Well, look who's here. Jim and Carol to kick off the summer. Actually, it's not summer.
People think it's summer. Of course, it's going to be 85 degrees today. So it looks
like some feels like summer. Carol G and Forte, Jim Messier, I give you Tom Billing,
Carol G and Forte, Jim Messier are here. Last, last time we talked about the dangers
of growing up. And there were more dangers. We have even more dangers today. These are
dangers that a lot of them aren't around today. You know, some of them are around. Yeah.
It was a dangerous era, those 50s. Yeah. So let's kick it off with this is victim on
for a cup of toast. Make the most of moments in the sun. Copatone makes living in the sunshine
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Get a little girl getting your towel pulled down by the doggy. That is a very famous
thing.
And there's a lot of truth to this ad because, you know, you can get seriously brink
at skin cancer. Sure. Which we didn't talk about back in the 50s and 60s. They just
said, Oh, they hurts. Copatone. So we really does do a good job and except with our, as
I say, our, our vast research done. We still were not aware of the UV rays even with
copatone. Right. You know, but we didn't know it was trying to make us tan, but it was
not, but during out, but it did, didn't it? I don't think so.
Copatone didn't filter out the UV rays. We might hear from our listeners to correct
me, but no, I don't think so. I'm an idiot. I never use suntan lotion and I got burned
to a crisp. That's what would happen. And I, you know, I, I go and get back from the
beach. This one was a little kid. The hot water was hitting me in the shower. And that's
when we last time we talked about not Xima. Did your mother have that blue jar of
Xima? It still smell that. Yeah. Yeah. We'll begin. We'll be getting into laying
at the beach. Yeah. For hours at the beach. Just do a quick recap of what we talked about
last month.
We talked about the evils of smoking. I mean, smoking was, was pretty much everywhere.
And about all the sugar that was in many of the foods, especially cereals. And, but we
didn't care. The more sugar, the better. And you know what? You don't see as many people
smoking anymore. No, no, no, you don't. You used to be everywhere. You went people
smoking even on television and moving. Yeah. She just don't see it anymore. Right.
We were going to re-mention that today. So I'm re-mentioning it now. But you, both of
you had doctors that when you were kids, they smoked as they examined you. Dr. Thiemon.
I was to go to go puff him. He turned his head to blow it away, but it still blowed
him blowing in my face. Right. But the first doctor was giving it to me. Yeah. Isn't that
something? So we'll talk about the first thing we'll do. Talk about cars, trucks, and buses
about some of the features that they had or lack of. And then we'll get to our, we'll get
to the suntan right after that. The pollution from our, Jerry Seinfeld has a funny
bit. He says back when I used to, and I remember because I lived a block from him. It's
the same good humor, man. And the menu on the good humor truck is in the back of the truck
right above the exhaust. He said, every time you look at the menu, it was like smoking
a pack of unfiltered camel. And it's right. That's it. It was the exhaust. But it's true
while you're reading the menu. Yes. That's right. So what we're pointing out in these two
sessions last month and now is we were really unaware. We were innocent. Now coming up
later this summer, we're going to have to tackle the dangers we survived that we knew
about, like jumping off the sides of the quarry, slightly dangerous. And we knew I never
didn't stupid like that. Or Jim, you've already talked about taking shortcuts, going
underneath box car on the way to school. Sure. Yeah. We're going to turn later on this
summer to what we did know. But here we were in our family car. Before you get to that,
you went underneath the box car. Oh, sure. It was stationary, but it was a shortcut to
get to school. Why walk three blocks on your way? Now you mentioned that. I will tell
what I used to do. I stick the long on the railroad before it was elevated. I had to
either cross the third rail, you know, which is the electrified rail. You told us about
your friend dying. Yeah. And I used to jump on the, it was a piece of wood above it.
You jump on the wooden boom, boom, boom, boom goes up and down. And you leap, you can leap
over it and just, you know, hope for the best. And I did that for four years. And as you
can see, I never missed or you can walk a quarter mile down, crosses, cross a quarter
mile back. And I would do that. Yeah. So we just jumped on the, over the third rail.
