Things growing up have fallen by the wayside

[rk911]

Afternoon paper...discontinued when I was in high school.

Drive-ins here were down to showing porno flicks by the time I remember them...still went out of business.

we had 5-major daily papers in Chicago and we had the Chgo Tribune delivered in the morning and the Chgo American in the afternoon.

 

[lucky penny]

we had 5-major daily papers in Chicago and we had the Chgo Tribune delivered in the morning and the Chgo American in the afternoon.

In Buffalo, the Courier-Express was delivered in the morning, the Buffalo Evening News in the afternoon. The Courier-Express shut down in 1982, leaving one daily paper, now the Buffalo News.

The papers were delivered by kids, & "the paper boy" would come around once a week to collect -- 5 cents a day, I think.

 

[jollystomper]

I remember what I think was called the presidential fitness test in elementary school. You had to do like 100 sit-ups, push-ups, and various other physical activities. The one I hated was the rope climb. I was somewhat chubby and no way was my body going up that rope so high. I do remember everyone watch the others attempt. It was embarrassing for me, guess that’s why I remember. Didn’t ever get the certificate from the White House. Today, a mom might sue over such embarrassment for a child.

Related to this - we used to have a gym period in elementary school 2-3 times a week. Part of that would be those fitness exercises.

Also, lunch periods were different. In elementary school I recall having a hour for lunch, but they would let you out into the yard after the first 15 minutes was passed. The goal was to eat as fast as you could to get the maximum time for play.

All the games were just pick up, there were formal and informal areas. For example, basketball of course was by the basketball nets. One corner was for softball. One side of the school building was for stickball. Another for touch football. Another area was for "sidewalk chalk" games, particularly one called skully or skelly. And throughout all these was a variation of tag called ringolevio. The yard monitors would be wandering around with whistles trying to keep groups from running into each other and hurting themselves. It was joyful mayhem .

 

[jollystomper]

Games to win (or lose) baseball cards:

- Flipping: 1st person flips one or more cards to the ground. The second person flips and tries to match the face up/down pattern. If they match, 2nd person wins the cards played, if they do not match, 1st person wins the cards played.

- Tossing: throwing them towards a wall. closest to the wall without hitting it wins. hitting the wall becomes an automatic loss. matches 2nd person has to match the face up/face down.

- Color matching: my memory is not as strong on this one. It had to do with Tops having a set of colors for various teams, and the game involved shuffling the cards face down and turning them over one by one and laying them on top of each other. I think if the card you were going to put down matched the color of the card on top of the pile, you won the pile, but I am not sure.

One could easily lose lots of cards, so one usually would only play with cards that were duplicates, in the hopes of winning ones you did not have to add to your collection.

 

[Koolau]

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.

Yeah, we have to remember to print when we write to our youngest. She never learned cursive. YMMV

 

[Scuba]

Civil discourse, except on this forum of course.

For many, working to achieve goals vs believing one is entitled to something.

Encyclopedias

Handwritten letters

Meals cooked from scratch and enjoyed at home together

 

[NW-Bound]

No inkwells but we were required to use fountain pens in grade school. I remember being bored in class one day at putting one of the ink cartridges in my mouth. A while later I accidentally bit through it and ink sprayed out of my mouth and all over my white shirt.

We used dip pens in grade school, with an ink well of course. At 4th grade or so, kids started to use fountain pens. A few years later, every kid used ballpoint pens.

One can still buy dip pens for calligraphy. The ones used by us kids were of course cheaply made.

 

[Koolau]

We used dip pens in grade school, with an ink well of course. At 4th grade or so, kids started to use fountain pens. A few years later, every kid used ballpoint pens.

Wow, I don't recall using a pen until maybe 5th or 6th grade. Never a fountain or dip pen. YMMV

 

[JoeWras]

No inkwells but we were required to use fountain pens in grade school. I remember being bored in class one day at putting one of the ink cartridges in my mouth. A while later I accidentally bit through it and ink sprayed out of my mouth and all over my white shirt.

Neither for me. I believe the ink/fountain pen is a great way to split off those of us in the Generation Jones generation (about '58 to '64). We're "officially" Boomers, but some cultural things Boomers talk about don't resonate with us. Ink wells and slide rules are perfect examples. So are calculators. We were the first to use them in school. Early Boomers never had the chance.

 

[Pellice]

I can remember the last drive-in movie I went to - it was "The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming" - although I wonder how I got there. I watched it with my girlfriend, and the movie was released in 1966, before we could drive. Maybe I've blocked out the parents, or maybe it was just shown there a later year. Very funny movie with a great cast - "We've got to get organized!" Drive-ins must have been a godsend for young parents who wanted to get out of the house, but had little money and noisy toddlers.

 

[eytonxav]

Never used an ink well and dip pen in school, but as I recall we did have fountain pens with a little lever on the side that would suck up ink from a bottle. Later came ink cartridges to insert in those pens. Started college with a slide rule and left with an HP engineering calculator.

 

[Time2]

MeTV, weekdays early morning (4am CDT here in Chicago) 2150 by, 10-4?

I did find I have the same 4am schedule, we have two MeTV stations, with somewhat different programing. 4am is to early for me. There a lot of Highway Patrol shows on Youtube.

 

[audreyh1]

Pantyhose - thankfully women today have enough sense not to bother with that daily nylon constriction.

Yes, hallelujah! Not even the knee high kind!

I almost never wear a dress or skirt these days. If I do it’s in a very casual situation with sandals.

