The Old Folks Home

[Old Man]

1 hour ago, Duke Bushido said:

When I was a kid, my mother had this brass grocery list.  No; seriously: it was two brass plates riveted together, sandwiching a hinge pin down each side.  Along the length of the hinge pins were tin arrows that folded out away from the body of the piece, or flat into arrow-shaped reliefs in the face of it.  When folded in, each arrow pointed to a staple good you might go to the grocery store to buy:  eggs, milk, flour, aspirin, etc.  You made your shopping list by cruising the pantry and flipping "out" the arrow for anything you wanted to remember.  As you picked them up around the store, you folded the arrow back into its relief.  When all arrows were folded in, you had all your staples.

 

Reminds me of a paper-based address book I used to have.  It was a desk one with a metal cover and slider and tabbed pages, so you would slide the slider to the appropriate letter of the alphabet, then open the book and it'd be on the page you needed.  Then you would pick up the landline desk phone handset and dial the number...

 

The shopping list sounds cool.  I've reverted to writing shopping lists on paper, because unlocking my phone with a mask on is a pain in the ass. 

[Cancer]

We did the S&H green stamp thing for our three years in the States in the mid-60s.  When we came back from Europe in 1971, it was as if the asteroid had struck and exterminated them at a stroke.

[unclevlad]

10 hours ago, Old Man said:

 

Reminds me of a paper-based address book I used to have.  It was a desk one with a metal cover and slider and tabbed pages, so you would slide the slider to the appropriate letter of the alphabet, then open the book and it'd be on the page you needed.  Then you would pick up the landline desk phone handset and dial the number...

 

The shopping list sounds cool.  I've reverted to writing shopping lists on paper, because unlocking my phone with a mask on is a pain in the ass. 

 

That's the Rolodex.  Crucial investigatve tool of TV PIs of the day.

 

The one thing I dislike about paying through my phone is unlocking it *every* time I want to use it.  Worse:  I have a common ID in use on my iPhone and iPads, so the iPads have to be unlocked each time as well.  Totally understandable security, but annoying.

[rravenwood]

Taking crates of empty glass bottles back to The Pop Shoppe

[Bazza]

Moses. (  @Pariah) 

[Cancer]

55 minutes ago, rravenwood said:

Taking crates of empty glass bottles back to The Pop Shoppe

 

That, FWIW, is how my graduating high school class managed to buy the graduation party beer with school money.  The Vice Principal never asked for the deposit money back on the bottles for the official picnic.

 

[Tjack]

On 4/18/2021 at 9:50 AM, Duke Bushido said:

These still exist.

 

I used to get a hundred or so of them to pass out to kids at Christmas time, particularly those I could hear asking their parents if I was Santa.

 

The last printing was 2003, but they have not been removed from circulation, nor are there any announced plans to discontinue them.  They aren't seen often because they are only about 1/1000 of the bills in circulation.  Given the relative "uselessness" of the dollar note at today's prices, I would have thought them to have become much more common by now.

 

   There’s a notion out there that says that the government prints $2 bills and mints coins with the various states on the backs so that people will hold on to them as collectibles and good luck pieces rather than spending them.   Thus lowering the amount of money in circulation and lowering the deficit.

    That might be a little too slick a plan for our government and not really cost efficient, but every little bit helps.

[Duke Bushido]

And in the other hoof is the thousands of people under thirty who get pennies in their change and make a big show out of flinging them across the parking lot when they walk outside.   

[Old Man]

1 hour ago, Duke Bushido said:

And in the other hoof is the thousands of people under thirty who get pennies in their change and make a big show out of flinging them across the parking lot when they walk outside.   

I knew a guy once who would throw pennies in the trash, and this was in the late eighties. It struck me as incredibly wasteful. 

[tkdguy]

21 hours ago, Old Man said:

I knew a guy once who would throw pennies in the trash, and this was in the late eighties. It struck me as incredibly wasteful. 

 

Especially since you can use the to base miniatures!

 

Young people haven't heard of Night Court or Hill Street Blues.

 

Have they even heard of the electric chair? Its use has become almost nonexistent.

[Pattern Ghost]

On 4/18/2021 at 11:23 PM, Cancer said:

We did the S&H green stamp thing for our three years in the States in the mid-60s.  When we came back from Europe in 1971, it was as if the asteroid had struck and exterminated them at a stroke.

 

Ah, I remember those. That also brought to mind Christmas Seals. Those used to be big. Seems they're still around, but I wonder how many younger folks recognize them.

 

[Cygnia]

Montgomery Ward

[Pariah]

Sears catalogs

[unclevlad]

A stack of catalogs a couple feet tall at Christmas time.

 

 

[death tribble]

4 hours ago, Cygnia said:

Montgomery Ward

isn't that where you put annoying military leaders like Admiral Ernest King ?

[Old Man]

2 hours ago, unclevlad said:

A stack of catalogs a couple feet tall at Christmas time.

 

 

 

Bubble lights on the Christmas tree.

 

Those old coffee warmers that were basically just a loop of copper wire that you plug into the wall and stick in the coffee.

 

Cutting a new quill before penning a letter.

 

[archer]

1 hour ago, Old Man said:

 

Cutting a new quill before penning a letter.

 

 

Inventing ink?

[unclevlad]

Mmm...quills disappeared by probably the 1850s or thereabouts;  possibly sooner.  Dip pens disappeared (outside of calligraphers) by...call it 1920.  

I remember those old...I never thought of em as coffee warmers, they were water boilers.  DANGEROUS suckers, cuz they stayed HOT! for a while.  Ohh...reminds me of a hot pot I had.  Our IT guy at the time and I were both exploring the world of good tea.  I think it was his pot...coulda been mine...lots of plastic.  Then one day we smelled the very distinct odor of smoking rubber/plastic.  

Suffice to say, neither of us used a mostly-rubber hot pot again.

 

I don't think we ever had bubble lights, but I do vaguely remember seasonal ads that included them.  Something else gone, or mostly:  incandescent light strings.  I remember my dad was really irritated cuz I liked running the outside lights a lot...but he saw the electric bills.  And...oh, now here's an oldie of a sort...the stories of people whose houses caught fire due to an overly dry Christmas tree and problems with those lights.  Cuz they did draw a substantial amount of power....

 

Anyone remember halogen floor lamps?  They may well still be around...but one thing that isn't, is the 500 watt bulb.

Kid you not.  500 watt bulb.

Yeah it filled a room *big time* and the color spectrum was very nice.  But it was also a heater.  
They got pulled from the market because far too many lamps used just a basic lamp cord that was borderline unsafe.

 

Mm...similarly, one of the early superstar CRT monitors, the Zenith.  Really nice screens, they got a lot of praise for that at the time...but they were space heaters too.

[Ternaugh]

Halogen bulbs are often found as the heating elements of ceramic cooktops.

[Cygnia]

My in-laws still have a string of bubble lights.

 

 

And, thanks to "A Charlie Brown Christmas", I still want an aluminum Christmas tree...

[Old Man]

I understand there are modern bubble lights that aren’t filled with kerosene or whatever it was that made the originals into pretty Molotovs. 

[Cancer]

Which reminds me: Lava Lamps.

[Old Man]

Exposed midriffs and baggy pants. Oh wait, that’s today again. 

[Duke Bushido]

Coffee percolators.

[Bazza]

Daisy dukes.