Having to wait "4-6 weeks for delivery" for that special "mail in" prize after eating 3 boxes of godawful cereal.
Fighting with siblings for the prize in a cereal box (at the bottom), not because you wanted the prize but because you didn't want them to have it.
(Led to many incidents of cereal all over the kitchen floor and
everybody gets a warmed backside....)
Paper routes. Folded, rubber banded and delivered on bicycle by a 10 year old kid. After school. Rain, snow, shine.
To save up for my first metal detector, a "Radio Shack" build it yourself kit.
Had to quickly learn about capacitors, resistors, how to read schematics, etc.
An example of an early "responsibility education." (I
still get the next cereal box prize, ya hear me?)
Selling greeting cards or flower and vegetable seeds door to door to get, yes, that PRIZE!
Sending off for stuff on Bazooka Joe bubble gum comics like the "amazing X-ray glasses!" or
"Throw your voice! Be a ventriloquist!" (Rip-off! Mom tried to tell me....)
What? Sea Monkeys? NO! Really? Lemme see....
Playin' marbles with a bully taw.
Chasin' the ice wagon in the summer on it's delivery route and swiping pieces of ice.
A hand-written letter or card sent through the mail was the only means of textual communication.
And GREATLY cherished!
Including any of these stamps...
1954-1980 #1054-1059A Coils
(I have used these stamps and multiples of earier issues to meet the raises in postal hikes during my youth.)
Words like "billion" "trillion" and "zillion" were unknown. Except in science-fiction.
Always,
Scott