Going, going, gone...

[Captain Worley]

Stuff that used to be common, but you don't see, or isn't done anymore.

Carbon paper

Typewriters

Elm trees (Dutch Elm disease wiped 'em out in the 50s)

Gas station attendants

Pop tops that separated from the can

PF Flyers

High dives at public pools

Public swimming at ponds

Milk trucks

Hitch hiking

Rotary telkephone dials

Phone booths

[cityboi]

much of what I posted were things I remember growing up in the 1980s

big wheels (I had one when I was 5)

http://www.retropedalcars.com/images/Marx-Big-Wheel.jpg

pogo ball (80s version of the pogo stick)

http://www.gadgets.co.uk/mas_assets/full/ROCKNHOP.jpg

8mm school film projector (I dont think they use these anymore in schools. When I was a kid in the 80s, we looked at films at school not VCR tapes. LOL half the time these things didn't work)

http://www.quasardigital.com.au/images/film_projector.jpg

records

http://www.scarletdukes.com/st/images/somany45_sm.gif

radio cassette tape

http://www.abeautifulrevolution.com/photos...sette_tape1.jpg

boombox

http://amandaandbilly.files.wordpress.com/...oombox_pc_3.jpg

pagers (the cell phone made this obsolete only doctors really use them)

http://www.twpwireless.com/images/ZigBee_Pager-2.jpg

car phone (the cell phone made this obsolete)

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadgetmobile....9-07-cartel.jpg

floppy disk

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/210/4697527...5c5c1fe36_o.jpg

Jheri Curl

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_rjyf4pXKRoM/SSUE...jeri%20curl.jpg

[Lowerdeck]

vinyl records are making a comeback

[monsoon]

The Clothes Line.

However it is making a bit of a comeback too as people are realizing that it is a very easy way to save energy and live a more sustainable lifestyle. Electric clothes dryers are horrendous in terms of energy used. Both in direct energy to evaporate the water in the clothes but even more importantly by exhausting heated or airconditioned air to the outside.

[dimebag1980]

Playgrounds made of all wood and metal components with giant bolt heads sticking out. I suppose they were dangerous for various reasons (creosote, metal components, etc) but I actually used to love the way parks looked with all that wooden equipment.

Oh just remembered this one... the McDonald's playground equipment. Not only the playground equipment AT McDonald's, which most don't even have anymore, but also in public playgrounds as well. We used to have a giant Hamburglar in the playground down the street from the house I grew up in. People always peed inside it and it was filthy but it was still awesome.

See-saws (teeter-totters) in public playgrounds! I remember too many times being on the receiving end of some prick out for blood, getting me up to the top, and then jumping off so I'd hit the ground hard.

Metal slides... woooooooo those beotchs HURT in these Louisiana summers! What, it's 105 degrees out today? Cool, let's go play on that big, reflective metal slide over there and burn our bodies as we slide down. Ouch!!

Captain Worley mentioned high dives at public pools. I honestly didn't know they don't do these anymore but one thing I've noticed is that the cities in my region don't even build new public pools anymore. Instead, they build "spray parks" where the kids run through tons of fountains. Now that does sound like fun, but I passed many days at the public pool and I absolutely loved it. And I did attempt the high dive ... once. I landed flat on my stomach, crushed my testicles and was in pain for the rest of the day ... as if my sunburn wasn't bad enough!

Porches on houses. People still put them on houses sometimes, but rarely are they used like they once were. I remember my old neighbor, Joe. He was a sweet old man and he and his wife would sit out on their porch every single day and watch life pass by. Even as our neighborhood turned sour over the years and instead of watching innocent kids playing on the sidewalk they would witness drug deals and prostitution. But it never stopped them, they sat out there pretty much every day. When I was really young I'd sit out there and talk to them. Joe died a couple months ago. I never get sad when people die, but I wanted to cry when I heard Joe had passed. He was the sweetest old man I ever knew, and he helped to keep me in line when I was out of my parents' sight. Anyway, back on the subject ... porches! Now they are just a design concept. I know, I design houses. People build porches now that are 4' deep. You can't do much with that. And I never see people sitting out on their porches talking with their neighbors. We're all so closed into our houses and private these days. And I'm guilty of it as well, with my Asperger's causing me problems with socializing. But even 'normal' people are like this today. People just don't do things like that anymore.

