"Thirty Things that Need to Stage a Comeback"

[sheeplady]

I've thought about that and have tried breaking the ice with comments about my own hobbies but get blank stares from neighbors and co-workers. At least we have message boards for bonding with like-minded people!

My favorite comment back is "I don't have time for that kind of thing." Really? These are the people who watch 8 hours of tv a night... you have a hobby... TV watching.

 

[Edward]

Hobbies need to make a comeback. It's rare to encounter someone who engages in a hobby with their free time.
Watching sports and online social networking sites do not count.

I don't think hobbies ever really went away, though it has become increasingly fashionable in recent years to poke fun at the idea of having a hobby. Probably because modern entertainment media afford so many other things to occupy one's time that there isn't the same sense of needing something to do. I've also seen much of this sort of humour derived from the notion that people who have hobbies are putting in the time they would otherwise spend with a partner because they're the sort of geek who doesn't attract partners, largely due to the hobby. Meh, whatever.

 

[tonyb]

... I've also seen much of this sort of humour derived from the notion that people who have hobbies are putting in the time they would otherwise spend with a partner because they're the sort of geek who doesn't attract partners, largely due to the hobby. Meh, whatever.

But when a person, geek or not, finds him- or herself partnered up for a good long while, he or she might get to wishing that partner would take up an avocation or two.

What's that Dan Hicks line? "How can I miss you when you won't go away"?

It occurs to me that in this age of increasing specialization many things we used to think of as the routine responsibilities of home ownership, etc., are now considered hobbies. A person who changes his own oil is now thought of as an automotive hobbyist. A person who tends a few flower beds and mows the lawn is a gardening hobbyist.

It has gotten so that it's a chore if you have to do it, and a hobby if you wish to.

 

[GHT]

I think some people don't talk about their hobbies because they think they will be thought of as wierd.

You are not wrong there. I learned to dance from about the age of ten, but if it ever got out at shool that I did Ballroom dancing, my life would have been a misery. This hobby, however, did have one very significant bonus. Among the many disciplines, of Latin & Ballroom, is the jive. Back in the late 1950's & early 1960's when I was at high school, all girls were born with the knowledge of how to jive. The fellas, by contrast, hadn't a clue, they were of the two left feet variety. So, at the end of term dance, I got to dance with all the girls, because I could, and it would stick in the craw of every boy who thought he was God's gift.
And in the same theme, I played Rugby at school, not so much because I enjoyed it, but it was just for the smugness and pleasure of outrunning the playground bully, diving into his back, with my arms around his legs, and hearing the load: "Ooooohh!" as he had the stuffing knocked out of him when you both hit the deck, with me cushioned from the impact by landing on top of him.

 

[Edward]

But when a person, geek or not, finds him- or herself partnered up for a good long while, he or she might get to wishing that partner would take up an avocation or two.

What's that Dan Hicks line? "How can I miss you when you won't go away"?

Heh. True.

It occurs to me that in this age of increasing specialization many things we used to think of as the routine responsibilities of home ownership, etc., are now considered hobbies. A person who changes his own oil is now thought of as an automotive hobbyist. A person who tends a few flower beds and mows the lawn is a gardening hobbyist.

It has gotten so that it's a chore if you have to do it, and a hobby if you wish to.

I'm not sure that's really a new thing, though. I have a dim recollection of Dickens having observed muh the same phenomenon in (I think...) Hard Times. Something about men being prepared to drive a buggy for miles and hours of a Sunday afternoon and pay handsomely for the privilege, yet offer them a wage and it would become work and thus detestable.

You are not wrong there. I learned to dance from about the age of ten, but if it ever got out at shool that I did Ballroom dancing, my life would have been a misery. This hobby, however, did have one very significant bonus. Among the many disciplines, of Latin & Ballroom, is the jive. Back in the late 1950's & early 1960's when I was at high school, all girls were born with the knowledge of how to jive. The fellas, by contrast, hadn't a clue, they were of the two left feet variety. So, at the end of term dance, I got to dance with all the girls, because I could, and it would stick in the craw of every boy who thought he was God's gift.

Ha.... Seems to hold true in adult life. I've got no idea what the position was with our school discos (I was one of the conscientious objectors to those), but it's certainly true in my adult experience that most women are unreasonably impressed by a man having the most rudimentary dance skills - and even moreso that he's prepared to give it a go.

