Vintage Things That Have Disappeared In Your Lifetime?

[Zombie_61]

I had my tonsils out in my early 20s...I wasn't aware that there is a new philosophy around taking them out...

I seem to recall reading something several years ago about studies that showed people who had their tonsils removed caught colds far more frequently than people who still had theirs, so doctors are now resistant to removing them unless it's absolutely necessary. My personal experience seems to support the study's findings. I still have my tonsils, my wife does not; she catches a cold at least once or twice a year, but I can't remember the last time I caught one.

 

[2jakes]

I seem to recall reading something several years ago about studies that showed people who had their tonsils removed caught colds far more frequently than people who still had theirs, so doctors are now resistant to removing them unless it's absolutely necessary. My personal experience seems to support the study's findings. I still have my tonsils, my wife does not; she catches a cold at least once or twice a year, but I can't remember the last time I caught one.

I still have my tonsils & I used to catch a cold on a regular basis similar to your wife.
I worked in a television studio in very enclosed places.
If someone came with a cold, eventually we all got it.
Also I had to attend numerous conferences, events & crowds.
Ever since I went independent & mostly video outdoor landscape/scenic topics,
I don’t get to be around many people. I hardly catch a cold now.

 

[Trenchfriend]

@Zombie

Correct, I think.
In Europe, since 10 or 15 years, medicine stands against removing tonsils, if it's not acute, because:

The tonsils are an extremely important part of your immune-system! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lymphatic_system

If you have got a heavy problem with the stinky tonsil-stones, you have to decide.
Or just the simple way:
As an adult, stop eating the stupid cow-milk-products!

 

[nick123]

I've been spending time with my grandfather watching him build his model boats in the garage quite a bit since i moved down here to Southern Cal. I practically plead with him to build when he has down time, as I find that "garage time" to be better than any tv.

He worked designing boats for a long time at the Port of Los Angeles. Other than accessories such as sail cloth, etc he builds these things completely from scratch, so he's not much of a hobby shop frequenter. The hulls are one solid piece of wood, and much of the building techniques are based on his time building the big ones. It's the most enjoyable thing watching him.

This one was kind of weird; he spent all of this time on it only to not want to build a proper stand at the last minute. But he always finds a way to inject humor into his little projects! That's his personality.

 

[Zombie_61]

I still have my tonsils & I used to catch a cold on a regular basis similar to your wife.
I worked in a television studio in very enclosed places.
If someone came with a cold, eventually we all got it.
Also I had to attend numerous conferences, events & crowds.
Ever since I went independent & mostly video outdoor landscape/scenic topics,
I don’t get to be around many people. I hardly catch a cold now.

That's part of the problem for her. She works in a small(ish) office/warehouse that's in a sectioned-off part of a"tilt-up" building (concrete floors and walls and a high uninsulated ceiling) so they have a difficult time keeping it warm even during our comparatively mild California winter months. So if one of her co-workers brings their cold or flu into that environment they all just sort of pass it around for two or three months. And, of course, she brings it home to me, but I'm somehow able to avoid catching it most of the time.

I've been spending time with my grandfather watching him build his model boats in the garage quite a bit since i moved down here to Southern Cal. I practically plead with him to build when he has down time, as I find that "garage time" to be better than any tv.

He worked designing boats for a long time at the Port of Los Angeles. Other than accessories such as sail cloth, etc he builds these things completely from scratch, so he's not much of a hobby shop frequenter. The hulls are one solid piece of wood, and much of the building techniques are based on his time building the big ones. It's the most enjoyable thing watching him.

This one was kind of weird; he spent all of this time on it only to not want to build a proper stand at the last minute. But he always finds a way to inject humor into his little projects! That's his personality.

Beautiful!

 

[LizzieMaine]

That is some mighty tasty looking bread.

 

[Trenchfriend]

@LizzieMaine

In eastern Germany, old days are still alive, partly.

 

[Stearmen]

View attachment 39125 I've been spending time with my grandfather watching him build his model boats in the garage quite a bit since i moved down here to Southern Cal. I practically plead with him to build when he has down time, as I find that "garage time" to be better than any tv.

 

[AtomicEraTom]

That makes absolute sense. My house is only a starter house, as I know 12-1400 square feet will never be enough, and the yard will DEFINITELY not be enough. This is just a place to flip to make enough money for something more suited to my needs.

I was the last of my family to be born in Milwaukee. My great-grandfather and all 11 siblings of his were born there. He was born in 1902. His parents came here in the 1880's, from Poland. My siblings, and all my younger cousins were born outside Milwaukee. All my older cousins were born in Milwaukee. I think that's a suburb effect, plus "white flight" is known as a major issue in the Metro-Milwaukee area, especially from the 1960's to the 1990's.

It doesn't help that these days, you more or less have to be willing to give up home and family to get a job worth being proud of.

