# Things that were better back then. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [April 27, 2007, 8:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-were-better-back-then/401848 "2007-04-27T08:33:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Zabali\_Clawbane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/ecd19e/32.png) [@Zabali\_Clawbane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zabali_Clawbane)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2007, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-were-better-back-then/401848/81 "2007-04-29T20:53:32Z")
[QUOTE=Siam Sam] No, of course I don’t think every single thing is better. I can be nostalgic, too. My purpose was actually just to point out that looking back on the “good ol’ days” is nothing new, that things have always been better “back then” no matter the time period. Just didn’t know someone was going to jump in with the usual litany du jour of all the world’s headline woes. [/QUOTE] Er, we didn’t need the soapbox speech actually. We are well aware of what you say as it is. Either reminisce with us, or let us be to do so in peace. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2007, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-were-better-back-then/401848/82 "2007-04-29T21:02:29Z")
[QUOTE=Cervaise] Let’s just say _all_ produce that has been bred solely for its appearance without any regard to taste. Big and colorful = eye-catching and more likely to sell, but think about it: that just means those fruits and vegetables have been _bred to be sold and not to be eaten._ The crime of Red Delicious apples (one out of two is true) is, in my view, matched by the offense of those giant swollen tomatoes that look like heaven and taste like particle board. I live for the couple of months in summer when the local heirlooms, unmolested by industrial technique, hit the shelves. You can eat them like apples, the sweet juice running down your chin. I firmly believe that most people who say they don’t like tomatoes simply haven’t had a good one. Same goes for strawberries, as mentioned above; most kinds of oranges; many melons; many onions; and on and on. I’m the annoying guy in the produce section who roots through everything touching and smelling, looking for the stuff with actual character and flavor. I fear the day the same impulses destroy Meyer lemons, asparagus, butternut squash, and the other fruits and vegetables that are not, as yet, produced to appear uniformly glossy and tumescent. [/QUOTE] I used to think that I didn’t like tomatoes, until we grew them one summer. Then I realized what a splendid fruit the real tomato is. When I can find good tomatoes, I’ll eat them in sandwiches, and just sliced, with a bit of salt. I occasionally read seed catalogs, and I shake my head when I read claims of huge fruits and veggies.. I notice that they don’t mention the taste of these foods, just that they will astound friends and neighbors with their size. ---
**Author:** ![Zabali\_Clawbane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/ecd19e/32.png) [@Zabali\_Clawbane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zabali_Clawbane)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2007, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-were-better-back-then/401848/83 "2007-04-29T21:05:49Z")
[QUOTE=Lynn Bodoni] I used to think that I didn’t like tomatoes, until we grew them one summer. Then I realized what a splendid fruit the real tomato is. When I can find good tomatoes, I’ll eat them in sandwiches, and just sliced, with a bit of salt. I occasionally read seed catalogs, and I shake my head when I read claims of huge fruits and veggies.. I notice that they don’t mention the taste of these foods, just that they will astound friends and neighbors with their size. [/QUOTE] Well, back when I was a kid, my father grew Beefsteak tomatos from Burpee’s, and they actually had a good flavor even though one slice covered a sandwich. Big Boy tomatoes had flavor at one point too, I don’t know if this still holds true for either. You’re right though, the little homegrown tomatoes have _more_ flavor. ---
**Author:** ![Charlie\_Tan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/charlie_tan/32/12582_2.png) [@Charlie\_Tan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charlie_Tan)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2007, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-were-better-back-then/401848/84 "2007-04-29T21:14:14Z")
[QUOTE=Lynn Bodoni] I occasionally read seed catalogs, and I shake my head when I read claims of huge fruits and veggies.. I notice that they don’t mention the taste of these foods, just that they will astound friends and neighbors with their size. [/QUOTE] Much as any penis enhancement ad. Bigger isn’t always better, though to me, as a non-american, it seems that all advertising [in the U.S.] is basically bigger = better ---
**Author:** ![saoirse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@saoirse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saoirse)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2007, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-were-better-back-then/401848/85 "2007-04-29T21:55:05Z")
[QUOTE=Cervaise] You can eat them like apples, the sweet juice running down your chin. [/QUOTE] Okay, I’m gonna have to ask you stop that. At least for a couple months. ---
