Vintage Things That Have Disappeared In Your Lifetime?

[Inkstainedwretch]

Yep, 1937-38. That was probably the peak period for the popularity of horse racing in the US. The broadcast of the 1938 Kentucky Derby scored a C. A. B. rating of 16.6 -- which was just a tenth of a point less than the final day of coverage of the Munich Conference that fall, a moment where the fate of the world hung in the balance, and a rating which topped FDR's 1939 State of the Union address by 0.3 of a point.

To give some additional perspective, the single most-listened-to radio broadcast of the 1930s was the second Louis-Schmeling fight on June 22, 1938, which scored a rating of 63.6 -- that's more than anything else in the decade. Not even the abdication of King Edward VIII topped that rating. The rating figures translate roughly into one million listeners per point, and the total population of the US in 1938 was about 130 million, which gives you an idea of just how impressive that statistic is. In terms of percentage of the total population, not even the Super Bowl today comes close.

Max Schmeling was a class act and no Nazi. After the war he became a successful businessman and when he learned that Louis had fallen on hard times he helped him out financially. In the end he helped pay for Joe's funeral.

 

[tonyb]

Max Schmeling was a class act and no Nazi. After the war he became a successful businessman and when he learned that Louis had fallen on hard times he helped him out financially. In the end he helped pay for Joe's funeral.

He made his fortune (such as it was) with Coca-Cola, right?

http://www.raoulwallenberg.net/es/prensa/2005-prensa/max-schmeling-joe-louis-s/

 

[LizzieMaine]

Yep. Coca-Cola did very well in Germany right thru the war years, right up until their supply of concentrate dried up and they invented a new product to get them thru the duration: a drink made from ground-up fruit skins called "Fanta." As soon as the war was over, they were ready to hit the ground running, and Schmeling became one of their major German bottlers in the postwar era.

Before the war, Louis stated publicly on a number of occasions that Schmeling was the only opponent he fought who he actively hated -- Schmeling had beaten him in 1936, and he never forgot the humiliation, and that's a big part of the reason Louis went after Schmeling so mercilessly in 1938. But they did reconcile later in life.

 

[Trenchfriend]

@LizzieMaine
Thanks. I didn't know about the origin of Fanta. But I will never like this much too sweet stuff, which additional tracts on the teeths.

 

[Fading Fast]

Fanta is almost a vintage thing that had disappeared as I remember it as a kid and then hadn't seen it (didn't look for it, so I'm sure it was there, but clearly not heavily promoted in the States) in decades. But about two years ago, I'm in a hotel that has a heavy international clientele and, lo and behold, in a vending machine off the lobby, there was an option for Fanta.

I like soda and I like sweet things, but Fanta was always too sweet and just odd to me. You'd go to some kids birthday party in a local park (grammar school age stuff) and the Coke or Pepsi giant bottles (it was a frugal neighborhood) would go fast, but the Fanta one would sit around.

 

[Trenchfriend]

They launched the Fanta "Klassik", here, in 2015. Should be nearly the original recipe with whey and apple-extract. But difficult to get it, here.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The Fanta today is not, of course, the original German WWII product -- that disappeared when the war ended and they could import Coca-Cola concentrate into Germany again. Today's Fanta came about when Coke saw the need for a line of alternate flavors to fill out the selections in multi-choice vending machines in the 1950s. Many of the company's US bottlers were putting up their own independent line of fruit-flavored drinks to fill this need -- around here the local Coke distributor offered "Down East" soda -- but Coke didn't like this, and wanted full control of the products offered in their machines. Hence, Fanta. It's also a common option at fountain outlets controlled by Coke.

Pepsi followed the same plan, with its line of "Patio" brand fruit-flavored sodas, but these didn't have the staying power of Fanta and disappeared by the 1970s. Pepsi did much better absorbing independent companies and selling their drinks, with Mountain Dew being the most prominent example.

 

[BobHufford]

The best soda I ever had from a vending machine was a Moutain Dew at a gas station near my Grandmother's farm (Dixon, MO) on a hot summer day the late 1960s (IIRC). Any soda was a rare treat for us and this was so cold that there were ice crystals beginning to form. This was prior to the X-Games marketing.

 

[Trenchfriend]

"inspired from the german original-recipe"

Ingredients:
water, sugar, 30% whey, orange-juice, lemon-juice, CO2, apple-extract, citric acid, natural aroma, ascorbic acid, stabilizer guar gum

 

[BobHufford]

Respect for funeral processions.

I pulled over to the side of the road for an oncoming funeral procession today. It was quite a long one and it pissed off more than one driver behind me as I could see them trying to figure out how to get around. I could also see quite a few others follow suit and that made me feel good. Maybe it hasn't truly disappeared.

 

[green papaya]

never hear of bomb shelters / fall out shelters anymore? do they even have the old duck & cover drills at schools these days?

the fear has changed from the threat of nuclear war to the threat of school shootings / mass shootings & violence

society in general has become much more dangerous, people get shot on a daily basis

the police are much more like a military force, with armored fighting vehicles / military weaponry , much more Gestapo than before, they even dress like they are patrolling in a war zone with modern tactical body armor / automatic weapons / sub machine guns.