I think a big part of the problem is that so many people don't think in terms of putting down roots anymore. It used to be when you bought a house it symbolized a committment not just to a piece of property but to the whole idea of being a part of a community. The idea of a "starter house" wasn't something the prewar generation thought about -- more often than not when you bought a house it was with the expectation of that being your home and your neighborhood indefinitely. You valued those ties because they were a centerpiece of the entire structure of your life. The idea of continuously "upgrading" because you were expected to do so wasn't something most people cared about -- stability and a sense of community were more important.

My family lived in the same neighborhood in the same town from the time they first came to this country at the turn of the century right up to the present day -- my mother still lives on the same street she grew up on, next to someone who's been a neighbor since they were both six years old. I was the first member of the immediate family to live outside the county in eighty years, but my roots are still there on that street. That's weird and unusual nowadays, but it used to be very much the norm.

 

[ChiTownScion]

Sometimes, it's simply a matter of taking existing equity and applying it to a property that has greater investment and resale potential. You "trade up" because a bigger home in a better neighborhood has greater resale potential and is a more prudent investment. I'm not sure that potential existed back in the Era, or that people who were raised in the Era recognized it when things changed to where it became a reality.

I can't understand why my parents insisted upon staying in the same home for all of my childhood (1961-1975) over a period of time when my father's income had risen considerably and a home in a more desirable town, with better schools, transportation, public services, etc., could have improved their financial situation.

And my mom's parents were even more short sighted, to my way of thinking: after more than 40 years of marriage they finally moved out of their tiny one bedroom apartment (which they shared with an adult son, my bachelor uncle) and "got a place of their own:" an even tinier one bedroom condo that the three of them shared. Four years later, they sold the condo (undoubtedly taking a hit on taxes) and moved back into another apartment.

Perhaps I don't understand the economics of the times back then, or perhaps people were gun-shy about investments after having lived through the Great Depression. And admittedly, hindsight is 20/20. But I'd be curious as to whether others "traded up" on homes based upon greater equity potential 1920's- 1950's.

 

[Fading Fast]

...Perhaps I don't understand the economics of the times back then, or perhaps people were gun-shy about investments after having lived through the Great Depression. And admittedly, hindsight is 20/20. But I'd be curious as to whether others "traded up" on homes based upon greater equity potential 1920's- 1950's.

My Dad, as a child, lost his home in the depression and didn't think of a home the way we do today. To him, not having a mortgage was paramount - so that, as he said many times, I can keep my home as long as I can pay my taxes on it (which were pretty modest like the home). Many families of his generation just wanted to stay in the same home and pay off the mortgage - that was one of their life goals. They didn't think about trading up or a home as a asset to be bought and sold, but as of as an asset to be saved. So I think your last point is spot on - the Great Depression set a different mindset for those who lived through it than for the baby boomers who came after and only saw, with a few modest exceptions, homes go up in price over medium to longer time periods.

 

[Trenchfriend]

That's because, humans are creatures of habit and the most people are torpid at any point in their life and can't pass their "edge of the plate" until the end of life, I think.

In Germany, we call this "brainsick by consume". Any many not having hobbies.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I didn't personally know anyone who lived thru the Era who was a "climber" when it came to houses. Granted, I only knew working class people, but none of them ever had any ambition whatsoever to have a "bigger or better" house. Those who owned houses generally bought them in their thirties, and kept them until they died. These were not large houses at all by modern standards -- my grandparents raised two kids in a house of about 1000 square feet, and most of the houses in the neighborhood were of similar size. They bought the houses to live in, not to profit from. The idea of a house as an "investment" was utterly alien to their way of thinking.

That neighborhood has changed radically in the last thirty years, since the passing of the generation I knew there. My mother still lives there, in the same house she bought fifty years ago, and her neighbor frenemy is still there as well --that neighbor sold my mother the house in the first place, and then bought the one next door. And there's a married couple, now very elderly, that were living in the neighborhood when I was growing up. But everyone else has died, and their houses have been sold off by their heirs -- and sadly, nearly all those houses are now used as "quaint summer places" by upper-middle-class people from out of state.

I bought my own house because I've lived in it for fifteen years, and it's the house I fully intend to die in. I don't have any need of a bigger house, and the thought of living in an "updated, upgraded" house makes my blood run cold.

 

[ChiTownScion]

It's always a fool's game to impose your own life experience on those of times past, of course. I think that's one of many of the challenges and the rewards of studying history.

We were married in 1985, bought an old Chicago Victorian in '86 for $95,000, put in about $40K in actual and sweat equity to fix it up, and then sold it in '94 for $184,500. The same property (with a few improvements) sold for over a million a few years ago. That old working class neighborhood became a yuppie ghetto, I suppose. Had we remained Double Income No Kids ("Dinks") we'd have stayed put, but the burbs offered better educational options for our special needs son. That aside, I preferred the bustle and vibrancy of the big city... but as we know, the best interests of your kids trump all considerations.

