Vintage Things That Have Disappeared In Your Lifetime?

[martinsantos]

Because this I had a hard job trying to help my nephew with a school work. He got "information" with internet - a trully collection of conspiracy theories - perfect example of pure junk. So I had the chance to show how to use an encyclopedia. I really don't know if liked or not this new "instrument".

With my niece I had to explain the plot in a short-story by Jorge Luis Borges. In the story, as a joke, a group starts to put falsified articles in several editions of the Britannica, creating a new country, with details about the people and so on. Of course if you don't know the Britannica, the fame as very very realiable, etc, the Borges' story losses its meaning.

Encyclopedias.

I hadn't realized how completely these have disappeared from modern consciousness until today, when one of the kids from work dropped by to take some pictures of my house for a school project. "What's that?" she asked, pointing to my 14th Edition of the Britannica lined up on a shelf. I explained it was an encyclopedia, containing articles on every worthwhile field of human knowledge, written and edited by renowned authorities in their fields.

"Oh, like Wikipedia?" she asked. As I wept for her future.

 

[scottyrocks]

I have fruit wallpaper on the upper half of my kitchen walls, and I'll get violent if anyone tries to take it away.

I only do that with the homeowner's approval, of course.

 

[AtomicEraTom]

I love wallpaper. When I was young, we had a 1903-built farm house and it had all the original wallpaper, it was so cool.

In general, I dont like wallpaper. Give me house with wallpaper and I'll take it down and paint every time.

 

[Effingham]

Just tonight, I watched the 1942 film, "This Gun for Hire" (starring Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake). Early in the movie, it reminded me of something that we don't see anymore. Alan Ladd, playing Raven, the hitman, enters a walkup apartment building, and sitting on the landing is a little girl wearing steel leg braces.

Ah, polio.

 

[John in Covina]

Just tonight, I watched the 1942 film, "This Gun for Hire" (starring Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake). Early in the movie, it reminded me of something that we don't see anymore. Alan Ladd, playing Raven, the hitman, enters a walkup apartment building, and sitting on the landing is a little girl wearing steel leg braces. Ah, polio.

Come to LA with the tide of undocumented aliens comes the return of many diseases we thought were gone. Tuberculoses TB continues its resurgence here.

 

[Sam Craig]

Hat counters in department stores

Those orange and grape Crush machines at the lunch counters

Lunch counters

Did I mention hat counters at department stores?

Big, thick catalogs with the index on the spine and terrific clothes from the '50s on the inside ... hats included.

Sam

 

[LizzieMaine]

Slick coins.

Forty years or so ago, when it was still possible to find silver coins reasonably often in your pocket change, you'd occasionally specimens worn down so completely that at first glance you thought they were slugs, not coins. I vividly remember getting a slick dime in change at the drug store when I was about six, and making a very loud fuss to the clerk because I thought she'd tried to cheat me.

Whatever else can be said of our current currency, it seems to be much more durable than the coinage it replaced.

 

[Kahuna]

In my early years in retail both the Sears and JCPenney stores I worked at had cafeterias inside the store. They were reasonably priced and you were able to get a real meal instead of food court fast food. The very first music concert I ever went to, held in the Sears cafeteria, was the psuedo-Indian organist Korla Pandit. It was only revealed after his death that he was african-american. He even hid it from his children.

 

[Lady Day]

Encyclopedias.

I hadn't realized how completely these have disappeared from modern consciousness until today, when one of the kids from work dropped by to take some pictures of my house for a school project. "What's that?" she asked, pointing to my 14th Edition of the Britannica lined up on a shelf. I explained it was an encyclopedia, containing articles on every worthwhile field of human knowledge, written and edited by renowned authorities in their fields.

"Oh, like Wikipedia?" she asked. As I wept for her future.

I know, the quest for knowledge that does not include pictures seems to escape many youth today. I miss the hunt. The card catalog (which I had to memorize in middle school) and hoping the volume was on the shelf when you went to look for it. Ah.
As for encyclopedias, we had a few sets in the home. I think the latest was from the mid 70s. My mother, who was a school teacher always say 'look it up'. Didn't matter what it was.

