Diaper Services, Milk Boxes, and Other Bygone Things

I remember outdoor roller skates that were made of metal, and were attached to your shoes.

http://groups.msn.com/_Secure/0VAC!D3Ubk7yorZ3wOp4W5cnrUaxzR8TqjahJ01hmwqRbdUce434E7Z53r3jxqHg8xldgXhlRSX6WFeUQ58dIdKjT7uajBAGl25bG2VTdjMBu9DiVsgEyW7EwQcS3ViXd/skates.jpg

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farmerman wrote:

[...] I had a stock fan picture of Rin Tin Tin when I was a kid. Rin Tin Tin actually signed it like "Good Luck" - Rin Tin Tin, and it wasnt till I was cleaning out the chest where I stored my kid stuff many years later [...]

That photo is probably worth some money now, you realize, eh?

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In the 60s, instead of a computer, the office where I worked used teletype to communicate with the home office. They would type away and then read the incoming return tape that spewed out of the machine. I believe it folded in a box for storage.

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Phoenix32890 wrote:

I remember outdoor roller skates that were made of metal, and were attached to your shoes.

And there was a little metal key you used to tighen the grip on your shoes.

By the way, I remember my grandmother ( now deceased ) using the word "Grip" when she referred to her suitcase. :wink:

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Roberta wrote:

Manual typewriters. Loud, clackety, slow. No photocopiers. If you needed more than one of something, you had to use carbon paper. I think up to ten copies were possible. One mistake and you had to ERASE on each copy. Special techniques were designed for this. One change of mind, and you had to retype the whole thing.

Mimeographs. Remember the blue print?

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How about when you went to get gas and someone pumped it for you and cleaned your front and back windows.

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Gala wrote:

Roberta wrote:
Manual typewriters. Loud, clackety, slow. No photocopiers. If you needed more than one of something, you had to use carbon paper. I think up to ten copies were possible. One mistake and you had to ERASE on each copy. Special techniques were designed for this. One change of mind, and you had to retype the whole thing.

Mimeographs. Remember the blue print?

Yup, and I remember people walking around with the blue ink on their hands. Dem tings was messy.

Speaking of ink, I'm remembering fountain pens that had to be filled. I also remember having inkwells on my school desks.

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Anybody remember crinolines? They were called "horsehair", but they were really made of nylon. We wore full skirts in those days, and the stiff crinolines worn underneath made the skirt stand out all around.

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Of course I remember crinolines, Phoenix. And, btw, I've still got my skate keys. You just never know when you might need one.

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I remember as a kid hearing one of my folks say "Go play in the street." And that wasn't considered to be bad parenting. The street was our playground. Tag, kickball, stickball.

One of my employees heard an interview on NPR with an author who has written a book about the automakers' efforts in the 1920's (?) to take (back) the streets for the purpose of use primarily for vehicles; not as playplaces.
As part of Detroit's campaign, my employee Andy claims he heard in the interview, there was a print newsaper campaign showing a clown steping into the street in front of a car of terrified riders: dad. mom and two kids.

Which brings us to the word "jaywalker." It supposedly was introduced in this ad campaign to describe the clown. All of my dictionaries define it as we know it today. One of them lists the origin as being 1919. Another (1975) specifically defines "jay" as meaning "a simpleton." My other dictionaries don't define it as such.

I hope I haven't strayed too far afield.

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Do you remember when cars had huge steering wheels, whitewall tires, real metal bumpers, and trunks big enough to hide a couple of bodies?

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Many cars had both a starter and a crank (not the wife).

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Our 52 Dodge was a semi-automatic. No kidding. You had to use a clutch to get into first gear, but after that the transmission would shift on it's own.

http://www.rodsforsale.com/feature/images/east/t_east1.jpg

"Nellie" was one tough car. My dad drove it to Hamilton Standard for ten years and then it became the "kid's car". 190,000 miles. My sisters and older brother all took it to school and on dates until they went to college then I got to drive it to all the make-out spots in several Connecticut counties. It had a back seat the size of a sofa. Ah,

http://www.mysticcountry.com/img/member_images/rockyneck.jpg

Rocky Neck State Park!! I drove Nell to work and to school and over to East Hartford to practice playing folk music with the Tobacco Valley Singers

Anyway, when I joined the USAF my older brother took it back and started driving Nellie up to Winooski, Vermont to school. It was on one of those long Green Mountain climbs that she gasped her last. That was in December of 1971. I remember it well. I got a letter from my brother and he mentioned in passing that Nellie had ... died.
I was depressed for a month.

