I see those carts on the bus a lot. Older women, older men, people whose dress and accents suggest they’re immigrants…
Speaking of long distance, it was so expensive that we’d often wait to call someone until we were in their town. I have vivid memories of standing at a bank of payphones in the Minneapolis airport, with a stack of quarters (and a notebook full of phone numbers - directory assistance cost good money, too!). Dialing everyone we knew there between flights: “Cousin Beth, how are you…Is that a baby? Whoops, gotta call a list of other people! Frat bro Chuck, how d’ya like the Twin Cities?.. Great, gotta run! Aunt Audrey, how are… yes, I called Beth, but how are you? Yes, I heard about Beth’s baby, but how… oh, they just called our plane, bye!”
I remember biking Cape Cod back in the 70s, and calling my girlfriend in Seattle. Now, it’d be no big deal, pull out my phone. No romance. Then, it was me at the only payphone I could find, alone on the end of a pier at midnight. Counting my fistful of change to rent three minutes of her voice, by the light of a flickering 30 watt bulb, the only thing visible on that coast.
I still remember the phone number for time & temperature from where I grew up in Dayton, OH: 937-499-1212.
Out of curiosity I just called it. It is still time & temperature! Albeit there is a pretty long ad you’re forced to listen to before the crucial data is revealed.
“At the tone, the time will be two minutes after you called…”
Ooh, I’d forgotten; when I was a kid, ours had that beep!
“At the tone, the time will be Eight Forty-Two… beep!”
I always pictured spies synchronizing their watches before the big caper…
By the way, I live near a public park on a lake, with piers full of boats and people fishing. I’m always heartened to see kids (yep, unaccompanied grade schoolers) walking/biking down to the park. With fishing poles, footballs, baseball bats, soccer balls, or frisbees. And sometimes I’ve noticed those same kids returning home for dinner, now wet and sunburned with a gang of frisbee/fishing friends. (“Hey, mom, can Matt’n’Jake’n’Anna’n’Jake’slittlebrother stay for supper?”)
I’m so happy that raising “free range children” still happens.
Bottled water has been mentioned, but what about Snapple? When did bottled Kool-Aid for grownups become so popular?
I wish I had thought up that idea.
What happened that grocery stores no longer stock cut-up chicken pieces of the WHOLE chicken, not just a package of legs or wings or breasts? I have to buy a whole chicken and cut it apart (something that takes some practice to get right; I’m almost there…) Or is it just my grocery store?
Since I’m talking about chickens, when did chicken breasts grow so huge? They are no longer small enough for a single serving; they’re almost the size of a small turkey. To get smaller pieces, I have to buy a “young” chicken, whole, and cut it apart.
Snapple has been popular for long enough that it was one of the more frequently “placed” products in early seasons of Seinfeld, ca. 1991-1995.
Agreed, it was really in the early '90s when it gained national prominence. it was originally a New York brand (which might help explain the Seinfeld references), but had achieved national distribution by around 1992, and was purchased by Quaker Oats in '94.
After a long bit of traveling this summer, it occurred to me that, as a young person in the '60s and '70s, one thing that never would have occurred to us was the idea of zipping up a suitcase.
I thought about that when our son came home from college, where he had a new girl friend. They just face timed every couple of days, and it cost nothing.
Yeah, well, when was the last time you (in the US) dialed a 7-digit phone number?
I regularly call numbers in my area code with 7 digits.
This afternoon.
You can still dial numbers that are in the same area code with seven digits around here; at least, if you’re dialing from a landline. (Though I’m not entirely living in the 1970’s; “dialing” is figurative, I punched buttons.)
In ye olden days, my family subscribed to TV Guide. I would look through the week’s schedule and circle programs of interest. This was before VCRs so I had to watch these shows “live” which was a lot of effort to see something that was often disappointing.
In my area, we can no longer do 7-digit phone numbers, even in the same area code.
As I understand it, in the US, it depends on whether a particular area code was split up geographically when more numbers were needed, or if an overlay was used (i.e., adding a second area code to the same geographic area). If the former, dialing a local number without the area code (i.e., just 7 digits) is likely still possible.
(sorry, double post)
Yeah, and my cell phone has a different area code from my home phone. ISTR a scene in Pulp Fiction where Jules was saying that he did not know anyone in <certain area code>, which is to say that in major urban areas, making 7-digit calls is becoming increasingly difficult. But, on the other hand, most of the numbers one calls are stored in the phone or handset, so using 10-digit numbers is hugely less burdensome than it used to be. Storing 10 digits is not more difficult and is generally more reliable than storing 7. And, on cell phones, you can store the lead “1”, but it is never necessary anymore.
Okay.
But for the trillions of folks living in the DFW metroplex, that shit went away in the 90s.