Actual Filming note: Please do not use footage of the children not buckled up. Because these parents are apparently from the 70s and do not buckle their kids in the car.
Come for the tea. Stay for the shade.
Come for the tea. Stay for the shade.
Actual Filming note: Please do not use footage of the children not buckled up. Because these parents are apparently from the 70s and do not buckle their kids in the car.
I remember seeing Teresa’s kids never buckled maybe in the last couple seasons of filming.
Sorry. My emails are full of production notes and this one just struck me as funny,
I’m so happy you are so up! I’ve been saying prayers for you!!!
In fairness, I must say that I survived not being buckled in myself.
Car seats were not used for infants back then either. My mom had a bouncy seat she just put on the seat
The above picture brought back memories! When I was younger my grandfather had a station wagon and the rear seat faced the rear window. I was terrified all the time.I thought I was gonna die at least once a week.
oh man! mine did too! we would ride back there for family weekends in the mountains and one of my cousins would get car sick from all the mountain curves and puke…good times! but I do remember going to disney world in the mid 70’s with my younger brother in a hella safe child seat….it must have been hot as hell for him riding from SC down to Orlando…seriously this thing was ridiculous but my mom was a college nurse and OCD and super protective of my brother…I need to get on google and see if I can find this thing…I have never since seen anything like it…it was 2 pieced…a seat he sat on with this part that was buckled in over him…he couldn’t even see over it ..but it had a saddle like very padded part that curved from his waist gradually forward…plus we were in a tank like 70’s mercedes that wouldn’t get above 65…very safe car…
We never wore belts. I started wearing one only about 20 yrs ago. My mother grew up in NYC and she was a shaky driver in the early 70’s when we were young. kids. She was driving us somewhere at night, in the middle of a sudden snow storm, when the car hit an ice patch and began swerving and sliding across the highway. My mother screamed to my brother and I, in the backseat, “Get on the floor in a ball NOW!”. It never occurred to her to say, “buckle up kids!” It was “huddle on the floor in a little ball and hold for dear life!”
One of my favorite memories is going to the drive-in theater with my dad and sister to go see Disney movies in the late 60’s, early 70’s in the Rambler station wagon. He would park backwards and my sister and I would see in the rear facing back seat with the gate swung open to watch the movies with a grocery bag full of greasy popcorn. Disney, greasy popcorn and mosquitoes… memories!
Lol I have similar memories of the drive-in about the same timeframe! My brother and I were the youngest (probably 8 and 4), so Mom would dress us in PJs. They’d spread sleeping bags and pillows in the back section of the wagon, to make it nice and cozy. Since the show didn’t start until dusk, we’d play in the sandy playground while the folks got hot dogs, fries, etc. at the snack bar. Then we’d all eat at the back of the open wagon. As it got dark, we kids would settle in with our pillows and blankets to watch the cartoons. By the time the main feature started, we’d be falling asleep!
Can we talk about my dad driving down the highway with me STANDING UP IN THE FRONT SEAT????
Standing while my dad is flying down the highway.
I’m pretty sure I ate lead paint chips.
I’m going with The Bieirmans Kim and Kroy for the win.
Haha. I sat in Dad’s lap when I was a toddler. Apparently, I put the car in reverse while we were flying down the road. I have no recall of that.
In fairness, Dad was all of 20 years old.
Not only were we not buckled in growing up, we weren’t even on SEATS! When we would go on long cross-country trips our parents would fold down the back two rows of seats in our station wagon and the four of us kids would just sit in a circle on the big flat surface and play Monopoly or Life.
We had the seats down/flat surface going on too, and we had a big mat back there, so we would slide all over the place on it. The person driving was a madman. It was so much fun.
I remember the mom arm coming out like a school bus stop sign when she would slam on the breaks. My sister and I would tumble head first into either the dashboard or the headrest of the seat in front of us, bounce off, repeat. Still here.
