That was actually the last Automat to close, in 1991.
Yup. When we went past it one Saturday night just before it it was rented out for a bar mitzvah.
I have the book on the Automat which came out some time ago.
…this is my kind of thread! 
When I was young, I remember:
-
watching the first episode of Doctor Who live (1963.)
And yes, in later episodes my sister and I used to hide behind the couch sometimes because it was so … scary. (Actually the monster was often just an actor in a rubber suit. :smack:) -
having a TV program for kids interrupted by the news of the first Kennedy assassination (1963.)
I didn’t know what it meant, so went next door to tell my parents. Of course they were shocked - but I didn’t understand. So I began reading newspapers.
My career started when I joined British Telecom in 1974. At the interview they asked if I had any questions.
“What is the pension like?” (I’m chuffed about that! :D)
Well it was a very good one - and now I’ve been receiving it for years…
Later I worked as a teacher.
At first, I would occasionally be stopped in the street by former pupils. Fair enough.
Later it would be “You taught my son/daughter.” :eek:
Finally I agree with other ‘elderly’ posters about lifestyle:
- I go to bed early and wake up early
- I always know where the nearest bathroom is
- I know far more about my prostate than ever before.
The modern Zebco spinning reel didn’t appear until I was in high school, and I never actually used one. I continued to struggle with backlashes using my old Pfleuger.
I’m “only” 48 (and feeling quite old in general, irrespective of this thread), and we had smoking areas for students in my class of '90 high school. It actually seemed ludicrous to me as a transfer student from a better school district, which had no smoking areas. On the other hand, the smoking school was open campus, which was nice, but also seemed ludicrous (but welcome!) compared to what I learned was a closed campus high school (I moved between grades 9 and 10).
In the smoking school, the computer lab was also the teachers’ designated smoking lounge, but only after hours. We had a serious journalism program that used the computer lab after hours every, single night, and it was interesting to see students and teachers smoking together in the same room. I didn’t smoke until after I graduated, so I never did partake.
I think of 1888, and it’s all pre-electricity cowboys and dusty streets and New York City filled with horses. I think of 1920, with its cars and movie houses and nascent radio and aeroplanes. Feels centuries apart. Yet 1988 and 2020 feel so close together. That sort of makes me feel old.
In 1980, 1940 felt like it was eons before, but now it’s the same number of years since 1980, and it feels like yesterday.
The most interesting thing in my life in 1970 was being born.
At one of the companies here they decided to send home all the at-risk people, as one of the workers had been diagnosed with coronavirus. They specifically included everybody over 50, according to a friend whose mother-in-law works there.
I know 50 is a milestone, but I never really thought of it as being part of the at-risk group for influenza, etc. Supposedly I should also get the shingles vaccination.
It’s rather sobering.
That said, I’m going to a rock concert for my birthday. Not dead yet.
(Yes, I’ll be wearing hearing protection. I’m getting old, not stupid.)
But don’t forget, back in 1940, the whole world was rendered in black & white. In 1888, not only was the world in B & W, ragtime piano music permeated the atmosphere; that’s why everybody back then walked in a rapid scurry. So there’s that. 
I know what you mean though. Even though perception plays a ( big ) part, I proffer that the advances made from the pre-electricity days till now were not at a linear rate.
Another bit of fun I had was when i was given some old books. Some of them showing artist renditions of what “the future” would be like from a 1920s and 1930 POV. The unanimous view: pretty much like the 1920s and 1930’s, except a bit more pointy/streamlined.
There’s also this rather strange view that sculpture & buildings from the “classical” time frame of Rome & Greece were white. All neo-classical sculptures are white. … because they completely missed the fact that the originals were painted with wonderful colors, which simply were lost over the centuries. It’s only been in the last few decades that anyone has attempted to recreate their original appearance.
Egypt’s pyramids were painted as well.
Time travel is often a subject of speculation here abouts. Personally, I think one of the things that would most impress a time traveler is just how much art and ornamentation and color there was in the ancient world.
There’s a site Tales of Future Past that is just chock full of “zeerust” depictions of the future, from the early Gernsback days of pulp SF to the fab-mod Space Age monorail future of the '60s and '70s. Lotsa larfs!
My first job after I got out of the navy had a pension and I lasted there to get it fully vested. it was a defense contractor and after the USSR collapsed, peace broke out and I was laid off in 1992. The paperwork I got said the pension would be $278 a month.
Flash forward to 2016 when I was getting ready to retire I dug out the paperwork and followed the trail of conglomerate takeovers and financial restructurings to find, a little to my surprise, yes, the pension was still good. “Great!” I said to myself. “Even at a crummy 3% interest it should have compounded to at least $450 by now.” Nope: $278 a month. They must have stuck the money in an old sock somewhere.
No, it’s just that they only pay the letter of what they’re obligated to: $278 and not a cent more. If there was such a thing as a pension dating back to the 18th century, it would pay out in thruppence.
That’s just the way pensions work - they aren’t like a 401K where your contributions are in an individual account and how much you end up with depends on your gains or losses over the years. Pensions have a formula ( for mine, it’s 1.66 percent of your Final Average Salary (FAS) for each year of service under 20 - it goes up with more than 20) and that’s what you get. If I had 10 years of service, I would get 16.6% of my final average salary whether I was 65 and would immediately collect when those ten years were up or 28 when I completed the ten years and and wouldn’t collect for another 37 years.
They did a great job for the HBO series ‘Rome’ as far as sets. It did a great job of showing the city as not only multicolored, but also showing the great variety of materials inside and out. Prior to that, one could conclude that everything there was hard, stone colored surfaces.
Thanks for the link! Not the kind of thing easily found by a search.
Enjoyed and bookmarked.
I posted earlier:
My career started when I joined British Telecom in 1974. At the interview they asked if I had any questions.
“What is the pension like?” (I’m chuffed about that! )
Well it was a very good one - and now I’ve been receiving it for years…
I’m sorry about that. My initial BT pension was based on how many years I worked and is index-linked (i.e. goes up every year.)
Don’t miss 75-yo Kirk Douglas and 85-yo Alan Arkin in Netflix’s The Kominsky Method. I just binge-watched its 8 half-hour episodes. Lots of dialogue and bon mots about that and life, etc. - “I urinate in Morse Code - dots and dashes.” and “I blame Bill Clinton. When oral sex ceased to be sex, our civilization fell.”
I’ve forgotten what I used to remember.
Michael
The other day at work, a co-worker was showing off her stylish new pants…bell-bottoms. She claimed they were in “again”. Another co-worker seemed doubtful. She turned to me and said, “Julie, remember when you were young, bell-bottoms were in fashion?” I said, “Yeah, about twenty years ago…” I didn’t share with them that’s it’s actually the third cycle of bell-bottoms that I’ve lived through.
That reminded me of this web comic strip, which I’ll share below (very mildly nsfw). The context is 500 years in the future, when a young, (mostly) human girl and her android companion are to attend a posh party with their benefactor. (Their friend is a “beltape”, a lineage of humans specialized for microgravity who are an underclass). Their benefactor bought gowns for them from an overrated designer whom they think is full of it. So they take inspiration from the past…
[noparse]Quantum Vibe by Scott Bieser, published by Big Head Press
P.S. The outcome is well-received: [noparse]Quantum Vibe by Scott Bieser, published by Big Head Press