Sad but true !

I do remember milk deliveries in glass bottles. We didn't have any bakery deliveries though. And if a kid got sick during the day, mom didn't have to worry that dad had the car because DOCTORS MADE HOUSE CALLS BACK THEN!

In fact, I grew up in a neighborhood that had five doctors in it, all operating from their homes. It cost anyone only $15.00 to see the doctor and walk-ins were often welcome. Another great thing I remember from my "old days" was that people had better health because of this. This is something I really miss and would like to resurrect if possible because people are so sick & tired of medicine as it is practiced now and trust in doctors is at at all time low.
 

In fact, I grew up in a neighborhood that had five doctors in it, all operating from their homes. It cost anyone only $15.00 to see the doctor and walk-ins were often welcome. Another great thing I remember from my "old days" was that people had better health because of this. This is something I really miss and would like to resurrect if possible because people are so sick & tired of medicine as it is practiced now and trust in doctors is at at all time low.
I think you are probably right. Our health has not improved a lot, but medical costs have gone way way up. I believe medical malpractice suits are one of the reasons.

My father's best friend was a doctor, he worked from a small local office and did house visits. No malpractice insurance. One day a woman walked in with a headache, she was not a regular patient, it was the first time he had ever seen her. He told her that he could not determine the cause, gave her some aspirin and suggested that if it got worse she should go to a hospital. She died a few hours later.

Her family sued and my father's friend lost everything. Today he would have the insurance and be working out of a much more sophisticated and expensive clinic. Costs would be much higher, but the woman may still have died...
 
My ex-husband and his father owned a very profitable diaper service. I think it was P&G who started marketing disposable diapers first. They gave them, absolutely free to hospitals, as a very effective marketing technique. That put the kibosh on diaper services, which laundered and delivered diapers to families with babies.

A friend of mine remembers when Pittsburgh steel mills caused so much pollution that it was black outside during the day. My husband, who read a lot about that situation, said the mills refused to spend money to upgrade their systems, and that's part of why they went out of business. At some point during the black days period, it was possible to seriously curtail the pollution. We have a steel mill in our town, and something that looks like white smoke comes out their chimneys. There is no odor, and there is not much of it compared to the old days.

The average boomer didn't have much to do with low gas mileage on cars, pollution from steel mills, disposable diapers, bottled water, etc. Corporations did, and the boomers used what was available to them, and did the work that was available to them, too. Back then, corporations were not "people".

I still can't figure out why stores switched to plastic bags. We shop at Aldi a lot, and use their paper bags, or I bring the plastic bags I've saved from other grocery stores. In my view, paper bags work just as well.

Also, I get tired of younger people viewing our heyday through the lenses of today. "It was a different time" holds no water with them. Funny, all the ones I know can't imagine having only one bathroom (unless they live in a one-bedroom apartment), having only one TV, one phone, only one car for a family, no computers, no calculators, no ballpoint pens, getting books from the library, glass bottles, drinking from the tap, etc.

Even I cannot imagine how we could have fed our dog Gaines Burgers and Kennel Ration dog food. The dogs I've had in my adulthood have eaten much better food. Yet Susie, our wire-haired terrier, lived for 19 years on that diet. She was backyard bred, too, but today one has to be careful about that because so many purebred dogs have genetic histories that are mess, thanks in part (IMO) to breeders who'd rather have a show dog than a healthy one.

I tested our tap water and it is just fine. Yet we have a water purifier, and my daughter drinks water only from plastic bottles. I bought the purifier so she would drink tap water; she didn't. She did use paper bags from Aldi, so that is a redeeming feature. :)

Am I perfect? Far from it! I do, however, do my part, environmentally, to the best of my ability.
 
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Today he would have the insurance and be working out of a much more sophisticated and expensive clinic. Costs would be much higher, but the woman may still have died...
Medical negligence kills hundreds of thousands of people. I nearly became a member of that group when for 4 years I went to a doctor with symptoms of heart problems. He said those symptoms were from stress. I was 46, and had no clue about heart problems. I had emergency double bypass surgery. Later, I found out how women were generally treated when they had heart problems ... stress was frequently the explanation from doctors. Even later, my sons told me that the doctor had committed malpractice. My sons were right, but that had not crossed my mind. We had that doctor for 20 years, and he was a big shot who had my complete trust.

