Official Old Fart Thread!

[fossil]

Hell, cordless phones...let alone cell phones. And microwave ovens, and commercial jetliners, and on and on and on...

 

[HDRock]

One thing I wish they had never came up with, is, Insurance Commercials
Remote controls are so great, aren't they?
I was the youngest of 5 siblings, so I ended up being the channel changer most of the time

 

[BrotherBart]

Hell, cordless phones...

I think that one is my favorite. Back before 800 and 900 mhz I bought a cop scanner and put it in my garage shop. The very first thing it snagged was my neighbor's wife on her cordless phone when her boyfriend called her at home while her husband was away.

I went in the house and tossed ours in the trash.

 

[jharkin]

Left a few off. Like, say, the transistor

60 years ago is 1953. Transistor was invented in 47.

For that matter, dishwashers, dryers and air conditioners all go back decades before the 50s. Not as common as today but available.


Edit: oops this was mentioned already.

 

[BrotherBart]

I think readily available to the masses is the thing here.

I mean hey, the Babbage Engine was a computer.

 

[fossil]

Edit: oops this was mentioned already.

Yes, it was. And it's also nitpicky BS. The transistor was developed over a long period of time. They weren't commercially viable or produced in quantity until the mid-1950's.

 

[jharkin]

Toys -my avatar. Silly putty which came in an egg. Rocket Radio. My sister's doll - Betsy Wetsy. Paint By Numbers. Grow your own seahorses in the back of comics. Slinkey. Mousetrap game. Barrel of Monkeys. Gilbert Chemistry Set, which had sulpher, saltpeter and charcoal right in it....

Wow I remember playing with all of those toys in the 80s!

 

[jharkin]

Yes, it was. And it's also nitpicky BS. The transistor was developed over a long period of time. They weren't commercially viable or produced in quantity until the mid-1950's.

Point taken. It was an honest goof, I really did just hit the button before reading the thread.

Sorry.

 

[Ashful]

So did I. I was invented in 1948. 60 years, 64 years...what's the diff?

Says the guy who's 64.

 

[save$]

We had a kitchen stove and an oil stove in the living room. We sat around a floor model radio in the evening. Mom did the wash in some sort of tub with rollers on it. The clothes were hung out to dry. We did have an indoor flush, so that was different from what some of our friends had. Any toys we had were either wood or metal. We did get a phone, but it was a party line. You had to count the rings to know when to answer. Any calls further than a few miles was long distance and cost a lot so we were forbidden to do that. The lawn was small because those push mowers were very had to move. You were licked if you let it grow more than a couple inches.
I could buy a candy bar for three cents! Old enough!

 

[BrotherBart]

And walking to school in the snow it was uphill. Both ways.

 

[firefighterjake]

First color TV . . . small screen with these plastic doors made to look like wood that would close up to hide the TV from view so folks supposedly would not know it was a TV . . . and of course no remote and only three or four channels . . . heck, in college (1988-1992) I was one of the few there who did not have access to cable or satellite TV.

Went to school -- Kindergarten through 12th grade in the same building. Not the same room mind you . . . it was not a one room school house, but it was the same building. Knew every student in the graduating class.

Party line phone . . . the good news it was with my grandparents and Uncle up the road.

 

[BrotherBart]

We had the first color TV in our town in 1959. Daytime Truth or Consequences was the color show and on Sunday Bonanza. Everybody ooohing and ahhhing at the color of the fire burning through the map on the intro. Me sitting on the couch steaming because I wanted to watch The Untouchables in B/W on the other of two stations. Our house was always packed on New Years Day with people eating our food and watching the Tournament of Roses Parade in color.

The TV burned up a flyback transformer about once every two months.

Dad was a preacher and one Sunday night he paused in the sermon and said "OK. Everybody settle down. You are going to get home in time for Bonanza.".

 

[Hearth Mistress]

Ok, so I don't consider myself an old fart yet, just turning 40 in march, but today, the "oldies" station was playing not only motown oldie but goodies but Bon Jovi and Prince. I guess the "80's" is old now too

Anyway, I have a few to chime with...
-our "big as a boat" Buick that my dad would take corners on pretty much 2 wheels so my sister and I would slide across that massive back seat hysterical laughing while playing the Bay City Rollers on the 8 track
- the smell of raw gas and manual choke on the "farm truck" beater my dad used to haul hay
- my dad buying my mom a microwave for mothers day in 1978 and not only it being the size of a VW beetle but all of us terrified to use this "space technology" My mother swore we'd all glow in the dark from radiation poisoning
- phone numbers ST267, not 10 digit dialing!

