Good riddance to vintage things that have disappeared in your lifetime

[Big Bertie]

Just to start with, what about...

polio
TB
cars that rust and break down
bad food
slum dwellings
killer smogs
soup kitchens
corporal punishment at school
outdoor privies
atomic bomb paranoia
what else?

(I know, they haven't all completely disappeared, but nearly.)

 

[Amy Jeanne]

Feminine hygiene products. I know tampons came onto the market in the late 30s, but belts, rubber panties/aprons, big thick pads......no thanks. My mom said she was happy when such products began to improve.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I didn't mind belts myself -- the metal clips made them very effective weapons for snapping against the back of one's little brother's head when he barged into the bathroom at an inappropriate moment

I think the world is a better place without Rudolf Hess, Joseph Mengele, Oswald Mosley, William Dudley Pelley, Elizabeth Dilling, George Lincoln Rockwell, and Charles E. Coughlin in it, among other vintage personalities who have passed from the scene during my lifetime.

 

[Amy Jeanne]

lol

I just don't think I would like an unsightly bulge at my waist. Seriously. My hatred of them is all vanity!!!!

 

[DesertDan]

"corporal punishment at school" - I don't miss this one and actually feel that its absence has been a detriment and should be reinstated.

Good riddence to:
Antiquated surgical and dental procedures.

 

[Mr. Hallack]

Cars with hand cranks. Believe me I LOVE vintage automobiles to no end, but I am glad for electric starters.
The KKK being considered a legitimate organization (I doubt they'd ever be allowed to have big marches in DC and elsewhere like they did in the early part of the 20th century)
Lead based Christmas tree icicles

 

[vitanola]

Just to start with, what about...

polio
TB
cars that rust and break down
bad food
slum dwellings
killer smogs
soup kitchens
corporal punishment at school
outdoor privies
atomic bomb paranoia
what else?

(I know, they haven't all completely disappeared, but nearly.)

TB? New multiple-drug-resistant strains are becoming a serious public health problem among marginalised populations.

Bad Food? So you LIKE a healthy serving of salmonella with your salad greens, or E. Coli in your hamburger. Pink slime in your school lunches, Melamine in the baby's formula. Then of course there is always 'mechanically separated chicken"...

Slum dwellings? Like these, all places in which people still live?

 

[vitanola]

Cars with hand cranks. Believe me I LOVE vintage automobiles to no end, but I am glad for electric starters.
The KKK being considered a legitimate organization (I doubt they'd ever be allowed to have big marches in DC and elsewhere like they did in the early part of the 20th century)
Lead based Christmas tree icicles

I've been cranking for thirty-five years, now. Not too pleasant in wet weather, so I don't do that much any more. I no longer have to jack up the rear wheel in cold weather since installing a jack-rabbit clutch.

I covet my few remaining packages of lead icicles. They hang so much better than mylar.

 

[Chowderhouse]

I think the world is a better place without Rudolf Hess, Joseph Mengele, Oswald Mosley, William Dudley Pelley, Elizabeth Dilling, George Lincoln Rockwell, and Charles E. Coughlin in it, among other vintage personalities who have passed from the scene during my lifetime.

Add to that list 'Reverend' Gerald L.K. Smith, General Wesley A. Swift, Jack Tenney, and others of that ilk.



[video=youtube_share;yLUYstjXGiQ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLUYstjXGiQ[/video]

 

[AtomicEraTom]

If anything, this is a bigger problem now. My sister's 2002 Chevy Trailblazer is not only rustier than my 1972 Ford Country Squire, the heat doesn't work, the steering isn't right, and it runs rough. My dad's 2002 Trailblazer had to be limped home on Friday. Barely made it in the driveway.

Even if the '72 breaks, you can fix just about anything on it with a wrench, a screwdriver, and a can of Gumout!

cars that rust and break down

 

[LizzieMaine]

If anything, this is a bigger problem now. My sister's 2002 Chevy Trailblazer is not only rustier than my 1972 Ford Country Squire, the heat doesn't work, the steering isn't right, and it runs rough. My dad's 2002 Trailblazer had to be limped home on Friday. Barely made it in the driveway.

