Vintage Things That Have Disappeared In Your Lifetime?

[Danny Ocean]

Talking of going to the 'pictures', I miss those awful ads for local shops and businesses that used to pop up before the Pearl and Dean ones. They had a charming cheap and cheerful homemade look and usually a dodgy voiceover too.

W-D,

Indeed! I can recall seeing generic adverts for Chinese or Indian restaurants, that, as you say, usually had a decidedly "canned" voiceover, stating something along the lines of, " The Raj Restaurant, fine Indian cuisine, 123 The High Street, just 5 minutes walk from this cinema". :lol:

Danny O

 

[Miss sofia]

Ha ha, i remember ours was for 'Il Caretto' - which was an italian bistro over the road from the cinema, with a suitably stilted, home-counties kinda voice-over! "Fine italian dining for all the family". With the requisite moustachioed italian waiter in his bib and tucker with a chianti bottle and a platter of luminous spaghetti! Happy days!

 

[AtomicEraTom]

lol decisions, decisions!

One of my favourite thirft shops has quite a few "old crooner" records. I never buy em' though because I end up buying clothes! lol

 

[Derek WC]

Good looking cars have actually gone away in my lifetime. I really like the 90's look, much better than completely modern cars.

1994 Lincoln Town Car Signature Series.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/signatureseriesowner/2722143097/

 

[Jaguar66]

Metal bandaid boxes. I still have 2 of them. When I need new bandaids, I refill the metal box. I don't remember when I got these, must be at least 25 years ago.

 

[Jaguar66]

Bay windows..very nice

Hey! I was gana say glass milk bottles. I was just talking about them the other day. I think it would be fantastic if they were to make a come back. Plastic bottles are a waste of resources in my opinion.

Actually, in the local Whole Foods supermarket (they used to be grocery stores), glass bottled milk is available.

 

[AtomicEraTom]

Agreed. Good looking cars (in my opinion) died with the discontinuation of the body on frame, V8, RWD, Panther Platform Fords (Crown Vic, Grand Marquis, Town Car) those were great cars. I had 2 Crown Vics and they were fantastic looking and performing.

Good looking cars have actually gone away in my lifetime. I really like the 90's look, much better than completely modern cars.

1994 Lincoln Town Car Signature Series.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/signatureseriesowner/2722143097/

 

[shazzabanazza]

Actually, in the local Whole Foods supermarket (they used to be grocery stores), glass bottled milk is available.

Oh thats great New Zealand doesn't have milk in glass bottles anymore. Maybe your people could talk to my people :lol:

 

[LizzieMaine]

A moment of silence, please, for Campbell's Pepper Pot Soup, a variety dating back over a century, and a favorite lunch on cold winter afternoons -- discontinued at the end of last year by the Boys From Marketing, who felt that a tripe-based canned soup was just too hard of a sell in these days of the ever-so-ever-so refined American palate. (Tripe is offal, for those who've never peeked behind the meat counter. But it made a very very good soup.)

It's bad enough they took away my Uneeda Biscuits, now they also take away the best thing to dunk them in. Nertz.

 

[Lady Day]

I was at a CVS that was closing waiting in line with my 30% off toilet paper when I customer who just finished shopping was being checked out by what appeared to be a store manager. The customer commented on the loss of this store and that it was unfortunate that all these employees would now be out of work.

"The company should try a bit harder for it's employees," the customer commented.

Then the manager said something that really surprised me.
The gist was: "It's not the company's fault. You know, they don't really owe the employees anything. They worked and were paid and now the store is closing and their jobs are over. You saying that the company owes it workers something is a very 50s mentality."

I wanted to actually comment to the manager that he in essence has just done what business have tried to do (in the US especially) for a good long while, have the loosing side fight their battles for them. I thought it was telling that this man was blindly defending this company who was most likely letting 20-30 people go from this one store. Even if it were a glib, "yeah its sad these people are loosing their jobs." Nope, nothing like that from him. It was pretty depressing.

I guess thats something that has gone away in my lifetime.

LD

 

[LizzieMaine]

I wanted to actually comment to the manager that he in essence has just done what business have tried to do (in the US especially) for a good long while, have the loosing side fight their battles for them. I thought it was telling that this man was blindly defending this company who was most likely letting 20-30 people go from this one store. Even if it were a glib, "yeah its sad these people are loosing their jobs." Nope, nothing like that from him. It was pretty depressing.

I guess thats something that has gone away in my lifetime.

LD

Ick.

Contrast that guy's attitude with the attitude of Aaron Feuerstein, who ran a textile mill in Massachusetts. Back about fifteen years or so, his mill burned to the ground and put 3000 people out of work. He could have taken his insurance money and gone to Florida, but instead he kept *his entire payroll* on full wages and insurance for six months, until the mill could be rebuilt and reopened. His workers never forgot that their loyalty to him over the years was repaid with loyalty *to them* when the chips were down.

"I have a responsibility to the worker, both blue-collar and white-collar. I have an equal responsibility to the community. It would have been unconscionable to put 3,000 people on the streets and deliver a deathblow to the cities of Lawrence and Methuen. Maybe on paper our company is worthless to Wall Street, but I can tell you it's worth more."
-- Aaron Feuerstein.

