Vintage Things That Have Disappeared In Your Lifetime?

[ladybrettashley]

the ability to lay in the sun for hours and not burn. Was the vintage sun just better? I look and feel like a crab now. :eusa_doh:

I'm not sure if the sun of my childhood counts as vintage, but that has certainly changed! Admittedly, that probably has to do with my spending time indoors; something i avoided if at all possible as i child.

Also, i knew a little girl, probably about 8, who came home from test day at school so upset because "there was no right answer" to one of the questions. Well, it was something like "Joey 1)writes a letter and 2)mails it. What most likely happened between 1 and 2?" Well, one of the answers was "he licks the stamp" and the poor kid couldn't figure out why on earth anyone would lick a stamp! lol

 

[Mr_D.]

Sunday blue laws. Around here this meant no stores larger than a certain size allowed to be open at all on Sunday, so the corner groceries always did a booming business.

Chattanooga still does that. Kinda. The walmart there in Red Bank is 24 hrs but closes at midnight sunday morning and remains closed till 6 am it was a pain for us we were night people and did our hopping at 2-3 am so we woudl go to the next town over just across the GA line.

 

[Viola]

Chattanooga still does that. Kinda. The walmart there in Red Bank is 24 hrs but closes at midnight sunday morning and remains closed till 6 am it was a pain for us we were night people and did our hopping at 2-3 am so we woudl go to the next town over just across the GA line.

The liquor stores were closed on Sunday in PA until just a couple years ago. Car dealerships still are, I believe. You still can't buy beer in the grocery or anything crazy like that in PA.

 

[Lily Powers]

Cute boys in those work jumpsuits and little caps who came out to pump your gas, clean your windshields and check your oil! (Ok, so I was born after the heyday of service at "service stations," but I do recall being a very little girl and my dad having his windshields cleaned and talking with 'Dewey' the local gas station owner. Funny how certain memories just stick.)

 

[Shirin]

Here in GA we don't have Sunday liquor/beer or wine sales except You can get beer or wine while your dining in a bar or restaurant after eleven a.m.

I miss drive-ins. Mu husband and I were talking about this a few nights ago how it's such a shame our kids will never get to experience them. My brother, sister, and I would watch the kids movies across the way while out parents were watching whatever it was they wanted to see. This makes me so sad, to think about what we've lost in our history.
You know what else I never see anymore? Paintings on windows at Christmas time. Remember how stores would paint up all the windows with Christmas scenes? I haven't seen that in about oh...10 years or so.
My dad still has his typewriter from the early 50's. I remember using it for school papers, and that was only about 15 years ago. Its an army green color and weighs about 35 pounds. tick tick tick tick...ding! Won't be able to find a ribbon for it ever again though.
Out lived Polaroid cameras. Mine was an ugly pink but I had so much fun with it.
I've also outlived candy cigarettes. Oh sure they still sell them. by a different name, candy sticks, and they don't put the little pink dot on the ends anymore. That was probably a good move though. But now I wish I had saved the boxes that were stylized replicas of Lucky Strikes and the kind with the Indian on them. Sorry, don't know the name.
We still use a corded telephone for our house. It gets better reception than any cordless here.But I use it maybe once every other month! My husband likes to keep it, in case of an emergency if there's a problem with the cell.
I've heard that cursive is not being taught in schools anymore. I couldn't believe it! I write exclusively in cursive and even practice penmanship a few times a week in a journal. If school won't teach my son cursive, I most certainly will.
Last few things which have become extinct. metal rides at the playground. I remember many swings having metal animals, usually a donkey or a pig, which would make the most horrible squeaking going back and forth. Also gone are merry go rounds, the metal ones with the bars and diamond pattern "floor". The last time I saw one was in the Harry Potter movie. Also wood platforms with springs under them, lined up so when you jumped from one to the next, you would need the best balance to stay on.
Anyone remember the old McDonalds playgrounds? I barely remember them. You hardly ever see Hamburglar, Grimace, Birdie, Captain Crook ,the Professor, Fry Guy and fry girl anywhere. Then again, I don't think McDonalds is doing so successful these days. I used to have plastic toys of all these characters. They got lost with so many other things during one of our many cross country moves.

 

[Shirin]

oh yeah, I can't sleep till I add this one, the aluminum Christmas tree and color wheel. My best friend had one,. I think it was the most beautiful tree I had ever seen.

 

[Carlisle Blues]

Makes me terribly sad to come to this realization, but, I cannot find these little jewels anywhere.

 

[univibe88]

Anyone remember the old McDonalds playgrounds? I barely remember them. You hardly ever see Hamburglar, Grimace, Birdie, Captain Crook ,the Professor, Fry Guy and fry girl anywhere.s.

I remember the playgrounds! I fell off the top of the metal, curvy slide on a rainy day. They gave me a free box of cookies. I also remember spinning around and around in the Big Mac shaped merry-go-round until I was sick. I threw up on the feet of the Ronald McDonald statue!

 

[ladybrettashley]

Last few things which have become extinct. metal rides at the playground. I remember many swings having metal animals, usually a donkey or a pig, which would make the most horrible squeaking going back and forth. Also gone are merry go rounds, the metal ones with the bars and diamond pattern "floor". The last time I saw one was in the Harry Potter movie. Also wood platforms with springs under them, lined up so when you jumped from one to the next, you would need the best balance to stay on.

