Vintage Things That Have Disappeared In Your Lifetime?

[belfastboy]

Technology was updated. That was the beginning of the end. Old elevers had a control lever to move the car up & down. There was an actual skill to stopping the elevator car so that it was flush to the floor you were landing on. And someone actually had to open and close the door. Some dummy might leave an elevator door open, then drive the car to another floor.



Up until a few years ago, my local gas station still employed pump attendants. The owner, who is a friend of mine, said that they actually made him money. They checked the oil and showed the customer a dipstick which was low - then sold the customer a quart of oil. Every dipstick is low when you first turn the car off because the oil hasn't settled back to the bottom of the oil pan yet. They showed the customer black oil on the dipstick, and sold oil changes. Every car's engine oil is dirty after the first couple of hundred miles. They showed the customer a dirty air filter, and sold new filters - every air filter is dirty unless it's new. They told the customer that their tires were worn down to whatever depth, and sold new tires. They would tell the customer that the brake fluid or coolant looks like it needs to be flushed. And during the rainy season, they sold and installed plenty of wiper blades. He gave those kids a commission on the sales. And those kids actually made decent money.

In our town the city bylaw will not allow for self serve gas....you have to have an attendant. I would not let them get within 3 feet of the hood of my car let along underneath the hood.

When we toured in our large motorhome in the US I pulled into a big truck stop off the interstate. The kind that sells about everything. I could not find the air hose to fill a low tire when I asked a manager where to locate the air hose he replied they no longer had one. When I gave him a snarky comment....he replied...."You're lucky you got gas!"

 

[Fifty150]

air hose to fill a low tire

You don't have your own air compressor? Look into having it installed. "On Board Air" could be a lifesaver. Just a compressor and a small air tank. Not just for topping off your own tires. You could also use it for air tools, air bag suspension, air jacks, and those inflatable airbags for lifting large vehicles.

the city bylaw will not allow for self serve gas....

The entire State of Oregon was like that until recently.

 

[Trenchfriend]

I can go up the road right now and get one, if I wasn't working and I wish I could. My favorite ice-cream stand drink, but it has to be made with hard ice cream, not soft serve.

I will give it a try, selfmade, but I must try to recreate it with peppermint liquor, I think.

 

[belfastboy]

You don't have your own air compressor? Look into having it installed. "On Board Air" could be a lifesaver. Just a compressor and a small air tank. Not just for topping off your own tires. You could also use it for air tools, air bag suspension, air jacks, and those inflatable airbags for lifting large vehicles.

The entire State of Oregon was like that until recently.

I carried an air compressor but it had a small tank and took a long time. I was looking for something quick. My compressor was more for emergencies and for my mountain bike's tires.

 

[tonyb]

It’s getting on toward the end of October and as I rake up leaves I am again reminded that the pleasant aroma of burning leaves is very much a thing of the past in my world.

It’s to the better that burning leaves (and burning in general) is banned by local ordinance. If not for it, any number of knuckleheads around here would set far more than a pile of leaves ablaze. And it’s good to see that there is some effort being made to convince locals to bag up those leaves and leave them for the outfit that composts them. I’ve made a leaf composter myself, from chicken wire, which I recently learned is now called “poultry fencing.”

 

[Turnip]

Bonn as the capital of West-Germany…and West-Germany…

 

[Zombie_61]

...I’ve made a leaf composter myself, from chicken wire, which I recently learned is now called “poultry fencing.”

Okay, seriously. "Poultry fencing"? What, were they afraid the chickens were going to protest?

 

[LostInTyme]

No, it was because the turkeys were not included, or perhaps the chickens cried FOWL!

 

[Trenchfriend]

GURLS with just some Rouge on their cheeks, nothing else.

 

[Rmccamey]

A ruler to count (measure) the number of punch cards in a stack. I'm certain this is an estimated value rather than an absolute number.

 

[EngProf]

A ruler to count (measure) the number of punch cards in a stack. I'm certain this is an estimated value rather than an absolute number.

View attachment 558569 View attachment 558570

I must have punched thousands of those cards back in my Fortran programming days, but I never saw one of those. An interesting item...

 

[KILO NOVEMBER]

In my hometown (established in the mid-to-late 19th century) I passed older houses on my walk to school which had hinged cast-iron doors at ground level (meaning just above the dirt). These were backed by coal chutes. I was too young to see the coal deliveries, but before my time a coal wagon would stop outside the house and the driver would open that door and dump buckets of our local bituminous coal down the chutes. The residents would then refuel the furnace as needed.

 

[LostInTyme]

I remember helping my father refuel the coal furnace in our home. The "coal bin" was a room in the basement that had a door and walls to hold the coal. Later, we had a home with a natural gas furnace, and the coal bin was converted to a "fruit cellar" to hold various items, mostly tools and a few vegetables like potatoes and onions.

 

[tonyb]

During my high school years the family across the street had a wood- and coal-burning furnace.

In later years (but none recently) my since-deceased brother heated his 1908-built house primarily with a wood- and coal-burning Godin stove. But the soft, fast-burning coal out that way left a plainly visible fallout when snow was on the ground. It amounted to an advertisement for ecological insensitivity.

I once heated with a woodstove myself. I have no desire to do so again. Our current house has a fireplace with practically new metalbestos pipe all the way up. A fireplace insert is certainly a feasibility. But burning wood is dirty and can get quite spendy, as it would in my case, seeing how I’m no longer up to cutting and splitting firewood. And the air quality here is bad enough already.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Some guys I knew were once hired to empty a cellar where the owners had burned coal and had never taken out the ashes -- they just heaped them up in the cellar. There were tunnels dug to access various points. It took them almost a week to empty out this cellar, and the repeated heavy loads ended up breaking the springs on their truck.

 

[LostInTyme]

Gives new meaning to hauling the ashes.

 

[tonyb]

Some guys I knew were once hired to empty a cellar where the owners had burned coal and had never taken out the ashes -- they just heaped them up in the cellar. There were tunnels dug to access various points. It took them almost a week to empty out this cellar, and the repeated heavy loads ended up breaking the springs on their truck.

That sounds downright hazardous to the health of more than the truck’s springs.

 

[Turnip]

The Kaiser has left the building!

Rest In Peace, Franz Beckenbauer!

 

[The one from the North]

The Kaiser has left the building!

Rest In Peace, Franz Beckenbauer!

So sad.

 

[LostInTyme]

USED CAR LOTS. Growing up and into my early adult years, there were independent used car dealers almost everywhere. I lived in Cleveland, Ohio back in the day (forties through eighties) and used cars were available everywhere. Good and newer cars were generally in the front rows, and clunkers, rust buckets, and fixer-uppers were in the back. Something for everyone. Now, it's almost impossible to find any independents. Carvana with their fancy elevators and some other national chains like Edmunds and new car dealerships are the mainstays of where to purchase a used car. I liked the independents because they were easy to haggle with on price.