Do you remember the smell of DITTOs from school in the1970's?

Question

Remember when the teacher would hand out fresh "dittos" and they were cold and moist? Then you would hold the paper up to your face to smell it. Omg. I wish I could smell those again. Amazing!

Also, what do you remember from the 60's and 70's school days that is nostalgic?

Answer 1

I don't remember the smell, just the purple ink. I remember the first space take off. I got in trouble at school because my mom kept me home to watch it in third grade.

I was never allowed to wear jeans/pants to school, only dresses. I hated dresses.

I remember where I was when JFK was shot.

We lived in San Antonio during the Cuban missile crisis and my mom drilled us on what to do if we had to run for the hills.

I remember bomb drills in the halls of the school. Sorry, my memory is morbid tonight.

I remember troll dolls, choo-choo bag purses, ironing all my clothes.

I remember when there were no curling irons, electric curlers or electric hair dryers. WAY back in the 50's my mom put pink rubber curlers in my hair; they were called spoolies (my hair looked wrinkled, it was bad).

We got our first air conditioner in 1963, in hot San Antonio. At first I hated it and closed my door and kept the windows open. Window unit AC's smelled funky.

I learned to type on a MANUAL IBM typewriter and flunked because I couldn't type fast enough because the keys were so stiff.

I remember the first beatles appearance on Ed Sullivan. I remember when Star Trek was cool. I was a first gen. Trekkie. Yes I was a geek and proud of it.

The list could go on and on. White GoGo boots, hot pants, Boone's Farm Strawberry Hill wine....

It was an interesting time, but I wouldn't go back and live it again for one billion dollars. Go boomer babies!!!!

Answer 2

Yeah, I remember the freshly printed sinus clearing blue print papers. I would volunteer to hand-crank the ditto machine, wow, how things change. Was too young to remember the 60's but remember the 70's. I remember unruly kids getting their hands swatted with a yard-stick by teachers as a punishment. Geesh, Imagine if you did that now. I also remember taking typing classes with big 'ol IBM typewriters. Also remember the first PC used in our classroom in the early 80's. The thing had like 28K of total storage. Compare that to the 80GB Ipods of today. Oh and that's when floppy disks were really floppy.
Remember the big platform (earth) shoes.
Also remember being able to buy a soda for like twenty cents.
Also that's around the time that 'pleather' (vinyl) jackets were in. I got one and thought it was cool ...how tacky. Feather haircuts, bell-bottom pants, shark-skin three piece suits, and wide collared shirts were all in. Let's not forget Disco!!!!

Answer 3

Ah yes. I remember it well. :-) I remember typing class with IBM Selectrics. Up until a year ago, I still had the old Smith-Corona manual portable typewriter my grandmother bought me to practice on. My freshman algebra book had instructions for writing programs in basic. There were no computers in classrooms. I was an audio-visual aide in middle school and some of my high school clases, running film strip and film projectors. We had some self threading projectors, but I still remember how to thread the old RCA film projectors. I remember when chamois covered blackboard erasers were "the thing". And overhead projectors were rare. Essays and reports were assigned a month or so in advance, because research had to be done at the library, unless you were one of the lucky ones that had the Encyclopedia Britannica at home. All the "cool" kids had Trapper Keepers, and wore Jordache jeans, and had "Farrah" hair. Try as I might, my hair just wouldn't feather. Clogs with wooden soles, the "Annie Hall" look, High heeled sandals with lacy ankle socks. Pep assemblies where teachers guarded the doors so you couldn't skip out. Five minutes between classes, barely long enough to get from one class on the thrid floor of the main building, to your locker on the first floor, then to the next class in the basement of the freshman building...fun times.

Thanks for the memories.

Answer 4

The dry erase markers used on "White Boards" still have that smell.

I remember finishing lunch as fast as possible in order to spend the rest of the period in the park across the street where groups would gather to sing the latest songs from the radio. Since my voice was "in transition" at the time, I could sing soprano and bass in the same song. I also remember flying food in the lunchroom which was another reason to finish fast and get out. Any milk carton flying through the air usually had a lit cherry bomb inside (the magnesium fuse burns under water, once lit).

Answer 5

OMG - haven't thought about dittos for years. They actually went back to the 40s, and were always done in that weird purple ink.
What I remember from the 70s is the protests at university, where (gasp!) students wanted representation and to be treated as adults instead of like oversized kindergarten students.

Answer 6

I remember:

* Roger Maris' quest to break Babe Ruth's record.
* Those AMAZIN Mets playing in the Polo Grounds
* JFK's assassination and funeral
* RFK's assassination
* MLK's assassination and the riots
* The Cuban Missle Crisis
* Hippies, weed, and Woodstock (the concert, not little bird)
* The Vietnam War and draft
* Joining the Navy in 1968
* The Rolling Stones, Beatles, Supremes, Three Dog Night,
Iron Butterfly, Janis Joplin, Jimmi Hendrix, etc.
* The moon landing
* The 70's disco craze

And a whole lot more.............

Answer 7

Wow, I'm probably older than any of you (51) and I never heard of dittos. Sounds like a Roneo machine, only that didn't use purple ink. Can you fill me in on dittos? I work in engineering and years ago blueprints were done on vellum paper and copied with strong chemicals using a bluish purple ink. That kind of sounds the same. As far as memories, I have a zillion of them, as I graduated in 1974.

White go-go boots
AM radio
Manual typewriters
Carbon paper
Rare Earth (a band)
Grand Funk Railroad (another band)
Afros
Fringe on vests and purses
35 cent gallon of gas
25 cent Coca Cola
Muscle cars (still love them)
Phones with rotary dials
Party lines on phones (shared phone lines with neighbors)
Bell bottoms (not the same as boot cut or flare leg!!)
Legal spankings by school principals
Prayer before school over intercom system by principal
Cruising (pretty much outlawed now)
Dates with gentlemen (miss this the most)
No guns in schools

Answer 8

Loved the smell of DITTOS. Also, remember the voting age being lowered to 18.

Answer 9

My school where I teach still has a ditto machine. We finally got our own copy machine in the lounge and I stopped using dittoes about 2 years ago. I LOVE the smell of dittoes. They were very messy to make, though.

Answer 10

The origin of the word 'dork'
Dodge Ram Chargers racing team
Vanilla cokes
The first 10-speed bikes
Going to school from the first week in September until the second week in June.
The first time the Beatles showed up on the Ed Sullivan show.
The Beach Boys
Lighting farts in the parking lot during the senior Prom.