260,000 miles, three paint jobs, umpteen sets of tires and snow treads, and at the end all of her windows worked and the semi-automatic clutch (only replaced twice) was fully functional. Couldn't they have at least TRIED to save her one more time???

Joe(I've had lots of cars since but none that were as solid)Nation

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Phoenix32890 wrote:

Do you remember when cars had huge steering wheels, whitewall tires, real metal bumpers, and trunks big enough to hide a couple of bodies?

Those cars weren't made out of paper either!

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I have a small collection of milk boxes. I bought them at auctions or flea markets and I use them for holding stuff like potting soil or garden chemicals. I only buy the ones that have the dairy"s name on them. We had some really interesting daiory names like "Maplehoff" or "Cacoosing" "Wissahickon" and "Reading". They are all thickly zinc plated and most of the old ones are double metal lined with a thick hemp cloth in between the zinc layers. The more recent ones used a styrofoam insert. My neatest one is a large box with two compartments, one for the milk bottles and one for stuff like butter and yogurt and cup cheese and sour cream.

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Another thing that is from this past century <but probably predates most of us, are "Quilt stencils". These were tin patterns of shapes and figures that the tinsmiths made as templates for the women to use to make pencil lines on their quilt tops. They would use the templates to scribe a series of curly lines that they would then follow to stitch in the final "quilting lines" The templates are quite interesting and the latest probably date from the 1940's. After that, the templates were made out of plastic or were abandoned for these giant "Quilting arm" sewing machines.

Anybody have a homemade checker board or a homemade sled? Ive seen that old checkerboards , well done in their artistry, can go up to 20000$ at folk art auctions.

Anybody remember Roseville pottery? My gramma had a huge collection of this stuff. It was godawful, with gaudy wysteria flowers and grapes an stuff. Although the pottery goes back to the early 20th century, most of the gaudy stuff was made in the 30's . Now its so collectible that its being faked in China (fortunately they dont do a real good job and only a complete dunce would miss the fAkes)

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My father bought one of the first 1949 Fords. That was the year when the entire shape of cars changed, from kind of boxy to elongated. For the first few weeks after he got that car, people would stop him on street corners, and ask him about the car.

http://groups.msn.com/_Secure/0bgAdDr8jbt11xoTeAmJk59fuMch9lIQUJAybULbXhOOYUYnO!UoOo7bTlWxum0Sf6LX8p3kgjWwLZOtFkEOomhkmyClJG4uA6gElVF9u1zOuXd!olyonPb1n7DbDCFHFUJTI3VFFx6vSBANuEIzD9yE!jZ*Xhbx5/1948-Ford-Coupe-Maroon-fa-cus-sy.jpg

1948 Ford

http://groups.msn.com/_Secure/0aADbD*AhTxrNhXWnmnjf7nSCERL4jbR6ozK19Oe7Vu!uR*e9mu5uI2T8aeqKK4mES1XhTost4rj0gVEmf7qI0q9hisCw15ZO96f7QmI*CYhCZDuKVNdWkNS9nlgx!k4j8Ezy7Uag1DrvnQ6MIIUIPGxsYS88cNsP/1949-Ford-maroon-stock-ggr.jpg

1949 Ford

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I like woodies or Chevy Nomads.

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realjohnboy wrote:

I remember as a kid hearing one of my folks say "Go play in the street." And that wasn't considered to be bad parenting. The street was our playground. Tag, kickball, stickball.

One of my employees heard an interview on NPR with an author who has written a book about the automakers' efforts in the 1920's (?) to take (back) the streets for the purpose of use primarily for vehicles; not as playplaces.
As part of Detroit's campaign, my employee Andy claims he heard in the interview, there was a print newsaper campaign showing a clown steping into the street in front of a car of terrified riders: dad. mom and two kids.

Which brings us to the word "jaywalker." It supposedly was introduced in this ad campaign to describe the clown. All of my dictionaries define it as we know it today. One of them lists the origin as being 1919. Another (1975) specifically defines "jay" as meaning "a simpleton." My other dictionaries don't define it as such.

I hope I haven't strayed too far afield.

No, not at all. Thanks for this post. I love stories about how words evolve and take on different meanings over time.

To add to this as an update. Commiting jaywalking is almost meaningless in New England and in some of the Mid-Atlanntic states. In California, though, they do not tolerate it and they'll slap your hide with a ticket.

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When my teacher bought a brand new 1948 Ford, he went all the way from Campbell CA to Detroit to buy it. In those days, you paid shipping, so, he said it was much cheaper to pick it up himself.

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Diaper Services, Milk Boxes, and Other Bygone Things

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