Stuff that no longer exists

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I’ve heard that “milkmen” used to bring milk to people’s houses, and that the milk was in glass bottles. All my life, milk has come in cardboard or plastic containers, and you have to go to the store to pick it up yourself.

S&H Green Stamps and Blue Chip Stamps are gone. I remember mom had a big drawer of them, and I’d scour the catalogs for the toys I wanted. (Mom would always end up getting something stupid though, like an appliance or something.)

Long before I was old enough to drive, gas station used to give away “premiums” with the purchase of a certain amount of gas. I liked the little plastic animals from Arco. (Ark-o, eh?) The 'rents had lots of glasses emblazoned with sports team logos. Dad had a complete set of Presidential Coins from Shell. I still have them. And they’d pump your gas, check your oil and fan belt, and clean your windscreen at the station for no additional charge.

When I was old enough to drive, dad let me use his Arco credit card. Those are long gone. Come to think of it, I don’t think there are any “gas cards” left. I think they’ve all become Visa or Mastercard.

I remember when Visa was called “BankAmericard”. There was a commercial during Christmas time whose jingle was set to Jingle Bells. “Something, something, something / Bank-A-aer-i-card!”

Remember those two cowboys on the Miller’s Outpost commercials? Does Miller’s Outpost still exist? I don’t think so.

When I was a kid, my Thingmaker and Strange Change Machine had hotplates in them. No more Strange Change Machines, and Thingmakers are now “lightbulb powered”. (I need to get some more “Strange Change” monsters. Should I store them as cubes, or expanded? Fortunately, I have plenty of Plastic Goop for the Thingmaker.)

There was an old white-haird man named Mr. Kelly who used to drive a three-wheeled bakery truck through the neighbourhood. Man, did I like to grab a chocolate-glazed raised doughnut on the way to school! Twenty cents.

And the ice cream trucks used to be presentable. Now they’re all beat-up hunks of junk.

Pup tents made of canvas, and held up by “tent poles” that were straight wooden poles. (Not that I’d use one now, what with my lightweight nylon tents with shock-corded poles; but I think about my old BSA tent from time to time. I traded it for in jr. high for a metal Hobie skateboard.)

When I was six (maybe five) I got a minibike. I haven’t seen one in a while. Most of the kids’ motos seem to be miniature motorcycles.

Speaking of bikes… Two-stroke engines. My friends used to mock my Yamahas when I’d pull up. “YIIIN, yinyinyinyinyinyin!”

Metal dashboards. My '66 MGB has a nice black crinkle-finish metal dash. Dad’s Japanese pickups had metal dashes. My '47 Willys CJ2A has a metal dash. But no, we must be kept safe. Padded dashes for everyone!

Percolators.

2

Crunchy Reeses Peanut Butter Cups, regular but with crunchy peanuts on top of the peanut butter and under the chocolate.

3

The milkman really did deliver! I recall someone stealing the bottles off our front porch back in the early 70’s.

Dairy Queens are few and far between these days.
Vinyl - albums, that is - are close to extinction.
VHS movies are on their way out, as well.

4

:sigh:…Drive-in movie theaters. Talk about nostalgia. Just saying it makes me think of lime green novas and fogged up windows. :smiley:

5

The Milkmen deliver cartons still here in the Isle of Man.

And in England, - bottles.

6

Geez, not around here. In this state (KY) Dairy Queen seems to have pursued a strategy of locating in towns too small for any other fast food franchise.

Drive-in theaters.
Burger Chefs.
Leaded gas.
Music on AM radio.

7

There seems to be an inordinate number of them in the PNW. (Unless I’m confusing them with Foster’s.)

Oh, yeah. There was one about a mile from me when I lived in Lancaster. My neighbour who used to live across the street from me here in L.A. was up there shooting a film, and he snapped a photo of the marquee which still showed the last film: 2001: A Space Odyssey. (This was a long time after the movie came out. I guess they thought it was appropriate.) Now the Jet Drive-in is long gone. So is the house across the street from me where my neighbour lived.

I went to the drive-ins a lot. (There were three on Avenue H and Sierra Hwy, the Jet, and one in Palmdale.) Snack bars. Remember going to the snack bar?

Speaking of movies, what ever happened to intermissions? When I was a kid, long movies would have an intermission.

8

Those Carnation Space Food stick things. I loved those, and my mom never bought them, so whenever I went over to the neighbor’s house his mom would let me have one. I can still sort of remember the taste, caramely but powdery. Sorta. Kinda.

