Vintage Things That Have Disappeared In Your Lifetime?

[Fading Fast]

I had found, many years ago, that the best way to get around NYC is by motorcycle, believe it or not. Parking is the most obvious advantage, but the narrowness of a bike, combined with the ability to move and stop quickly when necessary made my NYC travels about the quickest and most relaxed way I have ever moved around that borough.

Of course, no rocketing down streets is the primary safety consideration. A good rider watches everything, and executes moves carefully, only when assessments say it is okay to do so.

I fully admit to not having the nerve to ride a motorcycle in this city, but your logic and analysis is sound and a friend of mine swears by it. When walking won't do, I use the subway. Like anything, it has its problems and off days, but overall, it's an incredible system that covers the entire city and allows you to get from here to there faster than driving, I'd guesstimate, at least 75% of the time - and is cheaper and solves the parking problem.

 

[scottyrocks]

I fully admit to not having the nerve to ride a motorcycle in this city, but your logic and analysis is sound and a friend of mine swears by it. When walking won't do, I use the subway. Like anything, it has its problems and off days, but overall, it's an incredible system that covers the entire city and allows you to get from here to there faster than driving, I'd guesstimate, at least 75% of the time - and is cheaper and solves the parking problem.

If I lived in the city I'd probably do as you do and use the subways. But living outside Manhattan, I found that overall, my trip was much shorter (and more fun) when I rode in, whether I lived in Queens or Nassau.

But when I worked at one of the 'Big Three' networks (pre-cable days) I used the LIRR which was its own kind of horror, afaic.

 

[LizzieMaine]

When's the last time you saw or used paste?

Plain old white paste, in a jar with a spreader brush in the cap. You used it to stick clippings in your scrapbook or photos in an album or to lay out pages for printing or to make annoying art projects in the first grade. I haven't seen an actual jar of paste in use in probably thirty years, and that now-empty jar is still in my desk drawer. Everybody uses "glue sticks" but I bet they aren't as pleasant for kids to eat as plain old paste was.

 

[Zombie_61]

^ BRUSH??? Any time I used paste, which was only in *elementary school, we were given one of those "tongue depressor/popsicle stick" type of wooden tools to spread it around like we were buttering toast.



*I learned the virtues and superiority of white glue at an early age.

 

[Trenchfriend]

When's the last time you saw or used paste?

Plain old white paste, in a jar with a spreader brush in the cap. You used it to stick clippings in your scrapbook or photos in an album or to lay out pages for printing or to make annoying art projects in the first grade. I haven't seen an actual jar of paste in use in probably thirty years, and that now-empty jar is still in my desk drawer. Everybody uses "glue sticks" but I bet they aren't as pleasant for kids to eat as plain old paste was.

But it's not the same like "Tipp-Ex" correction-paste?

 

[Zombie_61]

But it's not the same like "Tipp-Ex" correction-paste?

No, it isn't. Tipp-Ex is a "correction" fluid that's used to cover and correct a mistake on a document. White paste is a type of adhesive, and is used to bond two items together.

 

[HanauMan]

WOW, that paste is a blast from the past. Yeah, grade school art projects. I remember that little brush, if you didn't clean the paste off it the bristles would be rock solid the next time you wanted to use it. I also remember the white glue out of a plastic bottle. For some reason the girls liked to squeeze white glue onto their palms and wait for it to dry and then peel it off. It could then be chewed!

 

[LizzieMaine]

That Elmer's type white glue is made from casein, a milk derivative, and is actually edible. I remember a news story years ago about some poor soul who got snowbound in a camp with no food and survived by eating the contents of a bottle of white glue.

I imagine the next few days after that were a bit constipated, but it's nice to know that you can do it if you have to.

I just found the empty paste jar in the bottom of a rarely-opened desk drawer. Carter's CICO Liquid Paste For Paper Sticking -- Strong! Smooth! Safe! The price sticker is still on the jar -- I paid 85 cents for it in September 1983. Oddly, the spreader brush is missing, and I suspect that I flung it away in frustrated rage some time in 1984. There is nothing in the jar now but a thin flaking skin of dried paste, and for no reason I can recall, some kind of a dried, dead brown leaf. I'll have to ask my brother if he knows anything about that.

The drawer also yielded half a dozen empty glass bottles of Higgins' Black India Drawing Ink with the rubber dropper-stopper cap, left over from my cartoonist days. I haven't seen those bottles in years either.

 

[scottyrocks]

We used to call it 'library paste.'

 

[3fingers]

Everybody uses "glue sticks" but I bet they aren't as pleasant for kids to eat as plain old paste was.

Eating non food items was never one of my habits, but I remember a girl in early school days who the teacher had to watch carefully during times when paste was being used or she would eat more than was used for her project. I seem to recall the brush being replaced by a crappy plastic serrated spreader attached to the underside of the lid.

 

[BobHufford]

I "jinxed" a co-worker today (and they owe me a Coke). Is that still happening among the younger set?

 

[vitanola]

We used to call it 'library paste.'

 

[3fingers]

I "jinxed" a co-worker today (and they owe me a Coke). Is that still happening among the younger set?

Been a long time since I've heard that. We also used to match quarters. If you both flipped a quarter and you matched the challenger, he had to buy. If you didn't match, you bought.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The Coke bounty in my childhood was connected to being the first one to punch the other in the arm after sighting a Volkswagen.

 

[JennDarling]

The Coke bounty in my childhood was connected to being the first one to punch the other in the arm after sighting a Volkswagen.

We used Punch Buggy as an excuse to hit our siblings without consequences. I'd rather have gotten a coke out of it, as my younger sister could hit really hard with those tiny fists.

 

[Inkstainedwretch]

In the army we would get cokes from a vending machine and everybody would put a quarter (or dollar, or whatever was agreed upon) in the pot. After the cokes had been drunk we'd look at the bottoms of the bottles. The city where the bottle had been made was embossed on the bottom and the pot went to whoever had the bottle made farthest away. This was at Ft. Knox, KY. One guy showed his bottle from San Francisco and reached for the money. I said "Not so fast" and showed mine. It had been made in Hilo, Hawaii.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I once had a collection of Coke bottles from 49 of the 50 states -- the only one I couldn't get was Alaska. I went thru hundreds upon hundreds of empties from the gas station over a period of about five years and never found a single Alaska bottle. And then while I was living in California, my brother returned the whole collection for the deposit money. I hope he enjoyed his $4.90.

 

[3fingers]

Glass bottles should still be the majority of the market for both beer and soda.
The dubious claim that plastic is cheaper is offset by the poorer taste of the finished product and the amount of waste involved to landfill or just fling out the car window.
When the entire process is considered, going away from returnable glass makes all of the bottlers claims about environmental consciousness pretty hollow.
I'm shocked.

 

[2jakes]

Hair dressing from the ‘50s.
Made in Memphis, Tenn. It’s half full.
Smells like sweet Vasoline but looks the color of Motor-Oil.
I’m thinking of using it as a lube for the Schwinn bikes.

 

[tonyb]

I had found, many years ago, that the best way to get around NYC is by motorcycle, believe it or not. Parking is the most obvious advantage, but the narrowness of a bike, combined with the ability to move and stop quickly when necessary made my NYC travels about the quickest and most relaxed way I have ever moved around that borough.

Of course, no rocketing down streets is the primary safety consideration. A good rider watches everything, and executes moves carefully, only when assessments say it is okay to do so.

I've gone through periods of motorcycles being my primary mode of motorized transport. I maintain the two-wheeler endorsement on my license.

I've crashed a few times. Got knocked out briefly when my helmeted noggin made contact with a Toyota. That was something like 34 years ago. I looked pretty rough afterwards, but a broken tooth was the only lasting injury.

It's rubbed some the wrong way when I suggest that a motorcyclist looking to live to a ripe age free of disabling injury had better remain mindful of just how vulnerable s/he is. You WILL get accidentally separated from your bike sooner or later. Chances are you won't get seriously injured, but those chances aren't so remote as to disregard them.

A good friend had been an avid biker since his grade school days. His skills are far superior to mine. He started out on dirt bikes and always had crazy fast sports bikes all the decades I've known him, until a few years back, when a contract rural letter carrier in a Jeep attempted an abrupt U-turn from the right shoulder directly in front him. It put him on crutches for a few weeks. He almost always uses four-wheeled motor vehicles these days.