Things growing up have fallen by the wayside

[street]

It seems the older I get to more I reflect back to my youth on how things have been lost from the growing up into today's ways. Somethings seem to never change but other things sure have.

Last week I was to a small country town that has a little shopping left on main street. I bought a flat cap which I haven't had in many years. As a kid it was the hat/cap I grew up wearing. I don't have but a few pictures of myself as young person but the one I have I'm wearing a flat cap. My parents started me off on them and during the late high school years I stopped wearing them but am starting to wear them again now. My grandpa had a saddle/harness/shoe shop, and he must have sold the flat cap there.

Country folk, farmers and ranchers wore them in the day. It was working man's hat and going out on Saturday to town night hat.

I still have one from a kid that I wore. When my son was about 4 years old, I dug it out and took a picture of him in that flat cap the one I wore about his age. I have a picture of me in that hat and one of him in the same hat.

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

 

[REWahoo]

Spats.

 

[aja8888]

Living at my grandmother's "coal company" house with no indoor plumbing in 1945 when Dad was fighting WWII. I still have memories of the outhouse. I'm glad that has fallen by the wayside. I recall having a flat hat though and I think it had a button on top.

 

[trumpeting_angel]

Families eating 2-3 meals together every day!



Although now that I live a few blocks from my daughter and family, I have dinner there quite often, and they come here, too.

 

[aaronc879]

Families eating 2-3 meals together every day!


Although now that I live a few blocks from my daughter and family, I have dinner there quite often, and they come here, too.

Never in my 42 years.

 

[PatrickA5]

Kids playing outside!

I had a great childhood back in the 60's. A neighborhood with hundreds of kids. During the Summer, we'd leave the house around 10:00, come home for lunch, leave again and show back up at dinner and maybe leave again until dark. My mom would scream "out of the house!" She basically had no idea where me and my brother were at any given time. And, of course, if she did ask we'd only give her a hint of where we "might" have been.

 

[razztazz]

- Big floppy "Dan Mathews" fedoras on men and white buck shoes on little boys.
- Obvious bifocal looking bifocals
- Fins on cars.
- Houses of perfectly prosperous, wage earning 30-ish and 40-ish year old people with 3-5 kids, and no air conditioner. How did they LIVE?!

- One telephone in the house and it hung from the kitchen wall
- Christmas lights on the outside of people's houses as Seasonally de rigueur

- All the stores closed because it's Sunday. Except drug stores so you could get a Sunday paper

- The big, huge, thick, Sunday paper or, in my town, BOTH Major Sunday newspapers

Would you happen to have a name for that flat cap you speak of? Or an online pic of one?

 

[Irishgirlyc58]

Agree about playing outside all day and half the night in the summer. I was the youngest at the time so I just went with my older brother and sister and all the other kids in the neighborhood.

Also-trick or treating on Halloween without the parents.
I live in a smallish town but and we would comb the town tot.
People would leave candy in a bowl with a note that said take one. We always only took one. Never even thought about taking the entire bowl.
It was great fun.

 

[street]

Families eating 2-3 meals together every day!



Although now that I live a few blocks from my daughter and family, I have dinner there quite often, and they come here, too.

Yes, that was a given to all sit and be together for meals. Lost forever, for most!

 

[street]

Spats.

Yep.
Also, the old timers I remember wore those just above the ankle leather lace up shoe/boot. Thin hide and soft leather shoes.

Still around but not as common as they were. I remember the old guys sitting around the pool hall playing cards and smoking their roll your own cigs with those shoes. Lol

 

[REWahoo]

Yep.
Also, the old timers I remember wore those just above the ankle leather lace up shoe/boot. Thin hide and soft leather shoes.

Still around but not as common as they were. I remember the old guys sitting around the pool hall playing cards and smoking their roll your own cigs with those shoes. Lol

Yep!

My dad owned a shoe store in a small town and sold a lot of those [-]cheap[/-] inexpensive split cowhide lace up ankle boots to "old guys". But in my neck of the woods they sat around the domino parlor, not the pool hall, and were more likely to be dipping snuff or chewing tobacco than smoking.

 

[COcheesehead]

Playing with plastic “army” men.