I doubt if residential values appreciated like what we experienced in any times past with the possible exception of the Roaring 20's, and obviously, the Great Depression made the 2008 housing crash look like, "..a picnic in the park with the Little Sisters of the Poor" (as my friend Ed Bearss might say). No doubt that, having lived through that, many working class people (and that is from whence I came) wanted stability and security, and were not inclined to anything that smacked of risky investment opportunity once they had a small taste of relative wartime and post-war prosperity.

 

[Fading Fast]

^^^ The need is balance. I don't think everyone should do what my dad did, save up until he was almost 50 and buy his first ever and very modest house for all cash. I don't profess to know the "right" number, but there used to be reasonably universal mortgage standards of a minimum of 20% down plus your mortgage payment could only be a certain amount of your income. This kept egregious leverage out of housing, committed people to their homes as they had a chunk of cash in it right from the start and prevented people from, at least starting out with, a crushing monthly nut. But then the banks and government (sorry, if that is political, then pull this post, but both the private sector and the government for various reasons) pushed for policies that broke down all those leverage controls and the housing market became a casino. Somewhere between the austerity of my dad, the Las Vegas of the pre-2008 housing market and probably close to the old standards lies an intelligent balance.

Edit add: just remembered the thread's title: "the 20% down and your gross monthly income should be 4 times (I think it was that number or close) to your monthly payment" mortgage is a vintage thing that seems, sadly, gone.

 

[Inkstainedwretch]

My late father-in-law (b. 1911) grew up poor in the Appalachians and for his whole life considered it disgraceful to be in debt. He would never borrow money or buy anything on credit. This meant he couldn't expand his construction business because he wouldn't borrow money for new machinery. In old age he wouldn't even open the envelope that delivered his Social Security check because he believed it was money he hadn't worked for. His kids would have to find it and deposit it for him. An admirable ethic, I suppose, but he carried it too far.

 

[Trenchfriend]

Oh man, people with this old old shame, to take social-security or comparable. It's such an outdated philosophy, I think.

Ok, in Germany, there are surely some older people, which still got this philosophy, but these are the very old people, I tell you. They still live in another world.

The most people here are much more realistic or call it "modern pragmatists". Everyone knows, that he pays his taxes brave, like every other do. And so, you naturally have got the same claim, to get social-security, like every other. It's a normal think. Nothing, to be ashamed.

And, because not less and especially our newer pensioners got that less pension, that they have got claim to get social-security additonal, they take it and aren't ashamed.
Typical (older) germans grumble around, surely. But, there's absolutely no reason to grumble, I tell you.

 

[HudsonHawk]

Edit add: just remembered the thread's title: "the 20% down and your gross monthly income should be 4 times (I think it was that number or close) to your monthly payment" mortgage is a vintage thing that seems, sadly, gone.

Perhaps it's my poor upbringing and the fear of job insecurity as a result, but the idea of committing long-term 25% of my gross income is positively insane to me. If it's more than 10%, I can't afford it.

As for being a house climber, count me in the group who isn't interested. My current house is the only one I've ever owned, and likely will, at least until I can no longer care for it. I've made some changes, but because I wanted those things...I don't really didn't consider re-sale value.

 

[Fading Fast]

Perhaps it's my poor upbringing and the fear of job insecurity as a result, but the idea of committing long-term 25% of my gross income is positively insane to me. If it's more than 10%, I can't afford it.

As for being a house climber, count me in the group who isn't interested. My current house is the only one I've ever owned, and likely will, at least until I can no longer care for it. I've made some changes, but because I wanted those things...I don't really didn't consider re-sale value.

To give you an idea of where I'm at (and how much my dad influenced me), I just bought my first house (actually coop apartment) at the age of 50 and paid cash for it (I saved for thirty years to do so). I have no job security, so I wanted to have a monthly "nut" that was modest. That said, and I really, really want to emphasize this - I am not advocated what I did for others or passing judgement (please see my above post about balance for my thoughts on that), but for me, after growing up regularly hearing about the horrors of having the bank take your house away, I needed to own mine outright. It was a drag not owing one until I turned 50, but that was my choice.

 

[HudsonHawk]

To give you an idea of where I'm at (and how much my dad influenced me), I just bought my first house (actually coop apartment) at the age of 50 and paid cash for it (I saved for thirty years to do so). I have no job security, so I wanted to have a monthly "nut" that was modest. That said, and I really, really want to emphasize this - I am not advocated what I did for others or passing judgement (please see my above post about balance for my thoughts on that), but for me, after growing up regularly hearing about the horrors of having the bank take your house away, I needed to own mine outright. It was a drag not owing one until I turned 50, but that was my choice.

I completely understand. I bought my house at 35, only after I was very comfortable on being able to make payments. Yes, my rent was as much or more than my mortgage note, but there is no long-term commitment with that.