BS: Remember Yesterday?

Subject: BS: Remember Yesterday?
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 20 Jan 09 - 09:32 AM

Being folkies and all we tend to wax semi-poetic about the good old days. Man, it was fun driving a mule, or hitching a ride on a freight train. Well, there's good news, folkies! The times they are a'changin' so fast, you can be nostalgic about yesterday.

The thought occurred to me yesterday when I was describing the size of something by saying it was the size of a half dollar coin. I had to catch myself for a moment. I'd already almost forgotten that there was such a thing. "You can throw a silver dollar down to the ground and it will roll, because it's round." It would work with a half a dollar too, I bet. If only you could find one.

Now half a dollars didn't disappear during grandpa's time (although many of us are the new grandpas.) They disappeared just yesterday.
In mid February, people can start saying, "I can remember when there were TV antennas on the roof." Yesterday is only a couple of weeks away.

I can think of other things that have disappeared almost yesterday, but I'll stop here.

With one exception. Tomorrow we can say, "Can you remember when we had never had a black president?"

Any other stuff you can think of that disappeared yesterday? Or tomorrow?

Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: Remember Yesterday?
From: Alice
Date: 20 Jan 09 - 10:56 AM

I was amazed when my son told me he NEVER picks up a penny from the ground. I always do. He said, Mom, it's not worth anything.

Subject: RE: BS: Remember Yesterday?
From: Wesley S
Date: 20 Jan 09 - 11:00 AM

I remember when the wrist radios and TV's we saw in Dick Tracy looked like science fiction.

And I still miss wing windows in cars. Front porches too. They seemed to disappear when TV was invented.

Subject: RE: BS: Remember Yesterday?
From: Alice
Date: 20 Jan 09 - 11:25 AM

Fountain pens. We were required to use them in grade school. The nuns would not allow ball point pens.

Subject: RE: BS: Remember Yesterday?
From: GUEST,DMcG
Date: 20 Jan 09 - 11:28 AM

A week or two ago I noticed that I was referring to a place to post letters as a 'post box' (UK). I always used to refer to it as a 'pillar box'. I wonder when that change happened?

Subject: RE: BS: Remember Yesterday?
From: Rapparee
Date: 20 Jan 09 - 01:26 PM

Heck, I barely remember what I did an hour ago.

Mailboxes on street corners, gone since 9/11/2001.
Boarding airplanes without official paranoia.
Fishing with cane poles.
Hunting squirrels and rabbits.
Stringed instruments without amplification.
Audiences who were quiet during performances.
Attention spans longer than a picosecond.

Subject: RE: BS: Remember Yesterday?
From: Amos
Date: 20 Jan 09 - 01:30 PM

Pay phones in every drugstore, next to the soda fountains and the DC comics stands by the nickel candy-bar rack.

Pay phones on every other corner, and sometimes at odd intervals on long country roads.

For that matter, hard-wired telephones in every house. Black bakelite ones.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Remember Yesterday?
From: Bill D
Date: 20 Jan 09 - 01:41 PM

There is ONE pay phone booth still operative in the Wash, DC area...when it dies, it will not be repaired. But in my basement, I have a black, bakelite dial phone which 'would' work if I cared to bother to hook it up.

Subject: RE: BS: Remember Yesterday?
From: gnu
Date: 20 Jan 09 - 01:45 PM

Well, about 8 years ago, my buddy's lad of about 12 years old asked if he could use my phone. I said, "Kitchen." A minute or so later, the lad asked, "Dad, could you come here for a minute, please?" (No, it's not a kid saying "please".) My buddy went into the kitchen, began laughing and called me in... to instruct the lad on how to operate a rotary dial phone.

Subject: RE: BS: Remember Yesterday?
From: Bill D
Date: 20 Jan 09 - 01:57 PM

It's been a few years since I even knew anyone who could use a slide rule.

I also see VERY few store clerks who can make change without a machine to figure it for them.

