At my job in NYC, in 1970, we were paid weekly in envelopes of cash. This included lots of overtime, which was totally off the books. I was always afraid of getting mugged on my way home, with an envelope containing hundreds of dollars in cash.
I live in a neighborhood with occasional momentary power outages. My computer, TV, router, and cable box are all on uninterrupted power sources. The UPS saves me from running around rebooting everything when the power blips.
The monopoly by the Wicked Witch of Ma Bell was ended in 1983, and suddenly you could go out and buy your own phone. I well remember the thrill (I think we bought it at K-Mart). A possibly even greater rush was shopping for our first answering machine. Now we didn’t have to talk to people!
For those in love with the romance of the rotary dial, there are quite a few of those phones still for sale, including recreations of 1950s pay phones. And you can keep them in your very own phone booth.
I’ve got a UPS. It’s good for about two hours. We have power outages longer than that several times a year.
"I beg of you don’t take my phone,
I want to lease, don’t want to own,
Reach up and touch some other fool,
Yes breaking up is hard on you. "
I moved to Colorado in 1974 and discovered that Coors was not nearly so well regarded in its home turf. In fact, it was commonly compared to “making love in a canoe.”*
*Fucking near water.
Back in the day many an airline stewardess (as they then were) supplemented her (as they then were) income by hauling cases of Coors from West to East.
Nowadays they just drag duty free booze in from wherever.
Cholesterol concerns came later. The original reason people bought margarine was that it was much cheaper than butter.
You may not feel the difference looking back at old ads, because of inflation. White margarine was before my time and my first job paid 75 cents an hour. What might feel like an insignificant difference in price to modern folks was a crucial difference back then.
Here’s another dustbin item - anyone remember Christmas Clubs? I remember my Dad explaining how they work in the early 1970s (deposit a little money every week, and get a check in December for Christmas shopping)
I remember those, although my parents never had Christmas Club accounts. There was also layaway, which I don’t think exists any longer.
Actually, Walmart has layaway, although the web-page currently says that ‘Layaway season has ended’.
That’s not a dustbin item. They’re still around.
SERVU FCU - Accounts - Clubs .
Personal Saving Accounts | Five Star Bank | Western New York .
Here’s one I just remembered…S&H green stamps. You got them when you purchased stuff from a member store, and if you pasted enough into a booklet, and saved enough booklets, you could go to their place and get something for free! (yeah, right, but it was a more innicent age in some ways…). I can dimly remember saving books of them for something that is long left my memory, but it was sooo hard to get enough…
And there were more obscure trading stamps too, like Plaid Stamps, distributed by A&P (also in the dustbin of history now). My mother had books of them.
Ooooh yes!
It was my job to paste the stamps into the books; and as a reward for doing that job, I got to spend a certain percentage of them – the stores had things for kids as well as for grownups.
I don’t remember what the percentage was; but I remember being excited when my mother and I went to the S&H store to spend our books. I must have been under 10 at least most of the time; I’m pretty sure we weren’t still doing that by the time I was in my teens, though it’s possible that when I was in my teens I no longer found it exciting and my mother just dealt with it herself.
– huh. Apparently they were still going pretty strong when I was in my teens.
Back in the day before craft beer, Coors was one of the best American beers you could get- compare it to Bud or Hamms. It is still pretty good- for the type of beer it is.
But if you like dark beers or hoppy IPAs, then sure Coors is not the beer for you.
For Coor type easy drinking good on a hot day refreshing beer, I prefer Pacifico. It’s better than Corona, and hell Coors is better than Corona.
Wow. I did not know that.
We had both Green Stamps and Top Value Stamps in our area. If I’m remembering correctly, you could technically get boats and cars, since they were in the catalog. I knew even as a young kid that wasn’t happening, although I held out hope for scuba equipment. All I ever actually got was a soccer ball.
Remember grocery “clickers” - a mechanical pocket device for keeping track of how much you’re going to need to pay at the cash register, so you know when to stop buying I suppose. Mom’s looked like this https://www.pinterest.com/pin/417638565428797217/ - only went up to $20 - because how could a family’s groceries cost more than that…
Green Stamps were uncommon where I grew up (SoCal), but we had Blue Chip Stamps everywhere.
Allan Sherman tells us about Green Stamps. Video with lots of old-timey pictures of Green Stamps, advertisements, stores, etc.
ETA: One of the images in this video shows a sign for an old-time Sinclair gas station.