Even if the '72 breaks, you can fix just about anything on it with a wrench, a screwdriver, and a can of Gumout!

I was gonna say. We don't have cars with rust on them here, we have big piles of rust in the shape of a car. If anything, that calcium carbide stuff they throw on the roads here is worse than rock salt ever was so far as devouring cars is concerned.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Add that the 'Reverend' Gerald L.K. Smith..."

Or as Walter Winchell loved to call him, "Gerald Lucifer KKKodfish Smith."

 

[Flicka]

Feminine hygiene products. I know tampons came onto the market in the late 30s, but belts, rubber panties/aprons, big thick pads......no thanks. My mom said she was happy when such products began to improve.

They improved a lot in my lifetime too. Pads used to be inches thick and slide around.

Weird colorants in food. They were pretty but quite a lot of them gave me a rash. A lot of various pollutions and poisons - when I grew up, the water where I lived was so polluted you couldn't swim in it and now it's fine. We also had this local waste disposal centre which let out fumes without any sort of filtering so the snow actually used to be grey here when I was a child. Apartheid. The Iron Curtain. And when I was born, homosexuality was still officially labelled a disorder/illness here, so that's another thing I'm glad has disappeared during my lifetime.

My father who grew up in a real shack in a very poor and run down part of the city would say living quarters without water or heating (ETA: here in Sweden - I know they are still around in a very large part of the world). My mother would say stockings and garters - she hated them. One fact where we have to disagree, she and I!

 

[AtomicEraTom]

I wish they'd switch to sand here. The whole area near the rivers is all sand, you'd think they could dredge that and use it on the roads. It isn't corrosive and we have a large supply of it right there.

I was gonna say. We don't have cars with rust on them here, we have big piles of rust in the shape of a car. If anything, that calcium carbide stuff they throw on the roads here is worse than rock salt ever was so far as devouring cars is concerned.

 

[Edward]

I'm glad to see certain forms of prejudice - racism and homophobia in particular - are being pushed back. Certainly not gone, but the fact that those who hold to them for the most part no longer feel as able to declare them so openly (at least over here, anyhow), is definitely an advance. I am also very pleased to live in an age where prejudices about mental health are becoming more and more unacceptable.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Bad Food? So you LIKE a healthy serving of salmonella with your salad greens, or E. Coli in your hamburger. Pink slime in your school lunches, Melamine in the baby's formula. Then of course there is always 'mechanically separated chicken"...

Now far more than ever the quality of the food available to the consumer is a function of income and social class: I don't mean gourmet cuisine versus diner food, I mean the basic quality of the ingredients in the food and the presence of chemical adulterants and extenders. You can get good, basic food such as was sold in every A&P in the Era in specialty markets today -- but it will cost you much more than the other stuff, and if you aren't the Right Kind Of Person, there likely isn't one of those speciality markets in your neighborhood. I don't see this as improvement at all.

 

[Flicka]

TB? New multiple-drug-resistant strains are becoming a serious public health problem among marginalised populations.

Bad Food? So you LIKE a healthy serving of salmonella with your salad greens, or E. Coli in your hamburger. Pink slime in your school lunches, Melamine in the baby's formula. Then of course there is always 'mechanically separated chicken"...

Slum dwellings? Like these, all places in which people still live?

Holy golly! People live there? In the US? Looks like a third world country! We have nothing like it. Nothing even remotely like it.

But to be fair, E Coli and salmonella have been around before the modern era so that's probably the same now as then. But compare the nutritional value in fruit and veggies now and 60 years ago and it's hard to come to the conclusion that food is better, even if we eat "better" in the sense of more meat and higher calorie count. That's actually more of a curse than a blessing. The interesting thing is that Swedes were never as healthy as during WWII - we ate better than in earlier decades but still low on meat and sugar and exercised a lot.

