Our high school published a directory with all the students’ phone numbers and addresses.
One of the prizes in our church’s Sunday School annual quiz was a “concordance”. A quick definition:
“A Bible concordance is an alphabetical listings of words and phrases found in the Holy Bible and shows where the terms occur throughout all books of Scripture. With cross-references for verses, concordances make it easy to understand the meaning of terms and the context in which those words are used.”
Computers and the Internet made them obsolete (at least in print).
Last time i saw a phone book (northern NJ) was about 10-20 years ago. For the final several years, it was business-only, no residential listings at all.
In my town of 1800 souls, the grandiose 19th century library (small towns of New England often have grandiose 19th century libraries) still uses a card catalog. Same as I used as a grade school kid in the 1960’s. At least I know how to use it!
“Jimmy-ray: go out to the service porch and get the baby bottle sterilizer and diaper pail…it is in the cabinet under the bread box. Then put it in your radio flyer and take it across the street to the nice young couple that just moved in…and don’t get your dirty hands on the clean clothes out on the line.”
“con Gleem”
Fill the tank, give the attendant a $10. And get change back. (Late 60’)
You didn’t try to scam as many sugar cubes as possible?
“Oops! Stupid me! I forgot again!”
Not sure if this was covered - The Scholastic book order sheets we’d get in school (60s & 70s). I don’t remember the prices but they must have been pretty cheap because I bought EVERY horse book available. When my teacher would hand me the big stack of brand new paperbacks that I had ordered it was almost like Christmas. I can still smell them.
When we bought our first VCR in the early 80s, it had tiny white dials that looked like gears. It came with a little stick kind of like a toothpick that you would use to dial those little gears to program the VCR. I remember laying on the floor trying to get the channels programmed in. I think that’s what I was doing anyway!
Unless you found an old, old machine that had never been updated to reflect inflation.
I wonder if any Wisconsinites had ever gotten a deal at my kids’ favorite machine like that: the 25¢ soda machine outside Ken Kopp’s grocery in Madison. A mandatory stop while walking home from school.
Or a more obscure one from my childhood: the decrepit vintage candy machine in the Wauwatosa Curling Club. Candy bars were still a nickel in that one spot in the universe, if you had the strength to yank on the rusty metal handle to dispense them.
Fly swatters and fly paper.
I haven’t seen either in a long time. But I don’t know whether that’s because we have fewer flies in my current urban area, or whether they’ve been replaced by something more modern.
Very substantial and sturdy product packaging. e.g. steel pop cans, triple-ply cardboard boxes, metal band aid boxes, etc. that lent themselves well to re-use.
Those metal band-aid boxes made a great stash box.
That seems to have been a near universal practice. Along with cleaning weed on album covers.
Oh that’s another thing…cleaning weed. You see, kids, back when your grandpappy was a juvenile delinquent, they used to have these things called seeds that you had to remove along with stems…
That was back before navel weed.
They’re still around in rural areas and barns; though I don’t think I’ve seen fly paper inside a house in a very long time, possibly due to the increase in the use of window screens or possibly due to more people being unhappy about listening to the flies slowly dying on them. I do have a fly swatter in the house, and use it occasionally.
So did the old heavy plastic 35mm film containers.
I have a friend who was once stopped for motorcycling while long-haired, back in the 1970’s, while carrying one of those. My friend said the officer’s eyes lit up with glee when he found it, and then his face fell with disappointment when there was nothing in it but camera film.
(which – we are now well past the statute of limitations in a state in which anyway marijuana’s now legal – was pure luck.)
Yes, one day we’d go into the classroom, and they’d be on all of the desks. Loved 'em.
My brother had that 8-track. Good performance, but the KA-CHUNK drove me crazy.
As of 2005-2013, they were still around. Every month my kids would bring the sheets home. I’d give them a dollar amount and let them pick whatever they wanted up to the limit and give them a check to return with the form. Around 2010, they added a modern twist - you could order the books on line with a credit card! The books were still delivered to the classroom.
I’m fairly sure I’ve seen the order forms at my grandchildren’s house in the past couple of years.