You know you are getting old when:

[Zombie_61]

...The windshield wipers were just a token when it would rain...

The wipers on all three of mine worked okay as long as I replaced the blades every year, but the "defroster" only cleared the windshield within a couple of inches of the vent so I kept a short squeegee on board at all times. Steer, shift, squeegee...good times.

 

[2jakes]

You know you’re getting old when you start to forget things except....
August 9th.
Today is the day I got back from tour of duty overseas and made it home in
one piece.


Training camp @ Castle AFB.

 

[Fading Fast]

You know you’re getting old when you start to forget things except....
August 9th.
Today is the day I got back from tour of duty overseas and made it home in
one piece.

View attachment 81540
Training camp @ Castle AFB.

Thank you. I live under the blanket of freedom you and so many others like you provide. And you look cool as heck in that picture.

 

[2jakes]

Thank you. I live under the blanket of freedom you and so many others like you provide. And you look cool as heck in that picture.

You’re welcome!
This was my best friend who was with me in the military.
He’s gone but not forgotten.

Joseph Anastasio from Connecticut. R.I.P. buddy!

 

[Tiki Tom]

Very moving. You honor his memory. My older brother and two of his classmates went to Vietnam. Only my brother returned.
Thank you.

 

[GHT]

The windshield wipers were just a token when it would rain. I carried a towel. My left hand cleared the windshield wiper and my right on the steering wheel. Somehow I managed to get to work.

The wipers on the MG might be electric, but as with your VW, they are but a token. If it rains whilst driving, I have to reach for the interior wiper knob on the passenger side, set it in the upright position, then carefully rotate the knob on the driver's side to bring that wiper to the upright position, I say carefully because it has to synchronise the wiper gear so that the two wipers operate simultaneously. And all the time the rain is persisting down. All part of the fun of an old car.

 

[2jakes]

The wipers on the MG might be electric, but as with your VW, they are but a token. If it rains whilst driving, I have to reach for the interior wiper knob on the passenger side, set it in the upright position, then carefully rotate the knob on the driver's side to bring that wiper to the upright position, I say carefully because it has to synchronise the wiper gear so that the two wipers operate simultaneously. And all the time the rain is persisting down. All part of the fun of an old car.

In the '70s I drove an MGB until the water pump needed replacing. $400 was
a lot for me. I sold it soon after and went back to VW beetles.

 

[2jakes]

Very moving. You honor his memory. My older brother and two of his classmates went to Vietnam. Only my brother returned.
Thank you.

I appreciate your reply very much.
Coming back from the service was difficult to adjust.
Nevertheless I was so grateful that no matter what was thrown at me
from then on was nothing compared to what we had been through.
The same with my father when he came back. (WW2).

 

[scottyrocks]

Yes, the w

The wipers on the MG might be electric, but as with your VW, they are but a token. If it rains whilst driving, I have to reach for the interior wiper knob on the passenger side, set it in the upright position, then carefully rotate the knob on the driver's side to bring that wiper to the upright position, I say carefully because it has to synchronise the wiper gear so that the two wipers operate simultaneously. And all the time the rain is persisting down. All part of the fun of an old car.

Yes, the wipers move back and forth (together), but barely do anything else. This seems to be characteristic of pre-'65 wipers/arms, before they expanded the windows some in '65, and improved most of the wiper mechanism.

 

[2jakes]

If you remember the public library when the desks, chairs, book shelves were made of real wood.
The encyclopedia and National Geographic were the best
sources for information or places
from around the world.



The feeling you'd get in the stomach when riding the old elevators when
they were operated by a person who used a handle to adjust the speed
as he/she took you to your designated floor.

 

[Fading Fast]

If you remember the public library when the desks, chairs, book shelves were made of real wood.
The encyclopedia and National Geographic were the best
sources for information or places
from around the world.

View attachment 82738

The feeling you'd get in the stomach when riding the old elevators when
they were operated by a person who used a handle to adjust the speed as he/she took you to your designated
floor.

My college library (Rutgers) was scripted out of central casting for a what a college library in the 1930s should look like. Not shown in these pictures are all the smaller desks and chairs tucked into nooks and crannies on the lower floors amongst all the books. All of those tables, desks and chairs were wood, original and each one weighed about the same as a car.

As to manual elevators - some still exist in NYC, usually, in warehouses or less-used service elevators in apartment buildings. We lived in a 1920's apartment building that had a still man-operated service elevator that could fit a small car on it and was only used when you moved in or out.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I last rode a manual elevator in New York in 1997 at the Manhattan Center. It jammed between floors, and the operator began swearing in Spanish until he was able to get it released.

 

[Fading Fast]

I last rode a manual elevator in New York in 1997 at the Manhattan Center. It jammed between floors, and the operator began swearing in Spanish until he was able to get it released.

They seem to all be like that today - janky at best. It makes sense as they are all very, very old mechanisms that are usually spottily maintained and run by someone with - sometime - limited knowledge of how to work them. I've had many "bumpy" rides in manual ones over the years, but still they are cool as heck and always have a time travel feel to them. Not that long ago, I was in an apartment building that still had a "bird cage" elevator in use - it was ornate and beautiful.

