Remember When

I haven't thought about this in decades. There was a time
from the late 50's and all thru the 60's when gas stations
gave stuff away if you bought a certain amount of gas.

Dinnerware, drinking glasses, Matchbox toy cars. There
was one that gave away Flintstone juice glasses. The point
was to keep going back and collect all of them. It was a
lot of fun for kids and seemed to go on forever. Of course
in the 60's there was a station on just about every corner
and there were constant gas wars on top of the givaways.

Of course the best thing gas stations ever gave
away were those wonderful road maps. We all
had a glove box full of them, they saved our
lives more than once. And they were FREE.

Around me a couple gave away glasses in the 1980s. We had to go there, I had to pump it and make sure we got a glass. My parents may still have one or two. Today you don't even see the inside of a gas station and half the population under 35 can't even read a road map in the first place.

Remember Art Fleming? He seems to be the forgotten man; Alex Trebek has completely obliterated all traces. Trebek's abilities at trivia are in question, but Fleming was supposed to be good at it.

Something is going on with this obliteration more than the time involved. Trebek took over in '84.

Remember the beer aisle in the grocery store
in the 70's? It was about 15' of coolers with
a dozen different beers. Now it's an entire
aisle, with a section weirdo beers that nobody
ever heard of, in single bottle. $3-$4 each. I
guess people buy them, I'm still happy with
Natural Light 24oz cans for a buck. I'm easy
to please..

Quote: Evenbob

Remember the beer aisle in the grocery store
in the 70's? It was about 15' of coolers with
a dozen different beers. Now it's an entire
aisle, with a section weirdo beers that nobody
ever heard of, in single bottle. $3-$4 each. I
guess people buy them, I'm still happy with
Natural Light 24oz cans for a buck. I'm easy
to please..

Still can't buy beer in most grocery stores here in PA, but I prefer that we have awakened in beer and have more choice. Right now just Lite in my fridge, but I love the seasonal beers in the fall. I used to be more into trying different kinds, now my stomach won't let me have bottles.

I miss buying beer in the supermarket. I doubly miss beer stores not having to buy alcohol from the provincial distributors, and a large percentage of liquor stores being provincially run (which means stupid hours, bad service and no chill service). Yes, they are Union Shops, and as ever, closed shop Unions serve Closed Shopped Unions more than anything else.

Quote: Evenbob

Now it's an entire aisle, with a section of weirdo beers that nobody ever heard of, in single bottle. $3-$4 each.

Actually, they often have a special stack of cardboard six packs with a "sampler" barcode on the bottom. You simply unfold one and do a mix and match of whatever combination of those single bottles interests you the most and you get them at a six-pack price rather than paying full price for single bottles.

Its good that we have so many micro breweries and micro distillers. Local breweries often feature seasonal specials, local crops, locally grown or specially treated hops, hop-less beers, .... its good to have a real beer that contains no perfumes, no stabilizers, nothing but beer. Sure some of the products are really weird, but alot of people have really weird tastes. Sure many of the beers are very much the same, but that is good in a market place.

The test is to go out and have too many beers from a local micro brewery. You wake up the next day feeling great. Its not as if you had drowned yourself in the cheap swill that passes for major brands of beer. Waking up the next morning after that ain't so hot at all.

I long for Petaluma, CA and its Hopmonk Tavern. Its not so much the music, its the beer made with pot instead of hops. (Perfectly, legal by the way).

Remember, prior to about 1500, hops was an adulterant in beer, not a required ingredient.

In Colonial America we drank far more beer and cider than we do today. And often it was the morally upright Quakers who were the brewers! With a poor road system, crop transportation was difficult, but distilling crops into alcohol made transportation and consumption much easier.

As in Europe, coopers and wainwrights were skilled, highly respected workers.

Quote: AZDuffman

Still can't buy beer in most grocery stores here in PA,.

Good god, you're joking. Why the hell not? The beer
aisle in most large stores here is a full aisle, and both
sides. Every beer under the sun, they sell tons of it.

Quote: Evenbob

Remember the beer aisle in the grocery store in the 70's? It was about 15' of coolers with a dozen different beers.

It's been 30 years since Moscow on the Hudson, and Vladimir has a breakdown in the grocery store because of all the options.


Now of course there are a lot more options, but everyone in the world by virtue of TV or the internet knows what these stores look like. Now for the first time in history we will not only have billions of people, but billions of people who want stuff.