It is also becoming harder to get a nice PAPER bag for your groceries. (yes, I know why, I just hate the way they dump them into plastic)

Subject: RE: BS: Remember Yesterday?
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 20 Jan 09 - 02:17 PM

Slide rules! You're showing your age, Bill. I still have mine from college, made out of bamboo. I'd forgotten all about them.

Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: Remember Yesterday?
From: Ebbie
Date: 20 Jan 09 - 02:19 PM

Mailboxes on street corners, gone since 9/11/2001. Still have them in Juneau
Boarding airplanes without official paranoia. What was that?
Fishing with cane poles.Just the other day I saw a kid with a homemade pole
Hunting squirrels and rabbits.We may soon resort to that again
Stringed instruments without amplification.Our Folk Club in Juneau has never used amps
Audiences who were quiet during performances.Juneau audiences are awesome. Come see!
Attention spans longer than a picosecond. What is that? lol

Subject: RE: BS: Remember Yesterday?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 20 Jan 09 - 02:22 PM

A copper penny is now in fact worth more than one cent in today's currency, and the government is somewhat concerned about that. They're thinking of discontinuing pennies altogether.

Subject: RE: BS: Remember Yesterday?
From: Bill D
Date: 20 Jan 09 - 02:46 PM

Showing my age, Jerry? *grin*...heck, I left out running boards, cow-catchers, hand-kneading color pellets into margarine or butter, wooden tinker-toys, steel or lead toy cars, genuine TIN foil, penny-candy, ten-cent stores, and window-coolers for houses filled with excelsior with water dripping thru it.


and a few other things....but you did say recently.

Subject: RE: BS: Remember Yesterday?
From: Rapparee
Date: 20 Jan 09 - 03:05 PM

Stand back! I have four or five slide rules and I know how to use them!

(I also try to use good grammar and le mot just -- and I don't rely on spell checkers or grammar checkers.

Subject: RE: BS: Remember Yesterday?
From: RangerSteve
Date: 20 Jan 09 - 03:09 PM

Back in the early 50's, my Mom and I would walk into town down a road that was lined with elm trees. You never see elms anymore. We had to cross some railroad tracks in town. There was a guy whose only job was to raise and lower the gates when a train came along. Automatic RR gates were unknown. The trains were pulled by steam locomotives. Our weekly trip, by the way, was to the 5&10 store, the demise of which was discussed in another recent thread.
My first car was an Oldsmobile. My second was a Rambler. Both are extinct. Going back my childhood again, some of the cars in my neighborhood included Studebaker, Packard, DeSoto, Frazer, Kaiser, Henry J., Hudson and Nash.

Subject: RE: BS: Remember Yesterday?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 20 Jan 09 - 03:25 PM

We're rapidly running out of corner shops. Large supermarkets open 24hours are taking over the world and I'm as guilty as anyone but it was lovely to just nip to the corner shop and had a natter with the lady behind the counter.

I still remember when trying to get anything after 7.pm was a lost cause and Sundays were an oasis of calm in a commercial world.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Remember Yesterday?
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 20 Jan 09 - 03:29 PM

In the UK... PUBLIC CONVENIENCES... was a sign in all towns and brought relief to many who sought them... where do we go now when we get caught short?????

Subject: RE: BS: Remember Yesterday?
From: Bobert
Date: 20 Jan 09 - 03:56 PM

Phone booths...

Walking into airports w/o having to go thru security...

Carburetors...

Style to cars...

Black 'n White TV's...

Modest homes...

VCR's...

Heck, LP's...

Sock hops...

Sir 'n Ma'am...

Having to actually *hunt* deer...

Power Trios...

Cuss-less sitcoms...

Smokey Restaurants... (Don't miss them...)

Snow every winter... (Don't much miss it either...)

Okay, those a re a few to come to mind but speaking of the penny, it costs 1.6 cents to make one so they aren't all that worthless after all... And of course, if left a 1909-S (vdb) laying in the parking lot then you certainly passed over a very valuable penny...