And I think back now my mother didn't stop me. Yeah. She let you do sports, but she let
you. I don't think she knew I was crossing the third rail. I don't think she knew she
would have, she would have said, I'm sorry. Go ahead. Okay. Well, we're thinking of our family
cars to start out with. And of course, what, what the audience will know we're going to
talk about. Mainly no seatbelts. Now, why in the world would you have a seatbelt? Anyway,
as you said, Jim, people would say, well, how do you get out of this place? How do you
get out of this car if you got a seatbelt? So these were lap belts. They weren't the seatbelts
we know today. That's right. That is that is true. Yeah. So without those seatbelts, you know,
we could little kids could sit in the front seat. And if you came to a quick stop, Jim,
you were reminding me of seeing mothers. They were just the driver. They would just put
out their right to hold the kid back if they were having a quick stop. Yeah. It was Jerry
Seinfeld's father on Seinfeld. Remember, that was his move. Really? Really? No, Mr.
Gastanza, that was his move. And then the back seat, no, I'm maybe exaggerating a bit,
but you know, if we took neighbor kids to the beach or something, the back seat was a free
for all. You could cram in, cram in anywhere on the floor. And my friend Kay, she would talk
about when the family drove all the way to Dork County. Her favorite spot was riding underneath
the window above the back seat. Can you picture that? Are you would lay across that ledge there?
Yeah, people used to sleep on the right, the back. They was like a ledge that just
can't just to crawl in there and sleep in there. And then you stop showing you're going to miss
a lot of the front window. But we loved it. That was fun. And research, again, that I want to plug
here for our real studies on this. 1961 Wisconsin was the first state to require front seat belts.
And then 1968, the federal government did. Now, Diane, you'll be proud of this 1984 New York
required you to wear them. Well, and I remember back in the early 60s, Robbie Jacobs' mother got a car
and she had seat belts put into it. And all the kids went over there. Whoa, look at that. You got
cheap. Can we try them? And don't you go in that car? Yeah, it's like getting a color TV, you know,
right? Robbie Jacobs was the first in the neighborhood to have seat belts. That was that was
status. Yeah, right. And then 1987, which was 26 years after Wisconsin was a pioneer,
that's when we were required to wear them. So we finally, it took 26 years, but we caught up.
And what do you remember? Well, I remember writing in the back of a pickup truck into
bed of the pickup truck. And that was a common occurrence for, you know, back in the 50s, we had
vacation every year to Rice Lake, Wisconsin, our grandparents were there. And my grandpa had an
old Chevy pickup truck. And my sister and I were just riding the back of that truck all over town
and sometimes in the county too. But no one said anything. You know, it was perfectly safe,
I guess, back then. And to this day, is there a law about back seat seat belts? Oh, I don't know.
I don't know. I'll have to dig deeper. Do we care about the people in the back seat?
Probably not. They're expendable. Anybody in the back seat is expendable. This was in the bed
of a pickup truck. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was like riding in the convertible. That's what
it was. Yeah. And as, yeah, and some of us in a winter time, we went sketching, you know,
with that, you know, with that, you know, it's hanging down to the back and just like, yes,
yes. Yeah. Water skiing in the streets. Yeah. Yeah. We knew it was dangerous, but we did it
anyway. A lot of times our friends would have a car. And they would know that we were sketching
in the back. Other times we'd hitch a ride on a truck or even a city bus. They never knew we were
there. But if they only knew, they'd probably stop the bus and say, hey, get out. Carol's looking
at you. What kind of delinquent were you? Yeah. Talking to Carol G and forte jimba seer,
they're monthly get together with us here, talking about the dangers we didn't really didn't know about.
Put it this way, the dangers we didn't care about. That's right. In the 50s and 60s, part two,
what else do you have? Who remembers hitchhiking back then? And that was a very popular thing to
do many years ago in the 50s and even the 60s. It was just a common occurrence. If you wanted to
ride, you just used your thumb to get a free ride is what it boils down to. Jim, I'm just thinking
a friend of mine, Marv Lindbergh just came to my memory here. Marv in college really didn't that
year have plans over the Christmas break from Madison. And he hitchhiked all the way to California
back over that break. Well, a lot of stories. It all safe back then. He was safe. Yeah. Yeah.