**Author:** ![Darth\_Nader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Darth\_Nader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darth_Nader)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2007, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-were-better-back-then/401848/86 "2007-04-29T22:11:00Z")
[QUOTE=Zabali\_Clawbane] Either reminisce with us, or let us be to do so in peace. 😉 [/QUOTE] Thanks. I thought I made that clear when I asked folks to skip the whole president/war thing… One thing I’ve realized from this thread is I need to go buy the Looney tunes dvds quickly, as I don’t think there will be any other way for me and my son to enjoy Saturday Mornings. And I don’t miss trying to play rogue through a teletype connected to an audio coupler at all. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2007, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-were-better-back-then/401848/87 "2007-04-29T23:04:28Z")
[QUOTE=Darth Nader] … One thing I’ve realized from this thread is I need to go buy the Looney tunes dvds quickly, as I don’t think there will be any other way for me and my son to enjoy Saturday Mornings. [/QUOTE] Cool, I hope my comments were partially responsible for this. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2007, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-were-better-back-then/401848/88 "2007-04-30T00:06:39Z")
[QUOTE=Cervaise] The crime of Red Delicious apples (one out of two is true) is, in my view, matched by the offense of those giant swollen tomatoes that look like heaven and taste like particle board. I live for the couple of months in summer when the local heirlooms, unmolested by industrial technique, hit the shelves. You can eat them like apples, the sweet juice running down your chin. I firmly believe that most people who say they don’t like tomatoes simply haven’t had a good one. [/QUOTE] It has been my experience that refrigeration makes tomatoes taste mealy. And of course, one industrial technique is to refrigerate them until they get to where they’re going. Even tomatoes from the Farmer’s Market that have been refrigerated have the same sort of cardboard taste. What I look forward to every summer is a sandwich made of unrefrigerated homegrown tomatoes, Duke’s mayonnaise, Merita bread, and fresh ground black pepper. Mmmmmm… ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2007, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-were-better-back-then/401848/89 "2007-04-30T00:51:56Z")
[QUOTE=Argent Towers] I agree with you about cars. But: 1. I think that cars during the 70s and 80s still looked better than the ones now, since the ones now all have homogeneous rounded “aero” styling that clashes, dreadfully clashes, with all the architecture around them. (When I bring up this point about cars clashing with architecture [what are the two things that you’re going to see the most when you walk outside? Cars and buildings] most people act like I’m speaking an alien language. Not a foreign language, a literally extra-terrestrial one. But since you’re a fellow vintage-car-guy, I take it you’ll understand.) [/QUOTE] You’re forgetting the fact that every GM car looked like every _other_ car in the GM line-up. (And they were none too pretty to begin with.) ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2007, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-were-better-back-then/401848/90 "2007-04-30T04:56:45Z")
[QUOTE=Darth Nader] And I don’t miss trying to play rogue through a teletype connected to an audio coupler at all. [/QUOTE] But playing it on a terminal hooked up directly to a supermini worked just fine. 🙂 (Ruined my productivity almost as much as the SDMB.) ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2007, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-were-better-back-then/401848/91 "2007-04-30T04:59:07Z")
[QUOTE=Liberal] It has been my experience that refrigeration makes tomatoes taste mealy. And of course, one industrial technique is to refrigerate them until they get to where they’re going. Even tomatoes from the Farmer’s Market that have been refrigerated have the same sort of cardboard taste. What I look forward to every summer is a sandwich made of unrefrigerated homegrown tomatoes, Duke’s mayonnaise, Merita bread, and fresh ground black pepper. Mmmmmm… [/QUOTE] Does anyone actually refrigerate tomatoes on the way to market? Please sir, give me names, so I can go and slap them with my glove. I thought the awful taste of store tomatoes was the result of breeding them for long shelf life. I never, ever, refrigerate the tomatoes I grow. It is a sin against nature. ---
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2007, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-were-better-back-then/401848/92 "2007-04-30T05:12:47Z")
[QUOTE=Tuckerfan] You’re forgetting the fact that every GM car looked like every _other_ car in the GM line-up. (And they were none too pretty to begin with.) [/QUOTE] So do the ones now. They all look like jellybeans. The Crossover SUV monstrosities all look the same. Chevy Equinox, Jeep Compass, that Lexus SUV, the Ford Freestyle…I could go on forever. What’s worse, though, is that Mercedes looks like KIA. The new Jaguars look like Hyundais. Once-unique names have now been made to look like every other damn boring sedan on the road. ---
