Terms Which Have Disappeared

[LizzieMaine]

134-2
KIngswood 8-6633
548-2720
(final number redacted because my mother still has it.)

I also remember all the phone numbers of the rest of the neighborhood. All but one of those people are dead now, but the survivor still has the same number she had fifty years ago.

And, I remember running messages for people in the neighborhood who didn't have phones. "Here's a dime, go tell Sheila McIntyre her dog's loose again."

 

[tonyb]

I saw a PBS documentary (or similar show) in which some researchers did brain-scans on London taxi drivers who had to memorize a huge amount of directions and addresses, and they found that the drivers had altered brain structures compared to most humans. The regions devoted to information storage were either bigger or denser (however that works).

It's remarkable that so many of us can remember the phone numbers we had as kids. When I was in the the 4th grade our number was CA - 8 - 3901. (CA = CAnal)

Which suggests a range of mental plasticity.

Like you, I can't claim any particular knowledge of neurology. But my own experience and that of others I know well has me believing that people can influence, for better or for worse, how their brains work.

I resist lashing out at those convinced of their own intellectual superiority, but lord knows there are occasions when I'm sorely tempted. I find most Mensa types just delusional enough to believe their own self-serving hype, as though intelligence were some static quantity to which a hard number might be affixed.

I'm finding epigenetics fascinating. Research indicates that the conditions under which one's ancestors lived might be reflected in one's own genetic expression. Ain't that sumpin?

 

[MisterCairo]

There are probably things you'd like to forget, too, but can't.

Like the fashion of the era...

 

[LizzieMaine]

Don't mock. It takes a lot of work to do a marcel wave like that.

 

[MisterCairo]

Don't mock. It takes a lot of work to do a marcel wave like that.

I'll ask my brother about it!

 

[tonyb]

I want the aluminum tree.

 

[Stearmen]

Like the fashion of the era...

We had an aluminum tree with a funny aluminum light, that had a disc with different color plastic wedges that rotated, giving different colors on the tree. I think that was 1966, I do remember for sure, the cat threw up a bunch of the aluminum strands!

 

[Stearmen]

I envy you people that can remember your old phone numbers. I can't remember any of my old numbers except the one from my mid teens,and that is only because it was my mothers number for the rest of her life. I can't remember most of the street names or address, just my first two, because they were just across the street from each other. But from age 6 until, mid teens, forget it, just remember the city, and town names!

 

[Stearmen]

Like the fashion of the era...

I just noticed, a dashiki, over a mock turtleneck, with bell bottoms, and flashing a peace sign, groovy man!

 

[2jakes]

I envy you people that can remember your old phone numbers. I can't remember any of my old numbers except the one from my mid teens,and that is only because it was my mothers number for the rest of her life. I can't remember most of the street names or address, just my first two, because they were just across the street from each other. But from age 6 until, mid teens, forget it, just remember the city, and town names!

I remember the name of the street and house where I was born.
I lived here between the ages of 2 to 5 and can recall every room
of that house and the outside as well.

I painted from memory the house for my mother who was lonely
for her mother (my grandma).
My mother would sit and enjoy it in her living room.

My ma past away last year and I now have that painting.

btw: My grandmother’s phone was the candle stick type.
The phone number on the dial in front started with the
letters CA

 

[Zombie_61]

I just noticed, a dashiki, over a mock turtleneck, with bell bottoms, and flashing a peace sign, groovy man!

It's only a "peace" sign if the palm of the hand is facing the intended recipient(s). If you're seeing the back of the hand, regardless of the number of fingers it's the same as "flipping the bird".

 

[BlueTrain]

Wonderful painting. The screen door effect is a nice touch, too. I think screen doors are a thing of the past, just like back porches and porch swings.

I can remember lots of little details from most of the places I've lived and worked but not everything and what I do remember is starting to become a little fuzzy. But even in the house where I lived until I was about twelve or thirteen, things changed over the years. It has been nearly 60 years since I've lived there and I'd probably be shocked to see what it looks like now. I've seen the outside but not the inside. I'd probably look at things and say "that's not supposed to be!"

I'm interested in the old Western movie ranches, like Corriganville. It's a park now and you can visit it. There are some remains of things from when movies were still being made there, including the so-called stunt rock that was visible in the Jungle Jim movies. But as one visitor said, it's about as cheerful as visiting a cemetery. That's what it's like visiting places in my hometown, now (including the cemetery).

 

[BobHufford]

I want the aluminum tree.

