Vintage Things That Have Disappeared In Your Lifetime?

[3fingers]

I used to drive by a Meramec Caverns and a Mail Pouch barn fairly regularly. I believe the Meramec barn is still standing, or at least it was a few years ago. The Mail Pouch barn is no more.

 

[Michael R.]

The Rock City Barns are still out there , but slowly vanishing :

 

[jackpot]

this isn't a "thing", it's more of a practice that seems to have disappeared:

...drinking from a garden hose on a hot summer day. Back then tap water was drinkable and I can still taste the water and the slight rubber smell from drinking so close to the threaded end. It was glorious relief.

In Paterson NJ, where I grew up, a siren would blare every Saturday at noon. I've no idea why, but that practice hasn't been repeated in any town I've lived in since.

Most mailboxes are gone; in my area they are found only outside post offices (!)

Fallout Shelter signs used to be everywhere, it seemed; I recently bought one on eBay and it's hung on my office wall.

Someone farther up this thread mentioned glass milk bottles... I have a memory of riding with my Dad to the local Garden State Farms store, where we bought "jug milk", in half-gallon glass jugs, complete with a bright green plastic carry handle. We returned them, when emptied (and washed!) to get our deposit back.

One more...our family used to save our used newspapers. Every few months we tied them in bundles and took them to a center where the bundles were weighed and purchased for a few dollars. I used to try and guess how much $$ we'd make each trip.

this was fun

 

[tonyb]

...

Fallout Shelter signs used to be everywhere, it seemed; I recently bought one on eBay and it's hung on my office wall.

Someone farther up this thread mentioned glass milk bottles... I have a memory of riding with my Dad to the local Garden State Farms store, where we bought "jug milk", in half-gallon glass jugs, complete with a bright green plastic carry handle. We returned them, when emptied (and washed!) to get our deposit back.

One more...our family used to save our used newspapers. Every few months we tied them in bundles and took them to a center where the bundles were weighed and purchased for a few dollars. I used to try and guess how much $$ we'd make each trip.

this was fun

I’ve looked into getting a fallout shelter sign myself. As one who was born and passed most of his early years during the hottest parts of the Cold War, those signs really take me back. Cool design, too, those triangles in a circle.

I’d prefer mine to show that it had actually been out in the weather for at least a couple of decades.

 

[David Conwill]

I’d prefer mine to show that it had actually been out in the weather for at least a couple of decades.

You'd love the one I bought in college. It hangs in my oldest's room now.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The Fallout Shelter program was one of those placebo moves so common in the era of Cold War propaganda -- they were usually little more than a part of a building's cellar stocked with a couple of drums of drinking water, some hard Sunshine cracker-type rations packed in square steel cans, rudimentary first aid supplies, and a battery-operated Geiger counter. In the event of an actual nuclear attack a person hiding out in one might have had a marginally-better chance of short-term survival than staying in your own cellar at home, but not really by much. None of the shelters were restocked or updated after 1969.

The crackers were supposed to have been purged in the 1970s, when they were found to be turning rancid, but you can still buy them by the case lot on eBay for fifty dollars or so plus shipping. Bon appetit.

The signs, however, still turn up around the corners of old buildings, usually faded almost to illegibility. I used to ponder them -- is the logo three yellow triangles on a black backround, or three black triangles on a yellow background? Like so much else to do with the Cold War, it depends upon your point of view.

 

[belfastboy]

The Fallout Shelter program was one of those placebo moves so common in the era of Cold War propaganda -- they were usually little more than a part of a building's cellar stocked with a couple of drums of drinking water, some hard Sunshine cracker-type rations packed in square steel cans, rudimentary first aid supplies, and a battery-operated Geiger counter. In the event of an actual nuclear attack a person hiding out in one might have had a marginally-better chance of short-term survival than staying in your own cellar at home, but not really by much. None of the shelters were restocked or updated after 1969.

The crackers were supposed to have been purged in the 1970s, when they were found to be turning rancid, but you can still buy them by the case lot on eBay for fifty dollars or so plus shipping. Bon appetit.

The signs, however, still turn up around the corners of old buildings, usually faded almost to illegibility. I used to ponder them -- is the logo three yellow triangles on a black backround, or three black triangles on a yellow background? Like so much else to do with the Cold War, it depends upon your point of view.

We don't need the signs here in Vancouver as a few decades ago our woke city council declared Vancouver a nuclear free zone. I have felt so much safer ever since.

 

[Zombie_61]

 

[Michael R.]

Home Milk Delivery (milk , eggs , cream , butter) , and the Milkman , and glass milk bottles

I think it ended when I was in First Grade , probably because of all the broken bottles from clumsy kids at school .
There used to be Ice Delivery , too , and the Ice House . We used to go get ice and a cooler before a big cookout at the Park , glass bottle cold drinks , and watermelon on Hot Summer outings and family reunions .