**Author:** ![Triskadecamus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b19c9b/32.png) [@Triskadecamus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Triskadecamus)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2007, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-were-better-back-then/401848/93 "2007-04-30T05:21:24Z")
Tomatoes, when varieties were popular because of the taste. They spoiled if you didn’t eat them pretty soon. (Or so I have heard, that never happened to us.) Peaches, that grow on trees, until they are ripe. The fruits of the earth, each in its proper season. Tris ---
**Author:** ![TheLoadedDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/35a633/32.png) [@TheLoadedDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheLoadedDog)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2007, 7:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-were-better-back-then/401848/94 "2007-04-30T07:02:08Z")
[QUOTE=OtakuLoki] Two words: **Sesame Street**. Elmo is a pustule on the ass of public broadcasting and will be among the first against the wall when the Revolution comes. [/QUOTE] Agreed. BTW, there are numerous YouTube vids you might enjoy. Search for “Elmo” along with, variously or together, other words like “kill”, “fire”, and “drugs”. There’s a great one of him being shot with various calibres of gun. I can’t find it now. [QUOTE=AHunter3] Working on your own car. Lifting the hood and seeing a finite and accessible group of contraptions you could work on yourself. Tuning your ignition timing, dwell, and carburetor mix by the way the engine sounds and how it responds when you yank back and release the throttle. Being able to get to your spark plugs with a standard socket set. Crawling under the dashboard with some tiny bulbs to replace the lights in the gauges, or some 3rd-party gauges and some wire to change what you’ve got (who needs a clock, here’s a tach!). Installing your glass pack mufflers inline on your dual exhaust system with an oxyacetylene torch, with no catalytic converters to worry about. [/QUOTE] Naaah. Not saying I don’t kinda miss the male pastime of tinkering with your car on a Saturday morning, but I don’t miss HAVING TO do it. If you didn’t continuously adjust all that stuff, your car would stop. Nowadays, you just turn the key and drive. On balance, I like the modern approach better. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2007, 12:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-were-better-back-then/401848/95 "2007-04-30T12:03:54Z")
[QUOTE=Triskadecamus] Peaches, that grow on trees, until they are ripe. [/QUOTE] I don’t know whether I pointed them out when you were here, but we discovered three fruit-bearing peach trees when we were clearing some thick brush from our back yard near the gully. Mmm, yummy! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2007, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-were-better-back-then/401848/96 "2007-04-30T14:05:23Z")
[QUOTE=Charlie Tan] I want my flying car, stopover at Luna City Holiday Inn and voice controlled computers with a personality, dammit. [/QUOTE] Don’t forget your Picture Phone, the robot to do your housework, and the risk of ennui from all the leisure time we’ll have when machines do all of the work. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2007, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-were-better-back-then/401848/97 "2007-04-30T14:14:34Z")
[QUOTE=Freddy the Pig] Don’t forget your Picture Phone, the robot to do your housework, and the risk of ennui from all the leisure time we’ll have when machines do all of the work. [/QUOTE] God, if I get any more of that “leisure time”, I won’t have time to shit between naps. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2007, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-were-better-back-then/401848/98 "2007-04-30T14:36:27Z")
[QUOTE=TheLoadedDog] Naaah. Not saying I don’t kinda miss the male pastime of tinkering with your car on a Saturday morning, but I don’t miss HAVING TO do it. If you didn’t continuously adjust all that stuff, your car would stop. Nowadays, you just turn the key and drive. On balance, I like the modern approach better. [/QUOTE] Not all that much. Sure, today computers adjust everything for you, but when something breaks, it’s an arm and a leg to fix. I remember being able to gap the plugs in my van by using a certain spot on my pocketknife as a gauge, and being able to point to and name every single thing under the hood. Now, since Star Wars has eaten my engine, I’m lucky if I can identify the battery! ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2007, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-were-better-back-then/401848/99 "2007-04-30T14:48:15Z")
We can find our battery, but we don’t have the hydraulic lift or the block and tackle to get to it and remove it. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2007, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-were-better-back-then/401848/100 "2007-04-30T15:01:35Z")
…is to balme, for cheapening everything we buy. take furniture:they drive their suppliers to reduce prices-which is why the furniture they sell is such crap. Solid hardwoods replaced by veneer over particle board. Dovetailed joints replced bty staples. In the end, you have crap which is designed to fall apart in 4-5 years-which is what WALMART wants-then you have to buy new stuff. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-were-better-back-then/401848.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-were-better-back-then/401848.md?page=6)