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There's a moment in the movie Mad Max; Beyond Thunderdome where one of the leaders of the lost tribe of children reviews all the things their parents told them were important to remember about the time before the "Pox-Eclipse" --apocalpyse. "We kept it straight, ... everything marked, everything 'membered!"

"I'm looking behind me now, across the count of time,
down the long haul ... into history back."

So here are some fun things from *my* past ...

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This was my ultimate favorite toy ever! It was a fantastic thing that kept me occupied for hours. It had plastic creatures, including an astronaut, that could each be squished into a colored square tablet. When you put them in the time machine oven, they would heat-up and expand back to their original form ... sort of.

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Major Matt Mason --awesome, ... if you were five years old in 1966!

My cousin had one. I was very jealous.

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Mr. Softee icecream truck, my favorite was Buried Treasure --raspberry icecream with a silly circus character stick in the middle.  I can still here that tune in my head!

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Does anyone remember the Quaker Oats company asking kids to vote for which cereal to keep and which to dump; Quisp or Quake.  If I remember correctly, Quake lost overhwlemingly!  Of course, the cereals were identical except for their shape, but flying saucers are very important to kids!

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Some of my favorite TV shows as a kid ...

Land of the Giants                                                  The Rat Patrol
  Time Tunnel

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This was a crystal radio my grandfather helped me build when I didn't know anythng about electricity other than *not* to poke things into a wall socket, and I didn't know much about radios, except you needed a 9-volt battery for it to work. This one did not, and it taught me about radio waves and why an antenae is important.

'Member this? --Wacky Packs

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We put these stickers on *everything*!

Remember the first baseball strike back in the 1972? Without a new season of baseball cards, anything that came with gum would do..

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The first horror film I remember being captivated by.
I don't think it had much to do with the creature.

What did you do on weekends in high school?

Yes,  before I was interested in martial arts, I did Roller Disco, ... and no, I am not proud of it ... anymore. With longer hair, girls would say I looked like Barry Manilow and sometimes wanted my autograph. No, I was never proud of that! But, I did get to skate with a lot of great looking girls!

Where did Joe go after high school, and what was he doing?

1981 in Big Pine Key ... after spending a week with college friends
 at Sea Camp that included swimming with sharks and sea turtles.
['m the Joe Cool on the right. I actually did
swim out and grab that sign from the Shark Pit]

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I think the use of punch-terminals today would be considered a form of genuine torture. You had to write each line of code by punching keys, up to 80 characters per line, and God help you if you mixed-up the order of the cards. I once saw a fellow student drop her cards and just march to the student office to instantly drop-out of CompSci and change her major.

TRS-80 Pocket Computer (1982) with 2 Kilobytes of memory

Rediscovered it when moving, June 2012.  It still works!

Old-school library card # KA 43094.  I spent many days at the library in Key West researching Florida Keys history to write aticles for the Conch Republic.