But one day, when the penny is no longer part of the currency, folks will be sayin', "Remember the penny???"...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Remember Yesterday?
From: Rapparee
Date: 20 Jan 09 - 03:59 PM

Farthings. Groats. Mites. Ha'pennies.

(Jerry, I hate to tell you, but my first reaction to this thread title was to say, "No, I was too drunk.")

Subject: RE: BS: Remember Yesterday?
From: Clifton53
Date: 20 Jan 09 - 05:25 PM

Milk vending machines!! No 7-11's etc back in the day

Subject: RE: BS: Remember Yesterday?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 20 Jan 09 - 05:48 PM

Yesterday? Do I remember yesterday? Well, I....

Uhh.......

What was the question again?

Subject: RE: BS: Remember Yesterday?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 20 Jan 09 - 05:52 PM

In the UK... PUBLIC CONVENIENCES... was a sign in all towns and brought relief to many who sought them... where do we go now when we get caught short?????


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Subject: RE: BS: Remember Yesterday?
From: Bobert - PM
Date: 20 Jan 09 - 03:56 PM

Phone booths...



Bobert - how right you are... many's the time I've had to make a phone call with the door open because it had been used as a urinal.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Remember Yesterday?
From: Bobert
Date: 20 Jan 09 - 05:59 PM

Well, Lizzie... When I was 13 there was a phone booth and a soda fountain at the local drug store... Don't get no better than that... You could get a vanilla Coke for a dime and for another dime you could call up some 13 year old girl and talk for an hour without yer parents buggin' you... Talk about a cheap date??? lol...

Drive in theaters with half a dozen kids in the trunk was another cheap date... Come on, ya'll... We all did it...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Remember Yesterday?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 20 Jan 09 - 06:07 PM

We didn't have such luxuries in the UK... and please don't call me Lizzie!

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Remember Yesterday?
From: JennieG
Date: 20 Jan 09 - 06:12 PM

Here in Oz our 1 cent coins disappeared several years ago, as did the 2 cent coins - yes, we had them too - our smallest coin now is 5 cents. While I don't miss a purse full of shrapnel (Ozzie term for coin money) I am wondering how long it will be before our 5 cent coin goes.

Manners and courtesy from folks one meets every day, that's what I miss most....old-fashioned girl that I am......

Cheers
JennieG

Subject: RE: BS: Remember Yesterday?
From: RangerSteve
Date: 20 Jan 09 - 07:18 PM

Buying milk from dairy farms. It was fresh, usually bottled the day you bought it.

Subject: RE: BS: Remember Yesterday?
From: Bobert
Date: 20 Jan 09 - 07:24 PM

Okay, Liz... Or is it Squek... Or "the"...

Yeah, Ranger... I remember milk bottles delivered to the door... The milk man would put them in the "milk box" and pick up the empties... The bottles were shaped so that the cream would sit in a little buldgy thing in the top of the bottle...

I'd forgotten about that...

Thanks for remindin' me...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Remember Yesterday?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 20 Jan 09 - 07:38 PM

Three pints in our fridge delivered this morning.

Not everything is lost.

Subject: RE: BS: Remember Yesterday?
From: Bert
Date: 20 Jan 09 - 08:26 PM

Ye Gods, I have a slide rule and I still use it; beats a calculator for speed.

I used to deliver milk when i was a kid, I got half a crown a week.

And we used to collect shrapnel, but the big kids always had the best collections.

And, to harp on an old favourite of mine, what about gobs?

What about 'M and V' and whale meat and ITMA and that time the cop car crashed into the big granite fountain on Woodgrange Road?

Subject: RE: BS: Remember Yesterday?
From: Gurney
Date: 21 Jan 09 - 02:26 AM

Bobert, do you have tits (yes, the birds) where you are? The little buggers used to peck through the foil caps of the bottles if they weren't brought indoors smartish.

