You know you're old when........

[bobbyderegis]

the plumber (who didn't look old enough to shave) sees your Maytag 608 pair and says " Wow, look at those antique machines! I've never seen any that old." I felt like the antique!
Bobby in Boston

 

[perc-o-prince]

You are!

Chuck

 

[frigilux]

Trying showing phonograph records and a changer to a 10-year old!

 

[hoover1060]

Aww Bobby...

you're not an antique... yet... :-D

Feel sorry for that plumber, he'll never know appliances as good as those Maytags!

 

[bobbyderegis]

Jeff,
He actually liked them, and couldn't believe the condition they are in. He even commented that they don't make 'em like that anymore.
Frigilux,
How about an eight track tape?!
Chuck,
Slap! LOL
Bobby in Boston

 

[hoover1060]

feel sorry for him too because...

He will never know TRULY clean clothes either...

I still have some of my 8-tracks too!
and a TV without a rotary dial tuner!

 

[joeekaitis]

At least Polaroid is trying to keep 60-second photography alive. I believe they even showed a prototype digital camera with the same technology.

http://www.polaroid.com/onthego/

 

[sharples]

Card catalogs anyone?

I think i was the last generation to experience the fun of card catalogs before they went extinct. Anyone care to share their expereinces of them? LOL BTW...i'm 25, had them up until middle school.
-G

 

[classiccaprice]

that was one of my favorite things to do when I taught kinde

Bringing in random old things and see what the kids thought they were and introducing them to the old technology... Records, lazerdisks, rotary phones and an adding machine were among the items showed...

My favorite memories include the time I taught them how to use a rotary phone (in case of emergency and they had to dial 911) and when I showed the adding machine. The kids actually thought the adding machine was easier to use than the calculator because they could pull the handle... lol, go figure.

 

[gansky1]

Did you hit him with your cane? Perhaps run him down with your HoverRound!

 

[andyelectrolux]

Graham, I'm 26 and we had the card catalogue system in our schools too. The librarian called it the dewy decimal system or something like that.

We had record players in preschool and elementary school. You don't see those in schools today, but this was still the early 80's. I STILL remember putting on those Disney albums. It was a daily ritual to perform the Siamese Cat Song, and the Song of the South album was another favorite.

Even in college, when I took my Music Appreciation course, the listening lab dated from the 50's or 60's. You would sit down at this panel, and plug in those big ass headphones like you see pilots wear. I think there was a master tape system or something because you would dial in a station number and listen to the audio selection. I'm not sure exactly how it worked.

 

[tomturbomatic]

Song of the South!?! You actually had that album in school that recently?? Guess why that is the ONE Disney movie not released for viewing in any form since the 50s or very early 60s. The little boy's name was Bobby, I think. In a moment of drama he wandered into the pasture with the bull. He enjoyed listening to Uncle Remus telling stories of Br'er this and Br'er that on his visit to the farm.

In the Atlanta Airport terminal (describes the building and its condition) from the time of creation until it was replaced about 1960, there was a restaurant plopped down on one side of the huge interior space. It was completely enclosed to shut out all of the noise, especially that of the horn hear the brown water stained panels of the ceiling over which they broadcast static and unintelligible messages, similar to the PA system in the DC METRO system today. This restaurant was surrounded by white columns, of course, and had mullioned windows, but it was not as tall as the ceiling of the terminal so it gleamed like a wedding cake in the otherwise gritty environment. We dined there once, probably as the guests of daddy's boss or some other person who did not consider the more practical things that could be done with the money. The whole theme of the restaurant was based on Song of the South with lighted panels of scenes from the movie positioned between the windows and ceiling around the dimly lighted dining room. It was the first place that I was served raw kernels of sweet corn in a tossed salad.

Try getting young people to learn to tell time on an analog dial timepiece. John has customers who still have rotary phones and they have told him that young delivery people refuse to use them unless the number is dialed for them.

Andy, the Dewey Decimal system was just the cataloging scheme used in the library. It is usually the choice for libraries serving children and the general public. The Library of Congress cataloging system allows greater subject precision and is usually found in college and research level libraries. Ever notice the little knob in the base at the center of each drawer? Can you imagine what would happen if the rod attached to that knob that goes through the hole at the base of each card was not there when the drawer got dropped? 52 card pickup to the 10th power.

 

[andyelectrolux]

Yep, we had the Song of the South album. How Do You Do, Zip a Dee Doo Dah, all those songs. I had no idea what it meant back then of course.

