Wanna join me in feeling really old? I just stumbled on this list,

[Ocelot II]

and I remember every single one of these things. Banks still use pneumatic tubes at their drive-through tellers, but in the early '70s I worked at a company that occupied a large, old, multi-story building, and we transmitted documents to departments on other floors with those things.

Anybody remember the x-ray machines at shoe stores, which they got rid of because they were leaking radiation? I thought they were so cool.

https://www.genealogyexplained.com/fb/blog/forgotten-things-from-1960s/

[LuckyCharms]

1. Every single one.

I bookmarked that page.

Thanks, Ocelot II.

[ultralite001]

2. Roger that!!!

My childhood secret... I hated when mom had peas + carrots for dinner...



See those tubular legs under that kitchen table??? They were the repository for a child's lifetime of discarded
vegetables... This was only discovered when we moved to a new house when I was +/- 10... Bummer that...

Thanks for the memories, Ocelot II!!!

[Ocelot II]

3. LOL! I guess you didn't have a dog who lurked under the table, hoping for a handout.

[ultralite001]

5. The poor dog had to stay outside...

Mom was afraid the dog would tear up her plastic furniture covers...

🤣🤣🤣

[vapor2]

29. I hated mom's succotash

[Bayard]

49. I hated to eat when I was a little kid

Our kitchen table had one of those leaf things underneath to expand it. My Mom finally figured out I had stashed everything under there from veges to hamburgers.

[womanofthehills]

67. The food I didn't like I stuck under the refrigerator

I was shocked when we moved to our new house and there was no food under it.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

4. Good stuff, but hip folk of all ages use clotheslines more these days than last couple of decades.

Wooden clothes pegs might be hard to find but I don't know. I still have what I need.

[Deuxcents]

9. I loved my clothesline! I had one until I moved into this community..still have the wooden clothespins

I remember my grandmother getting milk delivered and then skimming the cream off the top! I’m old!

[lastlib]

15. For me, getting milk delivered was when someone else milked the cows.....

... and brought the milk bucket to the house. I grew up on a working farm, milked cows til I was 40.

[Habibi]

35. Didn't milk cows, but we had milk and other grocery items delivered.

Milk in glass bottles. Waiting on the porch. Once or twice, the dairy or bread delivery man (it was always a man) would let us ride in his truck until his next stop, usually two doors down.

[Biophilic]

6. Well, that was fun.

[markodochartaigh]

7. One of the greatest advances in modern times

was the transition from woolen blankets to microfiber blankets.
And we learned not to complain about the woolen blankets or we would hear about the old days when people would have to trample the wool in urine to get the oil off of the wool.

[sinkingfeeling]

8. Remember them all, but think a few were more 50s than 60s.

[Ocelot II]

11. 50's into the mid '60s, IIRC.

Mimeograph devices were being replaced by Xerox machines in the '60s. I was in college in the late '60s, and the library had a Xerox machine that was about the size of an industrial dumpster. You opened the lid, placed the page you wanted to copy onto the glass, closed the lid, inserted a nickel, pushed the Copy button, and waited. And waited. The machine would hum and light up, and eventually it would spit out a warm, chemical-smelling copy. If you had multiple pages to copy it would take awhile, and sometimes a line of impatient students would form behind you. But at least you didn't get that purple mimeo ink all over you.

[Diamond_Dog]

30. In some offices

You had a “copy girl” whose sole job was to run the copy machine for all the male executives.

[genxlib]

61. Not where I come from

My high school was still using mimeographs well into the early eighties

[Silent Type]

10. 100% remember all, even though my memory is questionable nowadays.

[niyad]

12. I remember every single one of those things. But instead of the nostalgia

of that linked site. . . .I remember the misogyny, sexism, racism, homophobia, the "red scare", hiding under desks for those stupid bomb drills. Kristin Lems' song "The 50's Sound" covers it.

[Ocelot II]

14. Those things, too. "Duck and cover," which even we kids knew meant,

"Put your head between your legs and kiss your ass goodbye." Being told that because I was a girl there were certain things I couldn't be when I grew up (fortunately I ignored that warning); being told not to seem too smart at school because boys don't like smart girls; during a car trip to Florida being shocked to see "White" and "Colored" signs on water fountains and not understanding why. The good old days aren't ever really the good old days.

