The Good Ol' Days

In this episode of The Gripe, Stitch and Rick tumble back into a world that feels both impossibly distant and instantly familiar as they discuss drive‑ins on summer nights, matinee tickets bought with two quarters, birthday cards heavy with taped change, and the unmistakable sound of your mother yelling your name across the neighborhood because dinner was ready. Through stories that are funny, raw, and deeply human, we explore how simple life once felt, how much the world has changed, and why those small moments still hit us right in the chest. From station wagons backed up on grassy hills to movie theaters that let you stay all day, this conversation is a reminder of what we’ve lost, what we’ve kept, and what we’re still trying to hold onto. This conversation is nostalgia with teeth. It's honest, warm, and full of the kind of memories that shape who we become. 

Welcome to THE GRIPE!

And don't forget to check out my other Podcast "Yammerin' with Stitch Mainville" which can be found on all your favorite podcast platforms!

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Welcome to the Crike with your hosts Stitch Mainville and Rick Garrett. There's a certain kind of conversation that only happens when two people start remembering the world as it used to be. Not in some grand historical way, but in the small, lived-in details that shaped who we became. In this episode of The Gripe, we drift back to drive-ins, matinees, quarters taped inside birthday cards, and the days when your mother didn't text you to come home. She yelled your name across the neighborhood, and somehow you heard it. This is a warm, funny, unfiltered walk through the moments that make growing up feel simple. Even when life wasn't. But they don't have drive-ins anymore. They don't have yeah. There's no drive-ins.

SPEAKER_02 0:59

There used to be one out on uh Stewmanville Pike, remember? That was the last one I remember.

SPEAKER_01 1:06

Twin Highway. That's what it was called. That's what it was called. Twin Highway Drive-in. Yes, it's gone. They got rid of all of it. They flattened it. There's a sheet there now. It's a gallery. There's the sheets down? Yep. That's where sheets was. That's where she is now? That was a twin highway. Oh!

SPEAKER_02 1:22

Because I knew it was out there. Because when we moved out here this way and everything else like that, I used to see.

SPEAKER_01 1:28

I remember because when we first moved here, there was there was that uh drive-in movie theater right there. Yeah, that's that was a twin highway. The twin highway back in the day was where like 60s, early 70s, even the late 50s. Oh man they would go on dates to the drive-ins, right? Yeah, oh yeah. But then kind of drive-ins for some reason sort of faded out. And then what they started doing was they were showing porn. Because it's off the highway, you really can't see anything from the highway other than the sign that's the twin highway. They were showing porn. Yeah. And and I know a few of them. You could drive in and watch porno and either off or have your girl do whatever. Do whatever. But then that stopped, and then they brought the high, like right around 2000. No, it was in the late 90s, early 2000s, because I was married to uh Leslie. And we would take the kids to the drive-ins. We would go to the Twin Highways. It was either the one in uh Steubenville, like you said, or the one out in um Moon. There was one Moon Township. I was gonna say Ross, I was gonna say Moon Township. They both had drive-ins, and now I can't think of one place to go for a drive-in. Man, we used to go. I was living in West Virginia when uh there was drive-in movie theaters and stuff. Did you ever, did you ever uh get like a big truck or whatever and put people in the back? It was like six dollars a car load. I never I never paid people to get them in. Yeah. But I've seen it done. Like people put them in a trunk and shit. But what we would do is we would, like, I had this uh station wagon. Yeah. It was just V's is basically what a station wide was back in the day. Right. And what we would do is we would pull in, but then we would back, like, because it has like a hill. Every car would be like up on a hill so you could like look up to the screen. We would back up on the hill, and we would drop the station wagon down, right? And we would lay out blankets and shit, and we would sit on the edge with a pooler, we'd bring our own food, we'd bring our own snacks, we'd watch the movie. And then the best drive-ins were the ones with those external speakers. Yeah. Because we would pull them over and pull it over, and you could hear hang them on the door to hear the movie. Yeah. Then they got fancy, they started doing what? Um, they started tuning your radio. Tune your radio to 88.3 FM. Oh, in order to get the frequency. To hear it, yeah. Yeah. And then you'd have it like cranked all the way loud, and it was like low. And you're like, what the what did he say? What did he say? No, them speakers, you dial that button up and whoosh, that one comes. But that was one of the best times. Yeah, they was. Because we had a good time, because we take our whole damn family, man. We get a pickup truck and it was six dollars. Back in them days, it was six dollars a car load. A car load. A car load. That shit is awesome. Whoever you can, how many other people you can get? You take a pickup truck, you can take our whole family. Or whatever, because that was down in West Virginia. Because I you know what I mean? And we just go there, man, have a good old time. Of course, my cousins was crazy as hell, and they fuck up anything. She gotta get us kicked out and shit. That's just bullshit. That just goes to tell you that back in the day, things were so much simpler and cheaper. Yeah. Like I was watching this video. It was made in 1980. All right, this video was made in 1980. And they were talking about the cost of living in the 50s. So they were going back 30 years. Okay. You know, you can go to the market for $50 and like the cart was full up. And for $17,000, you got a four-bedroom house. And for $3,700, you got a brand new sports car. Oh, yeah. Right? Yeah. So things were awesome. But then you think again, 1950, $50 was a lot of money. That was a lot of money. You were rich. Yeah, you were lucky if you were getting $70 a week. Man, look, nine in the 60s, in the early 60s, I found I was rich getting paid uh two or three dollars for cutting my grandmother's grain. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:36