If anything, this is a bigger problem now. My sister's 2002 Chevy Trailblazer is not only rustier than my 1972 Ford Country Squire, the heat doesn't work, the steering isn't right, and it runs rough. My dad's 2002 Trailblazer had to be limped home on Friday. Barely made it in the driveway.

Even if the '72 breaks, you can fix just about anything on it with a wrench, a screwdriver, and a can of Gumout!

We had an old 40's or 50's Volvo when I was born. It never got as much as a speck of rust. then the engine broke down and my parents got rid of it and bought a really cool Alfa Romeo (sometime in the mid 70s). Hello, rust! My parents wept over not keeping the Volvo...

 

[Big Bertie]

"corporal punishment at school" - I don't miss this one and actually feel that its absence has been a detriment and should be reinstated.

There is an argument for it, but personally I am against it. I was whacked once or twice at school and I'm certainly not saying it did me any harm, quite the reverse as no doubt I deserved it, but I just don't like it.

TB? New multiple-drug-resistant strains are becoming a serious public health problem among marginalised populations.

Bad Food? So you LIKE a healthy serving of salmonella with your salad greens, or E. Coli in your hamburger. Pink slime in your school lunches, Melamine in the baby's formula. Then of course there is always 'mechanically separated chicken"...

Slum dwellings?

I was careful to say these things had not completely gone away, but by and large they have. WRT food, I suspect there were also cases of food poisoning in the 30s, 40s, etc etc. Most people I know avoid junk food, because there is much greater choice in where to eat, and what to eat. I grow my own salad greens and the only food hazard I find is greenfly. I have to agree with you on school meals, of course, they are still muck and always were.

If anything, this is a bigger problem now. My sister's 2002 Chevy Trailblazer is not only rustier than my 1972 Ford Country Squire, the heat doesn't work, the steering isn't right, and it runs rough. My dad's 2002 Trailblazer had to be limped home on Friday. Barely made it in the driveway.

Even if the '72 breaks, you can fix just about anything on it with a wrench, a screwdriver, and a can of Gumout!

Perhaps it's different in the USA, but here 1970s motor cars were really poorly put together and are a byword for poor design and construction, and they are now very rarely seen. You may not have heard of these cars, but the Morris Marina, Austin Allegro, Vauxhall Viva, BL Princess and Ford Capri come to mind, all part and parcel of that awful decade along with flared trousers and polyester suits.

I think the world is a better place without Rudolf Hess, Joseph Mengele, Oswald Mosley, William Dudley Pelley, Elizabeth Dilling, George Lincoln Rockwell, and Charles E. Coughlin in it, among other vintage personalities who have passed from the scene during my lifetime.

Agree totally, I wasn't going to go into all of that but I sometimes wonder if the past might not come back and bite us, if things get much worse in some places.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Holy golly! People live there? In the US? Looks like a third world country! We have nothing like it. Nothing even remotely like it.

You'll find scenes like that in just about any town or city here if you know where to look. Certain people pretend they don't exist, but that doesn't change the reality for the people who live there. And by and large the housing projects that replaced the "slums" in the cities didn't turn out to be much of an improvement.

 

[Amy Jeanne]

They improved a lot in my lifetime too. Pads used to be inches thick and slide around.

My mother would say stockings and garters - she hated them. One fact where we have to disagree, she and I!

Lots of improvement came in the 80s and 90s. I remember huge, thick pads, too. Hated them. The super-slenders that became more mainstream in the 90s were wonderful. I switched to internal protection in 2003 and never went back. Glad they are slim and silky, too I remember when they were thick and cotton-y. I was always scared to use them for fear of TSS.

My mother said she hated garter belts, too, and was happy when she didn't need to wear them anymore. My mom would also add to the this list "mandatory dresses for females" at her high school. She said they did away with that rule her senior year (1970).