And don’t forget the driver/parent slinging their arm across you to stop any forward momentum that only succeeded in knocking the air out of you.
Yep that’s what I was trying to describe. Now a days you’ve got a bubble suit to walk outside practically. My kids ate dirt, rode bikes w out helmets, jumped bunk bed to bunk bed, and ran with scissors. Today I feel there would be CPS at my door daily.
The Biermanns?
That was going to be my guess. 100%
Brandi Redmonds’ kids???
Yes! I remember seeing her kids unbuckled while the car was moving at the beginning of the season.
How did we all survive the 70’s as children??
I have bourbon. I AM NOT ALLOWED TO HAVE BOURBON. IJS,
me too…I am doing fall cleaning (it was just too fucking hot until now) and I find I can clean more drinking bourban…I do not know why…I just can…cheers chica…and ps… I, for one, love that you are mentoring/sponsoring that neighbor kid…people used to that all the time and we have gotten away from it so I love that you are…
bourbon is a slow, easy drink. i can do chores on this as well. vodka, no. useless. everyone is different. i say, know your buzz! Seatbelts wont always save you. I flipped my car one year, and tumbled inside like a dryer. if i had a belt on, i wouldnt be here.
yep! vodka..never has sit well with me…or white wine…bourbon just helps especially with my bad back which aches after chores…ps YALL! I need a rec for a really good PET HAIR vacuum…don;t mind the cost if it is good…and I mean serious hair…2 big dogs and 4 cats…
Every now and then when I am embarking on a major cleaning or gardening project I start thinking how much I miss those good old beans, aka cross-tops. Just one or two … are they even around anymore?
Miele are great with pet hair, I love mine.
And it has to be Biermann’s
THE PURPLE DYSON. You’ll have to take out a second mortgage for it buy totally worth it.
Everyones comments are so funny and bring back memories!
My brother spent an entire cross country family vacation up in that back window ledge. He played legos and matchbox cars the whole trip, he love it.
We all survived somehow lol.
Yes yes, the back window ledge was everything for our trips to the jersey shore! My dad was all about ice cream, so we stopped at almost every turnpike stop to get ice cream cones at Howard Johnson’s turnpike stops! Probably took us twice as long to make the road trips because of my dad’s love of ice cream, but it made for great memories! I remember my mom made a foam covered mat for the back of the station wagon so we could lounge there for the trip. Seatbelts? No ma’am. Haha! Thanks for the trip down memory lane TT!
That’s how we traveled too! My two brothers would stake out the “way back” in the fake wood-paneled station wagon. They would roll around and fight pretty much the whole trip. My mom gave the kids who got carsick Dramamine and NO kids were ever allowed to sit in the front seat! Good times. 🙂 (But we have come a long way, I admit.)
Yes! We called it the “way back”, too! The seat folded up out of the back. The first time we got a wagon with electric windows, we were entranced with them and my sister sat in the front seat pushing the Up button of the “way back” door window while my brother tried to physically push the window Down–you know, just to see which force would win. They got in trouble for that one. As for the front seat, my mother’s rule was you couldn’t sit there until your feet could touch the floor. Not sure what that would accomplish if there was an accident but it was very exciting to finally have grown tall enough to graduate to the front. We drove everywhere for vacations–4 kids, 2 dogs–so I have many, many fond memories of those wonderful wagons.
We always stayed at Howard Johnson’s on our trips. Loved their breakfast as it was a treat! We’d only be a mile or so into the trip and my sister would start asking “when are we getting there?” Mind you this was a two day trip from Michigan to Cape Cod! OMG.
More memories…my Dad driving most of the trip. Every so often we’d get noisy and he’d say to my mom “Can you control those kids?” My mom would ask us to quiet down and add “God bless me you kids!” Then we knew things were serious!
We were HoJo’s, too–loved the pools, the food and the orange roofs!
loved Howard Johnson’s! Miss that place.