I had money.

SPEAKER_01 5:36

When I got quarters, my grandmother, God bless her, she would send us a birthday card. And then when you open up, yeah, sometimes we put like a five or ten dollar bill. Exactly, yeah. She would tape two quarters of the inside of the card. So when I would get my cards, I would pick them up and I would grab them one by one. And the ones that were the heavier ones, that's the one that had quarters in it. That's the one that had the quarters in it. Now, every once in a while, if I seen a one or a five dollar bill, I thought, oh my God, this person loves me. Yeah. Now, someone opens a card. If there's not a bell in it, they're like, eh, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 6:13

Yeah. They don't even read the card. Yeah, well, yeah, I sent you that card. Yeah. Man, because I remember that.

SPEAKER_01 6:23

Man, my uh, my great-grandmother, she was too old to get out and uh, you know, buy gifts for everybody. So she, my dad had to go out and get her money cards from the bank. And she, man, she had money. She'd go there, and I'd always help her mine up and see whose face was in there. It was either if it if it was like George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Jackson, somebody like that, I was like, oh shit, good, thank you. Thank you. And I just take the money out, man. I'm good to go. My grandmother. She didn't even bother giving cards away. She just gave you money. There's no lie. My grandmother and my grandfather, they were married for 60 something years before my grandmother died. And when I was a little kid, no, they had just between the two of them, not external marriages or affairs or nothing, just the two of them, they had 17 children. Okay. So literally they had hundreds of grandkids. No, I'm sure. So when birthdays came around and they were good with it, they they made sure you had a card. They made sure there was something in it, whether it was a quarter or a dollar or whatever. And back in the 70s, that's all that was necessary. Oh, yeah. Yeah, it was greatly appreciated, too. Absolutely. Yes. Now today, I have six kids. I have eight grandchildren. Give them a quarter. You would think, right? If I gave any of them a quarter today, they'd probably throw it at you. They'd be like, what the hell? You know what I gave my grandson for Christmas? What did you give me? My grandson's kids. I love them. Whose? Take her. Okay. Kwaijan and Kwaisor. Okay. I love them to death. I remember when Kwaijan was a little tiny tot. And we would sit, I had that house down on Frederick Street in the bottom of us. We would hang out down there and we would eat ice cream on the porch, and he would say, Hey Pap. And I would, I just, I was all full of love for that kid. But if I gave him a quarter for his birthday, he'd probably spit on you. He'd like, damn, Pap, what the f is wrong with you, man? Right? Same with Quasier. I took Quazor into my home. I loved him. I raised him. I made sure he went to school. I disciplined him when he needed it. Right? If I gave him a quarter, yeah. If I gave him a quarter, he'd probably kick me in the shit. You probably would. But back in the 70s, that's something we appreciated. We appreciated it back then. Because the economy was different back then. It was. And you know what a quarter got me? Two small ice cream cone softies. When Dairy Dan came down the street and I walked up to him. No, actually, one quarter would get me a small cone with sprinkles, and I'd get change back. I'd get like three or four cents.

SPEAKER_02 9:21

Okay, yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_01 9:22

So today, if I walked into a store with a quarter, I might get a gumball. Maybe. Maybe. Gumball might cost 50 cents now. Yeah. Just like we were saying about the drive-ins. Six bucks was a car load of people. Six bucks ain't gonna get you but a soda at a regular theater today. Nope. You're not gonna get admission, you're not gonna get a ticket. Nope. Tickets are what? $50, like $15 or so.

