Things growing up have fallen by the wayside

[jollystomper]

Being able to openly bring your own food/snacks into MLB/NFL/NBA games, and not feel like a smuggler and risk a full body search. Some teams would even promote "picnic days" for this.

 

[jollystomper]

Candy cigarettes, can't find them anywhere anymore!

Amazon sells them, but the price has tripled over the last several years.

Five Below stores used to carry them, but they may not anymore, I have noticed them there for a couple of year.

 

[Calico]

Interestingly, we still get these for the high school/college graduation and wedding gifts we give. Maybe because the recipients see the gifts as generous and want to stay on our good side for the future . Or their parents force them to write them .

I'm glad to hear that the tradition continues (even if the participants have (potentially) dubious motives!)

 

[Pellice]

I saw a public water fountain the other day in a small town.

Ash trays. They were everywhere. As a kid it was my job to put them out for dinners in the church basement. We kept them next to the old spitoons from the previous generations....Never saw them in use.

Smoking - now there's an enormous, enormous change. Walking through Penn Station or the local train station, stepping on discarded ashes, cigarette butts thrown out the window, the stale smell of smoke. Don't miss those days at all!

 

[JoeWras]

Being able to openly bring your own food/snacks into MLB/NFL/NBA games, and not feel like a smuggler and risk a full body search. Some teams would even promote "picnic days" for this.

I can still smell the whiskey wafting through the air in Soldier Field during a Bears game. It was the mid 70s, I was only 12 or 13 and went on a cold November day with Dad. Everyone brought thermoses with "coffee." Even at 12, I knew that wasn't coffee!

 

[Gremlin]

So we went back to her house, I walked to the door with the bag, and when her mom answered the door, I said: “Here’s Nancy’s pantyhose - she left them in my car”

Haha! Would love to have been a fly in the wall for that one!

 

[Montecfo]

Smoking - now there's an enormous, enormous change. Walking through Penn Station or the local train station, stepping on discarded ashes, cigarette butts thrown out the window, the stale smell of smoke. Don't miss those days at all!

Replaced by the smell of weed...

 

[aja8888]

Sports figures, mostly baseball players, and also medical doctors advertising cigarettes on TV, in black and white, of course.

 

[Koolau]

My mother's parents lived in a small NC town and my grandfather chewed tobacco. I guess I was about 5 yrs old and thought that little brick of Apple tobacco smelled good. He cut off a piece for me to try. A couple of chews and I couldn't spit it out fast enough. Couldn't understand why it smelled so good but tasted so bad and made my mouth numb.

Cheers!

It's probably the first time you got to hear the expression: "It's an acquired taste" - just about the time you're ready to toss your cookies!

 

[GalaxyBoy]

Home phones are almost non-existent nowadays. Especially dial phones. My niece’s 10 year old son saw one and didn’t know what it was.

Dear Auntie said she let one of the younger neighbor kids in to use her land line phone. The kid didn't know how to work a touch-tone phone since it didn't have red and green buttons like a cell phone.

 

[Jeffman52]

Drive in movies - My dad would load us up and we would go watch a double feature... I clearly remember watching the Spaghetti Westerns there as a kid. Even as a teenager we were still going. I saw the movie "The Song remains the same" at the drive in. Man that was great.


Seeing millions of stars in the Sky at night. I miss being able to lay out at night and see the sky light up with stars. Today there is so much light pollution that its mostly hidden.


My Grandfather ran a country store and used to get up early and go there. He would let us get 1 of those big soft peppermint sticks from the big round container.. we thought we were in heaven eating those. Sometimes during the late afternoon he would let us get a giant pickle from the pickle bucket. The country store experience was something that is missing in many places today... the local men and women would come there and sit on the side and front near the door and get caught up on the "goings on".



Its a time gone by

 

[KB]

Bulb testing machine in the grocery store. My Dad took the TV bulbs to test which one had died.

The milkman delivered some milk with the cream top, and some without. My Mom only got the cream occasionally. But it was a different shaped glass bottle.

 

[eytonxav]

Wood baseball bats for little league/HS players. Also remember Pat Boone buck shoes being very popular, have not really noticed those being in vogue anymore.

 

[swakyaby]

Written thank you notes - a relic of my youth. I still write them, but no one else I know.

Yes. The last 3 weddings I attended and shipped wedding gifts from the wedding registry, I never received any acknowlegement, written or verbal. These were nieces and nephews from DH’s side.

 

[Calico]

Yes. The last 3 weddings I attended and shipped wedding gifts from the wedding registry, I never received any acknowlegement, written or verbal. These were nieces and nephews from DH’s side.

Yup - same thing with nieces on my side.

No problem - it will save me money in the long run, no longer buying any gifts for any reason for any of them.

 

[aja8888]

When I was about 13, our family would make a summer trip to Pennsylvania from Connecticut in our 1941 Dodge. This was long before interstates and even highways. The trip (~200 miles) would take a full day with maybe one breakdown. I had a female cousin my age there and we would hang out for the time of our visit.

We would walk to town to see a movie for 10 cents and 5 cents for popcorn.

