Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Things That Have Gone Away: Remember These?

Adjusting Rabbit Ears On Top Of a TV

Adjusting Horizontal And Vertical Holds on a TV

Be Kind-Rewind video tapes

Calling A Phone Sex Line

Calling Collect On A Payphone

Cash Register Used Manually Entering The Prices (rather than scanning them)

Changing The Ribbon On A Typewriter

Converting Your Albums From Vinyl To Cassette Tape

Cuff Links

Dialing A Rotary Phone

Filing Cards In A Library Card Catalog

Finding Channels On UHF

Getting Off The Couch To Change Channels On Your TV Set

Having Your Gas Pumped For You And Your Oil Checked At A Full-service Gas Station

Kick Starting A Motorcycle

Knowing What Part Of Town Someone Lives In By Their Phone Exchange

Loading A Reel To Reel Tape Drive

Making An Operator Assisted Phone Call

Making Hot Chocolate By Heating Milk in a Pan, Then Adding Cocoa Powder and Sugar (remember the "skin" on the milk?)

Meeting People By Answering Personal Ads In A Newspaper Or Magazine

Opening A Can Of Beer Or Soda With A Church Key

Peeling The Developer Layer Off A Polaroid

Percolating Coffee

Placing A Coin On A Tone arm To Prevent Skipping

Popping Corn In A Pot With Oil

Porn Not From The Internet

Putting A Needle On A Vinyl Record

Rewinding An Audio Cassette Using A Bic Pen

Selling Something In The Classified Ads

Shave With A Straight Razor

Shorthand

Smelling A Freshly Mimeographed Test Paper

Switching To High Beams By Stomping On A Button In The Floor

Taking The Tape Out Of An Answering Machine

Testing TV Tubes At the Drugstore

Using Carbon Paper To Make Copies

Using Correction Fluid

Using A Party-line Telephone

Using A Pay Toilet

1 comment:

Evhen said...

Not all have gone away. Popping popcorn in a pot w/ oil is still better than microwave. And the best beer still requires a church key. Other than that, great list. Thanks for reminding me how old I am.