 

[2jakes]

I took the elevator from the 1st to 6th floor.
I was carrying my “news” equipment which consisted of video camera,
tripod, belt for the light and the camcorder .

It was an old elevator at college.
The size of the elevator was big enough for only one person.
About the size of a phone booth.
No vents just walls.
The moment the door shut,
it made a moaning noise and slowly started to go up.
But it would hesitate, sputter and shake.

I have a dislike for small spaces.
Going to an MRI is pure torture.

So I ‘m standing there with my eyes wide shut, muttering,
cursing, praying, thinking about tennis or whatever, just
to keep from panicking.
Finally after what seemed like forever...the door finally
opened.

I got out fast.
But I soon realized that the video tape was still inside the
truck downstairs.

I don’t know what I’m going to do when I get buried in a coffin.
The thought just kills me!
I’m seriously contemplating being stuffed and being placed
outside the Fedora Lounge with one hand pointing to the
entrance.
I’ll have to check with the bartender about this matter.
But I hear she’s a tough cookie to deal with.

 

[ChiTownScion]

I last rode a manual elevator in New York in 1997 at the Manhattan Center. It jammed between floors, and the operator began swearing in Spanish until he was able to get it released.

First law office I ever worked at was in the Unity Building, 127 North Dearborn, Chicago and it had a bank of the old bird cages. If I worked a late night and wanted to leave, the doorman would have to lock up, take the elevator to my floor, and then take me down. The operators were men who had been doing it for decades.

Wonderful old building: Rotary International was founded in one of its offices, and they restored the office to reflect its appeared in 1905. It had at one time been owned by Illinois Governor John P. Altgeld, and none other than Clarence Darrow had an office there at one time. Alas, it was torn down in 1989, same year in which I became a dad. Too bad: I'm the kind of father who would have taken his kid downtown in a stroller and rode with him on the lift for a while just so that he could have had lifelong bragging rights.

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/...office-building-elevator-operator-john-nelson

 

[Fading Fast]

First law office I ever worked at was in the Unity Building, 127 North Dearborn, Chicago and it had a bank of the old bird cages. If I worked a late night and wanted to leave, the doorman would have to lock up, take the elevator to my floor, and then take me down. The operators were men who had been doing it for decades.

Wonderful old building: Rotary International was founded in one of its offices, and they restored the office to reflect its appeared in 1905. It had at one time been owned by Illinois Governor John P. Altgeld, and none other than Clarence Darrow had an office there at one time. Alas, it was torn down in 1989, same year in which I became a dad. Too bad: I'm the kind of father who would have taken his kid downtown in a stroller and rode with him on the lift for a while just so that he could have had lifelong bragging rights.

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/...office-building-elevator-operator-john-nelson

Wonderful building - sad it is gone.

The first building I worked in was 120 Broadway (The Equitable Building) that was the first building in NYC to take up a full city block (it was a behemoth). I loved everything about the building - it was a Fedora Lounge dream from coffered ceilings, to underground shops leading to subway tunnels, to massive casement windows, to incredible hallways of marble and oak, to transoms, to etc., etc.

I started in the mid-'80s and the elevators were already automated, but the older guys said it had only happened about ten years before (and you could tell they missed them). The lobby was so busy at rush hour that they had lobby elevator attendants who helped direct traffic to the open elevators and cut off the flow when the car was full.

 

[2jakes]

You know you are getting old when......

I lived with my grandmother who was born in the late 19th century
where a nickel had the same purchasing power as a dollar bill
would have a century later.
My uncle was a WWI veteran.
My dad WWII veteran and my cousin a veteran of the Korean war.
And I like this image.

 

[GHT]

And I like this image.
View attachment 84643

And so do I. There's a market for such scenes that planners and others don't seem to realise. If you get the time, look up, St. Pancras Station. The corporate vandals wanted to demolish it because the prime site it stands on, would have been worth a King's ransom. One of our great poets, John Betjeman, got behind a campaign to save it. In the end instead of the bulldozers moving in, the station got an incredible makeover costing almost a billion pounds, it's now the London Terminus for Eurostar, the European train service that goes through the channel tunnel.
There's a nice postscript to this tale. At the entrance to the platforms is a seven foot, bronze statue of the poet. Sadly he didn't live to see it, but what a fitting tribute to the man.

 

[2jakes]

 

[belfastboy]

And so do I. There's a market for such scenes that planners and others don't seem to realise. If you get the time, look up, St. Pancras Station. The corporate vandals wanted to demolish it because the prime site it stands on, would have been worth a King's ransom. One of our great poets, John Betjeman, got behind a campaign to save it. In the end instead of the bulldozers moving in, the station got an incredible makeover costing almost a billion pounds, it's now the London Terminus for Eurostar, the European train service that goes through the channel tunnel.
There's a nice postscript to this tale. At the entrance to the platforms is a seven foot, bronze statue of the poet. Sadly he didn't live to see it, but what a fitting tribute to the man.

These are perilous times for statues