Vintage Things That Have Disappeared In Your Lifetime?

[LizzieMaine]

Here's something that isn't quite dead but has essentially disappeared as anything of any particular cultural relevance -- newspaper comics.

If you've ever seen an original Sunday newspaper from the Era, you'll instantly see how important "the funny papers" were -- most Sunday editions had the comic section wrapped around the outside of the folded paper, so it was the first thing you saw on the newsstand.



Even into the seventies it was a big deal for us to get the New York Sunday News at the drugstore, and the comic section was the main attraction since it carried many strips our local paper didn't -- I followed "Gasoline Alley" for years in the Sunday News. Comics were something that everybody read and everybody followed. Newspaper comics were enormously important and influential in the Era, and remained so right up into the 80s.

When Bloom County, The Far Side, and Calvin and Hobbes all ended within a few years of each other in the '90s, that marked the beginning of the end for newspaper comics as a relevant artistic force in America. Now, while there are still some decent strips out there, they are all but completely irrelevant as a mainstream cultural influence. I guess I should be happy I never achieved my teenage ambition to be a syndicated cartoonist.

 

[Fading Fast]

Super +1 to Lizzie's post above. Growing up in the '70s they were meaningful and kids would talk about them at school on Monday morning (and throughout the week). My almost always serious dad, loved "the funny papers." And, yes, Bloom County, The Far Side and Calvin and Hobbes were the edgey, culturally significant one.

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^^

As go the funny pages, so goes the remainder of the paper, or so it would seem. Newspapers as a cultural/political/artistic force in America are but a shadow of what they were even 20 years ago.

I haven't lost all hope that quality journalism conveyed via the written word isn't as dead as those trees on which the papers were printed, but I wouldn't bet much of my own money on it. Electronic "readers" (iPads, Kindles, "phablets," etc.) offer some hope, but with the barrier to entry being so low, well, we get seemingly limitless content that reflects that low standard, such that higher quality stuff gets lost amongst the noise.

 

[LizzieMaine]

...but with the barrier to entry being so low, well, we get seemingly limitless content that reflects that low standard, such that higher quality stuff gets lost amongst the noise.

The Internet Itself, ladies and gents, in all its glory.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Super +1 to Lizzie's post above. Growing up in the '70s they were meaningful and kids would talk about them at school on Monday morning (and throughout the week). My almost always serious dad, loved "the funny papers." And, yes, Bloom County, The Far Side and Calvin and Hobbes were the edgey, culturally significant one.

It's hard to explain to kids born since the '90s how important newspaper comics once were -- they see me reading the funnies every day in the Boston Globe, and they just don't get it. You try to explain to them that in the twenties, the entire nation was transfixed by the question of whether Andy Gump's rich uncle could get out of his breach-of-promise suit, or that in the forties everybody wondered if Dick Tracy would catch Flattop, or that in the sixties, serious scholars dissected the theological lessons of "Peanuts."

It's not that they don't understand the basic form -- there's some excellent work being published as "graphic novels," and most kids are aware of these. But the idea of opening a daily paper and seeing rows of discrete four-panel strips, many of which continue plots from day to day, seems to be completely alien to the way they process information.

 

[ChiTownScion]

And, yes, Bloom County, The Far Side and Calvin and Hobbes were the edgey, culturally significant one.

I wanted a kid like Calvin: bright enough to really give me a run for my money. All I'll say in retrospect: Be careful what you wish for.

 

[ChiTownScion]

There were some great comics from the era that people today aren't even aware of. Harold Teen and Out Our Way immediately come to mind.

 

[LizzieMaine]

"Harold Teen" was the fountainhead from which every "teen" comic sprung. Without Harold and Shadow and Beezie and Lillums there would have been no Archie, Jughead, Reggie, or Veronica. It's also the best window you'll ever find into the "teen culture" of the twenties and thirties. Hot pups!

The greatest comic of the Era, hands down, had to be "Gasoline Alley" -- in which you very literally saw a member of the "Swing Generation" grow up, from infancy to childhood to young adulthood to WW2 to postwar life and beyond. Skeezix Wallet was the Everyman of his time.

