Nostalgia Quiz Provides A Walk Down Memory Lane

Dear Dr. LeCrone:

Here’s a little memory test for trivia lovers and seniors. I am 70-something, and this was a walk down memory lane for me. It was sent to me as e-mail, and the author is unknown to me.

-A reader in East Texas

1. In the 1940s and 1950s, where was the automobile headlight dimmer switch?
2. If the top of a soda bottle containing water had holes in it, what was it used for?
3. What was the name of a chewing gum with the same name as a card game?
4. What post-war automobile’s body style made it difficult to tell whether it was coming or going?
5. What was Butch Wax used for?
6. How did you keep old fashioned roller skates attached to your feet?
7. What was the most dreaded disease of the ‘50s in this country?
8. What was the name of Caroline Kennedy’s pet pony?
9. What was a duck-and-cover drill at school?
10. What were Green Stamps used for?
11. Finish this sentence. Praise the Lord and pass the______?
12. Who left his heart in San Francisco?
13. Who had the catchphrase in his T.V. show, “How sweet it is”?
14. Finish this commercial. “I’d walk a mile for a ______”?
15. What was the name of the TV show and character that said “This is the city….”

Answers:

1. On the floorboard of the automobile, usually to the left of the clutch.
2. To sprinkle clothes before ironing. Steam irons hadn’t been invented.
3. Blackjack.
4. Studebaker.
5. Flat-top haircuts.
6. With clamps attached to the soles of your shoes tightened by a skate key, which you wore on a string.
7. Poliomyelitis, often called polio or infantile paralysis.
8. Macaroni.
9. A drill at school where student got under his or her desk and covered their heads to prepare for an atomic bomb.
10. Green stamps were glued into books and then traded for a variety of goods such as kitchen appliances and sporting goods at the Green Stamp Store.
11. Ammunition.
12. Tony Bennett
13. Jackie Gleason in the sitcom “The Honeymooners.”
14. Camel, the brand name of a popular cigarette.
15. “Dragnet,” Sgt. Joe Friday.

Dear reader:
Many thanks. Your little quiz brings back a lot of memories for me, and, I’m sure, others of the ‘40s and ‘50s generations.