Speaking of phones, just recently, we were finally cleaning out old crap piled up from Sandy now that the shed was rebuilt. My neighbors kid, 22, was fumbling with a phone and we couldn't help but laugh, he was trying REALLY hard to figure out how to use it, it was rotary, blew his mind!

And these....My favorite t-shirt

 

[HDRock]

Ok, so I don't consider myself an old fart yet, just turning 40 in march, but today, the "oldies" station was playing not only motown oldie but goodies but Bon Jovi and Prince. I guess the "80's" is old now too

Anyway, I have a few to chime with...
-our "big as a boat" Buick that my dad would take corners on pretty much 2 wheels so my sister and I would slide across that massive back seat hysterical laughing while playing the Bay City Rollers on the 8 track
- the smell of raw gas and manual choke on the "farm truck" beater my dad used to haul hay
- my dad buying my mom a microwave for mothers day in 1978 and not only it being the size of a VW beetle but all of us terrified to use this "space technology" My mother swore we'd all glow in the dark from radiation poisoning
- phone numbers ST267, not 10 digit dialing!

Speaking of phones, just recently, we were finally cleaning out old crap piled up from Sandy now that the shed was rebuilt. My neighbors kid, 22, was fumbling with a phone and we couldn't help but laugh, he was trying REALLY hard to figure out how to use it, it was rotary, blew his mind!

And these....My favorite t-shirt

View attachment 105240

I still have some 45s

 

[Jags]

And these....My favorite t-shirt

View attachment 105240

The clutch off of a McCullough 240?

 

[Ashful]

Just with regard to cars, and what was once common knowledge:

Tune-up signs at gas stations
Gas stations associated with garages
Full-service stations (they're all self-service here)
Tune-ups
Knowing when it's time to change your cap and rotor
-- actually having a cap and rotor
Mechanical / vacuum advance
Carburetors
Chokes

Anyone here ever try hot-rodding a car with vacuum wipers or headlight pods? I remember lots of Corvettes driving around with one headlight down, because the driver had a high performance aftermarket cam / intake combo, and couldn't generate enough vacuum to pull both headlights up!

 

[Jags]

Don't forget bias ply tires.

 

[Ashful]

How could I? I still have some.

 

[BrotherBart]

Anyone here ever try hot-rodding a car with vacuum wipers or headlight pods? I remember lots of Corvettes driving around with one headlight down, because the driver had a high performance aftermarket cam / intake combo, and couldn't generate enough vacuum to pull both headlights up!

Or have a valve in the wiper hose under the dash to open so it would lope at red lights like it actually had a high lift cam.

 

[northwinds]

This car talk made me remember my family's Rambler station wagon made in Wisconsin (looked exactly like this one). As a youngster, I got behind the wheel and pretended to operate the controls one Sunday morning. Little did I know that playing with the accelerator flooded the engine, and the car wouldn't start when the family got
ready to go to church. I don't remember any seat belts. My brother and I loved to ride in the way back all of the time. "Stop that roughhousing," my parents would yell.

 

[Jags]

Too funny - my parents had the same car (ours had a roof rack, I remember getting in trouble for hanging on it) - and no, there were no seat belts.

 

[Delta-T]

...cars used to have an ash tray for every passenger...fancy cars had cigarette lighters all around. My Dad had a Chevy Caprice/Impala (forget exactly) that was fully loaded...his Dad worked many years at GM cr factory...he got a good deal on that beast.

 

[Ashful]

My brother and I loved to ride in the way back all of the time. "Stop that roughhousing," my parents would yell.

Yeah, but dad's swinging arm couldn't reach you in the "wayback".

<-- Thought the "wayback" was a local (east coast) term for the back of the station wagon!

 

[BrotherBart]

Yeah, but dad's swinging arm couldn't reach you in the "wayback".

<-- Thought the "wayback" was a local (east coast) term for the back of the station wagon!

"Don't you make me have to stop this car!"