Blonde - there are three Dairy Queens within five miles of my house! What I miss is Cock Robin Ice Cream stores, with their neato-keen square scoops.

9

How could I have forgot to mention drive-in theatres?? We had one at Hwy 75 & Forest in Dallas - I (didn’t) see so many movies there…
Reminds me of the song “Night Moves” by Bob Seger, that does.

10

Cripes Johnny, go and make me feel old for remembering all that shit too. Nothing personal because I’ve decided to give in anyway. I’m an associate member of AARP by virtue of my lovely wife. I like getting all the discounts but I was not ready for this. Oh well. In for a penny… I’ve already started practicing my geezing. “You kids get off my lawn!” How’s that? Am I geezery enough? :smiley:

Some of the oil companies still have gas charge cards. I recall getting an offer for Texaco recently.

I had a canvas pup tent. My dad got it at Bob’s Bargain Barn, a Tucson landmark that sold camping gear and army surplus for decades until Popular drove them out of business. Corporate chain store fuckers. I had a minibike too. 2-1/2 horse Tecumseh engine with a centrifugal clutch. Came from JC Penny’s. Not a real performer but I managed to catch some air with it riding over a four foot high mound of dirt. Busted my ass in eleven places and thought my folks were going to kill me because the throttle handle broke off when it hit earth.

The EPA killed two stroke cycles. Yamaha managed to build a compliant 2-stroke street bike in the early eighties but it was short lived.

Phoenix still has at least two thriving drive-in theaters. Of course we don’t close them for the winter. Summer is the slow season. During the season when it’s still over 100º at eleven o’clock at night you stay home or go to an indoor theater. It’s finally starting to cool off so maybe I can talk LadyLion into going with me

Oh, Meat Loaf’s Paradise by Dashboard Light is the ultimate drive-in movie song :wink:

11

Heh, there were still milk bottles and AM radio down here until 15-18 years ago. Some area still use milk bottles.

I miss firecrackers and skyrockets; they banned them down here (stupid paternal government…)

12

Sorry about that Padeye!

Mine was a Taco 44 with a 4 h.p. Briggs & Stratton. After it caught fire and burned up, I rode a 5 h.p. Tecumseh-powered Bonanza. I preferred the Taco, because it started easier. Besides, dad made the gold, metal-flake seat (the bike was blue and gold – dad was a Naval officer, after all!) that went with my gold, metal-flake helmet.

“Ding! Ding ding ding!” Remember that sound? :smiley:

13

Well, someone tell Dairy Queen to come back into the Dallas area! The Bob’s Big Boy is gone as well…and I saw firecrackers on the 4th of July out in an open field once upon a time. Real orange crushes, cool album jackets: us ancient folks remember it all, (or not…the memory’s the first thing to go, isn’t it?) And so, I was saying…

What was I saying? Oh yes! I remember:

What about roller skating rinks? Met my first boyfriend at one, too many years ago.

14

Well, Maureen, Blonde, and Johnny L.A., there are three drive-in theaters within an hour’s drive of Knoxville. There has been a surge of reclaiming the nostalgic in the area, and those that had closed, but were still intact were restored and reopened. Absolutely WONDERFUL places for a unique date, since they’re a novelty for my generation. Only now it’s black GTIs and fogged up windows … well, in some of the areas these theaters are in you probably will still find Novas too. :smiley:

15

Not that I don’t remember the tail end of the drive-in heydays. I was just too little to have … ehh … properly made use of them then. :wink:

16

And my dad actually drove a milk route for Avondale and/or Biltmore farms, many, many moons ago.

17

Chevy vans. The ones with the wall to wall carpeting and the bed in the back. My uncle actually had one with a fridge.

18

There’s a drive-in here in Denver (closed during the winter months), where there’s always a double feature, so you can go to the snack bar between the movies.

There’s a local dairy that delivers. The milk is in plastic bottles.

There’s a Dairy Queen just down the block–my teenage daughters go at least once a week for some sort of gooey frozen treat. None for me, thank you.

The local Sinclair station usually has a truck or a dino or something available–but you have to pay, they’re not “premium” freebies.

Yep, Denver is one of the finer places in the world to live. :slight_smile:

19

That’s my rocky. Makin’ mama feel every single damn one of her 37 years. Thanks, sweetie.

20

I’m not that far behind you, dear.