Vintage Things That Have Disappeared In Your Lifetime?

[belfastboy]

I grew up with a kerosene stove, which I wish I still had.

We had one,,,don't miss it at all!

 

[belfastboy]

Just read that over 500,000 people in Canada cancelled their land line phones last year. Won't be long before they become obsolete.

 

[Bushman]

Just read that over 500,000 people in Canada cancelled their land line phones last year. Won't be long before they become obsolete.

I used to have the older variety, curly cord and all, hanging in my garage, until I reconfigured my phone settings with AT&T to make it cheaper on me. In the event of a power outage, it was the only phone that worked. I kind of miss it, to be entirely honest. It's almost like it's the last thing connecting me to a bygone era of 50ft phone cords that stretched to every part of the house. I still think it's a good idea to keep landlines around, if for the only reason that cell phones aren't completely dependable... especially if you do what I did yesterday and go swimming with it in your pocket.

 

[Fading Fast]

My experience is land lines (depending on where you live) can go down as often or more often than cells. My girlfriend's parents got a cellphone reasonably early on because their land line service was (and still is) so spotty. Hence, we decided to go cell only as I didn't think a $300/year landline back up was necessary - nice, but not life saving. I can not remember that last time my cell went out.

If we absolutely need to make an emergency call when the power is out, I'm sure several of my neighbors still have a land line, but in truth, nothing in life is risk free - so be it. I've read that several countries in Africa that are improving economically and that never built a robust land line infrastructure will just skip it all together and only have cellphones as an option.

 

[tonyb]

^^^^
It seemed radical and even comical when Frank Zappa suggested to his pal Vaclav Havel, who was looking to modernize his country's communications infrastructure, that the effort ought be centered on cellular phones, because it wouldn't be long until everybody had one.

That wasn't so long ago. It's quite remarkable how quickly wondrous new technologies become mundane.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I've failed to get a dial tone on a POTS line exactly once in my 53-year lifetime -- and I don't exactly live in a media hub. I think that's pretty impressive.

Ice storms are a common thing here, and they sometimes knock the power out for quite a long stretch, knocking down the cell phone system along with it. I have a wall-mounted phone out on my porch for the neighbors to use if they have to make calls, since they know I'm the only one in the neighborhood who has a phone that'll work in such cases.

 

[HudsonHawk]

A cell phone is simply a radio receiver/transmitter that connects you to a landline at the end of the cell antenna. The only reason your cell phone goes out is because the associated land line went out. Or you forgot to charge it.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Our last ice storm, the power was out for almost four days. A lot of charging didn't get done.

 

[HudsonHawk]

Our last ice storm, the power was out for almost four days. A lot of charging didn't get done.

Our last hurricane, I got the smooth drone of gas generators for three weeks. I couldn't wait for the power to come back on so I could get some peace and quiet.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Most of us here don't have generators. We don't have natural gas here, so they have to run off gasoline -- which doesn't come out of the tanks if the pumps don't work. You can store a few cans in your garage, but who wants to take a chance on having a garage full of gasoline?

Anyway, the only time my phone didn't work was the time i forgot to pay the bill for three months and they shut it off. Ooops.

 

[HudsonHawk]

Most of us here don't have generators. We don't have natural gas here, so they have to run off gasoline -- which doesn't come out of the tanks if the pumps don't work. You can store a few cans in your garage, but who wants to take a chance on having a garage full of gasoline?

These were all gasoline generators too. Many gas stations have emergency power, so one can usually find fuel, even if the power is out. Of course, everyone else in the state had power two weeks before I did, including my neighbors across the street. It sucks to come home from work, hoping the power is back on, seeing your neighbors lights on, and realizing...shoot, not today. For 15 days straight. In September. In southeast Texas.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Four days in November in Maine is pretty rough -- no heat. It was down to 38 degrees in my house before the juice came back. I have a lot of blankets, so I didn't freeze, and I don't mind eating uncooked oatmeal, but getting out of bed was not something I was highly motivated to do.

