Vintage Things That Have Disappeared In Your Lifetime?

[belfastboy]

^^^^^^
Had our parents known what my brother and friend and I, prepubescents all at that time, were doing with .22s when they were at work and we were at our after-school leisure, they would have skinned us alive.

I strongly argue against what has come to be called “helicopter parenting.” Kids gotta make their own mistakes and suffer the bumps and bruises that go along with that. But I also strongly argue against leaving firearms and ammunition readily accessible to children and others with child-like judgement.

Yep, and in my case I carried a lot of that judgement into my twenties!
I was raised by a single Mom who had to work the afternoon shift at the meat packing plant. She left right after I came home from school. My sister and I had to look after our infant brother. So the whole helicopter parenting thing did not apply in my case. I had to grow up quickly in terms of responsibilities but my judgement lagged behind some.

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^
I’ve been trying, not entirely successfully, to unlearn the ways of an impulsive stepfather that rubbed off on me. I shudder at the memories.

Seriously, he engaged in behaviors that could have resulted in death, and nearly did on one notable occasion. My brother was lucky to survive the “accident.”

In more recent years I’ve come to suspect that his lack of impulse control was due in part to his own unfortunate upbringing and in part to brain damage he may have suffered in the violent altercations he engaged in during his adolescence and well into his adulthood.

This is not to absolve him of responsibility. He had friends (he could be quite gregarious and outgoing) who cared enough for him to tell him what he refused to hear.

 

[tonyb]

It appears that no one has yet mentioned …

Telephone chairs.

They were a common sight in my early years. I looked online and saw old ones on offer on Etsy and eBay. But I see no indication that new ones are being made. They truly are obsolete, except as curiosities.

 

[LizzieMaine]

When I was five I knocked a telephone chair into the front of the television set and put a big crack in the safety glass in front of the picture tube. That's a sentence that means absolutely nothing to anyone under forty.

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^^
When did I last hear “television set” in regular conversation?

I have some vague recollection of hearing “radio set,” but by the time I came along the “set” part had mostly fallen out of use. But I suppose that television was still something of a novelty at that point. So “the neighbors bought a fancy new television set” would have been a not uncommon utterance.

 

[LostInTyme]

Holy Cow! I remember going out to Sears and Roebuck to purchase our first television set in 1951. I was 7 at the time, and the set only picked up two of the three channels that were available at the time. We hooked up some rabbit ears antenna and the set got all three channels. It was a Silvertone TV set.

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^^
Which brings to mind the TV repairman.

When I was a kid a new TV could cost a working man a month’s wages. Or more. And the things not infrequently needed repairs. So the fellow in the gray or green uniform would show up with his box of tools and tubes and a mirror and fiddle with the TV.

EDIT: Turns out that I mentioned this back in 2017. My memory is getting to be another vintage thing that has at least partially disappeared in my lifetime.

 

[LizzieMaine]

For the determined DIY TV set owner there was always the drug store tube tester. Then, after you put the tubes back in the wrong sockets and blew up the flyback transformer, you called the TV repairman...

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^^^
Add the drug store tube tester to the list of vintage things that have disappeared.

 

[KILO NOVEMBER]

For the determined DIY TV set owner there was always the drug store tube tester. Then, after you put the tubes back in the wrong sockets and blew up the flyback transformer, you called the TV repairman...

Men who could "do stuff" always impressed me when I was a boy. Whether it was plumber, a TV repairman, an auto mechanic or what not, I was fascinated by the work they did. For myself, I can only do stuff involving a computer and have none of those skills. Even as an adult I am still impressed. That probably explains why I watch "Forged in Fire" and even "Moonshiners".

I come from a blue-collar, skilled labor background and my mother and father always encouraged me to "get an education" and never toward a skilled-labor vocation. I'm nearly 70 and I still look on skilled labor with admiration and something approaching awe.

 

[belfastboy]

Men who could "do stuff" always impressed me when I was a boy. Whether it was plumber, a TV repairman, an auto mechanic or what not, I was fascinated by the work they did. For myself, I can only do stuff involving a computer and have none of those skills. Even as an adult I am still impressed. That probably explains why I watch "Forged in Fire" and even "Moonshiners".

I come from a blue-collar, skilled labor background and my mother and father always encouraged me to "get an education" and never toward a skilled-labor vocation. I'm nearly 70 and I still look on skilled labor with admiration and something approaching awe.

My Uncle John a WW2 vet injured his back severely at the Battle of Ortuna. Had to have it fused and could no longer bend over. He was the most interesting man I knew and as a kid I stood in wonder. His interests had to be of the sedentary variety due to his lack of mobility. He built his own TV set from parts and instruction in Popular Mechanics. He went on to build his own HAM radio and then one of the first computers. He was a life long chain smoker and he rolled his own.

Using the hand rolling machine that rolled maybe 4 smokes in one tube then cut to size. Every time I visited him it was like visiting the home of a wizard that could conjure so many things out of stray parts.

