Vintage Things That Have Disappeared In Your Lifetime?

[Fading Fast]

That was a pretty famous case -- the publisher of that particular magazine, "Spicy Detective," got in very hot water, and very nearly went to jail for violating city obscenity laws because of a picture in that issue which, shall we say, revealed a bit too much south-of-the-border terrain. That publisher got one of his low-level employees, a schmo named Herbie Siegel, to take the rap in the case in exchange for a promise of lifetime employment, and decided then and there that he needed to find a more legitimate line of business. He found a struggling publisher of comic magazines, took it over and muscled out its founder, and thru a combination of strong-arm distribution methods and the luck of stumbling onto a character that would become world-famous, he built it into the most successful company in that line. The publisher was Harry Donenfeld and the company was DC Comics. And well into the 1970s, even after Harry had gone to where all magazine publishers inevitably go, employees at DC would see this short, fat, old man sitting around the offices reading the Racing Form, and be told the story of Herbie Siegel, "Spicy Detective," and how he kept Harry out of jail.

Three cool things about your post:

1) I love that Donenfeld basically said "enough" to the sleaze - the moral factor didn't bother him but the hassle factor did - but he sounds like a bull in a china shop regardless.

2) At least he honored his lifetime-employment commitment to Siegel - I can abide rough business leaders, I can't abide people who don't honor their words and plenty wouldn't have kept Siegel on that long.

3) I can't image seeing anything "south of the border" other than upper thighs in that era - no wonder it lead to potential jail time.

Somewhat apropos, I just caught this WSJ article:
Jewish Comic Con Celebrates American Comic Books’ Roots

http://www.wsj.com/articles/jewish-comic-con-celebrates-american-comic-books-roots-1478905127

If you can't open it, please just PM and I'll email it to you (that's legal, pasting it here in full is not).

 

[LizzieMaine]

By all means send along. Looks interesting.

Herbie Siegel in action. Nobody ever seemed to know what his actual job function was -- some say he was in charge of pasting the photostatted title logos onto cover art, others say he just aimlessly wandered the corridors when he wasn't loafing around the office -- but he did indeed hold a job with DC even after it was taken over by Warner Communications. Insiders seem to agree that he was kind of a "dimwit," whose major function seemed to be picking Harry up off the floor when he'd had too much to drink.

Herbie was no relation, as far as anyone knows, to Jerry Siegel, the much-oppressed co-creator of Superman. Which is too bad, because that would have made for an even better story.

The whole history of the comic book industry is full of stuff like this, as though the whole thing was based on a snappy Warner Bros. movie from 1933 starring Jimmy Cagney, Pat O'Brien, Frank McHugh, and Allen Jenkins.

 

[Fading Fast]

⇧ Very glad it happened, but hard to believe Segiel was kept employed that long - and after Donenfeld's death - as most corporations don't have that kind of decency and would simply have "Riffed" him once Donenfeld was no longer there to protect him.

 

[Fading Fast]

...The whole history of the comic book industry is full of stuff like this, as though the whole thing was based on a snappy Warner Bros. movie from 1933 starring Jimmy Cagney, Pat O'Brien, Frank McHugh, and Allen Jenkins.

If you had met my dad and his friends ("cronies" as they called themselves), you'd see (and I know you know this) that society, or pockets of it, were closer to the movies of their time. My dad was a professional gambler (pretty sure he was a bookie), small business owner and "investor," and he, and his friends, had a '30s / '40s Warner Brothers "look and feel" to them. That doesn't answer the age-old question if movies reflect society or society begins to reflect the movies, but you could definitely see WB and film noir parallels in my dad's world.

Which is why I never, ever, ever, ever had friends over to my house if I could avoid it, ever. Even as a young kid, I could see that how we lived, our "style," culture, what have you was way, way out of step with the norm. Fortunately (and I mean this), my parents were not the engaged, "let's see what our kid is doing" type of parents at all. As long as negative news didn't bubble up to them (either letters or calls home or me complaining - which I never did as I wanted to stay off my dad's radar 100% of the time), I lived in my own little world - neither parent ever attended a single school or sporting event, etc.

I often think I enjoyed old movies because, in some odd way, they helped me understand my dad better. I saw him in those movies of the '30s and '40s as the entire '60s cultural movement and '70s craziness didn't touch him at all so, for me, what I saw in the "real" world and what I saw in my dad where disconnected, but again, in those old movies I could recognize him and his world.

