Vintage Things That Have Disappeared In Your Lifetime?

[Land-O-LakesGal]

I kid you not! They usually start by pushing on the numbers, then try to wiggle the dial back and forth instead of pulling it over to the finger stop. I don't let them touch my turntable or gramophone, but their faces when they see me do it are priceless.

As for ketchup, we always bring a guy along, just in case

My husband has a rotary phone in his barbershop and it is an item of curiosity for kids. He has taught lots of kids how to dial on them having them call their own house.

 

[AtomicEraTom]

I miss this, too. I searched all over for blue TP to match my bathroom. I'm sure they just don't make it anymore.

Maybe it's just me, but I'd have to say colored toilet paper.
We got to talking about the pink bathroom, and then absurd ads, and it hit me...
Am I wrong in this?
I remember as a kid watching my mom get toilet paper to match the bathroom.

We have one bottling plant left here in Wisconsin which bottles Sun Drop. I do still get Coca-Cola in glass bottles. Around these parts, the only people who can operate a bottle opener are beer drinkers.

There's another thing that's a lost art (it's probably somewhere in this thread already, but...) - Glass bottles! I love the ones I need a bottle opener for. Seeing someone these days try to open one reminds me of Marty McFly lol

I never understand this, either. Do people just throw their stuff away every year and trade up? We had rotary phones in the house, until the mid 90's when the cordless jobs got cheaper. I still have my parents' record player and use it almost daily. It's one of my favorite things I own. I remember them spinning those records and dancing. The two that pop out in my mind are 'All My Exes Live in Texas' by George Strait and 'At This Moment' by Billy and the Beaters.

Isn't that awful? When I was a kiddie, maybe 8 or 9, a younger teacher brought in a turntable for show-and-tell intending to show the class how it worked. She was having some trouble, so I approached, took the record from her hand, and did it with ease. She and the class looked at me like I had 3 heads!

My parents don't live in a time warp, but they had old things around the house. One of them was a rotary phone manufactured in 1948 that sits on my desk beside me as I type this. I always knew how to use it, and spent a few weekends with my dad getting it to work again (it hadn't in some time.) I was maybe 16 when we did... Wasn't that long ago. I get my contemporaries to play with it whenever I can, because its funny to watch them try and figure it out.

 

[Young fogey]

Covering old ground for many here:

Cigarette commercials on TV. 1960s cars as normal cars. Rotary phones (I have a circa-1950 one next to my desk). Records and record shops. A cheap haircut.

 

[Gregg Axley]

I saw a cigarette ad in a Hot Rod magazine just the other day. Very odd to see one...for Newports I believe.
They still make bottled drinks, you just have to look.
I've got a case of "Mexican" cokes and they are in glass bottles, with real sugar. :eusa_clap

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

The lunch trucks at the local swap meets have Mexican Coca Cola.

 

[Gregg Axley]

I'm sure that will disappear eventually too. Then I'll have to "run for the border" for a few cases every time I got to Texas to see the MIL.

 

[Coinneach]

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.

I don't miss that a bit. I can remember playing soccer in middle school, (mid '60s), with a kid with braces on crutches trying to play goal. Four kids in a school of about one hundred in braces.... can't get very nostalgic over that.
Now, local hardware stores and markets that delivered, and gas station attendants that new how to check oil and tires, knew the sound of a loose belt or an exhaust leak.
Ten cent Cokes in glass bottles, I don't remember the nickel ones though!

 

[AtomicEraTom]

I keep Mexican Coke in the fridge, as well.

 

[Bluebird Marsha]

I think some people discovered just how inexpensive it is to load up on vinyl. I had some friends pick me up one evening, and I was playing records when they came in. One of the guys said, "you're such a geek- but you're a cool geek". Made my day.

But now I need a turntable that will do 78's. I just inherited a bunch.

 

[LoveMyHats2]

Boy! I would love to take a big Whiff right now!!-- Of course I realize that half the members here have no clue what we are talking about since they are under the age of 40. Geeezz!---John

When I was in the U.S. Navy, all our orders and permissions to travel and be on leave, where printed on the mimeograph. I recall how they felt when still "wet" from being new, and reading this thread made me want to go digging through boxes to see if I may still have one or two?

 

[Wambleyburger]

Used to go to the "service station" and you normally would never have to get out of your car. The owner would come over and typically speak to my Dad since they had known each other for years. He (the owner, no less) would "filler up" and while the tank was filling, he would check under the hood and check your oil level and belts, check your tire pressure, wash your windshield and sometimes the back window. If my brother and I got out of the car at all, it was to go over and put a dime in the drink machine, open the little door and pull out a bottle of soda.
After my Dad socialized for a bit with the gas station owner, we would get back in the car, my Dad would pay cash for the gas (not for the extra service, which was complimentary) and receive his change and the gas station owner would give my brother and I lollipops. The little round, flat ones with the clear cellophane wrappers. The gas station owner knew that I liked grape and my brother liked orange. Now that was service! And, you know, it didn't matter that we had just spent 15 or 20 minutes at the service station because life was just kind of slow and easy like that. Nowadays, if you can't swipe a card through the reader and get your gas in less than five minutes, everyone gets crabby and annoyed. Man, I miss those days.

 

[rue]

Speaking of..... I hadn't noticed that gas stations had gotten rid of the "ding ding" when you pulled in until my mom mentioned it the other day........