In 1998, the Great Ice Storm knocked parts of the state out for two weeks in January. I don't know how people survived, but I was lucky -- my street was one of the few places that didn't even flicker.

Only place I've ever worked that had a generator was one of the radio stations. The generator was in the transmitter shack at the top of a mountain, which you had to access by ATV or snowmobile. Guess who got to do it.

 

[HudsonHawk]

I've always heard people say that you can always throw on another blanket when it's cold, but you can get only so naked when it's hot. But I think I'll take the stifling heat to cold any day of the week. Growing up in Florida without air conditioning, we had creative ways of tying to stay cool, such as wetting down the sheets and letting a fan blow over you while you slept or sometimes simply sleeping on the concrete floor, which was always 20 degrees cooler than the air. You just dealt with the heat because, that's just the way it was. Cold, on the other hand, could literally kill you.

 

[Joe50's]

In my area you used to be able to go to a privately owned toy shop and they would wrap up you toy on your way out with stripped wrapping paper And everyone knew wlhere your present came from I'm sure it's still done but places like Wally world And toys r us ran them out of the area we also lost a Sears Roebuck that had been open since the 30's and expanded in the late 90's when the city tore down grants and longs drugs to put in a shopping mall always made me smile looking at the old Sears jutting out of a brand new mall curious to see what will go in its place as Sears has an automotive center in the middle of its parking lot.

Also pulse rotary dialing is slowly phasing out last year my 500 wall phone and ae desk phone worked great now my provider says they don't have supporting software and said their new phone systems catch a broadcast signal like a cell phone Bypassing the need for a landline So they disconnected it which is A change as I grew up with as long as there is a land line you can dial 911 regardless of service in emergencies I'm sure it depends on the provider as some people still rent rotary phones from their providers and use landlines but so far if there was an emergency I would pray the phone works as the new system goes down quite often or breaks up whilst your talking and you have to use a wireless phone system as you get one phone jack on the back of the router

 

[Lean'n'mean]

Cold, on the other hand, could literally kill you.

Heat kills quite a few too. Thousands of people die during heat waves, mostly the elderly & folk with poor health, granted but I would imagine as many, if not more people die during summer due to complications caused by the heat than they do during winter due to the cold.

 

[HudsonHawk]

Heat kills quite a few too. Thousands of people die during heat waves, mostly the elderly & folk with poor health, granted but I would imagine as many, if not more people die during summer due to complications caused by the heat than they do during winter due to the cold.

This is absolutely true. I was mostly just implying my preference for warm weather over cold, but intense heat in areas that are not used to it or prepared to deal with it can be brutal.

So now you got me curious to look it up, and according to the National Weather Service, on average, the leading cause of weather-related fatalities is indeed heat, followed by flooding, though for 2015, flood-related deaths far outpaced everything. It was a very bad year. One note though...this is somewhat skewed because they consider "cold" and "winter" as two different categories. Not sure how they separate the two. Rounding out the top of the list are tornadoes, hurricanes and lightning.

 

[tonyb]

Given my druthers, I'd take a sizzling day without air conditioning over a sub-zero day without a furnace (or whatever type of heat source). Of course, I'd insist on water. And shade.

 

[GHT]

Has anyone got, or even remembers, a wooden trestled ironing board. Nowadays tubular mild steel has replaced practically all folding appliances. About the only exception being deck chairs, having said that, my garden furniture is all tubular mild steel. However, down in someone's sewing cabin, being used as a cutting out board, is her grandmother's ironing board:

 

[LizzieMaine]

All I've ever had is a wooden ironing board. I didn't realize there was any other kind. And it does double duty as a cutting table, too!

 

[Inkstainedwretch]

Think of how ignorant and impoverished we were. We didn't even know that we had land line phones and analogue watches. We thought they were just phones and watches.