Oh! they replaced our two really, amazingly cool metal and wood school playgrounds with one of those everything-is-coated-in-plastic ones when i was in fifth grade. I swear we almost rioted. They cited "splinters" as the reason, but the new playground was junk and boring. We would have much rather had splinters (which i don't think we really got, because the wood was all polished smooth from so many kids)!

Last time i saw a merry-go-round was a holdout at a camp i went to in high school. It was outside of the place we had dinner, so we would eat quickly so that we could go pile as many people as possible on it. I still think that is the best playground toy ever made. I'll just have to build a "real" playground in my backyard when i have kids. Of course, i'd probably have to get their little friends to sign waivers so their folks' don't sue me if they get splinters .

 

[Shirin]

I remember the playgrounds! I fell off the top of the metal, curvy slide on a rainy day. They gave me a free box of cookies. I also remember spinning around and around in the Big Mac shaped merry-go-round until I was sick. I threw up on the feet of the Ronald McDonald statue!

I had forgotten about the hamburger merry go round! that was a great playground addition. I also was drawn to the fry kids on a wire coil., resembles something like a rocking horse. what else was there? McDonalds also used to give away good toys in thier Happy meals, but since 1990 or about then, the toys got worse and worse. I also miss thier cherry pies, all we have around here is apple. Maybe cherries got too expensive?

 

[Elaina]

About 2000 Cherry went to a seasonal offering like custard and pumpkin pies, the shamrock shake and the McRib.

 

[NicknNora]

How about these...

Seltzer water in those wonderful seltzer bottles, tube radios and tube TV's, rabbit ears, Hollywood studio system, 78s, penny candy, candy and bubble gum cigarettes (I think you can find these at some specialty places on the internet).

speakeasies (although they do have some smokeasies now), floppy disks,

 

[skyvue]

I miss drive-ins. Mu husband and I were talking about this a few nights ago how it's such a shame our kids will never get to experience them.

Shirin, your kids don't have to miss out -- there are still five operating drive-in theatres in Georgia: the Starlight 6 in Atlanta, the Swan in Blue Ridge, the Jesup Twin in Jesup, the Tiger in Tiger, and the Wilderness in Trenton.

There are also seven ozoners in North Carolina, three in South Carolina, ten in Alabama, and sixteen -- count 'em, 16 -- in Tennessee.

Which of those might be close to you, I don't know, but you can find out using the searchable database at www.drive-ins.com

 

[BegintheBeguine]

Shirin, your post brought me right back to the playground at the end of Oakwood Street in Rome. The kid-operated merry-go-round had a trench worn down in the dirt around it from all the running to get it going fast enough before we swung, jumped or slid, on. The baby slide was covered on the sides, for safety?, with a sheet of metal shaped and painted like an elephant. That squeaking sound the pig swing made irritated my big sister beautifully. Ride a farm animal even though you're not on the farm!
Oh, the Starlight 6. My boy-friend at the time and I were afraid it would close any minute even in the 90s so we'd make a point to visit often to fool around, I mean catch a movie.
Hmm, now there's a drive-in 20 minutes away that opened in 1997 called Vintage Drive-In that I just might have to get the guy to take me to.

 

[Fletch]

Crest soap. I have no idea who made it or for how long, but it was in the bathrooms at the Meredith Corp. building in Des Moines through most of the 1970s. It was plain yellow bar soap, unscented, kinda dry, with the word CREST pressed in it in condensed roman boldface. For all I know they bought it in big barrels when the building went up in 1925 and had not yet run out.

 

[Professor]

When I entered school, we had chalkboards (though they weren't slate "blackboards", they were green), film projectors, phonographs, wooden furniture, rotary telephones, intercoms, no air conditioning (that's why we had opening windows and the Summer off!) and my favorite, the electric clock set by a master clock in the office.

Today, it's "whiteboards", VCR/DVD players, audio cassette or CD, plastic furniture, touch-tone phone systems that have taken the place of intercoms, sealed windows and year-round air conditioning and quartz clocks that are notoriously inaccurate!

 

[LizzieMaine]

I'm very disappointed to learn that the Uneeda Biscuit, the world's first packaged soda cracker, was officially discontinued by Kraft/Nabisco at the end of 2008 -- by far the best crackers I've ever had, and I already miss them terribly. Nertz to Kraft and the bean-counter product managers that run it.

 

[ValEag]

Sonic Booms

Has this been mentioned? When I was growing up, living near an Air Force Base, we used to hear sonic booms all the time (the sound made when an airplane goes faster than the speed of sound). Hadn't heard one in ages, until right after 9/11. All air traffic had been halted and my wife and I were standing out on our back porch noticing the definite lack of planes. When a military jet flew by we heard that old familiar 'boom' and knew immediately what is was.

Our daughter lived about a mile down the road at the time, and called right away to find out what it was. I can't really remember when we stopped hearing them around here though, but I can't remember the last time I heard one before that day on the porch, and I haven't heard one since.

 

[John in Covina]

I just got a great gift that is getting to be fairly rare these days outside of rural settings, a jar of home made peach preserves. And it's good-good-good!:eusa_clap

 

[LordBest]

Apologies if these have been mentioned before:

Waterford Crystal, now being made in Germany and Slovakia (at least the crystal is still good quality).

Royal Doulton and Wedgewood (oh, the humanity, my dear Wedgewood) are now being produced in Indonesia. No offense to our Indonesian neighbours, but it's just not the same.

Dimpled beer mugs in (Australian) public houses. Or just glasses, what kind of public house gives its patrons the can/stubby to drink out of? Shameful.