My aunt used to have six silver threepenny-bits that she saved to put in the christmas pudding. Excitement AND shock! How could you ask for more?
Wonder where they went. Must be worth mucho dinero now.

Subject: RE: BS: Remember Yesterday?
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 21 Jan 09 - 02:32 AM

we still have some phones on streets - but the telcos are removing them as un-profitable

I remember when decimal currency came in (... on the 14th of February 1966 ... - all Ozzies of a certain age can still sing the whole jingle) but the 50cent coin was replaced a few years later when silver hit the stratosphere. A few years back one of these used coins was worth $1.25, dunno what it's worth now.

I also remember rotary dial phones - I had one until 1994 when I bought a phone with a headpiece as I could no longer hold a receiver to my ear for more than a few seconds.

Last year I needed a new headset phone & found they were almost as rare as hen's teeth. Dunno what extremely disabled folks do cos all phones were either mobiles or cordless - eventually I found 2 desk models & one had a connection for a headset.

I also remember a switchboard with cords (1973), dunno it's age, but it was replaced soon after with an Ericsson board, and the switchboard I used before I retired in 2007 was just a desk-phone!

typewriters! punch card machines! calculating machines about the size of a typewriter!

All these marvels of modern technology.

sandra

Subject: RE: BS: Remember Yesterday?
From: open mike
Date: 21 Jan 09 - 03:05 AM

did anyone mention curb feelers?
necking knobs?
i had a rotary dial phone until just recently (the fire)
it was an Ericafon..."modern" one piece unit...possibly Swedish invention.
i also remember slant 6 engines where you could see and understand
what everything under the hood was for.
our milk was delivered in a wooden box on the porch..
i remember the sound of the lid slamming down.
announcing that the milkman had arrived.
i raised our daughters on goat's milk from our own critters..

and we kept it in a refrigerator that ran on propane.

and did have and will have again canning jars full of good
produce...from our gardens and orchards,and others'

and fresh eggs from our own chickens...
and fresh ground flour from the stone ground grain mill

(lately an electric model has been used instead of the Corona mill)

roadside rural mail boxes

cassette tapes, VCR's, 8 track tapes....

78's, 45's, and reel to reel tape recorders.

Subject: RE: BS: Remember Yesterday?
From: JennieG
Date: 21 Jan 09 - 06:35 AM

Typewriters. They are still around, and folks still use them, but they are becoming rarer.

Cheers
Jennie

Subject: RE: BS: Remember Yesterday?
From: freda underhill
Date: 21 Jan 09 - 07:04 AM

when i was a kid, instead of watching TV, we used to read, run, and play. my parents had a low, round, carved japanese table. I used to play making houses from cards, and also played with their black, white and red poker chips, making patterns with them on the table.

this generation has tv and computer games.

Subject: RE: BS: Remember Yesterday?
From: Bobert
Date: 21 Jan 09 - 07:48 AM

"necking knobs"???

Okay, I'll bite, openmic... What's are they???

Subject: RE: BS: Remember Yesterday?
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 21 Jan 09 - 07:53 AM

Slide rules, eh?
I had to make do with log tables until I was eighteen.

Subject: RE: BS: Remember Yesterday?
From: Bryn Pugh
Date: 21 Jan 09 - 08:03 AM

I still use a slide rule - it's on my desk as I write. I can calculate to two places of decimals more quickly than someone using a calculator.

For better than two places of decimals, really you need an 'Otis King' calculator . . .

I wouldn't bet on those silver 3d pieces being worth mucho dinero today, unless it's as scrap silver.

Petrol [gasoline to you Septics :-)] in gallons rather than litres ?

Coupons in cigarette packets ?

French Letters at 3s 9d for three ?

(I'll get me Barbour . . . )

Subject: RE: BS: Remember Yesterday?
From: Bryn Pugh
Date: 21 Jan 09 - 10:07 AM

Ah, yes, Public Conveniences.

