a little too rough around the edges for modern taste. There is something they call the Pike. It has a Ferris wheel and a merry go round, but it's mostly shops and places to eat. It was kind of crazy, but a ball for a teen to roam around. Remember the creepy laughing lady at the dark ride? The double decker Ferris wheel?
 
Grampa Don said:
Yes, the real Pike is long gone. It was a little too rough around the edges for modern taste. There is something they call the Pike. It has a Ferris wheel and a merry go round, but it's mostly shops and places to eat. It was kind of crazy, but a ball for a teen to roam around. Remember the creepy laughing lady at the dark ride? The double decker Ferris wheel?
Click to expand...
Yes I remember the double Ferris wheel, the roller coaster,the side shows, sometimes I felt slimy seeing some of the side shows.. Those rides we did when I was a teen I would never do now, they would scare the piddle out of me.
 

Fyrefox said:
My parents had some 78 rpm records that I can remember playing on a large, floor standing console unit (an RCA, I think) that also housed an AM radio as well as the turntable. It had a wood housing, and was a piece of furniture. It must have been quite the entertainment center in its day prior to television being popularized. The 78 rpm records were brittle, and would shatter if dropped… 🙀

View attachment 367963
Click to expand...
I had a bunch of those too. Did you know that the 78 rpm and 45 rpm had the same playing time? That's why the 45s were so good for 2 songs. AND they were more durable. I always used the plastic spindle inserts with the 45s.
 
Grampa Don said:
Yes, the real Pike is long gone. It was a little too rough around the edges for modern taste. There is something they call the Pike. It has a Ferris wheel and a merry go round, but it's mostly shops and places to eat. It was kind of crazy, but a ball for a teen to roam around. Remember the creepy laughing lady at the dark ride? The double decker Ferris wheel?
Click to expand...
Are you and MrsTime talking about Long Beach, NY, or Long Beach, Calif.?
If Calif., do y'all remember Venice Pier?
 
You can still find them, but they are a lot less common than they used to be, at least in my area…matchbooks!

Book matches used to be everywhere, and were free. They often carried advertising. You could find them at cashier checkouts, motel rooms, businesses, you name it. My parents had a drawerful of matchbooks. Their presence and ready availability was probably in association with a time when a high percentage of the population smoked. “Got a match?,” was a common idiom, part of the language. Smokers were everywhere, and they were indulged.

When smoking declined, so did the presence and ready availability of matchbooks. I don’t smoke, but I do sometimes like a candle burning. Limited availability of matchbooks has forced me to buy those little butane lighters to fire up my candle wicks… 🕯️

IMG_2511.jpeg
 

You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top