SPEAKER_02 9:50

For a ticket.

SPEAKER_01 9:50

Yeah. I do remember going to the matinee. My cousin Vance, my cousin Stan, my cousins, all my we all lived on the same street. So all my cousins were like, hey, let's go to the matinee today. Two dollars? Fifty cents. Fifty cents. For the matinee. Really? Fifty cents. Okay, I was wrong. We'd go down to the matinee, we'd give up. I remember putting two quarters, like the the the window was like this high to me. It must have been like nine or ten. I put my two quarters on. She's slimy a little admit one. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And then I walked in, and immediately the air conditioning, the curtains that were hanging around, there's an older guy standing there, and he would take that admit one, rip it in half. Yeah, give you the advantage. And then we would go into the theater. And then as we got into our seats, my cousin would go, Who wants popcorn? I do, I do, I do, I do. So then my cousin, my two older cousins would get up, they go to the concession stand, and for like three bucks, they got a big freaking giant barrel of popcorn with butter. Oh, that butt butter flavor. Butter, real butter. Butter. Look, you see them scoop the popcorn out, and you just see it and doing like this, putting that butter on it. Like that. You know what I'm saying? And they would get a giant butter. They would get a giant fish, like either Pepsi or Coke, I don't remember which, but it was a giant one. And there were like five straws in it. Right? And he would they would come back holding the shit, and we'd all sit there. And the we the McNay showed, I remember, I'll never forget, it was the Son of Flubber. Yeah. So we're watching this, but before the Son of Flubber came on, do you know what we watched? We watched a newsreel, then we watched a Three Stooges short, and then we watched a couple Bugs Bunny cartoons, and then the main attraction came on, the Son of Flubber. And you get this. When the Son of Flubber ended, nobody got up and left because there was another newsreel and another cartoon, and then you left. Yep. Back in the day, me and my best friend back then, in fact, I was the best man of his wedding.

SPEAKER_02 11:54

We used to go to movies and uh we watched uh Friday the 13th or something. Or Halloween. Halloween.

SPEAKER_01 12:03

Halloween was in the 70s. Halloween. That was 76 or 70. It was Halloween. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 12:07

It was Halloween. And back in those days, man, the movie theater lets you uh, they go in, you can go in, you can you can pay for a movie, but you can go there and stay all day. So they showed them back to back.

SPEAKER_01 12:20

Hold up. I'm telling you, I did that with the show. Steve Martin the Jerk. Yep. We bought our ticket, we went in, but the movie was already halfway through. Okay, but they let you but you can stay there. But when it ended, I told my cousin, I'm like, wait. And then we waited for like maybe 10, 15 minutes. And then when the curtain went up again, we got to see it from the beginning all the way to the end. You ever see that movie to Steve Martin? Oh man, I love that movie. Yeah, hilarious. One of my favorite Steve Martin movies. You could not make Steve Martin the jerk today. No. I don't think anybody would understand it. There's a scene where Steve Martin's already rich. He made his money, right? He sold his Optigrab. He's got tons of money. He's looking to invest, and he's investing with the mafia. And he wants to buy an apartment complex. And uh the Italian guy's like, yeah, you know, we'll we'll be able to take care of things and we'll keep out the jungle bunnies. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And Steve Martin is like, he's like, oh yeah, we don't want any wild animals running around because that'd be crazy. And he's like, no, no, no. You know what, Stan? We're gonna keep out the eggplants. And he goes, Oh, yeah, because the bunnies wouldn't eat the eggplants. That kind of thing. They're like, no, no, no. He goes, we're gonna keep up, and he says the N-word. And it all makes and Steve Barton had having been raised by a black family. He's like, you sir, are talking to the N-word. I remember that. That was hilarious. Today, today, that would get shunned. They would not be allowed. Like nobody, nobody would see humor in that. Exactly. Everybody's too damn sensitive. Like Blazing Saddles. Oh. Favorite movie. Love that movie. One of my favorite movies. Yes, indeedy. That's one of my favorite movies. You couldn't make that today.

SPEAKER_02 14:15

You couldn't make that today. Oh no. Oh man, I love Blazing Sandles. I got it. Oh shit, I ain't got it no more. Before we switched the um the satellite, the Disc Network. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:28

I had I had Blazing Sandals on my DVR before I before we switched and got rid of it. So I gotta get it again. But I but oh Blazing Sandals is one of my all-time favorite movies. That's a great movie. I loved that movie. And here's the thing also, like, like uh, you could watch All in the Family today. Today's generation would call it racist and ridiculous.

