Musings from Brian J. Noggle: How Many Of These Things Are You Old Enough to Remember?

How Many Of These Things Are You Old Enough to Remember?

In a sidebar to an article entitled "Whatever Happened To...." by Rose Madeline Mula, the Saturday Evening Post asks that question. Here's the list, with the ones I remember in bold:

Blackjack chewing gum (It and its cousins made a brief comeback in the 1980s.)
Wax Coke-shaped bottles with colored sugar water
Candy cigarettes
Soda-pop machines that dispensed bottles
Coffee shops with tableside jukeboxes (Come on, some retro places still have these.)
Home milk delivery in glass bottles with cardboard stoppers
Party lines (We had them in Jefferson County, Missouri, until 1987 or 1988.)
Packards (But I do remember Packard Bells.)
P.F. Flyers (But I do remember Radio Flyers. Metal Radio Flyers.)
Butch wax
Peashooters
Howdy Doody
S&H Green Stamps (Not Eagle Stamps. See this post from April 2006.)
Hi-fi systems
Newsreels before the movie
45-RPM records...and 78-RPM records (I still own some 45s.)
Telephone numbers with a word prefix (e.g., Olive-6933)
Metal ice trays with levers (See this post from March 2006)
Mimeograph paper (And the glorious smell of the ink and the warmth of the fresh copies.)
Blue flashbulbs
Rollerskate keys
Cork popguns
Drive-in theatres
Studebakers
Washtub wringers

That makes me 14 of 25, and I am not yet 35. So although this list shouldn't make me feel old since its items are not older than the 1980s in many cases, I think the ery fact that I have a subscription to the Saturday Evening Post should suffice.

- posted by Brian J. @ 12:23 PM