Keep in mind I did grow up smack dab in the middle of the Bible Belt. In junior high school, our gym teachers favorite game was called "Smear the Queer" if that tells you anything.

 

[rocketeer500]

A few years back....

My daughter's friend was over and wanted to stay for dinner. I told her to call her mother to find out if that was alright. I pointed to the telephone (Western Electric 302) and told her to "... dial her up". The poor kid (she was 13 at the time) looked at me with complete amazement and said: " how do you use that phone? Where's the buttons?"

I didn't have a digital phone until was in my late-30s.... I'm 44 now, and still prefer rotary.

 

[drhardee]

DON'T PULL THE ROD!! As a school librarian, I feel obligated to have to say, don't pull that rod out...especially in the library in the presence of children! I've been a librarian (we're now called "Media Specialists") for 15 years, and I have NEVER once typed a catalog card! Thank Goddess for electronic cataloging and checkout systems! I wasn't even taught how to type a card in Library school.. in 1990. But, it was "pre internet", and I remember "Archie, Jughead, and Veronica" very well! No, these aren't comic characters..they are very early predecessors to the internet. Who's old enough to remember that??

 

[tomturbomatic]

Andy, Was an actual male chosen to be the object of the game? What were the qualifications? Were there no parental protests?

Dave and others who might be interested, The Library of Congress CDS or Card Distribution Section used to run 3 shifts the clock around printing cards. Then the magnetic tapes for Machine Readable Cataloging were made available and it only took one shift in the renamed Cataloging Distribution Service to send them. Then the Library wholesalers like Josten's, BroDart, etc used the tapes of offer any degree of processing to customers including full sets of author, title & subject cards. Then all of the information started being available on line and the card catalogs in libraries started evolving into electronic mode as well. It cost a lot of money to change, but it was also very expensive to maintain card catalogs. I am loking forward to the day when my connection to catalogs is only to find a book I want to read.

 

[classiccaprice]

I have the song of the south album. It's fun to listen to... The story of the tar baby? Oh gosh!

I remember the card catalogues, we had them through middle school (I graduated high school in 2001).

My friends are used to my old things, but it's always fun when someone my age comes over for the first time. It's amazing how much conversation "out of date" or as I prefer classic items cause.

That's the biggest thing I miss about the kindergarteners, everything was new and cool.... Oh well.

 

[andyelectrolux]

Tom, in our gym class, the boys were divided between the girls, so we never really played any games together. In Smear the Queer, the "queer" was somebody who was selected to have the ball. The object was to run after this person, tackle them, whatever, to get the ball. There were no parental protests that I knew of.

There was however, a huge parental protest when the school had a gay man with AIDS give a speech about AIDS awareness. I'll never forget that day. He was very sick, pale and emaciated. He sat down in a chair in the middle of the gym, and all during his speech, the students threw spitballs, pens, anything they could throw at him and taunted him. Our homophobic principal did nothing. NOTHING. A couple of the more progressive students were so upset they got up and walked out. I sat there frozen, wondering what would happen to me when I came out. Anyway, several parents threw a huge fit, wondering how the school system could possibly endanger their children by exposing them to a gay man with AIDS. It was such a huge uproar that the principal had to call a second assembly just to address the issue. At least he was smart enough to know that their fears were irrelevant.

Sorry to veer away from the subject of the thread.

 

[irishwashguy]

Wow I guesI missed something growing up in the North.

Song of the South, never heard of it. Oh well, back on track. I can't say that anything in particular makes me feel old. I am just 18 with a little more expierience! However, seeing people coming in to where I work, paying for their orders, I check their ID and they were born the year before I graduated from HS, that makes me understand that it was not yesterday. My family bought our first VCR in 1985 from Meier and Frank at Lloyd Center Mall for 400.00, w/ the remote control attached by a wire, and the first mirowave oven in 1983, a basc Littion so basic it did not have a clock on it, who looks at the time on a microwave anyway my mother said! anyway--it even came with microwave cooking classes.Imagine that, it is just not for heating up leftovers and making your tea anymore.

 

[gyrafoam]

Tom----

I remember that old Davis Bros. restaurant in the old quonset hut terminal.(However, that was not the original terminal,which was located to the east by about a quarter mile and was still standing well into the 1960's!) They had great food, but the airport facility was just as you mentioned. To say it was on par with a bus terminal would be putting it mildly. I also remember how bad a shot the folks were that used the many spitoons placed around the seating areas. At least in the old train station they kept those old things clean!

