Vintage Things That Have Disappeared In Your Lifetime?

[Inkstainedwretch]

I'm an early Boomer (b. 1947) and I hated gym class but endured it. In my high school years my family moved from Michigan to Texas, where phys. ed. was much more emphasized than in the North. My Texas gym teacher ran it like a boot camp and the girls had to wear these awful bloomers that embarrass them to this day. On the plus side, obesity was almost nonexistent. Studying my class group photo, I can see that my memory does not play me false. One of my closest friends back then was the class fat kid and he would barely qualify as heavyset now. This is from a class of more than 600 kids. On my high school nostalgia site the one teacher everyone remembers above all others is Mr. Spangler, the gym coach. Because of him, when I joined the Army in '67 the physical part held no terrors for me.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Got no kids of my own, and it's been nearly half a century since I was a primary school pupil myself, so I am indeed taken aback by hearing that recess and gym class are no more, at least in some locales.

How do they get the little buzzards to hold still at their desks without an opportunity to burn off some of that energy?

Some schools have installed standing desks the have a bar to rest a foot on that rocks & is called a "fidgeting bar". Kids can still sit but they are encouraged to stand.

 

[tonyb]

Phys Ed classes are still around, but they aren't as prominent as they were from the early sixties to the mid-seventies. That period was something of a cultural anomaly, the heyday of the President's Council On Physical Fitness on Sports -- a Federal program implemented following a report in the mid-fifties criticizing the lack of physical fitness and education among American elementary school children, and arguing that they were fat and lazy compared to European kids.

Phys Ed in the actual Era, prior to this report, was a desultory operation at best, usually consisting of an underpaid math teacher in a dirty sweatshirt teaching kids to do jumping jacks and other stand-in-place calisthentics or other small-time indoor activities in a disused classroom. It's only when the Boomers were in grade school that this really changed, and it faded out pretty much at the same time that the last of the Boomers were passing thru the public schools. Of course, judging from some of the well-upholstered fifty and sixty-somethings I see around town here sucking double mocha lattes out of giant sippy cups, the lessons were not exactly those of a lifetime.

Full disclosure: I'm a tail-end boomer, I had compulsory phys ed from first grade thru the tenth grade, and I've gained ten inches around my waist in the last twenty years. I hated phys ed class.

We were a more agrarian society overall back then, and had far fewer labor-saving gizmos. So daily life, for farm kids and townies alike, would have involved more physical activity. That's my theory, anyway.

I've noted before that our grandparents would be stunned to learn that people these days spend perfectly good money and take time out of their day to visit a commercial gym for the purpose of getting some physical exercise.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I lug beer and soda crates, 35lb sacks of popcorn, 45lb boxes of oil, and 50lb cylinders of carbon dioxide up and down multiple flights of stairs on a regular basis. Who needs a gym?

I miss film cans. They weighed 70lbs.

One of the interesting things about the report that resulted in the President's Council and the intensification of school phys-ed programs is the finding that middle-class kids in the mid-fifties were, as a class, far less active than their parents had been at that age. There was much clucking of tongues about the negative impact of television, which was keeping youngsters in the house watching cowboy movies and ballgames when they could be outside actually playing games of their own.

 

[BobHufford]

I've noted before that our grandparents would be stunned to learn that people these days spend perfectly good money and take time out of their day to visit a commercial gym for the purpose of getting some physical exercise.

My almost-30-year-old kids go to the gym, hot-yoga and participate in Tough Mudders.

I tell them to join me at the farm and become farm-fit while actually accomplishing something. Only my youngest daughter agrees that it is a good workout (although I about worked her to death with our last fire-wood cutting / splitting adventure).

Maybe it's that I don't show much fitness from my farm work. That is probably due to it only being on the weekend and too many "farm" breakfasts, lunches and dinners.

 

[Trenchfriend]

I just always believe in "body and mind in harmony" and I'm NOT a modern esoteric-boy, believe me.

I think, your mind/intelligence have to interact with your phisical dynamics, permanently.

"Who rest, they rust".

 

[Zombie_61]

Hello. All new to me.
What happened to tins of Heinz vegetable salad.
Not seen here in Scotland for years.

Hello, and welcome to The Lounge! According to a quick Google search, and I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, it appears Heinz discontinued their tinned vegetable and potato salads 5 or more years ago.

 

[PeterB]

In offices, when I was young, the phones used to rest on a small platform, attached to the wall by a concertina arm made of metal. You pulled the phone out to use it, then pushed it back. Rotary phones, of course. The platform was a wooden square. Does anybody else remember these?

 

[Trenchfriend]

In offices, when I was young, the phones used to rest on a small platform, attached to the wall by a concertina arm made of metal. You pulled the phone out to use it, then pushed it back. Rotary phones, of course. The platform was a wooden square. Does anybody else remember these?

Luckily, it's not died out. I think, in Germany are surely some of these "constructions" still alive, today mostly private, I guess.
And I know these modern times greyish plastic-telephone-boards, probably late 70's or mid-80's.

