Vintage Things That Have Disappeared In Your Lifetime?

[Fading Fast]

S&H was big for my Mom too - and therefore, me and my brother. Likely got us a lot of things we needed when Dad was in grad-school. It was fun - we'd sit in the living room and put them into the booklets and then look at the catalog. Usually this meant a new electric blanket for winter or something equally useful for the time. Might very well be what got me to be a "shopper" at an early age. I think it was really good for my Mom too - something we could do and she "wasn't spending money", per se.
I know it's all relative, but I truly do miss those years. I just don't think the quality of everyday life is as fulfilling since the 'net took over everything and everyone.

I hear you as I sometimes feel there was something simpler, something more family-oriented to the pre-digital, pre internet all-the-time days. I don't have children, but my friends' families seem always on the go, much less connected and always stressed for time in a way I know we weren't when I was a kid.

I would do a similar thing as you with my grandmother as we'd "work" together to get the stamps, put them in the book and then pick what she would get - a simple, good, family time (and I was young enough that it was really exciting, when she did a "big" shop at the supermarket, to see the stamps stream out of the machine). When my girlfriend's bother's family comes over, the kids all bring their computers, etc. and spend a good chunk of the time in their own worlds. It feels much less family oriented and I feel we are all less connected for it.

That said, maybe I'm romanticizing the past a bit and, at the end of the day, I guess people want their own digital worlds more. Heck, I'm on the web doing this right now 'cause I find I connect well with so many here.

 

[LizzieMaine]

In the fifties and sixties any road trip threw rural farmlands rewarded you with displays of old cars lined up along the back forty fence line. It seems that when the farm car of truck died it was just pushed to the back of the barn and replaced, no trade in. I saw many classics and a couple of truly rare cars out back blanketed by blackberry brambles....they are all gone now.

A walk in the woods outside any Maine town will find you any number of rusted hulks of old cars. The remains of my uncle's first car, a 1931 Chevrolet coupe, still rest in the gully behind the house where he grew up, and there's the nose of a late-forties Pontiac poking out of the mud behind the house next to my mother's.

My own backyard abuts an abandoned junkyard that operated from 1914 until 2010, and the furthest reaches of that yard abut what's left of my back fence. I can look thru the boards and see all sorts of recognizable parts from cars of the twenties thru the fifties. The chrome from the nose of a 1949 Chevy is lying just on the opposite side of the fence, and there's a maple tree that has grown around and partially engulfed the differential from some type of 1 1/2 ton truck.

 

[Fading Fast]

^^^ I know I've seen used car lots in movies from the '30s on, so were these cars that were abandoned so used out that there was no value left in them when abandoned? I doubt anyone in the Depression was missing the opportunity, if it existed, to sell their used cars for money.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Used car lots were rampant during the Depression, and if you look at the classified ads in any newspaper between 1930 and 1933 what will strike you the most is the number of luxury cars being sold for pennies on the dollar. Sixteen-cylinder Cadillacs, Pierce-Arrows, Packards, all that sort of thing, were being dumped on the market for whatever they'd fetch. I recall one particular ad offering a 1930 Cadillac V-16 for $50, and that was in an era when a rickety Model T was good for $35 most anywhere. Few things illustrate the How The Mighty Hath Fallen atmosphere of those years better than that.

 

[scottyrocks]

Green Stamps: Own up, who collected them? I've got a vested interest in this:

8<---snip---8<

I remember my Mom having books of those stamps. I don't ever recall anything that was 'purchased' with them, but then again, my brother and I were most often not included in anything adult-oriented in our house.

I'll have to ask her what she got for those books of stamps.

 

[Bushman]

Not exactly "vintage", but sadly I'd have to say that the family farm has disappeared. When I was a child, we had at least 5 different family ran farms in or around my town. Now, there's not only a single one left.

 

[p51]

The Christmas catalogs all the major department stores would put out. I remember as a kid, looking forward to going through those for all the things I'd never have for Christmas. Frankly, I don't recall ever getting anything for Christmas out of one of those catalogs...

My dentist told me, when I asked that question, that it was a safety measure that came about with the spread of AIDS. Spitting blood - not a good practice when dealing with blood born contageous diseases.

Makes sense. I've been meaning to ask my own dentist about that but never remember to do so until after I've left the office...

 

[GHT]

Do schools still have the district nurse visit them on a regular basis? As a small child in primary school, I dreaded the day that we had to line up for an examination to see if anyone had head lice. In Brit-speak we called lice, nits and the nurse was called: The Nit Nurse. She was evil, with her very fine toothed comb that dragged through your hair. If any of the girls had long hair tied up, she would never finger loose the hair first, just untie it and drag that wretched comb across the scalp. Not for good reason was she called: Nitty Nora, the bug explorer.
Was this torture unique to our Island, or are there tales of her counterparts in your part of the world?

 

[Trenchfriend]

This was not even there in former control-freaking GDR-dictatorship.

In the early 90s, at primary-school, we had to write in our homework-diary, that lices appeared in our class, for informing our parents.

 

[LizzieMaine]

They still do lice checks here. In my day the kids were all required to put their heads down on their desks as the nurse came around so nobody could see who got cited. But when kids showed up the next day with shaved heads, it was kind of a giveaway.

 

[Inkstainedwretch]

On that subject does anyone remember the phrase, "Turn your head and cough"?

 

[tonyb]

A friend's kid was recently treated for head lice, and I've heard untold references made to the scourge, but I have absolutely no recollection of ever being inspected for the critters, nor do I recall it happening to any of the kids in any school I ever attended.

Go figure, eh?

 

[Trenchfriend]

Is there still these old phrase in the US, like in Germany on parently education?:

"Think about, of wearing a fresh underpant, every day, so that you wear a fresh one, if you once must go into a hospital!"

I know, that still so many Germans know exactly this phrase from their mommies.

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^^^
Heard the same here as well. It was meant as a joke, of course.

 

[Zombie_61]

On that subject does anyone remember the phrase, "Turn your head and cough"?

Better that than hearing the snap of the rubber glove as the Doctor says, "Drop your pants and underwear, and bend over and rest your elbows on the exam table, please."

A friend's kid was recently treated for head lice, and I've heard untold references made to the scourge, but I have absolutely no recollection of ever being inspected for the critters, nor do I recall it happening to any of the kids in any school I ever attended.

I don't recall that happening either. It must have, but apparently it wasn't traumatic enough for me to commit to memory.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The female equivalent of that is "scoot down." Oooweee.

 

[HudsonHawk]

On that subject does anyone remember the phrase, "Turn your head and cough"?

That one is hard to forget.

 

[ButteMT61]

Every Sunday, the town (small town in PA) around noon, the air-whistles went off as a test for the "Big One". Along with the drills in school to get to the basement and hide under the desks/tables, the noon whistles that lasted at least 10 mins were a part of my childhood. Usually a reminder to go to one of our houses to get some lunch.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The air raid siren was on my street, on a high pole in front of my cousins' house, and God help you if you were standing in front of it when it went off. Our town blew what we called "the dinner whistle" every day at 11:30 am, and sounded it again as a curfew at 9:15 pm. Even today when I hear a siren go off in, say, a movie about the London Blitz, my first thought is that it's time to eat.

 

[JimWagner]

The grocery delivery boy dissappeared in my lifetime. I used to do that in high school when I worked in the grocery. Customers would call in their orders, I'd do the shopping and then deliver the groceries by pickup truck and collect the money.

Some groceries around here have recently started to take phone or internet orders and do the shopping but you have to drive over and pick up the groceries yourself.

Drug stores used to deliver, too.