Things young people have never seen

Rotary phones of course. Eight track tapes/players. Carburetors. Milk men. Lawn mowers where you mix the oil with the gas (which lasted forever). Girdles. Burger Chef. Encyclopedias (as in a set of books). Slide rules. Pet rocks. Streaking.

Cleaned out my garage this morning and actually threw out a functional 8-track player, which I bought new sometime in the mid-70s. For those that had 8-track players in their cars, how many had a folded piece of cardboard to jam under the 8-track to get the tape aligned with the heads on the player? Cassettes? CDs? Fuck em, I am loving this streaming world!

Milk man, that's a good one. We had milk delivery up until sometime in the late 80's. Heavy glass bottles and you put the empties out in the box for pick-up.

More phone stuff: dial tone... busy signal... long distance calls... phone books... Yellow Pages...

How about "parents that didn't helicopter or overly protect them from the world?"

I might be the last generation that was left to play outside unsupervised and told to come in when the streetlights came on.

Seltzer delivered
Diapers delivered
Howard Johnson’s
The Automat put in a quarter get a meal
Rooftop antennas for TVs
And if your automobile had a choke you’re old as dirt.

I also remember playing with my brother in a coal chute at my grandparents house in Brooklyn getting filthy sliding from the side yard to the basement
Another thing that was at my grandparents house was the trolley cars used to go down the middle of Atlantic Ave.

One hour photo service

My parents had a AMC station wagon where the fold down rear seat faced out the back window.

The "have lunch, get change back from your dollar" McDonald's ads. $0.25 per gallon gas.

No ATM’s. Having to go to the bank in person to get cash out, and on Friday afternoons hoping you’d budgeted correctly for the weekend.
No remote controls, as a kid that was your job to change the channel.

shit. My refrigerator was bought brand new in 1982 and my freezer my ex wife bought (with her ex-husband) in 1972.
both working much better than my actual ex-wife.

Full service gas stations
TV stations signing off
Using a map to go somewhere

a couple of years ago I gave a co-worker a AM FM cassette radio that was still new in the box. stuck it in his 40 year-old toyota pick up. I don't know if he's got any tapes but I wouldn't be surprised. says the radio works great!

Magazines

Cars with CD players - almost all new cars don’t even have those anymore.

@gobstopper007 - Here in NJ we still have full service gas stations. In fact, it's technically illegal to pump gas yourself. That's never really been enforced, but some of the modern pumps here now require a swipe from the attendant's ID card before the gas will come out, so you might as well just sit on your ass and wait for him. I think we're now the only state in the country with full service.

Jersey is also known for full service strip clubs. Lol. Not as many places as there used to be, but still fairly easy to find.

More phone stuff: party lines - you couldn't even make a call if your neighbor was on the line, but they could ease drop on any of your conversations.

Plastic "colorizers" that taped to the front of your TV that had 3 color bands. Blue at the top for sky, pink in the middle for skin and green at the bottom for grass.

Going to the store to get vacuum tube replacements for your TV set.

Your home breaker panel had screw in fuses.

YOU COULD HAVE UNPROTECTED SEX AND THE ONLY THING YOU EVER WORRIED ABOUT WAS PREGNANCY!

young ones under 25 most likely never have actually seen:

-bus/subway coined token
-a juicy mcdonalds quarter pounder. last time i had this was around 2002-3. they also made changes with the french fries around 10 years ago.
-laminated library card
-pong video game console
-nedicks orange soda
-schaefer beer
-80's hairdos

^the party lines. the 976-fuck numbers - yeah i forgot about those.

long before there was tinder or eharmony back then there was a phone line called the night exchange. no pics with this, so voice, conversational skills and personality were all a must to get the girls' numbers. then there was always the anticipation of what she'll look like. i met 5 of them. 3 were low 7's, a 5 and a kathy bates lookalike.

Buying a case of old Milwaukee or Pfeifers returnable bottles of beer. In college it was $2.40 case as long as you had all of the returnable bottles included.

Along those same lines with the returnable beer bottles, I had an old church key to open them.

DJ's actually played discs called vinyl records that were played on a record players.
Incinerators in our back yard for burning trash.

Hah! The milkman who served our neighborhood had a horse-drawn wagon! The horse was smart, and would reliably stop at houses where milk bottles were out, while the milkman would walk alongside with a basket of milk, eggs and butter and refill as needed from the wagon.

Another thing no longer seen - a milk door built into every house on the block, with inner and outer doors.

"Supermarkets" not much larger than a lot of today's convenience stores. Speaking of which, A&P groceries.

Sunday blue laws.

My grandparents still had a wall mounted phone with a mounted microphone and a separate large wired earphone. It did have a rotary dial, but accessing long distance on any phone required an initial connection to an operator!

Exterior visors on cars - my family owned one for a while, a '49 DeSoto. Later, extravagant tail fins.

Single speed bikes with coaster brakes, actuated by pressing the pedals backwards.

Heck, we learned math without calculators including long division.

I still have a slide rule that I occasionally bring out just to prove I can still use it. Know this, when we run out of fossil fuels and the power goes out, we old time engineers will rule the world! Bwahahaha.