On that note, I miss 5" thick, 30lb, tabbed podium top dictionaries. Now that was the best representation of the evolution of humanity.

LD

 

[earl]

When I was a kid there were door-to-door encyclopedia salesmen. Your mother and I are roughly the same age. So, the common things of her experience were shared by me. By the way, SC, used to love Orange Crush as a kid, but you can still find it bottled if you wish. Earl

 

[Effingham]

When I moved back from Japan in 1992, one of the things I wanted to do was get a new set of Britannicas to replace the ones from my childhood that had gone away many years before. So I called up the nice folks at Britannica and asked them if they could send someone around to whom I could talk about different sets and ordering one.

I think they were actually surprised about being cold-called by a civilian.

Tony

 

[AtomicEraTom]

I remember when my dad would call the hardware store, tell them he needed something, send me down there on my bicycle, or on foot, to go get it. They'd have it all waiting for me, and all I had to do was say 'put it on Dad's tab' and off I'd go.

 

[LizzieMaine]

On that note, I miss 5" thick, 30lb, tabbed podium top dictionaries. Now that was the best representation of the evolution of humanity.

I have Webster's New International Second Edition sitting on a bookcase right now -- if I had room for one of those podium stands, I'd get one in a second. It was one of my favorite books as a youngster -- I figured it had all the great books inside it, it was just a matter of routining the individual words...

 

[scottyrocks]

When I was a kid, I used my mom's 1949 Brittanica for most of my school projects. It wasnt until 1973 that we got a World Book. My two favorite things to do with that were looking at the transparencies of the systems of the human body, and comparing the maps of 1973 with those of 1949.

 

[earl]

We had World Book. Earl

 

[Effingham]

I have Webster's New International Second Edition sitting on a bookcase right now -- if I had room for one of those podium stands, I'd get one in a second. It was one of my favorite books as a youngster -- I figured it had all the great books inside it, it was just a matter of routining the individual words...

I am very much with you. I have several dictionaries -- including many I refer to as "bug killers." My specialty is medieval Japanese history, and I have eight dictionaries of Classical Japanese alone. (Yeah, I'm pathetic.)

I know many people who love their little pocket electronic dictionaries. Yes, they're wonderful, convenient, and compact. But one loses one of the great joys of dictionaries -- looking at nearby words, flipping to random pages and finding a new word or definition, and just seeing what's on the top of the next pages...

I love that.

How can people not get the joy of something like that?

 

[scottyrocks]

Actual books, and a little extra effort, seem to be things of the past for those in the largest group in the madison avenue advertisers' cross-hairs.

 

[Jesse Jack]

I remember when my dad would call the hardware store, tell them he needed something, send me down there on my bicycle, or on foot, to go get it. They'd have it all waiting for me, and all I had to do was say 'put it on Dad's tab' and off I'd go.

I grew up in a little town on an island completely off the map. It's a very post-industrial place, no opportunities for young folks, which is sad. But it's retained a lot of it's old-fashioned charms simply because everyone who stays there has lived there forever and all the customers still expect the old-school way of doing things. The local grocery store not only has a guy in a van that will deliver your groceries for free, but they have the credit just like you say. Send a bill at the end of the month.

 

[Jesse Jack]

When I was a kid, I used my mom's 1949 Brittanica for most of my school projects. It wasnt until 1973 that we got a World Book. My two favorite things to do with that were looking at the transparencies of the systems of the human body, and comparing the maps of 1973 with those of 1949.

They had the page in the back with all the maps of the world. When I was about 6 or so I found it entertaining to draw them all out. I don't think that was a completely useless exercise, actually.

 

[martinsantos]

In MY lifetime... Electric typewriters.

My dad had an IBM 72, with several spheres. Wonderful typewriter - and the most noisy I ever heard! He used to write everyday at moning with it, starting 05 am - and for years I woke up with its "sound". Unhappilly now is impossible to find the ribbon for it, as for its "sucessor" in our home, an electronic Ollivetti.