 

[audreyh1]

So happy I was young enough to skip slide rules in my career. I remember learning logarithms and using some basic slide rules in junior/high school but the “personal electronic calculator” had been established by the time I started college and our freshman class was the first allowed to use them in our engineering and math courses.

Grew up with fountain pens too. DF used them most of his life until well into his 80s.

 

[Winemaker]

Major league baseball was much more fun; all cities were competitive with each other, unlike today.

 

[street]

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

I don't remember or had to sit in school in that type of desk. I do just junk two one room schoolhouse student desks this week that were in the old shop at the ranch. I kept them around and finally junked them.

 

[street]

Getting back to the pantyhose comments. I had no idea they were not used that much anymore. lol

Years ago, I had an old tractor that the fan belt break and to replace it you had to go through a lot of work to get the new one on. A guy told me to get a pair of panty hose and stretch it tight around both pulleys and tie a knot for your V-belt. I did that and that pantyhose V-belt was used as a belt for the next 10 years till I sold the tractor.

They were good for something other than making those legs loo beautiful. Lol

 

[JoeWras]

Major league baseball was much more fun; all cities were competitive with each other, unlike today.

You obviously didn't grow up in Chicago.

 

[JoeWras]

I cannot imagine wearing pantyhose. Women should rejoice now that it is a bygone era.

Now, about these new low cut, no-see socks (men or women). As a man, I noticed the young guys were wearing them. The cut is so low you can barely see them, if at all.

I tried them and it was a failure. The sensitive ankle areas that haven't seen much sun got bitten up by no-see-ums. Into the trash they go. I'll continue with my crew length, although I pine for the days gone by of tube socks.

 

[Koolau]

I cannot imagine wearing pantyhose. Women should rejoice now that it is a bygone era.

Now, about these new low cut, no-see socks (men or women). As a man, I noticed the young guys were wearing them. The cut is so low you can barely see them, if at all.

I tried them and it was a failure. The sensitive ankle areas that haven't seen much sun got bitten up by no-see-ums. Into the trash they go. I'll continue with my crew length, although I pine for the days gone by of tube socks.

I always hated tube socks. Without a built-in heal, my feet always felt "bound." Since I don't like to wear shoes without socks, the low-cut "footies" have been my salvation. Only issue is that the elastic doesn't last many wearings and then the sock ends up inside the shoe. Oh well, at least I've never had to wear pantyhose, thank goodness!

 

[jollystomper]

Now, about these new low cut, no-see socks (men or women). As a man, I noticed the young guys were wearing them. The cut is so low you can barely see them, if at all.

I tried them and it was a failure. The sensitive ankle areas that haven't seen much sun got bitten up by no-see-ums. Into the trash they go. I'll continue with my crew length, although I pine for the days gone by of tube socks.

I agree. I grew up in the "basketball tube socks' era, long socks up to the knees. I was fine with them. These days I favor the "standard" crew length socks, though I prefer grey or black, not white. The low cut socks are just not for me.

 

[CRLLS]

Playing stoopball, flipping baseball cards, tossing pennies, riding bikes in the smoke behind the mosquito truck, playing tennis in the street with a rope across it, skeeching behind the milk truck in Winter. These are just a few of my childhood past times.

I also remember the Fuller brush man, the Metropolitan sales guy stopping by every month to collect the premium. There were also the random peddlers who drove around neighborhoods cleaning pots, sharpening knives, scissors etc. in their trucks.

We had a neighborhood were several families had dinner bells hanging out on the porch to call the kids in. Each had their own "beat" so we knew who was being called in.

 

[Marita40]

Hate to chime in about this to the nay-sayers, but here in the Very Frozen North many of us still wear pantyhose with dresses during winter. Warm and practical. You don't want bare legs in below zero temps, and some occasions still do call for dresses or skirts.

 

[Pellice]

Hate to chime in about this to the nay-sayers, but here in the Very Frozen North many of us still wear pantyhose with dresses during winter. Warm and practical. You don't want bare legs in below zero temps, and some occasions still do call for dresses or skirts.

But pantyhose are only the *slightest* degree better than bare legs. I wore them in winter too sometimes, particularly with a suit, and I always felt the absurdity of being heavily covered while outdoors - coat, jacket, turtleneck or thick shirt - with essentially naked legs. It was COLD. Of course, most of us escaped to warm pants.

I still would wear pantyhose with a summer dress unless I was wearing sandals. Putting your bare feet into shoes either requires "footies" which was a symbol of old-ladydom when I was young - and the footie always showed in a dress shoe. I wore a dressy dress to a wedding last year, and it wouldn't have looked good with bare legs. I even had trouble finding panythose to buy! But for all intents and purposes those special situations are the only ones where I'd wear them.

As for socks, I wonder what the issue is with them? I agree with Joe W. that it's kind of pointless to wear long pants and shoes but no socks. I don't wear socks with shorts, as, again, that's kind of against the purpose unless you are hiking. Capris and ankle pants, don't know, as I don't wear them.

 

[Koolau]

I also remember the Fuller brush man,

Ah yes, the Fuller Brush man. Once while my mom was pregnant with my little sister, the Fuller Brush man stopped by. During the sales pitch, mom passed out, fell and cut her eye brow. Imagine this poor guy, running next door to the family business to tell my dad that his pregnant wife was unconscious on the kitchen floor, squirting blood. It all turned out well. By the time I got home from Kindergarten, mom had her eye stitched up and was making lunch.