Vintage Things That Have Disappeared In Your Lifetime?

[AtomicEraTom]

Use fly paper here all summer. Where my folks live is called the 'Wisconsin Bayou' around here. The mosquitoes are as big as baseballs lol

The house, the summer house, my place, and the shop all have that paper up come the warm months. Can't get away from the bugs!

You still see the little flypaper ribbons in cellars and garages around here -- as long as you don't get them tangled up in your hair they're about the least-toxic insecticide you can get.

 

[Gregg Axley]

Use fly paper here all summer. Where my folks live is called the 'Wisconsin Bayou' around here. The mosquitoes are as big as baseballs lol

The house, the summer house, my place, and the shop all have that paper up come the warm months. Can't get away from the bugs!

For good exercise, if you are inclined to, use one of those bug zapper "rackets."
I've got one and believe it or not they work.
My wife thinks it's hilarious when I cook out (in the summer), because I'm out on the patio swining that racket like some crazed ninja.
Yeah I'm easy to entertain....

 

[dnjan]

When's the last time you saw an usher at your local cinema?

I remember as a child, when i went to see a movie, you had an usher with a flashlight who would rip your ticket in half, and look at your seat-number, then he'd guide you down the aisle to your allocated seat.

I haven't seen anyone do that in years. I think they still do in theaters, but in cinemas, never. At least, not in the past 10-15 years.

My eyesight is not terrible-bad, but it's hardly perfect, either. I can do most things to function in society (apart from drive), and I like going to the cinema to see a big movie every now and then. In fact, I went a couple of weeks back, to see "Skyfall".

I went in and was trying to find my seat. Now it's dark, and the placards on the aisles are tiny and impossible for someone of my eyesight to read (at least, not without getting way down to read them, and backing up the entire crowd!). And it occurred to me then: How nice it would be to have an usher there, in his uniform, with his torchlight. Give him my ticket, and have him show me where I need to sit down.

I'm sure there's a lot of visually-impaired cinema-attendees who feel the same way.

I've seen cinema ushers recently (though they mostly cleaned up the leftover garbage from the previous showing), but have never seen assigned seats at a cinema.

 

[LizzieMaine]

We have both ushers and reserved seating for special events -- but alas no uniforms. It's hard enough to get kids today to wear a polo shirt with the theatre logo on it.

 

[sheeplady]

-- as long as you don't get them tangled up in your hair they're about the least-toxic insecticide you can get.

Horrid horrid memories of getting my hair caught in fly tape when I was a kid. The worst was when you bumped into it when walking backwards. Urgh. Even worse when some of the flies would transfer to your hair...

 

[Salty O'Rourke]

Pretty significant ewwwww factor here - they apparently are still being manufactured, but I haven't seen one since my elementary school days.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

Pretty significant ewwwww factor here - they apparently are still being manufactured, but I haven't seen one since my elementary school days.

I usually see those in the restrooms at the county fairgrounds.

 

[nice hat dude!]

You guys are hanging around really upscale places then,come out here and check out the local rodeo,big galvanized steel trough,I don't even think the one has a water system.

 

[Classydame]

I don't know if this has been said already or even if it is vintage or not; but I miss the sound of church bells. I heard them quite a lot growing up and miss their comforting of sound. Most cities don't allow them to ring anymore because of noise ordinance. Actually, the Buddhist Temple in Hacienda Heights complained that they couldn't ring theirs. I don't think they realized that this effected most places of worship.

 

[jamespowers]

I don't know if this has been said already or even if it is vintage or not; but I miss the sound of church bells. I heard them quite a lot growing up and miss their comforting of sound. Most cities don't allow them to ring anymore because of noise ordinance. Actually, the Buddhist Temple in Hacienda Heights complained that they couldn't ring theirs. I don't think they realized that this effected most places of worship.

They give waivers to churches here. Mine rings the bells at mass time anyway.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I haven't heard church bells in probably 25 years, not since I moved to the town I live in -- and the reason is that there aren't any churches in town anymore. They've sold off their historic buildings to be turned into art galleries and upscale antique stores and all such as that, and have relocated to sin-ugly moderne buildings on the outskirts, all of which look like remodeled gas stations. Any steeples they have are little impressionistic plywood pylons that couldn't hold a cowbell, let alone a proper church bell.

The Methodist churchbell in my home town still rings every Sunday morning, though, and it's the same building it's been in since 1840. That's more like it.

(It also rang on the night in 2004 when the Red Sox won the World Series, which is something you can only understand if you were born here.)

 

[sheeplady]

Our church on the corner rings it's bells every Sunday... but then I live in the suburbs. Quite frankly, the nursery school they run during the week out of their basement is louder.... and that happens every weekday.

 

[AtomicEraTom]

I love church bells. Every Sunday when I walk out the door to go to church, you can hear 2 or 3 of the churches ringing their bells. The church I go to rings at every service, too. The church was built in 1885, if memory serves me.

 

[Salty O'Rourke]

The Episcopal church in my town, which has been on the same corner since 1761, chimes its bells on the hour - most likely recorded but it's possible that it's a mechanical device ringing the bells. The Catholic church, Methodist Church, and at least one other Anglican church in the downtown area have bells in their steeples that ring on Sundays and special occasions. We still have a significant residential population in our downtown which may account for the resiliency of our downtown churches. In many cases the cost of keeping up old buildings and the migration of urban dwellers to the suburbs have lead to downtown church buildings being repurposed or torn down.

 

[Classydame]

I am so glad that there are many communities that still get to enjoy church bells! Not so around here. There are quite a few churches in my community, two just around the corner but the bells don't ring anymore.

 

[nice hat dude!]

Just thought it fits the thread?

http://sphotos-e.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/401260_10151311033555560_1944087362_n.jpg

 

[Shangas]

There's a big old bluestone church down the road from my house. If I'm really lucky, sometimes I hear the bells ringing. Usually it's only for weddings, though.

I was on holiday in Amsterdam in Holland about a year ago. And I stayed there about a week. Every morning, my dad and I woke up in our hotel room to the sound of the city church-bells. There was a church right across the canal from our room. It was really pretty, waking up to the dingle-jangle of the bells.

 

[1961MJS]

... They've sold off their historic buildings to be turned into art galleries and upscale antique stores and all such as that, and have relocated to sin-ugly moderne buildings on the outskirts, all of which look like remodeled gas stations. Any steeples they have are little impressionistic plywood pylons that couldn't hold a cowbell, let alone a proper church bell. ...

AND what's even worse, is many of those churches have the old bell setting out front, but you can't ring it...

Happy New Year!!!

 

[LizzieMaine]

In the church of my childhood, the rope for the bell hung just inside the front door, and there were two stairways on either side of the door that led up to the sanctuary. It was the thing for advanced Sunday School kids to dare smaller kids to try to swing across from one stairway to the other. This, of course, caused the bell to ring and an angry W. S. C. S. lady to rush out of the vestry to firmly administer the Lord's Discipline.

I myself never did this. But I did once drink all the sacramental grape juice out of the little glasses on a dare.

 

[1961MJS]

...I myself never did this. But I did once drink all the sacramental grape juice out of the little glasses on a dare.

I grew up Methodist and we only had sour grape juice. Soured, not FERMENTED darn it.

Later