SPEAKER_02 14:52

They would.

SPEAKER_01 14:52

And when we were kids, it wasn't like that. Archie Bunker's the night. When George Jefferson called Archie a honky, I didn't get insulted. Okay. I would be like, ha ha ha. And when Archie Bunker was like, I don't want them fags.

SPEAKER_02 15:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:12

Color. That didn't, that didn't, to me, that didn't say gay people are bad. Believe it or not, I didn't believe nothing was really prejudiced about that. Exactly. That's what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_02 15:25

I really didn't. We weren't sensitive.

SPEAKER_01 15:28

I loved that show. We weren't sensitive. No, I love that show. Today's generation would not be able to watch a full episode of RG Bunker. People are too serious now. Yeah. All in the Family. Do you know this? All in the Family was the first aired television show to air the sound of a toilet flushing. No, I didn't know that. Yeah. I didn't know that. Did you also know this? The Munsters were the first married couple to be shown in the same bed. In the same bed, yeah, I did know that. I did know that. I knew that. I knew that. I did hear that before. Sensors always had the wife in one bed, like Dick Van Dyke. Oh, yeah. Dick Van Dyke was in his bed. Mary Tyler was, and there was a little thing in the middle of them. And you know what? I wish I that that's why I have my own room. I can't sleep with my wife. I wish she had her own damn bed. That was the life right there.

SPEAKER_02 16:28

Dick Van Dyke blew it though because I'd uh I'd told that. But let me tell you this.

SPEAKER_01 16:32

Do you know why they showed the monsters in bed with one another? No. Because they weren't human. They were monsters. It was a Frankenstein and a female Dracula. So the uh the producers were like, and the uh editors were all like, well, they're not real people. Right. I'd have been like, okay, no, we'll see it. I'm sleeping with Lily. Lily was fine as hell, man. She was fine as hell. Yes, indeed. Do you know who else I used to think was hell? Fine as hell. JJ Walker's sister. From Good Times. Yes indeed. What was her name? Thelma. Thelma. Oh, Thelma was bad. She was bad. She's too bad. She's old as us, but she's too bad. She's older than us. She's older than us, but yeah, I've seen her. She was gorgeous. And I used to have a crushed out penny. Yeah. I think everybody wants to fuck Jenny Jackson. Justin Timberlake.

SPEAKER_02 17:38

Well, at least he got the grab of the booth. At least he got the booze.

SPEAKER_01 17:48

Yeah, TV entertainment movies, man. It was so much better back in the day. And now today, it's just, it's, it's sad, man. It's sad what we've evolved into it. It's too much. Like, don't look into it too deeply for bullshit, man.

SPEAKER_02 18:05

You know what I mean? Let life be.

SPEAKER_01 18:07

I get on Facebook or YouTube or whatever, and they and I like the comedians when the comedians come on. And there's always someone in the audience that's doing something stupid or saying something stupid. Right. And the comedian even says, listen, if this isn't your thing, why are you here? Why did you come to a comedy show if it's gonna bother you? Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. That don't make no sense. No. You know what you're in for, so if you really don't want to hear it, why are you here? I I think people want a reason to complain. People get on the internet to complain. They don't get out. Do you remember when Facebook first came out? It was all kittens. Excuse me. It was all kittens and and vacation photos and stuff like that. Yeah. And now it's all political memes and people complaining and people. It's just, it's it's bad, man. It's really bad.

SPEAKER_02 19:04

I think it sucks. Yep. You're right.

SPEAKER_01 19:08

I miss the simpler times when we get in a station wagon, drive to the drive-in, watch a movie, eat $2 popcorn, and then go home. Nobody, nobody fussed, nobody fought. There were no Karen's to yell at you for having your speaker or what You know what I mean? It was just it was simpler.

SPEAKER_02 19:32

Yeah. It was a simpler time. It really was. Well see, the thing about it is uh another thing, I can thank you for getting me on Facebook.

