This isn’t to say that they were a good idea then either- it could well be that the reason you don’t see them anymore is that they were rightly stopped- but what are some of the things you remember that today would probably be on CNN or have a protest if they happened? Examples:
Smoking: I’m 42- not that old as most would define the term- but I remember when there were ashtrays in grocery stores (at the end of every other row), doctor’s offices, hospital rooms (not that terribly long ago even- the 1990s), and if restaurants even had a non-smoking section it was much smaller than the smoking (or regular) section.
The Grease Bucket: this may be a southern thing but I’m sure somebody outside the south had it- when my mother fried bacon or chicken or pretty much anything else, the grease was poured into a bucket kept on the stove. Next time something was fried, the congealed grease was taken out and heated. This was pretty much a standard practice in every country house when I was growing up (though my aunt, more of a social climber and in the city, didn’t do it).
Unspayed animals: Growing up on a farm that was miles and miles from the nearest town we were always getting stray dogs (especially during hunting season) and cats (our rabbits never did breed much, but cats- OMG). There was no humane shelter in our county to take them too, and while spaying and neutering were available at vets we never had it done to the “welfare animals”- it was too expensive- so there were puppies and kittens every year. We were pretty successful at finding takers for all the pups (especially those who were part one of our breed dogs) but kittens you just can’t give away; most of them ended up leaving of their own accord (since unlike dogs most domesticated cats can survive in the woods), with only the mothers staying around.
I’ll also admit that our animals didn’t receive anywhere near the shots they should have: we’d have an old “animal doctor” (not a vet but worked as one) come around once a year or so and give the rabies vaccines to however many we could catch, but I doubt any of them ever had distemper shots or heartworm treatments or anything like, and again- on farms in the area, this is how it was done. (And I have to say that if you subtract the ones hit by cars, the dogs seemed to live just as long and be just as healthy as the completely maintained ones we’ve had since have.)
This is one that a lot of people can’t believe, but so help me it happened and my family wasn’t the only one: my mother was a science teacher and in summers she’d go back to college (the government would pay for it back in the '60s). Babysitting was often a problem, and so on nice summer days when no babysitter was available she would leave me, my brother and my sister (we were about 9,8, and 2.5) in the school parking lot, parked under trees in view of the window of her classroom, with a picnic lunch. We’d play on the quad and eat lunch and maybe go take a nap in the car if it was cool enough and were fine. This wasn’t seen as neglect because we’d actually often play with other kids whose parents did the exact same thing (often other science teacher’s kids since the '60s was big on CE for high school science teachers and many had the same deal as my mother). I was too little to remember much of this, but my sister and brother both swear that there was never any seeming “stranger danger”, and we were well behaved/sensible enough to not run in the street (and also knew that we weren’t to go off with another adult or anything), and my sister and brother were informed “if there’s any danger get in the car, lock the doors, and blow the horn”. All was well, it was what it was. Today, my parents would be incarcerated and so would other parents who did this (and again, there were several of them.)
So what are some things from your childhood or earlier years that you just never see anymore? (And again, not saying that this is a bad thing- a parent would be a fool to leave their kids in the parking lot today- but. it happened and nobody was the worse for it.)