Three on the tree gear shifters.

Crank-operated car windows.

Back in the pre-microwave days, I had this thing that would cook a hot dog by running an electric current through it.

Pull off tabs on drink cans. Drink cans that were as thick as soup cans. They younguns must be stumped with the beer can versus styrofoam cup crushing scene in Jaws. Assume they ever watch Jaws.

I don't smoke but ashtrays on airplanes and the Marlboro Man come To mind

Rubbers behind the counter and cigarettes in front.

Politicians that actually had common sense and wanted to do what they thought was best instead of just following the party talking point while trying to beat the other party regardless of the consequences for regular people.

shit. even ashtrays are a rare thing now unless you got an old car.

People using the right restroom

When I think about it, packaging has really changed a lot in my lifetime. Toothpaste came in metal tubes you rolled up. Coke came in glass bottles you had to return for a deposit. The only orange juice I had as a kid was frozen concentrate. I remember Tropicana being available at some point in glass but it never seemed popular.

Cold breakfast cereal may be the only packaging that changed little.

^^ motorhead - Yeah, cereal hasn't changed much, but I remember the bag inside the cereal box was made of wax paper and you had to be careful or it would tear all the way down and cereal would spill into the cardboard box. Can't remember when it changed to the plastic, but it works better now.

Home milk delivery; free parking at the beach; a dumbwaiter; Elevator operator; Paper lift tickets; soaking a towel in cold water, draping it over a clothes rack and putting a fan behind it (a/c for the poor); Dunkin Donuts throwing out everything 4 hours old and baking fresh in individual stores; Minibike with 3 hp Briggs and Stratton lawnmower engine; Zarex; Saccharine; No zip codes; house call from your doctor, no access to money after 5 or on weekends; patriotism; being a victim not being a source of pride; immigrants who weren't total negatives; pond hockey; pick up baseball and football games; T-bars; Rolodex; IBM Selectric; The paperboy; Kids moving other people's lawns for money; Families eating dinner together; Sunday dinner; Cops walking the beat; Pride in your country; Working hard;

leaded gasoline. I remember when I was a kid it still existed and you had to specifically select/ask for unleaded if that's what you wanted/needed.

More on phones. Call waiting on a land line. And dialing ‘0’ for an operator and asking them to do an ‘emergency break through’ when you are getting a busy signal on the person you are calling. We’d do that in junior high when making social plans. The operator could jump on the line with the person you are trying to reach and say ‘emergency break through from Diamond, should I connect the call?’

I guess call waiting probably still for exists. Haven’t had a land line for 10 years.

Today it's microwave popcorn but remember Fiffy Pop?

"FUN SNACKING IN A JIFF
As much fun to eat as it is to make"

+Library card catalogs.
+Carbon paper to make copies.
+Turkish Taffy.
+African-American families with married parents.
+Woolworth's and Kmarts.
+Mood rings.
+Mr. Rogers.
+Lava lamps

Sears, Montgomery Wards, Blockbuster, numerous other companies.

@Lockjaw, I have a cousin who still owns and uses a lava lamp

My child also has a mood ring she keeps as a souvenir from our trip to the ocean.

Do they still teach the Dewey Decimal system in school?

Betamax

5 1/4 floppy discs

Transistors

Walkmen

The green monochrome pc displays

Daisy wheel and dot matrix printers, plus the paper with the tear hole tracks on the side

Rabbit ears on TV and the antennas on rooftops

The high-tech expensive casios with the calculator keypad

A blackberry phone (if you had one, you know)

*^ casio watches

Damn the milkman is old school as fuck!

^ in addition to the milk man there were guys who delivered eggs (little truck van stacked with nothing but trays of eggs), bread delivery man, chips and pretzels delivery (rich people down the street were the only ones with that) .everyone had insulated metal boxes on their front steps for the deliveries.
When my big brother and sister were tikes they got into the back of the unlocked egg van and broke dozens and dozens of eggs. The egg man wanted my mom to pay for it but when she told my dad he went apeshit on the egg man and told him he ought to beat his ass for not locking his van. The was the end of our egg deliveries.

You'd think going homicidal on the eggman would be a stripper, not a PL, daddy issue.

Home delivery of cases of returnable bottles of beer. My Dad's beer of choice was PBR, generations before it became trendy.

Hair on the top of my head.

For those from Boston/New England:

Bradlees
Caldor
Lechmere

@shadowcat: "DJ's actually played discs called vinyl records"

I was one of those DJs while in college in 1977/1979.

@ilbbaicnl: "They younguns must be stumped with the beer can versus styrofoam cup crushing scene in Jaws."

Ah yes, John "Bluto" Belushi crushing a can in "Animal House". I just re-watched this last week - priceless movie. A must see.

@shadowcat: As a DJ, I still have my Technics 1100 (not quartz) direct-drive turn table and it works fine. And the reason I appreciate McIntosh amps and Klipsch La Scala speakers as I used them.

