I used to spend an amazing amount of time making mix tapes. I had figured out if you hit pause, stopped the tape, took it out, and rolled it back 1/4 turn, you could start recording at the exact spot you paused it. This allowed for interesting combinations and transitions between songs; the complexity of some of my editing was damn near art.
Actually my wife and I miss that. Amazon’s and Blockbuster’s selections for streaming video are poorly organized and a PITA to sift through. We looked forward to browsing the shelves at the local Blockbuster or Hollywood Video.
Incorrect. I bought one last year for my six-year-old.
Both of these things are commonplace in the Atlanta area.
Unleaded? When were you born? It was Regular and Premium.
Anybody remember when they gave away dishes at the movie theater? (Even I’m not that old)
Rushing inside to watch *I Love Lucy *or Ozzie and Harriet or, later, The Twilight Zone". . . thinking that if we missed a show, it would never be aired again.
Trick or Treat: We went out on Halloween Eve as well as Halloween night. We each wound up with four large shopping bags filled with candy. It lasted all year.
There were many department stores, but they were all downtown. My mother would take me shopping with her if I needed some clothing. We had to take the bus (only one car per family), and my mother got all dressed up, with a hat (with a veil) and leather gloves.
Oh, and people got all dressed up to go in an airplane.
No supermarkets. You had to go to the grocery store, bakery, butcher shop, and candy store.
Once a week a farmer came by with a truck filled with live chickens. My mother would go out and pick the one she wanted (don’t ask), and the farmer would decapitate it and remove the feathers. My job was to remove the innards for chicken soup, along with the neck and feet.
High school: Mandatory showers after gym class and nude swimming for 6 weeks per semester. The girls got to wear swim suits.
Slide rules.
I watched Elizabeth II’s coronation on our 12" black-and-white TV.
Stamps were 3 cents.
No jeans or t-shirts or sneakers in school. Boys were sent home if their hair was over the collar in the back. Girls had to kneel, and they were sent home if their skirt didn’t reach the floor. Teachers were always dressed-up.
There was no TV after midnight. They played the national anthem, and a test pattern was on all night.
On that same 12" TV, there was a little button that made the picture wider, probably due to some aspect ratio issue. The only time we ever used it was for the Kate Smith Show. Kate Smith was an overweight singer, and all I remember about her was how much weight she gained when we used the “fat” switch.
Tomato shaped and colored too
We had a milk man deliver to our house
And the garbage men would come into our garage to get our garbage cans and return them after emptying.
I was allowed to borrow up to six books from the school library, so I had six pieces of card with my name on it.
Each book had a yellow pocket inside that held a card with the book’s details, and those cards had a pocket on them. When I borrowed a book, the librarian would take the book card out of the yellow pocket, put one of my library cards in the book card pocket. There was a box with multiple compartments on the desk; each compartment was for books due on that date. The paired book card and name card would go into the compartment for two weeks time. Finally, the due date was stamped on a strip of paper that was glued in to the book.
There was something satisfying about that process, even though the bar code systems used today are far superior in every way.
I was a teenager when they started using catalytic converters, so I easily remember before unleaded, I just never worked anywhere that did not have it.
What I do remember is standing on a stool wearing my mother’s almost-finished dress so that she could go around and put a proper hem in it – she was able to save money by making her own clothing, a situation that has reversed itself.
Calling someone, getting their answering machine, deciding you didn’t really feel like leaving a message, and hanging up.
Try that now, and they’ll inevitably call back asking “Did you call me?”. (Actually, that tends to happen even if I leave a message.)
My mother has, I believe, 4 or 5 Army-type footlockers in the basement full of McCalls (et al) “patterns.” Explain away.
Oh yes, TV Guide used to be a really important magazine/reference tool. You better study it every week to plan your schedule because you only got one guaranteed shot at seeing the shows you wanted to see. Even with advance preparation, there could be serious conflicts with other family members. Some houses had more than one TV by the time I was little but hardly anyone had more than one ‘good TV’. The other was usually just some crappy black and white 13" or smaller model stuck in some godforsaken corner of the house. You had to strategize and negotiate to get maximum viewing pleasure. The strategy changed during rerun season in the summer. That was your last real chance of ever seeing the episodes you missed before they were gone forever (or so we believed at the time).
Starting a standard shift car, on a hill, without stalling.
Starting a standard shift car by pushing it, hopping into the driver’s seat, and popping the clutch.
Picking up the phone and hearing a real live operator asking “Number please.”
Movie theaters and swimming pools closing during the summer because of the polio scare.
Having to reboot to make a computer recognize a new input device such as a keyboard.
USB/true Plug-n-play has us spoiled.
My mother made most of our summer clothes, including bathing suits. She made most of her own clothes, all the window treatments, etc. She was extremely good. We weren’t too crazy about having to wear home-made clothes, but the evening wear she made for herself looked fantastic-- inasmuch as I, a young boy, could tell. 
Yep… the Wayside took me to a Power Plant, where I produce electricity… that shouldn’t die out anytime soon.
Horizontal or Vertical Hold on a TV. And being too lazy to get up and do anything about it, so watching it any way. And then looking at “real life,” and watching everything move in the opposite direction as the TV.
“Burma Shave” signs.
Driving past someone whose car had broken down, and yelling “Get a Horse!”
“Decoration Day,” what is now Memorial Day. There was always a parade, and we kids used to decorate our bikes.
Movie theaters were the only places that had air conditioning.
Cars with fins.
Cars with a bisected windshield.
Old cars with worn-out upholstery, with *straw *coming out. And in NYC, the old subway cars had straw too. Still some in use in the 60s (Hey, whaddaya want for a 15-cent fare?).
Playing with mercury from a broken thermometer.
Cooking the Thanksgiving turkey in a large brown paper bag; the entire house filled with delicious smoke.
My first car was a Plymouth Valiant. I bought it for a dollar, literally. The owner had been told it would cost too much to repair. Me and two friends pushed it to my house and I got it running for the cost of a rebuilt alternator, a used battery, and a rebuilt starter motor. It was a “three on the tree” stick shift and before I could afford the starter motor I got in the habit of finding slopes to park on. Then I’d turn the key, put the car in first, and let it gently roll down the hill before popping the clutch to start it.
The clutch also had the problem of sticking to the floor if you pushed it in to change gears, so I became adept at pressing it down just the right amount, and, if I screwed up, coasting in neutral for the moment I needed to reach my toe under the clutch and force it up. It was the classic “nobody but me can drive this car,” because anyone else would have been stranded in short order.
It also had a few rust issues.
But it was my car. Given our (lack of) finances back in the day, me owning a car was a miracle.
People who had polio. Over the years, I’ve known about a dozen people who had some signs of polio.
To my great regret, I missed the era of Burma Shave signs.
I’ve been told that we saw a set once, when I was very young, in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan between Marquette and Ishpeming. I “remember” it, but I am pretty sure it’s a confabulated memory from the story being told so many times. As evidence of this, my brother also “remembered” it, and he wasn’t born then.