You know you are getting old when:

[Trenchfriend]

In your youngster days, were cigarette etuis still used to smuggle any things? I read, that this was a real thing in the older days.

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^^
I had to look up “etui.” We never heard that kinda fancy talkin’ around the trailer park.

Now that I know what it is, the answer is no, I never knew of anyone smuggling small items in such things. And if I were a person charged with locating and seizing such contraband, little cases like that would be among the first items I’d examine.

 

[Tiki Tom]

Don Johnson getting 75, this year?? WTH...

No, no, no. That cannot be. He was the very DEFINITION of cool. His level of cool was so high that it would give other people nosebleeds. I thought that one of the attributes of coolness is that it does not age.

^^^^^^
I had to look up “etui.” We never heard that kinda fancy talkin’ around the trailer park.

In these parts, I have to very consciously avoid using “college words”, lest I give myself away. The problem is, even knowing this I still set the bar too high. My wife whacks me when I use the term “Honolulu Hillbillies“, even in jest.

 

[tonyb]

In these parts, I have to very consciously avoid using “college words”, lest I give myself away. The problem is, even knowing this I still set the bar too high. My wife whacks me when I use the term “Honolulu Hillbillies“, even in jest.

It’s one of the obscure words I probably forgot about since I stopped doing the NYT crossword puzzle, when the morning Seattle Post-Intelligencer, which ran it, ceased the print edition 15 years ago. Doing ’em online just ain’t the same.

As I’ve mentioned before, solving the NYT crossword was popular among lotsa people back then, people of pretty much every economic class and education level. I knew more than few relatively uneducated (formally, anyway) guys who did ’em in a snap, even the tougher ones, which ran later in the week.

 

[Trenchfriend]

^^^^^^
I had to look up “etui.” We never heard that kinda fancy talkin’ around the trailer park.

Now that I know what it is, the answer is no, I never knew of anyone smuggling small items in such things. And if I were a person charged with locating and seizing such contraband, little cases like that would be among the first items I’d examine.

Sorry, "cigarette case/box".

 

[Trenchfriend]

My favorite childhood self-recorded Scotch cassette runs fine, after 37 years.

Purchase stamp Intershop Weimar 4.8.87.

But you needed foreign hard currency to get "DDR-Forum Schecks" at credit institute to buy West-stuff in an Intershop.

West stuff, which was partly "Made in GDR", so DDR must not reimport these goods. That's the story of the Intershops in GDR.

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^^^
You’re quite young by the standards of this joint, where 1987 was last week.

But it’s good to be reminded that it was indeed 37 years ago, if my feeble old brain is doing the arithmetic right.

 

[Trenchfriend]

Do you like heel balm/heel ointment?
I tried that today, for the first time. 25% Urea. In the summertime, I like my feet a little bit softer, too. In the wintertime, I usually use regular 5% Urea cream.

 

[GHT]

^^^^^^^
You’re quite young by the standards of this joint, where 1987 was last week.

But it’s good to be reminded that it was indeed 37 years ago, if my feeble old brain is doing the arithmetic right.

You know you are old when the oxygen masks drop from the ceiling when your birthday candles are lit.
Another factor of old fart syndrome is when you have a hard time locating the keys in your pocket and finding your cell phone when it rings, but you can find the snooze button from four feet away with your eyes closed.

 

[Trenchfriend]

A curious moment of misrememberance, here.

I thought, I had started a thread for all loungers, who like tea and maybe want to commute about favorite teas. But seemingly, I had not.

 

[Trenchfriend]

You're watching paperback novel-like 200% cliche svedish crime series on Arte...

 

[Turnip]

My favorite childhood self-recorded Scotch cassette runs fine, after 37 years.

Purchase stamp Intershop Weimar 4.8.87.

But you needed foreign hard currency to get "DDR-Forum Schecks" at credit institute to buy West-stuff in an Intershop.

West stuff, which was partly "Made in GDR", so DDR must not reimport these goods. That's the story of the Intershops in GDR.

Intershops were mainly installed to siphon off the foreign currency that GDR citizens received from their relatives in the West or other West contacts because the GDR economy has been chronically clammy with hard foreign currency.
Intershops were one way of procurement, others were dealing with armaments, basic consumer goods, even political prisoners which have been bought out, mainly by BRD, on a frequent and regular base.
Of course, West-Germany had to pay a fee for each of those 250.000 DDR citizens who left their country legally as well.
West World citizens also had to pay an entrance fee when legally setting a foot on GDR ground, 25,- DM per head and day for adults and 15,- DM per head and day for children.
And so on and so on…
West Germany bought 33.755 DDR prisoners free between 1964 and 1989
for a total of 3.436.900.755,12 DM.

These intershops could also be found in several other Eastern Bloc countries, especially those with many west-contacts, by tourism for example, such as Bulgaria, Hungary, Yugoslavia…as clamminess of hard currencies has not been a particular GDR issue but was virulent for the entire Eastern Bloc economy.

 

[Trenchfriend]

Did you experience paravents/dressing screens in your youngster days?

In "old worlds" like GDR, you could still find them, here and there.

 

[Zombie_61]

Did you experience paravents/dressing screens in your youngster days?

In "old worlds" like GDR, you could still find them, here and there.

Only in a doctor's exam room or hospital. In a home, if people want privacy they just close the door(s) to whichever room they're in.

 

[Trenchfriend]

Me today, next bigger city, waiting at the Busbahnhof:

"Na na, old boy, better not complimenting this young girl's crunchy butt. You're nearly 40 and that girl could be your 16/17 year-old daughter."

 

[belfastboy]

No, no, no. That cannot be. He was the very DEFINITION of cool. His level of cool was so high that it would give other people nosebleeds. I thought that one of the attributes of coolness is that it does not age.



In these parts, I have to very consciously avoid using “college words”, lest I give myself away. The problem is, even knowing this I still set the bar too high. My wife whacks me when I use the term “Honolulu Hillbillies“, even in jest.

I never thought of Don Johnson as being 'cool'. He certainly was fashionable in his Miami Vice tv days....but we know that being fashionable has a short shelf life......he is the acting equivalent of bell bottoms.

 

[Trenchfriend]

Stansfield in "Leon - The Professional" and his seemingly Don Johnson reminiscence.

 

[tonyb]

… it occurs to you that those hot “young” women who catch your eye while going about your daily business are in their 50s and 60s.

 

[Trenchfriend]

Would anyone hang up a party placard with "Free Cocktails For Ladies", these days?

 

[GHT]

… it occurs to you that those hot “young” women who catch your eye while going about your daily business are in their 50s and 60s.

Christie Brinkley was born on February 2nd 1954. That makes her seventy. She looks better than many a 20 year old.