Things you increasingly don't see anymore

[82_28]

Hobby shops where you would go in and buy a model of something and take it home and put it together and paint it. They used to be everywhere. Me and friends would always stop by this place called Bob's Hobbies, it was there for years and years, before I was even born and pick out the same model and would compare who could put it together and paint it better. It was never me, btw.

Local run of the mill steak houses that were just called something like, the one I'm thinking of was "Western Sizzlin' Steakhouse". They were just local places that weren't fancy in the least, weren't today's fancy schmancy joints that still exist for the investor class and weren't Outback.

Back when going to, like McDonald's, going to Red Lobster was again, "a real treat" and not an awful run of the mill corporate mediocrity. I remember when going to Red Lobster was something you dressed up for. Kinda like 'cuda's point about dressing up for air travel.

[82_28]

Getting made fun of because you still rode a bike with a banana seat = banana seats.

[compared2what?]

For some reason, I felt similarly about the Castle cake...



...in Betty Crocker's Cookbook for Boys and Girls. But I don't know why. Presumably, making it would have been within the bounds of possibility if I'd thought it was.

...

I don't know, though. In my heart, I still really feel that it can't be done, tbh.

I remember that castle cake- and the boy and girl illustrations that were so dated by the time I received that book somewhere around 69 or 70, probably from the grandma who gave me dresses with Peter Pan bib collars and stupid games like 'What shall I wear?' and 'Mystery Date'.

You are so right about the instantly archaic nature of Mystery Date. I clearly remember being highly amused by how ludicrously out-of-date it was the very first time I saw a commercial for it on TV. And I can't have been older than seven, at most. Probably closer to five.I kind of wonder how I knew, really.

Oh, well. I wanted it anyway, of course. But that was a complete abstraction for me, same as the stuff in the Sears catalog. It wouldn't even have occured to me that I couldn't have it, in those terms. As I understood it, "Children don't get stuff they want" was just an immutable, existential and absolute truth in much the same way that "Children don't have wings" was.

You don't see that as much as you used to, I believe, And also very much hope.

That cake broke my heart as much as the 'lil angel' hairstyle in the children's Toni perm booklet did. Both held out a kind of perfection I simply could never live up to.

Totally, absolutely the same deal here. It was maybe a little bit more unwittingly pre-heartbroken than that, I guess. But that was its essence. Plus, I couldn't figure out how it could even be possible to put two chocolate bars on a cake. I mean, imagine having two whole chocolate bars.

[Nordic]

Naked women. I increasingly don't see them anymore. In the flesh. At all. Frankly. And people dressing up for air flight. Everyone on planes these days looks like they just woke up and decided to go down to the 7-11 for smokes before taking a shower for the day.

For some strange reason I have 4 or 5 strip clubs within walking distance of my house. Unless ypu think body glitter counts as clothing I suppose if you were to pay a visit you could satiate your desire to see some naked women. Bring a roll of cash though.

Or were you talking about some other kind of naked woman?

[barracuda]

For some strange reason I have 4 or 5 strip clubs within walking distance of my house. Unless ypu think body glitter counts as clothing I suppose if you were to pay a visit you could satiate your desire to see some naked women. Bring a roll of cash though.

What a lovely invitation. I can't for the life of me think of a nicer way to spend a visit to West L.A. than on a walking tour of the various hell-holes in comfortable proximity to your home.

But in all honesty, I've never been to a strip club without being towed there by a woman. And I can't recall ever going to a strip club anywhere but on Broadway in the North Beach which, sadly, is increasingly a mere shadow of its former gaudy licentiousness.



Ain't like it used to be. The Condor is now a hamburger joint, though they have retained Ms. Doda's famous mechanical bed, as a curiosity, it seems.

Or were you talking about some other kind of naked woman?

Actually, yes, I was. In days of old there was a species of naked woman which on occasion lay like rare windfall about the environs of my home having apparently dropped ripe and ambrosial from the limbs of the famous nakedlady-tree which I so increasingly do not see anymore that I never really see them ever. I'm pretty sure it's my own fault though, rather than some inexorable decline or deficiency in contemporary life. Some things require a certain cultivation which, alas, seems now beyond me for reasons which are by turns sad, humorous, pathetic, wonderful, and inevitable. Nonetheless, the remembrance of them surrounds me with nostalgia surpassing even that which I am blanketed by when I reminisce upon thoughts of cutting our family's own Christmas tree, or cars sporting Brody knobs and Spartan hubs, or building my Aurora Guillotine model.

