Nobody in Salt Lake ever locked their doors

Don't tell anyone, but in our previous old country-ish house outside Redmond
WA, we never locked the doors. Too far off the path for anyone to bother.
Plus, we had neighbors with guns.

When we left on a longer vacation, I would make a show of locking the front
door, to instruct our kids that locking up is a Good Thing, but a child
could have gotten into the house within a minute or two.

Phil Nelson

Don't tell anyone, but in our previous old country-ish house
outside Redmond WA, we never locked the doors. Too far
off-the-path for anyone to bother. Plus, we had neighbors
with guns.

This must have been many years ago, because Redmond and surrounding areas
are now so heavily developed that there's no longer any "outside".

It was 9 years ago. That road in Happy Valley is still a pretty rural
island. The residents have been battling developers for at least 30 years.
One of them lives in her grandparents' farmhouse, which is on the national
historic register. Yes, there are big housing tracts a mile uphill, and all
the way from there to Issaquah, but you can still keep livestock, legally
shoot at coyotes in your woods, etc.

Phil

Phil Nelson wrote:
Nobody in Salt Lake ever locked their doors

Don't tell anyone, but in our previous old country-ish house outside Redmond
WA, we never locked the doors. Too far off the path for anyone to bother.
Plus, we had neighbors with guns.

When we left on a longer vacation, I would make a show of locking the front
door, to instruct our kids that locking up is a Good Thing, but a child
could have gotten into the house within a minute or two.

Phil Nelson



Agreed. I lived in West Los Angeles, and we never locked our doors when
we were at home until about 1968 or so. We didn't bother locking the
doors when we were off for just a quick trip to the market or something
like that either.

We DID lock up when leaving overnight.

One should recall, from the old days, that if you were sitting in your
house, and someone knocked on the door, it would go like this:

Visitor: knock, knock
Homeowner: "Who's there?"
Visitor: "Joe Blow"
Homeowner: "Oh, come in!"

and the visitor would enter, finding the homeowner still seated or
otherwise doing what they had been doing before the knock. Only if the
knocker was unknown or much anticipated, or a VIP, or someone who would
be dealt with at the door (postman, or salesperson for example) would
the homeowner get up and answer the door in person. Neighbors, friends,
regularly visiting family, etc. let themselves in.

This was the norm for everyone I knew when I was a child. It all changed
in the late 1960s, and if you look at crime statistics from the period,
you will see why.

I've said it before and I will repeat that this is one of the
fundamental changes as we went from the "I Love Lucy" world to the "All
in the Family" world.

Oh, and for the record, I recall very vividly, watching the first man on
the moon at my friend Charlie's house, on the floor in front of a Zenith
console B&W television. His parents still live in the same house, with
some of the same furniture (now recovered).

I also remember watching Nixon being inaugurated, (1969) in class in 3rd
grade. This was the first time we ever had a television in class.

Best Regards,

David

"DaveW" wrote in message
news:fzhmi.252$SM6.98@trnddc01...
Oh, and for the record, I recall very vividly, watching the first man on
the moon at my friend Charlie's house, on the floor in front of a Zenith
console B&W television. His parents still live in the same house, with
some of the same furniture (now recovered).

I also remember watching Nixon being inaugurated, (1969) in class in 3rd
grade. This was the first time we ever had a television in class.

Best Regards,

David

I never got to see the moon landing (at least not live). We didn't own a
television for a lot of my childhood. When Kennedy was shot, it was during
my lunch hour (I lived at the time in Butte, MT). I first heard the news at
a newsstand between my house and the school on the way back to school. When
everyone was back from lunch, they called us all to the auditorium where
they had three 21" B/W TV's on the stage. The principal made an
announcement, then turned on the TV's and we watched the news for the rest
of the hour, then everyone was sent home.

For some of the early launches (Mercury, Gemini) the older grades in my
elementary school in Salt Lake were called out of class into the large
hallway to watch either the launch or the splashdown/recovery, depending
upon the time of day and which one was happening.

I've said it before and I will repeat that this is one of the
fundamental changes as we went from the "I Love Lucy"
world to the "All in the Family" world.

