For the over 50s, What used to be but is no more?
January 26, 2025 9:20 AM Subscribe
If you're over 50, what is something that used to be, but isn't anymore? Looking specifically for things/experiences that were a part of life and felt woven into the fabric of existence, but have since gone the way of the dinosaur. Not looking for the most obvious, like telecommunications, etc.
Paper airplane tickets and meeting people at the gate.
Smoking sections.
Adjusting antennae for TV, radio.
Pay phones: feeding them coins, making collect calls, when you’d go by one and it would be ringing and you didn’t know if you should answer it. Using telephone services like 411, the operator, calling for the time or weather.
posted by vunder at 9:30 AM on January 26 [36 favorites]
Smoking sections.
Adjusting antennae for TV, radio.
Pay phones: feeding them coins, making collect calls, when you’d go by one and it would be ringing and you didn’t know if you should answer it. Using telephone services like 411, the operator, calling for the time or weather.
posted by vunder at 9:30 AM on January 26 [36 favorites]
Lots of paper/physical office products and workflows (by and large,) like telephone message pads, carbon paper, and its successor, carbonless forms, typewriters, whiteout .... Various physical filing systems like paper tickler files ....
posted by gudrun at 9:38 AM on January 26 [17 favorites]
posted by gudrun at 9:38 AM on January 26 [17 favorites]
Diabolical dangerous entertainment for kids: riding in the back of pickup trucks, sleds with knife-sharp runners, squeaky metal carousel on asphalt covered playgrounds, 14-foot searing metal slides, same. Lawn darts. Cap guns. Playing in abandoned building sites, new construction sites, on railroad beds, digging in gravel quarries--swimming in any flooded quarry, and being free range dawn-to-dusk.
posted by BlueHorse at 9:41 AM on January 26 [40 favorites]
posted by BlueHorse at 9:41 AM on January 26 [40 favorites]
Pulling off to the side of the road when a funeral procession passed. My Dad would get out and remove his hat...late ,50s
Collecting and glueing green stamps into a little booklet
Christmas clubs at banks, to save money.
Shoeshine boys(men,ladies) near downtown bus stations.
Pledge of allegiance in morning homeroom class.
Putting on studded snow tires in late autumn...or worse, chains.
Bakeries would always tie up your purchases of donuts or pastries in a white box. Then wrap the box with string coming from an enclosed spool near the ceiling.
posted by Czjewel at 9:42 AM on January 26 [24 favorites]
Collecting and glueing green stamps into a little booklet
Christmas clubs at banks, to save money.
Shoeshine boys(men,ladies) near downtown bus stations.
Pledge of allegiance in morning homeroom class.
Putting on studded snow tires in late autumn...or worse, chains.
Bakeries would always tie up your purchases of donuts or pastries in a white box. Then wrap the box with string coming from an enclosed spool near the ceiling.
posted by Czjewel at 9:42 AM on January 26 [24 favorites]
(not over 50 but hope it's okay to answer)
People consuming the same handful of media options at around the same time, then having conversations about them ("did you see what happened on MASH?" "Have you read that NYT bestseller yet?" "Did you see the front page today!?")
Boredom and idle time. Being bored while you are waiting in line at the grocery store or in the doctors office waiting room without magazines and letting your mind wander. Also being unavailable/offline to your network when you left the house for periods of time.
posted by carlypennylane at 9:45 AM on January 26 [15 favorites]
People consuming the same handful of media options at around the same time, then having conversations about them ("did you see what happened on MASH?" "Have you read that NYT bestseller yet?" "Did you see the front page today!?")
Boredom and idle time. Being bored while you are waiting in line at the grocery store or in the doctors office waiting room without magazines and letting your mind wander. Also being unavailable/offline to your network when you left the house for periods of time.
posted by carlypennylane at 9:45 AM on January 26 [15 favorites]
Oh, another one: there were more unique stores and boutiques to explore. Like "stained glass supply store" or "bird enthusiasts store." Nowadays small businesses like that can't afford rent and it's all found online.
posted by carlypennylane at 9:47 AM on January 26 [17 favorites]
posted by carlypennylane at 9:47 AM on January 26 [17 favorites]
Smoking, not just in sections. Day drinking, at work (this disappeared when I was quite young, but I remember it being a thing, even at building sites where there was considerable danger attached). One of my teachers at university would give tutorials while smoking and drinking wine. One of my first hard work challenges was to stop the drinking at a construction site where everyone was twice my age.
Blatant sexism and racism, like using the n-word or having horrible nicknames for female colleagues. Gays did not exist in public discourse, but there were secret slurs.
My stepmother would make all the clothes for herself and my half-siblings. Not me, my granny knitted for me and not the others. But we all wore homemade clothes, and so did most people I knew. Repairing clothes was normal, too.
Traveling for weeks or even months as a teen with no substantial communication with parents.
Only going out for fast food for treats. Though of course food at home was frozen and tinned and all that. I loved Angel Delight. And fish fingers. There's more, when I remember it.
posted by mumimor at 9:53 AM on January 26 [6 favorites]
Blatant sexism and racism, like using the n-word or having horrible nicknames for female colleagues. Gays did not exist in public discourse, but there were secret slurs.
My stepmother would make all the clothes for herself and my half-siblings. Not me, my granny knitted for me and not the others. But we all wore homemade clothes, and so did most people I knew. Repairing clothes was normal, too.
Traveling for weeks or even months as a teen with no substantial communication with parents.
Only going out for fast food for treats. Though of course food at home was frozen and tinned and all that. I loved Angel Delight. And fish fingers. There's more, when I remember it.
posted by mumimor at 9:53 AM on January 26 [6 favorites]
Pledge of allegiance in morning homeroom class.
I was astonished that my son's elementary school still did this, circa 2013.
posted by Well I never at 9:54 AM on January 26 [6 favorites]
I was astonished that my son's elementary school still did this, circa 2013.
posted by Well I never at 9:54 AM on January 26 [6 favorites]
I am, alas, just old enough for this question this year - not quite used to that.
We had a life skills class in school where we learned, among other things, to write a paper check. Check related things: people frequently paying by check for groceries, etc; writing yourself a check at the bank to get cash with no fee; needing to keep track of how many checks you had left so you didn't run out; paper deposit slips when depositing things at the bank. Ordering from catalogues by mailing them a check and then waiting waiting waiting until it cleared and they shipped - by the time I was a teen, anything I ordered I mostly used my parents' card on the phone and paid them back, but sometimes ordered by check.
Everyone took shop and home ec in junior high, and everyone took home ec in high school - you learned to use basic tools and cooking implements, the classrooms had multiple workbenches or stoves and refrigerators, etc.
In my HS (and I doubt it was a unique innovation) you could graduate high school with a program whose name I forget, not "work study" - it was for working class kids who needed real jobs, and in junior and senior years they could only have half-days and get credit for, eg, working at the mall the rest of the time - just another way that we dealt with fucked up American inequality, now soon to return, no doubt.
Panics over pop culture that seems amazingly innocuous now. Bart Simpson tee shirts were banned in a lot of schools because he was too disrespectful. My junior high literally sent a letter home to parents about what to do if their kids were listing to "I Want Your Sex" by George Michael. Rap, punk and metal really literally scared parents. A friend's parent's took away her Robert Smith poster Disintegration-era, no less) because it was...satanic? Too negative? I'd say those were relatively conservative and not universal reactions to pop culture, but I grew up in a fairly normal conservative suburb - these weren't fundies. This was seen as well within the normal range of responses to popular music.
Oh, recycling glass soda bottles at the store - you'd get a little plastic token when you bought them and redeem it when you returned them. The whole idea that soda was a special treat that you drank in small quantities, even diet soda - there just weren't huge bottles of soda of any kind. It was cans or modestly bigger glass bottles. The bigger plastic bottles really changed soda consumption.
Ice cream shops were different - there were more of them, they were chains and the amount of ice cream you got was much less (and cheaper). Flavors could be fancy but in general were not artsy-wholesome fancy - like you might get cotton candy flavor but you wouldn't get pomegranate. A regular cone was about a half of the "single serving" in you get now in local ice cream shops.
In general, treats were a lot smaller.
Food in supermarkets was much, much less diverse. If you lived in California or in a transit hub or in/near a neighborhood with a lot of people from another country, you would be able to get specialty things, but otherwise not. In my regular pretty ordinary grocery store, I can buy cilantro, okay brie, a limited selection of imported Japanese, English and Indian foods, plus a large amount of imported Mexican food - back in the day, it was American vaguely-Mexican brands or lump it. There were red delicious, golden delicious and granny smith apples unless you lived in an apple-growing region.
Produce and meat tasted better, however - chicken was a lot more expensive but better, you got real local sweet corn pretty easily in the summer, etc.
Chicken in everything is a new development - chicken sausages and turkey sausages became mainstream in the nineties.
posted by Frowner at 9:55 AM on January 26 [27 favorites]
We had a life skills class in school where we learned, among other things, to write a paper check. Check related things: people frequently paying by check for groceries, etc; writing yourself a check at the bank to get cash with no fee; needing to keep track of how many checks you had left so you didn't run out; paper deposit slips when depositing things at the bank. Ordering from catalogues by mailing them a check and then waiting waiting waiting until it cleared and they shipped - by the time I was a teen, anything I ordered I mostly used my parents' card on the phone and paid them back, but sometimes ordered by check.
Everyone took shop and home ec in junior high, and everyone took home ec in high school - you learned to use basic tools and cooking implements, the classrooms had multiple workbenches or stoves and refrigerators, etc.
In my HS (and I doubt it was a unique innovation) you could graduate high school with a program whose name I forget, not "work study" - it was for working class kids who needed real jobs, and in junior and senior years they could only have half-days and get credit for, eg, working at the mall the rest of the time - just another way that we dealt with fucked up American inequality, now soon to return, no doubt.
Panics over pop culture that seems amazingly innocuous now. Bart Simpson tee shirts were banned in a lot of schools because he was too disrespectful. My junior high literally sent a letter home to parents about what to do if their kids were listing to "I Want Your Sex" by George Michael. Rap, punk and metal really literally scared parents. A friend's parent's took away her Robert Smith poster Disintegration-era, no less) because it was...satanic? Too negative? I'd say those were relatively conservative and not universal reactions to pop culture, but I grew up in a fairly normal conservative suburb - these weren't fundies. This was seen as well within the normal range of responses to popular music.
Oh, recycling glass soda bottles at the store - you'd get a little plastic token when you bought them and redeem it when you returned them. The whole idea that soda was a special treat that you drank in small quantities, even diet soda - there just weren't huge bottles of soda of any kind. It was cans or modestly bigger glass bottles. The bigger plastic bottles really changed soda consumption.
Ice cream shops were different - there were more of them, they were chains and the amount of ice cream you got was much less (and cheaper). Flavors could be fancy but in general were not artsy-wholesome fancy - like you might get cotton candy flavor but you wouldn't get pomegranate. A regular cone was about a half of the "single serving" in you get now in local ice cream shops.
In general, treats were a lot smaller.
Food in supermarkets was much, much less diverse. If you lived in California or in a transit hub or in/near a neighborhood with a lot of people from another country, you would be able to get specialty things, but otherwise not. In my regular pretty ordinary grocery store, I can buy cilantro, okay brie, a limited selection of imported Japanese, English and Indian foods, plus a large amount of imported Mexican food - back in the day, it was American vaguely-Mexican brands or lump it. There were red delicious, golden delicious and granny smith apples unless you lived in an apple-growing region.
Produce and meat tasted better, however - chicken was a lot more expensive but better, you got real local sweet corn pretty easily in the summer, etc.
Chicken in everything is a new development - chicken sausages and turkey sausages became mainstream in the nineties.
posted by Frowner at 9:55 AM on January 26 [27 favorites]
Answering the phone when it rings even if you don't know who it is.
Just going to someone's house and knocking on the door expecting them to stop whatever they were doing and invite you in to hang out and this being absolutely normal behavior on both sides.
Having the pattern of parts of your days - evenings mostly, but Saturday morning and after school - driven by the television schedule.
Living alone on one retail income.
The only food you could have delivered was pizza, unless you lived in like NYC or something.
Parents wanting to know where you were going and you'd just make something up and hope one of their friends didn't see you somewhere you're not supposed to be.
Just going to the store to see what they've got.
And the one that I've been thinking about a LOT lately: the mall as the supreme Third Place. I truly feel like anti-mall sentiment was a form of political propaganda just meant to keep people from easily congregating or maintaining any kind of community microbiome. It was the last place where we actually got out of our cars for a while, and the last place you could go and not spend money but plenty of money still got spent so it was fine.
posted by Lyn Never at 9:56 AM on January 26 [39 favorites]
Just going to someone's house and knocking on the door expecting them to stop whatever they were doing and invite you in to hang out and this being absolutely normal behavior on both sides.
Having the pattern of parts of your days - evenings mostly, but Saturday morning and after school - driven by the television schedule.
Living alone on one retail income.
The only food you could have delivered was pizza, unless you lived in like NYC or something.
Parents wanting to know where you were going and you'd just make something up and hope one of their friends didn't see you somewhere you're not supposed to be.
Just going to the store to see what they've got.
And the one that I've been thinking about a LOT lately: the mall as the supreme Third Place. I truly feel like anti-mall sentiment was a form of political propaganda just meant to keep people from easily congregating or maintaining any kind of community microbiome. It was the last place where we actually got out of our cars for a while, and the last place you could go and not spend money but plenty of money still got spent so it was fine.
posted by Lyn Never at 9:56 AM on January 26 [39 favorites]
Woolworths.
posted by Dolley at 9:58 AM on January 26 [8 favorites]
posted by Dolley at 9:58 AM on January 26 [8 favorites]
I’m 66, for those scoring at home.
Slide rules.
Pop machines with ice-cold glass bottles.
Steam locomotives pulling freight trains.
Elevator operators.
Being able to bring your pocket knife to school.
Tons of excellent bakeries.
Little grocery stores that weren’t part of a gas station chain.
Letting children run free—I could go anywhere I wanted if I stayed off the highways and train tracks from age 5.
Seat belts? What’s a seat belt?
Riding in the back of a pickup truck sitting in a lawn chair (note: probably a country thing).
Terrific old Carnegie libraries even in small-ish towns.
Dial tone.
This one is relying on my probably-corrupted memory: largely an absence of chain restaurants.
And one I heard of from my parents’ generation: streetcars.
posted by Gilgamesh's Chauffeur at 10:00 AM on January 26 [15 favorites]
Slide rules.
Pop machines with ice-cold glass bottles.
Steam locomotives pulling freight trains.
Elevator operators.
Being able to bring your pocket knife to school.
Tons of excellent bakeries.
Little grocery stores that weren’t part of a gas station chain.
Letting children run free—I could go anywhere I wanted if I stayed off the highways and train tracks from age 5.
Seat belts? What’s a seat belt?
Riding in the back of a pickup truck sitting in a lawn chair (note: probably a country thing).
Terrific old Carnegie libraries even in small-ish towns.
Dial tone.
This one is relying on my probably-corrupted memory: largely an absence of chain restaurants.
And one I heard of from my parents’ generation: streetcars.
posted by Gilgamesh's Chauffeur at 10:00 AM on January 26 [15 favorites]
For teens: sitting on the car hood in drive-ins, necking on backroads or Lover's Leap, watching Dick Clark American Bandstand and Dark Shadows, changing the 33 rpm to 45 rpm and trying to find the little plastic insert for the records. Pez dispensers. Blackjack gum. Burning your fingers on flash bulbs, putting dimes in your penny loafers, and using the 12-foot-long phone cord to get as far away from your parents as possible, then twisting the cord till it coils and you're in deep trouble now!
posted by BlueHorse at 10:01 AM on January 26 [10 favorites]
posted by BlueHorse at 10:01 AM on January 26 [10 favorites]
Chalkboards in classrooms
Non-plastic food wrappers
Unsupervised time/privacy for children
School libraries focused primarily on books (it’s mostly computer terminals these days in my district, at least in the upper grades)
Clothing/furniture that lasted for years
Easy access panels for changing bulbs in car lights
Sharing a phone line with multiple roommates
People giving away free kittens or puppies outside of grocery stores
Kids being left in the car to wait while a parent went inside a store
Stores in different towns having different selections of items from what you’d find at home
Expensive long-distance charges altering relationships between people who lived far away from each other
posted by corey flood at 10:06 AM on January 26 [13 favorites]
Non-plastic food wrappers
Unsupervised time/privacy for children
School libraries focused primarily on books (it’s mostly computer terminals these days in my district, at least in the upper grades)
Clothing/furniture that lasted for years
Easy access panels for changing bulbs in car lights
Sharing a phone line with multiple roommates
People giving away free kittens or puppies outside of grocery stores
Kids being left in the car to wait while a parent went inside a store
Stores in different towns having different selections of items from what you’d find at home
Expensive long-distance charges altering relationships between people who lived far away from each other
posted by corey flood at 10:06 AM on January 26 [13 favorites]
Butter Brickle ice cream.
And all of those things above that others have posted. Our world has certainly changed.
But all I can think of, is that my children have all flown the coop. Or perhaps, not having a job.
K-Mart.
Vinyl LPs. Recording songs to cassette tapes from the radio or your records.
posted by Windopaene at 10:06 AM on January 26 [8 favorites]
And all of those things above that others have posted. Our world has certainly changed.
But all I can think of, is that my children have all flown the coop. Or perhaps, not having a job.
K-Mart.
Vinyl LPs. Recording songs to cassette tapes from the radio or your records.
posted by Windopaene at 10:06 AM on January 26 [8 favorites]
There was a hotel bar in Vancouver that I used to go to in the 90’s that had phones in the cozy booths. You could call up that special someone a few booths over for some chat, or a little more. Even back then this was a holdover from the 70’s/early 80’s.
There was another bar up the street that had NTN trivia, a worldwide trivia network that was displayed on tv’s and you had an entry device. It might still exist but I haven’t seen it in a long time
Velvet curtains. There was a fantastic restaurant called Delilah’s that had velvet curtains and very plush seating. Gosh do I miss that place! It was just as much the environment as the food that made the place special. But not really, the food was amazing.
Mothers of small children didn’t have massive amounts of gear: some diapers, a milk bottle and a diaper pin in a purse was sufficient.
posted by ashbury at 10:12 AM on January 26 [3 favorites]
There was another bar up the street that had NTN trivia, a worldwide trivia network that was displayed on tv’s and you had an entry device. It might still exist but I haven’t seen it in a long time
Velvet curtains. There was a fantastic restaurant called Delilah’s that had velvet curtains and very plush seating. Gosh do I miss that place! It was just as much the environment as the food that made the place special. But not really, the food was amazing.
Mothers of small children didn’t have massive amounts of gear: some diapers, a milk bottle and a diaper pin in a purse was sufficient.
posted by ashbury at 10:12 AM on January 26 [3 favorites]
Chemistry sets for kids with bottles of chemicals that you could mix together to cause all sorts of reactions, many of them smelly and probably dangerous.
posted by Winnie the Proust at 10:13 AM on January 26 [11 favorites]
posted by Winnie the Proust at 10:13 AM on January 26 [11 favorites]
There was way less snacking. Soda pop was in 8 oz bottles and was a treat, not a regular beverage.
Food was seasonal. No asparagus or strawberries out of season, except canned asparagus, then frozen.
Nobody carried water bottles.
Less stuff. I had school shoes and Sunday shoes.I didn't have a lot of clothes, not due to poverty, just less stuff. Fewer toys by far than kids have now.
You made food at home from ingredients. Store bought bread and soup in a can was convenience food. Frozen meals were not great and not used as much.
Family sizes were bigger. I'm one of 6 kids, not a big family at my Catholic schools.
We got a ride to school, but walk a mile and a half home most days.
Radio stations were local and more individual.
TV - 3 networks plus educational/ public tv. I'm old, color tv was a big deal, cable was a huge deal.
No video games, of course. People visited neighbors, played cards and board games. It was fun. At my house, we read books.
posted by theora55 at 10:14 AM on January 26 [16 favorites]
Food was seasonal. No asparagus or strawberries out of season, except canned asparagus, then frozen.
Nobody carried water bottles.
Less stuff. I had school shoes and Sunday shoes.I didn't have a lot of clothes, not due to poverty, just less stuff. Fewer toys by far than kids have now.
You made food at home from ingredients. Store bought bread and soup in a can was convenience food. Frozen meals were not great and not used as much.
Family sizes were bigger. I'm one of 6 kids, not a big family at my Catholic schools.
We got a ride to school, but walk a mile and a half home most days.
Radio stations were local and more individual.
TV - 3 networks plus educational/ public tv. I'm old, color tv was a big deal, cable was a huge deal.
No video games, of course. People visited neighbors, played cards and board games. It was fun. At my house, we read books.
posted by theora55 at 10:14 AM on January 26 [16 favorites]
My parents, aunts and uncles. I am now that older generation and I don't feel worthy of it or up to the task.
posted by gerygone at 10:16 AM on January 26 [6 favorites]
posted by gerygone at 10:16 AM on January 26 [6 favorites]
Buying unshelled peanuts in a string bag - UK 1970's.
Wearing a watch, or seeing anyone wear a watch. I went away from watches before smartphones, and still frequently guess the time accurately enough.
Travelling alone longterm with no link to home (but I'm an only intj so that always simplified my life even before), little knowledge of the way ahead.... I like to think if I travelled now like in the 90s I'd do the same but it may be difficult to not have a phone, or its absence provoke suspicion.
BlueHorse that was my childhood exactly. We would wander to maybe 5miles from home, a bunch of kids (girls and boys) of all ages. At night too but more furtively.
posted by unearthed at 10:19 AM on January 26
Wearing a watch, or seeing anyone wear a watch. I went away from watches before smartphones, and still frequently guess the time accurately enough.
Travelling alone longterm with no link to home (but I'm an only intj so that always simplified my life even before), little knowledge of the way ahead.... I like to think if I travelled now like in the 90s I'd do the same but it may be difficult to not have a phone, or its absence provoke suspicion.
BlueHorse that was my childhood exactly. We would wander to maybe 5miles from home, a bunch of kids (girls and boys) of all ages. At night too but more furtively.
posted by unearthed at 10:19 AM on January 26
Fake candy cigarettes. Hot Tamales, Red Bean Peanuts, Charleston Chews, Bazooka Gum, Necco Wafers, Slo Pokes, Pixy Stixs, Plastic Lips, Razzles, Big Hunks, Bit-O-Honey, Atomic Fireballs, Tootsie Rolls, Dad’s Root beer Barrels, Black Cows, and Sugar Babies.
Sewing with Simplicity patterns. Women's hats and gloves to go out. Hair curlers and house dresses. Twin sets with pearls. Girdles. Crazy first communion dresses. Shellacked hair and hair nets.
Asbestos and lead in paint and gas. Radium watches. Ozone generators. Mercury thermometers.
posted by BlueHorse at 10:20 AM on January 26 [7 favorites]
Sewing with Simplicity patterns. Women's hats and gloves to go out. Hair curlers and house dresses. Twin sets with pearls. Girdles. Crazy first communion dresses. Shellacked hair and hair nets.
Asbestos and lead in paint and gas. Radium watches. Ozone generators. Mercury thermometers.
posted by BlueHorse at 10:20 AM on January 26 [7 favorites]
Radio still exists obviously but it used to be the only place to listen to music. Many teens and twenty somethings don’t listen to the radio at all.
Comic strips. The only place to read them was in a newspaper or book anthology.
posted by ashbury at 10:23 AM on January 26 [4 favorites]
Comic strips. The only place to read them was in a newspaper or book anthology.
posted by ashbury at 10:23 AM on January 26 [4 favorites]
Unearthed, remember hide and seek until one AM?
You could hear olly olly ox-in-free echo most summer nights.
And catching fireflies!
posted by BlueHorse at 10:24 AM on January 26 [5 favorites]
You could hear olly olly ox-in-free echo most summer nights.
And catching fireflies!
posted by BlueHorse at 10:24 AM on January 26 [5 favorites]
My gang of friends would often camp out in small tent, usually in someone's backyard, but occasionally in a nearby woods. Make a campfire from wood stolen from building site, and roast potatoes until they were basically charcoal on the outside. Delicious.
Build rafts and float down a creek
Treehouses of course, no girls allowed.
Our part of the country had fireman's picnics every summer. Huge beer tent...lots of grilled foods...games of chance...rides for the kids.
Gin mills...taverns... literally on every other corner. Might be due to large German and Polish population.
Clam stands in summer, also on every other block...
Local soda pop makers...a wooden crate of mixed flavors for like 2 bucks.
Taking your shoes to shoe repair place to be resoled and brought up to snuff.
Watchmaker stands...Often small but like structures. If your watch broke, they could usually fix it.
posted by Czjewel at 10:33 AM on January 26 [5 favorites]
Build rafts and float down a creek
Treehouses of course, no girls allowed.
Our part of the country had fireman's picnics every summer. Huge beer tent...lots of grilled foods...games of chance...rides for the kids.
Gin mills...taverns... literally on every other corner. Might be due to large German and Polish population.
Clam stands in summer, also on every other block...
Local soda pop makers...a wooden crate of mixed flavors for like 2 bucks.
Taking your shoes to shoe repair place to be resoled and brought up to snuff.
Watchmaker stands...Often small but like structures. If your watch broke, they could usually fix it.
posted by Czjewel at 10:33 AM on January 26 [5 favorites]
There was a whole published listing-and-review apparatus for anything you might read or watch or listen to, because distribution was harder.
The TV Guide must have been the widest consulted - through the page of local listings in the newspapers.
Music journals that were mostly read for short reviews (zines, presses’ catalogues, magazines). Each scene its zine. Also the radio stations, for discovering music.
Pages of descriptions of the publisher’s other books added to everything they published. Differently depending on how the book was presented; elegant hard bound sewn books had a separate brochure alongside, lowest-status paperbacks had a bright postcard in the middle advertising freebie books if you subscribed to the monthly book package. Between that, the last ten pages might be a list of more or less related books, with more or less description , and a more or less formal order form to tear out and mail in. Not Dover Books, though; they were too well bound to tear out a page so you sent away for their catalogue or just wrote them a note.
Dover Books at its height was joy and power and discovery, it gets its own paragraph.
Magazines had ads for other magazines, and there was (is?) a review journal of magazines and of journals, aimed mostly at libraries but if your library took it they’d probably let you read it. Also newsstands had so many magazines! And papers! From all over! You’d be there picking up the one you didn’t subscribe to and see three others to try an issue of. (Now I want to know how newsstand operators found obscure periodicals.)
It was slow but, like archipelago biogeography, it supported enormous variety. I think maximum variety happened in the early days of the internet when publishing was cheaper but uniform exposure and winner-takes-all hadn’t happened. Maybe that’s just my age, I hope so. Maybe smaller languages get to stay in the sweet spot.
posted by clew at 10:35 AM on January 26 [11 favorites]
The TV Guide must have been the widest consulted - through the page of local listings in the newspapers.
Music journals that were mostly read for short reviews (zines, presses’ catalogues, magazines). Each scene its zine. Also the radio stations, for discovering music.
Pages of descriptions of the publisher’s other books added to everything they published. Differently depending on how the book was presented; elegant hard bound sewn books had a separate brochure alongside, lowest-status paperbacks had a bright postcard in the middle advertising freebie books if you subscribed to the monthly book package. Between that, the last ten pages might be a list of more or less related books, with more or less description , and a more or less formal order form to tear out and mail in. Not Dover Books, though; they were too well bound to tear out a page so you sent away for their catalogue or just wrote them a note.
Dover Books at its height was joy and power and discovery, it gets its own paragraph.
Magazines had ads for other magazines, and there was (is?) a review journal of magazines and of journals, aimed mostly at libraries but if your library took it they’d probably let you read it. Also newsstands had so many magazines! And papers! From all over! You’d be there picking up the one you didn’t subscribe to and see three others to try an issue of. (Now I want to know how newsstand operators found obscure periodicals.)
It was slow but, like archipelago biogeography, it supported enormous variety. I think maximum variety happened in the early days of the internet when publishing was cheaper but uniform exposure and winner-takes-all hadn’t happened. Maybe that’s just my age, I hope so. Maybe smaller languages get to stay in the sweet spot.
posted by clew at 10:35 AM on January 26 [11 favorites]
Kids played with Pick-up-sticks, Monkeys in a Barrel, marbles, pointy pointy jacks*, yoyos, and that stupid rubber ball on a paddle. Lucky kids had a 15-foot rope for jump rope and big chalk sticks for hopscotch.
*
You wussy parents with your Lego bricks. Wait till your dad walks on a couple metal jacks!
posted by BlueHorse at 10:35 AM on January 26 [3 favorites]
*
You wussy parents with your Lego bricks. Wait till your dad walks on a couple metal jacks!
posted by BlueHorse at 10:35 AM on January 26 [3 favorites]
Feeding table scraps to the dog as their main form of sustenance.
Obscene/prank phone calls.
Telephone operators.
Letting the kids and dog out the door on a summer morning and not expecting to see or hear from them again until at least lunch or even supper. (Probably more applicable to small towns even then.)
posted by rpfields at 10:35 AM on January 26 [8 favorites]
Obscene/prank phone calls.
Telephone operators.
Letting the kids and dog out the door on a summer morning and not expecting to see or hear from them again until at least lunch or even supper. (Probably more applicable to small towns even then.)
posted by rpfields at 10:35 AM on January 26 [8 favorites]
Clew, the best magazine was the National Geographic. Educational, scandalous, beautiful pictures. Dogs help you if you cut out pictures for your horse scrapbook. But I couldn't help doing it.
So many afternoons with National Geographic and Reader's Digest Condensed Books.
posted by BlueHorse at 10:38 AM on January 26 [4 favorites]
So many afternoons with National Geographic and Reader's Digest Condensed Books.
posted by BlueHorse at 10:38 AM on January 26 [4 favorites]
Printed magazines were central to the media landscape. People had subscriptions. Time and Newsweek brought the news. Life Magazine and Look Magazine both brought the world in pictures to your home. It was remarkable, and the photos were beautiful.