 

[Shangas]

Here's another one...

Payphones.

When I was a kid, they were everywhere. But now that almost everybody in the developed world has a mobile phone, they're almost nowhere to be seen.

I mean yes you can still find them. But I can't imagine anybody still uses them, unless it's a real emergency. There's a few at the main railway station in town, and one outside my local supermarket.

But beyond that, I've almost never seen any, except accidentally spotting one while I'm out and about town in random places. I don't think a child born in the last 15 years would know how the hell to use one!!

 

[Trenchfriend]

Here's another one...

Payphones.

When I was a kid, they were everywhere. But now that almost everybody in the developed world has a mobile phone, they're almost nowhere to be seen.

I mean yes you can still find them. But I can't imagine anybody still uses them, unless it's a real emergency. There's a few at the main railway station in town, and one outside my local supermarket.

But beyond that, I've almost never seen any, except accidentally spotting one while I'm out and about town in random places. I don't think a child born in the last 15 years would know how the hell to use one!!

In todays "surveillance-society", the good old payphones will become more and more interesting the next years!

 

[LizzieMaine]

There's still payphones at our local grocery stores, which are very often used by elderly ladies calling for a taxicab to take them home. I've been asking for years to have one installed at the theatre, because we get the same sort of situations, and the phone in my office is too confusing for many of them.

 

[Inkstainedwretch]

This leads to the phenomenon of what I call "ghost phones." Any time you walk around a hotel or convention center or sports arena you encounter these little alcoves that accommodate nothing but you can tell by their shape that they once held pay phones. I always find them a little spooky and sometimes visualize ghostly people in there, talking on long-gone phones.

 

[tonyb]

I know of an "old school" drinking establishment with a phone booth built into a wood-paneled wall. The booth has the little seat and the light and the fan come on when you close the bi-fold doors. Those of us in middle-age or older can easily visualize this booth.

The phone booth still serves quite well in this era of nearly as many cell phones as people. The booth provides a place for a person to carry on a cell phone conversation without disturbing the other patrons, and vice-versa.

 

[ChiTownScion]

There's still payphones at our local grocery stores, which are very often used by elderly ladies calling for a taxicab to take them home. I've been asking for years to have one installed at the theatre, because we get the same sort of situations, and the phone in my office is too confusing for many of them.

And likewise, I can point to a 92 year old lodge brother who handles arcane aspects of his iPhone with skills that'd put a 17 year old to shame. Of course, he worked decades as an engineer. Thus, I think that so much of this has less to do with chronological age and more to do with the way that we are trained, not in technology as such, but to the phenomena of changing technology.

 

[2jakes]

Not sure if this can be considered “vintage” about the things that have
disappeared in my lifetime.

But the last time a Yellow cab came to the house was when I was a kid.
It was reserved for serious occasions only.
Same with telegrams or doctors making house calls.

Candlestick telephones.
Mostly for serious or emergency calls.
I don’t ever recall my grandmother, uncle, cousins, use the phone to chat,
especially for a great length of time.

Most conversations between the grownups were held in the front porch
lawn chairs or in the living room where coffee or tea was served.

Morning chats were in the kitchen table before going out to work, or
in my case, go out to the nearby “arroyo” to play.

The “arroyo” was neat in that the city had not bothered to put cement
sidewalks cut down trees, bushes or put swings for kids like today’s
playgrounds.

My playground was wild vegetation with snakes, chameleons, birds &
a river towards the bottom of the arroyo to go fishing.
I loved playing cowboys or building a swing with a rope and an old tire.
Old tires & tubes were my best toys.
A long stick of wood had many functions.
Baseball bat, rifle, spear.
My favorite was the galloping stallion as I rode into the sunset,
just like Roy or Gene.


I don’t recall kids today pushing an old tire down the sidewalk or taking
a huge tire tube and floating down the river.
It sure was fun for me.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I know of an "old school" drinking establishment with a phone booth built into a wood-paneled wall. The booth has the little seat and the light and the fan come on when you close the bi-fold doors. Those of us in middle-age or older can easily visualize this booth.

The phone booth still serves quite well in this era of nearly as many cell phones as people. The booth provides a place for a person to carry on a cell phone conversation without disturbing the other patrons, and vice-versa.

This is exactly the argument I've used in trying to convince the upper levels to install a booth at the theatre. Too many fatheads stand around in the lobby bellowing into their cellphones like everybody in the popcorn line needs to hear about their colonoscopy. Having a booth and steering them to it would be a benefit to all involved.