God I could go on and on ... so many things.

Oh and on the clothes line note. Every house in the neighborhood I grew up in was originally equipped with one in the back yard as well as a gas light in the front yard. Those homes were built in the 50s and 60s, and even by the time I was growing up in the early 80s, most of the clothes lines and gas lamps were gone from the homes. Every now and again I'd see someone using a clothes line, but dryers had become so common by then that it was an extremely rare sight.

Just thought of another!!! Neighborhood arcades! Sure, there are arcades these days but back in the 70s and 80s neighborhoods all over had small arcades. I remember going to one with my big brother for years before it closed, and there was another one inside a doughnut shop that my best friend and I used to go to all the time.

I love this thread! You see, I get really nostalgic and often drive down the streets where I grew up, thinking back and picturing my early life. I have a very visual memory so I have a very good visual recall of growing up and the 23 years I spent in that neighborhood. Right now my wife is working on a project to widen a road in my old neighborhood to 5 lanes. It has always been an old country road leading from my neighborhood inside the city limits to the 'boondocks' outside the city limits. Well now those 'boondocks' are all suburbs and all the north-south thoroughfares are gridlocked 24/7. So the city is coming up with new north/south routes to relieve some of these major arteries. So this old road I used to safely ride my bike down is about to become a major north/south thoroughfare connecting the interstate to all the newer northern suburbs. I knew this was in the works, because as I said my wife is actually doing much of the road design. But it saddens me to drive down that road and see the houses that my old friends used to live in (Daniel, James, Jonathan, Mary, Michael, etc) being demolished to make way for a major road. I really want to cry when I think about that part of my life being virtually erased as I have watched those houses being torn down lately. I remember once you got outside of the city limits there was an area where the road turned to gravel. The trees made a canopy over the roadway that lasted for a few miles. Only a handful of people lived out there and they lived in such a peaceful area. It was all big pastures with houses thrown in here and there, but now it's big cookie-cutter subdivisions and apartment developments, new schools, strip malls, etc. I am a very progressive person, but if you ask me that isn't progress. At first I was okay with it because I enjoyed watching new things being built but it did not stop. There used to be many miles of nothing between towns out that way but now all those towns touch seamlessly. I never thought I'd say it, but it's absolutely disgusting to see.

Wow I got off on a tangent. Hope I didn't kill the thread. I am just so nostalgic that it's easy for me to get carried away.

[Charlotteman]

Did anyone mention "white out"?

Elevator operators.

Early morning home milk delivery.

Returnable pop bottles.

1 cent bubblegum.

Smoking section. (soon to be a thing of the past. already non existent in many areas)

Drive through liquor by the drink, like a McDonald's drive through. (Seen in Florida in decades past.)

Marriage between a man and woman only.

[vompy]

chalkboards are rare in my area

[Charlotteman]

Radio DJs that actually played music of their own choice.

Non digital meters on gas pumps.

Buying a new (metal) car license plate every year.

Juke boxes as the source of music in dance bars.

Doctors, nurses and patients smoking cigarettes in hospitals!

[suburban george3]

Elevator operators.

[monsoon]

Ah old school that I once attended, where the building was put up in the 20s, had a manual passenger elevator between the floors. Of course the students were forbidden from using it and had to take the stairs between the 3 floors. Occasionally however, you could get a ride on it with a teacher. it was a bit of an experience as it took some skill to turn off the motor in time to get the thing to stop level with the floor. Most teacher also tended to avoid it but it was interesting none the less. They have since torn that building down and I am assuming the elevator went with it.