A special category were dirty magazines like Playboy and later Penthouse. The centerfold was a cultural touchstone. They were hidden under mattresses, stolen from parents, and shared with friends.
posted by Winnie the Proust at 10:40 AM on January 26 [6 favorites]
A special category were dirty magazines like Playboy and later Penthouse. The centerfold was a cultural touchstone. They were hidden under mattresses, stolen from parents, and shared with friends.
posted by Winnie the Proust at 10:40 AM on January 26 [6 favorites]
Klackers.
posted by whatevernot at 10:41 AM on January 26 [5 favorites]
posted by whatevernot at 10:41 AM on January 26 [5 favorites]
We had a whole set of those Reader's Digest Condensed Books. Not sure I ever read one...
But, the Time-Life books? Animal Behavior, The Sea? So good.
And Encyclopedias in general. Childcraft books? World Books? So great. Enriched my desire for science.
Catalogs.
posted by Windopaene at 10:44 AM on January 26 [6 favorites]
But, the Time-Life books? Animal Behavior, The Sea? So good.
And Encyclopedias in general. Childcraft books? World Books? So great. Enriched my desire for science.
Catalogs.
posted by Windopaene at 10:44 AM on January 26 [6 favorites]
Comic books and paperback books for sale in drug stores and grocery stores. They were placed in vertical rotating wire racks that squeaked as you turned them. In the book racks pulp novels, middlebrow best sellers and classics were jumbled together in no apparent order. Ditto the comics -- there were Classics Comics, comic book versions of classic books
among the superhero comics and little-kid cartoon comics.
Kids would browse at these racks (sqeak, squeak) sometimes for quite a long time while our parents were shopping. Usually the store staff just let us be.
posted by JonJacky at 10:45 AM on January 26 [8 favorites]
among the superhero comics and little-kid cartoon comics.
Kids would browse at these racks (sqeak, squeak) sometimes for quite a long time while our parents were shopping. Usually the store staff just let us be.
posted by JonJacky at 10:45 AM on January 26 [8 favorites]
Toast made on a coal fire using a toasting fork. Ice on the inside of the bedroom window.
posted by Phanx at 10:49 AM on January 26 [6 favorites]
posted by Phanx at 10:49 AM on January 26 [6 favorites]
My parents bought an older set of used encyclopedias to help us do school reports, since we lived a long way from any library, and no internet of course. (It always smelled like mildew from when the previous owners had stored it in their basement.)
My college dorm had one payphone booth built in the hallway on each floor. There was the capability to install a landline phone in your room but it cost extra/was expensive and none of us could afford that. When I wanted to talk to my parents, I would feed coins into the payphone and let my parents number ring 3 times and then hang up and get my money back. They would then call me back on their landline. If they were trying to reach me, they would call the payphone and any dorm mate who happened to be nearby it would answer and come get me if I was in my room, or leave a message for me on the room door whiteboard if I was out.
posted by gudrun at 10:56 AM on January 26 [19 favorites]
My college dorm had one payphone booth built in the hallway on each floor. There was the capability to install a landline phone in your room but it cost extra/was expensive and none of us could afford that. When I wanted to talk to my parents, I would feed coins into the payphone and let my parents number ring 3 times and then hang up and get my money back. They would then call me back on their landline. If they were trying to reach me, they would call the payphone and any dorm mate who happened to be nearby it would answer and come get me if I was in my room, or leave a message for me on the room door whiteboard if I was out.
posted by gudrun at 10:56 AM on January 26 [19 favorites]
Fireflies, yes - when I grew up in the Chicago suburbs, you'd see fireflies on summer nights, often lots at once. I can't remember the last time I saw a firefly.
posted by Frowner at 10:56 AM on January 26 [4 favorites]
posted by Frowner at 10:56 AM on January 26 [4 favorites]
The biggest thing is cigarettes. People smoked everywhere constantly and no one, no matter how vulnerable, had any right to breathe clean air.
My mom smoked in the car in the winter with all the windows closed, and this was normal. It didn't matter how I complained. Every surface inside a house became coated with a thin sticky brown layer of cigarette smoke, which you didn't notice until you tried to scrub it off.
A friend complained about her grandparents smoking in the car until to shut her up they left her all alone on the side of the road, nowhere near anything. She was eight years old. (They came back and got her after a while.)
My high school math teacher had an asthmatic child but didn't quit smoking inside the house with her. It never ever occurred toanyone to go outside to smoke.
A coworker in my first summer job was allergic to cigarette smoke, so they gave her a no-smoking area that consisted solely of her own desk. Meanwhile most of the people in the room were chain-smoking. (Chain-smoking is where you light another cigarette as soon as the previous one goes out.)
Airplanes had non-smoking sections, but it was almost pointless since there was only one ventilation system.
My high school in the seventies had a smoking area where students who smoked could do so.
Now when I smell a cigarette from someone across the road as I go for a walk I feel offended by the acrid stench, and have to laugh at how nice it is that that's my only exposure.
posted by metonym at 10:59 AM on January 26 [28 favorites]
My mom smoked in the car in the winter with all the windows closed, and this was normal. It didn't matter how I complained. Every surface inside a house became coated with a thin sticky brown layer of cigarette smoke, which you didn't notice until you tried to scrub it off.
A friend complained about her grandparents smoking in the car until to shut her up they left her all alone on the side of the road, nowhere near anything. She was eight years old. (They came back and got her after a while.)
My high school math teacher had an asthmatic child but didn't quit smoking inside the house with her. It never ever occurred to
A coworker in my first summer job was allergic to cigarette smoke, so they gave her a no-smoking area that consisted solely of her own desk. Meanwhile most of the people in the room were chain-smoking. (Chain-smoking is where you light another cigarette as soon as the previous one goes out.)
Airplanes had non-smoking sections, but it was almost pointless since there was only one ventilation system.
My high school in the seventies had a smoking area where students who smoked could do so.
Now when I smell a cigarette from someone across the road as I go for a walk I feel offended by the acrid stench, and have to laugh at how nice it is that that's my only exposure.
posted by metonym at 10:59 AM on January 26 [28 favorites]
rubber date stamps on the check-out card for a book at the library
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 10:59 AM on January 26 [30 favorites]
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 10:59 AM on January 26 [30 favorites]
Blue eyed scallops (bay scallops) in Long Island Sound. Just there, hanging out.
Mussels on the rocks in Maine, clinging to the rocks below high tide line, hidden under seaweed. No sense they were imperiled and now they're just gone.
Introduced, but persistent, pheasants on Mount Royal in Montreal. Pheasant balls in trees at night. Probably few predators. Where did they go?
posted by xaryts at 11:02 AM on January 26 [3 favorites]
Mussels on the rocks in Maine, clinging to the rocks below high tide line, hidden under seaweed. No sense they were imperiled and now they're just gone.
Introduced, but persistent, pheasants on Mount Royal in Montreal. Pheasant balls in trees at night. Probably few predators. Where did they go?
posted by xaryts at 11:02 AM on January 26 [3 favorites]
Keeping a quarter on you in case you had to use a pay phone to call home.
posted by Ink-stained wretch at 11:06 AM on January 26 [10 favorites]
posted by Ink-stained wretch at 11:06 AM on January 26 [10 favorites]
I'm only 48, but I'm answering anyway, as one of the youngest gen X... millennials, even the oldest of them, are just So Different.
Summer reading programs that only rewarded actual reading. The Drop Everything And Read program in schools.
Mental math and people capable of making change without a screen.
Not being reachable everywhere; people not expecting you to be reachable. (I pay my d@%$ phone bill, I'll answer it IF I WANT TO.)
Doctors that you could call and be seen the same day.
Family dinners at the dining table. Attending the majority of activities/events as a family.
It being the norm for adults to volunteer in the community as their choice of socializing, thus getting to know their neighbors and feeling at least partially responsible for maintaining that community.
The lack of tourists in my home community and all that implies... cheap housing, jobs that weren't part-time retail or restaurant, parking spaces, a dock at the river we could jump off of... when most people came back, even if they left for a bit after high school... now, even those that hung on have mostly left.
It being ok, expected, and relatively safe to send your kids outside and figure you won't see them until dinner or dark, whichever came first.
Elementary age kids being allowed to sit in the car and read (or otherwise entertain themselves) alone.
The freedom/responsibility/decision-making that's been mostly removed from children and teens, unless it serves a political purpose.
Raising kids to be fully responsible adults BY 18, not infantilizing them so they're still incompetent at 25...
posted by stormyteal at 11:09 AM on January 26 [12 favorites]
Summer reading programs that only rewarded actual reading. The Drop Everything And Read program in schools.
Mental math and people capable of making change without a screen.
Not being reachable everywhere; people not expecting you to be reachable. (I pay my d@%$ phone bill, I'll answer it IF I WANT TO.)
Doctors that you could call and be seen the same day.
Family dinners at the dining table. Attending the majority of activities/events as a family.
It being the norm for adults to volunteer in the community as their choice of socializing, thus getting to know their neighbors and feeling at least partially responsible for maintaining that community.
The lack of tourists in my home community and all that implies... cheap housing, jobs that weren't part-time retail or restaurant, parking spaces, a dock at the river we could jump off of... when most people came back, even if they left for a bit after high school... now, even those that hung on have mostly left.
It being ok, expected, and relatively safe to send your kids outside and figure you won't see them until dinner or dark, whichever came first.
Elementary age kids being allowed to sit in the car and read (or otherwise entertain themselves) alone.
The freedom/responsibility/decision-making that's been mostly removed from children and teens, unless it serves a political purpose.
Raising kids to be fully responsible adults BY 18, not infantilizing them so they're still incompetent at 25...
posted by stormyteal at 11:09 AM on January 26 [12 favorites]
Card catalogs in libraries.
And those plastic sliding things they used to make carbon copy receipts when charging your credit card.
posted by Lemkin at 11:14 AM on January 26 [10 favorites]
And those plastic sliding things they used to make carbon copy receipts when charging your credit card.
posted by Lemkin at 11:14 AM on January 26 [10 favorites]
Calling up the radio station to request a song.
Holding a tape recorder up to radio to record your favorite songs off Casey Kasem's top 40 countdown.
Drinking water from the hose.
Watching the Wonderful World of Disney programs on Sunday Nights (I think on NBC.)
Tang.
posted by PurpleNico at 11:18 AM on January 26 [9 favorites]
Holding a tape recorder up to radio to record your favorite songs off Casey Kasem's top 40 countdown.
Drinking water from the hose.
Watching the Wonderful World of Disney programs on Sunday Nights (I think on NBC.)
Tang.
posted by PurpleNico at 11:18 AM on January 26 [9 favorites]
A lot here already about pay phones ... but a big, unspoken part of life also was busy signals. I can still hear that low rhythmic buzz. Even after "call waiting" was introduced (maybe 1980s?) not everyone had it, it was an extra charge on your phone bill. In fact, in the early 90s, when you tried to phone someone who was using their email you also got a busy signal. Dial up internet, you'd plug your phone cord into your desktop to get on email. Anyone trying to phone you had to wait til you logged off and put the phone cord back into the phone. Mostly, people I knew (grad school early 90s) got on email once a day. People I knew outside academia tended to check email once or twice a week!
This was part of the pattern of not assuming you could contact people easily. In my college dorms in the 80s we all had a dry-erase board on the outside of our doors so people could leave you a message, "I stopped by."
And yet, although there was never a felt promise of instantaneous connection, life had none of the time-sucking dead time braided into daily life that I experience now futzing constantly with media technology.
Also it's impossible to overstate how totally different one's orientation to space is when you use large paper maps instead of GPS. Your sense of place. And your sense of agency making your way along the little line you've chosen from the possibilities.
posted by ojocaliente at 11:20 AM on January 26 [18 favorites]
This was part of the pattern of not assuming you could contact people easily. In my college dorms in the 80s we all had a dry-erase board on the outside of our doors so people could leave you a message, "I stopped by."
And yet, although there was never a felt promise of instantaneous connection, life had none of the time-sucking dead time braided into daily life that I experience now futzing constantly with media technology.
Also it's impossible to overstate how totally different one's orientation to space is when you use large paper maps instead of GPS. Your sense of place. And your sense of agency making your way along the little line you've chosen from the possibilities.
posted by ojocaliente at 11:20 AM on January 26 [18 favorites]
Being able to slam down a phone to end a call angrily.
posted by Lemkin at 11:20 AM on January 26 [8 favorites]
posted by Lemkin at 11:20 AM on January 26 [8 favorites]
Canadian edition:
Lord's Prayer in school
Maple Leaf Forever in school
Kids getting the strap
The imperial system
(All of these went away around when I was in grade one)
The 4 Flavours bar, RIP
Eatons
Zellers (the pop ups do not count)
posted by warriorqueen at 11:21 AM on January 26 [5 favorites]
Lord's Prayer in school
Maple Leaf Forever in school
Kids getting the strap
The imperial system
(All of these went away around when I was in grade one)
The 4 Flavours bar, RIP
Eatons
Zellers (the pop ups do not count)
posted by warriorqueen at 11:21 AM on January 26 [5 favorites]
SPACE FOOD STICKS
posted by supermedusa at 11:21 AM on January 26 [9 favorites]
posted by supermedusa at 11:21 AM on January 26 [9 favorites]
Being unsupervised by adults for long stretches of time. Literally a whole day could go by with me and my sibling or peers messing around on our own in the neighborhood, mall, movies, etc. and we'd either get picked up at some specified time or make our way home by transit.
posted by brookeb at 11:22 AM on January 26 [8 favorites]
posted by brookeb at 11:22 AM on January 26 [8 favorites]
Answering machines with actual tape cassettes in them. Later on they got fancy and you could all them and enter a code to check your messages but I'm not sure most people ever bothered to do that. You got messages when you came home.
Walking longer distances to school alone at a young age. I walked around 45 minutes or 1.5 miles (according to Google maps) to get home from school when I was in second grade. This was in a mixed urban/suburban area.
Sunblock. I don't think there was much awareness of skin cancer. The women in my family used baby oil as a tanning lotion for some reason. The men used nothing at all (tragically, as skin cancer ended up taking one of them in later years).
Drive up tellers. Not ATMs, but actual people that you'd interact with from your car via a speaker and a pneumatic tube.
And yeah, as others have said: smoking. Everyone, everywhere, all the time.
posted by DrumsIntheDeep at 11:26 AM on January 26 [7 favorites]
Walking longer distances to school alone at a young age. I walked around 45 minutes or 1.5 miles (according to Google maps) to get home from school when I was in second grade. This was in a mixed urban/suburban area.
Sunblock. I don't think there was much awareness of skin cancer. The women in my family used baby oil as a tanning lotion for some reason. The men used nothing at all (tragically, as skin cancer ended up taking one of them in later years).
Drive up tellers. Not ATMs, but actual people that you'd interact with from your car via a speaker and a pneumatic tube.
And yeah, as others have said: smoking. Everyone, everywhere, all the time.
posted by DrumsIntheDeep at 11:26 AM on January 26 [7 favorites]
Being unsupervised by adults for long stretches of time
I think I was 10 when my family to London. None of the tourist stuff on my parents' agenda was as exciting to me as getting to browse in Foyle's - the world's largest bookstore. So they dropped me off there and picked me up around 4 hours later.
Big city. Foreign city. Alone. 10 years old.
They'd probably be arrested for that now.
posted by Lemkin at 11:27 AM on January 26 [5 favorites]
I think I was 10 when my family to London. None of the tourist stuff on my parents' agenda was as exciting to me as getting to browse in Foyle's - the world's largest bookstore. So they dropped me off there and picked me up around 4 hours later.
Big city. Foreign city. Alone. 10 years old.
They'd probably be arrested for that now.
posted by Lemkin at 11:27 AM on January 26 [5 favorites]
Oh, yes, tourism! Tourism being *so much* larger now has changed culture a lot — it used to be more participatory everywhere, not performers-vs-audience. Little towns had a couple of parade/festivals, IME one predictable one that was easy to be involved in and one locally specific one.
And no mass printed national corporate signage in any of them.
posted by clew at 11:45 AM on January 26 [3 favorites]
And no mass printed national corporate signage in any of them.
posted by clew at 11:45 AM on January 26 [3 favorites]
56 years old.
Buying music, books, and video that you actually OWNED.
Neighborhoods where I could ride my bike, play in the schoolyard fields on weekends, go hang out with friends...just be home by dark.
Waldenbooks and Super Crown bookstores. More bookstores in general, including one in an outdoor mall near me (El Paseo de Saratoga) that was set up with ramps inside. I'm guessing that the owner either was disabled, or had someone close to them who was disabled. Where most bookstores would have dealt with the multilevel layout (not two stories, just multiple levels) this person put in and carpeted ramps. I loved going there because they had a good selection of science fiction books, specifically the Doctor Who novelizations.
Warehouse and Tower Records. (Though Tower is back now, it's different.)
Phones with cords. Us neurodivergent folks had a leisure activity for longer calls.
posted by Tailkinker to-Ennien at 11:47 AM on January 26 [4 favorites]
Buying music, books, and video that you actually OWNED.
Neighborhoods where I could ride my bike, play in the schoolyard fields on weekends, go hang out with friends...just be home by dark.
Waldenbooks and Super Crown bookstores. More bookstores in general, including one in an outdoor mall near me (El Paseo de Saratoga) that was set up with ramps inside. I'm guessing that the owner either was disabled, or had someone close to them who was disabled. Where most bookstores would have dealt with the multilevel layout (not two stories, just multiple levels) this person put in and carpeted ramps. I loved going there because they had a good selection of science fiction books, specifically the Doctor Who novelizations.
Warehouse and Tower Records. (Though Tower is back now, it's different.)
Phones with cords. Us neurodivergent folks had a leisure activity for longer calls.
posted by Tailkinker to-Ennien at 11:47 AM on January 26 [4 favorites]
Phones with party lines. Long rings were for us, two short rings followed by a pause were for the other party. Sometimes when you picked up the receiver to make a call, you could hear the other party conversing, which meant the phone would not be available until they hung up. I remember at least once where the other party wanted to make a phone call and got on my case for being on the phone for too long.
I sort of miss the days when only landlines existed, because when you called someone but they weren't available, at least there was usually someone else there to answer the phone. You got to talk to a human vs voicemail, even if it wasn't the exact human you were calling.
I grew up in a town of 40,000 people, and we had to dress up to go downtown to shop at Bon Marche, Newberry's, etc.
posted by SageTrail at 11:51 AM on January 26 [4 favorites]
I sort of miss the days when only landlines existed, because when you called someone but they weren't available, at least there was usually someone else there to answer the phone. You got to talk to a human vs voicemail, even if it wasn't the exact human you were calling.
I grew up in a town of 40,000 people, and we had to dress up to go downtown to shop at Bon Marche, Newberry's, etc.
posted by SageTrail at 11:51 AM on January 26 [4 favorites]
Wax paper cups you could scratch with your fingernail
Cash transactions, credit card imprinters, getting travelers checks if you traveled across country
Airline tickets printed on patterned cardstock
TV stations shutting down around 1 or 2 a.m. with the national anthem
Checkout cards at the library
Disney parks not so focused/calibrated on IP
Fewer billboards
Independent roadside motels -- some with magic fingers machines!
Children's menus. A friend asked the other day -- why don't we see separate children's menus anymore?
Diner's club stickers in the windows
Also there seemed to be more gumball machines in general, everywhere -- retail shops, restaurants, gas stations, the airport.
posted by mochapickle at 11:53 AM on January 26 [3 favorites]
Cash transactions, credit card imprinters, getting travelers checks if you traveled across country
Airline tickets printed on patterned cardstock
TV stations shutting down around 1 or 2 a.m. with the national anthem
Checkout cards at the library
Disney parks not so focused/calibrated on IP
Fewer billboards
Independent roadside motels -- some with magic fingers machines!
Children's menus. A friend asked the other day -- why don't we see separate children's menus anymore?
Diner's club stickers in the windows
Also there seemed to be more gumball machines in general, everywhere -- retail shops, restaurants, gas stations, the airport.
posted by mochapickle at 11:53 AM on January 26 [3 favorites]
These aren’t completely gone but: usable paper bulletin boards. At the grocery, hardware store, post office, library, bookstore, park, some telephone poles. Not filled up with commercially designed and printed glossy posters put up by aggressive commercial companies; lots of noncommercial or tiny-business signs. I was trying to remember how you found out where the parade entries were organizing, and that was one way. Yard sales, garage-sized businesses, the local stuff we might put on Craigslist or Meetup now.
There’s a few businesses in my city neighborhood that maintain these, and a small town I stop in often enough to see that they still operate as I remember them.
posted by clew at 11:56 AM on January 26 [4 favorites]
There’s a few businesses in my city neighborhood that maintain these, and a small town I stop in often enough to see that they still operate as I remember them.
posted by clew at 11:56 AM on January 26 [4 favorites]
Fried clams at Howard Johnson's.
posted by H21 at 11:59 AM on January 26 [6 favorites]
posted by H21 at 11:59 AM on January 26 [6 favorites]
Reference books. As a nerdy kid I loved them: not just encyclopedias, but the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, all that kind of stuff.
posted by Bloxworth Snout at 12:01 PM on January 26 [7 favorites]
posted by Bloxworth Snout at 12:01 PM on January 26 [7 favorites]
chain smoking is lighting another cigarette as soon as you’re done with the first one
As a former smoker, and an old, I’d like to offer a variant on this - it’s when you light another cigarette from the stub of the one you were just smoking, thus offering an uninterrupted smoking experience.
No one used backpacks for school books until the 70’s. The first one I had was from an Army Surplus store (those were also A Thing, and one could find really well-made clothing from WWII, and beyond. Some things were especially coveted, like silk parachutes (used as atmospheric ceiling covers in a “hippie pad”). Back to schoolbooks, you just cradled them in your arms, maybe stopping on the way home to rest, or rearrange them - because many of us walked to/from school, alone, or with friends.
One could have an apartment of one’s own (probably a studio) on the tips made from waitressing, less than 40 hours per week.
Until the late sixties, gas was *really* cheap ($.25/gal) so driving around aimlessly was also A Thing. Also sometimes called a Sunday Drive, my mother and I would drive through the “fancy” neighborhoods, looking at houses and landscaping, or we’d take a drive to the mountains/foothills (Denver).
Travel was Expensive, and time-consuming, unless you could afford to fly. Relatives from Kansas City would come to Denver by train, and we’d go meet them to bring them to our house. Everyone dressed up for this. For many people, especially those without reliable cars, there was Greyhound Bus. It stopped in nearly every small town, so it was slow, but reliable. Of course, people would smoke on the trip, but it was limited to the back four or five rows, which was where the one bathroom (for the 30-ish people on board) was. After the first few stops, said bathroom was rendered unusable, so one would just “hold it” until one of the longer “meal stops” to use an only slightly less-disgusting bathroom.
Another common means of travel in the 60’s/70’s was hitchhiking. My husband traveled this way for years, with some good stories from it. I did it regularly in town, and as a girl, I only did it on one-way streets ( plentiful in Denver), so I could walk away (against traffic) from sketchy-looking rides. I never had any close calls, and was picked up several times by police, who just lectured me on the dangers, and gave me a ride!
Leaf blowers didn’t exist. People raked the lawns, quietly.
Streetlights weren’t as bright, and because more people lived in rural areas, and cities were smaller, with less sprawl, stars were something you could see from a backyard or park in town. I remember seeing the Milky Way from my backyard in Denver.
That’s all I got.
posted by dbmcd at 12:01 PM on January 26 [11 favorites]
As a former smoker, and an old, I’d like to offer a variant on this - it’s when you light another cigarette from the stub of the one you were just smoking, thus offering an uninterrupted smoking experience.
No one used backpacks for school books until the 70’s. The first one I had was from an Army Surplus store (those were also A Thing, and one could find really well-made clothing from WWII, and beyond. Some things were especially coveted, like silk parachutes (used as atmospheric ceiling covers in a “hippie pad”). Back to schoolbooks, you just cradled them in your arms, maybe stopping on the way home to rest, or rearrange them - because many of us walked to/from school, alone, or with friends.
One could have an apartment of one’s own (probably a studio) on the tips made from waitressing, less than 40 hours per week.
Until the late sixties, gas was *really* cheap ($.25/gal) so driving around aimlessly was also A Thing. Also sometimes called a Sunday Drive, my mother and I would drive through the “fancy” neighborhoods, looking at houses and landscaping, or we’d take a drive to the mountains/foothills (Denver).
Travel was Expensive, and time-consuming, unless you could afford to fly. Relatives from Kansas City would come to Denver by train, and we’d go meet them to bring them to our house. Everyone dressed up for this. For many people, especially those without reliable cars, there was Greyhound Bus. It stopped in nearly every small town, so it was slow, but reliable. Of course, people would smoke on the trip, but it was limited to the back four or five rows, which was where the one bathroom (for the 30-ish people on board) was. After the first few stops, said bathroom was rendered unusable, so one would just “hold it” until one of the longer “meal stops” to use an only slightly less-disgusting bathroom.
Another common means of travel in the 60’s/70’s was hitchhiking. My husband traveled this way for years, with some good stories from it. I did it regularly in town, and as a girl, I only did it on one-way streets ( plentiful in Denver), so I could walk away (against traffic) from sketchy-looking rides. I never had any close calls, and was picked up several times by police, who just lectured me on the dangers, and gave me a ride!
Leaf blowers didn’t exist. People raked the lawns, quietly.
Streetlights weren’t as bright, and because more people lived in rural areas, and cities were smaller, with less sprawl, stars were something you could see from a backyard or park in town. I remember seeing the Milky Way from my backyard in Denver.
That’s all I got.
posted by dbmcd at 12:01 PM on January 26 [11 favorites]
The smell of mimeograph ink.
posted by JanetLand at 12:07 PM on January 26 [17 favorites]
posted by JanetLand at 12:07 PM on January 26 [17 favorites]
A few that haven't been mentioned. I've tried to omit things that are still sort of around but only in limited places. (Vinyl records and even record stores are still very much around, folks.)
Ubiquitous cigarette and liquor billboards. I still find it strange that they're not there, replaced by an endless procession of lawyers.
Rotary phones, and "time and temperature" lines. Later, the sounds of connecting via a modem.
The strange dialing noise that used to occur at regular intervals when watching television. Ads for 900 and 976 numbers. The distinctive look of a scrambled analog pay TV channel.
Ditto machines (aka "spirit duplicators") instead of copiers, and the curious smell of their sloppy, purple prints.
Filmstrips and 16mm educational movies. "Cartoon Huts" at local restaurants and grocery stores. "Travelogue" presentations in community centers and church basements.
Starscroll machines.
Tokens. For buses, subways, pinball and video arcades.
McDonalds Orange Drink, served in a big yellow and red cooler rented from McDonalds at every school, sport or birthday gathering.
Leaded gas. Vacuum or CRT tube testers at the hardware store. Coin-op newspaper dispensers on every corner.
Peanuts on the floor at certain restaurants. Sundaes served in little baseball hats. "Old-timey" sundae places that emulated the 1900s.
Certain strange color schemes. Two-tone olive green for school hallways, busses, office buildings. Harvest yellow and brown appliances.
Finally, the one that keeps getting mentioned, but it's so important. The very notion of being let loose on my cheap Huffy bike for most of the day and going wherever I wanted within a 10+ mile radius of our home as a kid, even when I was just 8 or 9, without anything but a cheap drugstore watch and a promise to return at a particular time. I can't recall anything bad ever happening to any other kid I knew that went out on their bike that wasn't resolved by a phone call and only some consternation from the folks when they were late by over 15 minutes or so. I spent so much time being fully disconnected, exploring and learning about the world, very rarely getting into some sort of actionable trouble.
posted by eschatfische at 12:08 PM on January 26 [9 favorites]
Ubiquitous cigarette and liquor billboards. I still find it strange that they're not there, replaced by an endless procession of lawyers.
Rotary phones, and "time and temperature" lines. Later, the sounds of connecting via a modem.
The strange dialing noise that used to occur at regular intervals when watching television. Ads for 900 and 976 numbers. The distinctive look of a scrambled analog pay TV channel.
Ditto machines (aka "spirit duplicators") instead of copiers, and the curious smell of their sloppy, purple prints.
Filmstrips and 16mm educational movies. "Cartoon Huts" at local restaurants and grocery stores. "Travelogue" presentations in community centers and church basements.
Starscroll machines.
Tokens. For buses, subways, pinball and video arcades.
McDonalds Orange Drink, served in a big yellow and red cooler rented from McDonalds at every school, sport or birthday gathering.
Leaded gas. Vacuum or CRT tube testers at the hardware store. Coin-op newspaper dispensers on every corner.
Peanuts on the floor at certain restaurants. Sundaes served in little baseball hats. "Old-timey" sundae places that emulated the 1900s.
Certain strange color schemes. Two-tone olive green for school hallways, busses, office buildings. Harvest yellow and brown appliances.
Finally, the one that keeps getting mentioned, but it's so important. The very notion of being let loose on my cheap Huffy bike for most of the day and going wherever I wanted within a 10+ mile radius of our home as a kid, even when I was just 8 or 9, without anything but a cheap drugstore watch and a promise to return at a particular time. I can't recall anything bad ever happening to any other kid I knew that went out on their bike that wasn't resolved by a phone call and only some consternation from the folks when they were late by over 15 minutes or so. I spent so much time being fully disconnected, exploring and learning about the world, very rarely getting into some sort of actionable trouble.
posted by eschatfische at 12:08 PM on January 26 [9 favorites]
Being able to hook up your cable TV to an FM radio and get all the local stations in crystal clear stereo. I worked at an ISP where that as still a thing in the mid-2000s ( 2003 or so I mean )
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 12:16 PM on January 26 [2 favorites]
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 12:16 PM on January 26 [2 favorites]
Putting gas in your car at the pump and then going inside the store to pay afterward.
Pets that lived outside almost all the time -- dog had a doghouse in the backyard, that was his home (unless it was really cold, in which case, he would get to hang out in the enclosed back porch). Pets also didn't eat anything besides dry Meow Mix or Ol' Roy or get fancy treats/chews/toys.
Curling your bangs and spraying them with hairspray so they stand up.
posted by luzdeluna at 12:16 PM on January 26 [4 favorites]
Pets that lived outside almost all the time -- dog had a doghouse in the backyard, that was his home (unless it was really cold, in which case, he would get to hang out in the enclosed back porch). Pets also didn't eat anything besides dry Meow Mix or Ol' Roy or get fancy treats/chews/toys.
