Things You Don't See Anymore, Or At Least Not Much

I was thinking the other day about phone booths. Not the phone stands, but an actual public phone booth out on the street. You know, a Super Man dressing room complete with phone, phone book, and that horrid folding door. You just don't see many of them any more. But once upon a time, you did not have to go far to see several. They were located all over cities and small towns.

In this age of personal mobile phones, there is a seriously declining need for public phones at all. And now, you only find a phone stand, unprotected from the weather, and they never have phone books. But there really is little reason for the phone companies to do much more than that. In reality, for most people a public phone stand is an emergency phone for when their cell phone dies while they are out and about. There simply is no demand for phone booths.

Well, there are phone booths in many bars. It is intended mainly as having a quiet place to talk on the phone and not have to shout above the noise. And some of these booths don't even have phones. It is merely a place for you to sit with your own cell phone away from the cacophony of a modern pub.

And it occurs to me, there are many other things I don't see any more. Thing that once were common. Things I remember from my childhood. Heck, some things I remember from just a decade ago have nearly vanished.

Many of these vanished items that were once common have been talked about at length in blogs, articles, and emails. Everyone knows that vinyl records and eight tracks went the way of the buggy whip, itself a vanished item I never remember being common. VHS and cassette tapes also are becoming near extinct as well. So in addition to phone booths, rotary phones, and full service gas stations, I have come up with my own list of things I don't see any more, but used to see. This is not to say I necessarily miss any of these things, just I don't see them.

And here they are, in no particular order, just random brain picking:

Leaded Gasoline

Do they really have to keep saying "unleaded" now? All of it is unleaded at the pumps, or its diesel.

Quart Oil Cans

Remember those round cardboard cans that required a special nozzle that punched a hole in the top?

Gas Pumps With 2 Digit Pricing

There was a time when it was unthinkable that gasoline would be more than 99 cents a gallon and these pumps simply did not register above 99.9 cents per gallon.

Typewriters

This used to be the main workhorse of offices, now they only exist in tiny numbers.

Carbon Papers

This goes along with typewriters, there is just little use for these in most offices today.

Orange Smelling "Model Airplane Glue"

Because if its stinky enough, people won't sniff it? Right.

Merthiolate/Mercurochrome/Merbromin

At one time, this was a standard item all mother's pulled out for skinned knees and scraped chins - and other assorted cuts.

Plastic Military Model Kits

These are becoming increasingly harder to find. Sure you can still find model military planes, but finding model tanks and jeeps and such is not so easy.

Hypodermic Needle Cleaners and Reusable Needles

Many times I remember seeing the doctor take out a needle from the needle cleaner and get it ready for my behind. Can you imagine reusing needles now?

Unpowered Lawnmowers

I actually had one of these when I had a tiny lawn in modern suburbia. I got a lot of stares at my engine-less mower.

Slide Rules

Admit it, most of you don't really know what a slide rule is for or how to use one. I will give you a hint, you don't measure with it.

Candy Cigarettes

Remember these? Most were simple stick candies colored to resemble cigarettes. I got some once that you could blow through and a little puff of powdered sugar would come out to resemble smoke. Now there's a message to kids.

Reusable Soda Bottles

I remember having to keep the soda bottles in their packs on the back porch after we drank them until we were ready to take them back to the store. Often I would pick up any I could find and take them back with ours to get the deposit refund to buy another bottle of soda (of course).

Glass Bottle Soda Vending Machines

Remember those vending machines where a stack of bottles were held between two rails and you put in your dime (later quarter) and pulled out a "little coke" - one of those awesome 8-ounce wonders of the finest cola put out by Coca-Cola. You can still get the "little cokes" but you pay through the nose for them.

Lawn Darts

Now I would like to have a set of these again. Why anyone thinks giving kids a huge dart that weighs about half a pound that they can hurl at their friends is a bad thing I will never know.

Fuse Plugs

Remember those little screw-in fuses that had a glass top that were used in "fuse boxes"? Their bottoms looked something like the base of a light bulb. We went through tons of these.

"Milkmen"

There once was a time when dairy companies had local milk delivery to your house. I remember the "milkman" coming by only on certain days. We used to save up money (sometimes from returning reusable soda bottles) and bought ice cream from him. Sometimes, he would come out and shoot hoops with us when we had a basketball out.

Fins on Cars

There was a time when most cars had fins. Why anyone thought it looked good, I will never know. This is definitely one I do not miss.

Floppy Disks

Computers originally had only floppy disks (once we passed the short-lived cassette storage). If you are saving a stack of old 5" disks, good luck getting them to read. Its now becoming rare to even find a floppy drive in modern computers. And really, with a max of 1.2 to 1.4 megabytes, they don't hold much. Often now, individual docs and presentations are too large for floppies.

Well, that is all I can think of at this time. If you have suggestions, leave a comment. I would like know what else is vanishing.



Copyright 2008, Kevin Farley (a.k.a. sixdrift, a.k.a. neuronstatic)