 

[tonyb]

... I'm not sure that's really a new thing, though. I have a dim recollection of Dickens having observed muh the same phenomenon in (I think...) Hard Times. Something about men being prepared to drive a buggy for miles and hours of a Sunday afternoon and pay handsomely for the privilege, yet offer them a wage and it would become work and thus detestable. ...

Well, it's the body-and-fender man who drives the banged-up car, right? The last thing he wants to do in his spare time is auto body repair.

 

[John in Covina]

Hobbies need to make a comeback. It's rare to encounter someone who engages in a hobby with their free time. Watching sports and online social networking sites do not count.

I have Anumber of friends that have hobbies such as the pen collecing club people. I have a friend that pints and also makes jewelry from the beads those he uses as gifts. So there are people that do collecting or scrap books, but is is true that TV seems to have eclipsed so much.

 

[Shangas]

My hobbies include reading, writing, tinkering with stuff, collecting stuff (old stuff), breathing and generally staying a live.

 

[jamespowers]

tinkering with stuff, collecting stuff (old stuff)

Like those sewing machines.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Want a unique hobby? Collect old groceries. Then nobody can nag you to clean out your cupboards, because "it's a collection!"

 

[jamespowers]

Want a unique hobby? Collect old groceries. Then nobody can nag you to clean out your cupboards, because "it's a collection!"

Collecting old bread and meat might be a little problem though.

 

[Shangas]

Like those sewing machines.

The sewing-machines thing was a bit of an accident, really. It started as an experiment with my late grandmother's Singer, and kinda snowballed from there...

 

[jamespowers]

The sewing-machines thing was a bit of an accident, really. It started as an experiment with my late grandmother's Singer, and kinda snowballed from there...

That is called a collection and thus a hobby. You should see what happened from my grandfather's one Falstaff Beer sign.

 

[Shangas]

I find I generally collect vintage/-style desktop things and writing things. I'd love a desktop typewriter, but I'd never be able to afford one at the moment. And I don't really have the desk-space for it.

 

[jamespowers]

I find I generally collect vintage/-style desktop things and writing things. I'd love a desktop typewriter, but I'd never be able to afford one at the moment. And I don't really have the desk-space for it.

Too bad you live that far away. I have one I would like to dump in my closet.

 

[Sprinkles]

"Uneeda Biscuit" Fool proof marketing!

 

[Seraph1227]

1. Real local radio.

2. Cheap, unpretentious, non-ironic lunch counters.

3. The CCC.

4. Ball games with no rock music between innings, no costumed mascots, no flashing scoreboards, and no shopping malls under the stands.

5. Popular songwriting in the A-A-B-A structure.

6. A domestic manufacturing industry.

7. Actual journalism.

8. Selected short subjects.

9. Hand-cranked car windows.

10. Integrity.

:eusa_clap

 

[Seraph1227]

Most of them listed, particularly hats, fountain pens, double features, discreet voices (especially in libraries), supper clubs (very much so), and train restaurants. To those I would add radio drama, real hood ornaments, patriotism in the public schools, the use of military fatigues only when in the field, and telephone exchanges (CItrus 6-3536, etc.).

Hood ornaments need to make a comeback for sure.

 

[VintageBee]

I miss old landline telephones that you had to dial with your finger...

When my youngest son was around 13, he and his sister would help an elderly lady-he did her yard maintenance and such and my daughter would do her housekeeping. One day Mrs. C just needed gardening done so I dropped off my son, telling him to call me when he was finished. We didn't have cell phones back then so he would have to use her house phone. She had one cordless phone and one rotary dial phone. She was in the last stages of cancer so she frequently fell asleep in her recliner with the cordless in the side of the cushion. After a few hours I figured my son should be calling anytime for his ride home but he didn't. Thinking something might be wrong, I drove over to Mrs. C's house to find my son sitting on her front porch! So I walked up and asked him what was wrong, why didn't he call? He said she was sleeping and had the cordless phone with her in the recliner. So I asked why didn't he use the rotary phone in the kitchen?
He said he didn't know how it worked!
So after I laughed until I had tears running down my cheeks and him looking at me, a bit miffed that I thought his being stranded there was hysterical, I showed him how it worked.....just in case this happened again
(I had to show him how to do it a few times before he got it!)

 

[LizzieMaine]

A few years ago we had a disastrous ice storm up here that knocked out power for people for days. I had a constant stream of people coming in to use my phone -- evidently I'm the only one in the neighborhood who has a real, proper copper-wire phone line that works when the power goes out. Since that event I've mounted a rotary wall phone on my front porch so that the next time this happens the neighbors can make thier emergency calls without bothering me.