When I was dating in the early 80s and well into the 90s, it was considered kinky for a woman to shave her crotch.
Traveler’s checks. I remember that we used to get traveler’s checks before going on vacation or traveling somewhere. I haven’t thought about them in years until I read about a clerk at a store refused to sell them to a person of color who was buying them to use for rent payment. So they’ve gone from a “safer way to use money” to a poor tax for people who can’t use a checking account for whatever reason.
Yes- I bought one specifically because we were taking a road trip vacation this summer and I wasn’t sure if cell service was readily available everywhere we were going.
Came in handy too, although not where I thought. I had thought eastern Wyoming and western Nebraska would be relatively bereft of cell coverage. Turned out that south-central Nebraska had NO coverage, while the more remote areas on the trip were generally well provisioned. We also got the occasional random areas where we technically had cell coverage, but it was so slow and low-power that we may as well have not had it.
My addition to the list of subtle behaviors that have gone by the wayside is being asked if you wanted to sit in the smoking or non-smoking section at a restaurant. That’s been done for at least 15-20 years around here, but was the norm when I was younger.
When I was a kid, EVERYWHERE in a restaurant was a smoking section. I don’t remember exactly when non-smoking sections started to become a thing.
And I’m surprised that nobody has mentioned this yet (and apologies if I missed it): writing a check for, well, anything. I used to write several checks a week, now, it’s maybe one a month, if at all. And it was common practice to write a check at the grocery store for 10 or 20 or 30 bucks over the amount you owed, just so you could get some cash.
This can be added to the bit about outgoing mail. I suddenly had the thought that I hadn’t been to the mailbox in a while because we used to mail our energy bill out (they didn’t pay online) and I haven’t done that in a while. Couldn’t tell you the last thing I mailed that wasn’t a package of some sort.
Same with airlines. There was a time you could smoke at 10.000 m and I liked it.
That was something only porn actors and actresses would do. Well, that is what the world has come to… :eek:
I never see neighborhood kids outside playing random games, random contests like 3-on-3 or 4-on-4 football games stretching across two neighbor’s lawns, regardless of whether we’d asked permission to use their property or not. No kids biking around the neighborhood. It’s all organized now: kids join squads or clubs.
Anyone remember Friday night trips to Blockbuster video?
That’s, like, way gone.
You don’t see teens sprawled across the hoods of their cars anymore. That was a very popular place to kick back.
And you just don’t see people cutting their jeans and turning them into jorts (jean shorts). Now, they are bought that way.
Who pulls out a back-pocket comb anymore for a few whisks through the hair nowadays? It might happen, but nowhere near as often.
Littering was so bad in the 70’s that we needed a massive national campaign against it. It was very common (and didn’t enrage many people) to just see someone toss out their McDonalds or Burger King trash right out the car window. A big deal to very few.
Seems like going door to door and offering to shovel snow (or cut lawns) for a few bucks took a nose dive after the 1970’s.
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To show my redneck heritage, my father always had a pickup truck with beer windows in the back (those were sliding windows where you could reach back and grab a new beer without taking your eyes off the road).
He would take me and my friends driving but we had to sit in the back in the scorching Louisiana heat where you were lucky to stand up without losing significant skin in the process. Nothing was illegal back then because accidents hadn’t yet been invented. We got stopped a few times and the cops always apologized to us and told us to make it home safely. You could blow things up with our homemade cannon and our full scale arsenal as the mood struck.
The liquor age was officially 18 but nobody checked. It was really just a height chart measured by the store counter so, if you were over 12 or so, you were in the game. The driving age was 15 but nobody cared about that either. I learned to drive when I was 13, drove everywhere when I was 14 and got my full license on my 15th birthday.
I still refuse to acknowledge the turn of the century. As recently as 2000, I tried to smuggle my pet iguana through Logan airport because I didn’t have anyone to take care of my junior T-Rex. I tried to explain to the very buxom security agent that she better be careful when she opened that pet carrier but she didn’t listen. She opened it anyway and ended up with a giant lizard holding on to her boobs. She screamed, he bolted down the terminal and I had to run through security to catch him.
I would probably be shot for that today. Simpler times.
Yeah. GPS and google maps are great to find the fastest way somewhere, but they don’t have an option for ‘a bit longer but probably cooler scenery’.
If I’m not in a rush or I’m just trying to explore an area, paper maps are great.
People no longer even ask if it’s OK for them to smoke in your house or car, they just go outside by default.
Has this been mentioned? Earbuds / earphones.
In the 70’s / 80’s you maybe saw a kid here or there with a Walkman or one of those earphones/radio things, but you would never see an adult walking down the street with a set of earphones strung over his head - earbuds didn’t even really exist when I was a kid anyway.
How about battery technology - has anybody mentioned that? Time was everyone (if you had a car in the UK) would have a battery charger in the garage. AND sometimes people would actually put their car in the garage.
But here’s the biggie for me - and the why-it-is. It just about fits the timeframe because it’s a generational effect. Sports participation for kids is way down (in the UK at least - US also?). I see a real big drop off in the last 10 years, but I think the start of the phenomenon was the 80’s and into the 90’s. And the reason is this: this is the first generation of adolescents who, rather than getting involved in sports, sit in their bedrooms gaming - where their parents don’t think this is unusual/unhealthy/unacceptable because it’s exactly what they did as well.
Hmm - a little rant there. Sorry 'bout that.
j
Wristwatches.
Really? I see plenty of watches, they are just now mostly smart watches.
Ha! I still have a Thomas Guide in my car, but I can’t remember the last time I used it. Over 10 years, for sure.
things that use to be considered luxries that have filtered down to even low income people
I remember that if someone had 2 cars… dads car was the nice one and moms was the old beater if it wasn’t used for a trade-in
Having more than one tv in the house …If you did have more than one the good one was in the parent’s room and if the kids did it was the old B&W KMC special dad bought in college that was unearthed from the garage so they could the atari
More than one pc …remember the parents had the up to date one and you had the old one with some simple games on it to keep you off of dads so you didn’t mess it up
and you had to share the Nintendo with your family …now every kid in the family has a ps4 or xb1 because of online gaming …
Not all of them. I am really into watches as jewelry and I have some beautiful ones.
Great fact - do you know what someone who is really into watches is called?
Answer: A horologist which isn’t nearly as fun as it sounds. The cost involved directly refers to the number of “complications” which is a near perfect analogy.
My parents owned a restaurant in the 1970’s and Minnesota had just enacted their clean-air regulations, one of the first in the nation. They fussed and fumed, because the (small) dining room really couldn’t be easily divided. The only practical solution was to put nonsmokers in the rear, and the smokers in the prime seats in the front for the majority of their customers. And no one complained, and it was often disregarded anyway.
And you balanced your checkbook to the penny, writing down each check in a register and reconciling against the statement and the actual physical checks they returned to you. You had to remember to add in ten cents per check, which was their processing fee at the time. I haven’t balanced a checkbook in ages, although I’m sure some still do so out of habit or necessity.
If you had a savings account, you had a passbook with your deposits and withdrawals and balance, updated by the teller. You had to bring the passbook with you if you wanted anything done. At least at that time, savings paid real interest and checking accounts never paid interest, so you kept as much money as possible in savings instead of checking, moving money around if you expected to write several checks.
Yeah but at least now you have a story where you can mention her titties twice.