 

[Willers]

Kids playing outside!

I had a great childhood back in the 60's. A neighborhood with hundreds of kids. During the Summer, we'd leave the house around 10:00, come home for lunch, leave again and show back up at dinner and maybe leave again until dark. My mom would scream "out of the house!" She basically had no idea where me and my brother were at any given time. And, of course, if she did ask we'd only give her a hint of where we "might" have been.

The best thing about living in our small mountain town is that this still happens here. Lots of kids, totally unsupervised play. It makes me smile every time I see them.

 

[Ronstar]

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.

But the Blue Swallow motel in tucumcari NM still has them in their rooms - and they work.

 

[braumeister]

Spats.

Still popular in some circles.

 

[Calico]

Party line telephones. A staple of my grandparents' and all my aunts' and uncles' homes until the 1980s.

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

Playing outside until dark, in all weather, with no supervision.

 

[street]

Yep!

My dad owned a shoe store in a small town and sold a lot of those [-]cheap[/-] inexpensive split cowhide lace up ankle boots to "old guys". But in my neck of the woods they sat around the domino parlor, not the pool hall, and were more likely to be dipping snuff or chewing tobacco than smoking.

Interesting!!! A lot of chewing going on there also. They had the block tobacco
they bite off a chunk of tobacco, tins and pouches where all a common sight in those days too.

 

[Pellice]

Milk deliveries, which I just barely remember.

But, more consequentially, the pivotal exercise of getting to a telephone. I'm not arguing that telephones were more consequential than smartphones - they weren't - but you had to absolutely plan your communications and then communicate those plans to other people. If you watch any old movie or television show, or listen to an old radio show, the plot turned SO OFTEN on a phone call. "I have to get to a phone." "I can't leave the house, I'm waiting for a call." Even more drama in the era before answering machines. It's fun to watch the old shows with this in mind.

 

[dfarr]

Grew up in late 50s, early 60s.

Cap guns
Wooden row boats
Bamboo fishing poles
Sawdust baseballs
Railroad motor cars (we called them Putt putts)
Whiffle ball games

 

[street]

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.

But the Blue Swallow motel in tucumcari NM still has them in their rooms - and they work.

Yes!! My folks still had a dial phone (green) when mom passed away 2014. No fiber was ever in the home.

Party line was still being used in the 70's in my area.

 

[street]

Milk deliveries, which I just barely remember.

But, more consequentially, the pivotal exercise of getting to a telephone. I'm not arguing that telephones were more consequential than smartphones - they weren't - but you had to absolutely plan your communications and then communicate those plans to other people. If you watch any old movie or television show, or listen to an old radio show, the plot turned SO OFTEN on a phone call. "I have to get to a phone." "I can't leave the house, I'm waiting for a call." Even more drama in the era before answering machines. It's fun to watch the old shows with this in mind.

Another interesting service fall by the wayside!! Just asked my wife when did the mike deliver service stopped here. She said early 90's and we got mike delivered to the doorstep till that era disappeared.

 

[REWahoo]

Another interesting service fall by the wayside!! Just asked my wife when did the mike deliver service stopped here. She said early 90's and we got mike delivered to the doorstep till that era disappeared.

Mike was a popular guy, eh?

 

[street]

Mike was a popular guy, eh?

Lol!!
I'm not going to ask any more questions!

 

[Ronstar]

Yes!! My folks still had a dial phone (green) when mom passed away 2014. No fiber was ever in the home.

Party line was still being used in the 70's in my area.

IIRC, we were on a party line until the late 60's. I remember picking up to dial out and there would be people talking.

And I think I remember whenever you needed a new phone, you just went to the phone company office and they gave you one.

 

[aja8888]

Kids playing outside!

I had a great childhood back in the 60's. A neighborhood with hundreds of kids. During the Summer, we'd leave the house around 10:00, come home for lunch, leave again and show back up at dinner and maybe leave again until dark. My mom would scream "out of the house!" She basically had no idea where me and my brother were at any given time. And, of course, if she did ask we'd only give her a hint of where we "might" have been.

My Mom's favorite line to me as I was heading out the door......"Head home when the street lights come on".