Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Ye Olde ...

My 50th college reunion is coming up and one of the ideas to entertain us crotchety old men is to publish a list of things that weren't around when we were pea-green freshmen -- personal computers, GPS systems, etc. I, on the other hand, believe that an equally entertaining compendium would be those things that were there then but now are missing. So, I have attempted to recall a number of them in hopes readers will follow suit. Basically, the game is to list things that were commonplace in the 1950's but are now not to be (or at least rare).
Here goes: dial phones, Blatz beer, crinolines, white-wall tires, canasta, Uncle Miltie, Ipana toothpaste, women's girdles, the Rhinegold girl, rabbit-ear antennas, statesmen politicians, the "Hit Parade", real silver U.S. coins, seamed stockings, portable typewriters, S&H green stamps, necker knobs on steering wheels, motor scooters, belt-in-the-back chinos, DUZ ("does everything"), 45/78 vinyl records, white-buck shoes, radio soap operas ("Portia Faces Life"), "Gunsmoke", Vitalis hair tonic

What do you reminisce about?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

adding machines, lead pipes, smoking cigs in the office, B&W TVs, short features and newsreels at the movies, soda fountain at the drug store,Packards, HH Scott tube amplifiers, bomb shelters, Polaroid pictures, handcrafted spreadsheets, purple ink ditto machines, carbon paper, index card files, 80-column punch cards...