How about breathing fumes? Oh, yes. When we think about air pollution and tires, well, our buses,
our buses had a lot of fumes. And we were always so impressed because downtown, we everyone knows
what I'm going to say. We had three dime stores in a row for arriving downtown from one direction.
And so when you got out with the buses all stopped at the front of the dime stores. That's right.
It was a cloud of fumes. Yes. When all six bus routes took off at the same time, which they did,
you were just in this one black cloud. But it built your lungs out. Turned black. It gave that
immunity. You were ready for shopping, a little coughing, but you were ready for sure.
Right. Yeah. Now we're going to move on to treating our skin. The first thing that comes to mind,
and I'm sure many of us remember, McCurricome, who remembers McCurricome. That's all in
stuff again. That's right. That's right. Yes. I didn't do any good. Yeah. That mom put that on
every single cut and scrape that kids had. Like Don said, it's stung. It's smelled. And it's
stained. It hurts. Oh, yeah. It that really hurt. Well, I did a little research on that.
Yeah. It contained mercury. Yes. Yeah. That's what they say.
Mercuric Rome. Right. Yeah. But you wouldn't think they've been mercury in there. The stuff
he can kill you. We see we were innocent. And so of course, we were eating it in tuna fish.
So it didn't matter. Yeah. We've 1998. It took till 1998 to have it banned. Yeah.
Okay. So. So McCurricome is banned? Yes. Oh, I know that. Yeah. 1998. Yeah.
I'm still using it. Okay. The old bottle. It's 20. Yeah. Well, we would come in crying from
getting cut outside. And you know, mom would put the McCurricome on. And all of a sudden,
we're good as new. And we're out playing again a few minutes later.
But mercury mercury. Yeah. I didn't know mercury was in here. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
No, let's get it. We're famous. Now we live it to the fish. Yeah.
If tuna fish had mercury in it. Yeah. It still has to be careful. Yeah.
Well, and then just plain tanning or warm with the tanning. Yes. Yes. No sunscreen.
No, no, no, type of tone, but no sunscreen. Yeah. And you know, I'm sure in the 50s,
everybody was tanning. But I mean, we had a beach. We had a beach to tan. I had a sun porch on
the second floor. So all that was closer to the sun. So we were totally unaware of these UV lights
that I attest to today now with all these wrinkles. But we wanted the deepest, the healthiest,
the darker, the better. Well, I had skin cancer. Oh, yes. And when the doctor looked at it,
I said, how did I get this? He said, probably when you were a little kid,
your ears got burned. And there you are decades later. Yeah. And it was developing. Now,
they removed it. I don't have cancer anymore. But I mean, that's, I mean, that's how I got this
a kid. Yes. Just getting something. And that's really brings to mind on, it wasn't just a
scales laying out in the sun. Now when I see what parents are doing with little kids, the screens,
the visors, the swimming suits with arms, you know, little kids are being much, they're taking care of.
Not us. My dad said, get out there and be a man. Thanks, dad. But he said, yeah, just going out
in the sun, playing. Yes. He just burned my ears. And there's the skin cancer. And it's
gone. But that's, uh-huh. When he said this, he got it. Yeah. Yeah. What's festering? And we don't
know. Oh, he knows what's festering. I don't want to know. Tell me in the autopsy. I don't.
And uh, some of the brands that we're familiar with, of course, we use copper tone, uh,
bando sole. I remember that. Oh, yeah. That's a great jingle. Yeah. They did have a love affair with
the sun. Be kissed. Yeah. So I guess if you wanted to get kissed, you have you put on some
bandal salay. Yeah. That's right. Tand fasting was another one, uh, sea and ski. Um,
but we could spend hours at the beach. And we didn't think it was dangerous. We just got that
beautiful tan. And I think in, in, in on one hand, we thought it really helped our romance.
