Oldster test, see if you pass.

[tincat2]

i see someone got the 'ditto' machine right. a mimeograph was a different thing(i had one)-the ink was real ink and was in a rotating drum wrapped in the 'stencil' of whatever you were 'printing'. the ink bled thru the lettering typed on the stencil and was transferred to ordinary paper fed under the turning drum. mine was motorized, so you could load it up w/paper and ink and let'er rip until the stencil got shaggy-didn't last as long as type in a real printing press.
how about drug stores w/a soda fountain where you could go and have a nice older woman in a white starched uni and a hairnet make you a sandwich to order, put it before you on a china plate, and serve you water or your drink of choice in a glass? i used to do this everyday for lunch in the eighth grade-about as cheap(<50cents) and less trouble than bagged. a few doors up, i could get a two scoop ice cream cone for a nickel. studebakers were fine cars that ran well and looked cool. they've got a studebaker bros. wagon in the industrial arts museum at the smithsonian. my brother has a '63 avanti which will do the 170 as we demonstrated to a corvette one evening long ago on a then new stretch of i95. the vette had us off the line, but he petered out at about 130-we kept on til he was a speck in the rearview.
crystal radios were fun, as were cherry bombs-never saw anything disappear so fast as the plastic ones which were serious ordnance, so probably a good idea to block that avenue of young male foolishness.
anybody remember those shoes which had a sliding clip thing instead of laces-they were big in third grade as were 'taps' among the 'greaser' element.
the big old steel cars w/no power anything and the little kid in the family riding standing up in the front seat next to dad driving. i still have a reflex to fling my arm across the seat upon a quick slowdown or stop to catch that little brother.
all gone now-even the best washing machine i ever knew, an 'easy' double tub model-one to wash and one to rinse/spin. you had to operate it, but it sure let you get the stuff clean, rinsed out, and pretty well wrung out. pay phone booths in drugstores was another gone thing, where you could sit down, close the door and for a dime do your conversation in privacy and some comfort.
i'm waiting to be convinced things are better now-some stuff's pretty cool, i know, but i don't seem to be enjoying it all as much.

[230RN]

Thom Mcan's x-ray machines for shoe fitting.

I still remember seeing my little foot-bones inside the shoes on the green screen and the salesman asking me to wiggle my toes to check fit.

Didn't aff---aff---affaff--ect me at all.

But maybe that's why my sons are so wierd.

[280plus]

He was having you wiggle your toes so the radiation got spread more evenly. 

[HankB]

Here are a few more "oldster" things to remember:

Tube testers. These were machines at various stores - hardware stores, Woolworth's, even Walgreens - where you could take vacuum tubes in to be tested. You set adjustments for voltage, load, etc. , on the type of tube you had and if the meter said it was bad, you'd go into the cabinet below the tester, pull out a new one, then go pay for it at the register. ("What are vacuum tubes?" some may ask . . . vacuum tubes are early electronics, commonly used in televisions before transistors and solid state circuitry.)

Dime store lunch counters. I remember some of the best hamburgers & fries I had as a kid being served at the lunch counter at Woolworth's . . . even the Heinz Ketchup tasted better than "store bought" Heinz Ketchup. But then along came McDonald's . . . 

Riverview Amusement Park - probably means nothing to you unless you grew up in Chicago. But I've noticed even the traveling carnivals with attractions and a few rides are becoming rare.

Gas stations with service and premiums - there was a time - not all that long ago - when most places selling gas also did mechanical work on cars; these places are few and far between now. They also used to give you a premium - box of Kleenex, a drinking glass, or something of the sort - when you'd fill your tank.

Banks with premiums - same thing; if you opened a new account or made a deposit, you'd get some sort of gift; a new toaster, a set of steak knives, usually something for the house.

Guns at Sears . . . they were in locked racks, but just in a regular aisle in Sporting Goods, not even behind a glass counter. They even had a house brand - "Ted Williams" - that they advertised heavily. The selection got smaller and smaller and eventually disappeared altogether. (Again, this was at a Sears store in Chicago. Montgomery Wards and, IIRC, JC Penny also sold guns . . .)


