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What is something you remember from your childhood that a younger generation has probably never seen?

Posted - June 22, 2022

Responses


  • 845
    Most of our gang had steel roller skates. When they built a strip mall two blocks from my house, we spent many Sundays skating the parking lot. The stores (including the supermarket) were all closed on Sunday.
      November 9, 2022 4:18 PM MST
    0

  • 7775
    Everything everybody else has said.
      June 22, 2022 9:46 PM MDT
    5

  • 9778
    Zack, you're not old enough to remember all of those. There must be one thing from your childhood that doesn't exist any more. Like dial-up internet or a Trimline phone.
      June 22, 2022 9:51 PM MDT
    3

  • 7775
    Everything everyone listed is pretty much it. There are a couple of things though. Small neighborhood theaters and maybe drive-ins. Large chains have taken over.
      June 22, 2022 9:55 PM MDT
    6

  • 13251
    On the flip side, do you remember foosball? I played that a lot as a college freshman in 1978-79, and was surprised at my 40th reunion a couple of weeks ago to see several foosball tables in our dorm headquarters. It's amazing to me that it's still a thing after all these years.
      June 22, 2022 10:14 PM MDT
    5

  • 1845
    I hang with sports people 
      June 30, 2022 6:21 AM MDT
    3

  • 10449
    78 rpm records
      June 22, 2022 10:19 PM MDT
    8

  • 2627
    And 45 rpm records.
      June 23, 2022 5:21 AM MDT
    7

  • 10451
    I did some painting work at a Salvation Army thrift store in the 80s. I noticed that winoes would be in the store everyday looking for 78 rpm records to buy. At first I thought they bought the records to have a little classical music with their booze but it turned out they melted  the records down and drank the alcohol that was in the records. Cheers!
      June 23, 2022 7:24 AM MDT
    5

  • 52905

     

    Pinball machines. 

    Pinball arcades.

    Penny candy.

    Steel cans for soda and beer.

    Police officers walking a beat.

    Library cards.

    Pre-Ziploc, plastic bags for food storage were merely folded over at the top.

    Snapshots and other types of photographs had a white border on them.

    Polaroid cameras and pictures.

    Mimeograph machines.

    Adding machines.

    Handheld calculators, pocket calculators.

    Smoking was allowed in government offices and many other places were it is currently banned.

    Haberdasheries.

    Fountain pens.

    Mechanical pencils.
    ~

      June 23, 2022 7:58 AM MDT
    9

  • 9778
    You're taking quite a trip down Memory Lane! It's triggering a few memories for me. In high school,  I worked in a movie theater in the Uptown area of Minneapolis.  We had beat cops that worked alternate days and they were identical twins named Gary and Fred. For a long time I thought they were just joking with me and that Fred didn't really exist. There was also a newspaper stand where the guy would stand on the corner holding out the paper and drivers would stop to buy it. There was a drugstore with a counter where you could sit and have a Coke. All of these things seemed to disappear within a very short time after that.
      June 23, 2022 9:17 AM MDT
    7

  • 52905
      June 23, 2022 10:44 AM MDT
    2

  • 44175
    We have cops that ride bicycles.

      June 30, 2022 8:59 AM MDT
    1

  • 52905
    Your point? The purpose of the question and of a majority of the answers is not to state that these things do not exist at all any more, it’s about things that in general are rarely seen by the current generation of you people who may not be exposed to them.
    ~
      November 9, 2022 4:08 PM MST
    0

  • 70
    Toys that didn't need batteries.
      June 23, 2022 8:51 AM MDT
    7

  • 32529
    8 track tapes
    Cassette tapes
    Beta/VHS video tapes
    VCR
    Home Video Camcorder

    Pink  or Blue diapers


    This post was edited by my2cents at November 8, 2022 4:31 PM MST
      June 23, 2022 10:29 AM MDT
    9

  • 52905

     

      Transistor radios. 

      Mood rings. 

      Pet rocks. 

      Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots.

      Toll-free 1-800 telephone numbers for practically every large business or organization, and for many medium or small sized ones too.

      Train travel was as widely used back then as plane travel is used today.

      A bread box in the kitchen. 

      Also in the kitchen, a matching set of large decorative containers for flour and sugar.

      Plastic carpet protectors known as “runners”, usually about three or four feet wide and as long as twelve to fifteen feet; were placed in high-traffic areas such as from doorway-to-hallway, to keep the carpet beneath them from getting tracked with dirt and mud. I can’t remember seeing one of those for about twenty-five to thirty years now.

      Nurses wearing the traditional uniform that included the starched headgear, white dress-type outfit, white hosiery, and white shoes.

      Many jobs, especially those in various service industries, required the employees to wear uniforms )beyond a tee-shirt and/or paper hat). That in itself was such a large enterprise that uniform shops and special cleaners shops were dedicated exclusively to uniforms.

      Gloves, scarves, veils, etc., were everyday wear for the well-dressed woman, and specialty shops or entire sections of department stores were dedicated to selling them.

      Television antennas on rooftops.

      Rabbit-ear antenna on top of the television.

      Rabbit-ear antenna on top of the television with aluminum foil wrapped around the two ends to improve the reception.

      Aluminum foil twisted around a wire coat hanger to improvise instead of using a rabbit-ear antenna.

      Pounding on or banging on the side of the television to improve the signal or the sound.

      Console-sized televisions that were about as large as a sofa or a dining table.

      Entertainment centers, usually made of wood or of a wood by-product, and held the television, a record player, the stereo, a set of speakers, and had a cabinet area down below for record albums, music cassette tapes, Beta tapes, VHS tapes, etc.

      Television shows, movies, commercials and print ads that only showed people of one particular ethnicity.

      Manual (push-type) lawn mowers.

      Cigarette holders. 

      People carried matchbooks with them and when in the dark and needing to see something close up would light a match, holding onto it until it almost burned their fingers. This real-life action was also a common sight gag in both comedy and dramatic movies and television shows.
    ~

      June 23, 2022 5:49 PM MDT
    6

  • 32529
    Mood rings
    Rock em Sockem Robots
    1 800 numbers
    Carpet runners (sold at Home Depot)

    All still around ...my grandkids know of all of these. 
      June 23, 2022 6:49 PM MDT
    4

  • 52905

     

      Fine, but that’s anecdotal, and it doesn’t dismiss the fact that a larger sampling of entire generations probably* might not know about those things. 

    *As in the exact qualifying word that is included in the question. 
    ~

      June 23, 2022 9:27 PM MDT
    4

  • 5455
    I played Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots when I was a kid.  I still have it.
      June 23, 2022 7:51 PM MDT
    4

  • 52905

      Fine, but that’s anecdotal, and it doesn’t dismiss the fact that a larger sampling of entire generations probably* might not know about those things. 

    *As in the exact qualifying word that is included in the question. 
    ~
      June 23, 2022 9:27 PM MDT
    4

  • 5455
    Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots was originally in the 60s I think, but it made a big comeback when I was a kid.
      June 24, 2022 1:40 PM MDT
    4

  • 32529
    It is still sold at Walmart and Target. 
      June 24, 2022 4:47 AM MDT
    4

  • 1430

    computers that looked like that :-)

     

      June 23, 2022 7:04 PM MDT
    7

  • 16199
    No ergonomic keyboards, CD-ROM or 3.5 inch floppy on the ones I learned BASIC prgramming on. 5.25 inch and 128K of RAM (monochrome monitor) was state-of-the-art.
      June 25, 2022 7:48 AM MDT
    5