Most of the stuff I remember has already been taken, but I managed to dredge up a few:
Tang
Kids building model rockets, airplanes, etc.
Kids idolizing the Apollo astronauts (as opposed to gangsta rappers and “pro wrestlers”).
Kids actually routinely calling adults “Sir” or “Ma’am.”
Kids heading out with a .22 on their own to do some plinking.
Muscle cars with huge V-8 engines.
WWII and Korean war vets, not on Social Security.
T.V. Dinners (God, they were awful!). Yeah, I know, they’re still out there. But a lot less common.
When Steve Austin could have conceivably cost six million dollars. I doubt that’d cover his co-pay nowadys.
Corner drugstores, with a little bit of everything, owned by people you knew.
Non-politically correct Loony Tunes/Merry Melodies.
There was a remember-when article in the local paper this week, a guy in his 60’s reminiscing about camping out with his brother when they were about 10 and 12 years old. They spent five days alone, on a riverbank, several miles from their home. They had a tent, food, guns, knives, fishing poles, and a rubber raft.
I remember when a 16 ounce soft drink was about the largest drink you could buy (for yourself) and not the “kid’s size” as now offered in most fast food places.
I remember that too. I flew with my mom once, and she was livid when our smoking section became non-smoking during the flight. There were more non-smokers than smokers on the flight, apparently, and one of them sat in our row. I don’t think she ever flew again.
I remember smoking in movie theaters, at least until the early 60’s. Also elevators, grocery stores, medical clinics, and hospital maternity wards, although the nurses made you put the cigarette out when they brought the baby to you. Disgusting, innit?
I don’t remember smoking in church though, but it wouldn’t surprise me if smoking was allowed in some areas of the church. Just not the main part.
Great thread - reminds me of a television show that the local PBS affiliate in Philadelphia produced some years ago called “Things That Aren’t There Anymore” which was always a big hit at pledge time.
In any case, I think all the old world department stores are gone now, but we had two of the best in Philadelphia, Strawbridge & Clothier and Wanamakers. John Wanamaker was one of the early geniuses of marketing and really knew how to make his center city flagship store a destination for shoppers, especially at Christmastime. Here’s that ceiling train from the Wanamaker’s Toy Department, 12/15/77, in the last days of the toy department, just before the store downsized and they vacated the 10th floor which was where the toy department was located.
While we’re at it, the main draw at Wanamaker’s year round was a pipe organ in what was called the grand court, a seven story high atrium right in the middle of the store. Right at the center of the grand court was a huge (2,500 lb.) bronze eagle, the insignia of the store which gave rise to the catch phrase, “Meet at the Eagle”. The organ pipes were mounted on one of the high walls of the atrium. During the Christmas season they would cover the pipes and accompany live organ music with fountains high up on the wall lit with colored lights; the dancing waters along with a huge Christmas Tree made for a light show that was not to be missed. Over the years, the Christmas light show became pre-recorded with narration by the legendary John Facenda, who was a local Philadelphia newscaster but his voice is/was known to millions from his voice over work with NFL Films. With the pre-recorded show came additional light figures on the wall with the tree and the fountains. Here’s the light show as it looked in 1977, you can still see the fountains and the tree. The store is now Macy’s and they still have an occasional pipe organ concert in the grand court. The light show continues also, but it’s been scaled down and the last time I saw it, it did not have the dancing waters or even the tree, hardly worth the bother.
Well, I’ve gone on long enough here, but I can’t leave without mentioning a few more items.
First IBM PCs had no hard drive, two floppy drives and sold for about $2,500.00. The first IBM PC with a hard drive sold for about $5,000.00 and had a whopping ten megabyte hard drive.
The first Atari Pong game for the home was killer, only to be eclipsed soon after by a similar unit that played Breakout as well as Pong. These were dedicated game units, prior to the invention of game cartridges.
Someone mentioned Quisp and Quake cereal which were essentially different shapes of Cap’n Crunch. In the early seventies, there was another version of the same cereal called Freakies and in each box was a plastic character, each of which had a name and a pysch profile seemingly invented just to amuse college students eating cereal in the middle of the night. I can’t believe there’s actually a Freakies.comwebsite.
I could go on and on, but I’ll just say again thanks for the OP and thanks to koeeoaddi for the trip down memory lane.
Say, do you think that sometimes at night, on that abandoned 10th floor, an eerie pipe organ begins to play while that little train starts itself up and…
I’m amazed by all those who mention rotary-dial phones as a blast from the past. We still used ours until about 8 or 9 years ago, and I know several people who still have theirs. We’ve still got it, in fact, although it’s not plugged in. Technically speaking its not ours – it was leased from British Telecom, but they show no desire to have it back!
Many Catholic churches raise money by holding bingo games in the parish hall, which is sometimes adjacent to the church proper, but sometimes in the basement of the very building that contains the sanctuary. When I was growing up in the 1970’s, the air during such games was stereotypically thick with smoke. Although times have changed, cigarettes and bingo still go hand-in-hand for many. According to this article from 2002, a Rochester church was still accommodating the nicotine fiends:
