Conveniences from your childhood which were were actually more convenient than today

In My Humble Opinion
41

  • Toys that you could imagine were talking to you and make up your own conversation with - not dolls that talked to you inRL and kind of freak you out (Tickle Me Elmo freaks me out hardcore).

  • Bicycles that you rode everywhere and got exercise with, and not power wheels that you’re trying to imitate your parents with.

  • Phones that were firmly attached to where they were sitting by a cord that couldn’t pop out - not the cordless that we have to buzz every time we want to make a phone call.

And I’m only 21! So much has changed in the past 10 years that it’s almost like an entirely different era.

Wait. I miss when cell phones were an adults-only thing. This has only changed within the past six or seven years, or so. If you can’t drive yet, you don’t need a cell phone, sorry. Do what I did when you need a ride home - call your parents collect and when it says to say your name, say “pick me up at the pool.” and hang up before they can accept the call.

~Tasha

42

To the OP: I guess you’ve never had a tape chewed up, then. I have - dozens of them. Or ruined when the pipes burst. Or scratched all the way down the tape when a little bit of grit is caught in the playback head.

ALL of my recorded viewing is DVD nowadays, except for a little VHS timeshifting now and then. Even that is decreasing as I find more and more TV series seasons on Netflix. Nope, I have very little nostalgia for video tape.

43

:slight_smile:
[QUOTE=Dinsdale]
Knife sharpeners (ding dong) walked through your neighborhood (and moms were home to take advantage of them!)
[/QUOTE]
Dinsdale, I actually heard one of these going down my street the other day! I didn’t know what it was, but my husband told me that one used to go down his street as a kid. The funniest thing about it is that it was about 7:00 on Saturday, and we were in bed…we didn’t have time to jump out of bed, run outside, and flag him down…which is a shame, because my knives need sharpening desperately. Guess this is the only day they can come around & hope to get any business at all!

44

[QUOTE=MrDibble]
and not forgetting - the fresh fish bakkie**, with the vendor blowing on his Kelphorn. Fresh snoek. To your door! Good times.
[/QUOTE]

I don’t know what snoek is, but we still get fish sold door to door around here. There’s a guy who comes around everyone once in a while, haddock and pollock, fresh and smoked. Granted, given that there’s about a dozen wharves within a half hour of here, it usually isn’t too hard to find fresh seafood. We never have to go looking for it–Dad gets a fair bit given to him by his customers.

45

[QUOTE=interface2x]
There are all kinds of tricks for this. You may not be able to menu through, but try out the track up button. That works on most. If that doesn’t work, hit fast-forward up to the highest speed. It’ll stop on its own once you hit the menu.
[/QUOTE]

That works sometimes, but not always. I’ve had DVD’s that you couldn’t go to the next track, fast forward, bring up the menu or anything until the ads were done. Only thing you could do was wait through them or hit the power button. I used that option a few times.

46

And people paid with cash, or gave you credit until you got paid on Friday. No checks, no check cashing cards, no credit cards, nuttin’.

47

[QUOTE=SHAKES]
I can remember being about six or seven riding my bike to the grocery store to buy my mom and dad cigarettes.

I’m pretty sure that shit don’t fly any more.
[/QUOTE]

Holy shit! I had totally forgotten I did this for my dad back in the 70s. I would ride my bike down to the corner store and buy him a carton. No questions asked. :eek:

Blanche and Annie-Xmas, you got to keep the change? No fair!

I was a bit “brand conscious” in my youth. I had to have my Nikes and Jordache.

I’ll add another convenience of the old, non-cordless, non-electric phones. You could actually show someone you were pissed off by slamming the phone down on the receiver while hanging up. Hitting the “Talk” button really hard doesn’t really get the job done, does it?

48

[QUOTE=Eleanor of Aquitaine]
Once upon a time you could purchase a boxed item, cut one piece of tape and then remove the item from the box. These days heavy-duty tools are required to remove the simplest of items from packaging that’s designed to withstand a nuclear blast.

I miss being able to tear shrink-wrapping with my fingernail.
[/QUOTE]

That’s no kidding. Used to be you could have your brand-spankin’ new toy out of the box and have the “new” rubbed off by the time you got to the car. Now you’re damned lucky to be able to get the kid’s new toy freed from all the wire twisty thingies before their bedtime.

Geez, I wish I had stock in the company that makes the wire twisty thingies…

49

[QUOTE=InappropriateHumor]
That’s no kidding. Used to be you could have your brand-spankin’ new toy out of the box and have the “new” rubbed off by the time you got to the car. Now you’re damned lucky to be able to get the kid’s new toy freed from all the wire twisty thingies before their bedtime.

Geez, I wish I had stock in the company that makes the wire twisty thingies…
[/QUOTE]
I detest the packaging of CD’s. The entire freakin outside seems to be covered in security tape which will never come off cleanly. Always takes me several minutes to get it cleanly off, and if I don’t it’s a pain to close the case.

I also reminisce about audio tapes. They were more convenient when it comes to length. Granted, there are digital solutions now, and you can still record the radio with off the shelf tapes if you want.

But it was very convienient to tote, for instance, The Wall in one 541/2 inch (or whatever) tape that won’t break if you drop it and doesnt necessarily have to be in it’s own case, instead of two large, breakable, scratchable CDs.

Although the inconvenience of CDs is its own convenience, in a way, since they are a lot harder to lose if they remain in their original cases.

50

[QUOTE=MrDibble]

  • umm, possibly you’d say “soda pop”? It came in a range of flavours, from orange, pine, cola, gingerbeer, lemonade…

[/QUOTE]

Pine soda? There’s one that hasn’t hit these shores.

51

[QUOTE=kittenblue]
Telephone service. Used to be, the phone rang, you answered it if you were home, you talked to people. It was considered polite to let the phone ring ten times, to give someone a chance to get up from the couch or come up from the basement, or to wipe.
[/QUOTE]

Different cultures, different times. I well remember the days of hard-wired phones that could not be easily disconnected or silenced, and often start to marvel that this was the norm for generations. Then after thinking about it I come to the conclusion that people weren’t so free and easy about making calls, possibly because it used to be so much more expensive. You didn’t call somebody unless you knew them, and had a good reason for doing so. Preferably, it would be a reason that was important to both you and the other person. IMO voicemail, answering machines, and the practice of disconnecting or silencing your own phone arose as a reaction to the upsurge in telemarketing and and similar activities.

52

[QUOTE=KRC]
Time was when you dialed a phone number and talked to a human being. Now you press a series of buttons till you get to a point where you can leave a message. And no one ever calls you back.
[/QUOTE]
This was my #1 response. The development of the phone tree and auto-everything has made innumerable customer service situations more “efficient” but not particularly easier.

It was also easier buying baseball cards, since there were only a couple manufacturers and a limited number of cards in the annual sets. Now, it’s Limited Edition This and Special Collector’s That with a myriad of companies vying for ones money (plus, no gum!)

53

And telephones were only in houses, offices, and phone booths. You could watch a movie without being bothered by someone’s cell phone and/or text messaging every five minutes.

54

[QUOTE=Sarahfeena]
:slight_smile: Dinsdale, I actually heard one of these going down my street the other day!
[/QUOTE]

There is actually a guy who comes around our neighborhood in a Chicago suburb. At least up until last year. As I heard it, he was an old retired guy who lived with his adult kid, and did this as a hobby - a way to get out of the house. His kid would drive him to a neighborhood, the old man would walk around for a couple hours, make a couple bucks, and the kid would pick him up and drive him home. Neat!

55

[QUOTE=Nutty Bunny]

I was a bit “brand conscious” in my youth. I had to have my Nikes and Jordache.

[/QUOTE]

I guess I was thinking of a time before there were Nikes. Ran track in HS, and remember when the first “waffle trainer” came out. Even before that there were Chuck Taylors, PF Flyers, and Keds, but other than that, gym shoes were pretty much gym shoes.

Hell, back then adults ate red meat, drank, and smoked, instead of working out!

