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  1. tonyb

    Vintage Things That Have Disappeared In Your Lifetime?

    Many years ago I had a friend out in Seattle with a connection in the city transportation department who gave us used light bulbs from the traffic signals, which were changed out on a schedule, well ahead of their expected lifespan. They were Edison base bulbs, and clear glass, and plainly more...
  2. tonyb

    Vintage Things That Have Disappeared In Your Lifetime?

    When I was back in Wisconsin a few months back (where I haven’t resided since 1968), I was pleased to see that the tavern a block or so up from my grandfather’s house (where I lived myself during one of my folks’s numerous separations) was still in operation, mostly unchanged except for the...
  3. tonyb

    Vintage Things That Have Disappeared In Your Lifetime?

    Another thing that might make little sense to youngsters these days was the observation made yesterday by David Grisman, the mandolin player of some renown, who said, on the occasion of his 78th birthday, that he was born in 45 and was 33 in 78.
  4. tonyb

    So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

    Oh yes, we humans, even the celibate among us, are sexual beings, whatever expression it may take. I’ve yet to meet a person who left me with the impression that s/he didn’t wish to be sexually desirable to someone, even if s/he had no intention of taking that someone up on the matter. Just...
  5. tonyb

    So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

    I’ve worn specs since age 15 or so. A cataract surgery several years ago corrected vision in my left eye such that I can legally drive without corrective lenses (although I suppose that by strictest definition that artificial implant is a corrective lens), but I wear glasses anyway, bifocals...
  7. tonyb

    So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

    ^^^^^ There’s an overlap here with the “You know you’re getting old when … ” thread. Good enough, I say. I’m reminded that the late Gore Vidal observed on the occasion of one of his later birthdays that among the few advantages of advancing years is increasing freedom from what he called “the...
  8. tonyb

    You know you are getting old when:

    … you take a picture of the instructions on a can of spray paint with your iPhone so that you can enlarge the image enough to read it.
  9. tonyb

    Vintage Things That Have Disappeared In Your Lifetime?

    ^^^^^^^ Regarding old cars v. new … Much as I love old cars, new ones are superior in almost every regard, most of which our British Columbian friend already enumerated. The features of new household appliances might make them more convenient (and really, ain’t that the entire point of our...
  10. tonyb

    Vintage Things That Have Disappeared In Your Lifetime?

    ^^^^^^ Wasn’t it the industrial designer Harley Earl who coined the slightly more euphemistic phrase “dynamic obsolescence”? Earl was the head of styling for General Motors. The “obsolescence“ he had in mind was more concerned with the aesthetics of the product than its function(s) and...
  11. tonyb

    Vintage Things That Have Disappeared In Your Lifetime?

    An uncle, who shuffled off at a truly advanced age a few months back, had to repeat a grade level when he was a kid. As a teenager he went to work as an appliance repairman for a local department store. He was welcomed back there after he did his hitch in the U.S. Army. And that’s where he...
  13. tonyb

    Vintage Things That Have Disappeared In Your Lifetime?

    ^^^^^^^ Add the drug store tube tester to the list of vintage things that have disappeared.
  14. tonyb

    Vintage Things That Have Disappeared In Your Lifetime?

    ^^^^^^ Which brings to mind the TV repairman. When I was a kid a new TV could cost a working man a month’s wages. Or more. And the things not infrequently needed repairs. So the fellow in the gray or green uniform would show up with his box of tools and tubes and a mirror and fiddle with the...
  15. tonyb

    You know you are getting old when:

    ^^^^^ An old girlfriend of mine has been a great-grandmother for a few years now. She’s maybe three years my senior.
  16. tonyb

    You know you are getting old when:

    … you post photos of the groovy 1963-vintage Frigidaire Flair range you recently acquired, a “mod” era piece if ever there was one, and the most common comments are along the lines of “there was one like that in my grandmother’s house!”
  17. tonyb

    So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

    I’m thinkin’ I’ll name mine Abel.
  19. tonyb

    Vintage posters and other paper ephemera

    It shows the boundaries and the years in which most of the West was acquired, and from whom. (The Natives aren’t mentioned.) If we were taught any of the particulars of western expansion (with the exception of the Lewis & Clark Expedition) when I was a kid, it certainly left no lasting...
  20. tonyb

    Vintage posters and other paper ephemera

  21. tonyb

    Vintage posters and other paper ephemera

  22. tonyb

    Vintage posters and other paper ephemera

    A junk peddler friend sold me this 1941 map for 10 bucks several years ago, if memory serves. A person who specializes in old paper tells me it’s not worth much, but I dig it anyway. If another copy exists, I’ve never seen it.
  23. tonyb

    Vintage posters and other paper ephemera

    A diploma dated April 8, 1919. The handwritten (in ink) parts are quite faded, but they’re still readable.

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