Vintage Things That Have Disappeared In Your Lifetime?

[belfastboy]

I never heared of "mustard-plasters" as home-remedy, before.

I am thinking parents don't use them any longer as in this day and age they would be considered a form of child abuse. Man, I hated them more than the chest cold.

 

[Fading Fast]

I suppose that's true, but I never really developed a taste for alcohol so I'd guess a "Virgin Hot Toddy" (i.e., a good cup of hot tea with lemon and honey) might have the same effect on me.

That being said, in my younger days when I drank with friends (mostly because we were bored and there was nothing else to do) I discovered a couple of gulps of Tequila or Mezcal and a beer or two always put me in a good mood with no ill effects the next day; laughs + no hangover = win/win. These days I'm a "one and done" drinker who might have two or three alcoholic beverages a year, and only if we're dining out with friends or at a "family and friends" gathering such as a Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner and I happen to be in the mood for such a drink. To be clear, I'm not a teetotaler and it's not a matter of principle, it's just that I don't often think of having "a drink" because my preferred poisons-of-choice are coffee and Diet Coke.

Now in my early 50s, I drink, at most, 3-4 days a week and, at most in one night (many time less), 3 glasses of wine or 2 cocktails or 2-3 beers. A "big" night (happens a few times a year) would see those number increase by 1 - no more. Like with food, I practice "portion" control, but still enjoy everything I did when I was young, but less frequently and in much smaller quantities.

As I've gotten older, my capacity to drink and not be hungover went down and my general desire to be healthy went up, so I am pretty much a lightweight, as noted above, today. That said, I really still enjoy the modest amount of drinking that I do as I find the different and nuanced tastes of all the alcohol options fun and interesting. And even my limited quantity does still have the effect of, for me, reducing anxiety and stress - at least for the evening - and without producing a hangover the next day.

To the original post, I didn't have any Hot Toddy's this winter, but made up for them with my truly favorite cold-weather drink - Irish Coffee.

 

[scottyrocks]

Happy April 1st!

See, now if it was 'Indian Ink,' it woulda been a problem.

 

[LizzieMaine]

May Day celebrations. I don't mean the labor kind, where tens of thousands of people march in the streets with raised fists and red flags -- ah, happy days -- but the kind where little kids hang decorated crepe paper baskets on the doorknobs of other little kids, and then are pursued thru the streets by the hangees, for reasons grounded in obscure Anglo-Saxon fertility rituals which entirely escaped us at the time.

May baskets made by my mother in 1946. She never ended up hanging them, because the other kid wasn't home. She's been holding onto them ever since, just in case.

 

[2jakes]

See, now if it was 'Indian Ink,' it woulda been a problem.

 

[Inkstainedwretch]

I don't remember of I've mentioned it before, but when I was a boy shoe stores had fluoroscopes. These were x-ray machines that cast the image on a tv screen instead of on film. I could stand on it with my feet in the recess provided and look through the eyepiece and see my skeletal feet. I'd wiggle my toes and watch my little toe bones flex, which I found enthralling. The other side had two eyepieces through which one of my parents and the salesperson would peer and confer on the fit. I believe they were outlawed before the end of the '50s.

 

[tonyb]

I don't remember of I've mentioned it before, but when I was a boy shoe stores had fluoroscopes. These were x-ray machines that cast the image on a tv screen instead of on film. I could stand on it with my feet in the recess provided and look through the eyepiece and see my skeletal feet. I'd wiggle my toes and watch my little toe bones flex, which I found enthralling. The other side had two eyepieces through which one of my parents and the salesperson would peer and confer on the fit. I believe they were outlawed before the end of the '50s.

I've never actually seen one in the flesh, but I've heard numerous accounts from folks such as yourself -- youngsters with a few years on me.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Telephone poles with climbing prongs. They aren't completely gone yet but they will be soon. There are several very old poles on my street that are in the process of being replaced, and they feature the old metal prongs bristling out of the sides starting about a third of the way up for the use of repair and maintenance crews -- but the new poles, which are now the majority of poles I see, do not.

Noticing that, I thought for a minue in realized it's been a very long time since I saw anyone actually climb a pole. All the service crews use trucks equipped with cherry-pickers, making climbing unnecessary and the prongs redundant. Soon the only pole climbers left anywhere will have four legs, beady eyes, and fluffy tails.

 

[seres]

Do the phone maintenance folks still use climbing spurs-the irons that clamp to their legs with spurs that stick into the pole? I had a high school classmate that started with the phone company after graduation. One of his jobs was to strap on those climbing spurs and go up the poles.

Tree climbing spurs are still commonly in use, but the utility pole climbing spurs differ from tree climbing spurs in that the utility spurs have shorter points. So I wonder… do the phone companies still use them?

 

[Trenchfriend]

People/kids with wristwatches.


I'm last man standing...

 

[2jakes]

City street watering.

 

[2jakes]

Boo Koo Hamburgers 5¢
With meat, 10¢.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Do the phone maintenance folks still use climbing spurs-the irons that clamp to their legs with spurs that stick into the pole? I had a high school classmate that started with the phone company after graduation. One of his jobs was to strap on those climbing spurs and go up the poles.