Thems was the days.

[Iamwhomiam]

82_28 wrote:
Local run of the mill steak houses that were just called something like, the one I'm thinking of was "Western Sizzlin' Steakhouse". They were just local places that weren't fancy in the least, weren't today's fancy schmancy joints that still exist for the investor class and weren't Outback

I believe that would be the Sizzler Steakhouse, home of the 99 cent Top Round steak. I worked at one my last few years in High School.

Fish, this is one of the funniest responses I've read here:
"What a lovely invitation. I can't for the life of me think of a nicer way to spend a visit to West L.A. than on a walking tour of the various hell-holes in comfortable proximity to your home."

I went to a strip club once and that was nearly 30 years ago. Bachelor party. I still regret it.
Very creepy.

Roller skates.

[H_C_E]

Okay, fine. The midgetry wasn't what one might hope for,
although I appreciate IAWIA's support.

If I am pressed to be serious (as painful
as that is) I don't see wrist watches much
anymore. Intersting and unusual websites.
It's all blogs and discussion forums these
days.

And things I don't understand why I see them anymore -

porn magazines. The Net being what it is, why does anyone
publish those things still? Can't be too profitable.

[Asta]

Original ideas

Analytical thinking

Affordable college educations

High school orchestras (Football bands don't count)

"Made in America" labels on clothing

Clothing that is tailored

[compared2what?]

"Made in America" labels on clothing

Clothing that is tailored

Oh, Asta. Can of worms. I forgot clothes. They really aren't what they used to be.

...

I guess if you go back far enough, that's probably partly because there isn't the endless supply of people so impoverished that they'd count themselves lucky if they got the chance to dedicate their short lives to doing as much impossibly fine hand needlework as they could before they went blind and died of tuberculosis, or whatever. (That there used to be.)

But up until...I'm not sure what point in the 20th century, industrially mass-manufactured clothes (union-label, even) were also just much better made, fabricated, and designed than they are now. And they had all these ingenious features that are now pretty much completely unknown to everybody except maybe two dozen specialists in period costume design for movies.

...

Well. I just went looking for a picture of a fully reversible coat with flip buttons, like this one...



...but I couldn't find one that really shows what flip buttons are. Plus, I think I now might be about to buy an entirely unrelated raincoat that I don't need and can't afford. Dammit, dammit.

Anyway. Flip buttons:

That coat appears to be missing one. But you can take the buttons -- each of which is toggled to another button covered with the reversible side's fabric -- out of the buttonholes and turn them around, depending on whether you want them to contrast with or match the side that shows.

I find that to be a pleasing and thoughtful touch.

[beeline]

.

Nuns in habits.

[Elvis]

Mustard dispensers at McDonald's and other fast food chains.

Did America stop liking mustard? Now we have to ask for mustard and fight with those teeny packets it comes in.

[compared2what?]

^^Western-or-midwesterner.

Very exotic, imo. Especially when it comes to the condiments one puts on french fries.

[Project Willow]

They put tartar sauce on fries out here.

[compared2what?]

Oo la la. So fancy.

Sounds delicious, too.

[Asta]

Clothing has turned into a major disappointment in the last 20 or so years. One of my favorite shows is "Mad Men", and I am always amazed at how well dressed everyone is. I'm not crazy about looking like June Cleaver (way too much fluffy skirt) but women's dresses were classy and flattering. A lot of thought and care went into making the item look great, particularly the detail of having stripes and lines meet correctly instead of a haphazard mess of chaotic seams.

I remember flip buttons. Ingenious actually. Kick pleats, darts, overlock stitching.

And as I grow older and grayer, what I find frightening is that I won't be able to find anything to wear that doesn't look like it was bought at WalMart. I've noticed that the quality of a lot of famous label companies (Talbots, Ann Taylor...) has been compromised as well. Sigh.

And you know what, you can't even get a free toaster anymore when you open a checking account. And for that matter, pretty soon, writing checks will be just a memory.

Don't even get me started on the good ole days of Comdex conventions when you could walk out with a grocery sack full of FREE goodies.

Does Comdex happen anymore, or has it devolved into just an afternoon with Bill Gates or whoever replaced Steve Jobs.

A lot of schools are discontinuing teaching cursive handwriting, so everyone will be simply block printing. How lovely.