What's unfortunate is that they've lost sight of this in the current version of the strip. Skeezix is now ninety-four years old, and Uncle Walt is now, supposedly, 115 and the last surviving veteran of WW1. Walt should have died at least thirty years ago, and Skeezix should also be winding up his affairs. But the syndicate that handles the strip won't allow the natural aging to continue to its logical point, so the strip has degenerated into a foolish, joke-ridden sitcom instead of the real-time serial it was for most of its life.

I strongly recommend the "Walt and Skeezix" series of strip collections published by "Drawn and Quarterly" of Montreal. They've been reprinting the entire run of the strip beginning in 1918, and volume 6, covering 1931-32 will be released this fall. It's nothing like anything you'll find on the funny pages today -- it's a true "graphic novel" printed in daily episodes long before the term was invented.

 

[tonyb]

I was riding home from work tonight and passed an excavation pit in the middle of the street with flashing LED pylons around the perimeter to keep the unwary from falling in -- and I had a flashback to when I was little, and they used to ring such pits with these round black metal things about the size of a cantaloupe with a flaming wick in the top. I used to think they were bombs, but they were just a very old form of safety light. I haven't seen these, or even thought about them in ages, but when they came to mind it got me thinking about other vintage things that just seem to have quietly disappeared in the past 45 years or so --
...

I remember having similar thoughts about those things. Doubt I've seen one in use in at least 45 years. Maybe even longer.

http://www.bing.com/images/search/?...CFFCE4ED78CE4E125C638A1A8D66DFF02&FORM=BRQONH

 

[Fading Fast]

I recently took a bag of loose change over to the bank, after first enquiring at the bank, because - get this - they no longer want you to use coin wrappers (or whatever those paper sleeves for rolling coins are called) - you bring them your change and they put it in an official looking plastic bag that they identify as to be credited to your account. Then, about five days later, the amount hits your account.

I know that paper coin wrappers still exist as I see them regularly being used in store registers, I was just surprised that the bank basically said they didn't even want me to wrap it; they wanted me to just give them the loose change.

My Dad, if he were still alive, would immediately assume they were cheating him - "how do you know they didn't short you," I can hear him saying? My guess - if you believe Banks are simply evil (a common meme since '08), then you probably agree with him.

But my guess is that the last thing the banks want now is another scandal, especially over counting change which isn't easy to wrap in a fog of pseudo-sophistication - "we'll, our credit default swap index, measured against our risk adjusted volatility model was rated triple-A and was being used as a macro hedge blah, blah, blah" - it's hard to argue that your "change-counting model failed," every time and always in your favor.

Hence, I gave them my bag of change and about a week later, the money appeared in my account.

 

[Stanley Doble]

"And it's gone"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DT7bX-B1Mg

 

[LizzieMaine]

I recently took a bag of loose change over to the bank, after first enquiring at the bank, because - get this - they no longer want you to use coin wrappers (or whatever those paper sleeves for rolling coins are called) - you bring them your change and they put it in an official looking plastic bag that they identify as to be credited to your account. Then, about five days later, the amount hits your account.

I know that paper coin wrappers still exist as I see them regularly being used in store registers, I was just surprised that the bank basically said they didn't even want me to wrap it; they wanted me to just give them the loose change.

My Dad, if he were still alive, would immediately assume they were cheating him - "how do you know they didn't short you," I can hear him saying? My guess - if you believe Banks are simply evil (a common meme since '08), then you probably agree with him.

But my guess is that the last thing the banks want now is another scandal, especially over counting change which isn't easy to wrap in a fog of pseudo-sophistication - "we'll, our credit default swap index, measured against our risk adjusted volatility model was rated triple-A and was being used as a macro hedge blah, blah, blah" - it's hard to argue that your "change-counting model failed," every time and always in your favor.

Hence, I gave them my bag of change and about a week later, the money appeared in my account.