Jeans, there were pretty much Lee’s, Levis, and Wranglers. And no-names from Sears.

You kids! :wink:

56

When working on cars, one didn’t need to be a contortionist and computer science engineer to adjust the (now extinct) carbuerator or change the spark plugs.

If one was out and needed to call someone, you could easily find (now nearly extinct) working pay phones.

Baseball games on broadcast TV.

57

[QUOTE=Slithy Tove]
Pine soda? There’s one that hasn’t hit these shores.
[/QUOTE]

Thank Og…

58

When I was a kid in the early 1950s, there was a nice little grocery store right across the street. Not a “convenience store,” but a real, honest-to-pete grocery with a meat counter, freshly made deli specialties, and an in-house bakery. The proprietor, Mr. Miller, took pride in the neighborhood, and the Miller family knew everyone by name. Anyone from the neighborhood was welcome to buy things on credit, at no interest, and pay back when they were able. If you fell on really hard times and couldn’t afford to pay at all, Mr. Miller would give you food for free.

He wasn’t open 24/7, and he didn’t have a Slurpee machine, but I sure miss Mr. Miller and his store.

59

[QUOTE=SHAKES]
You know, I just got to thinking. Remember when they used to sell candy cigarettes?

[/QUOTE]

I loved the little boxes they came in. We also had paper cigs (hollow tubes) with reddish-gray stuff at the end, and when you blowed in them, this powdery stuff that almost looked like smoke came out. I don’t remember if candy was involved. Maybe bubble gum.

Cough cough. I shoulda stuck with the phonies.

Going to school was definitely easier. In grade school, we were asked to bring a couple of pencils and a pencil box. By junior high, pencils, a ballpoint, and a PeeChee. By high school, we needed three-ring binders.

Now I’m told parents get long lists of very specific items that can only be bought at certain stores, and that it costs a fortune.

School used to be free.

60

[QUOTE=pinkfreud]
The proprietor, Mr. Miller, took pride in the neighborhood, and the Miller family knew everyone by name. Anyone from the neighborhood was welcome to buy things on credit, at no interest, and pay back when they were able. If you fell on really hard times and couldn’t afford to pay at all, Mr. Miller would give you food for free.
[/QUOTE]

Times have certianly changed, and not in a good way.

My aunt used to own a little country store which sold gas, groceries, and had a side-business of selling heating oil. My aunt was a tender-hearted soul, and couldn’t stand to hear of people not having the things they needed. I don’t think she ever sold any baby formula-- she’d give it to people who said they couldn’t pay and just asked them to repay her when they could. She did the same with groceries, gas and heating oil.

Unfortunately, people* didn’t *pay her back. They just kept coming for more. They sucked her dry. It was ultimately her fault, of course, in that she couldn’t say no to people who said they were in need, and she was dumb enough to believe in the ultimate goodness of the human heart. She was certain if she ever was in need, they would help her.

Little by little, she went broke. A few years ago, there was a horrible cold snap and fuel oil prices were through the roof. People came to her, begging for help, saying they couldn’t afford to heat their homes. That year, she kept the entire community warm, delivering filling people’s tanks in exchange for I.O.Us. A few did make payments, but the vast majority made no effort whatsoever to repay her.

The day came when her gas tanks went dry and there was no money to refill them. The suppliers hadn’t been paid for he groceries which they had sold her. She had nothing. Everything was gone, sucked up by the community who watched with utter indifference as she went bankrupt.

As I told my husband, this story should have ended like It’s a Wonderful Life, with the whole community rallying around her in her dark hour. They did not.

After she died, we found boxes and boxes full of the I.O.Us, some decades old, along with about $20,000 in bad checks, which she had declined to prosecute if the people told her they had made a mistake and would repay her. Those bits of paper, those empty promises, were all that she had in the end.

Her household goods were auctioned. True hatred is a very ugly emotion, and I swam in its icy depths as I watched the same parasites buy the tattered shreds of her life for pennies on the dollar. I still cannot completely rid myself of the anger.