Our town in Northants (UK) has the greatest number of Public Conveniences in England.

In other towns they are called shop doorways.

Subject: RE: BS: Remember Yesterday?
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 21 Jan 09 - 12:03 PM

What about fender skirts on cars?

As for phone booths, when I did my second album for Folk Legacy, "The Secret Life of Jerry Rasmussen," we looked for a phone booth where I could be shown stepping into it in a suit, carrying an attache case, and stepping out in jeans and a flannel shirt, carrying my guitar. Even then... over 20 years ago, we had a hard time finding a phone booth.

I was told that at one point in time, the only people using phone booths were drug dealers who didn't want their calls traced.

Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: Remember Yesterday?
From: Bobert
Date: 21 Jan 09 - 06:29 PM

Well, if yer gonna put the skirts on, Jer, then might as well go all the way with the "continental kit"...

And what ever happened to "fins"???

Brylcreem??? Duck-tails???

L & Ms...

Oh, and those two tone shoes... Loved 'um and would love to have a pair of them today... Saw a guy with a pair on recently and asked him where he got 'um... Turned out he'd been playin' golf and hadn't changed out of them...

Okay, two tone cars, too... They were cool...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Remember Yesterday?
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 21 Jan 09 - 06:55 PM

Cheer up Bobert, you can still get Brylcreem. I've got a tube in my medicine cabinet. At my age, I like the stuff that takes the yellow out of my hair better.

And what about sling shots?

And nose flutes?

And what about Mercurochrome, or however it's spelled. It was a heal-all, but try to find it now.

Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: Remember Yesterday?
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 21 Jan 09 - 07:00 PM

It's spelled Mercurachrome. Back in the days when cars had all that chrome. Mercurachrome has been outlawed in the united states for many years. It's substitute is bacitracin, which I have on the incision on the back of my leg, as we speak. Bacitracin is a real wonder drug for cuts and scrapes and is a vast improvement over mercurachrome. Maybe they should put it out with red artificial coloring so you knew you were applying it.

Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: Remember Yesterday?
From: open mike
Date: 21 Jan 09 - 08:52 PM

mercurochrome...related to merthiolate...both red...
both contain mercury...no longer used.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9506E7D8123FF933A05755C0A96E958260

back in the days of Lewis and Clark mercury pills were used
to cure (or try to cure) STD's, venereal diseases...

and necking knobs, are steering wheel devices that allow one-handed
steering....i am not gonna say what or where the other hand would be....

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Necking-Knob-for-Early-Steering-Wheel_W0QQitemZ220347420159QQcmdZViewItemQQimsxZ20090119?IMSfp=TL0901191210005r26421

Subject: RE: BS: Remember Yesterday?
From: JennieG
Date: 21 Jan 09 - 09:41 PM

Bench seats in cars, not bucket seats....a sweet young thing could (and did) snuggle up to her boyfriend while he was driving, a necking knob would have been very handy!

Cheers
JennieG

Subject: RE: BS: Remember Yesterday?
From: Bert
Date: 21 Jan 09 - 09:52 PM

And when was the last time you used a saw set?

Subject: RE: BS: Remember Yesterday?
From: Bill D
Date: 21 Jan 09 - 10:36 PM

"mercurochrome...related to merthiolate...both red..."

wow...what memories! My mother used BOTH on me, until I discovered that mercurochrome didn't hurt, while merthiolate stung like crazy!

Hadn't thought about either for 25 years or more. (I even had a mustard plaster 'done to me' once....and Vicks on a warm hot, wet towel applied to my chest! I wonder how I survived. (and I had a hernia operation under Ether in about 1950...they had just invented "dissolving stitches", which I haven't heard of in years. Probably something nasty in those, too!)

And...speaking of stuff which has gone away...remember gen-you-ine "sleeping pills"? ..usually Barbiturates. Seldom used anymore.

