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Respected Contributor
Posts: 2,368
Registered: ‎06-15-2016

I hope this is the right place for this, but the other day I was speaking to my dh about something or other and I said something about the dial tone. My 7 year old granddaughter was sitting next to me and asked what it was. I explained as her household only uses cell phones.  Later that night I began to think about all the things her generation will never know. I thought of vinyl records, with sleeves and jackets, carbon paper, and typewriters that aren't connected to the Internet. As a child of the 50's there are so many things that have gone by the wayside, some for the better, some not so much. I'm sure there are many things I forgot about. Can you think of any more?

Never underestimate the power of kindness.
Esteemed Contributor
Posts: 5,460
Registered: ‎05-12-2012

Re: Do you remember ...

[ Edited ]

My ten year old granddaughter was standing next to my landline phone on the wall....it was ringing....i asked her to answer it.....she said she didn't know how!!  I remember my mother making coffee in a pyrex coffee pot on the stovetop.....it boiled over every morning!!

Occasional Contributor
Posts: 26
Registered: ‎05-28-2016

I was born in the early 70s but have an "old soul."

How about hair dryers that looked like little suitcases and had tubes coming from them that led to little caps that you wore while your hair dried?

How about putting coins in a public payphone to make a call?

How about returning glass bottles (beer/soda) to a store for a refund?

S&H Green Stamps catalogues? My grandmother hated pasting the little stickers in the corresponding little booklets, so whenever I visited her, I did it. Usually she let me go with her to choose an item at the Green Stamps store once a bunch of books were full.

There are sooo many but these are the ones the ones I could think of off the top of my head.

 

A lot of expressions are also unheard of now, too. "That's the pot calling the kettle black" is neither a drug reference nor a racial slur... My students looked at me like I had just committed a major offense when I used it last year.

Esteemed Contributor
Posts: 6,374
Registered: ‎03-09-2010

Re: Do you remember ...

[ Edited ]

Quite a few years ago we had a record turntable in the garage.  Our sons were listening to a record, when it got to the end they wanted to know how to re-wind it.  

 

Now, they both own turntables and look for "vinyl" (and sometimes steal from our stash)

 

 

I crack-up my 5 1/2 yr old GS when I say, whopsie-daisy and more fun than a barrel of monkeys, and silly goose.

Esteemed Contributor
Posts: 5,895
Registered: ‎03-11-2010

Typewriters come to mind. As a female in late 1950s junior high school, I was required to take typing. I was awful at it. Give me French conjugations or historical dates to memorize and I was fine, but that typewriter was my nemesis. How ironic that I still need to know how to type, for emails and texts.

 

Then there were transistor radios, the greatest little invention to take to the beach. And the highlight of my adolescence was the pink princess phone I got for my sweet 16 birthday present.

Respected Contributor
Posts: 2,368
Registered: ‎06-15-2016
OMGoodness! You reminded me about pay toilets! Remember? You had to put a dime in the thing on the door and crank the knob, like a gum ball machine! I'd forgotten all about those until you mentioned pay phones!😀
Never underestimate the power of kindness.
Trusted Contributor
Posts: 1,766
Registered: ‎06-15-2016

I remember replacing 45s in a jukebox.  Taking the old ones home, like ELVIS PRESLEY.  Now, I wonder why I don't have them???  

Respected Contributor
Posts: 2,458
Registered: ‎04-26-2013

Maybe even further back, pulley clothes lines, ringer washing machines, cloth diapers, baby bottle sterilizers, making baby formula, answering machines, pagers, white out, & on & on, good thread, really got me to thinking

Esteemed Contributor
Posts: 5,460
Registered: ‎05-12-2012

@Vivian Florimond wrote:

Typewriters come to mind. As a female in late 1950s junior high school, I was required to take typing. I was awful at it. Give me French conjugations or historical dates to memorize and I was fine, but that typewriter was my nemesis. How ironic that I still need to know how to type, for emails and texts.

 

Then there were transistor radios, the greatest little invention to take to the beach. And the highlight of my adolescence was the pink princess phone I got for my sweet 16 birthday present.


My grandmother had a pink princess phone....she loved betting on horse races....we'd catch her on that phone calling her bookie!!

Esteemed Contributor
Posts: 5,094
Registered: ‎03-09-2010

 

i was just talking to my kids about waiting all day for the ice man to give us a chunk of ice when I suddenly remembered,I think  we had an ,"icebox" way back when.I sort of remember my mom empting the bowl under it. I don't remember getting a fridge but my mom must have been the happest woman in the world that day.

 

We did not have AC in my day.I was married a few yrs when I finally got a small used one for my BR window because I had bad allergies...........lol

 

 

We also had party line phones ,we shared with other people........lol  How about that.....lol

 

...........and,we used to love to  run out into the fog that the bug fogger machine made  every nite at 7pm to kill the mosquitoes!