What today's younger generation will never know:

horseless carriage

Well-known Member
Telephone booths, bus conductors, trafficators, (those little semaphore arms that pre-dated car indicators.)
We are lucky enough to still have a paper boy, even though he is 68 years young, we are also lucky enough to still have a window cleaner.
What was common place in your youth that's all but forgotten today?
 

I was thinking on this subject just the other day. I'm not sure why but the first thing that popped in my mind was the headlight dimmer button you had to push with your foot. I think those were gone by the 80's.
Gone are the days when there was no microwave, Keurig, and things like the internet, cable, etc. lol
 
We still have a milkman, altho' I don't get my milk delivered because his milk from the dairy is almost 3 times the price of the supermarket but my next door neighbours get their milk delivered, along with orange juice and eggs and yoghurt and bread . He comes around 2 or 2.30am.. and delivers to the doorsteps, and to my knowledge the milk has never been stolen , which is amazing
 
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What was common place in your youth that's all but forgotten today?
More or less unlimited fishing.

In my youth Florida had no saltwater licenses and almost no seasons or limits. Huge difference today, seems like you need to call a lawyer to figure out what you can legally keep, and be ready for the answer to usually be no. Guess overfishing (some of it by us back then) has taken it's toll...
 
Some fascinating memory lane prompts. For what it's worth, we still have, and use, a finger dial phone, however, it's connected at the socket to a modern phone so that we can identify incoming calls. There is also the problem of voice menus, when you get asked to press: "One for the money,two for the show," dialling it will simply get you cut off.

Carbon paper, ugh, the mess I could get into with that stuff. We have a two drawer filing cabinet, it's very useful for keeping and retrieving documents like motoring insurance, amongst other things.

That floor button for the headlight main beam may have been moved to a column or stalk button on the steering column, because it was so easy to catch either the brake or clutch pedal and by the time you had corrected the error, the poor motorist approaching from the opposite direction had a face full of headlight beam.

Records are, surprisingly still popular, but the days of dedicated record shops are long gone. Records today are mostly sold online but if, like us, you find yourself at a vintage fair, you will discover that not only old records being bought and sold, but new ones are also up for sale. Thank goodness for that, it means that our jukebox is not redundant yet.

You never see dedicated stores for things like women & men's clothing, or made to measure suits, I remember some of the names of those stores, such as: Alexanders, Burtons, Hepworths and others. Same with shoe shops, Saxones were very popular back in the sixties. Back then though, nobody "dressed down."

We don't have dustmen (garbage collectors) anymore. Our waste is still collected though, but households have to segregate everything. We have five receptacles called wheelie bins. One for recycling another for garden waste, a third for disposal, the fourth is for anything glass and the last, a small bin for waste food, that includes potato peelings, egg shells, tea bags as well as mealtime leftovers. There was a time when it all went into one single bin, that bin would be lifted shoulder high and emptied into the truck. I have an amusing anecdote about that. I will post it next time.
 
Gas station promotions: Two I remember are the Wiki-Wiki dollars (Johnny Carson loved to use them in the monologue) and the fake tiger tail from Esso/Exxon, put a tiger in your tank.

Top 40 radio: I listened to KHJ Boss Radio in Los Angeles, with the Real Don Steele. At night it was Wolfman Jack, or Art LeBeau and the Golden Oldies after midnight.

In the Deserves to be Forgotten category: Maypo cereal, perhaps the worst breakfast cereal ever devised by man. Maple syrup flavored flakes. The TV commercial for it was a classic, "I want my Maypo!". No one wanted a second box.

60's Saturday Morning cartoons: Animation so violent it turned all of us into mass murderers. Space Ghost led the way, along with the likes of ThunDarr the Barbarian, He-Man and the uncensored Road Runner cartoons. Lest we forget, the animated Star Trek series was in there too, with some of the finest writing, from actual SF authors, in any TV series.

Cigarette commercials: Some of these were brilliant, made you wanna watch for them. My favorite was Benson & Hedges 100s, where the end of the cigarette was smashed in some odd way because it was longer than usual. And the jingos! "To a smoker, it's a Kent!", "L.S.M.F.T, Lucky Strikes Mean Fine Tobacco", or the Marlboro Man riding off with the theme from the Magnificent Seven.
 
Who remembers Trading Stamps. Over the pond they were S&H Green Stamps, here they were known as Green Shield Stamps. Much the same as today's loyalty cards, traders gave them with your purchase, you filled your saver book(s) and redeemed those saver books at the trading stamp showroom. To my fellow UK members, did you know that Green Shield still exists? When, back in the seventies the Middle East wars were doubling fuel prices almost daily and queues at the garages were a way of life, motorists were more concerned about having enough fuel more than they were bothered about their stamps. It was at that point that Green Shield morphed into Argos.

A trading stamp controversy ensued in 1964, championed by Sainsburys, with a parliamentary proposal for a “Trading Stamps Bill” in the UK. The legislation aimed to limit and regulate the giveaway of cheap promotional coupons that could be redeemed for discounted or free products at participating retailers or catalogue companies. In the end, fears that regulation would stifle innovation and upset customers (who loved the discounts, gifts and promotions) triumphed and the legislation was put on ice.

Stamp vendors such as the Green Shield Trading Stamp Company were allowed to flourish. Sainsburys called Green Shield a plague on the retail industry. As it turned out their loathing of Green Shield caused them to lose top spot to Tesco, who had given stamps from the outset.

Sainsbury's having lost out to Tesco for the top spot still carried the chip on their shoulder as they lagged behind in innovations such as loyalty cards, which the then boss, David Sainsbury, famously dismissed as "electronic Green Shield stamps." But talk about irony, when the management of Green Shield saw the writing on the wall and morphed into Argos, they kept the trading name, Green Shield. Argos proved to be a huge success. So who do you think that the owners of Argos are today? None other than Sainsburys. I love it.
 
I remember coal deliveries, the pop wagon and haven't seen a rag and bone man for years.
Does 'bob a job' still happen anywhere ? The little toys inside cereal boxes.
Bonfire night is also not the same now - I think they are mostly 'council' run these days.
 
I remember coal deliveries, the pop wagon and haven't seen a rag and bone man for years.
Does 'bob a job' still happen anywhere ? The little toys inside cereal boxes.
Bonfire night is also not the same now - I think they are mostly 'council' run these days.
The traditional Rag & Bone man with his horse and cart, and a balloon or a gold fish in exchange for your old tat is long gone..:D. but we do have an 'Any Old Iron' type of guy who comes around once a month in his truck collecting anything that might be made from metal..old washing machines , dryers, pots and pans, bikes .. anything that can be melted down..
 
We still have a milkman, altho' I don't get my milk delivered because his milk from the dairy is almost 3 times the price of the supermarket but my next door neighbours get their milk delivered, along with orange juice and eggs and yoghurt and bread . He comes around 2 or 2.30am.. and delivers to the doorsteps, and to my knowledge the milk has never been stolen , which is amazing
@hollydolly the local thieves are probably dairy free :)
 
Irish Setters, Collies. All my neighbors had big beautiful dogs, now it's all Pit Bulls and Poodle-mixes.

Baby dolls. I go shopping for dolls at Christmas time and it's all Barbies and Bratz. I guess little girls don't dream of being mommies these days, they dream of being teenage girls in hooker outfits.
 


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