Subject: RE: BS: Remember Yesterday?
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 22 Jan 09 - 12:13 AM

gathering around the radio to listen to the serials!

enviously visiting the neighbours who has a TV sometime after 1956 when TV was introduced to Australia!

enviously visiting the neighbours who has a colour TV sometime after 1976? when colour TV was introduced to Australia!

walking or biking to & from school.

visiting the only air conditoned shop, a classy department store, on a hot humid summer day (now a cheap junk store as the traders are all in the big mall at the other end of town.)

sandra

Subject: RE: BS: Remember Yesterday?
From: Bobert
Date: 22 Jan 09 - 07:49 AM

Okay???

I reckon there was no reason for the "necking knobs" once the bench seat bit the dust... I think that bucket seats was part of a vast abstaince conspiracy...

As fir Brycleem... It's great that you can still get it but can ya still get hair???

Nevrmind...

You, Jer... Did you ever have fuzzy dice??? Moon discs??? Heck, Moon Eyes??? How 'bout them fat white-walls???

Black slacks???

Gotta go... This is gettin' me all sentimental...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Remember Yesterday?
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 22 Jan 09 - 08:27 AM

Wide white walls... yeah Bobert. I wrote a song about my first car, tellingly titled Three Speeds Forward and No Speeds Back:

When I got my first car in the good old days
It was a 1951 Chevrolet
With white wall tires 'cept for one that was black
three speeds forward and no speeds back.

A story:

The car was forest green... beautiful, and the wide white wall tires made it look even sharper. I bought the car for $200, and it was a looker. The radio worked, too. Most important thing of all I bought the car from a kid my age, and he was pretty cool about it. The side of the car with both whitewalls looked very classy, and the side with one plain tire, definitely uncool. He was smart enough to make sure the side that looked best was on the driver's side, so when the car was parked, it looked great, driving by.

Many, many years later I was driving a Pinto station wagon and the tires had that little 1 inch wide strip on the sides. Technically, a white stripe, not a white "wall." I had to replace a tire, and when I told the guy at the shop that I wanted the white stripe side of the tire facing the inside, so I'd have one black tire, he thought I was nuts. It just cracked me up, remembering my '51 Chevy.

Remember Black Slacks by the Sparkletones?

"Black slacks, bbbbbrrrrrrr"

And the very first song I ever wrote was an upbeat doo wop song titled Foam Rubber Dice (sung by the bass singer, me.)

Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: Remember Yesterday?
From: maeve
Date: 22 Jan 09 - 09:44 AM

Hi, Jerry and all,

My husband uses a saw set at least once a week throughout the year. He cuts wood with hand saws, axes, and chain saws, all of which he sharpens, mends, and for the hand saws and axes as well as shovels, sets new handles. If something breaks, we fix it. If we can't fix it, we use it for something different. If we have something we don't need, we pass it on to someone else.

We enjoy listening to cassette tapes, VCR's, 8 track tapes, 78's, 45's, and reel to reel tapes. We use gramophones and modern stereo systems. We have a TV but watch little on it. I use this computer a lot, yet it serves our farm regeneration well. Because of the computer we have real friends around the world, yet when the power is out we can still have breakfast with friends close by.

We have a Corona grain mill & a beautiful old coffee mill, though the latter is in a box for now. We can,freeze,& dry food by choice. We use part of our cellar to store fruits and veggies as well as bulk flours and grains. I sew by hand , and with a manual rotary as well as a good electric sewing machine. I do patches and I darn. Given materials and time, we can make most of what we need, and much of what we want.

My slingshots (one from a forked branch and one from a wire clothes hanger, designed by a MC friend) have gotten steady use. I added a bow and arrows to my tools last summer. I will again make my own willow baskets when I cut the first harvest from the basketry patch this winter. We can drive cars, trucks, and steam engine trains.