The "I Love Lucy" world was a fantasy world that never existed.

William Sommerwerck wrote:
I've said it before and I will repeat that this is one of the
fundamental changes as we went from the "I Love Lucy"
world to the "All in the Family" world.

The "I Love Lucy" world was a fantasy world that never existed.



Well, literally, no. Even when I was a wee tot, I didn't know anyone's
Dad who wore a jacket or tie at home. But, people dressed up to go out
of the house, girls were required to wear dresses in school (no pants),
boys hair was to be above the collar, etc. Service station attendents
wore bow tie and were courteous, rather than disinterested or surly.
Even if they had existed, nobody would play a boom box loudly on a
public bus. People may have disagreed with their government, but they
had a certain fundamental trust in it none the less. The same goes with
network news broadcasts.

Yes, there were rough neighborhoods, drugs, adultery, prostitution, the
Mafia, theft, corruption, etc. But there was still a social norm that
didn't allow skanky rich sluts to be the focus of national news, for
example.

Children were, in general, much, much better behaved, and their parents
made it so. To paraphrase Garrison Keillor, if a you were a child, and a
strange woman on the street told you to blow your nose, you blew!

That's what I'm talking about.

Regards,

Dave

DaveW wrote:

Well, literally, no. Even when I was a wee tot, I didn't know anyone's
Dad who wore a jacket or tie at home. But, people dressed up to go out
of the house, girls were required to wear dresses in school (no pants),
boys hair was to be above the collar, etc. Service station attendents
wore bow tie and were courteous, rather than disinterested or surly.


The owner of a local station still pumps the gas for you, but he
doesn't wear a bow tie or jacket in the 100 degree Florida sun. He
still uses a pile of receipt books for his business customers to fill up
their work trucks, and pay weekly, or monthly. He's told me several
times that he would do the same for me, as long as I paid promptly on
the first of the month.

ALL stations here are supposed to pump gas for the handicapped
drivers, but you might have to wait quite a while, till they can get
away from the counter for a few minutes.

--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

"Michael A. Terrell" wrote in message
...
DaveW wrote:

Well, literally, no. Even when I was a wee tot, I didn't know anyone's
Dad who wore a jacket or tie at home. But, people dressed up to go out
of the house, girls were required to wear dresses in school (no pants),
boys hair was to be above the collar, etc. Service station attendents
wore bow tie and were courteous, rather than disinterested or surly.


The owner of a local station still pumps the gas for you, but he
doesn't wear a bow tie or jacket in the 100 degree Florida sun. He
still uses a pile of receipt books for his business customers to fill up
their work trucks, and pay weekly, or monthly. He's told me several
times that he would do the same for me, as long as I paid promptly on
the first of the month.

ALL stations here are supposed to pump gas for the handicapped
drivers, but you might have to wait quite a while, till they can get
away from the counter for a few minutes.


In Oregon, they still pump the gas for everyone. It's the law. But about the
only stations you get any other service from are Chevron stations, and you
pay about 30 cents a gallon more for gas to get that service.

"Brenda Ann" wrote in message
...

"Michael A. Terrell" wrote in message
...
DaveW wrote:

Well, literally, no. Even when I was a wee tot, I didn't know anyone's
Dad who wore a jacket or tie at home. But, people dressed up to go out
of the house, girls were required to wear dresses in school (no pants),
boys hair was to be above the collar, etc. Service station attendents
wore bow tie and were courteous, rather than disinterested or surly.


The owner of a local station still pumps the gas for you, but he
doesn't wear a bow tie or jacket in the 100 degree Florida sun. He
still uses a pile of receipt books for his business customers to fill up
their work trucks, and pay weekly, or monthly. He's told me several
times that he would do the same for me, as long as I paid promptly on
the first of the month.

ALL stations here are supposed to pump gas for the handicapped
drivers, but you might have to wait quite a while, till they can get
away from the counter for a few minutes.


In Oregon, they still pump the gas for everyone. It's the law. But about
the only stations you get any other service from are Chevron stations, and
you pay about 30 cents a gallon more for gas to get that service.

.... they don't have split prices here anymore ... I use Chevron exclusively
and
they haven't washed my windshield in years ....