After the surgery, I later developed horrible pain whenever I walked. That doctor said it was bursitis. I was in the hospital getting a cardiac cath when my current interventional cardiologist asked me how long I'd had intense pain when I tried to walk. I said a long time, and that it was from bursitis. He said, no it's not, and he cured it. The same Boston doc had told me that, and that I'd just have to live with it.

So, yeah. My doctors in this little town in PA have been a lot better at keeping me alive and walking than the guy in Boston, who definitely had committed malpractice twice. When we moved here, I thought the medical care would be much worse, and it has been excellent.
 
I think you are probably right. Our health has not improved a lot, but medical costs have gone way way up. I believe medical malpractice suits are one of the reasons.

My father's best friend was a doctor, he worked from a small local office and did house visits. No malpractice insurance. One day a woman walked in with a headache, she was not a regular patient, it was the first time he had ever seen her. He told her that he could not determine the cause, gave her some aspirin and suggested that if it got worse she should go to a hospital. She died a few hours later.

Her family sued and my father's friend lost everything. Today he would have the insurance and be working out of a much more sophisticated and expensive clinic. Costs would be much higher, but the woman may still have died...
Details please? Did he take her blood pressure? Ask if she had visual disturbances, any nausea or dizziness? Had she hit her head recently? How severe was the pain? How long had she had it and what had she taken for it?

Obviously it was not a simple headache. Sounds more like an impending stroke to me and I'm not a doctor. Sorry for your father's friend. Did he lose his medical license?
 
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I am only 60, born in Tasmania and we had milk delivered in bottles which had foil lids.
Straws were made of paper. Carry bags were string mesh. Meat was wrapped in butcher's paper.
Groceries were packed into brown paper bags.
Exactly the same here.. AND..we STILL have Milk deliveries to this day. Very few people compared to back in the day have doorstep deliveries due to the high cost compared to supermarkets , but some still do, my neighbour 2 doors up is one.. she has Milk, and orange juice in glass bottle delivered to her door , he comes around 2am...now...

When I was a kid, it was manic, because everyone had their milk delivered, but today mostly the deliveries just come from the nearest farm.. very casual and easy..

String carry bags have made a come back here, I've got one which I keep in the car .. and the butchers here still wrap the meat in butchers' paper.. (y):)
 
We don't have it here anympre but we did whn I was a kid. Mild and dairy was delivered to the house a couple of times a week. I think we also got eggs. The milkman always knew when the kids had a birthday and would bring us our own special ice cream!
 
We don't have it here anympre but we did whn I was a kid. Mild and dairy was delivered to the house a couple of times a week. I think we also got eggs. The milkman always knew when the kids had a birthday and would bring us our own special ice cream!
when I was a kid we delivered, milk, cream, orange juice and Yoghurt... now the milkmen deliver bread and eggs as well...

We also had a butcher's delivery when I was a teen..I married the butchers' boy.. :love:... we had a Bakers delivery twice a week.. Lemonade delivery... and a Mobile grocers van who came around twice a week.. all needed in this semi rural area.. but apart from the milkman, no-one delvers food any more.....except of course for the big retail stores
 
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When I lived in Ireland, you didn't need a shopping bag. Your groceries were put into a cardboard box and delivered to your door. A bakery van delivered bread. If there was something you particularly wanted, you could order it and he would bring it on the van next day.
Disposable nappies/diapers were never intended for everyday use. There were for use on holidays and day trips.
So many things were delivered to your door which was a godsend for house bound people or in bad weather.
 
He said those symptoms were from stress. I was 46, and had no clue about heart problems. I had emergency double bypass surgery. Later, I found out how women were generally treated when they had heart problems ... stress was frequently the explanation from doctors.
When I turned 50 I asked my doctor (I was a military dependent) if it was time for the complete physical my husband had at 50, which included lots of heart health tests. He said, "Oh no, we don't do them for women, women get the pap tests and mammograms." I said you mean even though heart disease is the number one killer of women you don't do any preventative tests because you feel you've already spent enough money on them? He said, "Yes."