I'd like a Dexter cow for milk and a Morgan for twitching logs from the woodlot. My husband wants an old tractor. Our bantams clean the insect pests from the vegetable garden and give us eggs for about 10 months of the year. We have fresh bottled cows milk and butter up the road, and goat cheese, Jersey yoghurt, and sheep cheese a couple of miles further. Mail is delivered to our roadside mailbox. Our delivery person lives locally and honks the horn if she has a big package for us.

We are maintaining our curious lifestyle balance in the mingled streams of yesterday and tomorrow. We are able to pick and choose from "that which was", "that which is" and "that which is becoming" and for that we are grateful.

Not exactly what you had in mind, Jerry. I hope you don't mind. We jsut see the time streams a little differently. There's a bottle of mercurochrome in the medicine cabinet, just for the sake of nostalgia.

maeve

Subject: RE: BS: Remember Yesterday?
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 22 Jan 09 - 11:50 AM

Sounds like a great life, maeve, and hard work ... people forget how much hard work goes into living on the land.

I don't have a bottle of mercurachrome, but I have a bottle of Parker Quink in my office. My mother worked for Parker Pen which for most of my life had it's one factory and office in my home town. Of course, we all used Parker Pens. AND used Parker Quink. I'm probably the only person living who remembers Parker Quink.

Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: Remember Yesterday?
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 22 Jan 09 - 03:11 PM

Merbromin a.k.a. Mercurochrome. Merbromin is the generic name; Mercurochrome was a brand name.

Thiomersal a.k.a. Merthiolate. Same difference. (Hey, that's one of those rare cases where "same difference" really means what it says: There is the same difference between "Mercurochrome" and "merbromin" as there is between "Merthiolate" and "thiomersal".)

Hey, I didn't even know what a saw set was until I looked it up.

When was the last time you used a brace and bit?

Subject: RE: BS: Remember Yesterday?
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 22 Jan 09 - 03:20 PM

When was the last time you used a brace and bit? I'll bite. When you got braces for your teeth..

Oh, you meant for drilling...

Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: Remember Yesterday?
From: Bobert
Date: 22 Jan 09 - 04:47 PM

Hey, wait a minute there, Jer... I have my grand-daddy's brace and bit and all 35 or so of his bits... If it's just one hole, then it's a lot easier than the electric...

Hey, rememeber them blue stripies from like the late 60's... I think they were made by Firestone but I wouldn't swear to it... BTW, the fatties are still available thru Crocker (Crooker, Croker) Tire... But, heck, if yer not into buying new ones then you can paint the white walls right on the tire... We have a local artist here in this county who drives a 3 or 4 year old maroon Caddiallc with 4 big ol' yellow-ish walls...lol...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Remember Yesterday?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 22 Jan 09 - 05:58 PM

I remember Quink.. but being a southpaw, have never really got on with ink pens, so rarely used one.

I'm getting all nostalgic for my granfer's milk jug - a round, white thing with a long spout and two dogs - black and white terriers (West Highland and the other one) which was the logo of the 'Black and White Whiskey' company. The milk it contained at breakfast would have still been in the cow 3 or 4 hours previously. Spending half your time on a dairy farm, you got your milk out of the cow and over the cooler - and in winter we didn't bother with the cooler!

There was also one particular plate. It was a tea plate, a creamy colour with a feathered edging of china blue, with hand painted blue flowers on it and it was my favourite. I often wondered why there were no others like it anywhere, and why it was just a tea plate... I've looked in thousands of second hand stalls and shops, jumble sales and on line but never found another like it. Toast made on the open range and smothered in butter on that plate tasted like nothing else on earth... the same toast on a different plate would somehow lack something.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Remember Yesterday?
From: Bill D
Date: 22 Jan 09 - 06:21 PM

I have a brace and maybe 6-7 bits. There's one job I needed to do a couple of years ago that required slow going in a weird place that I would have had problems using anything BUT a brace.

And my first car WAS a 51 Chevy...2 tone green, $350 used in 1957. 3 speeds forward (on the column, of course)WITH reverse... *grin*.. I drove that car for maybe 6 years...