Our banks here still accept customer-rolled change, but it does have its drawbacks. When getting quarters for the tills at work I've more than once gotten rolls padded out with nickels, Chucky Cheese tokens, or foreign coins. I prefer to get the plastic-sleeved transparent rolls done by the bank itself, so I can see that I'm not being cheated. Plus it makes it easier to see if there's any silver mixed in with the clad coins.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

A couple of years ago I had some work done on my house and I paid the guy $1,200 in quarters and dimes. It filled up a backpack and weighed 85 lbs.

 

[Zombie_61]

"And it's gone"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DT7bX-B1Mg

Ugh, banks. Back in the days when ATMs were just becoming the "new norm" and online banking was something far off in a Star Trek future, my wife and I were forced to change banks due to incompetency. Not long after we'd made the change, I stopped into our new bank to transfer $200 from our savings account to our checking account. Apparently, the teller I spoke with was a trainee who handled the transfer incorrectly, so the money didn't get transferred. Approximately one week later we received a letter from the new bank informing us that we'd "bounced" 10 checks and needed to deposit X amount of money to cover the overages and charges. So I visited the bank again, explained the problem and, with a "deer in the headlights" look in her eyes, was told by the teller that the checks had bounced because we had insufficient funds in our checking account. :mmph: Even with all of the records in front of her, nothing I said could get her to understand the problem started with their teller not transferring the money between accounts--if that had been done properly, all of the checks would have cleared with no problems. So she got her supervisor, I explained the problem again, and got the same response. :suspicious: 90 minutes later, having worked my way up the chain of command and getting the same responses, I found myself once again explaining the problem to whoever was one step below the Bank President. :twitch: I explained it once, she looked at the records, immediately understood how the problem started, instructed the tellers to cancel the related charges, clear the checks, and that the bank would cover any "late payment fees" incurred (and the tellers still didn't understand why they were doing this). She apologized for the inconvenience, and wasn't the least bit surprised when I immediately closed our accounts. Four months later, that bank was gone for good.

 

[Fading Fast]

A couple of years ago I had some work done on my house and I paid the guy $1,200 in quarters and dimes. It filled up a backpack and weighed 85 lbs.

Did he know ahead of time that you were going to pay him that way?

 

[HudsonHawk]

Timely on the rolled change...Saturday, I was at the local Wal-Mart, and was in line at the register while a woman in front of me was purchasing a handful of items. They totaled about $30, and when it was time to pay, she handed the cashier 15 rolls of nickels. Naturally, the cashier has to bust them open and count each individual coin. Which was funny at first. Except that the woman kept talking to the cashier, who lost count and had to start over numerous times. After a while, it wasn't really funny anymore.

 

[foamy]

"Salts" Growing up, all of my relatives used small, usually ornate, usually colored, glass salt pinches. A tiny bowl to serve salt. I don't know why they went away as I find them more practical as salt dispensers. Particularly in the Summer.

My mother collected them and I have one in use all the time. Most folks, when they see one, don't know what it is or was used for.

 

[Stanley Doble]

Something that just occurred to me. A remark made by my great aunt Ethel Ferguson in the late 70s. She said "You know, you never see a jew on the road anymore".

I had no idea what she was talking about. It turns out, she was referring to Jewish rag and bone men who used come around with a horse and wagon. She was a farm wife and they used to go around to farms and buy horse hair, rags, bones, bottles, superannuated laying hens, burlap bags and so on.

My mother who was born in 1920 remembered them coming around to the farm when she was a little girl but this seems to have ended some time in the thirties.

Not something that disappeared in my life time but in my mother's and in her aunt's lifetimes.

 

[Haversack]

When my grandfather took me to visit relatives in the UK during the mid-1960s, a rag-and-bone man with a horse-drawn wagon came down the South London street where we were staying. I don't know if there was any ethnic distinction applied to him but I got the impression from one of my uncles that rag-and-bone men had been coming around for decades.

 

[dh66]

WTF has happened to miniature golf and go-cart rides???