You know, girls love the guys with, uh, deep tans and, and vice versa as well. And, uh, like
bandals, salay, the commercial, like Don said, have a love affair with the sun.
Now I'm just thinking we didn't have tanning salons back then. No, not at all. So that,
that danger came in later. That's right. What was the jingle? Number one, number one with,
I, I'll find your man. I'm like, oh, okay. It's like, I can't sing. Well, if you didn't want to
spend all that time at the beach, you could get a product called QT or a quick tan. We called it a
fake tan because that could turn your skin, the color orange. And when you see some,
you could never match your mature chrome. Yeah. Yeah. And when you see somebody with this orange
look, you would say, hey, they got that fake tan, you know, and there was a product for the guys,
too, called, um, man tan. Yeah, you splash it on your face like, uh, like a shave lotion.
But, uh, that's for the, the quick wave. You don't want to spend hours at the beach, you know,
splash it on. And then you could use your own devices like Gels would use tin foil to guide the
rays closer to you. Well, I had that thing you hold on to your chin. That's right.
That reflective board. Yeah. I mean, aren't you getting enough sun? I mean, we need that, uh,
once you get them, like the magnifying glass used to burn ants with, get one of those and put
on your head. You know, and I'm drawing a blank here. How, how did, what do we use iodine with?
I, baby oil, baby oil and iodine. That was another, uh, yeah, that was a mixture.
Oh, okay. The amazing world here. We're chatting this morning with Carol,
Jean Forte, Jim, so you're talking about the dangers in the 50s and 60s. We had no idea
what we were doing. Let's talk about dentists here. Well, my favorite topic.
Well, you know, my friend Jean Hansen and I, we have similar memories of our dentist.
And I will not be smirch his name because I'm sure he just was representative of
the field, but our dentist was above the north side drugstore.
And so you had to take this side door and go up about 40 steps in this narrow. Which is
give a social security number as long as you're telling us where it was. I'll tell you who it is.
And, you know, this was the stairway, uh, not to have them because you could start smelling the,
the nerve key or whatever. The burning, the burning teeth from the slow drill. At the bottom.
You could hear the screens. There was it. The sound and smell of the slow drill. The screams.
Yeah, it was torture. It was torture.
Please, no, please, no.
I know that I think about it. You know, I guess we did stop at the drugstore for some
soothing ointment afterwards, but we should have. Well, anyway, now sitting here
during our break, here we find out that, um, done has been discussing his feelings,
a malgum feeling.
A dentist tell us done. Yeah, malgum, uh, not this dentist. I go to a dentist before that one
years ago. He said, I got to replace those malgum feelings, which are silver feelings,
because you really shouldn't have them in your mouth anymore. Don't tell me why,
but I just looked it up because they had mercury in them. Yeah. So you see our innocence.
We're still dealing with it. We're still. I know. We're still dealing with this.
I eat that in a tuna fish sandwich, and I'm ready for the, uh, cemetery. Next stage.
The afterlife. Well, and then, uh, doctors, I, we keep mentioning it, but
even doctors smoking in the very examining room. So we had to survive dentists
and some aspects of our doctors. And Jim, what would you say next? We're surviving. Let's talk
about, uh, industry and, and pollution. Um, we've seen had a lot of, oh my god. A lot of both,
maybe we had a lot of both. That's right. Starting off with, uh, let's talk about lead.
Lead was found in paint, of course, and, and lead pipes, uh, that causes serious health issues.
As a matter of fact, Don, I think last week, you had the mayor here and he had a,
the lead pipes and the lead pipes being replaced. So, uh, that's really, it's really a good thing.
Um, and there was also asbestos, right, Carol? Yes, but, uh, back to lead for a minigame.
I, uh, looked up what paints today are known as lead containing, especially in the 50s.