 

[Inkstainedwretch]

In my great-aunt's house in Texas in the early 50s she still had an old "daffodil"-style phone attached to the wall with one of those zigzag expansion units, but it was attached to the phone itself. There was no platform.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Those were called "No. 1048 collapsible gate telephone arms" in Bell System nomenclature, and were primarily installed in office settings. The arm mounted on one side to a swivel attached to the wall, and the other side clamped around the stem of a standard "desk stand" telephone. The base of the desk stand was usually removed, and the wires ran in a cable out the open end of the stem to a separate ringer box with the dial mounted on it. This box would usually be mounted on the side of a desk or counter. No platform was used with this arrangement, which was carried in the Western Electric supply catalogs thru 1939.

These arms were deleted from the catalog beginning with Catalog No. 10, issued in 1939, along with all "desk stand" phones and parts. However, this equipment remained in service for many years beyond that -- many small-town Bell System exchanges still had desk stand phones in use well into the 1960s.

 

[Trenchfriend]

From minute 6:04 on (left side):

34:39

I don't know, if this was a joke by movie-production in Munich in the 80's.

 

[PeterB]

Those were called "No. 1048 collapsible gate telephone arms" in Bell System nomenclature, and were primarily installed in office settings. The arm mounted on one side to a swivel attached to the wall, and the other side clamped around the stem of a standard "desk stand" telephone. The base of the desk stand was usually removed, and the wires ran in a cable out the open end of the stem to a separate ringer box with the dial mounted on it. This box would usually be mounted on the side of a desk or counter. No platform was used with this arrangement, which was carried in the Western Electric supply catalogs thru 1939.

These arms were deleted from the catalog beginning with Catalog No. 10, issued in 1939, along with all "desk stand" phones and parts. However, this equipment remained in service for many years beyond that -- many small-town Bell System exchanges still had desk stand phones in use well into the 1960s.

Lizzie, I might have known that you would have the background. Strange because I recall, or think I recall, regular black rotary phones on the extension. Possibly what I saw was an adaptation of the items produced by Bell. The trouble is that memory can be deceptive -- one thinks one remembers, but possibly one is remembering what one saw in a book or magazine picture. Thanks for the clarifications.

 

[vitanola]

I don't have my Bell System Practices at hand, but do remember that there was a version of the scissor mount that was designed to grip a B or D handset mounting just below the yoke, and another with a metal plate to which one could clamp a 302 or 304.

The scissor assembly could be ordered with a desk flange, which would bolt to a desk or table top with three screws, a wall mount or a clamp mount.

 

[Madame Le Pipkin]

Hello, and welcome to The Lounge! According to a quick Google search, and I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, it appears Heinz discontinued their tinned vegetable and potato salads 5 or more years ago.

Thanks for that.I know you can make your own but I just yearned for this with chopped pork, flat/round lettuce and zigzag halved tomatoes and boiled eggs.
Some salt and shake crisps and a blob of salad cream for what passed as a sophisticated salad in.the 1970' s.

 

[PeterB]

Two things that have disappeared, at least to my knowledge:
1) The string hanging from the ceilings in shops, which the counter man pulled down to wrap up your purchases, making a paper parcel.
2) The tube into which the counter man put your money and the bill of sale; then he put it into a pipe and it was sucked away to the cashier's office, where they made the change and sent it back.

I am not sure whether others have noted these items. If so, my apologies. Please direct me to the right thread. I have not seen the vacuum tube in use in shops since the late 60s. The last time I saw the string was in a fabric outlet in Soho in the early 90s (Soho in London, I mean).

 

[HudsonHawk]

Two things that have disappeared, at least to my knowledge:
1) The string hanging from the ceilings in shops, which the counter man pulled down to wrap up your purchases, making a paper parcel.
2) The tube into which the counter man put your money and the bill of sale; then he put it into a pipe and it was sucked away to the cashier's office, where they made the change and sent it back.

I am not sure whether others have noted these items. If so, my apologies. Please direct me to the right thread. I have not seen the vacuum tube in use in shops since the late 60s. The last time I saw the string was in a fabric outlet in Soho in the early 90s (Soho in London, I mean).

About the only time you see vacuum tubes used today are at the bank drive-through.

 

[Fading Fast]

A few old-time bakeries here still use the string from the ceiling (really cylinder holders up near the ceiling) to wrap the boxes. The women (always, at least in the two bakeries I'm thinking of) are incredibly skilled at wrapping, tying and breaking off the string. It's fun to watch.

 

[Trenchfriend]

Mincemeat-pizza, typical east-german.
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=hackfleischpizza&FORM=HDRSC2

 

[Trenchfriend]

How much younger people, these days, buy, what is called "tucks/pleats-trousers" on english language, today? Here in Germany, they are often called "grandma-trousers" by my younger generation, around 30 and younger.
Sure, they are still available, but who wants to buy them new?

Same problem, like on typical "Chinos".