Vintage Things That Have Disappeared In Your Lifetime?

[Zombie_61]

Were the fifties really so bad?

There's one word I've heard repeatedly from people describing life in the U.S. in the 1950s: Boring.

 

[dh66]

How about those little individual pats of butter sandwiched between two pieces of waxed paper that restaurants used to serve.
Sometimes there would be a little tray of them, along with a little tray of crackers, on every table alongside the salt and pepper and bottle of ketchup (or catsup - in fancier places).

 

[jamespowers]

Long Beach California, 1952. Home movies of Beany's Drive In restaurant. Notice that everyone looks well behaved, clean and neatly dressed, even for take out hamburgers. There is no litter or graffiti. All the cars are clean and polished except for a couple of prewar jobs. You can get a cheeseburger, fries and coke for 45 cents.

Were the fifties really so bad?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tvukd6bDSZc

As my mother used to say, it was a simpler time. No stinking, filthy hippies ruining everything.

 

[jamespowers]

There's one word I've heard repeatedly from people describing life in the U.S. in the 1950s: Boring.

Boring?! They must have been hippies.

 

[Earl Needham]

How about those little individual pats of butter sandwiched between two pieces of waxed paper that restaurants used to serve.
Sometimes there would be a little tray of them, along with a little tray of crackers, on every table alongside the salt and pepper and bottle of ketchup (or catsup - in fancier places).

When I was a kid in the '60's, if you ordered ANYTHING other than a hamburger, they would bring a basket of crackers and a basket of those pats of butter. I try to tell people about that today, and they don't believe me!

 

[Stearmen]

As my mother used to say, it was a simpler time. No stinking, filthy hippies ruining everything.

She just had Beatniks!

 

[Zombie_61]

How about those little individual pats of butter sandwiched between two pieces of waxed paper that restaurants used to serve.
Sometimes there would be a little tray of them, along with a little tray of crackers, on every table alongside the salt and pepper and bottle of ketchup (or catsup - in fancier places).

I know of a few places in and around Los Angeles that still serve butter that way, but most of the restaurants we frequent either bring you a little plastic cup of butter that the server had to scoop out of a plastic bucket hidden somewhere in the kitchen, or they bring you a couple of those little pre-packaged globs of a butter-like substance that isn't enough to cover an oyster cracker. :mmph:

 

[jamespowers]

She just had Beatniks!

Beatniks were not at all common out here. They just went straight to hippie.:doh:

 

[Earl Needham]

I know of a few places in and around Los Angeles that still serve butter that way, but most of the restaurants we frequent either bring you a little plastic cup of butter that the server had to scoop out of a plastic bucket hidden somewhere in the kitchen, or they bring you a couple of those little pre-packaged globs of a butter-like substance that isn't enough to cover an oyster cracker. :mmph:

And they've usually sat out UNREFRIGERATED long enough that they separate into oil and whatever solid is there.

 

[Fading Fast]

How about those little individual pats of butter sandwiched between two pieces of waxed paper that restaurants used to serve.
Sometimes there would be a little tray of them, along with a little tray of crackers, on every table alongside the salt and pepper and bottle of ketchup (or catsup - in fancier places).

Remember them well. Now, for butter, you get that crazy, white plastic, somewhat cubed-shaped, smaller-than-a-thimble container with the metallic-like cover that peels off to reveal a pea-size amount of butter that is either brick hard or room-temperature soft.

There is a decent diner near me that uses them and that has caused me to stop going for breakfast because they come brick hard (in the freezer from the night before I've learned) and, thus, when I order waffles (one of life's simple pleasures), they (1) don't melt as the waffles would have to be on fire to melt the frozen pea of butter and (2) never give you enough of them (and even if they did, I'd have to open about fitter of them to sufficiently butter two waffles). Is it really that hard for the manger or cook to realize that the butter situation is killing their breakfast?

So now I go to the place where the waffles aren't as good, but they actually bring you enough cold but not frozen butter to get the job done.

 

[Stearmen]

Wounded! Now you are injured in combat. I'm sorry, injured is when you slip and fall in the bathroom!

 

[jamespowers]

Wounded! Now you are injured in combat. I'm sorry, injured is when you slip and fall in the bathroom!

Good point!

 

[Harp]

Wounded! Now you are injured in combat. I'm sorry, injured is when you slip and fall in the bathroom!

Ustabe "injured in combat" was a bar brawl that became a knife fight. lol

 

[jamespowers]

Ustabe "injured in combat" was a bar brawl that became a knife fight. lol

Or you got hit with a bottle. p

 

[Harp]

Or you got hit with a bottle. p

...Only if cut by a broken bottle.

 

[jamespowers]

...Only if cut by a broken bottle.

Owwwww!

 

[Zombie_61]

...Only if cut by a broken bottle.

"Battle scars" to "bottle scars". lol

 

[jamespowers]

"Battle scars" to "bottle scars". lol

What a difference one letter makes.

 

[Stearmen]

Ustabe "injured in combat" was a bar brawl that became a knife fight. lol

I thought it was when you got cut on the old style pull tabs on beer cans!

 

[Matt Crunk]

How about those little individual pats of butter sandwiched between two pieces of waxed paper that restaurants used to serve.
Sometimes there would be a little tray of them, along with a little tray of crackers, on every table alongside the salt and pepper and bottle of ketchup (or catsup - in fancier places).

I remember those well. When I was a little kid my family used to frequent a popular local resta)urant named Starkey's. It was an underground restaurant, literally. It was on the basement level of what used to be a hotel and you descended stairs to the entrance. Anyway this place was the most vintage restaurant I can remember. It looked like a lot of restaurants I see in old movies from the 40s. Even as a kid I knew it was a rare and special place. One of the things I remember was those individual pats of butter.