And Sherwin Williams and Dutch boy came up from the internet on definitely lead paint in the
popular. Now, this is old. Yes, let's, we don't want to get sued by either one of these. I
didn't say you're the one who's going to get the law suit. That was you. It's me. Yes. Yes. Um, and what does lead
cause mainly it collects in the brain? So that leads to neurological disorders. So that's the
story on lead in a condensed form. Now asbestos, too, we also dealt with that.
Mm-hmm. That's right. I used to, we had led, um, on lead. We had asbestos shingles on the side of
our house when it was growing up. And a summer when it was Sarah hot outside, we used to put our
tongues on it because it was, uh, well, I was, I knew, so it's, well, it's a lick it because it was
cold. It was cold. And we had a whole lot of tongues on the asbestos. You shouldn't run to popsicles
done. My father had asbestosis, which is because he worked in these buildings in Manhattan.
And there was asbestos in the wrappings of the pipes. Yeah. And we pulled them off. It was all in
the air you breathe that in. Yeah. But he, you know, he lived with it. I mean, it was nothing
dangerous for us. He was a smoker until he got some bad news. He was told stop smoking now because
pay your bill because you won't be out of here alive. Yeah. And it was the day of the East Coast
power blackout in 1967. Oh, yeah. And he never picked up another cigarette and scared them. Yeah.
Well, when I think of asbestos on a individual level, long behold, guess what my mind goes to
hoping to have a recreation room. And why am I thinking that? Now, we were in an older house.
There was no hope of a rec room, but that was the ultimate. If you had a rec room, but
putting down or even taking up the tiling for the floors, the popcorn ceilings, and of course
anything with the roof, this led to asbestos in the air. And then that dread disease, especially like
of minors, mesothelioma advertised all the time. Now you see the TV lawyers, you know, they,
they always start by saying, right asbestos, did you work in the shipbuilding industry?
Were you in the Navy? You may be entitled to compensation. Did you build a rec room with your
father? That's probably one of them too. Did you listen to Don Rosen in the morning? You may be
entitled to compensation. A brain. Let's talk about water and and lead pipes and water. I would say
bubblers, I ventured to say they were dangerous. I hadn't told you this, but we took one major
vacation as far as shaboygan. And I remember running over to a bubbler and the taste was awful,
like rust. So I imagine the bubblers were filtering to us all kinds of debris from its piping.
When I first came to Wisconsin, my daughter was three months old. We were only here a few days and
we took her to the doctor just to check up something. And I see the even water, because there's
the bubblers in the hall. I see no water. Yeah, the bubblers in the, what's the bubbler?
Yeah, right. I never heard of the word before. It's a local thing. Yeah, that's right. Yeah.
Well, many of us would drink water straight from the garden hose. I mean, heck, I still do.
I'm watering outside. I'm thirsty. I'll just drink. That's okay. As long as it's city water,
if it's well water, then you got a problem. Okay. All right. Well, I won't argue at the point.
Yeah. What is getting the water to your garden hose? Piping that's not good.
Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. Well, what we have to do is wrap you in a bubble.
Yeah. Yeah. And sometimes on a hot day, somebody older kids would open up a fire hydrant.
These were the bigger kids who knew how to open them. I know it was illegal, but they did it anyway.
They probably borrowed their dad's wrench. And it worked. I mean, you really got cooled off,
but the danger was to the little kids because when that water pressure gushed out, it would just
blow these little kids right off their feet. Jim, I noticed you're using the word they.
Yeah. So you did not take part in this? No, I did. I did not open one, but I saw it have one
of the kids. But you did not officially take part in it. No, no, no, no. And then, of course,
we had pollution from industry, which we probably still have. I want you to start us off with that.
Oh, well, unfortunately, I grew up on Carlisle Avenue. You're the Hordeca athletic field,
but you know what was nearby? Bell city foundry. Yes. And my parents were such cautious people.