Need I mention that Mr. Feuerstein was born in 1925?

 

[Mark D]

A moment of silence, please, for Campbell's Pepper Pot Soup, a variety dating back over a century, and a favorite lunch on cold winter afternoons -- discontinued at the end of last year by the Boys From Marketing, who felt that a tripe-based canned soup was just too hard of a sell in these days of the ever-so-ever-so refined American palate.

Really? Tripe based?...I mean, I grew up eating tripe and I love it when done properly but, I didn't know people made soup out of it. It is after all a bit of an acquired taste.

 

[shazzabanazza]

$1 and $ bank notes and 5 cent pieces

 

[TimeWarpWife]

~Televisions you actually had to get up off the couch to turn (unless you had kids to do it for you).
~8-track tapes and cassette tapes
~Vinyl records 45s & LPs
~Rotary phones
~Full service at the gas station that really was full service - wash you windows? check your oil? thank you for your business.
~The old steel type cash registers that you had to punch the button on to ring up your purchases (a friend had one of these when I was a kid and I loved playing with it)
~Customer service provided by people who cared about doing a good job rather than texting their friends and acting like you're annoying them because you actually expect them to help you
~Lunch counters located inside the stores like Newberry's and Woolworth's
~Five & Dime stores
~People dressing up to go shopping
~The fashion rule of not wearing white before Easter or after Labor Day
~Children being taught manners and respect rather than that the whole world revolves around them
~Good manners in general
~Referring to elders or people we really didn't know well as Mr., Mrs., or Miss whatever their last name was rather than calling them by their first name as soon as we're introduced
~Women wearing hats and gloves when they went out
~Civility in politics and politicians
~Men opening doors for women
~Gentlemen and ladies not cursing in public

 

[Shangas]

~People dressing up to go shopping

I do that. No point in going shopping if the people behind the counter think you look like you can't afford a damn thing inside their shop.

~Men opening doors for women

I do that, although in today's PC society, it's like walking on a minefield of explosive nitroglycerine eggs.

 

[shazzabanazza]

I do that, although in today's PC society, it's like walking on a minefield of explosive nitroglycerine eggs.

:lol:

 

[scottyrocks]

~Televisions you actually had to get up off the couch to turn (unless you had kids to do it for you).
~8-track tapes and cassette tapes
~Vinyl records 45s & LPs
~Rotary phones

All of these things, although nostalgic, have been replaced by easier to use, and sometimes better quality (as in sound) items.

8-tracks and cassettes: 8-track sound quality was awful and you could only fast forward or punch through the tracks to attempt to find what you wanted.

Vinyl records - one word: SKIP! That used to drive me crazy. And wasnt it fun replacing phonograph needles?

Rotary phones: very nostalgic, but even back before their were push button phones, I used to die a thousand deaths waiting for the dial to come back on a phone number like 997-7890. But the sound quality was better.

~Customer service provided by people who cared about doing a good job rather than texting their friends and acting like you're annoying them because you actually expect them to help you

Thats a big one with me. A great majority of today's sales staffs are worthless, unless youre in a specialty shop..

~Five & Dime stores

They still have .99 stores. Everything in them is .99, 1.99, 2.99, 3.99, etc.

~Children being taught manners and respect rather than that the whole world revolves around them

Oh boy. Dont get me started.

~Men opening doors for women

I still do it. Rarely do I get a thank you, or even an acknowledgement, except from women I know.

 

[Weston]

I was born in '78, so for something vintage to be gone in my lifetime has to be very recent. That said (and my number one pet peeve)...

Stamp vending machines at the grocers. My mother and grandmother used these constantly, and whenever I needed to mail something it was understood you went to Buds (a local grocer) and put your change in the machine to get what you needed. Easy as pie.

Now whenever I need stamps, I must go to the courthouse/post office and wait behind an army of folks mailing who knows what all over the world just to walk up and say "2 Forever stamps please".

Whatever happened to convenience?

 

[Kahuna]

Convenience is one thing but I think the pace of life has gotten too fast. We've become so used to instantaneous results that we stress whenever anything takes the least little bit of time. I think a return to enjoying the process rather than stressing about time would be better for our health. Most of us stew when we're caught in a slow line at the grocery store. Having to get up and walk across the room to change a TV channel or turn over a record may have been a bit inconvenient but it also forced us to move a little bit more (maybe a start on the obesity epidemic?) and perhaps to have a few seconds more to savor that last piece of music. How many seconds do we shave off by punching in numbers on a phone rather than dialing? Three or four? Pretty inconsequential in the long run. In my town a wait in line at the post office usually means you get to catch up with and old friend that you haven't seen in a while. Instant results are overrated. As my grandma used to say, "Stop and smell the roses!"

 

[MariantheLibrarian]

- Card catalogs, with typewritten info on paper cards
-"Date due" stamps
- The little paper checkout card in the manila pocket in the back of library books
- Desk references
- Grammar classes every semester of school (around here, anyway)
- Cursive writing taught in school (ditto)
- Diagramming sentences (another ditto)
- Those molded steel school desks with the attached wooden seat and surface
- Chalkboards (another local loss)