It was a great relief when the "Jet-Port" opened in the spring of 1961. Modern and clean and even if there were still ash-trays everywhere at least those nasty spitoon's were gone!

 

[tomturbomatic]

Thanks, Steve, I was maybe 6 or 7 and had no idea of the name of the restaurant, but it was something very special in that awful place. It is funny how as new terminals opened the old ones were left standing. I was not aware of that until I started flying into Atlanta and would see those terminals still standing in areas far away from the air traffic. I guess they were converted to office or storage use. They might be gone by now.

I do not want to be one day younger and am grateful to my Creator for getting me this far this safely. I have many wonderful memories and some not so wonderful. I got to see and, in most cases, use almost all of the oldest and strangest machines we discuss and then so many of my dreams were realized when, with lots of help, these and many other appliances came back into my life. It is nice to be able to share memories and experiences with others who care about appliances. Like most of us, I regret that so many of the wonderful people like my brother and special friends are no longer here to share memories we made together, but that will be remedied.

I think the old Post Office buildings were the last bastion of cuspidors.

 

[rp2813]

Will, that is such a cool thing to do with your kindergarteners! I live a stone's throw from an elementary school that was built in the 50's. Recently they did some major renovations there to mechanical systems so my partner and I were one evening checking things out and peered in some classroom windows. I was amazed to see one of those boxy old maroon leatherette record players like the type I remembered from my own elementary school days--and I graduated high school in 1972! It appeared that this record player was still getting regular use. I can still remember the rich tone these machines produced, courtesy of vacuum tube technology.

I don't know if this is an indicator of fiscal responsibility or lack of funds (in this state, it's probably the latter), but bottom line is that this record player was still serving the same purpose at the same school after 50 years, and that made me smile. And not to worry--this school got a new media center around the same time so it's not like students there are stuck in the dark ages.

 

[gyrafoam]

Tom-----

When they opened the 1961 Jet-Port, the old Quonset Hut Terminal got moved over to the far NW side of the field next to the NOAA/Weather Service Field office and the fuel farm just east of where the Eastern hanger was. Appropriatly it was used to store graders, deicing trucks and other equipment. I often wondered if they left the old ticket counters still attached to the sides! Do you remember the murals of Stone Mountain, Piedmont Park and other Atlanta attractions on the walls above the ticket counters? And the wonderful observation deck up on the second floor? My father used to put me up on his shoulders so I could see out above the fence and we used to watch the planes come and go for hours. It was wonderful.

Do you remember where the old Airport Morrison's Cafeteria was on Virginia Ave. corner of the old Terrell Ave.? Well, if you turned opposite of the Morrisons on Terrell Ave. and drove down the row of old hangers to the very end---thats where the original terminal and tower were.
What is now "Woolman Place" (named after Delta's founder) which is the entrance road to Delta's "Executive" compound. The concrete pad of that old building can still be seen as a parking lot for the Delta employees at the end of that road. I used to drive by it all the time on the perimeter airport road and I can picture it in my minds eye as though it is still standing. There was a building on the corner with a large neon Coca-Cola sign hanging from it that was there for years after that old place closed up! I usetacould see it from the "Rotunda" gates out on Delta's old Concourse F at the old Jet-Port.

Ach, I sound like an alter kochker before my time but just like you said I'm glad I have those memories! Good or bad they are all mine. They are a blessing.

 

[tomturbomatic]

Steve, I remember how new the 1961 building was in comparison to the old one. Everything was painted white and the graphics were in bright primary colors We would go to meet my father sometimes. We would catch a bus to get us downtown and then buy tickets for the airport bus that left from in front of the old Dinkler Plaza Hotel. The bus was strange. It was painted military olive drab and did not have a rear window because the roof swept out and down in some sort of exagerated streamline design that reminded me of one of those weird cars like the Kaiser-Frazier with the hump back rear end maybe. It was very plush inside. One time we were walking to Gate 54 and it seemed like we would wind up back in Decatur. Our friend sang out, "Gate 54 where are you?" There was no reply from Toody or Muldoon. Was it Gunther Toody and Francis Muldoon?

Was it the next terminal that had the Calder in the main area? I remember the b****ing about spending public money for something like that. I remember flying into ATL in the 70s and that once modern 1961 terminal was sitting off by itself looking so forlorn.