Curling your bangs and spraying them with hairspray so they stand up.
posted by luzdeluna at 12:16 PM on January 26 [4 favorites]
Sending in box tops for prizes.
Selling things door-to-door for my school for prizes.
The absolute thrill and bliss and joy of going into a huge book store, sitting on the floor, and looking at all the books in the "insects" section for hours. Then discovering there was a section on japanese art. Then discovering that the cookbook section had subsections for different types of cuisine. Then discovering that the children's book section had incredibly charming small fluffy stuffed animals that were characters from the books (and thus, personality). Then discovering the computer books section, and getting to choose from several different books on design and several different books on programing databases -- learning a little from each one before choosing the winners to take home.
Petite Sophisticate, an entire store full of petite clothing.
Big toy stores.
And finally:
Radio Shack
posted by amtho at 12:16 PM on January 26 [9 favorites]
Selling things door-to-door for my school for prizes.
The absolute thrill and bliss and joy of going into a huge book store, sitting on the floor, and looking at all the books in the "insects" section for hours. Then discovering there was a section on japanese art. Then discovering that the cookbook section had subsections for different types of cuisine. Then discovering that the children's book section had incredibly charming small fluffy stuffed animals that were characters from the books (and thus, personality). Then discovering the computer books section, and getting to choose from several different books on design and several different books on programing databases -- learning a little from each one before choosing the winners to take home.
Petite Sophisticate, an entire store full of petite clothing.
Big toy stores.
And finally:
Radio Shack
posted by amtho at 12:16 PM on January 26 [9 favorites]
There was way less snacking. Soda pop was in 8 oz bottles and was a treat, not a regular beverage.
This is so true. Soda was for birthday parties and holidays. Growing up we had three meals a day, an after school snack (two cookies or two graham crackers), and very occasionally a dessert. The grocery shopping was done on the weekend, and what was in the kitchen was 1) for all of us, and 2) not replaced until the next weekend. So if Dad finished the potato chips on Wednesday, the potato chips were gone. We all ate less. We didn't get snacks with extracurricular activities, we didn't carry a water bottle all day but we also weren't walking around starving and dehydrated.
There used to be more of a divide between kid things and adult things. There were milestones (which varied from family to family I'm sure) that meant you were growing up. When dressing up, I wore knee socks, ankle socks, or white tights until I 'graduated' into pantyhose for my sixth-grade dance. My first piece of real jewelry was given to me when I was 13. I didn't have a professional haircut until I was 14. No makeup until 16, but I managed to negotiate that along with my first date to 15. People purposefully tried to not spend a lot on kids clothing because it gets grown out of so quickly. Today little kids get mani/pedis and hair salon appointments and expensive water bottles and Uggs and officially licensed sports jerseys that'll be outgrown by season's end.
I miss being able to just disappear for hours and people being okay with that. Now there's an expectation that we're always available and it's very difficult to push back on that.
posted by kimberussell at 12:17 PM on January 26 [10 favorites]
This is so true. Soda was for birthday parties and holidays. Growing up we had three meals a day, an after school snack (two cookies or two graham crackers), and very occasionally a dessert. The grocery shopping was done on the weekend, and what was in the kitchen was 1) for all of us, and 2) not replaced until the next weekend. So if Dad finished the potato chips on Wednesday, the potato chips were gone. We all ate less. We didn't get snacks with extracurricular activities, we didn't carry a water bottle all day but we also weren't walking around starving and dehydrated.
There used to be more of a divide between kid things and adult things. There were milestones (which varied from family to family I'm sure) that meant you were growing up. When dressing up, I wore knee socks, ankle socks, or white tights until I 'graduated' into pantyhose for my sixth-grade dance. My first piece of real jewelry was given to me when I was 13. I didn't have a professional haircut until I was 14. No makeup until 16, but I managed to negotiate that along with my first date to 15. People purposefully tried to not spend a lot on kids clothing because it gets grown out of so quickly. Today little kids get mani/pedis and hair salon appointments and expensive water bottles and Uggs and officially licensed sports jerseys that'll be outgrown by season's end.
I miss being able to just disappear for hours and people being okay with that. Now there's an expectation that we're always available and it's very difficult to push back on that.
posted by kimberussell at 12:17 PM on January 26 [10 favorites]
I think we could do a special version of this that just focused on phones.
We used to have phone books. White pages and yellow pages. White pages were alphabetical listings of everyone who had a phone in your town, unless they were unlisted. These were distributed to everyone who had a phone. So you could just…look up someone's number and call them.
I imagine etiquette around this varied, but in my house, the rule was to let the phone ring 10 times when you called someone before hanging up. Ten times! Now that basically everyone who wants a cellphone has one, and you can easily install cordless landline phones all over your house, it would almost never take 10 rings for someone to pick up.
I think the first human-portable cellphone appeared around 1984, and was the size of a briefcase, and I would say they were still kind of exotic (and extremely expensive) in the early 90s. You really organize your life differently when phones are tied to locations rather than people. There's a funny recurring bit in a Woody Allen movie (Manhattan? It would have been around then) where one of the characters is constantly calling in to his office to tell them where he'll be for the rest of the day.
posted by adamrice at 12:19 PM on January 26 [1 favorite]
We used to have phone books. White pages and yellow pages. White pages were alphabetical listings of everyone who had a phone in your town, unless they were unlisted. These were distributed to everyone who had a phone. So you could just…look up someone's number and call them.
I imagine etiquette around this varied, but in my house, the rule was to let the phone ring 10 times when you called someone before hanging up. Ten times! Now that basically everyone who wants a cellphone has one, and you can easily install cordless landline phones all over your house, it would almost never take 10 rings for someone to pick up.
I think the first human-portable cellphone appeared around 1984, and was the size of a briefcase, and I would say they were still kind of exotic (and extremely expensive) in the early 90s. You really organize your life differently when phones are tied to locations rather than people. There's a funny recurring bit in a Woody Allen movie (Manhattan? It would have been around then) where one of the characters is constantly calling in to his office to tell them where he'll be for the rest of the day.
posted by adamrice at 12:19 PM on January 26 [1 favorite]
Gudrun: My parents bought an older set of used encyclopedias...
Oh yeah, having to do written reports from encyclopedias. I read the dictionary and encyclopedia and for fun. Just hated the reports though. And written book reports, written reports from the newspaper front page (like who cares? That's boring old people stuff.) No journals though, we were spared that. Nobody cared about what kids thought then. I bought a set of encyclopedias for my kids. They were outdated so fast! The youngest did her work online at school. We finally got internet just as she was leaving home.
Oh god, the library card with the metal stamped number was precious. When I lost mine, they wouldn't replace it for a WEEK, damn them.
Cigarettes--gag! Dad smoked. Mom occasionally. There's a picture of her smoking while she is giving my younger brother a bottle.
Ink-stained wretch: Keeping a quarter on you in case you had to use a pay phone to call home.
Ha! Back in my day, calls were a dime.
Saturdays were Road Runner, Bugs Bunny, Tom and Jerry, Felix, Bullwinkle, Heckle and Jeckle, Mighty Mouse, and then you had to sit through Captain Kangaroo to get to the good stuff in the afternoon: Fury, My Friend Flicka, Mr. Ed, Roy Rogers, Sky King (airplanes and horses), Lone Ranger, and Zorro. Three Musketeers and Cisco Kid once in a while only in the winter, because after the summer Saturday binge, I was ready for outside.
So many cowboy shows: Bonanza, Rawhide, High Chapparral, The Virginian, Wagon Train, Rifleman, Wild Wild West, Wyatt Earp, Maverick, Big Valley, Have Gun Will Travel all were on weeknights, and I only occasionally watched them, because those were school nights. I didn't like Gunsmoke, so I was a weirdo. Still, the Duke rode Dollar, and Festus always rode a mule named Ruth--even if he was a john mule. I can tell you I am the Queen of horse names in Trivia.
posted by BlueHorse at 12:29 PM on January 26 [3 favorites]
Oh yeah, having to do written reports from encyclopedias. I read the dictionary and encyclopedia and for fun. Just hated the reports though. And written book reports, written reports from the newspaper front page (like who cares? That's boring old people stuff.) No journals though, we were spared that. Nobody cared about what kids thought then. I bought a set of encyclopedias for my kids. They were outdated so fast! The youngest did her work online at school. We finally got internet just as she was leaving home.
Oh god, the library card with the metal stamped number was precious. When I lost mine, they wouldn't replace it for a WEEK, damn them.
Cigarettes--gag! Dad smoked. Mom occasionally. There's a picture of her smoking while she is giving my younger brother a bottle.
Ink-stained wretch: Keeping a quarter on you in case you had to use a pay phone to call home.
Ha! Back in my day, calls were a dime.
Saturdays were Road Runner, Bugs Bunny, Tom and Jerry, Felix, Bullwinkle, Heckle and Jeckle, Mighty Mouse, and then you had to sit through Captain Kangaroo to get to the good stuff in the afternoon: Fury, My Friend Flicka, Mr. Ed, Roy Rogers, Sky King (airplanes and horses), Lone Ranger, and Zorro. Three Musketeers and Cisco Kid once in a while only in the winter, because after the summer Saturday binge, I was ready for outside.
So many cowboy shows: Bonanza, Rawhide, High Chapparral, The Virginian, Wagon Train, Rifleman, Wild Wild West, Wyatt Earp, Maverick, Big Valley, Have Gun Will Travel all were on weeknights, and I only occasionally watched them, because those were school nights. I didn't like Gunsmoke, so I was a weirdo. Still, the Duke rode Dollar, and Festus always rode a mule named Ruth--even if he was a john mule. I can tell you I am the Queen of horse names in Trivia.
posted by BlueHorse at 12:29 PM on January 26 [3 favorites]
Not quite fifty years old, but: airmail in the form.of an aerogram, special lightweight paper that you folded after writing so it formed its own envelope, which was cheaper to send than a regular letter.
posted by demi-octopus at 12:30 PM on January 26 [10 favorites]
posted by demi-octopus at 12:30 PM on January 26 [10 favorites]
Cigarette vending machines. Pop vending machines are way less common.
posted by Mitheral at 12:39 PM on January 26 [3 favorites]
posted by Mitheral at 12:39 PM on January 26 [3 favorites]
Also it was so different to listen to entire albums whose song order was curated with care by the artist. To this day, when I hear a song from an old album I listened to on repeat back in the day, I anticipate the next song from the album and have a weird little jolt when the algorithm plays something else.
posted by ojocaliente at 12:50 PM on January 26 [11 favorites]
posted by ojocaliente at 12:50 PM on January 26 [11 favorites]
Phonics
Being forced to drink milk at school
TV antennas
posted by amtho at 12:51 PM on January 26 [2 favorites]
Being forced to drink milk at school
TV antennas
posted by amtho at 12:51 PM on January 26 [2 favorites]
Not quite 50, but kids having the run of the neighbourhood until the street lights came on. Being sent to the store with a note from your parents to buy cigarettes. Calling collect (esp from “momitsmecomepickmeup”). Calling 0 for the operator. Phone books.
posted by cgg at 12:51 PM on January 26 [8 favorites]
posted by cgg at 12:51 PM on January 26 [8 favorites]
For all the terrible indoor smoking, there were ashtrays, everywhere. One of the most shameful things I remember was a mysterious unmarked door at the movie theater, that led directly to a side upstairs balcony. I, a white person, sat there once and I was told to move. That balcony and that mystery entrance were for Negroes only. I was shocked and that led to my involvement with the Civil Rights Movement. Schools were segregated, too.
posted by a humble nudibranch at 12:53 PM on January 26 [7 favorites]
posted by a humble nudibranch at 12:53 PM on January 26 [7 favorites]
Agreed there were not pop vending machines. You got your glass bottle of delicious real sugar CoCola from the big white chest cooler. No diet anything!
Putting gas in your car at the pump and then going inside the store to pay afterward.
Luzdeluna, back in the day, you had a kid, sometimes as young as 14, or maybe an old man pump your gas. He'd always wash your windshield and then check your oil. If you asked, he'd check your tire pressure. Sometimes he'd take your money and bring your change if it wasn't busy. You could kid around with them. Sometimes it was the station owner or a 'real' mechanic, and you needed to afford them the respect they were due. Never any females, always male. The one female I knew that worked at a gas station was known as 'rough customer' and looked it. You didn't mess with her.
Party appetizers were festive! Pigs in a Blanket (frankfurters, American cheese, and Pillsbury biscuit dough) or Lil' Smoky wieners in barbeque sauce. Deviled eggs, peanut butter with raisins and pimento cheese on celery sticks, cheese squares on a toothpick and green olives if you wanted to be exotic. Adults and rich kids had shrimp with bottled cocktail dip. And of course, everyone always had Chex Party Mix!
posted by BlueHorse at 12:53 PM on January 26 [5 favorites]
Putting gas in your car at the pump and then going inside the store to pay afterward.
Luzdeluna, back in the day, you had a kid, sometimes as young as 14, or maybe an old man pump your gas. He'd always wash your windshield and then check your oil. If you asked, he'd check your tire pressure. Sometimes he'd take your money and bring your change if it wasn't busy. You could kid around with them. Sometimes it was the station owner or a 'real' mechanic, and you needed to afford them the respect they were due. Never any females, always male. The one female I knew that worked at a gas station was known as 'rough customer' and looked it. You didn't mess with her.
Party appetizers were festive! Pigs in a Blanket (frankfurters, American cheese, and Pillsbury biscuit dough) or Lil' Smoky wieners in barbeque sauce. Deviled eggs, peanut butter with raisins and pimento cheese on celery sticks, cheese squares on a toothpick and green olives if you wanted to be exotic. Adults and rich kids had shrimp with bottled cocktail dip. And of course, everyone always had Chex Party Mix!
posted by BlueHorse at 12:53 PM on January 26 [5 favorites]
This question is such catnip for us that it reminds me of that circulating quip “if you want to ask your parents for something, just ask them first what music was like in the 1990s and let them talk for 20 minutes."
There are a million things to say, but I'll start with sleeping in the way way back of the station wagon during a road trip.
Also, I think about how when my sister and I were 17 and 14, my parents let her drive us all the way from Minnesota to Oklahoma alone to go to a camp.
Memorizing phone numbers since they weren't stored in other people's phones.
posted by umbú at 12:53 PM on January 26 [13 favorites]
There are a million things to say, but I'll start with sleeping in the way way back of the station wagon during a road trip.
Also, I think about how when my sister and I were 17 and 14, my parents let her drive us all the way from Minnesota to Oklahoma alone to go to a camp.
Memorizing phone numbers since they weren't stored in other people's phones.
posted by umbú at 12:53 PM on January 26 [13 favorites]
Fake candy cigarettes. Hot Tamales, Red Bean Peanuts, Charleston Chews, Bazooka Gum, Necco Wafers, Slo Pokes, Pixy Stixs, Plastic Lips, Razzles, Big Hunks, Bit-O-Honey, Atomic Fireballs, Tootsie Rolls, Dad’s Root beer Barrels, Black Cows, and Sugar Babies.
Zero of these are gone; they are all not only still available but many had substantial representation in my 7 year old niece's trick or treat bag.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 12:57 PM on January 26 [11 favorites]
Zero of these are gone; they are all not only still available but many had substantial representation in my 7 year old niece's trick or treat bag.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 12:57 PM on January 26 [11 favorites]
Medications being something only grandparents took. No medication advertisements on TV. Greater trust and faith in doctors and nurses and scientists and universities. Everyone watching Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather and reading the local newspaper and thus working from the same set of political facts. No arguments over whether the news was unbiased; it wasn't until the 1990s that I heard of a newspaper being described as having "a liberal bias." The fairness doctrine. No fox news. Network television in general. Color tv as a luxury. Remote control as a new technology-- parents making kids get up to change the channel. Buttons to roll down car windows as a new tech: there was a crank for the window and a little thumbtack-looking button to press down and pull up for the door lock. How expensive long distance phone calls were. How much better phone sound quality was; you didn't interrupt people because there was no weird lag. 12 hour long phone calls with your crush. It being awkward to call your friends because their parents would of course pick up first. Being super nervous to call your crush -- sitting around with your friends daring you to do it, dialing the first six numbers and hanging up. Phone numbers being 7 numbers, not 10, in general.
posted by shadygrove at 12:58 PM on January 26 [13 favorites]
posted by shadygrove at 12:58 PM on January 26 [13 favorites]
Here is one more story that will give a flavor of a mid century childhood on many levels.
When I was in 6th grade in the 1970s, in rural Pennsylvania, i wore jeans to school one day. (Bell bottoms). The teacher, a woman in her 60s (I think? Who knows? she had white hair and wore floral "house dresses" to teach in. In my mind she is the same as the teacher in Calvin and Hobbes) pointed at me and said "You're wearing jeans. NO JEANS. Go home." I stood up, collected my books (no backpack, as mentioned above. Girls clutched books to their chest, boys held them with an extended arm) and walked home. It was about a mile and a half. When I got home, my mother was out but the door of course was unlocked so I went in and watched soap operas on TV. When my mom came home it was after school hours and I pretended I'd just gotten home from school, so I wouldn't get in trouble from my parents. Not the teacher who would get in trouble for this - me.
posted by ojocaliente at 12:59 PM on January 26 [3 favorites]
When I was in 6th grade in the 1970s, in rural Pennsylvania, i wore jeans to school one day. (Bell bottoms). The teacher, a woman in her 60s (I think? Who knows? she had white hair and wore floral "house dresses" to teach in. In my mind she is the same as the teacher in Calvin and Hobbes) pointed at me and said "You're wearing jeans. NO JEANS. Go home." I stood up, collected my books (no backpack, as mentioned above. Girls clutched books to their chest, boys held them with an extended arm) and walked home. It was about a mile and a half. When I got home, my mother was out but the door of course was unlocked so I went in and watched soap operas on TV. When my mom came home it was after school hours and I pretended I'd just gotten home from school, so I wouldn't get in trouble from my parents. Not the teacher who would get in trouble for this - me.
posted by ojocaliente at 12:59 PM on January 26 [3 favorites]
I've seen a few mentions already of free-range childhoods, which is usually my go-to for questions like this (I still remember being horrified upon learning many years ago that my coworkers thought the idea of letting their kids walk or bike to school was borderline criminal -- may actually be literally illegal here, I'm not even sure -- and latchkey kids are just no longer a thing). But one other side-effect of a no-cell-phone culture that I haven't seen mentioned yet is having to make detailed plans ahead of time about where and when to meet people, b/c if you missed the connection by being late or something else came up or whatever, you were SOL -- there were no "Where are you?" or "I'm running a few minutes late" texts, you just wondered what happened to the person and argued about how long to wait for them until eventually they either showed up or you finally decided to go on without them.
posted by Pedantzilla at 1:00 PM on January 26 [6 favorites]
posted by Pedantzilla at 1:00 PM on January 26 [6 favorites]
"This is the end of our broadcast day..."
posted by Lemkin at 1:01 PM on January 26 [7 favorites]
posted by Lemkin at 1:01 PM on January 26 [7 favorites]
57 here:
Paper paychecks, and praying your boss didn't have some kind of emergency that kept you from getting to the bank at lunch hour to deposit it before 2:00.
My first job out of college was at a Southern liberal arts college. In 1991, a new staff member wore a pantsuit to work and we all held our breath to see if she would be sent home. She wasn't, and the rest of us gals all went out that weekend and bought our first work slacks.
posted by Sweetie Darling at 1:04 PM on January 26 [9 favorites]
Paper paychecks, and praying your boss didn't have some kind of emergency that kept you from getting to the bank at lunch hour to deposit it before 2:00.
My first job out of college was at a Southern liberal arts college. In 1991, a new staff member wore a pantsuit to work and we all held our breath to see if she would be sent home. She wasn't, and the rest of us gals all went out that weekend and bought our first work slacks.
posted by Sweetie Darling at 1:04 PM on January 26 [9 favorites]
Companies run by managers rather than owners, and by people who'd worked their way up the ladder rather than MBAs. Tax rates that discouraged a billionaire class. Not such a gulf between Democrats and Republicans.
As a kid, wandering the neighborhood unsupervised. Mom yelled in the background to fetch me for dinner.
Dog poop on the streets.
Ethnic humor, not just racism. Americans thought any foreign accent was hilarious.
Minute-long commercials.
Horrible Chinese food. Ugh, those overcooked bean sprouts in chop suey.
We still have shopping malls, but maybe not the idea that they were glamorous and ultra-modern.
Gas station maps, because you don't have GPS to tell you where you are. Attempting to re-fold gas station maps.
Computers you accessed from a dumb terminal using paper tapes. (Not the only way, but that was my first exposure to them.)
The utter desert of trying to find kid programs on Sunday morning.
The older generation in my family seemed to all have accordions. Or maybe that was just us.
posted by zompist at 1:10 PM on January 26 [4 favorites]
As a kid, wandering the neighborhood unsupervised. Mom yelled in the background to fetch me for dinner.
Dog poop on the streets.
Ethnic humor, not just racism. Americans thought any foreign accent was hilarious.
Minute-long commercials.
Horrible Chinese food. Ugh, those overcooked bean sprouts in chop suey.
We still have shopping malls, but maybe not the idea that they were glamorous and ultra-modern.
Gas station maps, because you don't have GPS to tell you where you are. Attempting to re-fold gas station maps.
Computers you accessed from a dumb terminal using paper tapes. (Not the only way, but that was my first exposure to them.)
The utter desert of trying to find kid programs on Sunday morning.
The older generation in my family seemed to all have accordions. Or maybe that was just us.
posted by zompist at 1:10 PM on January 26 [4 favorites]
Before the 1980s if you were female at a special occasion or in a public facing job, you were almost always wearing a skirt or dress. If you were wearing pants, people would be shocked and wonder what was wrong with you. This policing of women's fashion choices never went away, but pants definitely became more acceptable as an element of formal wear, and in uniforms as women born in the 1960s onward got older.
posted by oxisos at 1:14 PM on January 26 [4 favorites]
posted by oxisos at 1:14 PM on January 26 [4 favorites]
Those skinny waxed paper straws that were like 1 mm in diameter. Had to suck really hard. They usually started to unravel before you finished your coke.
posted by Czjewel at 1:15 PM on January 26 [1 favorite]
posted by Czjewel at 1:15 PM on January 26 [1 favorite]
Checking the weekly TV listing insert in the Sunday paper to see what movies would be showing that week on broadcast television.
posted by SoberHighland at 1:16 PM on January 26 [6 favorites]
posted by SoberHighland at 1:16 PM on January 26 [6 favorites]
I'm sure some of these have been covered already but...
Boredom: We didn't have 24/7 entertainment at the snap of our fingers via streaming services and smartphones.
Memory: Without a reference library in your pocket, you had to remember a lot more things to get by.
Paper Maps: I got really good at using those. You can still find them if you look, but they are not in everybody's glove compartment like they used to be when I was a kid.
Albums with songs you really could not easily skip. This sorta went away with the CD. Before that, once the tape started, skipping a song was a pain in the ass. Records were not as limiting but required some skill.
TV Shows you could only see at one time during the week. Want to watch Twin Peaks? It was on ABC on Thursday Night at 9pm. Be there or be square. And if you wanted to watch Northern Exposure you were out of luck as they were on at the same time.
News Media was centralized and had to adhere to certain standards: RIP the fairness doctrine. Now you can consume personalized news sources that cater to your beliefs with total disregard for pesky details like facts.
That crapy milk you had to drink at school.
The river catching fire. That went away with the creation of the EPA, but I hear that they are going to bring it back. /s
Arguing over what the actual time was. Everybody's watch or clock was a bit off. We didn't have gps guided smartphones to keep everything in sync so you had to call a number in Boulder to wait for the chime if you really wanted to be spot on.
posted by SegFaultCoreDump at 1:16 PM on January 26 [4 favorites]
Boredom: We didn't have 24/7 entertainment at the snap of our fingers via streaming services and smartphones.
Memory: Without a reference library in your pocket, you had to remember a lot more things to get by.
Paper Maps: I got really good at using those. You can still find them if you look, but they are not in everybody's glove compartment like they used to be when I was a kid.
Albums with songs you really could not easily skip. This sorta went away with the CD. Before that, once the tape started, skipping a song was a pain in the ass. Records were not as limiting but required some skill.
TV Shows you could only see at one time during the week. Want to watch Twin Peaks? It was on ABC on Thursday Night at 9pm. Be there or be square. And if you wanted to watch Northern Exposure you were out of luck as they were on at the same time.
News Media was centralized and had to adhere to certain standards: RIP the fairness doctrine. Now you can consume personalized news sources that cater to your beliefs with total disregard for pesky details like facts.
That crapy milk you had to drink at school.
The river catching fire. That went away with the creation of the EPA, but I hear that they are going to bring it back. /s
Arguing over what the actual time was. Everybody's watch or clock was a bit off. We didn't have gps guided smartphones to keep everything in sync so you had to call a number in Boulder to wait for the chime if you really wanted to be spot on.
posted by SegFaultCoreDump at 1:16 PM on January 26 [4 favorites]
Locally-produced children's TV like Atlanta's "The Good Time Gang" featuring Valerie, Ginger, their accents, and a puppet from Mars.
posted by amtho at 1:18 PM on January 26 [1 favorite]
posted by amtho at 1:18 PM on January 26 [1 favorite]
When I was growing up in the eighties, bullying was much, much more normalized than it is now. I'm not saying that there is no bullying now, because I know that isn't true, but there's a popular counter-discourse, and while I'm sure that teachers still actively bully students (like, participate along with the child bullies) it is viewed as much more shocking now. Some of the time, bullies and teachers who bully are punished.
When I was growing up, it was absolutely taken for granted by everyone that if you stood out in any way - if you were fat, or poorer than your peers, or you talked differently, or you got better grades, or you were an immigrant, or you were a POC in a majority white space, and especially if you were in any way physically non-conforming - you would of course be bullied aggressively by the popular kids. That was normal, teachers totally ignored it or joined in - I had a class where the teacher and the two popular football players literally worked together to bully me and I saw other kids get it worse. I saw teachers ignore open racist abuse and open extreme and crass sexual harassment that literally took place within several feet of them.
You may think to yourself, "but I see news stories about cyberbullying all the time" - but when I was a kid, bullying wasn't news, it was just the weird kids getting what they had coming. My friends have school-aged children now, I've watched several families deal with bullying and I can absolutely tell you that things are better now. There are still too many horrible instances, but the absolute pure "this is the way of the world" of it is gone.
For instance, my parents told me that people in our family were always bullied and picked on in school, there was nothing that could be done about it and we just had to wait until college when we'd finally meet people who were nice and cared about the stuff we did. I think very few parents would say that today.
If you want an example of extremely real and recognizable high school bullying as it was lived, look at John Hughes movies, but only pay attention to the creepy parts where people are racist or violent - that was all completely okay where I was growing up.
posted by Frowner at 1:19 PM on January 26 [28 favorites]
When I was growing up, it was absolutely taken for granted by everyone that if you stood out in any way - if you were fat, or poorer than your peers, or you talked differently, or you got better grades, or you were an immigrant, or you were a POC in a majority white space, and especially if you were in any way physically non-conforming - you would of course be bullied aggressively by the popular kids. That was normal, teachers totally ignored it or joined in - I had a class where the teacher and the two popular football players literally worked together to bully me and I saw other kids get it worse. I saw teachers ignore open racist abuse and open extreme and crass sexual harassment that literally took place within several feet of them.
You may think to yourself, "but I see news stories about cyberbullying all the time" - but when I was a kid, bullying wasn't news, it was just the weird kids getting what they had coming. My friends have school-aged children now, I've watched several families deal with bullying and I can absolutely tell you that things are better now. There are still too many horrible instances, but the absolute pure "this is the way of the world" of it is gone.
For instance, my parents told me that people in our family were always bullied and picked on in school, there was nothing that could be done about it and we just had to wait until college when we'd finally meet people who were nice and cared about the stuff we did. I think very few parents would say that today.
If you want an example of extremely real and recognizable high school bullying as it was lived, look at John Hughes movies, but only pay attention to the creepy parts where people are racist or violent - that was all completely okay where I was growing up.
posted by Frowner at 1:19 PM on January 26 [28 favorites]
My mom refused to let me wear jeans to school. That kind of sentiment mostly seemed to have changed by the 80s.
Not only dog poop on the streets, but dogs roaming around the city. Dogs being hit by cars in the neighborhood was way more common.
When Licorice Pizza came out, plenty of folks were disappointed by the racist depiction of a Japanese character/situation. People, you have no idea...
posted by 2N2222 at 1:21 PM on January 26 [3 favorites]
Not only dog poop on the streets, but dogs roaming around the city. Dogs being hit by cars in the neighborhood was way more common.
When Licorice Pizza came out, plenty of folks were disappointed by the racist depiction of a Japanese character/situation. People, you have no idea...
posted by 2N2222 at 1:21 PM on January 26 [3 favorites]
In the weeks before Xmas, there were numbers you could call (on a rotary phone!) that would play recordings of short stories about Santa Claus (or some other holiday themed story). It was an ongoing story, so us kids would call each day and listen in on the various phone extensions in our house. I think this cost a small amount of money, but this was way before price gouging 900 numbers... I'm talking late 1970s. The phone company (Bell Telephone!) I think was the corporation that sponsored these.
posted by SoberHighland at 1:22 PM on January 26 [2 favorites]
posted by SoberHighland at 1:22 PM on January 26 [2 favorites]
> Pledge of allegiance in morning homeroom class.
I was astonished that my son's elementary school still did this, circa 2013
Still happening at my local high school as of last year.
posted by The corpse in the library at 1:23 PM on January 26 [5 favorites]
I was astonished that my son's elementary school still did this, circa 2013
Still happening at my local high school as of last year.
posted by The corpse in the library at 1:23 PM on January 26 [5 favorites]
Paper paychecks, and praying your boss didn't have some kind of emergency that kept you from getting to the bank at lunch hour to deposit it before 2:00.
Related was grocery stores would cash your paycheque. And you could run a tab in between paydays that would get settled when you cashed your cheque.
The circular item movers at grocery check outs instead of belts.
