Things you remember that today's youth will never know.

How about the poor kid's bike motor? A playing card fastened on the fork with a clothespin and the card fluttering in the spokes. I remember that many of the bikes had a light built into the frame from Sears, Western Auto, and Department Store bikes. None ever worked b/c the old, paper jacketed batteries rotted the contacts inside. That was also the end of the wide,swept back cruiser type handlebars and full sized frames for a while. Bikes changed overnight to those smaller frames with the banana or polo seat. Boys used to take a hackswaw to the front fork and add sections of tubing to make a "Chopper". It was rare to find a full sized frame after that. Because of tarrifs based on weight, you only seen "lightweights" on the imports like raleigh and the "english racer" misnomered three speed hub with caliper brakes for much of the late 60's and early 70's shifted the domestic market of Schwinn and the Huffy department store bikes to lightweight touring frames. Gone were the cruisers and Flyers that went the way of huge sedans with fins. It wouldn't be until the mid 70's that cheap, shimano deraillieur equipped 10 speed "racers" overtook the market followed by the mountain bike's of the 80's. None of which had the pleasurable upright riding/touing human transportation of the cruisers and the touring lightweights.
 

Mar, Yep, had the horn and---
Yep Dawn T, The batteries would leak and corrode everything.

Remember the "aroma" that those leaky batteries had?
 
Are D Batteries still used in new items?
 
 

D batteries are still used in full-sized flashlights and large lanterns.

That was that metallic, sickening smell that accompanied opening any dormant flashlight that didn't immediately light. Most of the flashlights were all metal then, so you would open the bottom to find a gray ooze combined with rust,chrome flakes,and all of the copper switch (the long thing that moved up and down) bright green. If the flashlight was stored lamp down, that ooze would collect in the lens. The real hoot was many of the batteries had a line printed on them that if the batteries leaked, send them the flashlight and they would replace it with one similar. I wonder how many takers they got?