Proof! I’m not the only one who calls it ‘the way back’. I just didn’t remember why I called it that. We had a wood paneled station wagon that looked like the Bradymobile. I don’t remember the first time I wore a seatbelt but I feel like it was early/mid 80’s. Maybe when I became a mom myself lol
I started wearing seat belts after drivers ed. My mom got a bit irritated when we insisted she wear hers too. She felt the seat belt wrinkled her clothes!
We used to call it the “back back”, and I remember lying down on the top of the bench seat while mom was driving. Good times
Melissa Gorga. I remember the season when Caroline had a radio stint (whatever you call it). during the same “time”/scene Melissa was driving and didn’t have her seatbelt on.
My grandmother and dad always drove cadillacs, and during the 70’s, 80’s and. Early 90’s they had that arm rest in the front and back seats that folded down and I was told it was a seat just for me. I sat on that damn thing everytime I was in either of their cars. I can’t tell you how many times I was launched off that damn armrest. If I sat on the seat I could see over the dash. 🤷♀️ I don’t recall ever wearing a seatbelt u til I started to drive myself.
When I was 6, my parents and I drove from Seattle to Salt Lake City. (22 hours) I sat on the front arm rest most of the way. I remember sliding into the radio more than once during abrupt stops. How ridiculous. Oh…the late 70″s…
On vacation driving from San Diego to Scranton, Pa. My dad would drive straight through night one, after a 16 hr. Day (he sold diamonds) my infant brother would be in my mom’s lap, and she would brace her foot on the glove box saying “um it’s 10miles turn, like a upside down U” i see myself in her ,by her looks, very passive aggressive. We’d survive, he’d tune her out due to exhaustion.
Id be anxiety ridden behind my dad and his cigs, window barely cracked, breathing in Salem cigs.
Same night , we also got a hotel room with George Washington and roaming eyes!
Swear, lol. 4 hours sleep and up.and at it. No rest till we got wherever the destination.
Sadly lost my dad very young, but he worked so hard vacation was everything.
He also would come home and surprise us with WE’RE GOING TO LAS VEGAS, PACK THE CAR!!! Which mom had done without us knowing. But when we went to round the darkness into the lights of the strip, (talking 50 yrs ago)half the time the car broke,lol. I learned about starters, ignition switch, flat tires. And always lots of fun!
Loving these comments!!! In the 70’s, we had a Caprice Classic, which was a tank! I remember playing up on the back window ledge, if I wasn’t just laying on the back seat. Good times.
I think we had a dark green caprice too. I was very young but remember laying in the back window and enjoying the sunshine. Also remember landing in the floorboard when we hit some ice one year. Good times! Still alive!
I would get so envious of kids who got to ride in the open bed of a pickup. Mom wouldn’t let us do that. But I snuck a few times in other people)s trucks. My first motorcycle ride was at 8 with a neighbor’s brother, a very cute and kind and charismatic young man. Mom and Becky about tore his head off for taking us around the block, being very careful. How was I to know he was loaded on heroin (he OD’d two years after)?
My parents had matching powder blue pintos and we sat in the back hatch. We were rear ended on the 4th of July, coming home from the fireworks and the pinto did NOT explode. When I turned 16, my parents bought me a powder blue 2 door pinto with no radio. I drove it like it was a rental. I miss the pintos.
I remember sitting in my dad’s lap and helping him drive the car on long trips. And sitting in the car when the parents went in stores. And sitting in the middle front seat. And laying in the back window while they drove. And crawling around in the car. And sitting in the front seat. And never wearing seat belts.
My parents did attempt at some point to strap us in (pretty much 5 point restraints), probably because we were all OVER that Ford Fairlane. Didn’t work, we figured out those buckles fast. I remember laying in the back window, above the back seat, ‘lil sis on the floor, remember the rear wheel drive humps in the middle of the floor? We did ALOT of road trips in that car, I remember a baby potty (wood frame, best use of restraints used at some point) so we wouldn’t have to stop every hour when ‘lil sis had to pee, Dad hauled ass because we were very busy and it took a long time to get to G-ma and Pooh poo Jim’s house or cabin, depending the time of year…
Don’t get me started on the “Open Road” van conversion in the 70’s, amazing memories but really hilarious and so “unsafe”, yup, survived!