We got both our encyclopedia set and a complete set of dishes one book/dish at a time as a weekly promotion from the grocery story.
posted by Mitheral at 1:23 PM on January 26 [5 favorites]
Related was grocery stores would cash your paycheque. And you could run a tab in between paydays that would get settled when you cashed your cheque.
The circular item movers at grocery check outs instead of belts.
We got both our encyclopedia set and a complete set of dishes one book/dish at a time as a weekly promotion from the grocery story.
posted by Mitheral at 1:23 PM on January 26 [5 favorites]
Manual layout and paste-up of magazines, ads, and newspapers. Layout was done on paper "boards" on a light table. Tools were an X-acto knife, melted wax roller, scissors, layout tape. Photos had to be camera "screened" to apply a screen pattern matching the printer's specs. Typeset stories and art were cut by hand to fit the framework printed on the boards and using a wax roller each piece had a thin wax layer applied to the back. The wax allowed for repositioning. When layout was complete, the boards had to physically be transported to the printer by mail or driven there. Very difficult to make changes once the boards were sent.
posted by a humble nudibranch at 1:27 PM on January 26 [17 favorites]
posted by a humble nudibranch at 1:27 PM on January 26 [17 favorites]
I'm from a rural hamlet of about 300 people, part of a town of about 1,600 to 2,200 people when I lived there. My mother's hometown was a big part of our lives, with a larger village that had small businesses, a Greyhound stop (no waiting area), and it was part of a larger town. The village government was dissolved in the 1980s and everything reverted to the town government.
Civic and fraternal organizations are greatly reduced, if there at all anymore. This past week, I happened on the Facebook page for the Mom's hometown historical society, and I was jolted by several organization pictures my grandmother was in. Many if not most all Main Street buildings are empty. It saddens me so.
People socialized by calling on one another, "visiting" or playing cards. Socialization also revolved around meetings and activities of groups I mentioned above.
These social calls and meetings were reported in local newspaper columns. The papers are almost all gone, and the remaining papers don't have those columns anymore.
Also, you knew people's phone numbers.
posted by jgirl at 1:34 PM on January 26 [4 favorites]
Civic and fraternal organizations are greatly reduced, if there at all anymore. This past week, I happened on the Facebook page for the Mom's hometown historical society, and I was jolted by several organization pictures my grandmother was in. Many if not most all Main Street buildings are empty. It saddens me so.
People socialized by calling on one another, "visiting" or playing cards. Socialization also revolved around meetings and activities of groups I mentioned above.
These social calls and meetings were reported in local newspaper columns. The papers are almost all gone, and the remaining papers don't have those columns anymore.
Also, you knew people's phone numbers.
posted by jgirl at 1:34 PM on January 26 [4 favorites]
Bills that come on paper through your letterbox, and then you have to remember to pay them somehow.
Bank books.
Newspapers with classified ads - for jobs, for buying people's old stuff, for "lonely hearts".
A specific local rag consisting mainly of ads for massage parlours and for cleaning ladies who thought it important to mention their bust size.
Going into a bank branch, or talking to a bank manager.
Encyclopedias. Pocket dictionaries. Little books with tables in them where you could look up the sin/cos/tan of a number, logarithms and so on.
Being allowed to use an ink pen at school as some sort of perk.
Getting cheap shoes soled and heeled at the cobblers when they wore out. Darning jumpers and socks.
Paying for train tickets by putting coins in machines.
Writing physical letters to your friends and family.
All elderly people having false teeth.
Teletext
Reading the phone bill as a household and arguing with housemates about who made which calls.
Shops that keep all their wares on shelves behind the counter, so you have to recite your shopping list while the shop owner goes around and fetches everything, probably using a ladder. And then tots up your bill with a pencil on a paper bag.
Skirts being a mandatory part of school uniform, because the headmaster "liked seeing the girls' legs".
Playing in the road. Going round knocking on random other kids' doors and going "can so-and-so come out to play?"
Knowing when the weather forecast would be on the radio.
Things made in China being very special and unusual.
People coming to your door to sell you actual physical things that they had brought in a basket.
Having a small independent hardware store in every town, usually very dusty with a dusty old man who knew everything about everything and could tell you what you needed.
posted by quacks like a duck at 1:36 PM on January 26 [6 favorites]
Bank books.
Newspapers with classified ads - for jobs, for buying people's old stuff, for "lonely hearts".
A specific local rag consisting mainly of ads for massage parlours and for cleaning ladies who thought it important to mention their bust size.
Going into a bank branch, or talking to a bank manager.
Encyclopedias. Pocket dictionaries. Little books with tables in them where you could look up the sin/cos/tan of a number, logarithms and so on.
Being allowed to use an ink pen at school as some sort of perk.
Getting cheap shoes soled and heeled at the cobblers when they wore out. Darning jumpers and socks.
Paying for train tickets by putting coins in machines.
Writing physical letters to your friends and family.
All elderly people having false teeth.
Teletext
Reading the phone bill as a household and arguing with housemates about who made which calls.
Shops that keep all their wares on shelves behind the counter, so you have to recite your shopping list while the shop owner goes around and fetches everything, probably using a ladder. And then tots up your bill with a pencil on a paper bag.
Skirts being a mandatory part of school uniform, because the headmaster "liked seeing the girls' legs".
Playing in the road. Going round knocking on random other kids' doors and going "can so-and-so come out to play?"
Knowing when the weather forecast would be on the radio.
Things made in China being very special and unusual.
People coming to your door to sell you actual physical things that they had brought in a basket.
Having a small independent hardware store in every town, usually very dusty with a dusty old man who knew everything about everything and could tell you what you needed.
posted by quacks like a duck at 1:36 PM on January 26 [6 favorites]
Were telephone operaters a thing in the US when you were kids? I've seen them in old movies, but don't know when the service was automatized in the US. In the UK and in Denmark, the places I remember best (we lived in several different countries), operators were pretty knowing/nosy people. In our tiny village in Yorkshire, it'd be like "no, Simon's parents have already gone to the cricket field, and would you mind bringing Sarah with you on your way, since I'm at work". In a slightly larger village in Denmark, they'd be " doctor Hay is at an emergency call, should I transfer you to the ambulance service?" (She'd know, but wouldn't mention more private stuff). And in the big city you'd get a personal reply if you called the same number very often, but otherwise not.
My mother to this day loves new technology, so we were always the first to have stuff, and often hosted neighbors and family for TV events. This is why I remember a lot of the early space stuff. I wasn't interested, but everyone was at our house.
It's been mentioned how we managed to meet up without phones. This is kind of a mystery to me, since I've never worn a watch, but still my brother and I managed to coordinate in a way that totally fooled our mother. She imagined that because we were very close in age and also close in spirit, we would keep a check on each other, and we had a free range at night from when we were 15-16. But somehow we managed to coordinate whatever we wanted to do separately or together through any night so we would arrive at home together looking all rosy and innocent. Weird. But it worked. Our much younger sister didn't have half the leeway and struggled a lot during her teen years.
Which reminds me of another thing, apropos bullies. Not long ago, I met two of our high school bullies at an event that was in no way related to our common past. And they both said that their rage then had been about their lack of access to sex. Which was sad. In my head, I thought that I would have given them a bit if that was the issue, but also that I didn't because they were obnoxious bullies. I feel that here is something to learn here, but since I knew their parents I also know it isn't enough to be a liberal in politics here. You also have to teach your kids to be kind and respectful. Their parents had been too self-absorbed to raise boys who attracted smart girls. Later, they found girls who wanted rich men, who then left them for richer men. And then they finally got it. But what a life.
posted by mumimor at 1:37 PM on January 26 [6 favorites]
My mother to this day loves new technology, so we were always the first to have stuff, and often hosted neighbors and family for TV events. This is why I remember a lot of the early space stuff. I wasn't interested, but everyone was at our house.
It's been mentioned how we managed to meet up without phones. This is kind of a mystery to me, since I've never worn a watch, but still my brother and I managed to coordinate in a way that totally fooled our mother. She imagined that because we were very close in age and also close in spirit, we would keep a check on each other, and we had a free range at night from when we were 15-16. But somehow we managed to coordinate whatever we wanted to do separately or together through any night so we would arrive at home together looking all rosy and innocent. Weird. But it worked. Our much younger sister didn't have half the leeway and struggled a lot during her teen years.
Which reminds me of another thing, apropos bullies. Not long ago, I met two of our high school bullies at an event that was in no way related to our common past. And they both said that their rage then had been about their lack of access to sex. Which was sad. In my head, I thought that I would have given them a bit if that was the issue, but also that I didn't because they were obnoxious bullies. I feel that here is something to learn here, but since I knew their parents I also know it isn't enough to be a liberal in politics here. You also have to teach your kids to be kind and respectful. Their parents had been too self-absorbed to raise boys who attracted smart girls. Later, they found girls who wanted rich men, who then left them for richer men. And then they finally got it. But what a life.
posted by mumimor at 1:37 PM on January 26 [6 favorites]
We called them pizza parlors. Pizza was served on a silver metal thing that looked like a cake stand. Cheese, pepperoni, or mushroom. That were the choices.
posted by Czjewel at 1:37 PM on January 26 [3 favorites]
posted by Czjewel at 1:37 PM on January 26 [3 favorites]
Long distance calling - Station to station or person to person - collect calls.
Woolworths selling colored baby chicks and baby bunnies at Easter.
posted by susandennis at 1:45 PM on January 26 [4 favorites]
Woolworths selling colored baby chicks and baby bunnies at Easter.
posted by susandennis at 1:45 PM on January 26 [4 favorites]
Almost 50. My mother smoked. She frequently sent me to the shop, from age 7, to get whatever item was missing for dinner and a packet of cigarettes….and people sold them to me. She also sent me to the cigarette vending machine as soon as I was tall enough to reach.
I was also allowed to walk to and from Kindergarten alone in the months before I started school. There was no road to cross and it was only a few hundred yards but clearly wouldn’t happen now.
posted by koahiatamadl at 1:48 PM on January 26 [2 favorites]
I was also allowed to walk to and from Kindergarten alone in the months before I started school. There was no road to cross and it was only a few hundred yards but clearly wouldn’t happen now.
posted by koahiatamadl at 1:48 PM on January 26 [2 favorites]
The GDR/DDR aka East Germany. Our circle of friends has a healthy chunk of people whose country in which they grew up no longer exists. There are whisps of it, still, all around but they mostly serve to make that even more poignant.
From my own youth, riding around (ten years old) on the frozen lake on a friends' ski-doo. Or riding to the pool for swim lessons or just to spend the day, in the summer, at the park.
posted by From Bklyn at 2:04 PM on January 26 [4 favorites]
From my own youth, riding around (ten years old) on the frozen lake on a friends' ski-doo. Or riding to the pool for swim lessons or just to spend the day, in the summer, at the park.
posted by From Bklyn at 2:04 PM on January 26 [4 favorites]
He'd always wash your windshield and then check your oil
I'm just old enough to have seen gas station attendants, unsolicited, clean one's windshield. You weren't even expected to tip for the service.
In retrospect, it seems like having been a fucking maharaja.
posted by Lemkin at 2:18 PM on January 26 [5 favorites]
I'm just old enough to have seen gas station attendants, unsolicited, clean one's windshield. You weren't even expected to tip for the service.
In retrospect, it seems like having been a fucking maharaja.
posted by Lemkin at 2:18 PM on January 26 [5 favorites]
I haven’t read through all of this yet but did anyone mention all the physical maps? Road atlases and really good fold out city maps, with a list of streets that corresponded to the letter and number I’m the grid where is was. Transit maps.
posted by vunder at 2:24 PM on January 26 [3 favorites]
posted by vunder at 2:24 PM on January 26 [3 favorites]
I went to college in the country next door in 1973. I'd go to a pay phone with a fistful of coins [cheaper after 6pm] and ask the operator to call my parents at "Fyfield 352, the one in Essex, not Wiltshire". When the connexion succeeded you'd be asked to put such an amount in the slot, operator would warn when time was running out and was sometimes kind and let it run over. After a particularly efficient connexion the operator told me the coding that had been successful [Holyhead 54 - Chester 72 - Birmingham 458 - Bishop's Stortford 8] and recommended that I tell the next operator.
The Dublin phone book (a ratty copy in many telephone booths) had several pages under "Flats" sorted by street and number. We once had the flat nearest the shared phone so usually answered first and yelled up the stairwell or went and knocked on the door.
Christmas presents for chaps in the 1960s: Letts Schoolboy Diary; matching pen and "propelling" pencil set; cuff-links; cotton handkerchiefs; penknife; Airfix model plane; a postal order for 5/- = ¼£. I explain to my grandchildren that writing a thank-you letter increases the likelihood that the golden goose will continue to lay . . . because that wasn't clear to me at that age.
posted by BobTheScientist at 2:31 PM on January 26 [3 favorites]
The Dublin phone book (a ratty copy in many telephone booths) had several pages under "Flats" sorted by street and number. We once had the flat nearest the shared phone so usually answered first and yelled up the stairwell or went and knocked on the door.
Christmas presents for chaps in the 1960s: Letts Schoolboy Diary; matching pen and "propelling" pencil set; cuff-links; cotton handkerchiefs; penknife; Airfix model plane; a postal order for 5/- = ¼£. I explain to my grandchildren that writing a thank-you letter increases the likelihood that the golden goose will continue to lay . . . because that wasn't clear to me at that age.
posted by BobTheScientist at 2:31 PM on January 26 [3 favorites]
I'm not in the target age group, but: incandescent light bulbs.
My husband and I had a moment when we realised that our kids have absolutely no conception that lights might be hot, while lifting one of them up to the ceiling during a game. Hot desk-lamps being a visceral memory!
posted by freethefeet at 2:31 PM on January 26 [7 favorites]
My husband and I had a moment when we realised that our kids have absolutely no conception that lights might be hot, while lifting one of them up to the ceiling during a game. Hot desk-lamps being a visceral memory!
posted by freethefeet at 2:31 PM on January 26 [7 favorites]
Stationary stores, stand alone pharmacies/gift shoppes with massive glass display bottles, ice cream parlors where the rich kids had birthday parties, waiting for strawberries to be in season, bread was white sliced or ick brown and it was all squishy. Nearly every grocery store had an actual butcher on the premises, but very little fresh seafood. Planning driving trips based on when and where to purchase gasoline because there might not be any gas stations for a long ways. Listening to AM radio on those trips because we didn't have anything else. Not getting cats or dogs "fixed" because it was too expensive, so the cat just kept having kittens, which we had to give away. White sales at big department stores in January, along with "inventory" sales. Driving 65 because the national speed limit was 55 and everybody bitched about that. Not wearing a lap style seatbelt, or having a car that didn't have them at all.
No emergency grocery store run on a holiday, they were closed tight and if you forgot to get heavy cream oh well. The library cards had little metal stamps embedded in them, and they'd take the checkout card from the pocket in the front of the book, insert it into the stamp with your card, clunk-cha-chunk, your due date and card number. Credit cards, too, and the flimsy carbon forms that got imprinted with your card number, and had to be finished and signed, hang onto that receipt. Having to ask for 2 forms of id when someone wrote a check, and writing their information on the check at the top. In general, children would not be seen at a "fancy" restaurant, especially if it was dimly lit and served booze. No kid car seats, throw them in the back bench seat or in the back back to roll around and inhale exhaust fumes. Signing up for day-long drivers courses taught by sheriffs in order to get out of most traffic tickets, and the most boring/gory traffic films ever being shown.
posted by winesong at 2:33 PM on January 26 [2 favorites]
No emergency grocery store run on a holiday, they were closed tight and if you forgot to get heavy cream oh well. The library cards had little metal stamps embedded in them, and they'd take the checkout card from the pocket in the front of the book, insert it into the stamp with your card, clunk-cha-chunk, your due date and card number. Credit cards, too, and the flimsy carbon forms that got imprinted with your card number, and had to be finished and signed, hang onto that receipt. Having to ask for 2 forms of id when someone wrote a check, and writing their information on the check at the top. In general, children would not be seen at a "fancy" restaurant, especially if it was dimly lit and served booze. No kid car seats, throw them in the back bench seat or in the back back to roll around and inhale exhaust fumes. Signing up for day-long drivers courses taught by sheriffs in order to get out of most traffic tickets, and the most boring/gory traffic films ever being shown.
posted by winesong at 2:33 PM on January 26 [2 favorites]
2nding Radio Shack... that place was amazing
Jobs that would now be replaced by a computer. My dad was an insurance auditor. He traveled all over the country visiting banks and checking their records around insurance claims. No idea how that actually worked, but he was away a lot. Whenever we traveled, he see highway signs "and often say, i make a call at X Bank in Y, and then after I'd have a round of golf at Z." Now, that job would probably be one person at a computer or automated.
posted by kokaku at 2:40 PM on January 26 [3 favorites]
Jobs that would now be replaced by a computer. My dad was an insurance auditor. He traveled all over the country visiting banks and checking their records around insurance claims. No idea how that actually worked, but he was away a lot. Whenever we traveled, he see highway signs "and often say, i make a call at X Bank in Y, and then after I'd have a round of golf at Z." Now, that job would probably be one person at a computer or automated.
posted by kokaku at 2:40 PM on January 26 [3 favorites]
For rain:
Rubber overshoes for men when they wear dress shoes to work (my dad had a pair that he would slide on and off over his leather shoes to work)
My grandmother had a clear plastic hair cover she'd wear over her hairdo and would tie under her chin
posted by bluedaisy at 2:41 PM on January 26 [6 favorites]
Rubber overshoes for men when they wear dress shoes to work (my dad had a pair that he would slide on and off over his leather shoes to work)
My grandmother had a clear plastic hair cover she'd wear over her hairdo and would tie under her chin
posted by bluedaisy at 2:41 PM on January 26 [6 favorites]
Being able to call a business and expect that an actual person would answer the phone. I'm not sure at what point the nightmare recorded phone tree became the norm. I guess it's gradually gotten worse and worse over the past 20 years and I feel like maybe it got a lot worse during the pandemic. You know how if you call a big business like Xfinity, you have to navigate this endless series of recordings asking you to choose from options that don't describe what you're calling about, and some of them turn out to be dead ends that only lead to recordings, or lead you back to a previous recording? And then if you finally figure out a series of choices that leads to an actual person, you'll probably have to wait on hold for at least 10 or 15 minutes to talk to them? And then they'll probably say you actually need to talk to someone in a different department and if they transfer you, you may just get voice mail or another phone tree or another person who says they aren't the right department either? In the 90's or earlier, that experience did not exist. At worst, you would get a brief recorded message asking you to pick one of several choices and any of the choices would lead to an actual person.
And you could call any local business to ask a question. Nowadays if you try to call, say, your local Home Depot to ask if they have a particular thing in stock or are open on Christmas Eve, you don't really even expect anyone to answer. If they do answer, it's likely that they'll just put you on hold and then hang up on you, or transfer you to someone else who doesn't pick up. Before 2000, that absolutely was not a normal experience.
posted by Redstart at 2:59 PM on January 26 [12 favorites]
And you could call any local business to ask a question. Nowadays if you try to call, say, your local Home Depot to ask if they have a particular thing in stock or are open on Christmas Eve, you don't really even expect anyone to answer. If they do answer, it's likely that they'll just put you on hold and then hang up on you, or transfer you to someone else who doesn't pick up. Before 2000, that absolutely was not a normal experience.
posted by Redstart at 2:59 PM on January 26 [12 favorites]
I'm old enough to just remember the end of the '50s and home delivery of milk and of bread.
BONUS: Occasionally the bread-truck driver would give a small child a short ride down the street to the next stop on his route.
posted by AsYouKnow Bob at 3:00 PM on January 26 [4 favorites]
BONUS: Occasionally the bread-truck driver would give a small child a short ride down the street to the next stop on his route.
posted by AsYouKnow Bob at 3:00 PM on January 26 [4 favorites]
Pets were treated so differently - birds routinely kept in too-small cages, animals not given painkillers for surgery recovery. Cats being declawed as a matter of course by middle class families - I had NO IDEA that removing claws was like removing a toe joint, and I don't think my parents understood this either, because they would never have done it even if that meant we didn't get a cat. Some of this was just vet technology - there simply weren't the treatments for pets that we take for granted now. Some of it was pure ignorance - there weren't popular resources on pet nutrition or health to nearly the same degree. We had a pretty detailed book about cat health, but even it did not have much about declawing, and I was the only one who really read it.
~~~
Nuclear war shelter signs on buildings and nuclear attack drills in schools - in my school they were disguised as/crossed with tornado drills, and we all went into interior halls or the basement, not under our desks. Nuclear war discourse, nuclear war as a popular topic of movies - there were so many movies about nuclear war in the eighties. (Boy, in the brief period before we realized how fucked it was going to be, it really felt great when the Cold War ended - there was going to be a peace dividend that could be spent on social programs, we weren't going to die in a nuclear attack, we weren't going to hate the Russians or East Germans anymore (and that did matter to ordinary people - discourse about Russians was pervasive, often toxic but also often regretful).
~~
Trendy animals: Whales were trendy in the late seventies through the eighties, dolphins in the eighties through the early nineties, tree frogs in the early nineties.
Trendy countries: Australia for a few years in the eighties, Italy, France. Going there (for rich kids), having things from there (for somewhat less rich kids), having things that were branded to seem French or Italian (like, I literally had a Sorbonne sweatshirt in about 1986).
posted by Frowner at 3:00 PM on January 26 [10 favorites]
~~~
Nuclear war shelter signs on buildings and nuclear attack drills in schools - in my school they were disguised as/crossed with tornado drills, and we all went into interior halls or the basement, not under our desks. Nuclear war discourse, nuclear war as a popular topic of movies - there were so many movies about nuclear war in the eighties. (Boy, in the brief period before we realized how fucked it was going to be, it really felt great when the Cold War ended - there was going to be a peace dividend that could be spent on social programs, we weren't going to die in a nuclear attack, we weren't going to hate the Russians or East Germans anymore (and that did matter to ordinary people - discourse about Russians was pervasive, often toxic but also often regretful).
~~
Trendy animals: Whales were trendy in the late seventies through the eighties, dolphins in the eighties through the early nineties, tree frogs in the early nineties.
Trendy countries: Australia for a few years in the eighties, Italy, France. Going there (for rich kids), having things from there (for somewhat less rich kids), having things that were branded to seem French or Italian (like, I literally had a Sorbonne sweatshirt in about 1986).
posted by Frowner at 3:00 PM on January 26 [10 favorites]
I'm 76, old enough to remember actual meals and legroom in coach on airplanes.
posted by Dolley at 3:09 PM on January 26 [10 favorites]
posted by Dolley at 3:09 PM on January 26 [10 favorites]
Keeping a quarter on you in case you had to use a pay phone to call home. A dime! When did it change, I remember when it did.
Stamps that you licked rather than were stickers.
posted by vunder at 3:10 PM on January 26 [10 favorites]
Stamps that you licked rather than were stickers.
posted by vunder at 3:10 PM on January 26 [10 favorites]
In my k - 12 school girls were forbidden to wear pants. That changed while I was in high school, in 1969 I think. There wasn’t a uniform, but girls in every grade had to wear skirts. We had to change for gym into “gym shorts”.
An early boss of mine told me that when she worked at our city’s department of education pregnant women were not permitted to work. She got pregnant and was either fired or laid off. I don’t think there was a lot of societal push-back about it, either. This was in the 1950’s. Many women in many professions “had to quit” working when they became pregnant.
posted by citygirl at 3:35 PM on January 26 [4 favorites]
An early boss of mine told me that when she worked at our city’s department of education pregnant women were not permitted to work. She got pregnant and was either fired or laid off. I don’t think there was a lot of societal push-back about it, either. This was in the 1950’s. Many women in many professions “had to quit” working when they became pregnant.
posted by citygirl at 3:35 PM on January 26 [4 favorites]
So much about movie theaters. I am not from the walk in at any point and watch it many times in a row era, but I am from the era of many different kinds of theaters. Regular mainstream ones, Art house cinemas (many of different flavors), second run cheapies, ones with midnight Rocky Horror showings, some old ones with the organist, porn theaters!
posted by vunder at 3:43 PM on January 26 [3 favorites]
posted by vunder at 3:43 PM on January 26 [3 favorites]
Just not knowing about things and not having any way to find out unless your library had a book about it or you happened to find one at the physical bookstore. This has to be the single biggest thing. The staggering lack of access to knowledge. Mind boggling.
The only cosmetic procedures were face lifts and those were really rare.
Sitting around looking at magazines together as an activity.
Listening to the radio in the morning to see if your school had called a snow day. The announcer would read out the list of schools and whether they were closed or opening late.
Making prank calls, back when people answered their phones.
Parents sending little kids out to buy cigarettes.
Being put on a plane in the care of the stewardess starting at age 4.
Comic books, 10 cents, in a rack at the 7-11.
Taking the phone off the hook when you didn't want any calls.
Getting someone's phone number from 411.
Ladies dialing the rotary phone with the eraser end of a pencil so they didn't mess up their acrylic nails.
The Avon lady making a monthly visit to our house and leaving tons of samples.
I actually got milk delivered and was on a party line into the late 1990s, but it was obviously an anomaly.
Card catalogs at the library.
Typing all my papers on a portable typewriter.
Women going out with their hair in rollers with a scarf over them.
Lying in bed on a Sunday surrounded by sections of the Sunday NYT.
Bain de Soleil Orange Gelee SPF 4. Ha.
Ladies sitting under the bonnet dryer at the hairdresser's.
posted by HotToddy at 4:00 PM on January 26 [5 favorites]
The only cosmetic procedures were face lifts and those were really rare.
Sitting around looking at magazines together as an activity.
Listening to the radio in the morning to see if your school had called a snow day. The announcer would read out the list of schools and whether they were closed or opening late.
Making prank calls, back when people answered their phones.
Parents sending little kids out to buy cigarettes.
Being put on a plane in the care of the stewardess starting at age 4.
Comic books, 10 cents, in a rack at the 7-11.
Taking the phone off the hook when you didn't want any calls.
Getting someone's phone number from 411.
Ladies dialing the rotary phone with the eraser end of a pencil so they didn't mess up their acrylic nails.
The Avon lady making a monthly visit to our house and leaving tons of samples.
I actually got milk delivered and was on a party line into the late 1990s, but it was obviously an anomaly.
Card catalogs at the library.
Typing all my papers on a portable typewriter.
Women going out with their hair in rollers with a scarf over them.
Lying in bed on a Sunday surrounded by sections of the Sunday NYT.
Bain de Soleil Orange Gelee SPF 4. Ha.
Ladies sitting under the bonnet dryer at the hairdresser's.
posted by HotToddy at 4:00 PM on January 26 [5 favorites]
Picking out movies at the video store used to be a major part of social life.
posted by rodlymight at 4:04 PM on January 26 [9 favorites]
posted by rodlymight at 4:04 PM on January 26 [9 favorites]
This was way before my time - but girls in high school used to only be allowed to play half-court basketball and their track and field sports were different, and generally shorter than men's.
So many of these totally still exist, and/or were social class differences that were not universal. So many of them actually that it's kind of a hilarious thread to read.
posted by The_Vegetables at 4:11 PM on January 26 [5 favorites]
So many of these totally still exist, and/or were social class differences that were not universal. So many of them actually that it's kind of a hilarious thread to read.
posted by The_Vegetables at 4:11 PM on January 26 [5 favorites]
The Wizard of Oz being a special occasion, because it was only on once a year. I vaguely remember Danny Kaye introducing it during the early days of color TV (which we didn’t yet have) and explaining that the beginning and end were meant to be in black-and-white; there was nothing wrong with your TV set.
posted by elphaba at 4:21 PM on January 26 [10 favorites]
posted by elphaba at 4:21 PM on January 26 [10 favorites]
Stepping on pop tops
Explicit segregation
The Green Book
Directories
Attitudes toward LGBTQ+ people
Punch card programming
Forced handedness
Corporeal punishment by teachers
Less carbon dioxide in the air
Kids smoking cigarettes on school property
Tan M&Ms but not orange ones
posted by Mirth at 4:27 PM on January 26 [3 favorites]
Explicit segregation
The Green Book
Directories
Attitudes toward LGBTQ+ people
Punch card programming
Forced handedness
Corporeal punishment by teachers
Less carbon dioxide in the air
Kids smoking cigarettes on school property
Tan M&Ms but not orange ones
posted by Mirth at 4:27 PM on January 26 [3 favorites]
I don't exactly miss typewriters, but those were a constant presence in my life until college, when my school put in a computer lab, and I never looked back.
Long conversations on the landline. I miss the audio fidelity and not ever having to ask somebody to repeat themselves.
Getting the new issue of the New York Press or the Village Voice and looking at movie and concert listings. Reading the movie reviews even if I had no intention of seeing the movie. We'd go to a movie almost every weekend.
People watching around the corner from our apartment downtown. We'd get an Italian ice, and just sit there for hours. Sometimes we'd play catch in the handball courts.
Browsing at Tower Records or Tower Books for hours, looking at CDs and records, reading the zines, digging through the posters.
Deciding on a movie to rent at Kim's.
posted by computech_apolloniajames at 4:31 PM on January 26 [3 favorites]
Long conversations on the landline. I miss the audio fidelity and not ever having to ask somebody to repeat themselves.
Getting the new issue of the New York Press or the Village Voice and looking at movie and concert listings. Reading the movie reviews even if I had no intention of seeing the movie. We'd go to a movie almost every weekend.
People watching around the corner from our apartment downtown. We'd get an Italian ice, and just sit there for hours. Sometimes we'd play catch in the handball courts.
Browsing at Tower Records or Tower Books for hours, looking at CDs and records, reading the zines, digging through the posters.
Deciding on a movie to rent at Kim's.
posted by computech_apolloniajames at 4:31 PM on January 26 [3 favorites]
Yes, occasion TV - I remember going to my grandparents' to watch The Wizard of Oz because they had a color TV and we didn't. And one time Star Wars was broadcast on network TV - that must have been the early-mid eighties, and it was so exciting.
Also watching oddball reruns mid-day in summer - sometimes it was good stuff, like Bewitched, and sometimes it was boring or upsetting, like really violent old Japanese movies with samurai and people getting eviscerated.