[Gard]

Polaroid instant Cameras

Films cameras

Printers using ribbons

DOS

8 Track

Balanced Budget for the Federal Government

Wall St. Ethics

Penny Candy

CRT Monitors

CRT TVs

Industrial jobs

Cigarette vending machines

Muscle Cars

Laser Disc players

[monsoon]

Jane Barbe's voice has disappeared. At one time Jane Barbe was the most listened to woman in America. Easily 20 million+ would hear her voice/day.

Who is Jane Barbe? Listen to this and you will know instantly, especially if you are over 35. Some of the more famous ones are later in the recording.

[Charlotteman]

Slide Rule.

Chaperones for dates.

TV variety shows. (a la the Ed Sullivan Show)

Neighborhood hardware stores. (pre Homo Depot days)

The Republican Party without haters. (wow that was 29 years ago!)

[Allison Slater]

I enjoyed the read, SBCmetro. =]

For myself..

Public decency. Maybe I never actually saw it, but never notised the severe lack of it until I matured. For example, cuss words. Yes, they are just words, and they don't outright offend me directly. However, I do find it quite disrespectful to just throw such words around out in public without any regard to strangers nearby.

Lunch boxes. They seemed to disappear towards middle school.

Web pages done all in text.

Personal video cameras the size of a briefcase.

Manual photo cameras. CLICK! rapfrapfrapfrapf.

Television boxes.. when they actually were part of wooden boxes.

The woods behind my old house, now a subdivision.

16-bit video games with cartridges I never had to blow on. ;D

[Gard]

an Abacus

Commodore 64

Wired remote control

Live person on the other end when calling a customer service line

People's manners

[Charlotteman]

Electric guitars and microphones connected to speakers with cord.

Trading stamps at grocery store check-outs. Anyone remember Green Stamps and Gold Stamps?

Getting your gas pumped and windshield washed when you stopped for gas.

Opening a woman's car door.

Men standing up when a woman entered the room.

[Allison Slater]

When publicly exposed undergarments were outright offensive and also mostly unheard of, aside from mannequins and Sears catalogues.

[suburban george3]

parcel pick-up at the grocery (when you drove up and ran over the air bell)

meter readers (at least ones who'd walk in the yard)

popcorn popped in some other manner than in a microwave

copies of your checks from the bank

[Gard]

Easy to get credit cards.....IE, No Credit? Bad Credit? No Problem!

Stand Alone investment banks (as in those that aren't owned by a consumer banks such as BoA)

Dial-up modems (still around, but rapidly falling out of use)

Zip Drives

Super Disk

Phosphor-Soda

ISA slots on the motherboard

Original Hydroxycutt

Infant and young-child cold medicine

Ready access to pseudoephedrine (the original ingredient of Sudafed)

Trick-or-treating

[skylinefan]

Polaroid instant Cameras

Films cameras

Printers using ribbons

DOS

8 Track

Balanced Budget for the Federal Government

Wall St. Ethics

Penny Candy

CRT Monitors

CRT TVs

Industrial jobs

Cigarette vending machines

Muscle Cars

Laser Disc players

[skylinefan]

OK, here we go since I am probably one of the oldest members on urbanplanet I have seen alot of things disappear.

S&H Greenstamps

Transistor Radios AM only

45 RPM records with holes in the middle

Houses with no air conditioning

Spraying for mosquitoes using DDT. - We use to run behind the truck and play in the fog.

Calling the police using the full 7 digit phone number my mom use to keep posted near the phone (pre-911)

Wang word processors

computer punch cards

computer card readers

dot matrix printers

Oh the list goes on and on of all the stuff I saw go away.

[Charlotteman]

Condom packages being called "quarter packs".

An ounce for less than $100.

When "safe sex" meant going to bed with a man who had a vasectomy.

[Rybak 187]

Here is one People from Michigan will know, Made Rite potato chips.

[suburban george3]

This is similar to the school projector films cityboi talked about, but I thought about this thread today at the theater..

with all the screens going digital projection now, you now longer here the projector reels running up in the booth, or get the spots, scratches, splices, and imperfections of the film. I never really thought I'd miss that, but I do...