Yugo: Translation from Russian or Yugoslav: Piece of Shit Americans will buy

Pay Phones: with the individual slots for Nickles, Dimes and Quarters, and they had paper phonebooks

Phone: you could dial a 3-digit number (free) for Time and Weather

Saving Passbook: Before ATMs, you had Savings and Checking Accounts. For saving, you had this pocket-sized booklet that the bank stamped so you could keep track of your deposits.

The Internet: Developed in 1974 by DARPA to keep the military-industrial-government-university complex connected in the event of a nuclear war, not for social media, shopping, Zoom and porn. The primary developers of TCP/IP (IP was the packet protocol, TCP guaranteed packet delivery if the end node was reachable) were Vinton Cerf and Bob Kahn: when you “surf” the Internet you are really “Cerf’ing” the Internet.

Lobster was $1/pound on Cape Cod in the 1960s, and steamers/corn were common at county fairs in NY - and cheap.

HoJos was known for its sherbert

Carvel invented soft-serve ice cream – common ice cream drive-up in the 1960s/1970s in New England

Space Invaders video game: The thump-thump-thump sound would slowly speed up as the Invaders were killed off increasing your adrenaline. Without that sound, the game would get boring.

Original Zip Codes: Single digit. I have a John Glenn signed postcard sent to Syracuse, 5, NY (that was the order) - see next

Project Mercury: Astronauts couldn't get life insurance. My dad was big in aerospace at GE. For John Glenn's Mercury space launch as the first to orbit the Earth, you could send a self-addressed card to Cape Canaveral, John Glenn signed it (no auto-pen shit), and NASA mailed it back with a special date stamp: Feb 20 1962 3:30PM "First Day Issue" - I keep it on my desk in a sealed display container. Also, while at GE, my dad was able to get original 14"x20" Gemini space and Apollo moon landing photos from the original negatives. My brother and I would take them to "Show and Tell" in elementary school - this was way before "Mikey has 2 Mommies" and "Why Porking Your Buddy is Fun".

Battlezone arcade tank game: The Army actually hired Atari to develop one for Abrams’ tankers and Bradley gunners for target training. Some Atari developers refused to work on it as it was for the Army – candy ass wimps.

East German Women’s Swim Team 1970s: The USSR had these women so jacked-up on ‘roids that they were about as close to men as you could get

Miracle on Ice – Men’s USA Hockey Team: This team was a quickly assembled of college hockey players from all over, went to the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics and beat the professional USSR Hockey Team. In the Cold War decades, this was a HUGE defeat for the Soviets. This was a bad as Jesse Owens getting 4 Gold Medals in the 1936 Germany (Nazis) Olympics.

TV: 3 VHF channels via rabbit ears, and PBS on UHF via that funky loop antennae

Klipschorns (or Khorns) were developed by Paul Klipsch in Hope, AR in the late-1940s, and are still one of the most sought-after speakers today. People know about them, just not that the folded-horn design dates back almost 80 years. And, Klipsch still makes them – about 170 pounds each, and they need to be placed in a corner of the room; La Scalas are a great alternative not needing corner placement.

COBOL: COmmon Business Oriented Language 1959 (still in use today actuially). Based Navy Admiral Grace Hopper FLOW-MATIC programming language using common English, not formulas, and was one of the primary developers. CompSci students today have no clue who Grace Hopper was, and she has Rock Star status with computer historians. People make a huge deal about “Girl Power” and crap, she is largely ignored by the #MeToo crowd. So is Radia Perlman, MIT Physics/CompSci, who developed IS-IS Link-State Routing Protocol in the early 1990s used today by global enterprise and Tier-1 Internet providers based from her work on Spanning Tree for Ethernet LANs in the early 1980s – she too is Rock Star in Computer Science, and a woman at that who is largely acknowledged by the Woke #MeToo Mob.

"Carvel invented soft-serve ice cream – common ice cream drive-up in the 1960s/1970s in New England"

Hate to break it to you, but my folks opened the seventh Dairy Queen in Canada when I was 5 in 1956. I think that Tastee Freeze may have even beaten FQ.

The first DQ® restaurant was located in Joliet, Illinois. It was operated by Sherb Noble and opened for business on June 22, 1940.

Tastee-Freez was founded in 1950 in Joliet, Illinois, by Leo S. Moranz and Harry Axene (formerly of Dairy Queen). Moranz invented a soft serve pump and freezer ...

I was incorrect.

kids today will 'never' know about:

* watching non-stop music videos on MTV, BET, VH-1, after school
* watching daily video countdown shows on MTV and BET
* local mom-and-pop VHS / DVD video stores with an Adult / XXX section behind a curtain
* playing pick-up football games after school with fellow kids from the neighborhood
* hanging out at an arcade with a pocket full of quarters
* Cereal commercials for a wide array of different morning cereals
* floppy disks for computers
* non-electric typewriters
* public city bus daily paper transfers tickets
* white correction tape for typewriters

A peer with strong work ethic.

@gothamyte - Video store is a good one. And the typewriter. I remember in middle school typing on my mother's Royal brand clickity-clack typewriter with the manual spring arm to return the carriage. It was a slow four-finger process because I didn't have a typing class until high school, and that was on an IBM Selectric. Do kids really not play pick-up games anymore?