You Know You're Old

[ic59]

If you remember any of the following. And if not you might have heard your parents or grandparents talk about them. And this is just a few things that have crept into my failing memory bank:
*Chains for tires (I believe they are still required for portions of US Route 80 in Idaho and Montana from December through March)
*Clothes Lines
*Flypaper
*Ice Box (Before refridges)
*Wood/coal Burning Stoves
*Weekly visits, via a truck, from the Rag Man collecting bundles of rags. He would weigh them and pay you by the pound. He would ring a bell to notify the neighborhood of his arrival.
*In the summer you'd have frequent visits from the Ice Man delivering a block of ice for your Ice Box. In the winter the Ice Man became the Coal Man.
*Telephone Party Lines (My aunt's farm in the Catskills shared a Party Line with two other families. Different number of rings indicated which party was being called. Similar to Morse Code).
*'Sammy the Pedler' came every week trying to sell clothes which he had in a pack on his back,

I'm posting this here since we know this is slow time of year. And if anyone has anything to add, I'd love to read them.

[IONA86]

Some things most people under 45 years old have never used or are unfamiliar with the technology/item :

1) Typewriter
2) UHF TV
3) Cassette Tape
4) 8-tracks
5) 5- and 3-inch floppies, Zip Discs and countless other forms of data storage
6) Using a road atlas
7) Using "white out"
8) Taking film to be processed
9) Public Pay Phones
10) Actual Fax machines
11) Answering machines
12) How to use a slide rule
13) Rotary dial phone
14) Flash cubes for a camera
15) soda can with pull tab
16) Movie projectors
17) Carbon paper
18) Library card catalog
19) S&H Green Stamps
20) Drive in Movies
21) Clipping baseball cards to your bike spokes
22) Seeing the TV channels sign off at the end of the night
23) Talking to a phone operator
24) Seeing billboards advertising tobacco
25) Using a phone book
26) Rabbit Ear Antennas
27) Putting tin foil on the TV antenna
28) banana seat bicycles
29) Using a transistor radio.
30) Switching TV channels without a remote.
31) Shopping via the Sears catalog.
32) Betamax
33) dot-matrix printers
34) book Encyclopedias and dictionaries
35) Pagers
36) PalmPilot type devices
37) Rolodex
38) Long-distance charges (Xray for fitting kids shoes)
39) Cigarette vending machines
40) Console TVs
50) Burning Leaves in your backyard
51) Washboard
52) Hand crank pencil sharpeners
53) Ditto Printing Machines... boy it smelled good.
54) Slide Projectors
55) Dodgeball
56) Record adapters
57) dial-up modems
58) fuel-based lanterns
59) Telex Machines
60) Mens Sleeve Garters

[ic59]

86, fantastic job. Washboards go back to when I was a kid, and probably well before that. Surprised, since I live in an apartment, that leaves aren't still being burned in backyards. Also, should have mentioned Dogs chasing Cars and usually avoiding being hit. Dodgeball was a staple of recess in grammar school. Some cigarettes in vending machines had pennies inserted for change.

My oldest brother had a slide rule and I never could figure them out. Even when I was in college. Thank God never needed them in school.
#23- Grew up with, "Number Please!
#60- My father wore them. You never had to worry that your shirt sleeves were too long.

At home we changed living room and dining room rugs for summer and winter. Kept them in the attic. Part of Spring Cleaning.

At Sunday Mass we had an usher whose job it was to collect seat charges from people coming to Mass. Twenty five cents for adults and ten cents for kids. However, if you went to the Kids' Mass (9AM), it was free. And during the hot summer months before AC, there was no homily.

#6- Road Atlas. Mobil had a booth in Grand Central that provided maps. And if you were driving from NY to Florida they would use a magic marker and highlight the route to take.

[ic59]

Blame this on our stretch of very hot weather. But, back in the forties and fifties, when the weather turned hot, you would often hear the following.

"It was so hot that you could have fried an egg on the sidewalk".

And every couple of years the Daily News would show a picture of someone trying to do just that.

[gregcrow]

Jul 18, 2023 6:42:25 GMT -5 ic59 said:

Blame this on our stretch of very hot weather. But, back in the forties and fifties, when the weather turned hot, you would often hear the following.

"It was so hot that you could have fried an egg on the sidewalk".

And every couple of years the Daily News would show a picture of someone trying to do just that.

Just saw a feature on someone trying to cook a pizza on their dashboard in Arizona. FYI - these never work!

[Super]

You're definitely right 59--slow time of year!

[ic59]

Super, and for me that means looking ahead and looking back. Memories are made of this.

[Cjb]

Random NY related...

IRT, IND, BMT
Idlewild
Polo Grounds
Pan AM Building
Triboro Bridge
Korvettes
Interboro Parkway
Grand Union
Horn & Hardart

[ic59]

I worked my way through Iona by working at the Grand Union in Larchmont. It's now a CVS. Famous customers who shopped there, Walter Slezak and his family, Jean and Walter Kerr (she was an author "Please Don't Eat the Daisies" and he was a columnist for the NY Times), Mrs. Schaeffer (Sp?) whose son, Rudy, owned the Schaeffer Brewing company, and Iona College professor, Mr. Bryde. Also, Joe Tighe's mother (a very nice woman) was a weekly customer.

Ebbets Field
The Automat
White Castle (MV)
Anabelle's Diner
Ritzcoven's Diner
Lowes and Proctors Movie Theaters
Three NR public high schools (NRHS, Albert Leonard-now NR City Hall, and Isaac Young)
Two MV public high schools (AB Davis and Edison Tech)
The Barge