 

[tonyb]

The Fallout Shelter program was one of those placebo moves so common in the era of Cold War propaganda -- they were usually little more than a part of a building's cellar stocked with a couple of drums of drinking water, some hard Sunshine cracker-type rations packed in square steel cans, rudimentary first aid supplies, and a battery-operated Geiger counter. In the event of an actual nuclear attack a person hiding out in one might have had a marginally-better chance of short-term survival than staying in your own cellar at home, but not really by much. None of the shelters were restocked or updated after 1969.

The crackers were supposed to have been purged in the 1970s, when they were found to be turning rancid, but you can still buy them by the case lot on eBay for fifty dollars or so plus shipping. Bon appetit.

The signs, however, still turn up around the corners of old buildings, usually faded almost to illegibility. I used to ponder them -- is the logo three yellow triangles on a black backround, or three black triangles on a yellow background? Like so much else to do with the Cold War, it depends upon your point of view.

There’s a couple-three online vendors who apparently got their hands on stacks of dead-stock, never-been-used genuine Office of Civil Defense Fallout Shelter signs. At least that’s what they claim, and I have little reason to doubt it. (I’d still prefer one that had been hanging on the outside of a building for a few decades.)

It’s probably a good time to be selling the things, what with those of us with fond childhood memories of the Cold War (Rocky and Bullwinkle!) getting toward the end. It’s doubtful the signs will hold any meaning for those of subsequent generations.

Maybe “fond” is the right word. I don’t recall living in fear of nuclear annihilation. Chalk it up to naïveté, maybe, and to far more pressing worries, such as the wrath of the unreasonable adults with power over me.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I grew up in the town that supplied jet fuel via a pipeline to Loring Air Force Base, the easternmost base for B52 bombers, and we were told that In The Event That The Cold War Got Hot, we would be among the early targets, and that really spooked me. Every year the local paper published a "civil defense supplement" with all the procedures you were supposed to follow -- it bothered me that I wouldn't be allowed to take my cat to a shelter with me -- and what the different signals from the air-raid sirens meant. One of the actual sirens was right on my street, across from my cousin's house, and they blew it twice a day, every day, as a test. To this day I don't like to hear the sound of an air-raid siren in a movie -- too many times it went off when I was standing directly in front of it.

I used to wonder about the kids in the USSR, and how they must've felt, and what they'd do if we started shooting at them, and if they could take their cats into the shelters, and that whole line of thought made me highly skeptical of the whole Cold War business. Adults don't think that way, but I can guarantee that kids do. At least I did.

 

[belfastboy]

There’s a couple-three online vendors who apparently got their hands on stacks of dead-stock, never-been-used genuine Office of Civil Defense Fallout Shelter signs. At least that’s what they claim, and I have little reason to doubt it. (I’d still prefer one that had been hanging on the outside of a building for a few decades.)

It’s probably a good time to be selling the things, what with those of us with fond childhood memories of the Cold War (Rocky and Bullwinkle!) getting toward the end. It’s doubtful the signs will hold any meaning for those of subsequent generations.

Maybe “fond” is the right word. I don’t recall living in fear of nuclear annihilation. Chalk it up to naïveté, maybe, and to far more pressing worries, such as the wrath of the unreasonable adults with power over me.

Don't leave out Natasha and Boris!

 

[ChiTownScion]

I grew up in the town that supplied jet fuel via a pipeline to Loring Air Force Base, the easternmost base for B52 bombers, and we were told that In The Event That The Cold War Got Hot, we would be among the early targets, and that really spooked me. Every year the local paper published a "civil defense supplement" with all the procedures you were supposed to follow -- it bothered me that I wouldn't be allowed to take my cat to a shelter with me -- and what the different signals from the air-raid sirens meant. One of the actual sirens was right on my street, across from my cousin's house, and they blew it twice a day, every day, as a test. To this day I don't like to hear the sound of an air-raid siren in a movie -- too many times it went off when I was standing directly in front of it.

I used to wonder about the kids in the USSR, and how they must've felt, and what they'd do if we started shooting at them, and if they could take their cats into the shelters, and that whole line of thought made me highly skeptical of the whole Cold War business. Adults don't think that way, but I can guarantee that kids do. At least I did.

I was about four years old when Nikita Khrushchev visited Manhattan and spoke at the UN. I somehow got it into my head that "Soviet" was a bad thing, the worst thing that you could call someone. Mom had a lady friend I didn't like, so my name for her became, "Sylvia the Soviet." A four year old's moral compass: from what I observe on social media, a lot of adults have never outgrown that.

She had another lady friend I disliked even more. I had heard of the product, witch hazel, so my nomme de guerre for her became, "Bitch Hazel." She more or less disappeared as quickly as she appeared, which was a good thing. Had I repeated that description of her I'd likely have gotten my mouth soaped.