Gaaahhh! I'd forgotten just how much we've lost . . . 

[280plus]

Doh, 

wrong thread...

[Monkeyleg]

HankB, I remember that stuff as well. My dad repaired TV's and radios for a while as a side job, and we had some tube testers at the estate sale in 2008.

Greasers. I've always thought greasers were the coolest thing a guy could be, and the early to mid-1960's was the peak for greasers. They dressed with class--Italian shoes, brocade vests--and wore horseshoe cleats so you could hear them coming half a mile away. Drove the teachers insane when they'd walk down the hall in groups. It sounded like the Germans marching into Paris.

[brasshammer]

I'm not THAT old.. I'm jsut shy of 60 and I remember pretty much everything listed so far.

It must have something to do with where you grew up geographically.

I grew up in the Texas panhandle, not exactly the cultural mecca of the universe.

So just to add a few...

 My grandparents had a Hudson Hornet.

 My mother used pants stretchers to dry our pants so she didn't have to iron them.

 My buddy Charlie and I used to ride our bikes across town with our Western Auto single shot .22's strapped to the handle bars, headed to the dump to shoot rats. People just waved at us.

We lived on the edge of town and walked across the road to hunt quail, pheasant, and rabbits. Ate 'em, too.

Charlie's dad, O.B., was a real blacksmith. He had a carbide fired forge and was an expert in a process called hard surfacing.

He taught us to weld and use a torch and to think.

I learned to drive on a tractor then a 50 Ford pickup. The steering wheel seemed like it was about 4 feet across.

Don't know why I was in such a hurry to leave there.
 

[Ben]

I learned to drive on a tractor then a 50 Ford pickup. The steering wheel seemed like it was about 4 feet across.

Heh, there's one to add. Who remembers learning to drive in vehicles with no power anything? F100 six banger with manual three speed on the steering column here.

[280plus]

My '71 351/4V Mustang had no power steering but I believe it was ordered that way so more power went to the wheels. It definitely had a dimmer switch on the floor.

[Ben]

Cool car 280 -- my first car was a '71 Mach 1 with the 351 Cleveland. :)

[280plus]

I had the "Grande" which had the squared off/vertical back window instead of the...what did they call that sloped back roof/window?

Factory Hurst 4 on the floor. Big fat tires in the back. I still miss that car.  

[Sawdust]

I had the "Grande" which had the squared off/vertical back window instead of the...what did they call that sloped back roof/window? Factory Hurst 4 on the floor. Big fat tires in the back. I still miss that car.  

Fastback?

Sawdust

[280plus]

DING DING DING!!! I could not remember that for the life of me... 

[grampster]

I've still got my dad's Ranger side by side 20 gauge.  He bought it at Sears.  He told me it was one of first hammerless shotguns Sears sold.

Heh, I worked in a drugstore that had a soda fountain.  I worked behind the counter there and made deliveries of prescriptions driving the bosses Ford Thunderbirds.  He bought a new one every year.  I started driving his '57 and when I moved on it was his '59.  He always bought baby blue ones.
I worked the soda bar when a kid that had just graduated in '57 and promptly got married.  He brought the whole wedding party in for cherry cokes and chocolate cokes.  I made the best ones in the neighborhood.   Blue Tux's and the bride in a big white wedding gown.

A friend's dad had an Isetta he drove around.  He also had a Nash Metropolitan.

I bought the first '64 Plymouth Barracuda that came to W. Michigan.  I bought it right off the showroom floor the day they put it out.  272 V-8 iirc, with a 4 speed Hurst tranny.  Baby Blue.  I think I paid $2300.00 for it.