[Oeditpus Rex]

33. 'Duck and cover' wasn't meant to protect students

who were within a few miles of ground zero. Buildings within proximate distance would be destroyed by a thermonuclear weapon's blast and heat effects.

"Duck and cover" was meant to protect students in schools outside that radius, in the suburbs, from flying glass as windows blew out, falling light fixtures, et cetera. It was also meant to give kids a bit of emotional security, like mass-shooter drills today.

Civil Defense experts came up with "Duck and Cover," not the school board or the PTA. Give them credit for knowing it wouldn't save anybody near the epicenter.

[Diamond_Dog]

34. "being told not to seem too smart at school because boys don't like smart girls"

Ugh. I certainly remember that.

[3catwoman3]

40. In those days of girls having to wear dresses or skirts, we girls often worried more...

…about the boys maybe being able to catch a glimpse of our panties while we were assuming “the position” under our desks with our butts up in the air. Even at age 12, I knew hiding under my desk wasn’t going to do a damn thing to save us from a nuclear blast.

[Brother Buzz]

13. Um, #2 is bogus - A Mimeograph Smelled, like, well, ink.

It’s the Ditto machine (spirit duplicator) that used that sweet solvent we loved.

By third grade, I was the classroom duplicator; for some crazy reason, they trusted me to run down to the office and run of copies on the memo machine.

[johnp3907]

16. The x-ray machine is the only one I wasn't familiar with.

But I still have my Snoopy lunch box!

[Irish_Dem]

19. I typed this the same time you did.

I keep doing that today.

[Irish_Dem]

17. I don't remember the X-ray shoe fitting machines.

Where were they located and how did they work?

[Ocelot II]

21. They were in some shoe stores, also called shoe-fitting fluoroscopes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoe-fitting_fluoroscope

[Irish_Dem]

22. Thanks, what an odd contraption.

[Irish_Dem]

23. My mother was a nurse, so maybe she didn't approve of this thing.

[Diamond_Dog]

18. I remember every single one except the shoe store machine.

Mr. Diamond remembers them, though.

Those metal ice cube trays could cause some serious pain if you pinched your finger in one!

The old couple across the street were the first in our neighborhood to get a color TV. My sister and I were allowed to go over there on Sunday evenings to watch Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color. I thought the color TV was way cool but for some reason I never liked that Disney program, even as a kid.

I remember those pneumatic tubes in department stores.

I still have the folding card table and 4 folding chairs my mother bought with our Green stamps!

I still remember how the movie projector smelled when it was operating!

Thanks for the fun memories, Ocelot!

[Ocelot II]

24. The ice trays were a bone of contention in my house

because we kids would always forget to refill them and would put them back in the freezer without any water in them. I remember very well what an effort was involved to pull that lever up and break up the cubes, which would sometimes fly all over the kitchen. Later we got plastic trays where you could loosen the cubes by twisting the tray. Now, at last, I have a fridge with one of civilization's greatest inventions, an ice maker.

[Seinan Sensei]

53. If you ran water over the ice trays first,

then they wouldn’t crack and shatter

[Ocelot II]

54. Yes, but it wasn't as much fun that way.

[chowmama]

20. It's a wonder I don't have six toes on each foot.

The Buster Brown store was where we all went to get our shoes before school started. Four kids, all in tow, and only one could be waited on at a time. The rest of us, especially me, relieved our boredom by radiating our feet. Over, and over, and over...Nobody knew any better.

However, I still have a wool car blanket. Also a full-size shovel that fits in the same area. I live in Minnesota and we don't mess around.

[electric_blue68]

25. Omg! 😄 Yikes!

[Diamond_Dog]

26. Ohioan here. I thought *everybody* had a blanket like that in their car trunk.

In the winter time my Dad would put a bag of salt over each rear wheel inside the trunk. He said it gave you better traction and if you got stuck, presto, you just tore open the bag of salt. Instant rescue! It’s not like we all had cell phones and could call for a tow truck!

[Ocelot II]

31. In Minnesota you not only had a blanket, you had (and still have) a winter kit

that included a candle and matches, a flashlight and batteries, a highway flare, jumper cables, a bag of sand (I use cat litter), a tow rope and a shovel.

[ultralite001]

63. The traditional Christmas gift for my kids...

Winter survival kits stashed in a 5 lb coffee can (which could be used to heat water)...

Does anything still come in a 5 gallon resealable can??? The last coffee can I got
from Costco was for 3 lbs...