Instead of secretly watching things on the internet, you'd have to stay up late and secretly watch whatever was being broadcast - like, when I was twelve or thirteen, I would stay up extremely late on Friday or Saturday nights, long after my family had gone to bed, and watch inappropriate movies - I saw slightly edited versions of Angel Heart and 9 1/2 Weeks, among others.
My sense is that watching TV as a kid was more exciting/had more highs and lows than it is/does now because you had so little choice and could so easily miss things. Like, I found anime extremely interesting but got to see very little of it, mostly Macross, and it could be so disappointing when it was a rerun, but so extremely exciting if it was an episode I hadn't seen AND I was not required by family to do something else and miss part of it. It was also more confusing, because if you missed an episode or a plot point, you might miss it forever and there was no internet or easily accessible reference.
posted by Frowner at 4:35 PM on January 26 [3 favorites]
Also watching oddball reruns mid-day in summer - sometimes it was good stuff, like Bewitched, and sometimes it was boring or upsetting, like really violent old Japanese movies with samurai and people getting eviscerated.
Instead of secretly watching things on the internet, you'd have to stay up late and secretly watch whatever was being broadcast - like, when I was twelve or thirteen, I would stay up extremely late on Friday or Saturday nights, long after my family had gone to bed, and watch inappropriate movies - I saw slightly edited versions of Angel Heart and 9 1/2 Weeks, among others.
My sense is that watching TV as a kid was more exciting/had more highs and lows than it is/does now because you had so little choice and could so easily miss things. Like, I found anime extremely interesting but got to see very little of it, mostly Macross, and it could be so disappointing when it was a rerun, but so extremely exciting if it was an episode I hadn't seen AND I was not required by family to do something else and miss part of it. It was also more confusing, because if you missed an episode or a plot point, you might miss it forever and there was no internet or easily accessible reference.
posted by Frowner at 4:35 PM on January 26 [3 favorites]
Milk being home-delivered in glass, foil-topped bottles. (I'm 48.)
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 4:41 PM on January 26 [2 favorites]
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 4:41 PM on January 26 [2 favorites]
I'm 55, and I remember:
posted by scruss at 4:49 PM on January 26 [11 favorites]
- phone calls being tethered to a place, and not wandering about freely
- jobs for life
- being able to raise three kids and own a nice house on a single salary
- door to door bill collectors
- milk deliveries
- multiple mail deliveries in a day
- men who "came back from the war not right" (= PTSD) and hung around the local shops until the Legion opened so they could drink the pain of the day out of existence
- most of your grandparents' generation having passed before you were born. I think more than half of mine didn't make it to the age I am now
- department stores with a central cashier and pneumatic receipt/change tubes (foomp!)
- the sound of a paper credit card machine, and annoying american tourists who always demanded the carbons from the receipts
- filling in your electricity meter reading on what was essentially a mark-sense card for a computer to read
- Severe export limits of cash for vacations (UK, pre-EU membership)
- bank machines that would only dispense a fixed amount of cash in a plastic clip, and you had to return the empty clip in the bank's drop box
- "Running In: Please Pass" signs on new cars
- Hardware stores with Pink Paraffin dispensers outside
- No-one had allergies but might just drop dead suddenly
- Working out how many bottles of ginger you'd have to drink to buy a bottle with the return money
- Smog
- Factory horns/hooters/whistles for shift start, breaks and lowsing time
- (UK, 1970s) People asking "What's that in old money?". Acceptable if you were old, suspicious if you were younger ('cos it meant you'd been in prison over decimalization time)
- Town gas being deadly poisonous
- all the roads being dug up for a year as they replaced the town gas pipes with natural gas ones
- your gran dressing up (furs!) to go shopping in town
- tea rooms!!! (I miss tea rooms)
- high tea in front of the television
- two for a ha'penny sweets (post decimalization), penny Dainty toffees
- roadworks with oil lamps and a portable hut for the night watch
- emergency notices on national radio, typically "Would Mrs Smith of Cheam, currently on holiday in Newquay, please contact local police about their mother, who is gravely ill in hospital" but more likely coded messages for field agents
- Cars with manual chokes
- People who drove but had never sat a driving test
- Hyper-local soft drinks companies
- the soft drink delivery truck (aka the Alpine van)
- antibiotics came as a slightly milky liquid you had to keep in the fridge
- Door-to-door brush salesmen (Betterware, etc)
- BCG scars (mine still hurts)
- football scores showing an actual teleprinter on TV
- wee old guys with bandy legs from rickets (which I hear is making a comeback in the UK, fuck)
- people with disabilities were not seen, anywhere, ever.
- getting your photos back from your holidays
- interminable slideshows of your relatives' photos
- REG. PENNA. DEP. AGR.
posted by scruss at 4:49 PM on January 26 [11 favorites]
→
My mum's teaching contract (Glasgow, Scotland - 1963) automatically terminated when her marriage notice was published.
posted by scruss at 4:53 PM on January 26 [6 favorites]
Many women in many professions “had to quit” working when they became pregnant.
My mum's teaching contract (Glasgow, Scotland - 1963) automatically terminated when her marriage notice was published.
posted by scruss at 4:53 PM on January 26 [6 favorites]
Early nineties "multiculturalism" panic. God, you could write a book about the culture panics of the eighties and nineties - it was like all those freakish manosphere guys being afraid of cities and women, but it was everyone and they were all afraid of, like, a hip hop album.
But anyway - "multiculturalism" and "the canon [of English-language literature]" were hotly debated in newspaper editorial columns and were real active subjects of debate. Leslie Marmon Silko's novel Almanac of the Dead was up for some big award or won some big award or made some other media splash when it cam out and it was the mammoth, mammoth controversy because it was negative about white people, negative about colonialism. You must imagine the dumbest MAGA chud response to books by Native writers, and then imagine that instead of that being dumb MAGA chuds, it is serious middle of the road and liberal intellectuals in major newspapers. Note that this was Before The Internet, so this was a much more widespread debate than anything comparable today because people were seeing much more of the same media.
At the same time, there was a slightly greater innocence to the debate, because it wasn't really a way of signaling your far right credentials, it was mostly just people being really, truly, abysmally stupid. I, a teenager, recognized this at the time, even though I tried to read Almanac for the Dead and found it confusing.
There was so much panic about this stuff - was In Living Color racist against white people? What about Do The Right Thing? What about Living Single? There was a nationwide kerfuffle because there was a vogue for t-shirts that said "It's a Black thing - you wouldn't understand". And again, don't imagine this as being a debate that was just for less literate Boomers on Facebook - think of it as something that was solemnly chewed over by serious public intellectuals as a genuine moral conundrum of our times.
Obviously, white Americans have by no means finished being dumb about race (or god knows finished being racist) but you must imagine an entire society where just saying "Black people have had different experiences than white people, sometimes negative, because of their race" was enough to freak out liberal intellectuals.
Also, there were almost no science fiction and fantasy writers of color getting published in English in the seventies/eighties/early nineties. There were a few, like Octavia Butler or Stephen Barnes, but the publishing landscape was so, so different. I'd say that now - as bad as this country is, and as much as things are worsening - it is really quite, quite normal to see books by writers of color, and if you are a white SF fan, it is extremely normal to pick up books by writers of color because they are widely available. I mention this because the kind of "oooooohhhhh a book by a Native writer I don't even know how to haaaaaaaandle it" of the late eighties/early nineties is very different from how things are today.
It's like, there was literally a whole debate that boiled down to "can anyone but the very most exceptional writers of color, like maaaaaaaaybe Richard Wright, write accomplished novels equal to those by white people, or is this just special pleading?"
posted by Frowner at 4:54 PM on January 26 [14 favorites]
But anyway - "multiculturalism" and "the canon [of English-language literature]" were hotly debated in newspaper editorial columns and were real active subjects of debate. Leslie Marmon Silko's novel Almanac of the Dead was up for some big award or won some big award or made some other media splash when it cam out and it was the mammoth, mammoth controversy because it was negative about white people, negative about colonialism. You must imagine the dumbest MAGA chud response to books by Native writers, and then imagine that instead of that being dumb MAGA chuds, it is serious middle of the road and liberal intellectuals in major newspapers. Note that this was Before The Internet, so this was a much more widespread debate than anything comparable today because people were seeing much more of the same media.
At the same time, there was a slightly greater innocence to the debate, because it wasn't really a way of signaling your far right credentials, it was mostly just people being really, truly, abysmally stupid. I, a teenager, recognized this at the time, even though I tried to read Almanac for the Dead and found it confusing.
There was so much panic about this stuff - was In Living Color racist against white people? What about Do The Right Thing? What about Living Single? There was a nationwide kerfuffle because there was a vogue for t-shirts that said "It's a Black thing - you wouldn't understand". And again, don't imagine this as being a debate that was just for less literate Boomers on Facebook - think of it as something that was solemnly chewed over by serious public intellectuals as a genuine moral conundrum of our times.
Obviously, white Americans have by no means finished being dumb about race (or god knows finished being racist) but you must imagine an entire society where just saying "Black people have had different experiences than white people, sometimes negative, because of their race" was enough to freak out liberal intellectuals.
Also, there were almost no science fiction and fantasy writers of color getting published in English in the seventies/eighties/early nineties. There were a few, like Octavia Butler or Stephen Barnes, but the publishing landscape was so, so different. I'd say that now - as bad as this country is, and as much as things are worsening - it is really quite, quite normal to see books by writers of color, and if you are a white SF fan, it is extremely normal to pick up books by writers of color because they are widely available. I mention this because the kind of "oooooohhhhh a book by a Native writer I don't even know how to haaaaaaaandle it" of the late eighties/early nineties is very different from how things are today.
It's like, there was literally a whole debate that boiled down to "can anyone but the very most exceptional writers of color, like maaaaaaaaybe Richard Wright, write accomplished novels equal to those by white people, or is this just special pleading?"
posted by Frowner at 4:54 PM on January 26 [14 favorites]
This is very obscure, but reading this thread brought it to my memory.
In 1980? 1981? DC comics had a Direct Currents 800 number you could call that would play a recorded message about some upcoming comic book they were publishing. I vividly remember hearing about Shade, The Changing Man by Ditko this way.
posted by wittgenstein at 4:55 PM on January 26 [1 favorite]
In 1980? 1981? DC comics had a Direct Currents 800 number you could call that would play a recorded message about some upcoming comic book they were publishing. I vividly remember hearing about Shade, The Changing Man by Ditko this way.
posted by wittgenstein at 4:55 PM on January 26 [1 favorite]
Women having to wear pantyhose with skirts/dresses in any remotely "formal" situation - bare legs at work/church/fancy event was not done.
posted by Mallenroh at 5:19 PM on January 26 [8 favorites]
posted by Mallenroh at 5:19 PM on January 26 [8 favorites]
Seems there were more bugs,crickets,fireflies, etc.
More smells. Could be because I was a youngin, but I remember intense smells in my youth. Flowers of course...tar patches on roads in the summer heat...even the interior of the family auto had a distinct smell.
posted by Czjewel at 5:31 PM on January 26 [1 favorite]
More smells. Could be because I was a youngin, but I remember intense smells in my youth. Flowers of course...tar patches on roads in the summer heat...even the interior of the family auto had a distinct smell.
posted by Czjewel at 5:31 PM on January 26 [1 favorite]
A single wage-earner working one full-time job, comfortably supporting a family, while owning a home, a car, enjoying an annual family vacation, and a comfortable retirement.—xedrik @ 2:24 pm
That's misleading nostalgia. here's one debunking, but there are many more.
posted by brianogilvie at 5:38 PM on January 26 [8 favorites]
I’m 66, for those scoring at home...
Steam locomotives pulling freight trains.
Whaaa? I will be 67 in a couple of weeks, live in the midwest, and I never once in my life saw a steam locomotive anywhere outside of a museum. Everything had converted to diesel by my childhood. Maybe steam was still being used in pockets wayyyy out west somewhere?
posted by Thorzdad at 5:50 PM on January 26
Steam locomotives pulling freight trains.
Whaaa? I will be 67 in a couple of weeks, live in the midwest, and I never once in my life saw a steam locomotive anywhere outside of a museum. Everything had converted to diesel by my childhood. Maybe steam was still being used in pockets wayyyy out west somewhere?
posted by Thorzdad at 5:50 PM on January 26
Being offered the option of staying in the car while your parent went in to grocery shop. I can't say I've ever seen a kid sitting alone in a locked car.
Looking at a map and writing down directions to get from point A to B.
Wired remote controls. I remember one of our VCRs had one.
Wireless TV channel changer with one button, basically the Nintendo Duck Hunt gun that would trigger a motor in the TV to turn the channel dial.
posted by emelenjr at 6:18 PM on January 26 [2 favorites]
Looking at a map and writing down directions to get from point A to B.
Wired remote controls. I remember one of our VCRs had one.
Wireless TV channel changer with one button, basically the Nintendo Duck Hunt gun that would trigger a motor in the TV to turn the channel dial.
posted by emelenjr at 6:18 PM on January 26 [2 favorites]
My junior high and high school had rifle teams, with a shooting range in the basement.
I remember when leasure suits exploded as the hight of mens fashion, everyone in church had one.
At 16 I took a training class, "Introduction to the Linotype." The teacher told us "Learn this, you'll always have a job, every newspaper in America uses them!" This was in 1973, they vanished in five years.
When we first moved to the suburbs, every family was a one car family, and dad took the the car every day. The kids took a bus or walked to school, the mom's... stayed home. Food shopping was Saturday, mom took the young kids, dad cut the lawn, any kid over eight vanished untill dinner.
posted by Marky at 6:23 PM on January 26 [3 favorites]
I remember when leasure suits exploded as the hight of mens fashion, everyone in church had one.
At 16 I took a training class, "Introduction to the Linotype." The teacher told us "Learn this, you'll always have a job, every newspaper in America uses them!" This was in 1973, they vanished in five years.
When we first moved to the suburbs, every family was a one car family, and dad took the the car every day. The kids took a bus or walked to school, the mom's... stayed home. Food shopping was Saturday, mom took the young kids, dad cut the lawn, any kid over eight vanished untill dinner.
posted by Marky at 6:23 PM on January 26 [3 favorites]
And yes, we boys swam naked during gym swimming class...1960 to 1964. Thought nothing of it.
posted by Czjewel at 6:27 PM on January 26 [3 favorites]
posted by Czjewel at 6:27 PM on January 26 [3 favorites]
You could definitely do another ask to suss out which of these actually died out as long ago as people here are claiming they did. I'm 39 for a few more months, and I remember most of this stuff.
And like...my neighborhood still has home milk delivery. The past is unevenly distributed.
The one I think of often is how hard it was to get berries other than strawberries if they weren't grown locally, and generally what a pathetic variety of fruit most people had access to. My kids have never known a time when a blueberry or raspberry was a special treat. They expect any fruit to be readily available all year round. When I was a kid there were about two weeks of the year when my local supermarket would get blueberries in, and they were astronomically expensive. There was nowhere near us where blueberries would grow back then, so although I knew blueberries were a thing and had seen them, I don't know that I had a fresh blueberry until I was in my twenties.
posted by potrzebie at 6:56 PM on January 26 [4 favorites]
And like...my neighborhood still has home milk delivery. The past is unevenly distributed.
The one I think of often is how hard it was to get berries other than strawberries if they weren't grown locally, and generally what a pathetic variety of fruit most people had access to. My kids have never known a time when a blueberry or raspberry was a special treat. They expect any fruit to be readily available all year round. When I was a kid there were about two weeks of the year when my local supermarket would get blueberries in, and they were astronomically expensive. There was nowhere near us where blueberries would grow back then, so although I knew blueberries were a thing and had seen them, I don't know that I had a fresh blueberry until I was in my twenties.
posted by potrzebie at 6:56 PM on January 26 [4 favorites]
Women having to wear pantyhose with skirts/dresses in any remotely "formal" situation - bare legs at work/church/fancy event was not done.
And its sexist best friend corporate dress codes that ban women from wearing pants at all.
posted by fiercekitten at 7:32 PM on January 26 [3 favorites]
And its sexist best friend corporate dress codes that ban women from wearing pants at all.
posted by fiercekitten at 7:32 PM on January 26 [3 favorites]
"This is the end of our broadcast day..."
Lemkin, don't forget the Pledge of Allegiance and the ending poem:
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth...
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.
Then you could watch the test pattern the rest if the night. I don't know if there was any intro when broadcasting resumed. I apparently never watched that early. Anyone know?
S&H green stamps Grandma and mom got so many things from Green Stamp Idea Book! For a couple years after I was married, I licked stamps to put in the little paper booklets. Best when you got a whole sheet and didn't have to stick 'em in one or two at a time, but they added up. I have a Sunbeam electric mixer I got in 1973 with green stamps from shopping at Safeway. Still works. Never did get the whole set of dishes but got those steak knives! I was too shy to ask people if they didn't want them, but I'd pick leftovers out of the carts or in the parking lot.
Raleigh cigarettes had coupons, but dad smoked Camels. He was envious of a friend that scored a fly-fishing rod and reel.
posted by BlueHorse at 7:45 PM on January 26 [3 favorites]
Lemkin, don't forget the Pledge of Allegiance and the ending poem:
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth...
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.
Then you could watch the test pattern the rest if the night. I don't know if there was any intro when broadcasting resumed. I apparently never watched that early. Anyone know?
S&H green stamps Grandma and mom got so many things from Green Stamp Idea Book! For a couple years after I was married, I licked stamps to put in the little paper booklets. Best when you got a whole sheet and didn't have to stick 'em in one or two at a time, but they added up. I have a Sunbeam electric mixer I got in 1973 with green stamps from shopping at Safeway. Still works. Never did get the whole set of dishes but got those steak knives! I was too shy to ask people if they didn't want them, but I'd pick leftovers out of the carts or in the parking lot.
Raleigh cigarettes had coupons, but dad smoked Camels. He was envious of a friend that scored a fly-fishing rod and reel.
posted by BlueHorse at 7:45 PM on January 26 [3 favorites]
There were many fewer regulations on selling or purchasing dangerous chemicals.
When I was 17 (in 1967) I went with a classmate to a chemical supply house (Van Waters & Rogers) and bought several pounds of iron oxide powder and aluminum powder, and a short spool of magnesium ribbon.
They asked what we planned to do with it, and I said we were going to make thermite and use it to try to weld things together.
They took our cash and slid the bottles and spool across the counter to us, and we went outside, got back on our bicycles and left.
posted by jamjam at 7:49 PM on January 26 [6 favorites]
When I was 17 (in 1967) I went with a classmate to a chemical supply house (Van Waters & Rogers) and bought several pounds of iron oxide powder and aluminum powder, and a short spool of magnesium ribbon.
They asked what we planned to do with it, and I said we were going to make thermite and use it to try to weld things together.
They took our cash and slid the bottles and spool across the counter to us, and we went outside, got back on our bicycles and left.
posted by jamjam at 7:49 PM on January 26 [6 favorites]
Knowing a bunch of phone numbers and your bank account info by heart. You had to go to the bank and stand in line whenever you needed cash.
The Greyhound/Gray Coach bus network covered a lot of small, remote towns. As teenagers without cars, it was possible to visit neighbouring towns/cites as a day trip.
People talk about connecting with real humans over the phone but my experience of trying to reach a government office or taxi company before the advent of answering machines/recorded messages - you generally got a busy signal, would immediately hang up and dial again, hoping to squeak in between other callers.
In Ontario, Canada, purchasing booze meant going to the provincial retail outlet to choose from example bottles mounted on the wall and writing those down on a small order form with a dull, stubby pencil. Then you paid in cash and stood in a line to collect.
posted by brachiopod at 8:35 PM on January 26 [1 favorite]
The Greyhound/Gray Coach bus network covered a lot of small, remote towns. As teenagers without cars, it was possible to visit neighbouring towns/cites as a day trip.
People talk about connecting with real humans over the phone but my experience of trying to reach a government office or taxi company before the advent of answering machines/recorded messages - you generally got a busy signal, would immediately hang up and dial again, hoping to squeak in between other callers.
In Ontario, Canada, purchasing booze meant going to the provincial retail outlet to choose from example bottles mounted on the wall and writing those down on a small order form with a dull, stubby pencil. Then you paid in cash and stood in a line to collect.
posted by brachiopod at 8:35 PM on January 26 [1 favorite]
High school newspaper, mid-70s: Turning in copy (edited by the newspaper instructor) to the school secretary to be typed up into columns, then putting in headlines with Letraset rub-on letters.
posted by lhauser at 8:49 PM on January 26 [2 favorites]
posted by lhauser at 8:49 PM on January 26 [2 favorites]
Tinsel all over our Christmas tree.
posted by tristeza at 8:52 PM on January 26 [5 favorites]
posted by tristeza at 8:52 PM on January 26 [5 favorites]
Boredom and no one knowing where you are are the most massive changes to the first world experience that I know of.
posted by latkes at 8:56 PM on January 26 [6 favorites]
posted by latkes at 8:56 PM on January 26 [6 favorites]
In Ontario, Canada, purchasing booze meant going to the provincial retail outlet to choose from example bottles mounted on the wall and writing those down on a small order form with a dull, stubby pencil. Then you paid in cash and stood in a line to collect.
And if you were *really* lucky, your dad would swoop you up to the chest-height counter and slide you alllll the way down to the pick-up point. Thanks, brachiopod, for eliciting that memory!
posted by kate4914 at 9:00 PM on January 26 [2 favorites]
And if you were *really* lucky, your dad would swoop you up to the chest-height counter and slide you alllll the way down to the pick-up point. Thanks, brachiopod, for eliciting that memory!
posted by kate4914 at 9:00 PM on January 26 [2 favorites]
Mod note: One jokey answer removed. Sorry, but we need to keep Ask Me useful for its purpose, and if threads fill up with jokes or chat, they quickly become unproductive!
posted by taz (staff) at 9:01 PM on January 26
posted by taz (staff) at 9:01 PM on January 26
The mentions above of Newberry’s and Woolworth’s aligns with a memory I was thinking of the other day of being very young and shopping in the TG&Y in my hometown. There was this whole class of general mercantiles called “Five and Dimes” that were not as upscale as Sears or JC Penny’s department stores, but were no means discounts like Dollar Tree or Grocery Outlet. I guess today’s Targets or Walmarts would be the equivalent? But I remember them as being much more urban and accesible; not someplace you’d have to drive to to shop at.
posted by Rube R. Nekker at 9:02 PM on January 26 [1 favorite]
posted by Rube R. Nekker at 9:02 PM on January 26 [1 favorite]
Because there was no caller ID yet, and as mentioned above, people never screened calls (because there were also no answering machines): Funny Phone Calls / Phony Phone Calls. It's horrifying to think how much we did this as children in the 70s but when we weren't running around outside unsupervised, we were inside equally unsupervised and spent a crazy amount of time dialing random strangers with "Funny Phone Calls" or "Phony Phone Calls." We'd dial a random (7 digit, no area codes for local calls) number and when an adult answered we had scripts like: "Hello. This is the Operator. If the phone rings again within five minutes please do not answer or the caller will be automatically electrocuted!" Then we'd hang up and call right back; when they answered we'd let out a blood-curdling scream.
Similarly: "Ding Dong Ditch" was a favorite pastime. How obnoxious... we would ring someone's doorbell and run away. Bonus excitement points if an adult would come out yelling "Cut it out you brats" etc etc. There were no surveillance devices of course.
Also we spent a ton of time going to some strange hoarder's house. It was a very intense hoarding situation, like another world. No parents ever knew where we were. We absolutely loved it.
posted by ojocaliente at 9:57 PM on January 26 [3 favorites]
Similarly: "Ding Dong Ditch" was a favorite pastime. How obnoxious... we would ring someone's doorbell and run away. Bonus excitement points if an adult would come out yelling "Cut it out you brats" etc etc. There were no surveillance devices of course.
Also we spent a ton of time going to some strange hoarder's house. It was a very intense hoarding situation, like another world. No parents ever knew where we were. We absolutely loved it.
posted by ojocaliente at 9:57 PM on January 26 [3 favorites]
>A single wage-earner working one full-time job, comfortably supporting a family, while owning a home, a car, enjoying an annual family vacation, and a comfortable retirement.
—xedrik @ 2:24 pm
>That's misleading nostalgia. here's one debunking, but there are many more.
But it was a reality. My wife, born in 1952, was the third of four children. Her father worked for the city utilities department. Her mom didn't start working outside the home until after my wife's younger sister (kid #4) was born. Until then, they owned a home, owned a car, and went on an annual vacation with one income. They were never well-off; money was very carefully watched, cars were bought used, clothes were made at home. Two of four kids went to college, though they paid for it largely by themselves. And their parents' retirement was comfortable, though of course it was helped by some years of two incomes.
posted by lhauser at 10:00 PM on January 26 [6 favorites]
—xedrik @ 2:24 pm
>That's misleading nostalgia. here's one debunking, but there are many more.
But it was a reality. My wife, born in 1952, was the third of four children. Her father worked for the city utilities department. Her mom didn't start working outside the home until after my wife's younger sister (kid #4) was born. Until then, they owned a home, owned a car, and went on an annual vacation with one income. They were never well-off; money was very carefully watched, cars were bought used, clothes were made at home. Two of four kids went to college, though they paid for it largely by themselves. And their parents' retirement was comfortable, though of course it was helped by some years of two incomes.
posted by lhauser at 10:00 PM on January 26 [6 favorites]
At college, the kids in the dorm would squish in around the TV to watch Friends every week. When the first Gulf War started, there were crowds for the evening news.
posted by dum spiro spero at 11:04 PM on January 26 [1 favorite]
posted by dum spiro spero at 11:04 PM on January 26 [1 favorite]
Everyone's nana had an organ in their living room, sometimes it was in the dining room. Where did all the organs go?
posted by goo at 11:16 PM on January 26 [7 favorites]
posted by goo at 11:16 PM on January 26 [7 favorites]
The Sears catalog.
Magazines and telephones in airplanes.
Kids with metal leg braces and in iron lungs due to polio.
Diaphragms for birth control.
Dentists working without gloves or masks.
posted by LiverOdor at 11:18 PM on January 26 [3 favorites]
Magazines and telephones in airplanes.
Kids with metal leg braces and in iron lungs due to polio.
Diaphragms for birth control.
Dentists working without gloves or masks.
posted by LiverOdor at 11:18 PM on January 26 [3 favorites]
Keeping a quarter on you in case you had to use a pay phone to call home.
...and earlier, a dime.
posted by fairmettle at 11:54 PM on January 26 [2 favorites]
...and earlier, a dime.
posted by fairmettle at 11:54 PM on January 26 [2 favorites]
On a swimming day, we had to wait about an hour after eating any food before we were allowed back into the water at a beach or pool. (Think there was a theory that eating could cause stomach cramps that could lead to an increased likelihood of drowning.)
When we turned off the television, we had to let it ‘cool down’ for about an hour until we could turn it on again. (Some sort of ‘potential for fire or explosion theory’ behind that logic!)
posted by The Patron Saint of Spices at 1:06 AM on January 27 [2 favorites]
When we turned off the television, we had to let it ‘cool down’ for about an hour until we could turn it on again. (Some sort of ‘potential for fire or explosion theory’ behind that logic!)
posted by The Patron Saint of Spices at 1:06 AM on January 27 [2 favorites]
Pay phones everywhere. White pages and yellow pages mounted in an aluminum (or later plastic) binder. Usually a significant number of pages were missing.
Several different-coin operated newspaper boxes on every downtown corner. People on transit with their noses in the paper. During the first Gulf war, some papers added an evening edition. Libraries had split wooden poles that held the papers so you could read at a table and then return them to a rack.
Trying to read folding paper road maps while driving. Trying to neatly re-fold that map when done. Maps in book form, where the edges of each page had a reference code directing you to another page.
During the 80s - self-serve drip coffee in Pyrex jugs with little necklace badges, saying things like “Dark Columbian”, “Irish Mint” “Mocha”.
Probably specific to my white Protestant upbringing, but at funerals there were little sandwiches - always tuna salad, canned salmon or baloney on buttered white bread, cut into small triangles. Generally put together by church volunteers.
posted by brachiopod at 1:58 AM on January 27 [1 favorite]
Several different-coin operated newspaper boxes on every downtown corner. People on transit with their noses in the paper. During the first Gulf war, some papers added an evening edition. Libraries had split wooden poles that held the papers so you could read at a table and then return them to a rack.
Trying to read folding paper road maps while driving. Trying to neatly re-fold that map when done. Maps in book form, where the edges of each page had a reference code directing you to another page.
During the 80s - self-serve drip coffee in Pyrex jugs with little necklace badges, saying things like “Dark Columbian”, “Irish Mint” “Mocha”.
Probably specific to my white Protestant upbringing, but at funerals there were little sandwiches - always tuna salad, canned salmon or baloney on buttered white bread, cut into small triangles. Generally put together by church volunteers.
posted by brachiopod at 1:58 AM on January 27 [1 favorite]
The freedom of kids and wandering has been talked about, but in the late 80s to early 90s, I was allowed to just head out in the morning on my bike and come back whenever, sometimes biking several hours away from home, then back.
Past that, communication? Taking Amtrak between Kalamazoo and Chicago, or Kalamazoo and Detroit (again, alone, as an early teen), there was almost always someone I ended up talking with, often for the entire two or three hour trip. In the late 2000s, having the chance to take the train again on a visit home, I was excited for the chance to have that random conversation, but the second the train started moving, headphones came out, and everyone just sort of rode in their own little world.
Much, much more variety in terms of retail shops and restaurants in that there weren’t nearly as many chains outside of fast food (and even then, plenty of local options, or at least more regional small chains that felt “ours”). Less overall variety of goods and food, though. Going out to dinner was a family event, with at least a little effort towards dressing nicer.
As mentioned elsewhere, rampant, casual racism, sexism, homophobia, and ableism everywhere, all the time. Again, as mentioned, this was mainstream culture, highlighted in pretty much any popular film, and reinforced at every level of society. Where racial or ethnic minorities weren’t available, kids would jump on denominations of Christianity as ways to ostracize each other. Growing up Jewish in Kalamazoo was like wearing a target for most of my elementary and junior high years.
Absolutely monolithic culture. There were some shows that *everyone* watched. Those shows almost always featured all white casts, and featured all of the casual sexism and racism mentioned above. One of the reasons people remember The Cosby Show or 227, or other shows with primarily Black casts is because there were so few that each one stood out. Hell, Miami Vice having one of the co-leads being Black was a “thing” at the time.