 

[LostInTyme]

With all the talk of TV sets and radio sets, I miss Radio Shack. You could always find small electronic parts to fix, repair or create solid state circuits.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Losing Radio Shack was a real pain in my line of work. We're always needing cables, adapters, or other electronic needs on an emergency basis, and there's no time to go fiddling around on the internet to get them when an act is waiting to go on. Much of what the Shack sold was crap, but when you're up against the clock, crap is better than nothing at all. There is no longer any kind of a store within 100 miles of here that's anything like it.

 

[tonyb]

Men who could "do stuff" always impressed me when I was a boy. Whether it was plumber, a TV repairman, an auto mechanic or what not, I was fascinated by the work they did. For myself, I can only do stuff involving a computer and have none of those skills. Even as an adult I am still impressed. That probably explains why I watch "Forged in Fire" and even "Moonshiners".

I come from a blue-collar, skilled labor background and my mother and father always encouraged me to "get an education" and never toward a skilled-labor vocation. I'm nearly 70 and I still look on skilled labor with admiration and something approaching awe.

An uncle, who shuffled off at a truly advanced age a few months back, had to repeat a grade level when he was a kid.

As a teenager he went to work as an appliance repairman for a local department store. He was welcomed back there after he did his hitch in the U.S. Army. And that’s where he worked when I was a little kid.

He owned several rental properties (he built some of them) and was the physical plant manager for a small suburban school district. For fun he restored cars.

Not a day goes by that I don’t regret that he is no longer answering the phone. I may not have always fixed or built whatever it was I was picking his brain about, but at least I came away from the call knowing what to be looking out for.

A few years ago he GAVE AWAY an apartment building to some order of nuns.

He died a millionaire several times over, I’m sure.

And he had to repeat a grade when he was a kid.

 

[belfastboy]

Men who could "do stuff" always impressed me when I was a boy. Whether it was plumber, a TV repairman, an auto mechanic or what not, I was fascinated by the work they did. For myself, I can only do stuff involving a computer and have none of those skills. Even as an adult I am still impressed. That probably explains why I watch "Forged in Fire" and even "Moonshiners".

I come from a blue-collar, skilled labor background and my mother and father always encouraged me to "get an education" and never toward a skilled-labor vocation. I'm nearly 70 and I still look on skilled labor with admiration and something approaching awe.

I admired my father greatly. He was a child of poverty, lived the Depression and I think came from a generation of 'can do' folks that just made stuff by hand because they had to. My father started his work life on the killing floor of an abattoir.

He worked his way off the killing floor to that as a salesman for the company. He had no skills other than butchery but he had this 'can do' attitude. He built a stone retaining wall that stands to this day. He finished the basement of our family home. He just took on things and figured them out as he went along. I admire that greatly and hope I carried some of that attitude into my life......even if done poorly.

 

[Tiki Tom]

Oh yeah, my father could build or repair almost anything. Why pay a plumber to replace a toilet when you can do it yourself? Why buy a new carburetor when you can strip and rebuild the old one?
Does anyone think like that anymore?

 

[Turnip]

I did most of structural restoration work on my 1955 house myself. Replacing the entire heating and switching it from oil to gas, ripping out all piping and cast iron radiators, replacing the entire electric power supply and wiring, stripping down and replacing tilings in baths and kitchen, restoring all wooden floors, cutting new windows into the 38cm thick outer brick walls, isolating the entire roof, constructing metal garden furniture…

But in opposite to that, many home supplies and machinery are designed not to be reparable anymore, the cheaper the less in my experience. While you still get spare parts for a 20 years old Miele washing machine you won’t get any for a cheap Candy or whatsoever after the date of purchase. Your two years old dishwasher doesn’t do it anymore? Trash it and buy a new one, that’s free, deregulated market economy…

 

[The one from the North]

My father started as a plumber. Then my mother wanted to climb up the social ladder and pushed him into technical college (propably getting these terms wrong...), so he became a technician in heating, plumbing and aircon. As a kid I was amazed watching him design these systems for huge buildings using paper, Rotring-pen and calculating stick. When computers took over he didn't bother to learn that and retaired.
Funny to me is that I do believe I on some subconsious level learned a lot from him without even knowing it. I am terrified with electricity, have absolutely no idea how that works, barely can change a lightbulb or a fuse... But. I have no problem in fixing plumbing, installing washing machines etc. with absolut (and totally false) confidence!

 

[LostInTyme]

I used do all these things because I can. Self-taught, with then help from fellow construction folks along the way and now the internet, I'll tackle most jobs. That said, my wife won't let me on the roof anymore. A fall last year from a ladder and poor balance keep me from doing a lot of what I used to do. I'll hit 77 this year, and I have resolved myself to smaller, safer enterprises. I have also learned (finally) to ask for help, and let professionals carry the load.

 

[belfastboy]

I used do all these things because I can. Self-taught, with then help from fellow construction folks along the way and now the internet, I'll tackle most jobs. That said, my wife won't let me on the roof anymore. A fall last year from a ladder and poor balance keep me from doing a lot of what I used to do. I'll hit 77 this year, and I have resolved myself to smaller, safer enterprises. I have also learned (finally) to ask for help, and let professionals carry the load.

I chide young folk who complain about the difficulty of learning some things. My reply is I had to learn things before computers and YouTube. My source for learning carpentry, auto mechanics, plumbing etc etc was books........IF I was fortunate it had pictures!