And when they bought our house in 1950, I remember my dad talking about he had the furnace checked,
he had the wood siding checked, but lo and behold, and all those trips, probably to look at
1418, Carlow, I have to say now, the wind was not coming from the east. Because when we lived in
that house, and it was 45 years for my parents, in those years of the 50s, when the wind came from
the east, it was filled with soot. And I looked that up, S O O T, on burning that's not complete,
and it has carbon in it. Well, anyway, it was bad because you, if washed a,
you know, hanging clothes out, the sheets would have black marks on them. The house,
my parents had washed at least once a year. And we kids playing on the grass with all this
soot. So I don't do live in a coal mine. Where do I live? Yeah. Well, that just think, just two
blocks from the foundry. That would do it. So I don't think there's ever been a study of all of us
who grew up in that area. And I'm surviving. But you wonder, you wonder if it had what effect it had.
We're talking to Carol G and 14 in gym to see. We're talking about the dangers growing up in the 50s
and 60s that we were so unaware of. Yep. And either we're aware of it, we're in a panic.
Back with the industry, let's talk about noise pollution. No, we're not referring to
Carolyn and myself. One of the major companies in town was Walker Forge. They were on
east of Taylor on 17th. They had this, this loud hammer mill. And they had severe noise and
air pollution, I remember. You could hear that hammer mill and heavy machinery. They were
in a forging operation. And you could hear that for literally a few miles away. We lived on
Carnia Avenue by Christiano. And I could hear that bang, bang, bang, bang constantly day and
in the early evening as well. That was every single day. Every single except for the weekends.
Right. And the workers. Oh my goodness. I don't know how these survived.
Yeah, that's. Yeah. Right. We also had cold-powered furnaces. Back then, many of us had
cold-powered furnaces. A lot of us had oil. I think your parents had oil. Yeah. Carol, but my dad
would have a cold bin. We'd get cold delivered. And then I remember him shoveling cold into
the furnace. And that was really interesting for kids to go exploring in the cold bin. It was
dirty, filthy, and he come out black. I still have it in my house in the basement.
Really? Yeah. It's right where the bin would have been. It's all a stand in my basement.
In that corner and the cold shoot was right there is the going to the sand. Oh, wow. Jesus.
Now, was that the Pugh cold? Was it called Pugh cold company? That was one of the cold companies.
There was a theft and a and a bomb and cold. There were quite a few cold companies. And wasn't
there a big huge pile of cold down by the lake and off of a street? That was a main. Right. On
the north of the harbor, that was that was Pugh on the south. That was for the gas company.
Where was the big cold pile north or south? Both. Yeah. They both had cold piles there. Yeah.
And there were so many factories in town that were powered by a coal as well. You would see all
these factory smoke stacks just the smoke just coming out of these smoke stacks. I don't think any
of them use coal anymore. But the smoke stacks are still there. I know Johnson's wax has their
smoke stack. They just left it for. Oh, yeah. Decorative. Decorative. Right. Yeah. And there's a lot
of smoke stacks still around, but. Well, I was just mentioning to you, Jim, looking at retro
recene, a Facebook site this weekend. Yeah. Someone posted a picture looking north from downtown.
Uh-huh. From the 30s. Yeah. But they're in the distance. You could see the big,
the big smoke stacks. Yeah. Right. But also that big oil. Oh, the, yeah, for natural gas,
there were four of those big tanks. Okay. You could see it. You could see our downtown,
the beautiful monument square. And then you could see the top of an oil stack. And you could see
the smoke stacks. Right. Yeah. Yeah. But if you remember, if your parents had a coal furnace,
that smell was outside, you could just smell the. Really? Oh, I haven't. Not a good smell.
Now I'd love to smell it again. But back then, it would just, you know, it would be a common
occurrence. It would just trigger some pleasant memories if you smell it now. Yeah. Yeah.
That's right. Don't do the research on coal. No. Don't look it up. Of course, we had some dangers too
with, uh, household dangers. That's right at home. Yeah. So that's right. One of the major dangers
you and I discovered. Yep. We each had an example. Yep. The May tag ringer wash. Oh my gosh.
Yes. I remember when the neighbor lady, the news spread like fire. She got her hand caught in the
ringer wash. Yeah. My mother did constantly. Yet there was a little lever on the right where you,
when you're ready, you had your left hand with the coal's going in. You pulled a lever on the right
and all of a sudden the rollers would start. And if you weren't fast enough, your fingers would get stuck.