Kids grew up in that atmosphere where hateful comments were fine, and pushing back was seen as a more serious offense than the hate. Then they went and had kids of their own. None of it’s gone, and it’ll all come right back out front if it’s allowed to.
posted by Ghidorah at 2:32 AM on January 27 [7 favorites]
Past that, communication? Taking Amtrak between Kalamazoo and Chicago, or Kalamazoo and Detroit (again, alone, as an early teen), there was almost always someone I ended up talking with, often for the entire two or three hour trip. In the late 2000s, having the chance to take the train again on a visit home, I was excited for the chance to have that random conversation, but the second the train started moving, headphones came out, and everyone just sort of rode in their own little world.
Much, much more variety in terms of retail shops and restaurants in that there weren’t nearly as many chains outside of fast food (and even then, plenty of local options, or at least more regional small chains that felt “ours”). Less overall variety of goods and food, though. Going out to dinner was a family event, with at least a little effort towards dressing nicer.
As mentioned elsewhere, rampant, casual racism, sexism, homophobia, and ableism everywhere, all the time. Again, as mentioned, this was mainstream culture, highlighted in pretty much any popular film, and reinforced at every level of society. Where racial or ethnic minorities weren’t available, kids would jump on denominations of Christianity as ways to ostracize each other. Growing up Jewish in Kalamazoo was like wearing a target for most of my elementary and junior high years.
Absolutely monolithic culture. There were some shows that *everyone* watched. Those shows almost always featured all white casts, and featured all of the casual sexism and racism mentioned above. One of the reasons people remember The Cosby Show or 227, or other shows with primarily Black casts is because there were so few that each one stood out. Hell, Miami Vice having one of the co-leads being Black was a “thing” at the time.
Kids grew up in that atmosphere where hateful comments were fine, and pushing back was seen as a more serious offense than the hate. Then they went and had kids of their own. None of it’s gone, and it’ll all come right back out front if it’s allowed to.
posted by Ghidorah at 2:32 AM on January 27 [7 favorites]
One thing many over-50s will have is the stories of the early 20th C. their grandparents and elderly relatives told. I grew up hearing accounts of Zeppelin raids over London in WW1, my grandfather's traumatic job as a fireman in the Blitz, and the various radio and music-hall celebrities who lived nearby.
posted by pipeski at 3:26 AM on January 27 [3 favorites]
posted by pipeski at 3:26 AM on January 27 [3 favorites]
The TV Guide must have been the widest consulted - through the page of local listings in the newspapers.
I can confirm clew's suspicion: my father knew the publisher, and TV had the biggest circulation of any magazine in the United States. It wasn't high status but it got you more eyeballs than any other magazine.
posted by Winnie the Proust at 4:52 AM on January 27 [2 favorites]
I can confirm clew's suspicion: my father knew the publisher, and TV had the biggest circulation of any magazine in the United States. It wasn't high status but it got you more eyeballs than any other magazine.
posted by Winnie the Proust at 4:52 AM on January 27 [2 favorites]
The early internet where everone learned HTML and built their own web page.
The "shade tree mechanic" meaning doing your own car repairs and modifications. Everyone got a flat tire from time to time, and everyone knew how to change a tire. If you lived where it snowed, you had chains to put on the rear tires when the roads were snow-covered.
posted by SemiSalt at 4:59 AM on January 27 [2 favorites]
The "shade tree mechanic" meaning doing your own car repairs and modifications. Everyone got a flat tire from time to time, and everyone knew how to change a tire. If you lived where it snowed, you had chains to put on the rear tires when the roads were snow-covered.
posted by SemiSalt at 4:59 AM on January 27 [2 favorites]
Saturday morning cartoons. Must-see entertainment for kids (and hungover 20-somethings).
Schoolhouse Rock. It is very possible you could easily win a bet by asking a Gen-X'er - "I bet you can't recite the preamble of the Constitution without singing it."
I'm less certain about these - do schools still teach civics or home ec? I'd heard they were both phased out in the 90s but haven't had a chance to ask my niece or nephew to confirm.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:09 AM on January 27 [2 favorites]
Schoolhouse Rock. It is very possible you could easily win a bet by asking a Gen-X'er - "I bet you can't recite the preamble of the Constitution without singing it."
I'm less certain about these - do schools still teach civics or home ec? I'd heard they were both phased out in the 90s but haven't had a chance to ask my niece or nephew to confirm.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:09 AM on January 27 [2 favorites]
I think a big piece of this is the difference between "there's one EXAMPLE in the state, I have been there" and "this was a normal even pervasive part of life until thirty years ago". Like with checks - people still write checks, sometimes you're even behind someone in line at the store who is writing a check - but everyone writing checks all the time and constantly needing to be aware of having enough checks left, that's gone. (I think the last time I ordered checks was probably over ten years ago, and I still have most of a book left.)
Speaking of which, there was a whole world of material culture around checks - when you ordered your first checks at the bank, you'd pick from the bank's choices of pattern and you'd get a checkbook cover, sometimes with a choice of color/logo/texture. You could order special themed checks (advertised in magazines!) with sunsets or sports or unicorns, etc, printed faintly in the background. You could order special checkbook covers. It was unusual to do this, at least in my circles, because it cost much more than the nominal fee for the ones from the bank. Different bank accounts had different checkbooks, so you might have several. Remembering to carry your checkbook when you needed to write checks was important, and it was relatively large compared to a wallet, although you could get a big wallet that would hold everything.
Note that this was at the time before most men carried bags, especially casually, and at a time when women carried relatively small bags. (Some people might carry briefcases for work, of course, but nothing like the everyday carry stuff - backpacks were kiddish, messenger bags were mostly not a thing until the mid-nineties, mid-sized cross-body bags for men were not a thing, etc.)
posted by Frowner at 5:13 AM on January 27 [3 favorites]
Speaking of which, there was a whole world of material culture around checks - when you ordered your first checks at the bank, you'd pick from the bank's choices of pattern and you'd get a checkbook cover, sometimes with a choice of color/logo/texture. You could order special themed checks (advertised in magazines!) with sunsets or sports or unicorns, etc, printed faintly in the background. You could order special checkbook covers. It was unusual to do this, at least in my circles, because it cost much more than the nominal fee for the ones from the bank. Different bank accounts had different checkbooks, so you might have several. Remembering to carry your checkbook when you needed to write checks was important, and it was relatively large compared to a wallet, although you could get a big wallet that would hold everything.
Note that this was at the time before most men carried bags, especially casually, and at a time when women carried relatively small bags. (Some people might carry briefcases for work, of course, but nothing like the everyday carry stuff - backpacks were kiddish, messenger bags were mostly not a thing until the mid-nineties, mid-sized cross-body bags for men were not a thing, etc.)
posted by Frowner at 5:13 AM on January 27 [3 favorites]
Being told in grammar school that grades and misbehavior would go on a lifelong "permanent record;" then finding out as an adult there was no such thing; then having that be true with the arrival of the internet.
Consulting with a doctor after an exam in his (not too many female MDs in fifties and sixties) designated office with him behind a fancy wood desk as he discussed results with you. Except in hospitals, there were none of these tiny, anonymous rooms where the doc pops back in to wrap up with one foot already out the door.
Card catalogues in libraries (and it was catalogues, not catalogs)
Browsing the stacks in libraries instead of ordering a title online then picking it up--same loss of serendipity as not browsing the card catalogue where you might spy something interesting and check it out in addition to the book you came in for.
Wearing rubber boots over shoes
In non-middle class families, getting decayed teeth pulled not filled
Traveler's checks
Poste restante overseas if you were gone a long time and wanted to receive letters while travelling.
Checking all luggage at the airport.
Saying goodbye or hello right at the airport gate to friends or family who dropped you off or picked you up. This added such a sense of drama to an airplane trip, like in the movies!
Baseball hats worn only at baseball games, outdoor jobs, or golf courses and definitely not worn indoors
Older generation of men tipping their hats when passing people on the street
Urban/semi-urban: Front porches being an intermediate space to socialize with neighbors or neighbood kids--back porches used for hanging laundry. No decks. Neighborhood friends of many years often never came inside your house and just met up with you outside where the real world of kids was.
Maybe it's me, but a feeling throughout childhood and adolescence that I had to impress "the elders" or at least not disgrace myself, whereas now it feels as if adults are trying to impress children and young people with cleverness, good snacks, activities, surprises, and tech knowledge so as not to seem out of date. The very definition of advanced adulthood back in the day seemed to be a kind of pride in being out of date while being up on very important matters the next generation still had to learn.
Thanks for this question!
posted by Elsie at 5:18 AM on January 27 [8 favorites]
Consulting with a doctor after an exam in his (not too many female MDs in fifties and sixties) designated office with him behind a fancy wood desk as he discussed results with you. Except in hospitals, there were none of these tiny, anonymous rooms where the doc pops back in to wrap up with one foot already out the door.
Card catalogues in libraries (and it was catalogues, not catalogs)
Browsing the stacks in libraries instead of ordering a title online then picking it up--same loss of serendipity as not browsing the card catalogue where you might spy something interesting and check it out in addition to the book you came in for.
Wearing rubber boots over shoes
In non-middle class families, getting decayed teeth pulled not filled
Traveler's checks
Poste restante overseas if you were gone a long time and wanted to receive letters while travelling.
Checking all luggage at the airport.
Saying goodbye or hello right at the airport gate to friends or family who dropped you off or picked you up. This added such a sense of drama to an airplane trip, like in the movies!
Baseball hats worn only at baseball games, outdoor jobs, or golf courses and definitely not worn indoors
Older generation of men tipping their hats when passing people on the street
Urban/semi-urban: Front porches being an intermediate space to socialize with neighbors or neighbood kids--back porches used for hanging laundry. No decks. Neighborhood friends of many years often never came inside your house and just met up with you outside where the real world of kids was.
Maybe it's me, but a feeling throughout childhood and adolescence that I had to impress "the elders" or at least not disgrace myself, whereas now it feels as if adults are trying to impress children and young people with cleverness, good snacks, activities, surprises, and tech knowledge so as not to seem out of date. The very definition of advanced adulthood back in the day seemed to be a kind of pride in being out of date while being up on very important matters the next generation still had to learn.
Thanks for this question!
posted by Elsie at 5:18 AM on January 27 [8 favorites]
Credit cards were different, not online, used the merchant devices to make an impression on carbon paper. Much less widely used. Interest rates were held much lower, when credit card interest rates ballooned to today's levels in the early Reagan era, people were shocked and there were public expressions of dismay in the media. (Nothing was done, of course, and today we accept those ridiculously high rates as normal.)
posted by gimonca at 5:58 AM on January 27
posted by gimonca at 5:58 AM on January 27
I'm less certain about these - do schools still teach civics or home ec?
yes, those classes still exist.
I grew up in a rural area and close to the border, so I'm not sure it's totally universal, but kids would just leave school to do farm work locally or in Mexico for like 3-6 weeks, and it was cool.
Also teen pregnancy and teen marriage was far more prevalent. My 8th grade class had 2 pregnant girls and one married girl. By the time I graduated, 4 girls were married. My sister had to go to an abortion center at 17. My wife's oldest sister married at 16.
My kid is in 8th grade now, in an urban school. 0 teen pregnancies and 0 marriages and 6X more students.
posted by The_Vegetables at 6:00 AM on January 27 [2 favorites]
yes, those classes still exist.
I grew up in a rural area and close to the border, so I'm not sure it's totally universal, but kids would just leave school to do farm work locally or in Mexico for like 3-6 weeks, and it was cool.
Also teen pregnancy and teen marriage was far more prevalent. My 8th grade class had 2 pregnant girls and one married girl. By the time I graduated, 4 girls were married. My sister had to go to an abortion center at 17. My wife's oldest sister married at 16.
My kid is in 8th grade now, in an urban school. 0 teen pregnancies and 0 marriages and 6X more students.
posted by The_Vegetables at 6:00 AM on January 27 [2 favorites]
Passbook savings at just over 5 percent. You carried around a little book that your deposits and withdrawals would be printed in by a bank teller. Kids would have savings accounts with small but growing balances to encourage them to manage their allowance money.
Also a thing that disappeared in the early Reagan years.
posted by gimonca at 6:01 AM on January 27 [3 favorites]
Also a thing that disappeared in the early Reagan years.
posted by gimonca at 6:01 AM on January 27 [3 favorites]
Well into the 1960s, there were dozens of flavors of Life Savers candy. Supermarket checkout lines would have a big metal display with the dazzling selection.
Some of the more exotic flavors might be orderable online, but in brick and mortar stores, the choices are a pale imitation of what once was.
Generally, candy today in the U.S. is terrible and disappointing compared to the 60s or 70s.
posted by gimonca at 6:05 AM on January 27 [1 favorite]
Some of the more exotic flavors might be orderable online, but in brick and mortar stores, the choices are a pale imitation of what once was.
Generally, candy today in the U.S. is terrible and disappointing compared to the 60s or 70s.
posted by gimonca at 6:05 AM on January 27 [1 favorite]
Here was a quirk of our reliance on broadcast TV and VCRs for time-shifting: "VCR Plus+" (yes, it was really styled that way). VCRs were cumbersome to program. Seeing a VCR blinking 12:00 was an easy laugh on a sitcom, the visual equivalent of a standup comic's joke about airline food (oh yeah, airlines used to serve food, even in coach (also, we used to call it coach, not economy)).
VCR Plus+ was a six (?) digit code that would uniquely encode the parameters for time and channel over a 2-week window, AIUI. So instead of setting start time, stop time, and channel, you'd just punch this number in, which would appear in the TV Guide alongside every show listing. Lots of VCR decks supported this, and there was even an external box if your VCR didn't. It looks like neither Techmoan nor Technology Connections on Youtube has done a video on this yet, which kind of surprises me.
posted by adamrice at 6:09 AM on January 27 [3 favorites]
VCR Plus+ was a six (?) digit code that would uniquely encode the parameters for time and channel over a 2-week window, AIUI. So instead of setting start time, stop time, and channel, you'd just punch this number in, which would appear in the TV Guide alongside every show listing. Lots of VCR decks supported this, and there was even an external box if your VCR didn't. It looks like neither Techmoan nor Technology Connections on Youtube has done a video on this yet, which kind of surprises me.
posted by adamrice at 6:09 AM on January 27 [3 favorites]
gas station attendants, unsolicited, clean one's windshield
This still happens in New Jersey, where the law requires gas station attendants to pump the gas.
posted by hovey at 6:10 AM on January 27 [1 favorite]
This still happens in New Jersey, where the law requires gas station attendants to pump the gas.
posted by hovey at 6:10 AM on January 27 [1 favorite]
US-specific…
For folks under 30, identifying your social group based on the kind of music you listened to.
All-male rawk bands dominating the music market.
Waiting with bated breath for your favorite show to start at the given hour. No time-shifting.
Youngsters understanding the concept of “selling out.”
Silence at night if you grew up in the country.
Catchy ad jingles.
Knowing your neighbors as a matter of course.
If you were white, rural, and USian, growing up and not meeting a person of color till college. (This has changed for the BETTER, of course.)
posted by rabia.elizabeth at 6:12 AM on January 27
For folks under 30, identifying your social group based on the kind of music you listened to.
All-male rawk bands dominating the music market.
Waiting with bated breath for your favorite show to start at the given hour. No time-shifting.
Youngsters understanding the concept of “selling out.”
Silence at night if you grew up in the country.
Catchy ad jingles.
Knowing your neighbors as a matter of course.
If you were white, rural, and USian, growing up and not meeting a person of color till college. (This has changed for the BETTER, of course.)
posted by rabia.elizabeth at 6:12 AM on January 27
You had to go to a physical location to purchase concert tickets. At first it was the venue box office only, then later Ticketron,etc came along where they put remote terminals and printers in department stores.
One could usually get good tickets to a show as long as they were in line early. Maybe you got there 4-6 hours early or even camped outside overnight if you really wanted good seats. Concerts didn't sell out in 2 seconds and they certainly didn't presell the good seats to credit card owners.
posted by JoeZydeco at 6:35 AM on January 27 [2 favorites]
One could usually get good tickets to a show as long as they were in line early. Maybe you got there 4-6 hours early or even camped outside overnight if you really wanted good seats. Concerts didn't sell out in 2 seconds and they certainly didn't presell the good seats to credit card owners.
posted by JoeZydeco at 6:35 AM on January 27 [2 favorites]
Regional department stores were a big deal in the U.S., and were different enough from city to city to make shopping while traveling worthwhile. You could get nice stuff at Daytons in Minneapolis...but if you drove the eight hours to Chicago, you could go to Marshall Fields and take it to the next level. Each store had its own buyers and suppliers and house brands. It felt like a richer world. All those regional retail chains got consolidated in the 80s and 90s, and all those regional variations are gone.
Sears was still a very big deal in the 70s and 80s, before they entered their decline. If you were a kid, having clothes bought for you at Sears was rarely fashionable, but if you were a mom or dad, the tools and appliances were world class. And there were the catalogs, like others have mentioned, well into the 70s at least.
posted by gimonca at 7:02 AM on January 27 [5 favorites]
Sears was still a very big deal in the 70s and 80s, before they entered their decline. If you were a kid, having clothes bought for you at Sears was rarely fashionable, but if you were a mom or dad, the tools and appliances were world class. And there were the catalogs, like others have mentioned, well into the 70s at least.
posted by gimonca at 7:02 AM on January 27 [5 favorites]
My mom had a big storage box of paper sewing patterns from Butterick or McCalls. As kids, a certain amount of our clothes were homemade. We got taken to the fabric store once in a while to have a say in the selections. Not sure if anyone still does this, this would have been in the 60s and 70s.
posted by gimonca at 7:06 AM on January 27 [6 favorites]
posted by gimonca at 7:06 AM on January 27 [6 favorites]
Wearing a shirt and tie at the weekends.
A man MUST take his hat off indoors.
Desk ashtrays.
Sitting down in a pub and offering your packet of cigarettes round.
Library tickets that were little brown cardboard folders, the librarian would take it and tuck in a cardboard slip from the book.
Literally punching in at your job, putting your timecard into a machine that would punch the time into it.
Carpets in the bathroom.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 7:18 AM on January 27
A man MUST take his hat off indoors.
Desk ashtrays.
Sitting down in a pub and offering your packet of cigarettes round.
Library tickets that were little brown cardboard folders, the librarian would take it and tuck in a cardboard slip from the book.
Literally punching in at your job, putting your timecard into a machine that would punch the time into it.
Carpets in the bathroom.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 7:18 AM on January 27
People used to get dressed up for air travel. Like, really, men would wear a suit and tie, women would wear nice dresses or skirts, kids would have their nice clothes on. It was sort of a formal, important occasion to travel by air.
A remnant of this attitude surfaced when TSA air marshals started traveling on flights after 9/11. They were supposed to be incognito, but their internal guidelines (probably written by the FBI) required that they wear business suits. That finally got changed a few years ago when enough people pointed out that the air marshals were the only ones wearing suits on the flights, and so they were very easy to identify.
posted by Winnie the Proust at 7:48 AM on January 27 [1 favorite]
A remnant of this attitude surfaced when TSA air marshals started traveling on flights after 9/11. They were supposed to be incognito, but their internal guidelines (probably written by the FBI) required that they wear business suits. That finally got changed a few years ago when enough people pointed out that the air marshals were the only ones wearing suits on the flights, and so they were very easy to identify.
posted by Winnie the Proust at 7:48 AM on January 27 [1 favorite]
Layaways! If you wanted to get something, for example an expensive dress or a christmas gift for the kids, you can put it on layaway. Then you make payments for several months and pick up the item when it's fully paid off.
posted by dum spiro spero at 8:06 AM on January 27 [7 favorites]
posted by dum spiro spero at 8:06 AM on January 27 [7 favorites]
Adding to Frowner's note about backpacks being seen as childish - adults didn’t go for cutesy or ironic reinterpretations of childhood fashion. I remember visiting the west coast in the mid 80s; seeing a guy in shorts and a baseball cap, I was wondering, “why is that guy dressed like a toddler?”
posted by brachiopod at 8:43 AM on January 27 [2 favorites]
posted by brachiopod at 8:43 AM on January 27 [2 favorites]
This one was pops up in an early episode of The Simpsons: having the television moved into your bedroom because you're sick in bed.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 8:55 AM on January 27 [3 favorites]
posted by RonButNotStupid at 8:55 AM on January 27 [3 favorites]
Proprietary gas station credit cards, when that was the only form of credit gas stations took. I remember the anxiety of going through my mom's pocketbook for her when we were on a long road trip, searching for a gas station and looking at the back of each card to see where it was accepted besides the brand on the front.
posted by jocelmeow at 9:12 AM on January 27 [3 favorites]
posted by jocelmeow at 9:12 AM on January 27 [3 favorites]
The Sears catalog.
There were Sears catalog stores. If your community wasn't big enough to have a full-sized Sears, there were miniature Sears locations where you could go and place orders through the catalogue and have it shipped to that location. I think JC Penny also had a similar retail presence for their catalogue?
posted by RonButNotStupid at 9:16 AM on January 27 [5 favorites]
There were Sears catalog stores. If your community wasn't big enough to have a full-sized Sears, there were miniature Sears locations where you could go and place orders through the catalogue and have it shipped to that location. I think JC Penny also had a similar retail presence for their catalogue?
posted by RonButNotStupid at 9:16 AM on January 27 [5 favorites]
A great song for this is Todd Snyder's Just Like Overnight which both lists many of them and conveys the feeling of seeing them all change.
Chain smoking cigarettes on the airplaneposted by DirtyOldTown at 9:17 AM on January 27
You were waiting right there at my gate
We had to pull off the highway just to find a payphone
When that line was busy though, you know we just had to wait
My kid and I were rocking out to a band we both like on a long trip and singing along. Suddenly, I stopped singing along.
Kid: You don't like this one?
Me: I don't know this song. I didn't have this album.
We talked for a bit about how he can hear/sample essentially anything he wants and takes that for granted. This was different from my youth when if a song was not on the radio or on MTV and I could not afford to buy a copy, I very well might not have ever even heard it.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:23 AM on January 27 [6 favorites]
Kid: You don't like this one?
Me: I don't know this song. I didn't have this album.
We talked for a bit about how he can hear/sample essentially anything he wants and takes that for granted. This was different from my youth when if a song was not on the radio or on MTV and I could not afford to buy a copy, I very well might not have ever even heard it.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:23 AM on January 27 [6 favorites]
Just turned 50 last year and one of the things that stands out so very clearly is just how very, very pervasive the casual sexism, harassment, and general ick was. I remember my friends feeling sorry for me because my folks wouldn't let me date a senior when I was in 8th grade, and how pissed I was that my parents' over-protective shit kept me from going out with someone so cool. I remember it being a generally understood thing that there were certain teachers that you made every effort to not be alone with in middle school and high school. I can remember my nerdy friends being so angry that 4 of the popular girls were getting good grades in our science class just because they sat on Mr. Kensley's lap in study hall.
We were so conditioned to accept these sorts of things as normal that we actually got pissed off when we weren't harassed. I remember a friend of mine in high school crying because the boys in gym class didn't yell shit at her about her ass or boobs. Being told that boys touching or harassing you just meant they liked you. And that was just school, in the workforce it was even worse. My mom worked in a male-dominated field and she got pissed when the whole Anita Hill thing happened because, "if we sued someone every time a man made a pass or said gross shit, we'd be in court all the livelong day." She was mad not that it happened, but that someone was saying it was gross and unacceptable.
And yeah, it was cool that we were allowed to be feral free-range children with little rules or restrictions, but dear lord the possibility for horrible shit happening to you was waaaaay higher. Yeah, we got to learn how to make adult decisions and deal with things earlier than kids do now, but that was because we had to. We had to know which teachers were dangerous, we had to know which parents weren't to be trusted, we had to know where the clinic was and which friends had older siblings that would drive you there if you needed it.
posted by teleri025 at 9:28 AM on January 27 [9 favorites]
We were so conditioned to accept these sorts of things as normal that we actually got pissed off when we weren't harassed. I remember a friend of mine in high school crying because the boys in gym class didn't yell shit at her about her ass or boobs. Being told that boys touching or harassing you just meant they liked you. And that was just school, in the workforce it was even worse. My mom worked in a male-dominated field and she got pissed when the whole Anita Hill thing happened because, "if we sued someone every time a man made a pass or said gross shit, we'd be in court all the livelong day." She was mad not that it happened, but that someone was saying it was gross and unacceptable.
And yeah, it was cool that we were allowed to be feral free-range children with little rules or restrictions, but dear lord the possibility for horrible shit happening to you was waaaaay higher. Yeah, we got to learn how to make adult decisions and deal with things earlier than kids do now, but that was because we had to. We had to know which teachers were dangerous, we had to know which parents weren't to be trusted, we had to know where the clinic was and which friends had older siblings that would drive you there if you needed it.
posted by teleri025 at 9:28 AM on January 27 [9 favorites]
I'm 50 this year. I had my first job at a pet store when I was 14, so 1984. I was working under the table, although I didn't realize it and I'm not sure my parents did either! I'd work every Saturday and get handed a twenty dollar bill. I was also usually alone in the store.
For credit cards, we had the big chunk-chunk plastic slider that made the three copies. When people presented a check, I had to make a phone call and give them the info off the check and off the person's driver's license and get a code number okaying the check. All this would be written carefully on the check in my terrible handwriting before I put it into the register.
posted by PussKillian at 9:33 AM on January 27 [3 favorites]
For credit cards, we had the big chunk-chunk plastic slider that made the three copies. When people presented a check, I had to make a phone call and give them the info off the check and off the person's driver's license and get a code number okaying the check. All this would be written carefully on the check in my terrible handwriting before I put it into the register.
posted by PussKillian at 9:33 AM on January 27 [3 favorites]
The one I think of often is how hard it was to get berries other than strawberries if they weren't grown locally, and generally what a pathetic variety of fruit most people had access to.
We lived on the west coast where all the fruit is grown. Family trips east meant stuffing every possible place in the vehicle with fruit, both fresh and home canned, for relatives we'd visit along the way. Because peaches or cherries just weren't available to people at our socio-economic level those places. Also to a lesser extent salmon. My youngest uncle came to visit one summer and we sent him home with several 10ish pound frozen salmon in his carry on.
posted by Mitheral at 9:57 AM on January 27
We lived on the west coast where all the fruit is grown. Family trips east meant stuffing every possible place in the vehicle with fruit, both fresh and home canned, for relatives we'd visit along the way. Because peaches or cherries just weren't available to people at our socio-economic level those places. Also to a lesser extent salmon. My youngest uncle came to visit one summer and we sent him home with several 10ish pound frozen salmon in his carry on.
posted by Mitheral at 9:57 AM on January 27
The front of the car being absolutely encrusted with dead bugs. That hasn't happened in years and years.
posted by HotToddy at 10:18 AM on January 27 [16 favorites]
posted by HotToddy at 10:18 AM on January 27 [16 favorites]
People just ... stopped by your house. And not just the priest. A friend from across town would just randomly stop by and visit, and you served them something nice on a fancy plate like cookies.
And yeah, music and shopping. You went to the mall just to browse sometimes, not buy anything, because that was the only place you could see what was for sale, of anything, anywhere. And I'm getting triggered by this question just remembering that I wanted to buy a 45 of some random hit from 1982, but it was SOLD OUT and the only way I could listen to it was to either wait for it on the radio or make friends with the kid who had it, even though I hated him.
posted by Melismata at 10:25 AM on January 27 [2 favorites]
And yeah, music and shopping. You went to the mall just to browse sometimes, not buy anything, because that was the only place you could see what was for sale, of anything, anywhere. And I'm getting triggered by this question just remembering that I wanted to buy a 45 of some random hit from 1982, but it was SOLD OUT and the only way I could listen to it was to either wait for it on the radio or make friends with the kid who had it, even though I hated him.
posted by Melismata at 10:25 AM on January 27 [2 favorites]
well-kept highway rest stops
stuckey's
road atlases
Kids in the back seat and "way back" of station wagon - no seat belts.
tha car pool splitting a six pack on the way home - without a second thought.
the only music discovery was: fm radio, friends' lp collections, shared mixtapes, flip through the stacks, read the detailed liner notes that used to exist.
no youtube tutorials - learning anything meant interacting with a person or a book.
posted by j_curiouser at 10:29 AM on January 27 [2 favorites]
stuckey's
road atlases
Kids in the back seat and "way back" of station wagon - no seat belts.
tha car pool splitting a six pack on the way home - without a second thought.
the only music discovery was: fm radio, friends' lp collections, shared mixtapes, flip through the stacks, read the detailed liner notes that used to exist.
no youtube tutorials - learning anything meant interacting with a person or a book.
posted by j_curiouser at 10:29 AM on January 27 [2 favorites]
Physical tickets to concerts. They were great souvenirs and I miss them.
posted by donpardo at 10:31 AM on January 27 [3 favorites]
posted by donpardo at 10:31 AM on January 27 [3 favorites]
People had their social security number imprinted on their checks, right below their full name and address!
posted by mochapickle at 10:38 AM on January 27 [3 favorites]
posted by mochapickle at 10:38 AM on January 27 [3 favorites]
Long distance phone calls were expensive. To make one, you'd dial O for Operator, and the operator would ask if you wanted to make the call person to person (to ask for a specific person), or station to station (to talk to whoever answers). The call could also be made "collect," which meant the person who answered the phone would be asked to accept the charges.
When my older brother arrived back at college after visits home, he would place a collect call home. He would make the call person to person, asking to speak to an agreed upon fake name. My parents would refuse the charges, and the call would end. That's how they knew that he had arrived safely, at no cost!
This was a widely used trick, at least among my huge extended family.
posted by MelissaSimon at 10:50 AM on January 27 [5 favorites]
When my older brother arrived back at college after visits home, he would place a collect call home. He would make the call person to person, asking to speak to an agreed upon fake name. My parents would refuse the charges, and the call would end. That's how they knew that he had arrived safely, at no cost!