The US has become much more "militarized"

 

[ChiTownScion]

No longer like the old days like the show Mayberry RFD with Andy Griffin and Don Knotts, those days are long gone.

They never really were. Even when the series was first run. Everyone wanted to live in Mayberry even then, but part of the appeal was that it was an ideal that didn't really exist. I'm certain that Mt. Airy NC (the inspiration of Mayberry) was and is a wonderful place, but I'm also sure that there was more domestic abuse, alcoholism, and other heartache there than Sheriff Andy and Aunt Bee ever had to deal with.

 

[Bushman]

Respect for funeral processions.

I pulled over to the side of the road for an oncoming funeral procession today. It was quite a long one and it pissed off more than one driver behind me as I could see them trying to figure out how to get around. I could also see quite a few others follow suit and that made me feel good. Maybe it hasn't truly disappeared.

As I've had it explained to me, it's mostly a Southern USA thing. When my aunt died last month, we went down to Kentucky for her funeral. During the procession to the cemetery, everyone pulled over. It baffled me and my folks, as nobody pulls over to the side of the ride where we're from. Doing so, in fact, is likely to get you not only ticketed, but ending up in a funeral procession yourself.

 

[Zombie_61]

Respect for funeral processions.

I pulled over to the side of the road for an oncoming funeral procession today. It was quite a long one and it pissed off more than one driver behind me as I could see them trying to figure out how to get around. I could also see quite a few others follow suit and that made me feel good. Maybe it hasn't truly disappeared.

Not only funeral processions, but emergency vehicles (police, fire, ambulance, etc.) running with lights and sirens. I'm always surprised when there isn't at least one nitwit trying to figure out how to rocket past we honest and law abiding folk who have pulled to the side of the road like we're supposed to.

 

[Inkstainedwretch]

They never really were. Even when the series was first run. Everyone wanted to live in Mayberry even then, but part of the appeal was that it was an ideal that didn't really exist. I'm certain that Mt. Airy NC (the inspiration of Mayberry) was and is a wonderful place, but I'm also sure that there was more domestic abuse, alcoholism, and other heartache there than Sheriff Andy and Aunt Bee ever had to deal with.

Remember Otis on the Andy Griffith show? That's another thing that has disappeared: the funny drunk.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Foster Brooks, the number one Funny Drunk of the late sixties/early seventies, started out his career as a radio announcer. That line of work drove a lot of people to drink.

 

[ChiTownScion]

Remember Otis on the Andy Griffith show? That's another thing that has disappeared: the funny drunk.

Even Foster Brooks dropped that in his later years. Nice that there is increased sensitivity about the ravages of alcoholism, of course, but I have known a lot of recovering alcoholics whose ability to find some humor in their more tragic escapades of their pasts is essential to their continuing recovery.

 

[LizzieMaine]

They never really were. Even when the series was first run. Everyone wanted to live in Mayberry even then, but part of the appeal was that it was an ideal that didn't really exist. I'm certain that Mt. Airy NC (the inspiration of Mayberry) was and is a wonderful place, but I'm also sure that there was more domestic abuse, alcoholism, and other heartache there than Sheriff Andy and Aunt Bee ever had to deal with.

Show business idealization of small towns was rampant in radio and movies well before television came along. For a prime example, "The Great Gildersleeve" lived in a picture-perfect little town where the streets were always clean, the people were always happy, and the worst thing that could happen was an amusing case of mistaken identity. It was nothing like the real world of mid-1940s America, but it was what mid-1940s America wanted to believe it was like, and it sold an awful lot of Parkay.

The head writer for "Gildersleeve," a fellow by the name of John Whedon, was, twenty years later, a key member of the "Andy Griffith Show" staff, and brought much of that same flavor to his contributions. (Gildy had a character called "Floyd The Barber" to deal with two decades before Andy Taylor did.) Mr. Whedon's grandson Joss has given his own twist to the small-town formula, with his tales of Sunnydale, California on "Buffy The Vampire Slayer."

 

[Inkstainedwretch]

On a different thread here we discussed the "Tramp Steamer" genre of pulp stories, with its offshoot the "small-craft Navy" story ( think "The Sand Pebbles"). Joss Whedon did his own riff on this with "Firefly," about the down-and-out crew of a dumpy little spaceship in the aftermath of losing war. Some themes endure through the decades.

 

[tonyb]

Respect for funeral processions.

I pulled over to the side of the road for an oncoming funeral procession today. It was quite a long one and it pissed off more than one driver behind me as I could see them trying to figure out how to get around. I could also see quite a few others follow suit and that made me feel good. Maybe it hasn't truly disappeared.

It isn't just the "respect for funeral processions" that is disappearing. Funeral motorcades themselves aren't what they were back in our salad days. No need to motor from the church house to the cemetery if the earthly remains of the dearly departed are on the living room mantle in a fancy little container about the size of a dictionary.

And funerals themselves appear to be going that way as well. I've been to a few in recent years, and I've known a few other people who requested no formal gathering in their memory at all -- no funeral, no "memorial service," no "celebration of life," no "home going."

I wasn't in the vicinity to attend the funerals of some relatives back in the old country (Wisconsin), where I assume the mourners decamped for the burial grounds following the funeral Masses, as was the custom there. Come to think of it, the last funeral motorcade I recall being a part of occurred back there, in, like 1967 or '68.