We would go in the yard at night and catch fireflies and put them in a jar.

Those were fun times.

 

[Marita40]

Morning AND afternoon newspaper delivered to our home.
In the fall, we raked leaves into the street and then burnt them. Hundreds of smoldering fires in the streets of our suburb. The smell was heavenly to a kid. Think of the danger now!
Milk man left Bazooka gum for the kids. Remember the tiny comics that came with the gum?
Moms carpooled their kids to school, picked them up at noon for lunch, then returned them at 1. In the HUGE stationwagon with the back seat that faced the back of the car so we could wave at the drivers behind us. I have no idea how I managed to pass my driving test--parallel parking and all--in that car!
Spelling bees in school. Do kids still do this? We lined up standing all around the room. If you mispelled a word, you had to sit down.
Penmanship! Learning how to print, then write, in one of those lined notebooks with the middle line that lower case letters needed to touch. In the 1960s we were still sitting at heavy oak desks with ink wells from the earlier generations.

 

[aja8888]

Morning AND afternoon newspaper delivered to our home.
In the fall, we raked leaves into the street and then burnt them. Hundreds of smoldering fires in the streets of our suburb. The smell was heavenly to a kid. Think of the danger now!
Milk man left Bazooka gum for the kids. Remember the tiny comics that came with the gum?
Moms carpooled their kids to school, picked them up at noon for lunch, then returned them at 1. In the HUGE stationwagon with the back seat that faced the back of the car so we could wave at the drivers behind us. I have no idea how I managed to pass my driving test--parallel parking and all--in that car!
Spelling bees in school. Do kids still do this? We lined up standing all around the room. If you mispelled a word, you had to sit down.
Penmanship! Learning how to print, then write, in one of those lined notebooks with the middle line that lower case letters needed to touch. In the 1960s we were still sitting at heavy oak desks with ink wells from the earlier generations.

My 16 year old step grandson was never taught cursive. He has no signature, just prints his name...terribly. Sad, the education system is shot.

 

[rodi]

My husbands family had a party line and didn't get their own number till the 80's.

We made our kids do family dinner. Breakfast tended to be less formal - since I was trying to get them to school before I went to work. Lunch was at school & work, so not together. My younger son is home for college for the summer and we still do family dinner.

The kids out in the morning from dawn to dusk was a thing growing up in the summer. We did that some in the summers - but they tended to go to friends houses vs playing ball in the street or exploring the local canyon... If a friends house had a pool or AC - all the kids went there.

We still don't have AC and 'monsoonal moisture' is a newish phenomena in San Diego. Humidity is almost as bad as the east coast... wasn't like that as a kid. We are pricing AC units. (I live in the house I grew up in, bought from my dad when he was looking to downsize). We survive with ceiling fans, whole house fan at night, and a small portable unit for the living room.

I grew up in the 60's and 70's... I don't miss dress codes for girls of of 'no pants'. (Grade school). I was a tomboy and would wear shorts under my skirt so I could play on the monkey gym at recess.

 

[W2R]

Anything in your youth that was fallen by the wayside with fashion, how things are done or traditions etc... etc.

When I was a little girl, in the 1950's, little girls used to play jacks (with metal jacks and a rubber ball). It was fun! And involved some skill and manual dexterity.

When my daughter was a little girl, back in the 1980's, I bought her some jacks and we played a little, but she wasn't enthused. I don't think any of her friends ever played jacks.

Probably kids these days wouldn't even know what jacks are.

We also played hopscotch, which only required chalk and parents who were patient with kids chalking up their sidewalk or driveway....

One such game that DID survive here, especially in the poorer sections of town, is jump-rope! I have seen some spectacular jump roping going on in the 21st century.

 

[cranberryjoe]

Leisure suits. I never had one but my college roommate did.

However, I will admit to wearing huuuuuge bell-bottom pants in high school.

Disco. Uggh.

 

[NW-Bound]

Surely, some of y'all remember the school desks with an ink well? Heh heh heh...

 

[JoeWras]

When I was a little girl, in the 1950's, little girls used to play jacks (with metal jacks and a rubber ball). It was fun! And involved some skill and manual dexterity.

When my daughter was a little girl, back in the 1980's, I bought her some jacks and we played a little, but she wasn't enthused. I don't think any of her friends ever played jacks.

Probably kids these days wouldn't even know what jacks are.

We also played hopscotch, which only required chalk and parents who were patient with kids chalking up their sidewalk or driveway....

One such game that DID survive here, especially in the poorer sections of town, is jump-rope! I have seen some spectacular jump roping going on in the 21st century.

Even if you don't jump rope, jacks provided a great way to exercise your jumping dexterity! I can't believe the kids today are being denied the joy of stepping on jacks. For most of us, it was a universal and memorable experience.

 

[W2R]

Even if you don't jump rope, jacks provided a great way to exercise your jumping dexterity! I can't believe the kids today are being denied the joy of stepping on jacks. For most of us, it was a universal and memorable experience.

Also, we got to practice being VERY meticulous in cleaning up after we finished playing!

 

[Winemaker]

People had thicker skin in years gone past. People get offended much too easy today over everything.