In the can, in addition to what was mentioned above, I would put a couple emergency
blankets, Hot Hands, tea bags + sugar, protein bars + jerky sticks.

This year they'll be getting power banks + traction boards...Y'all stay safe out there... ..

[House of Roberts]

27. Not all of them.

Never saw #1, #11 plastic covers weren't in our house, #17 never had one or knew anyone who did, #18 nope we had a rooftop antenna on a tall guyed mast, then cable TV showed up, #22 don't think we ever opened a bank account while I was around maybe before me, #23 no blanket in the trunk, but we were in Alabama.

[vapor2]

28. thanks for the walk down memory lane

I have a green stamp book still and 2 view masters. lol

[electric_blue68]

32. No on the X-Ray foot shoe store box...

May have heard about Green Stamps, not sure we did them.

My aunt, uncle, cousins in NJ got the glass milk bottles when i was kid.

I'm pretty sure we didn't get a toaster from the bank!

And my mom wouldn't let my dad by a color TV because at that point the color wasn't very good.
___________________________
Now the pneumatic tube was different story...
At one time in the 2010s the bank about 7 blocks away from me was in a rougher neighborhood at some point - so instead of tellers behind a counter there were pneumatic tubes for your money, deposit slip, debit card etc and the tellers were in a safe room.

[Diamond_Dog]

36. There's a post office in the city near me

Where the clerks at each window are behind bullet proof glass.

[electric_blue68]

44. Woah! Yikes!

[3catwoman3]

37. I remember most of them. Born in 1951.

1. Shoe store X-ray - nope
2. Mimeograph smell - absolutely. I used to run the copies of football plays for the coach in high school. My husband called these things “dirty purples. Military term, maybe?
3. Bank pneumatic tubes - my current bank still has these. First hospital I worked in after nursing school sent things from the pharmacy this way.
4. View Master - Yup
5. Full service gas station. My dad always went to Texaco - “You can trust your car to the man who wears the star, the big bright Texaco star. 🎶. He would often ask for “a dollar’s worth.”
6. Green Stamps - my mother collected them loyally. She was raised during The Depression and anything that made it possible to spend less money was beloved by her.
7. Aluminum ice trays - h, yes. Noisy things.
8. TV sign-offs. I worked the 3-11 shift and would watch Johnny Carson and then Tom Snyder after work, and turn the lights out after the National Anthem.
9. First color TV - no specific recollection
10. Slide projectors and home movies - we did not have either one, but friends who worked for KODAK (grew up in Rochester NY) had both. My husband still has several trays of slides and his projector.
11. Plastic couch covers - a neighbor a couple doors away had these, and lamp shade covers. She did not have a velvet rope barricading the entry to her Irving room, but it felt as if she did. I don’t think anyone ever went in there.
12. Returnable soda bottles - I remember them, but we almost never bought soda, so nothing to turn in.
13. The Sears catalog - oh my, yes. My father worked for Allstate, which either owned or was owned by Sears, so we got. 10% discount for many, many years. While in high school, I got most of my school clothes from Sears. They were fashionable and well made in the 1960s. Not so much later on. I still remember some of my favorite skirt and sweater combinations. My brother and I would pore over the Christmas catalog for hours.
14. Clotheslines and wooden clothes pins - yes. My husband’s mother raised a family of 4 kids without ever having a dryer.
15. Metal lunchboxes - for sure. My mother was one of the few working-outside-the-home moms in the late 19502 and early 1960s, and in an effort for mornings not to be too busy, we would make a week’s worth of sandwiches every Sunday evening and freeze them. Mon-Fri morning - take one out of the freezer and pop it in your metal lunchboxes box and it would have thawed by lunchtime. Take it from me - egg salad on white bread does not freeze well and thaws into a disgusting, soggy mess. To this day, I cannot eat an egg salad sandwich - YUCK!
16. Dizzies - vaguely. Also straws that had a flavor chip in them that would flavor the milk as you sucked it up.
17. Chemistry sets - had one.
18. Rabbit ear and tinfoil - been there, done that.
19. Drive-ins - going to the snack bar was always the highlight
20. Milkman - when I was 5, we lived in a very old rental house that had a little metal lined box in the wall with 2 doors - one to the outside for the milkman to open and put the milk in the box, and one to the inside for us to open and bring the into the house. I thought it was way cool.
21. Gas station giveways -no specific recall
22. Free toasters - no specific memory
23. Car blanket - again, no particular recall, but I do remember my dad covering the car engine with a blanket under the car hood on really cold nights. Not sure if this was of any benefit, seeing as the engine would not have been generating any heat for the blanket to hold in. Occasionally, he’d forget to remove it.
24. Formica kitchen tables - of course
25. The Yellow Pages - “lets your fingers do the walking through the - Yellow Pa-ages!” 🎶