Tree climbing spurs are still commonly in use, but the utility pole climbing spurs differ from tree climbing spurs in that the utility spurs have shorter points. So I wonder… do the phone companies still use them?

My brother-in-law is a linesman for the power company, and he does have the climbing spikes, but seldom uses them anymore. Bucket trucks are safer.

 

[vitanola]

Phone companies in my area use cherry-pickers today.
But where I grew up they used climbing boots with spikes
& hooks.
The telephone poles of those times had markings where the
spikes cut into the wood. They also used a strap around
the waist to prevent from falling.
.

When I was a youngster, a newly minted college graduate fresh to the telephone industry I learned to climb poles with gaffs, a belt, and a leather apron. Today I have developed difficulty walking long distances due to a pole climbing injury. I was sent to climb a very old (1915 date nail), chewed up pole with a pair of dull gaffs. I lost purchase and slid nearly forty feet down that d***Ed pole, damaging the joints in my feet, ankles, knees, hips, and tearing my left ACL. I recovered, and for years was a great walker, but over the last few years the pain has returned, and I hobble about nearly as badly as my ninety- six year old father. Thank heaven I was wearing my leather climbing apron, lest I had also turned my front side into a pincushion for splinters.

 

[2jakes]

When I was a youngster, a newly minted college graduate fresh to the telephone industry I learned to climb poles with gaffs, a belt, and a leather apron. Today I have developed difficulty walking long distances due to a pole climbing injury. I was sent to climb a very old (1915 date nail), chewed up pole with a pair of dull gaffs. I lost purchase and slid nearly forty feet down that d***Ed pole, damaging the joints in my feet, ankles, knees, hips, and tearing my left ACL. I recovered, and for years was a great walker, but over the last few years the pain has returned, and I hobble about nearly as badly as my ninety- six year old father. Thank heaven I was wearing my leather climbing apron, lest I had also turned my front side into a pincushion for splinters.

That’s terrible and it’s good thing you were wearing the apron.

I worked for the telephone company in my younger days.
“Directory Assistance”.

At first I thought it was a cool job because there was plenty of girls.

Although I passed the test and was
hired, things were not as I expected.

One of the rules was no talking to the
operaters sitting next to me on either side.
Also, a supervisor wearing headsets would monitor the time and issued demerits each time for failing to
answer fast or within the allotted time.

But it got worse.

Daily confrontations with customers that spoked on the phone with a “colorful” accent which I could not comprehend at all.

Also, customers would ask for information for a phone number by saying....

“Hey, I need the number for Beto, I don’t know his last name but you know
he lives over there on the corner by the ice house!”

“Sir, I need a last name to look up the number.” I would reply.

They would answer with, “Hey pendejo...you’re information,
you should know that!”

Or

“Hi sweetie, you have a sexy voice,
what are you wearing? ”

I lasted less than month.

 

[Zombie_61]

People/kids with wristwatches.

I'm last man standing...

If you ask someone for the time around here, even the "kids" pull their cell phones out and refer to them to provide you with that information at least 90% of the time...even if they're wearing a wristwatch.

 

[Fading Fast]

If you ask someone for the time around here, even the "kids" pull their cell phones out and refer to them to provide you with that information at least 90% of the time...even if they're wearing a wristwatch.

I know I've posted this thought before, but it is funny how the cellphone has become, in one respect, a modern day pocket watch. I can remember some of my dad's older friends pulling a watch out of their pocket if they were asked the time (and some having to, then, click it open to the watch face). When I see kids today pull a phone out of their pocket to check the time (and sometimes they have to click the side of the phone to light it up), the motion echoes right back to my memory of my dad's friends doing the same with their pocket watches.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I always wear a watch, have since I was eight, and probably always will. I've always worked in jobs where the clock was the essence, and I can't see where having to drop everything and fish around in my pocket and push a button to get the time would be any advance over simply flicking a look at the clock on my wrist.

 

[Fading Fast]

I always wear a watch, have since I was eight, and probably always will. I've always worked in jobs where the clock was the essence, and I can't see where having to drop everything and fish around in my pocket and push a button to get the time would be any advance over simply flicking a look at the clock on my wrist.

I am a wristwatch wearer as well, but since I work from home now in front of a computer all day, I don't always put it on anymore. That catches up with me though when I forget that I'm not wearing a watch and run our of the house - then, like all the 20 year olds, I'm fishing around in my pocket for my phone to see the time (after having glanced at my naked wrist first ).

 

[2jakes]

I am a wristwatch wearer as well, but since I work from home now in front of a computer all day, I don't always put it on anymore. That catches up with me though when I forget that I'm not wearing a watch and run our of the house - then, like all the 20 year olds, I'm fishing around in my pocket for my phone to see the time (after having glanced at my naked wrist first ).

I wore a 30s Mickey Mouse watch for the longest time.
Then one day, one of his arms fell off.
I don’t have the guts to take it to the watch repair guy and tell him
of my predicament!
What to do?
Sign me as...
"Lost in Time”


I sound like a nelly writing to “Dear Abby”