This was a widely used trick, at least among my huge extended family.
posted by MelissaSimon at 10:50 AM on January 27 [5 favorites]
Yes, collect calls were such a part of my life in high school and college. And the whole trick about declining the call or saying the person wasn't there. Such a thing.
posted by Winnie the Proust at 10:55 AM on January 27 [4 favorites]
posted by Winnie the Proust at 10:55 AM on January 27 [4 favorites]
I'm elder millennial, but I was also free-range enough as a kid (parents were on the older side of baby boomer) that I was exposed to a lot of these older things—but unsurprisingly if you asked me to pinpoint the ten years where things changed the most I would say "the 1990s".
The telecommunications changes—first moving from feeding coins to pay phones to calling collect, and then to cell phones—really took place in that decade (at least in the greater NYC metro area), even if separate long distance rates lasted a little longer.
In the 1980s, elevator operators were still common in older buildings in NYC (and in some buildings relatives lived in, you still drove the elevator up and down yourself with a throttle). Station wagons had rear facing jumper seats in the back and if they didn't, you'd still ride in the back anyway.
I was taught in elementary school how to fold a newspaper so as not to annoy the person next to you on the bus or train.
It was a big deal when I was able to get a debit card instead of relying on a passbook for my savings account.
Re-winding a cassette tape with a pencil. Or, god forbid, having to rewind a VHS tape (especially if it was rented).
posted by thecaddy at 11:33 AM on January 27 [2 favorites]
The telecommunications changes—first moving from feeding coins to pay phones to calling collect, and then to cell phones—really took place in that decade (at least in the greater NYC metro area), even if separate long distance rates lasted a little longer.
In the 1980s, elevator operators were still common in older buildings in NYC (and in some buildings relatives lived in, you still drove the elevator up and down yourself with a throttle). Station wagons had rear facing jumper seats in the back and if they didn't, you'd still ride in the back anyway.
I was taught in elementary school how to fold a newspaper so as not to annoy the person next to you on the bus or train.
It was a big deal when I was able to get a debit card instead of relying on a passbook for my savings account.
Re-winding a cassette tape with a pencil. Or, god forbid, having to rewind a VHS tape (especially if it was rented).
posted by thecaddy at 11:33 AM on January 27 [2 favorites]
Rubber overshoes for men when they wear dress shoes to work (my dad had a pair that he would slide on and off over his leather shoes to work)
I still have and use these, actually.
posted by thecaddy at 11:37 AM on January 27 [2 favorites]
I still have and use these, actually.
posted by thecaddy at 11:37 AM on January 27 [2 favorites]
Waiting in the car a few minutes after you drop someone off to make sure you're not accidentally abandoning them somewhere because the mall is closed or it's the wrong day for soccer practice.
At night we had a rule that you had to wait in the driveway until the door was unlocked and the interior lights were turned on proving entry juuuuuuust in case someone forgot their keys or the lock was frozen or any number of unforeseen calamities.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 12:26 PM on January 27 [8 favorites]
At night we had a rule that you had to wait in the driveway until the door was unlocked and the interior lights were turned on proving entry juuuuuuust in case someone forgot their keys or the lock was frozen or any number of unforeseen calamities.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 12:26 PM on January 27 [8 favorites]
Saturday morning cartoons. I was kind of horrified to discover this wasn't a thing anymore, but then, neither is broadcast TV.
Going anywhere, anytime, as a kid. Nobody would look for you. I'm 61. After about age 7, I routinely rode my bike to the candy store, to town, to school, to my friends' houses, wherever. There weren't any bike lanes or sidewalks or cell phones. I was supposed to call my mom if I was at somebody's house but I didn't, unless they asked me to stay for dinner or overnight. Then you had to call, or, better, their mom had to call your mom. We lived for a while right on Long Island Sound. One day, age 10 or 11, I took a canoe out and tried to see how far I could get. I ended up landing on some tiny island, just a hummock of sand and beach grass. I had no idea which direction was home, was there for hours. Eventually my dad showed up in a sailboat. I don't know how he found me; he was pleased and impressed that I got that far. It still sticks in my mind as, hey, I could have died.
At 16 I was sent off to live in Spain with my aunt. It took days to get there. There were no ATMs yet either and all I had was traveler's checks. My luggage got lost and the airport guy who was supposed to be helping me tried to get me to go home with him. Oh yes the sexism, the constant threat, the endless guys, hey baby, you're cute, what's your number? 867-5309 or something else, some number you made up so they would go away. The first time someone ever grabbed me in public I was 12. My fault, of course, it was always the girl's fault, men can't control themselves. I lived alone in Spain at 16 and 17. When I called my parents from the village payphone I had to call the international operator. Charleston, I used to say, Carolina del sud. I went to school and lied about my aunt being in the house. She was in India with Rajneesh, I think. Or maybe just in London. I used to grab somebody from the bar to make a phone call from the payphone and say they were her.
Letters. When I was in college we sent each other letters, long letters with drawings and stickers and all kinds of other random things in them. You could mail anything. A friend of my ex husbands walked across the US and mailed his shoes as he wore them out; he'd write a letter on the shoe itself and the address on the sole. Mail art was a thing, people mailed art everywhere and zines, art zines and undergound comics. Flaming Carrot. Angry Milkman.
Newspapers! The City Paper, little art newspapers, local papers, big papers. The International Herald Tribune. And the radio; in Spain we listened to the Ricky Licky Ticky Tash Lazar Bizarre Bazaar show. That's how I first heard the Police. In Charleston there was pirate radio, people on ships just outside the line broadcasting. One time someone took over the TV, we were waiting for the end of the national anthem and the signal and suddenly it was a voice! Dr. Dread they said, Listen to this! Reggae and we, in our early 20s, all woke up from our trances on the couch. We had a waterbed in that apartment too, and grew weed on the screened second floor porch. An ounce of weed was $40, half ounce $20, a dime bag $10, there were places you could drive up and somebody would just run a dime out to your car. In Charleston it came in on shrimp boats and smelled like it.
posted by mygothlaundry at 1:14 PM on January 27 [5 favorites]
Going anywhere, anytime, as a kid. Nobody would look for you. I'm 61. After about age 7, I routinely rode my bike to the candy store, to town, to school, to my friends' houses, wherever. There weren't any bike lanes or sidewalks or cell phones. I was supposed to call my mom if I was at somebody's house but I didn't, unless they asked me to stay for dinner or overnight. Then you had to call, or, better, their mom had to call your mom. We lived for a while right on Long Island Sound. One day, age 10 or 11, I took a canoe out and tried to see how far I could get. I ended up landing on some tiny island, just a hummock of sand and beach grass. I had no idea which direction was home, was there for hours. Eventually my dad showed up in a sailboat. I don't know how he found me; he was pleased and impressed that I got that far. It still sticks in my mind as, hey, I could have died.
At 16 I was sent off to live in Spain with my aunt. It took days to get there. There were no ATMs yet either and all I had was traveler's checks. My luggage got lost and the airport guy who was supposed to be helping me tried to get me to go home with him. Oh yes the sexism, the constant threat, the endless guys, hey baby, you're cute, what's your number? 867-5309 or something else, some number you made up so they would go away. The first time someone ever grabbed me in public I was 12. My fault, of course, it was always the girl's fault, men can't control themselves. I lived alone in Spain at 16 and 17. When I called my parents from the village payphone I had to call the international operator. Charleston, I used to say, Carolina del sud. I went to school and lied about my aunt being in the house. She was in India with Rajneesh, I think. Or maybe just in London. I used to grab somebody from the bar to make a phone call from the payphone and say they were her.
Letters. When I was in college we sent each other letters, long letters with drawings and stickers and all kinds of other random things in them. You could mail anything. A friend of my ex husbands walked across the US and mailed his shoes as he wore them out; he'd write a letter on the shoe itself and the address on the sole. Mail art was a thing, people mailed art everywhere and zines, art zines and undergound comics. Flaming Carrot. Angry Milkman.
Newspapers! The City Paper, little art newspapers, local papers, big papers. The International Herald Tribune. And the radio; in Spain we listened to the Ricky Licky Ticky Tash Lazar Bizarre Bazaar show. That's how I first heard the Police. In Charleston there was pirate radio, people on ships just outside the line broadcasting. One time someone took over the TV, we were waiting for the end of the national anthem and the signal and suddenly it was a voice! Dr. Dread they said, Listen to this! Reggae and we, in our early 20s, all woke up from our trances on the couch. We had a waterbed in that apartment too, and grew weed on the screened second floor porch. An ounce of weed was $40, half ounce $20, a dime bag $10, there were places you could drive up and somebody would just run a dime out to your car. In Charleston it came in on shrimp boats and smelled like it.
posted by mygothlaundry at 1:14 PM on January 27 [5 favorites]
I had my first job at a pet store when I was 14, so 1984. I was working under the table, although I didn't realize it and I'm not sure my parents did either! I'd work every Saturday and get handed a twenty dollar bill. I was also usually alone in the store.
In 1980, the summer before I started college, I had a job working at a sort of day camp/daycare place. At first I was with the younger kids, but at some point someone left (there was a lot of turnover) and I got assigned to the older kids (maybe 8-12 years old?) The place had a van and the big kids group was supposed to go on field trips, but then the van broke down or something and we couldn't go anywhere. But I felt bad about it, so I asked my parents if I could drive them myself in our car. It was an International Travelall, so it had seating for probably 8 kids besides me. I can't remember if I made them wear seat belts or if there even were seat belts for everyone. I remember looking in the newspaper to get ideas of places to take them. This was in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C. and some of the places we went were in D.C. I suppose the people I worked for must have known I was taking the kids on field trips in my personal car and I must have gotten permission to do it. I doubt any of their parents knew they were being taken on trips planned and supervised only by an 18 year old using her family's car. I don't remember if I ever even told anyone where I was planning to go when we left for the day. Fortunately, everything went fine and I never lost anyone or got into an accident, though a kid did do some damage to one of the car seats. I think this place was unusually lax about supervision and safety even for the times, but this whole scenario is absolutely unimaginable anywhere in the U.S. today.
posted by Redstart at 1:48 PM on January 27 [1 favorite]
In 1980, the summer before I started college, I had a job working at a sort of day camp/daycare place. At first I was with the younger kids, but at some point someone left (there was a lot of turnover) and I got assigned to the older kids (maybe 8-12 years old?) The place had a van and the big kids group was supposed to go on field trips, but then the van broke down or something and we couldn't go anywhere. But I felt bad about it, so I asked my parents if I could drive them myself in our car. It was an International Travelall, so it had seating for probably 8 kids besides me. I can't remember if I made them wear seat belts or if there even were seat belts for everyone. I remember looking in the newspaper to get ideas of places to take them. This was in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C. and some of the places we went were in D.C. I suppose the people I worked for must have known I was taking the kids on field trips in my personal car and I must have gotten permission to do it. I doubt any of their parents knew they were being taken on trips planned and supervised only by an 18 year old using her family's car. I don't remember if I ever even told anyone where I was planning to go when we left for the day. Fortunately, everything went fine and I never lost anyone or got into an accident, though a kid did do some damage to one of the car seats. I think this place was unusually lax about supervision and safety even for the times, but this whole scenario is absolutely unimaginable anywhere in the U.S. today.
posted by Redstart at 1:48 PM on January 27 [1 favorite]
People had their social security number imprinted on their checks, right below their full name and address!
Not just checks! They put that number on everything!
Police Urge Social Security Numbers on Valuables [NYTimes] (6/9/1972)
Not just checks! They put that number on everything!
Police Urge Social Security Numbers on Valuables [NYTimes] (6/9/1972)
New Yorkers will be encouraged to engrave their Social Security numbers on their valuables and register them with the police to facilitate recovery in the event of theft, under a program scheduled to begin in the next few days.posted by RonButNotStupid at 1:52 PM on January 27 [3 favorites]
Under the “Operation Identification” program, selected precinct community councils will lend engraving kits purchased for up to $25 each to interested citizens. After “tattooing” their numbers on television bets, bicycles, silverware and jewelry with the electric needle‐tipped devices, participants will put their numbers on file with the Police Department's lost property office.
Then, when the items are stolen and later recovered, say in a pawnshop, the department's computer could match the item with the owner in a matter of minutes. Usually, now the police have to check their lists of stolen property or go through a manufacturer and his list of serial numbers—a process taking weeks — to trace the owner of recovered merchandise.
Perms. Wings. Remember wings?
posted by amtho at 2:13 PM on January 27 [1 favorite]
posted by amtho at 2:13 PM on January 27 [1 favorite]
Oh - water beds! One day they all just disappeared.
posted by cgg at 2:20 PM on January 27 [5 favorites]
posted by cgg at 2:20 PM on January 27 [5 favorites]
I forgot about checks. I got ones with seaside scenes on them, technicolored sunsets, flowers, all kinds of terrible things. I always liked that. And music, buying music, LPs and prerecorded cassettes that got endlessly duplicated. A stereo with two cassette decks was so very important for mix tapes. I had one, a turntable and 2 cassette decks all in one; I bought it at Macy's on layaway. The speakers were a respectable size; the real audiophiles, the guys usually, would have huge speakers. The music you listened to identified you - I was so embarrassed by my own crush on and fondness for John Cougar Mellencamp. He was not cool enough for cool me. My crush on Thomas Dolby was okay, though. I miss buying entire albums and listening to the whole thing, over and over, learning all the B-sides, reading the liner notes. Now you just hear a song here and there; it's all so disjointed.
posted by mygothlaundry at 2:47 PM on January 27 [4 favorites]
posted by mygothlaundry at 2:47 PM on January 27 [4 favorites]
Oh and yes: rent on a 4 bedroom apartment in downtown Charleston SC with hardwood floors and a clawfoot bathtub and a big yard and two porches was $600 and we thought that was very expensive. We crammed all our friends in - nobody cared about stuff like putting roommates on the lease, no credit checks, none of that nonsense - and it was $100 a month plus utilities. Even in the early 2000s you could rent an entire house for under $1000 a month in Asheville or Charleston. Now, of course. . . RIP to the golden days of yore when kids could grow up and afford to move out.
posted by mygothlaundry at 2:52 PM on January 27
posted by mygothlaundry at 2:52 PM on January 27
Waterbeds is a great answer!
My HS GF's mom had a waterbed in the only air-conditioned room in their house.
(Back in the 70s water beds were sexy and for fucking)
(Don't think we ever had sexual encounters in the water bed)
posted by Windopaene at 3:09 PM on January 27
My HS GF's mom had a waterbed in the only air-conditioned room in their house.
(Back in the 70s water beds were sexy and for fucking)
(Don't think we ever had sexual encounters in the water bed)
posted by Windopaene at 3:09 PM on January 27
If you didn’t know something like what other movies was that guy in, you would spend HOURS trying to remember and the conversation was not allowed to progress until the problem was resolved. At the absolute worst, you’d go to a pay phone and call your smartest friend. If they weren’t around you’d wake up in the middle of the night scrambling for an answer.
We would waste DAYS doing this.
posted by yes I said yes I will Yes at 3:51 PM on January 27 [6 favorites]
We would waste DAYS doing this.
posted by yes I said yes I will Yes at 3:51 PM on January 27 [6 favorites]
Exactly! How else did the "that guy" term originate?
posted by computech_apolloniajames at 4:17 PM on January 27
posted by computech_apolloniajames at 4:17 PM on January 27
This is all very North American centric, but department stores had a music department and there was usually a big wire rack display filled with a hundred copies of that week's big album release. There was also a poster department featuring rock bands, cool cars, Crumb cartoons and pinup models. Also a pet department with fish, turtles, rodents.
Grocery stores had very little variety. One type of cucumber (with the spiky bumps), maybe a three kinds of apples. I'm pretty sure potatoes weren't available singly - only in large paper bags with string net windows. There were oranges and bananas but no kiwi, avocado, or fancy lettuce . Beverages were only available in returnable glass bottles.
posted by brachiopod at 4:22 PM on January 27
Grocery stores had very little variety. One type of cucumber (with the spiky bumps), maybe a three kinds of apples. I'm pretty sure potatoes weren't available singly - only in large paper bags with string net windows. There were oranges and bananas but no kiwi, avocado, or fancy lettuce . Beverages were only available in returnable glass bottles.
posted by brachiopod at 4:22 PM on January 27
Each store had its own buyers and suppliers and house brands. It felt like a richer world. All those regional retail chains got consolidated in the 80s and 90s, and all those regional variations are gone.
This is something I only found out later, but the different stores and regional chains each with their buyers and house brands bought from clothing *manufacturers* spread a lot more evenly across the country. Smallish manufacturers would specialize in what worked regionally, either for taste or industry or climate.
posted by clew at 4:40 PM on January 27 [2 favorites]
This is something I only found out later, but the different stores and regional chains each with their buyers and house brands bought from clothing *manufacturers* spread a lot more evenly across the country. Smallish manufacturers would specialize in what worked regionally, either for taste or industry or climate.
posted by clew at 4:40 PM on January 27 [2 favorites]
Custom T-shirts! At the mall there would be a T-shirt shop where you can pick the shirt and pick a decal design that they would thermal press onto it as you wait.
Everybody had the baseball shirt with the body in white and the 3/4 sleeve in a contrast color. You can get your name added on the back. Girls would get sparkly designs with unicorns and stuff.
The early 80's was just before cotton knitwear became mainstream. There was a time when for preteens, corduroy knickers (3/4 pants with a cuffed band at the calf) were all the rage.
posted by dum spiro spero at 7:58 PM on January 27 [1 favorite]
Everybody had the baseball shirt with the body in white and the 3/4 sleeve in a contrast color. You can get your name added on the back. Girls would get sparkly designs with unicorns and stuff.
The early 80's was just before cotton knitwear became mainstream. There was a time when for preteens, corduroy knickers (3/4 pants with a cuffed band at the calf) were all the rage.
posted by dum spiro spero at 7:58 PM on January 27 [1 favorite]
I love this thread!
The whole idea that you had to search things out - books, records, clothes, whatever. You couldn't just go online and learn about it, and you couldn't get it delivered right away. I spent so many hours digging through record bins and bookstores and picking things out based on the cool cover, or someone's mention of them in that weird zine I found in the one comic book store that sometimes had a copy.
Having to plan ahead about money. I got paid on Friday, and had to actually cash my check at the bank to get enough cash for the weekend. I didn't have an ATM card or a credit card, so cash was it.
The Sears catalog. My mom would get that every year in the summer, and we'd go through and circle all the things we were hoping for Santa to bring.
Only getting to see a movie in the theater. Star Wars is my example here - I saw it in third grade when it came out, and then after much pleading eventually convinced my parents to take me a second time ("why would we pay to see something when we know how it ends?") and then that was it! It was gone. It had a second run the following summer, and then gone again until two years later when Empire came out. And then I got to see that once! No gifs or rewatches or screencaps or downloads or minisodes. By the time Jedi came out we had two VCRs, which leads to a whole other thing, which was renting movies from Blockbuster, copying them onto another tape to have a copy, and then never watching that copy again.
Doing homework by hand. Writing a five-page essay in cursive was a regular thing. We had penmanship classes up through third grade.
posted by chbrooks at 9:57 PM on January 27 [5 favorites]
The whole idea that you had to search things out - books, records, clothes, whatever. You couldn't just go online and learn about it, and you couldn't get it delivered right away. I spent so many hours digging through record bins and bookstores and picking things out based on the cool cover, or someone's mention of them in that weird zine I found in the one comic book store that sometimes had a copy.
Having to plan ahead about money. I got paid on Friday, and had to actually cash my check at the bank to get enough cash for the weekend. I didn't have an ATM card or a credit card, so cash was it.
The Sears catalog. My mom would get that every year in the summer, and we'd go through and circle all the things we were hoping for Santa to bring.
Only getting to see a movie in the theater. Star Wars is my example here - I saw it in third grade when it came out, and then after much pleading eventually convinced my parents to take me a second time ("why would we pay to see something when we know how it ends?") and then that was it! It was gone. It had a second run the following summer, and then gone again until two years later when Empire came out. And then I got to see that once! No gifs or rewatches or screencaps or downloads or minisodes. By the time Jedi came out we had two VCRs, which leads to a whole other thing, which was renting movies from Blockbuster, copying them onto another tape to have a copy, and then never watching that copy again.
Doing homework by hand. Writing a five-page essay in cursive was a regular thing. We had penmanship classes up through third grade.
posted by chbrooks at 9:57 PM on January 27 [5 favorites]
Bookkeepers in stores balancing the day's receipts from multiple registers and/or departments using large multi-column, multi-row ledger sheets and adding machines.
posted by TimHare at 9:58 PM on January 27 [4 favorites]
posted by TimHare at 9:58 PM on January 27 [4 favorites]
Sexism, racism, antisemitism, no services/accommodation for disabled people, nationalist bigotry (anti-Italian, etc.) were blatant and socially acceptable, socially required, really.
Houses were smaller, kids shared bedrooms. You had a kitchen and didn't worry that it was dated except for maybe new wallpaper or paint and a new stove if the old one was in terrible shape.
I had a small business in the 80s, did bookeeping and payroll with paper ledgers. PCs weren't really widely available and were finicky, software was rudimentary.
The range of pay was much narrower; local lawyers made more, but not 10 times more.
Cars didn't last very long. Japanese cars were tinny and cheap.
Gas wars. There was an intersection with 4 gas stations, and they'd have price wars. .12/gallon. Dang.
posted by theora55 at 10:32 PM on January 27 [3 favorites]
Houses were smaller, kids shared bedrooms. You had a kitchen and didn't worry that it was dated except for maybe new wallpaper or paint and a new stove if the old one was in terrible shape.
I had a small business in the 80s, did bookeeping and payroll with paper ledgers. PCs weren't really widely available and were finicky, software was rudimentary.
The range of pay was much narrower; local lawyers made more, but not 10 times more.
Cars didn't last very long. Japanese cars were tinny and cheap.
Gas wars. There was an intersection with 4 gas stations, and they'd have price wars. .12/gallon. Dang.
posted by theora55 at 10:32 PM on January 27 [3 favorites]
So many of these totally still exist...that it's kind of a hilarious thread to read.
Agreed - late to the party but since I just turned 71, I have comments.
One thing not mentioned yet was produce in the supermarket. Back in the mid-90s I was talking to an old guy working in a DC-area supermarket who'd been there forever, and he said that when he first started, the fresh produce was just a couple sections in one aisle. Now it's the whole aisle, at least. I don't recall it ever being that small, but the key thing was, no plastic bags. Stacks of brown paper bags and black crayons available, and each fruit or veggie had a sign like 39¢/#. (Yes, kids, that's why we call that character 'the pound sign.') You'd put your plums or whatever into a bag, weigh it on the nearby scale (no scales at the checkout), calculate the total and write your estimated price on the bag - the honor system. The cashier would ring up that item w/o even looking inside.
Woolworth's
Like Tower Records in Japan, Woolworth's is still a going concern, in Germany.
Woolworths selling colored baby chicks and baby bunnies at Easter.
And those little green turtles!
Everyone took shop and home ec in junior high, and everyone took home ec in high school
In my day, in Junior High the boys took wood shop, then metal shop; while the girls took Home Ec(onomics). Similar classes may have been offered in High School; but being on the college-bound Academic track those classes were no longer an available part of my curriculum. I would have loved to participate in the sewing (sock monkeys!) and baking, just as I'm sure some girls would've liked to take shop, but crossing that line was impossible, unthinkable.
that stupid rubber ball on a paddle
The scene in 'The Misfits' where Marilyn Monroe plays with one of these.
Fried clams at Howard Johnson's.
Not just the clams, HoJo's abandoned the restaurant business a long time ago. They had great ice cream, too - 28 flavors!
My high school in the seventies had a smoking area where students who smoked [tobacco] could do so.
Mine also, We called it The Smoking Hole. And when I got to university I discovered students could just light up, in/during class (although some professors forbade this).
posted by Rash at 10:38 PM on January 27 [3 favorites]
Agreed - late to the party but since I just turned 71, I have comments.
One thing not mentioned yet was produce in the supermarket. Back in the mid-90s I was talking to an old guy working in a DC-area supermarket who'd been there forever, and he said that when he first started, the fresh produce was just a couple sections in one aisle. Now it's the whole aisle, at least. I don't recall it ever being that small, but the key thing was, no plastic bags. Stacks of brown paper bags and black crayons available, and each fruit or veggie had a sign like 39¢/#. (Yes, kids, that's why we call that character 'the pound sign.') You'd put your plums or whatever into a bag, weigh it on the nearby scale (no scales at the checkout), calculate the total and write your estimated price on the bag - the honor system. The cashier would ring up that item w/o even looking inside.
Woolworth's
Like Tower Records in Japan, Woolworth's is still a going concern, in Germany.
Woolworths selling colored baby chicks and baby bunnies at Easter.
And those little green turtles!
Everyone took shop and home ec in junior high, and everyone took home ec in high school
In my day, in Junior High the boys took wood shop, then metal shop; while the girls took Home Ec(onomics). Similar classes may have been offered in High School; but being on the college-bound Academic track those classes were no longer an available part of my curriculum. I would have loved to participate in the sewing (sock monkeys!) and baking, just as I'm sure some girls would've liked to take shop, but crossing that line was impossible, unthinkable.
that stupid rubber ball on a paddle
The scene in 'The Misfits' where Marilyn Monroe plays with one of these.
Fried clams at Howard Johnson's.
Not just the clams, HoJo's abandoned the restaurant business a long time ago. They had great ice cream, too - 28 flavors!
My high school in the seventies had a smoking area where students who smoked [tobacco] could do so.
Mine also, We called it The Smoking Hole. And when I got to university I discovered students could just light up, in/during class (although some professors forbade this).
posted by Rash at 10:38 PM on January 27 [3 favorites]
Mod note: [Wow, we did and saw so many things! We've added this lovely old dinosaur highway to the sidebar and Best Of blog! Cheers, everyone!]
posted by taz (staff) at 12:53 AM on January 28 [3 favorites]
posted by taz (staff) at 12:53 AM on January 28 [3 favorites]
In my day, in Junior High the boys took wood shop, then metal shop; while the girls took Home Ec(onomics).
My school in the '80s had wood shop, metal shop, and home economics, but nobody on the 'college track' took those courses because the school day was filled with more valuable classes for those on the college path. This has since changed -my daughter goes to school a full extra class period longer per day that we did, and they have so many free electives they all take home ec or wood shop again in jr high, in addition to all the 'college track' courses.
In my brother's day, they switched to PE in elementary school only 2-3 days a week, the rest for other courses. My kids had that too in elementary, but art and music instead of more core classes. I had PE 5 days a week.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:33 AM on January 28 [1 favorite]
My school in the '80s had wood shop, metal shop, and home economics, but nobody on the 'college track' took those courses because the school day was filled with more valuable classes for those on the college path. This has since changed -my daughter goes to school a full extra class period longer per day that we did, and they have so many free electives they all take home ec or wood shop again in jr high, in addition to all the 'college track' courses.
In my brother's day, they switched to PE in elementary school only 2-3 days a week, the rest for other courses. My kids had that too in elementary, but art and music instead of more core classes. I had PE 5 days a week.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:33 AM on January 28 [1 favorite]
I had a 70s Toronto childhood which was pretty great. Everything seemed big and open, big modern concrete brutalist everything. Multiculturalism. Watching awesome TVOntario educational programming in our open-concept classroom, roller-skating around the base of the CN Tower on the weekend. Ontario Place! The Science Centre! (These last 2 have been shut down by the greasy buffoon who is our current premier.) Showing up to school and SURPRISE you’d be getting a needle wasn’t so awesome but yay vaccinations. Flocked wallpaper. Gravel suburban driveways that had yet to be paved.
I made a song/video about exactly this recently, hope it’s ok to link: 73 Keep It Beautiful
posted by chococat at 8:52 AM on January 28 [5 favorites]
I made a song/video about exactly this recently, hope it’s ok to link: 73 Keep It Beautiful
posted by chococat at 8:52 AM on January 28 [5 favorites]
chococat, don't forget the Harbourfront Adventure Playground where you could build stuff and have to get a tetanus shot. We used to go down there on weekends and then stop at the Book Barn for discount books. Nice song. :)
posted by warriorqueen at 9:01 AM on January 28 [1 favorite]
posted by warriorqueen at 9:01 AM on January 28 [1 favorite]
The growing wealth disparity - you hardly ever saw luxury sports cars and when you did, it was only on dry summer days. Today, I see Maseratis as daily drivers in winter.
posted by brachiopod at 9:05 AM on January 28 [3 favorites]
posted by brachiopod at 9:05 AM on January 28 [3 favorites]
Coordinating meeting up with friends by calling your own answering machine at home from a pay phone to see if they left you a message.
posted by gottabefunky at 10:40 AM on January 28 [2 favorites]
posted by gottabefunky at 10:40 AM on January 28 [2 favorites]
Reading the additional replies, sparked a few more memorizes
Rope-climbing as a gym activity in elementary school. The rope was really thick (a few inches, maybe). And would burn your hands if you slid down too fast. The gym had really high ceilings, and the ropes went all the way to where they were fasted to the ceiling. It was 15, maybe 20 feet? And there were 3inch mats at the bottom if you fell (ha!). As a skinny little kid with strong legs, I *loved* this activity. The heavier kids and those with a fear of heights really struggled, and would jeered at so the next kid in line could get their turn.
Pants for girls was not allowed in schools until I was in high school (late 60’s), so on cold days I’d wear pants under my dress for my walk to school, then take them off in the coat room. Ankle socks only, so my legs were often chilly in class.
At 14, the law allowed one to work, but no more than 15 hours a week. My first job was an usher in a movie theater because “fancy” movie houses printed tickets for every seat in the house, for each showing. If you had a favorite seat, you could call ahead and reserve it. At intermission, we would man the concession stand. Three or even four of us, if it was busy. The theater held 713 people. Once we had a surprise sell-out, and there were only two of us working the concession stand. We prepped drink cups (half-filled with ice and stacked) and popcorn. We got everyone who lined up taken care of in the 11 minutes of intermission. Our manager was so impressed he gave us each a 25 cent/hour raise (I think minimum wage was $1.15/hr). Oh, and movie “ratings” were a new thing. When this theater was assigned an R-rated film, the manager had to fire nearly the entire staff, as most of us were under 18. That movie? The execrable and forgettable “Myra Breckinridge”.
posted by dbmcd at 11:12 AM on January 28 [3 favorites]
Rope-climbing as a gym activity in elementary school. The rope was really thick (a few inches, maybe). And would burn your hands if you slid down too fast. The gym had really high ceilings, and the ropes went all the way to where they were fasted to the ceiling. It was 15, maybe 20 feet? And there were 3inch mats at the bottom if you fell (ha!). As a skinny little kid with strong legs, I *loved* this activity. The heavier kids and those with a fear of heights really struggled, and would jeered at so the next kid in line could get their turn.