As to Jake's mention of candlestick phones, I have and use one in my home office (and also have its wall-hung metal-boxed cousin out on the porch), and it's impossible to use one comfortably for a long conversation. The introduction of the handset phone in the late twenties revolutionized the way Americans used the phone.

Another interesting note on phones, the candlestick (or "desk stand," to use the Bell System's official nomenclature) was revived widely during the war, when thousands of them were pulled out of storage and modified with new transmitters, new receivers, and new induction coils to fill the needs of new customers after civilian manufacture of the newer handset phones was terminated. Practically all of the candlesticks that remained in use into the fifties and sixties in small towns were these wartime rehabs. The date stamps in mine indicate that it was rebuilt in 1943. Ma Bell was a firm believer in "use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without."

 

[2jakes]

 

[HudsonHawk]

I know of an "old school" drinking establishment with a phone booth built into a wood-paneled wall. The booth has the little seat and the light and the fan come on when you close the bi-fold doors. Those of us in middle-age or older can easily visualize this booth.

The phone booth still serves quite well in this era of nearly as many cell phones as people. The booth provides a place for a person to carry on a cell phone conversation without disturbing the other patrons, and vice-versa.

We have little one-person rooms with a phone at the office. They're called "touchdown rooms". It's a place where guests or even co-workers can go and sort of be in the cone of silence to make a call.

 

[HudsonHawk]

Candlestick telephones.
Mostly for serious or emergency calls.
I don’t ever recall my grandmother, uncle, cousins, use the phone to chat,
especially for a great length of time.

We had a wall phone, as did most people I knew, but ours was in the kitchen and had a LONG cord, so you could go sit down or even answer the front door and still be holding the receiver. But all of the older people I knew...grandparents, uncles/aunts, etc...had single phone that was typically in a hallway or a little vestibule like room, and there was no sitting down and chit chatting. You used to phone for emergencies or to invite people over. Conversation was face to face, either on the veranda or in the Florida room.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The "telephone nook" was a common architectural feature in houses built in the 1920s and 1930s -- a little recessed compartment in a wall with a lower section, often with louvered or slotted doors, for the attachment of the subset box, and a shelf for the desk stand or handset mounting.

Because the phone was usually attached to the subset box by a cord rarely more than four or five feet long it was impractical to carry it around with you while you were talking, so these "nooks," and similar arrangements like "telephone stands" kept you rooted to the spot while you were using the phone.

The introduction of the "integrated" phone in 1937 -- a telephone which didn't need a seperate subset box because all the components were mounted within the phone housing itself -- did away with the need for "nooks," although many remained in use. It also made it much easier to have a longer cord between the phone and the junction block where it attatched to the line, leading to the stereotypical teenager pose of later years.

 

[HudsonHawk]

I remember those built in phone nooks. My grandmother had a whole little open room off the hallway, that looked something like this (with the phone *inside* the room):

 

[Inkstainedwretch]

And, speaking of phones and that picture of the girl with her feet up on the wall -- what was it with us and the telephone when we were teenagers? I'm speaking of those of us in our teens in the 50s-60s. We'd spend hours yakking on the phone until our parents said in exasperation, "You're going to see her (or him) tomorrow at school! Get off the damn phone, for chrissakes!" Or words to that effect. we bemoan kids these days incessantly on their cellphones but we were just as bad with the old Bakelite sets, plus we were hogging the only phone line in the house.

 

[Fading Fast]

And, speaking of phones and that picture of the girl with her feet up on the wall -- what was it with us and the telephone when we were teenagers? I'm speaking of those of us in our teens in the 50s-60s. We'd spend hours yakking on the phone until our parents said in exasperation, "You're going to see her (or him) tomorrow at school! Get off the damn phone, for chrissakes!" Or words to that effect. we bemoan kids these days incessantly on their cellphones but we were just as bad with the old Bakelite sets, plus we were hogging the only phone line in the house.

Growing up in the '60s/'70s, I had to ask permission to use the phone and calling friends - other than for a very real reason (and for a minute or two at most to confirm something about homework or something you'd need to bring to school the next day) - was not allowed. I don't think I spent more than an hour or two for my entire life in total on the phone prior to moving out of my house at 17.

 

[LizzieMaine]

A lot of the people in our neighborhood were on party lines, and it wasn't at all uncommon to hear someone break in on the conversation with "you kids been talkin' long enough! Get off the g-d line!"