[Ocelot II]

62. Flav-R Straws! I'd forgotten about those. They were terrible but we loved them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flav-R-Straws

[BidenRocks]

38. And a baby's arm holding an apple! The Tubes

I think it was Price Club and Circuit City.
As a kid, I thought they were neat!

[2naSalit]

39. All but...

The shoe store x-ray machine, never saw one of those.

[Oeditpus Rex]

41. The only list I need to make me feel old

is what hurts and how much.

[DinahMoeHum]

42. The pneumatic mail tube system, to the umpteenth degree. . .

from the movie The Shadow (1994)

[EverHopeful]

59. The pneumatic tubes also make an amusing appearance in the movie Paddington

but I haven't figured out how to post a movie clip. Will maybe try to work that out later when I'm more awake.

[debm55]

43. Thank you Ocelot II , I remember every single one.

[Wicked Blue]

45. I used to feel old when I realized that my doctors were younger than me

Now I feel incredibly old because my doctors are retiring.

[MuseRider]

46. You bet!

Those tubes were fascinating when little and fun if you could get a nice lady let you send a silly note to someone upstairs.

[aka-chmeee]

47. Is Item #11 Just in case JD came to visit? /nt

[dflprincess]

48. My mother let me use her Green Stamps to get my first stereo

and I still have a scar on my knee from where I sliced it open on milk box we had on the backstep where the milkman left the new bottles of milk.

We didn't have plastic furniture covers but one of my grandmas did.

[Ocelot II]

50. We never had plastic covers either - Mom thought they were tacky - but we had neigbors who did.

[dsvajda]

52. There was a pretty famous rumor about S&H stamps in Saigon

where it seemed that an entrepeneurial GI convinced some bars that that he was from the Dept of Sanitation and Health and the bar had to pay $50 to get the Departments approval to serve Americans and display the green S&H 50 stamp showing they had paid.

The foot xray was at our local Buster Brown shoe store.

[marble falls]

51. No thanx! Living it is making making me feel old enough already!

[Alwaysna]

55. I still have books of green stamps & metal ice trays ,which I still use.

[rickford66]

56. The Fuller Brush Man

Bakery delivery guy, radio dramas, comedies and soaps, human powered lawn mowers, five cent rubber ball, paint by numbers, cars with flower vases, everybody's phone number in your head, and so much more.

[boonecreek]

57. Funny Green Stamp story.

Like many people, my mother collected S&H Green Stamps. So anyway, there was
a redemption center at either a Wieboldt's or Goldblatt's store in the Lincoln & Belmont
shopping area on the north side of Chicago. One evening she and my father went to
redeem the stamp booklets which she kept in a brown paper bag. So they're going out
the back door and my mother grabs the first bag she sees. At the redemption center
she picks out what she wanted but noticed that the bag that supposedly had the booklets
in it had some grease spots. Embarrassed by this she dumped the bag out and half
a dozen chocolate donuts go rolling around the counter. The part that really frosted
my mom was that my dad stood there like he had no idea who this woman was.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

58. I also remember each of the items in that article

I feel old

[EverHopeful]

60. Sending this post to my cousin

Just the other day we were talking about how all the things we thought were so modern when we were kids, seem as old-fashioned to young people today as that old wind-up Victrola did to us when we were kids.

[Sogo]

64. Yes, I remember all of them!

Funny story about going to the drive in movie theater. The first time I ever went was with my cousins and siblings. It was "The Russians Are Coming; The Russians Are Coming." The person running the projector got reels 2 and three mixed up. We were all wondering what the heck was going on in the movie....IIRC, they stopped it after a while and got it straightened out. I was pretty young and only half remember....I should rent that movie sometime. I don't remember it at all.

[CTyankee]

65. It's a very funny movie. I wish I could see it again but not on youtube.

[LogDog75]

66. I remember all those items

I have two metal ice trays I use. I bought them off Amazon a few years ago after the ice maker in my refrigerator went kaput. I have a new refrigerator without an ice maker which is why I have the ice trays.