My "redneck" (a term of endearment in this case) neighbor near the farm in Douglas County was telling me he picked up an aluminum tree at an auction. He said he and his son enjoyed burning it in a brush pile as it put off some cool colors. I told him he may have just burned a $500 tree. "Say what?"

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_fro...H_Sold=1&_nkw=aluminum+christmas+tree&_sop=16

I have several from 1-foot to 7-foot with color wheels, rotating musical bases, etc. Love the things...

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^
I wouldn't pay anything approaching that amount, but it doesn't shock me that some people would.

Christmas ornaments are among the few vintage items still commonly found in their original packaging. (Doesn't take a great imagination to figure that one out.) I've got a couple of plastic storage bins filled with the things, some relatively new, some older than me.

 

[HudsonHawk]

I envy you people that can remember your old phone numbers. I can't remember any of my old numbers except the one from my mid teens,and that is only because it was my mothers number for the rest of her life. I can't remember most of the street names or address, just my first two, because they were just across the street from each other. But from age 6 until, mid teens, forget it, just remember the city, and town names!

I think people remember things like their address and phone number as kids because it was so important at that age, and it was drilled into us. You were terrified to *not* know them, and it sticks with you.

 

[BlueTrain]

I'm still not bad about remembering numbers, numbers being my daily bread, but people's names are another matter. If I don't see them in print, I really have trouble remembering them.

 

[Fading Fast]

Don't mock. It takes a lot of work to do a marcel wave like that.

My girlfriend - who is not a fussy primper at all - has said she'd all but have to give up if she lived back in the day when women "did" their hair like that or in those other "set" styles that required curlers, etc. at night, regular trips to the hair dresser or incredible time and energy at home. She's a "wash, blow-dry, spray an anti frizz or something quickly on it and get out of the house" girl. All that work would overwhelm her. Hard to believe that many working women did all that back in the day, but they did as I know from my grandmother.

 

[LizzieMaine]

My girlfriend - who is not a fussy primper at all - has said she'd all but have to give up if she lived back in the day when women "did" their hair like that or in those other "set" styles that required curlers, etc. at night, regular trips to the hair dresser or incredible time and energy at home. She's a "wash, blow-dry, spray an anti frizz or something quickly on it and get out of the house" girl. All that work would overwhelm her. Hard to believe that many working women did all that back in the day, but they did as I know from my grandmother.

My grandmother wore the same hairstyle from the late 1930s to her death in 1981. She'd get a permanent once a month like clockwork, which cut the daily maintenance way down -- but I never saw her go to a salon. There was a woman in the neighborhood who did everyone's hair, and she made house calls. The kitchen would reek of sodium hydroxide after one of her visits.

Me, I just tie a rag over my head 90 percent of the time and have done with it.

 

[Fading Fast]

My grandmother wore the same hairstyle from the late 1930s to her death in 1981. She'd get a permanent once a month like clockwork, which cut the daily maintenance way down -- but I never saw her go to a salon. There was a woman in the neighborhood who did everyone's hair, and she made house calls. The kitchen would reek of sodium hydroxide after one of her visits.

Me, I just tie a rag over my head 90 percent of the time and have done with it.

My grandmother went to the salon regularly (every other week, maybe, maybe less, don't remember) but also had a pretty involved daily routine of curlers and hairnet at night, and a bunch of "stuff" she did in the morning that included a lot of hairspray (I was eight when she passed away, so I wasn't paying close attention when I stayed with her about that stuff, but knew she "worked" on it a lot each morning). It was a "set" style that didn't move when she was done - and was probably reasonably current up until the early / mid '60s, but looked dated by the late '60s / '70s. I laugh today, as, as noted, my girlfriend can fly through her hair prep in blow-dry time plus one to two minutes and that's it.

 

[BlueTrain]

My next door neighbor in the 1950s (who died around 1970, I think) was one of those who regularly visited a hairdresser. I say hairdresser because I'm not sure where she went. But she was also the sort who wore a dress all the time and when she went "uptown" (which was two blocks away and she didn't own a car), she wore white gloves and a hat. She wore her hair relatively short. My grandmother, on the other hand, who was probably ten or fifteen years older, never cut her hair and only wore it up in a bun. I imagine that people, men and women both, become fixed with a certain style and stick with it. You even saw it in movies, intentionally or otherwise. Movies made in, say, 1940, would sometimes have an older woman (meaning in her 50s, probably) wearing her hair in a style that was more fashionable twenty years earlier. Or that's that it looked like.