I'm glad your mother knew what to do because the neighbors were so concerned about our neighbor lady.
I don't know exactly what happened. Well, that was easy to do. My mother too. And I loved her to death.
But she was not a great cook. And I am not either. But I grew up on what we called boiled dinners.
And they were made in a pressure cooker. A presto pressure cooker. Okay. And there was always a
danger that that pressure inside of steam could make the device explode. So I just looked at a
presto is still making pressure cookers. And there are about 2000 accidents of scalding in the United
States every year. So I survived. And my mother survived. We all survived. We all survived the
pressure cooker era. That's right. That's right. Then also another thing that would happen from home.
You know, I think we had more house fires. And it would be smoking. Smoking in bed.
Smoking from falling asleep on the couch.
Well, you think about smoking in bed. Yeah. We're people thinking. Yeah. Yeah. And our fire could, you know,
it didn't could. It did. People died from smoking in bed. Sure. Yeah. Uh-huh. Well, they never
thought they were going to fall asleep. Obviously, but they did. Well, let me see. You're in bed. Yeah.
I never thought I was going to fall asleep laying in bed. Let me let me think about this for a
second. How can I possibly get tired and fall asleep laying in bed? And it's only a cigarette. It's
only cigarette. What harm can that do? Yeah. And then, um, Jim, we were talking about Christmas and
and the dangers of being in the household with a hot bulb, the light bulbs. The light bulbs.
They used to put candles on Christmas trees in the in the 1800s. Yes. At least we all grew that.
What were the real candles? That's right. Yeah. That's right. But we did have very hot light bulbs
and Christmas bulbs. We did. And combine that with a very hot or dry Christmas tree and
bingo. It goes up in flames. Yeah. And then pesticides for a second. Yeah. I have a lot of
drive in movie theater ads. They used to run for drive ins. And one of them was back in the 50s,
they used to spray the drive in theater with DDT to get rid of the mosquitoes. And before
the showing, they had a truck and they used to spray the DDT and they sprayed every aspect of the
drive and they said, you're watching the movie bug free. Of course, nobody survived in 10 years
from them. Nobody was around except the bugs were still around. Yeah. Could you imagine
it used to spray the drive in with DDT? Yeah. We all breathed in thinking nothing was wrong. You
know. That's a good movie. Yeah. That's a real nice thing we're done to Navarro. It's coughing
our lungs out from the DDT. Yeah. Thank you very much for doing that. We appreciate it.
And as I as I've grown to say we seem as the public, we seem to be the last to know when we were
when a danger was revealed. We endured it for years. Oh, that's right. That's right. And next time
we're going to continue this conversation with a few more dangerous practices we did back then,
which we didn't think anything of. We're going to center on babies, kids, and teens, right?
And for instance, I already mentioned jumping off the quarry wall, which that's right. That was not
me, but we should have a category for stupid. And you know, we had the privilege of just roaming
around the city, even at young ages, third, fourth grade, being gone all day long. But we did
do some very scary things in our roaming around. Oh my gosh. Yeah. That's right. Down by the water,
on the piers, a lot of things. No. Yeah. Playing with charts. It's another thing. We talked about
dare, dare doubles. I'll dare you. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Making dares. I dare you to I double dare you to
I triple-daw the dare you. Jump off that building. In the driving movie theaters too, they used to
sell these, they called it pick PIC. Oh, yes. And used to put in your car to get rid of the mosquitoes.
You burnt the coil and you burned it. Yeah. I don't know if that thing was made of, but mercury probably.
Yeah. Who knows what was in that thing? And you used to put it in your car with the windows rolled up.
Yes. That's right. And so you know, you're breathing it in. What? But people. Thank you. That's right.
Thank you guys for coming. Thank you. Thank you. If you missed any of this, we'll have this podcast
for you. W R J N dot com, civic media dot us, Spotify, Apple podcast, wherever you get your podcast.
Thanks a lot, guys.