Pants for girls was not allowed in schools until I was in high school (late 60’s), so on cold days I’d wear pants under my dress for my walk to school, then take them off in the coat room. Ankle socks only, so my legs were often chilly in class.
At 14, the law allowed one to work, but no more than 15 hours a week. My first job was an usher in a movie theater because “fancy” movie houses printed tickets for every seat in the house, for each showing. If you had a favorite seat, you could call ahead and reserve it. At intermission, we would man the concession stand. Three or even four of us, if it was busy. The theater held 713 people. Once we had a surprise sell-out, and there were only two of us working the concession stand. We prepped drink cups (half-filled with ice and stacked) and popcorn. We got everyone who lined up taken care of in the 11 minutes of intermission. Our manager was so impressed he gave us each a 25 cent/hour raise (I think minimum wage was $1.15/hr). Oh, and movie “ratings” were a new thing. When this theater was assigned an R-rated film, the manager had to fire nearly the entire staff, as most of us were under 18. That movie? The execrable and forgettable “Myra Breckinridge”.
posted by dbmcd at 11:12 AM on January 28 [3 favorites]
- "Do not fold, spindle or mutilate"--Hollerith (aka IBM) computer punchcards were not only used to run programs, but sent out as forms to be sent back, and that was the instruction for people to handle them correctly. (A spindle was a spike on a little stand that people who received forms would use to keep them in a neat stack until they were filed.)
- In addition to shop (for boys) and home economics (for girls) classes, there were typing classes that were mostly for girls (although some boys, probably mostly aspiring writers and journalists) who were planning to be secretaries or work in a special office called a "typing pool" which was literally just a room full of desks with typewriters and clerical workers (again, mostly women) transcribing documents or making copies of them by typing them manually; the first paper copier made big inroads into reducing typing pools, but you still had typing teachers teaching the kids that speed and accuracy was key. (In the late 1980s, the civil service test that I took to be able to apply for library clerk jobs at a state university still included my WPM (words per minute) score.) Typing all day, five days a week, gave a number of clerical workers repetitive stress injuries, aka "carpal tunnel syndrome." By the time I took typing in high school, though, many more kids were learning to type because they knew that at least some of their papers in college would have to be typewritten, and some of the kids from wealthier families had microcomputers (as they were called) whose main input was a typewriter-style keyboard. We were still taught not to look at the keyboard, the better to keep our WPM up, but that largely went away after the advent of a new control for the computer, called a "mouse," which necessitated removing one hand from the keyboard. And then someone named Mavis Beacon, who was actually a computer program, taught people how to type.
- The proverbial porn in the woods was a real thing. Porn magazines proliferated in the seventies, and pre-internet, that's where many if not most kids saw their first non-related naked adults (mostly women). Porn movies were mostly at so-called adult bookstores and theaters; when I had a spare moment during my paper route, I would sometimes look at the listings for local movie theaters and wonder what was behind the green door, or what "deeper than deep throat" meant (AFAIK, "deep throat" had something to do with Watergate).
- Before the wealthier friends got their microcomputers (as mentioned above), playing a videogame meant either playing Pong, or going to an arcade (previously populated only by pinball machines) and playing Spacewar, in which a very crudely drawn spaceship shot at very crudely rendered asteroids. Eventually, we got Missile Command, Space Invaders, and Pac-Man. Get your quarters out!
- Star Wars was a single movie.
posted by Halloween Jack at 12:13 PM on January 28 [3 favorites]
- In addition to shop (for boys) and home economics (for girls) classes, there were typing classes that were mostly for girls (although some boys, probably mostly aspiring writers and journalists) who were planning to be secretaries or work in a special office called a "typing pool" which was literally just a room full of desks with typewriters and clerical workers (again, mostly women) transcribing documents or making copies of them by typing them manually; the first paper copier made big inroads into reducing typing pools, but you still had typing teachers teaching the kids that speed and accuracy was key. (In the late 1980s, the civil service test that I took to be able to apply for library clerk jobs at a state university still included my WPM (words per minute) score.) Typing all day, five days a week, gave a number of clerical workers repetitive stress injuries, aka "carpal tunnel syndrome." By the time I took typing in high school, though, many more kids were learning to type because they knew that at least some of their papers in college would have to be typewritten, and some of the kids from wealthier families had microcomputers (as they were called) whose main input was a typewriter-style keyboard. We were still taught not to look at the keyboard, the better to keep our WPM up, but that largely went away after the advent of a new control for the computer, called a "mouse," which necessitated removing one hand from the keyboard. And then someone named Mavis Beacon, who was actually a computer program, taught people how to type.
- The proverbial porn in the woods was a real thing. Porn magazines proliferated in the seventies, and pre-internet, that's where many if not most kids saw their first non-related naked adults (mostly women). Porn movies were mostly at so-called adult bookstores and theaters; when I had a spare moment during my paper route, I would sometimes look at the listings for local movie theaters and wonder what was behind the green door, or what "deeper than deep throat" meant (AFAIK, "deep throat" had something to do with Watergate).
- Before the wealthier friends got their microcomputers (as mentioned above), playing a videogame meant either playing Pong, or going to an arcade (previously populated only by pinball machines) and playing Spacewar, in which a very crudely drawn spaceship shot at very crudely rendered asteroids. Eventually, we got Missile Command, Space Invaders, and Pac-Man. Get your quarters out!
- Star Wars was a single movie.
posted by Halloween Jack at 12:13 PM on January 28 [3 favorites]
Tomatoes. Real, delicious, wonderful tomatoes as an ordinary item. I guess they are called heirloom tomatoes now, but they used to be just tomatoes, and you didn't have to be rich or grow your own to experience them!
posted by taz at 12:22 PM on January 28 [3 favorites]
posted by taz at 12:22 PM on January 28 [3 favorites]
But also, corn that turned to starch within minutes of picking it. I have to say the new hybrid supersweet corn is pretty great. I ate a lot of bad corn on the cob as a kid.
posted by HotToddy at 12:42 PM on January 28 [5 favorites]
posted by HotToddy at 12:42 PM on January 28 [5 favorites]
I’m in my mid-fifties, and grew up in the New York suburbs.
Objects:
Blank address books with pages for each letter, in which you’d hand-write all your contacts’ phone numbers. Restaurant matchbooks. Baskets for tossing coins into at toll booths, and various little devices to hold and dispense those coins in your car. Taxi cabs (in NYC) that had little folding stools in between the front and back seats, for seating additional passengers. Sea-monkeys bought through ads on the back of comic books. The Penny Saver, for buying and selling used items. Suits as standard dress code for interviews, and gray or navy ones as the only viable choices in staid fields.
Places and experiences:
Stores where kids could buy stickers off rolls, for trading and collecting in albums. Organizing longer school essays and papers on index cards, so that we could handwrite them linearly from there. Travel agencies, for choosing, planning, and booking a trip. Restaurants being mostly American and Italian, maybe a few other cuisines here and there. (My first encounter with Thai food, in college, was a revelation.) Choosing books, restaurants, outings, performances, products, etc. without ever having seen anyone else’s rating or opinion of them, or maybe having read one expert’s review and that’s it. Having experiences in general without thinking about what you’d post about them. Planning experiences (e.g., parties) without knowing how lots of other people had optimized them to the hilt.
Attitudes:
Withering disdain for “outdated” music, like your parents’ or even just the prior decade’s. The expectation that you’d strive to find fulfilling work, and that if you weren’t passionate about your career, you just hadn’t found the right field yet. At least where I was, the widely unquestioned belief that we Americans were the good guys, and that capitalism was the best system.
posted by daisyace at 1:35 PM on January 28 [4 favorites]
Objects:
Blank address books with pages for each letter, in which you’d hand-write all your contacts’ phone numbers. Restaurant matchbooks. Baskets for tossing coins into at toll booths, and various little devices to hold and dispense those coins in your car. Taxi cabs (in NYC) that had little folding stools in between the front and back seats, for seating additional passengers. Sea-monkeys bought through ads on the back of comic books. The Penny Saver, for buying and selling used items. Suits as standard dress code for interviews, and gray or navy ones as the only viable choices in staid fields.
Places and experiences:
Stores where kids could buy stickers off rolls, for trading and collecting in albums. Organizing longer school essays and papers on index cards, so that we could handwrite them linearly from there. Travel agencies, for choosing, planning, and booking a trip. Restaurants being mostly American and Italian, maybe a few other cuisines here and there. (My first encounter with Thai food, in college, was a revelation.) Choosing books, restaurants, outings, performances, products, etc. without ever having seen anyone else’s rating or opinion of them, or maybe having read one expert’s review and that’s it. Having experiences in general without thinking about what you’d post about them. Planning experiences (e.g., parties) without knowing how lots of other people had optimized them to the hilt.
Attitudes:
Withering disdain for “outdated” music, like your parents’ or even just the prior decade’s. The expectation that you’d strive to find fulfilling work, and that if you weren’t passionate about your career, you just hadn’t found the right field yet. At least where I was, the widely unquestioned belief that we Americans were the good guys, and that capitalism was the best system.
posted by daisyace at 1:35 PM on January 28 [4 favorites]
I'm 45.
Just... Not knowing where someone is and having no expectation of being able to reach them, which would seem totally bonkers in 2025. If i had plans with someone and I was going to be late to meet up with them, if they'd already left there would just be no way of letting them know until we were in the same place at which point profuse apologizing would be in order.
Also, being bored.
posted by softlord at 4:18 PM on January 28 [2 favorites]
Just... Not knowing where someone is and having no expectation of being able to reach them, which would seem totally bonkers in 2025. If i had plans with someone and I was going to be late to meet up with them, if they'd already left there would just be no way of letting them know until we were in the same place at which point profuse apologizing would be in order.
Also, being bored.
posted by softlord at 4:18 PM on January 28 [2 favorites]
Thought of one more: the can opener. No, not the kind you twist.
Like wine bottles and the corkscrew, all canned and bottled beverages used to require a special tool to open them. Cans especially; up to the mid-60s a tool colloquially called a Church Key was used to punch a pair of triangular holes in the top of the can. Then the pull-tap or pop top revolutionized soda and beer drinking. A little later easy-off twisting bottle caps made both ends of the Church Key obsolete. Although some bottles still require an opener to pry off the top, cheaper wines now have twist-off caps, as well.
posted by Rash at 4:36 PM on January 28 [2 favorites]
Like wine bottles and the corkscrew, all canned and bottled beverages used to require a special tool to open them. Cans especially; up to the mid-60s a tool colloquially called a Church Key was used to punch a pair of triangular holes in the top of the can. Then the pull-tap or pop top revolutionized soda and beer drinking. A little later easy-off twisting bottle caps made both ends of the Church Key obsolete. Although some bottles still require an opener to pry off the top, cheaper wines now have twist-off caps, as well.
posted by Rash at 4:36 PM on January 28 [2 favorites]
People above have mentioned 'calling a place' using landlines and payphones, rather than people. To that I'd add that before you had the internet in your pocket, internet cafes were everywhere in the 90s, or you used libraries or school computers and terminals.
As mentioned above, we were participating in the monoculture. Most knew the popular music chart, not just young people who were into music, and could sing or hum the chorus of the current Number 1 seller. Most people watched the same television, and you could start a conversation at school or work with "Did you see xyz on TV last night?" Most people got their news from the same few sources, and these aimed to service everyone rather than a niche (although the sexism, classism, racism, ableism and so forth noted above was very real). On popular music, there were a couple of key television and radio shows that curated everything you needed.
National boundaries and cultures were much stronger without being obvious, simply because of the tyranny of distance and the lack of comparators, but also due to trade barriers. For example in popular music, the Australian Top 10 looked very different to the UK Top 10 and the US Top 10 - in Australia we'd look at the overseas music charts and wonder when these albums would be released here. Or in manufacturing - cars, appliances, etc - you'd simply have distinctive stuff that was made in Australia rather than imported other places
Paper was everywhere.
Content was physical - think video rental stores and people having huge movie, record and book collections.
A fun part of meeting someone new was going to their place and checking out this physical expression of their tastes to see if you shared interests, and ideally seeing what you could borrow.
Collecting required a lot more fun work - visiting music or book or collectible stores at any new town you went to to see if you could find what you were missing - the joy of finding something long sought after was immense. With the internet, you just search up what you want and pay for it.
posted by jjderooy at 5:13 PM on January 28 [4 favorites]
As mentioned above, we were participating in the monoculture. Most knew the popular music chart, not just young people who were into music, and could sing or hum the chorus of the current Number 1 seller. Most people watched the same television, and you could start a conversation at school or work with "Did you see xyz on TV last night?" Most people got their news from the same few sources, and these aimed to service everyone rather than a niche (although the sexism, classism, racism, ableism and so forth noted above was very real). On popular music, there were a couple of key television and radio shows that curated everything you needed.
National boundaries and cultures were much stronger without being obvious, simply because of the tyranny of distance and the lack of comparators, but also due to trade barriers. For example in popular music, the Australian Top 10 looked very different to the UK Top 10 and the US Top 10 - in Australia we'd look at the overseas music charts and wonder when these albums would be released here. Or in manufacturing - cars, appliances, etc - you'd simply have distinctive stuff that was made in Australia rather than imported other places
Paper was everywhere.
Content was physical - think video rental stores and people having huge movie, record and book collections.
A fun part of meeting someone new was going to their place and checking out this physical expression of their tastes to see if you shared interests, and ideally seeing what you could borrow.
Collecting required a lot more fun work - visiting music or book or collectible stores at any new town you went to to see if you could find what you were missing - the joy of finding something long sought after was immense. With the internet, you just search up what you want and pay for it.
posted by jjderooy at 5:13 PM on January 28 [4 favorites]
Water beds is a great one.
Radio tube tester that included a selection of radio tubes for sale in the local drug store.
Comic books in spinning display racks at the drug store and grocery.
Abandoned houses in central Massachusetts and central Vermont in the 1960s - kids explored them and played in them.
posted by Arctan at 12:14 AM on January 29 [1 favorite]
Radio tube tester that included a selection of radio tubes for sale in the local drug store.
Comic books in spinning display racks at the drug store and grocery.
Abandoned houses in central Massachusetts and central Vermont in the 1960s - kids explored them and played in them.
posted by Arctan at 12:14 AM on January 29 [1 favorite]
Learning cursive and phonics. Something great was lost by getting rid of these things.
posted by grubi at 5:12 AM on January 29 [7 favorites]
posted by grubi at 5:12 AM on January 29 [7 favorites]
This is a long thread, so apologies if someone's already said something like this, but I'm struck how some of the things people have said near the start of the thread are still around in our town. Banks with pneumatic tube, drive through tellers are still a common sight here!
posted by JHarris at 7:45 AM on January 29 [1 favorite]
posted by JHarris at 7:45 AM on January 29 [1 favorite]
A ridiculous number of teenagers jammed into a too-small car, as seen in Wayne's World.
posted by selfmedicating at 7:56 AM on January 29 [1 favorite]
posted by selfmedicating at 7:56 AM on January 29 [1 favorite]
In the U.S.: Clothing, textiles like towels, and furniture made in the United States as a matter of course. Often domestically-made women's clothing would have a union label. As garment manufacturing offshoring began to happen, "Made in the U.S.A." labeling and a celebrity-supported publicity campaign to promote it.
posted by jocelmeow at 8:31 AM on January 29 [2 favorites]
posted by jocelmeow at 8:31 AM on January 29 [2 favorites]
Rampant, overt homophobia starting in grade school.
posted by gottabefunky at 11:00 AM on January 29 [5 favorites]
posted by gottabefunky at 11:00 AM on January 29 [5 favorites]
Along with riding a bike wherever as a kid, I also had access to a snowmobile during the winter for the same.
posted by ursus_comiter at 4:33 PM on January 29 [1 favorite]
posted by ursus_comiter at 4:33 PM on January 29 [1 favorite]
It has come to my attention that there were more than one Letter People, so I was pleased to see that was the one I remembered. Just make sure never to say "syllable" or else... oh no....
There is a whole universe of short educational programming made by local stations for public television from that time, that was played throughout the middle of the day, paradoxically because kids were at school, so teachers could record them for classroom use, and The Letter People was among them. Many of them are lost media today, like a weird anthropomorphic animal (and sentient projector) show called Look, Book, Listen, an early CG show about robots doing geometry, and another show where two house painters worked to earn their GEDs by doing algebra practice by using the interior walls of a client's house as a big whiteboard.
There was the Clyde Frog show, involving hand puppets, and possibly the inspiration of the Clyde Frog that's Cartman's fixation. There was a show I think about the human body that had this EXTREMELY disturbing cartoon machine, made of body parts, in its intro and interstitials, and I can still remember the SOUND the eye made when it blinked. (shudder) There was Vegetable Soup, a show about learning about other cultures, which had a segment involving Woody the Spoon teaching recipes who was voiced by Bette Midler, and had another segment called Outerscope Two (I think), where handpuppet kids went into space in a homemade spaceship. And there was Read All About It (I posted about it here once!), which was a bit like Canadian Classic Doctor Who (complete with similar production values), but starring kids, who fought against Duneedon, the ruthless ruler of the alien world Trialvaron, who was also the mayor of their hometown of Herbertville in disguise!
I could go on. All of these shows, they're something people nowadays would never know existed. I wonder if there's master tapes of these things anywhere in the world. I wonder if they'll ever come to light. I wonder. Anyway, that's my contribution to this thread on "what used to be but is no more."
posted by JHarris at 9:02 PM on January 29 [2 favorites]
There is a whole universe of short educational programming made by local stations for public television from that time, that was played throughout the middle of the day, paradoxically because kids were at school, so teachers could record them for classroom use, and The Letter People was among them. Many of them are lost media today, like a weird anthropomorphic animal (and sentient projector) show called Look, Book, Listen, an early CG show about robots doing geometry, and another show where two house painters worked to earn their GEDs by doing algebra practice by using the interior walls of a client's house as a big whiteboard.
There was the Clyde Frog show, involving hand puppets, and possibly the inspiration of the Clyde Frog that's Cartman's fixation. There was a show I think about the human body that had this EXTREMELY disturbing cartoon machine, made of body parts, in its intro and interstitials, and I can still remember the SOUND the eye made when it blinked. (shudder) There was Vegetable Soup, a show about learning about other cultures, which had a segment involving Woody the Spoon teaching recipes who was voiced by Bette Midler, and had another segment called Outerscope Two (I think), where handpuppet kids went into space in a homemade spaceship. And there was Read All About It (I posted about it here once!), which was a bit like Canadian Classic Doctor Who (complete with similar production values), but starring kids, who fought against Duneedon, the ruthless ruler of the alien world Trialvaron, who was also the mayor of their hometown of Herbertville in disguise!
I could go on. All of these shows, they're something people nowadays would never know existed. I wonder if there's master tapes of these things anywhere in the world. I wonder if they'll ever come to light. I wonder. Anyway, that's my contribution to this thread on "what used to be but is no more."
posted by JHarris at 9:02 PM on January 29 [2 favorites]
Oh, one more, one of those shows where a couple of episodes have survived, Two Plus You. I think I made a blue post on it once but I can't find it.
posted by JHarris at 9:06 PM on January 29
posted by JHarris at 9:06 PM on January 29
Fancy movie theatres downtown, whose exteriors and interiors were built and decorated to suggest opera houses.
In downtown Seattle there were the Fox, the Blue Mouse, the Coliseum, the Fifth Avenue, the Seventh Avenue and several others whose names I can't recall.
A single big-budget Hollywood movie --- an epic like Spartacus or a musical like My Fair Lady -- would run at one of these theatres for months. The family would drive in from the suburbs to see it -- it was a special occasion. A uniformed usher carrying a flashlight would show you to your seat. The movie typically had an intermission.
posted by JonJacky at 8:04 AM on January 30 [1 favorite]
In downtown Seattle there were the Fox, the Blue Mouse, the Coliseum, the Fifth Avenue, the Seventh Avenue and several others whose names I can't recall.
A single big-budget Hollywood movie --- an epic like Spartacus or a musical like My Fair Lady -- would run at one of these theatres for months. The family would drive in from the suburbs to see it -- it was a special occasion. A uniformed usher carrying a flashlight would show you to your seat. The movie typically had an intermission.
posted by JonJacky at 8:04 AM on January 30 [1 favorite]
Dance floors! From about the 1890s to the very early 1960s dance halls were as big a business as movie+variety theaters, and many of them were as huge and fancy. When I was a teenager the *floors* were still there; very nice apartment buildings sometimes had their own, also the top or basement floor of any ethnic or civic or brotherhood building, also a *lot* of businesses -- a full block downtown, huge cheap roadhouses just out of town.
So for a few decades these were unused but cheap and dancing could happen if you just cleaned off the stuff. Such floors -- the sprung floors they could make on the West Coast out of old growth were unbelievable. Even the floors made of end grain offcuts, cheap at the time, are amazing now.
posted by clew at 11:42 AM on January 30 [4 favorites]
So for a few decades these were unused but cheap and dancing could happen if you just cleaned off the stuff. Such floors -- the sprung floors they could make on the West Coast out of old growth were unbelievable. Even the floors made of end grain offcuts, cheap at the time, are amazing now.
posted by clew at 11:42 AM on January 30 [4 favorites]
We still have one of those in Portland, amazingly
posted by gottabefunky at 11:52 AM on January 30 [2 favorites]
posted by gottabefunky at 11:52 AM on January 30 [2 favorites]
In public restrooms: cloth towels from a dispenser.
posted by The corpse in the library at 1:40 PM on January 30 [3 favorites]
posted by The corpse in the library at 1:40 PM on January 30 [3 favorites]
Saturday TV - late at night or sometimes in the afternoon: old bad horror movies with local hosts. The one in Charleston was called Ashley Gashley and he was dressed up like a vampire and rose out of a coffin at the beginning to tell bad jokes and introduce terrible 1950s monster movies. Local TV hosts in general: Captain Chesapeake in Baltimore for kids' shows and I think even Captain Kangaroo was local at least at first.
posted by mygothlaundry at 1:47 PM on January 30 [2 favorites]
posted by mygothlaundry at 1:47 PM on January 30 [2 favorites]
Some grocery-related ones occurred to me: Cornish game hens. What happened to Cornish game hens? And capons. Two things I never see in the grocery store anymore.
And remember when flank steak used to be an inexpensive cut of meat? Now if you can even find flank steak it costs a fortune.
posted by Redstart at 5:00 PM on January 30
And remember when flank steak used to be an inexpensive cut of meat? Now if you can even find flank steak it costs a fortune.
posted by Redstart at 5:00 PM on January 30
Drive-in movie theaters. I have fond memories of going to them as a child and young adult. There are very few of them now.
posted by ZeusHumms at 5:12 PM on January 30 [1 favorite]
posted by ZeusHumms at 5:12 PM on January 30 [1 favorite]
Newspapers are no longer strewn through subway trains and stations.
posted by jgirl at 5:42 PM on January 30 [2 favorites]
posted by jgirl at 5:42 PM on January 30 [2 favorites]
Cornish game hens. What happened to Cornish game hens?
I think they mostly went to Las Vegas
If you scroll down to "fun facts" under any of the "show more" pop ups: Excalibur is the No. 1 purchaser of Cornish Game Hens in the United States. Since June 1990, approximately 6,700,000 hens have been served.
I only saw the show once, nearly a decade ago now. No idea what it looks like in 2025. But it was fun, then. And the only time I had Cornish game hen.
posted by howbigisthistextfield at 6:03 PM on January 30 [3 favorites]
I think they mostly went to Las Vegas
If you scroll down to "fun facts" under any of the "show more" pop ups: Excalibur is the No. 1 purchaser of Cornish Game Hens in the United States. Since June 1990, approximately 6,700,000 hens have been served.
I only saw the show once, nearly a decade ago now. No idea what it looks like in 2025. But it was fun, then. And the only time I had Cornish game hen.
posted by howbigisthistextfield at 6:03 PM on January 30 [3 favorites]
Toy guns were de rigueur and did not come in neon colors.
And when we played war, we shot nazis.
posted by ursus_comiter at 2:16 PM on January 31 [4 favorites]
And when we played war, we shot nazis.
posted by ursus_comiter at 2:16 PM on January 31 [4 favorites]
Primary care physicians, FKA GPs, no longer have a practice in an extension of their home.
Some dentists still do.
posted by jgirl at 7:39 PM on January 31 [1 favorite]
Some dentists still do.
posted by jgirl at 7:39 PM on January 31 [1 favorite]
I remember when primary care doctors still made house calls. When I was about 4 years old -- this would have been in 1955 -- I had tonsilitis and our doctor came to our house to see me. He advised I get a tonsilectomy -- very common in those days -- which I got at the local hospital, I stayed overnight. I recall the anaesthetic was ether in a gauze sponge applied to my face. I doubt that last memory , it sounds very 19th century, but someone told me they really did it that way in those days.
Our doctor drove to his house calls in his Jaguar! It really stood out among the Fords and Plymouths in our small Wisconsin town. You could always tell where he was because it was the only car like that in town.
posted by JonJacky at 8:01 PM on January 31 [2 favorites]
Our doctor drove to his house calls in his Jaguar! It really stood out among the Fords and Plymouths in our small Wisconsin town. You could always tell where he was because it was the only car like that in town.
posted by JonJacky at 8:01 PM on January 31 [2 favorites]
And when we played war, we shot nazis.
Ursus_comiter, ah, no. We shot the Indians. So, I guess our fellow Americans. We lived in Colorado then. That was when the West was pretty wild.
On the brighter side, the Indians killed the cowboys unmercifully, mostly with stick and string bows and little twigs. They didn't need fancy guns. And hoo boy, was there a bunch of bloody scalpings, every single time. There were always two battles--the second one was when the cowboys fought the Indians. The first battle was who got to be Indians and who had to be cowboys. Seriously though, there was glory in both and plenty of dirt from falling down dead.
Not sure why we never shot Nazis with our clothespin-rubber band guns or sticks. Maybe when it was because we had little green men that went to war. Poor guys, a lot of them had chew marks from the dog or the weird kid down the block. But most of them were his, so we couldn't complain much.
I wish I had the little metal cars my brothers played in the dirt with. They were the forerunner to Hot Wheels. Found 'em! Midgetoys!
posted by BlueHorse at 10:04 PM on January 31 [1 favorite]
Ursus_comiter, ah, no. We shot the Indians. So, I guess our fellow Americans. We lived in Colorado then. That was when the West was pretty wild.
On the brighter side, the Indians killed the cowboys unmercifully, mostly with stick and string bows and little twigs. They didn't need fancy guns. And hoo boy, was there a bunch of bloody scalpings, every single time. There were always two battles--the second one was when the cowboys fought the Indians. The first battle was who got to be Indians and who had to be cowboys. Seriously though, there was glory in both and plenty of dirt from falling down dead.
Not sure why we never shot Nazis with our clothespin-rubber band guns or sticks. Maybe when it was because we had little green men that went to war. Poor guys, a lot of them had chew marks from the dog or the weird kid down the block. But most of them were his, so we couldn't complain much.
I wish I had the little metal cars my brothers played in the dirt with. They were the forerunner to Hot Wheels. Found 'em! Midgetoys!
posted by BlueHorse at 10:04 PM on January 31 [1 favorite]
Door to Door Salesmen: Bibles, vacuums, encyclopedias, Fuller Brushes.
posted by effluvia at 8:34 AM on February 1 [2 favorites]
posted by effluvia at 8:34 AM on February 1 [2 favorites]
The amazing lesbian cultural renaissance of the 70s-90s. Magazines, newsletters, coffeehouses, conferences, music festivals, books books books, community organizations. It was an amazing time to come out if you were lesbian-identified. I'm not even a lesbian, as it turns out, but I miss that time.
posted by Well I never at 12:03 PM on February 1 [5 favorites]
posted by Well I never at 12:03 PM on February 1 [5 favorites]
I remember when primary care doctors still made house calls.
We had a doctor like this, a woman in a rural area.
posted by jgirl at 3:32 PM on February 2 [1 favorite]
We had a doctor like this, a woman in a rural area.
posted by jgirl at 3:32 PM on February 2 [1 favorite]
Haven't read through it all but just recalled a few new ones:
If there was snow, in order to find out if school was cancelled, you had to get up early and turn on the radio and wait for the announcer to come back and read a LONG list of schools, hoping your school would be on the list.
In the early 90s, in college, we could call the cafeteria hotline to find out what was for lunch that day.
If you wanted to know the precise time, you'd call a phone number for the time.
posted by bluedaisy at 12:09 PM on February 5 [1 favorite]
If there was snow, in order to find out if school was cancelled, you had to get up early and turn on the radio and wait for the announcer to come back and read a LONG list of schools, hoping your school would be on the list.
In the early 90s, in college, we could call the cafeteria hotline to find out what was for lunch that day.
If you wanted to know the precise time, you'd call a phone number for the time.
posted by bluedaisy at 12:09 PM on February 5 [1 favorite]
and if you wanted to hear the latest song by They Might Be Giants you could call their answering machine and listen to it
posted by From Bklyn at 2:26 PM on February 5 [3 favorites]
posted by From Bklyn at 2:26 PM on February 5 [3 favorites]
The influx of cheap, good quality Chinese tech. I was into astronomy in the late 80s/early 90s when the only option was extremely expensive Japanese/German/Swiss (and some USSR) optics. The popular alternative was to grind your own mirrors by hand. In the mid 90s, the market was suddenly awash with excellent and cheap Chinese stuff. It could be said that the NA transition to a service economy was only possible because the cost of living was lowered by the deluge of cheap (but good quality) Chinese imports.
posted by brachiopod at 8:33 PM on February 7
posted by brachiopod at 8:33 PM on February 7
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posted by xedrik at 9:24 AM on January 26 [92 favorites]