(I remember Quink, but don't think I ever used it.)

Now, does anyone else who lived in the US midwest remember Redi-Wheat? Canned, processed wheat....sorta like lumpy oatmeal in a can. It was an attempt to use wheat surpluses in the 60s.

And Hadacol!

Subject: RE: BS: Remember Yesterday?
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 22 Jan 09 - 08:17 PM

I remember Hadacol, Bill, but never drank it. I have a jar of Barbasol. It's hexagonal and quite beautiful for something cheap and mass produced. No Barbasol in it, though.

Want obscure? anyone remember Teal tooth liquid. It was the color of its brand name and came in a small bottle. Probably not much more than food coloring, corn starch and water.

Coming soon, Evening in Paris perfume...

Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: Remember Yesterday?
From: Bert
Date: 22 Jan 09 - 09:22 PM

Ha Jim, I had to laugh at that Wiki article, it says

...In the past, many tradesmen and craftsmen would sharpen their own saws...

I guess they just throw them away nowadays.

Subject: RE: BS: Remember Yesterday?
From: maeve
Date: 22 Jan 09 - 10:05 PM

Speaking of Evening in Paris:

Vermont Country Store has it.

as well as a multitude of useful, practical, not inexpensive selections from the past, still desireable in the present.

And yes, I have a brace and several bits and I know how to use 'em, so stand back, Mister.

maeve

Subject: RE: BS: Remember Yesterday?
From: Bert
Date: 22 Jan 09 - 10:14 PM

And what about those Monroe calculators with a handle that you turned?

When was the last time you bought a pound of Twelves? Or if you were feeling wealthy that week you might buy Tens or really extravagant you might splurge and buy Eights.

Subject: RE: BS: Remember Yesterday?
From: RangerSteve
Date: 22 Jan 09 - 10:42 PM

How about Burma Shave signs? On trips out west, we'd look for them and take turns reading the poems. And my brother and I would look out the back window of the car and read them backwards, and then try to recite them frontwards. They died out when the speed limit went up and you couldn't read them fast enough. Sure, we can go 65 and over, but we lost a real piece of Americana.

Subject: RE: BS: Remember Yesterday?
From: open mike
Date: 23 Jan 09 - 03:10 AM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quink
http://www.parkerpen.com/en/discovery/inks/quink

and more about the verse by the side of the road:
http://burma-shave.org/jingles/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burma-Shave

maeve, your place sounds very inviting...
i love the country life!

Subject: RE: BS: Remember Yesterday?
From: JennieG
Date: 23 Jan 09 - 06:55 AM

I remember Quink, we called it Quink ink.

Bobert, you are probably right, the invention of the bucket seat was the work of those who would deny young love its opportunities.

Ah, memories......

Cheers
JennieG

Subject: RE: BS: Remember Yesterday?
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 23 Jan 09 - 07:57 AM

I think I still have a half use bottle of Quink in a box in the loft, along with some other art stuff that was once my father's. There's also a stick of indian ink that you had to make up with water, a couple of sealing wax sticks, materials for using gold leaf and there was a supply of goose feathers for making quill pens but I had to throw them out as something from the insect world had discovered them!
(Swan feathers make the best quill pens by the way).

I realised that I was being left behind back in 1982 when I visited the Science Museum in London and they had a display that included a vacuum cleaner the same model as mine.

Subject: RE: BS: Remember Yesterday?
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 23 Jan 09 - 08:39 AM

Black Belt:

I had a similar experience when I saw a hand cranked cherry pitter in a museum just like the one I still have that you clamp on the kitchen table. We have a beautiful cherry tree in the back yard where we live now, but the birds get the cherries before they're edible.


Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: Remember Yesterday?
From: Bert
Date: 23 Jan 09 - 10:37 AM

...and they had a display that included a vacuum cleaner the same model as mine. ...

Haa! That's like the time I found the sheet music to a song that was popular when I was a teenager. - In an antique store!!!!