SPEAKER_01 19:42

Because I was never on Facebook until we started the inebriated basement. You you had uh you know what I mean? You had an account, but you never used it. Never used it. I never had it. Well, still used in it, but I still use it. Once in a while. I click on like it says Rick Garrett this and I click on it. You don't have a cover page, you don't have a profile. Yeah, I never page. I never sent nothing else. Yeah, nothing. So basically I got I got like a silhouette of a person, and that's it. No, do what you want. I'm just saying. I'm acknowledging the fact that it's not important to you. And you know what? Social media is so important to this generation, and it shouldn't be. It shouldn't be. We here's what's what was important to us as kids. I could wake up on a Saturday morning, right? Yeah. And mom and dad are still in bed sleeping, my sisters are in bed sleeping, I go down and I grab a uh a butter bowl, crock pot, right? Like uh, what is that? Something crock, country crock. Okay, okay, yeah, yeah. And because we were poor, it was easy just to wipe it out and now it's a bowl. And I would pour wheeze and then milk and then sugar, and then I would sit on the floor and watch the TV, the big giant 27-inch TV console, and watch cartoons until about eight or nine o'clock. And then I would get up, put my bowl in the sink, go outside and find my cousins already out there. Okay. And we would talk about let's go catch grasshoppers today, let's go do this, let's go. And I would leave the house at like eight or nine o'clock in the morning, and I wouldn't come back until the streetlights came. Until the streetlights came on, right? Exactly. If I wasn't home when the streetlights came on, no matter where I was in my neighborhood, I could hear my mother or my father yelling my name. That's the way life was, man. It was simple, it was easy. You are gonna crack up.

SPEAKER_02 21:44

But let me tell you how it sounded in my neighborhood. My mom was always I don't know where the hell my father was.

SPEAKER_01 21:53

But anyway, that's the different story. But anyway, my mom always told us, you know, at least be in front of the house. The time the uh or whatever.

SPEAKER_02 22:03

This is my mother when she can't find me. Okay. If the mother wanted me, you know what I would hear. And just like I said it just now, that's how it would pierce through my ear. Yeah. I'm gonna be standing up on my aunt and uncle's porch yelling, I'm like, oh god, what I do now?

unknown 22:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:40

No shit.

SPEAKER_01 22:41

No, I get it. Oh man! We lived in this area called the Harmony District. Yeah. Because we had the Harmony Mills down the road from us. And basically everybody that lived in the Harmony District, their fathers worked in the mills down in the Harmony Mills. Okay. So down this end of the street was the Harmony Mills. Up that end of the street was Niagara Mohawk Power Company and the waterfalls, because the waterfalls provided power to Niagara Mohawk. That's where I lived. Right at the base of the waterfalls. Now, opposite of us was Mohawk Street. And then across the street from Mohawk Street was Craigner Park. So we would all hang out on Cataract Street when there was nothing to do. We would go to Crainer Park, play basketball, play baseball, sit on the swings and whatever. But we were always within earshot. So if something happened at home and we were needed, now remember, this is a time before cell phones, before texting, before social media, we had nothing other than our voice. Now I'll give you for instance. And we would all freeze. And we'd look at one another. And I look at my cousin Billy. Was that for you? That's you. And then Billy's like, I think that was for you. And I look at my sister and my brother. I'm like, was that for you? No, I think that was your name. So we would all get up and we would all walk back to the house. Yeah. And we would hear clear, and I'm like, oh, that's me. All right. And then we'd all go back and swing, and then I would have to go home to find out what it was. And here's what it was. I get back in the house, I'm like, you were calling me? Hey Dad, you calling me? Where were you? I was over in the Craner Park swinging the swings. You forgot to put the dishes away. Are you kidding me, man? Oh no. So now I put all the dishes away. Okay. And before going back out, I would say, all right, Dad, dishes are put away. I'm gonna head back out. Wait a minute. And he would come in, he would inspect. He'd make sure the dishes were dry. They were put where they were supposed to be put. There was nothing in the sink. Okay. The kitchen was clean. Alright, go on. That's the way we were raised. Yeah. Because we were raised, this is how you should live, this is how you should be. Anything other than that is unacceptable. As we wrap up, it's worth remembering that the past always feels softer in hindsight. Not because it was perfect, but because it was ours. The drive-ins, matinees, the street lights telling us when to come home. Those moments became the stories we carry. And even though today doesn't feel like that to us, it will be the back in the day our kids and our grandkids will talk about someday. So hold on to the memories that shaped you. Appreciate the ones you're making now. And never forget that every generation gets its own version of the good old days.

SPEAKER_00 26:04

This has been an MTC original podcast produced by Leo Mainville. Like, share, subscribe, and leave us a five star rating. And thank you for listening.