TYME cards the pre debit cards. You could only withdraw 10 or 20 bucks a day from one terminal.
Not too many years ago I had a client who still had that job, in Eastern Kentucky. She was collecting premiums for life and disability insurance. Naturally, when she became disabled and could no longer do all that walking up and down hills all day, they denied her claim. (we got her the money)
In elementary school we could buy savings stamps and collect them in book to exchange for US Savings Bonds. A nice old patriotic lady would help us with the stamps so we could aid in the fight against the communist threat.
I messed up the quote. it was to a post about not seeing cigarette machines anymore
I saw one just last month with the pull knobs and everything. it was at the library.
it had been repurposed into a art dispensing machine. I got 4 small watercolors for $5
[turning the TV rotor to get stations]
To expand, I don’t think younger people appreciate that getting good analog TV reception was a little competitive. People in apartments would figure out ways to mount an antenna to the window facing the required direction. Townhouse renters would figure out ways to install multiple directional antennae/s in their attics and storage spaces. Detached homeowners would install progressively larger units at higher locations to be able to pick up “Channel 4 in Timbuktu clear as a bell.” It really was something that (usually) Dads would talk about and brag on. Of course, all the kids wanted to go to Tommy’s house late in the afternoon because HIS TV would pick up Supercar from Pittsburgh.
(Yes, I played along. My 10’ antenna using a rotor on a 30’ mast located in Wake Forest, NC, would pick up stations in Greensboro, Winston-Salem, and Richmond, VA, “clear as a bell.”)
My Suburban quit in mid-flight when the fuel pump failed. I was on an interstate but luckily was right at an exit. After a few seconds, when I realized I no longer had a functional engine I shifted into neutral and had enough momentum to take the down-hill exit, roll through the green light into the gas station on the opposite corner, and stop in an out of the way spot.
Lemme tell ya, that turn into the driveway was hard work. Stopping not so much because speed was practically zero by then.
I saw a film once about making paper. There was this immense vat a good ten-feet in diameter and it had a swirling mixture of 99.9% water and 0.1% pulp. A worker came up holding a can the size of a snuff can, dug a palette knife into it, and flicked the contents into the vat. About three seconds later the center of the whirlpool turned purple and it spread from there more of a lavender. I thought, “Wow, that’s some powerful dye.”
Wa-a-a-y back when a lot of homes in Los Angeles had an incinerator in the back yard. My cheapskate aunt, in order to avoid paying monthly for garbage pickup, incinerated everything that would burn but that did not include the cans. Those she would flatten and stow in a trash can until it was full, then pay a fee for a one-time pickup about every six months.
After a couple of those, the trashmen told her, “Put your can out every week and we’ll pick it up. We won’t tell the boss and you won’t be charged.”
When I was a kid my family was visiting my mom’s family back in Ohio. There was a group of us going somewhere, so we took my one aunt’s giant land yacht. My dad said he’d drive, and when he went to do a yooie to turn the car around he nearly put us up on the curb. My aunt said “Herb, I forgot to tell you. I have power steering.”
I remember those. I have a very vague memory of them being removed.
Re: burning trash.
When I was real little we lived in an area with DIY trash service. That meant burning most things. I remember that someone left in a spray can in the trash which went into the burn pile. (Those were sort of new then.) Fwooosh. Quite scary. The stuff that wouldn’t burn was hauled to a pull out by the side of the highway and dumped. Not a pit or anything. Just a wider spot in the canyon.
When we were house hunting here a couple years ago, one place was from the 50s and it had a trash-burning thing in the backyard with a little concrete ~walkway leading out to it. Ugh.
Was the dump closed on account of it being Thanksgiving Day?
Chong: “What’re you watching, dude?”
Cheech: “Dunno, it’s a movie about Indians, but it’s… really boring…”
Chong: “Aw, man, you’re watchin’ the test pattern, dude!”
Does anyone here remember using a wire coat hanger as a makeshift antenna for TV and/or radio?
That sounds familiar as a common work-around for broken antennas or poor reception.
I think I dealt with a broken car antenna like that sometime in the 90’s; though it might have been some other sort of wire.
That’s another thing that has to be explained to young people: a car telescope-antenna and the need to pull it out to get a good signal (and to push it in before driving through a car wash).
I remember my excitement when I bought a new Subaru and found that the antenna magically went up and down when the radio was turned on and off.
Yeah, a motorized antenna was a great defense against the most frequent car vandalism in old times, snapped off antennas. I never had one.
Yeah, we did, when I was a kid.
I grew up on a farm. Dad used a piece of heavy-duty wire and a small hose clamp when our car antenna broke off. Worked like a charm.
Coat hanger car antennas were pretty common. Quite a few original antennae could no longer telescope all the way down, or back up again after getting only a slight bend in a section. It’s maybe just as common now as then to see a muffler hung by a coat hanger.
Look for wire coat hangers to make a comeback, sadly.