Like I said last night. I’m more than over due multiple road trips in my near future, this time no littles in tow! So bummed to hear the ham, almond and walnut festivals aren’t really celebrating their namesakes? Sad face. That’s ok, I still haven’t seen the biggest ball of twine or been to Idaho, hopefully they have a real potato festival at some point…?
These are all such fun stories to hear! Long time lurker, but I had to chime in. I’m a millennial, but my dad was a classic car collector and owned 30+ running beautiful 1960s-70s cars. Many different makes and models but his favorites were Toronados. They were the first mass produced front wheel drive sport car in North America (you pass everything but a gas pump, he said.). We’d ride in the front seat of a variety of these cars with no seatbelt til I was 9-10, right around 2000. My mom would smoke her Marlboro Mediums & tell us stories about Ralph and Larry the right and left windshield wiper. We also rode in the back of my dads work truck (construction paid for the cool cars) from MO-Mount Rushmore when I was 6. Watching classic movies on a tiny tv with vhs integrated. My parents were older & old school when they had us. Now they are stringent about my niece “making it click” in her car seat before they even shift. She’ll likely be in this car seat til she’s ten, tiny thing that she is. As Dylan would say the times they are a’changin”
Memory trigger–my late husband Rocket Man had the first model Toronado when I married him in 1966. He had just traded in his Corvette. The new car got a lot of attention from total strangers back then. I was afraid to drive it, so would practice early on Sunday mornings when there was no traffic, & carefully creep through the empty streets. I was a smoker back then & kept smashing my cigarette against the driver’s window because there was no wing window for the ashes. Two years later he traded it in for one of the first BMWs, which was a great car, & the last one we ever bought new. It cost $2400, including the shortwave radio.
Oh the way back..always reserved for the older cousins and I was a youngin so I was on the arm rest in the front seat and hating being the youngin. But the back of Dad’s pick up…oh yeah we all could ride there and be even! Rode all the way to the Jersey Shore, about 1 hour drive back there with a cooler, usually tomato baskets upside down to sit on. On the memories
Anyone remember the little fold up car seat with a steering wheel and a horn? It felt like it was made out of plastic/vinyl covered cardboard and had two aluminum over-the-back-of-the-seat arms that folded out. You just threw that sucker over the back of the front seat and tossed in your kid. I think it even had a plastic/vinyl strap that was supposed to be a seat belt. The baby got to sit up front while the rest of us were in the back seat.
We only had to wear a seat belt on “long” trips, and it was ONE loooong seat belt that stretched from passenger window to passenger window and the sister in the middle had to hold the buckle on her lap. The two on the side get squished by the belt when anyone moved. I am still alive.
We were the first on our block with seatbelts. In one of the oldest cars — my favorite 1956 Ford Victoria, 2-door. Dad worked for “the phone company,” there was only one. The company provided the seatbelts and you got points or prizes or money or something for using them. I think the phone company’s safety book was 112 pages.
Those upside down green glasses bug me. Like a stylist thought it would be cute.
Can y’all admit this post is way more fun to read than ANY Fake Housewives of Anywhere? Please let TT go on to bigger things and stop recapping this mindless crap. This post is GOLD!
You are absolutely right! I’ve been smiling reading everyone’s posts remembering my own rides in our “wood paneled” station wagon! Totally GOLD 🙂
All these comments made for hilarious family conversation last night. Explaining to the teens was even funnier. My 17 year old asked why any human would ever ride in the back of a pick up truck? They’ll never know the fun times they’ve missed out on lol.
Thanks everyone!!