I hear the "stress" reason from doctors all the time these days, as though it's all our own fault for having problems in our lives.
 
I hear the "stress" reason from doctors all the time these days, as though it's all our own fault for having problems in our lives.
The doctor that said I had too much stress, said it was because I had 4 kids so close in age. I said to him, but you have 5 kids and you don't seem too stressed out. Does your wife have these symptoms?

Where I live now, no doctor has ever even mentioned the word stress. They hop to it and find out what's wrong.
 
So, yeah. My doctors in this little town in PA have been a lot better at keeping me alive and walking than the guy in Boston, who definitely had committed malpractice twice. When we moved here, I thought the medical care would be much worse, and it has been excellent.
My younger sister died in the 1950s of a medical mistake. Small town doctor. Not six months later our next door neighbor's little girl died of a medical neglect inside a hospital. Different doctor, different hospital, within 20 miles of each other. Both doctors were well liked and considered highly competent. (Neither family sued.)

Romanticized images by Norman Rockwell and others have shaped our perspectives on small town doctors, but not all of them are on their game all the time. Same is true of big city docs. When people are seriously ill they need family advocates watching over them at all times.
 
WE called it by it's correct name .. and still do.... Lemonade, or Coca Cola, or Orangeade, or Limeade, etc... :D
Carbonated beverages were generically called soda or soft drinks where I grew up in the northeastern US. When I moved to Los Angeles in 1971, many people referred to it as pop, but that's pretty much died out in favor of "soda."

DH (who grew up here) sometimes will call it pop with the grandkids, but as a humorous throwback.
 
Details please? Did he take her blood pressure? Ask if she had visual disturbances, any nausea or dizziness? Had she hit her head recently? How severe was the pain? How long had she had it and what had she taken for it?

Obviously is was not a simple headache. Sounds more like an impending stroke to me and I'm not a doctor. Sorry for your father's friend. Did he lose his medical license?
Don't know any of those details. I do know that he was a good doctor, much appreciated by the folks in the small town where he worked. I am sure he did what he could, and thought right. Most importantly he told her that he did not know what the cause was and that if it persisted she should go to a hospital. She did not do that.

No, he did not lose his license, just all of his money; pretty much everything he practiced as an independent and did not do anything to protect his assets. He continued to practice until he retired in his 70s, but worked for cash only afterwards.

Losing a license would make more sense than the huge awards. As it is bad doctors can continue to practice, with insurance paying the awards. And those awards often are not rationally based, jury trials for such difficult technical issues are not a good way to get that. A good competent board of doctors and experts in a licensure hearing would be better.

And our costs would be much less. The costs added are as much or more CYA, but unnecessary medical tests and procedures as the awards themselves...
 
We had both the dairy truck and the bakery truck coming to the house until Mom finally got a drivers license, perhaps 1953 or 54. But milk still came in glass bottles from the market for a while.

I'm guessing that this long "rant" is fictitious, not a real incident, but it points toward the historical ignorance of many younger people. They seem to have no idea what challenges their ancestors faced, and don't seem to know much of anything else either.

Here are some "man on the street" interviews




These college students do a little better
After viewing these videos, it makes me sad to think our future is in the hands of these young people.
 
Carbonated beverages were generically called soda or soft drinks where I grew up in the northeastern US. When I moved to Los Angeles in 1971, many people referred to it as pop, but that's pretty much died out in favor of "soda."

DH (who grew up here) sometimes will call it pop with the grandkids, but as a humorous throwback.
I noticed in Costco yesterday... that at the hot dog bar.. they call all soft drink ''Soda''...on the blackboard...I suppose because it's an American company..
 
When we were in England we went into a McDonalds and my son ordered a small coke. The clerk said, "Do you have a problem saying "cola?" So the next place we went, I ordered a cola with ice and was told , "It's already cold!" We just couldn't get anything right.
 
So many people .... so many regions of the country ... so many different names for things .... lol

We live in the Coke region. 😃

soda.jpg
 


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