 

[belfastboy]

I grew up in the town that supplied jet fuel via a pipeline to Loring Air Force Base, the easternmost base for B52 bombers, and we were told that In The Event That The Cold War Got Hot, we would be among the early targets, and that really spooked me. Every year the local paper published a "civil defense supplement" with all the procedures you were supposed to follow -- it bothered me that I wouldn't be allowed to take my cat to a shelter with me -- and what the different signals from the air-raid sirens meant. One of the actual sirens was right on my street, across from my cousin's house, and they blew it twice a day, every day, as a test. To this day I don't like to hear the sound of an air-raid siren in a movie -- too many times it went off when I was standing directly in front of it.

I used to wonder about the kids in the USSR, and how they must've felt, and what they'd do if we started shooting at them, and if they could take their cats into the shelters, and that whole line of thought made me highly skeptical of the whole Cold War business. Adults don't think that way, but I can guarantee that kids do. At least I did.

In elementary school I recall hanging out at recess/lunch with buddies talking about what our plans were when the 'Big One' hit us. Some guys had bug-out bags filled and ready to go. Their plan was to get on their bike and head for the mountains. Not owning a bike at the time I resigned myself to being vaporized along with everyone else.

 

[tonyb]

Don't leave out Natasha and Boris!

Yes, of course, Miss Fatale and Mr. Badenov.

I was a tad too young when the show was in first run (’59 thru ’64, I think it was) to catch even a tenth of the Cold War satire. But the reruns were regular afternoon fare on the TV stations with the high numbers well into my teenage years.

 

[LizzieMaine]

It wasn't until I had grown up and started listening the Metropolitan Opera broadcasts on the radio that I realized that "Boris Badenov" was a gag name.

 

[tonyb]

The genius of Rocky and Bullwinkle was that even with the sophisticated humor it was still a children’s show. It was obvious to any 5-year-old without a significant intellectual disability that the grifters Rocky and Bullwinkle encountered were Boris and Natasha thinly disguised. So the kids were in on the joke before Moose and Squirrel got hip.

The parody segments (it followed a variety show format) — Dudley Do-Right, Fractured Fairy Tales, the time-traveling Mr. Peabody (a dog) and His Boy Sherman — were structured so that the kids could guess at the endings before they got there. It really was quite engaging.

 

[ChiTownScion]

The genius of Rocky and Bullwinkle was that even with the sophisticated humor it was still a children’s show. It was obvious to any 5-year-old without a significant intellectual disability that the grifters Rocky and Bullwinkle encountered were Boris and Natasha thinly disguised. So the kids were in on the joke before Moose and Squirrel got hip.

The parody segments (it followed a variety show format) — Dudley Do-Right, Fractured Fairy Tales, the time-traveling Mr. Peabody (a dog) and His Boy Sherman — were structured so that the kids could guess at the endings before they got there. It really was quite engaging.

And then there were the puns:

Rocky: "If this is a boat covered with red jewels, and it has the name, 'Omar Khayyam' on it, then this must be.."
Bullwinkle: "It you're waiting for me to finish that line, you're gonna wait a long time."
Rocky: "The Ruby Yacht of Omar Khayyam!!"
Bullwinkle: "Don't blame ME. I didn't say it!"

(Armor rolls on screen) Rocky: "Look, Bullwinkle! TANKS!"
Bullwinkle: "Oh, Rocky.. do I HAVE to say it ?"
Rocky: "You'd better! This episode is almost over!"
Bullwinkle: "<sigh> All right. 'You're welcome!' "

Boris: "Is so good to be back on campus again!"
Natasha: "I deedn't know you were college boy! Penn State??"
Boris: "No! State Pen!"

And not really a pun, but:

Boris: "Allow me to eentroduce myself!"
Rocky: "WHERE have I heard that voice before??"
Bullwinkle: "Only in about three hundred and sixty other episodes... but darned if I can remember it, either!"

 

[Benny Holiday]

Even out here in Australia in the 1980s we were affected by the threat of a nuclear 'armegeddon'. I remember 2 movies in particular when I was in middle high school, one was a US production called The Day After and the other an Aussie film called One Night Stand that had a big impact on us. The threat was discussed in general studies periods at school too.

Years later I became friends with a guy who was a full-career Royal Australian Navy submariner. To this day he can't talk about a lot of the missions he was on in the 80s, but he has told me there were some hairy encounters with Russian subs tp the north of Australia he can't go into detail about.

 

[ChiTownScion]

It wasn't until I had grown up and started listening the Metropolitan Opera broadcasts on the radio that I realized that "Boris Badenov" was a gag name.

In one episode there was a treasure map that featured, right in the middle of "Veronica Lake," a body of land labelled the "Isle of Lucy."

Desilu's attorney called up Jay Ward, the creator and producer of the series, threatening a lawsuit. His reaction: "Please DO! We can use the publicity!"

Boris: "Pfooey! Foiled again!"
Natasha: "Don't you mean, 'Curses! Foiled again!' ??"
Boris: "Natasha, please! This is kiddie show!!"