[Larry Ashcraft]

My first car was a 1951 Ford 2 door sedan with a flathead six and 3 speed manual with overdrive.  No power anything.  I paid $40 for it when I was 15, and it was pretty much worn out, 100k miles and rust holes everywhere.  I spent 1.5 years and maybe $200 rebuilding the entire car as well as I could, with my parent's help.  Dad helped on the mechanicals, mom on the interior, and I did the bodywork and paint myself.  I first drove it my junior year in high school.  That was one of my proudest days.

Enough thread drift though.  Wards in Denver was on Broadway, and it was five or six stories high.  The top story was the cafeteria, and we always ate there when in Denver.  They had a system of communication throughout the store using little tracks up by the ceiling that had little canisters riding on it.  You would see these little canisters zipping around the ceiling.  I assumed they carried memos, orders and invoices.

I learned to drive on a tractor then a 50 Ford pickup. The steering wheel seemed like it was about 4 feet across.

I learned in a 1951 Studebaker 3/4 ton pickup.  My uncle taught my brother and I how to use the clutch and shift gears while driving farm roads.

[KD5NRH]

Heh, there's one to add. Who remembers learning to drive in vehicles with no power anything? F100 six banger with manual three speed on the steering column here.

GMC Sierra 3-on-the-tree here.  First "new" vehicle anybody in my family ever bought, too.

[Lee]

This thread actually makes me feel good to be old.
I'm not sure that many of the so called advancements, really are.
I remember all of those thing. I also remember when places like Woolworths were staffed by people who wanted you to be there and offered great products and services. Life was much slower and friendlier and people took pride in a job well done. Someone working at those places could support a family and the world was not driven by spreadsheets and quarterly calculations.

[KD5NRH]

Head lights dimmer switches on the floor.

I've thought about retrofitting this, along with a horn button down there so I can keep both hands on the wheel anytime I need the horn.  Of course, the Saturn's a manual, so I usually need both feet then too.
 

Ignition switches on the dashboard.

Thanks to a bad wiring harness, mine's a button on the kick panel.
 

Pant leg clips for bicycles without chain guards.

Not that uncommon now; hard to put a real chainguard on a bike with a front derailleur.  Most of the time I use the oversize reflective snap bracelets, though, for their double duty as another moving reflector.
 

Soldering irons you heat on a gas burner.

I often preheat mine that way so I don't have to wait for the slow element.
 

Using hand signals for cars without turn signals.

Driving beaters, I have rolled down the window and signalled that way while coasting off the road from an electrical failure.  Done it a few times while driving with the window down because it was easier to switch between full-hand and single-finger signals that way.

1.    Blackjack chewing gum
2.Wax Coke-shaped bottles with colored sugar water
3.  Candy cigarettes
4. Soda pop machines that dispensed glass bottles
5.   Coffee shops or diners with tableside juke boxes

7. Party lines on the telephone



 
11. TV test patterns that came on at night after the last
  show and were there until TV shows started again in the morning.
(there were only 3 channels... [if
  you were fortunate])
12. Peashooters
 
14.  45 RPM records
15.  S&H greenstamps
16.   Hi-fi's
17.   Metal ice trays with lever  (Uh, I still used a couple of these until I lost them in a move this century.)
18.   Mimeograph paper
19.   Blue flashbulbs

21.   Roller skate keys
22.   Cork popguns
23.  Drive-in theaters

If you remembered 16-25 = You' re older than dirt![/quote]

Wait just a cotton pickin' minute.  I'm still a few years shy of 40!

[French G.]

Threads from the crypt!

Being 38 I don't think I'm old, but a lot of these things were common in the sticks and hicks for quite some time. I got my first aquarium with S&H green stamps, it was also the source of the first dishes we got when establishing a new house and marital bliss, I still use those dishes.

Party line, grew up on one. For quite some time we only had to dial the last 4 numbers within our exchange. I remember a human operator helping me place a call too.

We had a wringer washing machine, but for most of my childhood went to the laundromat, one of my favorite places as a kid.

Everything in elementary school was run on a mimeograph.

Up to the early 90s I would eat lunch at a Woolworth's lunch counter on the good ol' downtown mall, now a wretched hive of scum and patchouli.