 

[Carl Miller]

I'm not sure if anyone has mentioned it yet, but I miss gas stations that actually work on cars and sell tires.

 

[AtomicEraTom]

So many people can't get in and out of a filling station fast enough, these days. We have two more 'old-school' stations around here. One, Moto Mart, is the same station, under a different name, that my dad used to go to in the 70's. It's right by the plant and they sell 89 octane for the same price as 87, so I always go there. I also love the service I get there, no 'full-service' but as a regular, I know the employees and go in, shoot the breeze, and just enjoy my time there. Being so close to the plant, I get a lot of gossip, too lol Once, I walked in there around 11 and didn't get out until about 3, just chit-chatting.

The other, Jeff's tire, just recently terminated full-service, but I've heard they'll still do it if you ask. They do repair and sell tires there, still.

Used to go to the "service station" and you normally would never have to get out of your car. The owner would come over and typically speak to my Dad since they had known each other for years. He (the owner, no less) would "filler up" and while the tank was filling, he would check under the hood and check your oil level and belts, check your tire pressure, wash your windshield and sometimes the back window. If my brother and I got out of the car at all, it was to go over and put a dime in the drink machine, open the little door and pull out a bottle of soda.
After my Dad socialized for a bit with the gas station owner, we would get back in the car, my Dad would pay cash for the gas (not for the extra service, which was complimentary) and receive his change and the gas station owner would give my brother and I lollipops. The little round, flat ones with the clear cellophane wrappers. The gas station owner knew that I liked grape and my brother liked orange. Now that was service! And, you know, it didn't matter that we had just spent 15 or 20 minutes at the service station because life was just kind of slow and easy like that. Nowadays, if you can't swipe a card through the reader and get your gas in less than five minutes, everyone gets crabby and annoyed. Man, I miss those days.

I'm not sure if anyone has mentioned it yet, but I miss gas stations that actually work on cars and sell tires.

 

[Gregg Axley]

We still have a few full service stations here, privately owned of course.
I'm sure it costs more to go there, but it's worth it for older folks that can't do maintenance and fill up their car anymore.

 

[scottyrocks]

Used to go to the "service station" and you normally would never have to get out of your car. The owner would come over and typically speak to my Dad since they had known each other for years. He (the owner, no less) would "filler up" and while the tank was filling, he would check under the hood and check your oil level and belts, check your tire pressure, wash your windshield and sometimes the back window. If my brother and I got out of the car at all, it was to go over and put a dime in the drink machine, open the little door and pull out a bottle of soda.
After my Dad socialized for a bit with the gas station owner, we would get back in the car, my Dad would pay cash for the gas (not for the extra service, which was complimentary) and receive his change and the gas station owner would give my brother and I lollipops. The little round, flat ones with the clear cellophane wrappers. The gas station owner knew that I liked grape and my brother liked orange. Now that was service! And, you know, it didn't matter that we had just spent 15 or 20 minutes at the service station because life was just kind of slow and easy like that. Nowadays, if you can't swipe a card through the reader and get your gas in less than five minutes, everyone gets crabby and annoyed. Man, I miss those days.

What a great memory. Thanks, Wambley.

 

[scottyrocks]

Speaking of..... I hadn't noticed that gas stations had gotten rid of the "ding ding" when you pulled in until my mom mentioned it the other day........

I had forgotten about that, too. With most gas station being self-serve these days there's no need for the ding-ding because no one's coming out to gas you up.

I remember my friends and I, during our trips around the neighborhood, would try to step down on the rubber tubes hard enough to trigger the ding. Also, you could tell how fast someone pulled into the station by the space in between the dings as the tires went over the tubes.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I have one of those driveway gongs wired up to serve as my front doorbell -- it's a 1940's "Milton Driveway Signal," salvaged from our family Texaco station. When I was a first-grader walking home from school I made a point of annoying my grandfather by jumping on the hose to make it ring.

They operated by air pressure -- there was a little plastic cylinder which moved up and down depending on the air bubble moving thru the hose, and the cylinder would close a leaf switch, energizing a solenoid and causing a metal slug to bounce up and hit the gong. I took out the plastic cylinder and leaf switch, and wired the solenoid to a regular doorbell button, so all you have to do is press the button to make it ring.

 

[Wambleyburger]

What a great memory. Thanks, Wambley.

You're quite welcome, Sir. I just got to reminiscing and couldn't quit typing......

 

[grundie]

I rememeber that until the late 80s it was possible to do some fairly major work on a car with a minimal toolkit. As a child, with a car obsession, I seem to recal nearly all cars having a simple toolkit in the boot that would contain spanners/wrenches, spare spark plug and bubs, some fan belts and maybe an oil filter.

There were very few breakdowns that could not be fixed at the side of the road with that simple toolkit and a knowedgeable mind.

Then engines started to get modern and it became harder to work on them without specialist equipment. The last three cars we owned (all built in the noughties) only came with a spare tyre and jack and warning in the manual to not mess around with the engine in case we cause the computerised management system to throw a wobbler.

My step-father had a Morris 1000 until the 1990s and he once dismatled part of the engine in a hotel car park whilst we were on holiday in order to recitfy a timing issue. I couldn't see anyone doing that with a modern engine.

Come to mention it, our car has warrnty seals on various engine bay components. What happened to to cars that were easy to fix?