Things/Behaviors You Don't See Anymore

[82_28]

I put this up quite awhile ago on my site I don't pay too much attention to anymore.



July 22nd, 1974

[Freitag]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned it yet: Hitch hiking and hitch hikers.

Not an uncommon sight in Oregon.

[82_28]

I always use the archives for the "buzz" of the era. When the first terms come into play. I have a real hard time with tacos because the Seattle Times archives are loaded with stories that include Tacoma.

Edit: Also date would be nice!

August 22nd, 1975

[NeonLX]

Soft seats on city buses, instead of hard plastic
Big candy bars for a nickel
Peanuts for a penny (similar to a gum ball machine)
Ashtrays and lighters in cars
Same with crank windows in cars
Identifiable cars (or cars you would want to identify in the first place)
"Church keys"
House calls by the family doctor
Ears without earbuds stuffed into them

[Burnt Hill]

I bought my wife a pack of cigarettes the other day.
As the guy behind the counter was handing me my change he reached under the counter, grabbed and tossed me a pack of matches.
That hasn't happened in a good decade- at least.

[Nordic]

Asbestos

Lead based paint

Lead Christmas tree "icicles"

Women smoking while pregnant.

The fumes of leaded gasoline pre-catalytic converter (if you miss this you can experience it in Mexico)

Ads for cigarettes on tv

The military draft

White peoole using the N word in casual conversation, with no qualms

Gym socks that went almost to your knees

No seatbelts in cars

DDT

Black and white TV's

Doctors who would stare in disbelief when I told them I had a deathly allergy to peanuts because they'd never heard of such a thing

[Cordelia]

divideandconquer » Thu Aug 25, 2016 11:25 am"

"Men smoking pipes (sorry, never saw a woman smoke a pipe)"

^^^
I did back in the early-mid 1970's. And cigars (family connection to a tobacco store)

Stationary
Letter correspondence
Friends were people met at least once in the physical realm
Towns and communities w/o commercial chain stores
Maps
Groups of neighborhood children playing in the street. With their dogs.
Children riding bikes together
Look Magazine
Lone family practitioners
Nurses and doctors wearing white uniforms
Drivers looking at the road
Pedestrians looking around
People unattached to electronic devices
Restaurants more about the food and diners than about the chef and the restaurant's image
Humility
Patience
The mystery a person (or anything) carries when not instantly accessible............

[Novem5er]

@ Nordic . . . yeah, it wasn't all good, was it? To add to that list, I no longer see or hear about:

active serial killers
crack cocaine
after school specials about drugs
after school specials about molestation
Mr. T appearing in cartoons to warn kids about drugs
Mr. T

[Grizzly]

Does anyone remember when you could easily print, reprint t,format and send and saves heady articles for research? Whatever happened to that...??

[Nordic]

People doing scary things like hiking into the woods/forests/mountains WITHOUT GPS.

I read something lately about some people who had the unmitigated balls to go on some kind of hike without GPS and it was treated like going into outer space without oxygen. Annoyed the shit out of me.

The whole point was to try not to get lost, using your wits!!!!!!!

GPS is cheating.

Getting lost is a beautiful thing!

Clint Eastwood was right, this is a pussy generation.

Heck I remember one time in the San Juan mountains of Colorado I simply started following a sign that pointed off into the trees that said "Clear Lake". Hours later I found myself thousands of feet up in a treeless, snow-patched mountain basin, as the sun was setting, gazing upon one of the most beautiful little lakes I'd ever seen, the ridges and mountain peaks looming over me. I had hiked for miles, though forests, over creeks, over waterfalls, through meadows, above the tree line, past banks of snow (in August) having NO idea where I was going or what I was going to see when I got there. It was one of the best experiences of my young life at that point.

I couldn't look at it from a fucking satellite before I went, read Yelp reviews of the trail, googled countless images of it before I decided to go, or any of that shit. I just started walking into the woods. It was awesome.

[Luther Blissett]

Taking nude Polaroids of oneself.

[Luther Blissett]

I still mostly hike without GPS.

[8bitagent]

Being able to be friendly and find a date, or heck even friends in a synchronistic offline manner
Seeing people *NOT* walking and glued to their Kubrickian iphone monolith
Making a not too offensive joke without grossly offending people
arcades
mall foodcourts where eateries had their own unique restaurant
phone booths
PG movies having swear words
Happy meal toys
every single thing in life under a buzzfeed trendy microscope
smoking in public places(even tho I never liked smoking)
cartoon adult product mascots(Joe Camel, Spuds Mackenzie, ect)

While I applaud truly progressive breakthroughs in 2016, there's an overwhelming amount of things I dislike about the modern American cultural zeitgeist and makes me
miss the 80s and 90s growing up.

I totally get and embrace some of the rejection of PC culture and wanting to turn the page back in time, but it gets too extreme and I still want to see a whole different intelligent forward minded culture...even if it takes a few wars, civil wars and centuries to get to

[lucky]

...Gawd I use to hitch all over the UK - why waste money on a fare, did 100's of miles on many trips.

Pipe smoking is an odd one - shops sell the tobacco and pipes but I can't remember when I last saw a person smoking one, 20 years at least.

[82_28]

I find that people get more confused when they rely on GPS. I'm all like, you knew how to get here 20 years ago now you suddenly can't?

Grandpas who would draw you a map to get from Rapid City to Denver avoiding all the highways and telling you where to stop off along the way for places with friendly people and good food. We once went an entire dirt road in that span when I was a runt. He knew the routes he used to take and all the little towns in between (they're all dead now). All you had to do is say his name and everyone was stoked to hear he was alive still.

He dropped by to say hi to everybody no matter where he went.