Things you don't see much anymore

Unless you're a collector:

bus/streetcar tokens
ink blotters
ink wells
fountain pens
50 cent pieces
stamps you lick
shoe horns
slide rules
clothes pins
metal credit cards
curb feelers
Rolodexes
hair curlers
rabbit ear antennas (antennae)
portable radios
pocket protectors
beer can openers
flash cubes or bulbs
vent windows (cars & trucks)
cigarette lighters (cars)
slide projectors
film strips (educational)
tie clips
candy cigarettes

Got others you can add?

Dennis, I have a Picket slide rule that I bought when I was a junior at Kimball H.S. in 1961. When my daughter was in elementary school I used it to teach her about logarithms.

I have a bag of clothespins that my wife and I still use to hang clothes. I have seen clothes pins for sale at Ace Hardware recently.

My 1991 Volkswagen Vanagon GL Campmobile has those vent windows that push out. My 2006 Toyota Prius has FAKE ones, that is, windows in the position where the vents would be expected, but they are fixed in place. The VW also has a cigar lighter. Modern cars have power outlets instead.

Unfortunately, I saw candy cigarettes for sale in an Ace Hardware a few months ago.

I have and use a Rolodex.

I have a beer can opener in my gadget drawer in the kitchen, with the cap remover end getting use regularly on the Mexican beer I drink Remember that we used to call this device a "church key?"

How about a "floppy disc?" Computer punch cards? Ice pick? The large "tongs" that the ice man used to carry blocks of ice? Hat pins? Diaper pins? Spring operated watches that have to be wound? A metal coffee can, with many follow on uses? A baby bottle warmer? An oil can (for motor oil), and the gadget for punching a hole in the can top and dispensing the oil into the auto engine? The little correction tapes for use when typing? Paper hand held fans that people used to whiff air on their faces in hot weather (I particularly remember women using these in church)? A skate key? Roller skates that fastened to one's shoes?

The list goes on.

Dave McNeely

Remember book covers? In elementary school we had to put on book covers at the start of the school year.
Usually they were brown paper with some rule marks for help with folding. Some had advertising.

The cool thing for boys about 1962 was to get book covers from the military recruiters.
They had neat photos or artwork on them.

At both Long Jr. HS and Kimball HS we had book covers that were made of a slick paper with illustrations related to the school, especially sports and other school activities. These covers were printed in color. They cost some small coinage, and the proceeds supported the school activity fund. Regarding the kraft paper covers that were given out at no charge and that advertised, usually area businesses, some kids would put them on with the advertising turned inward, and at one elementary school I attended we were admonished not to do so, because the advertising paid for the covers.

One year there was some controversy regarding something printed on the covers. I don't remember what it was now (maybe political?), but those covers were banned and we had to go for a few weeks without book covers until new ones could be obtained. Some kids also used custom covers, made of colorful papers, some with images thought to be attractive. One year my sister made her own covers from kraft grocery bags.

Remember bus cards? I think the city bus fare for kids throughout my time in DISD schools was ten cents. A punch card with some number of places for the bus driver to punch with a hole puncher on the margin was sold at school. The cost of the card was less than ten cents per ride, but I don't remember, maybe 25 rides for $2. The cards were good on any city bus year round, though the main purpose was for riding the city bus to school. I used to purchase several cards at a time, especially near the end of the school year to use in the summer.

Dave McNeely

Cars broken down on the side of the road
barricade lights
boomboxes
home stereo systems
smoking (among people in higher social classes)
women without tattoos
wallpaper
quality toy cars, trucks, construction and farm equipment
pay phones
non-biased newscasts
button-copy freeway signs

Before battery life was greatly improved, highway construction was marked with burning
smudge pots that looked like cannon balls.
When was the last time you saw one of those?
Where did they all end up?

Dave, I seem to remember that one of H.L. Hunt's non-oil enterprises was a canned vegetable and bean company that had ads on the book covers we had at Walnut Hill School in the late 1950's. He had political ambitions at about the same time, maybe he slipped some not so subtle messaging into a few of the ads.

Victoria Snyder Alvey

More about Hunt than most people would ever want to read:

[www.texasmonthly.com]

I seem to recall that Hunt's initial foray into canned vegetables was due to his having tenants in East Texas who raised blackeyed peas. Then he got the idea that claiming health benefits for them would make them more saleable, so he jumped on that. Then he started to believe the hype. I once read (but it might have been a Frank Tolbert bit, you know, don't let the truth interfere with a good story) that the tradition of blackeyed peas on New Year's Day came from HLH Products promoting the canned ones they turned out.

I was always fascinated, but not in an admiring way, by Hunt and his exploits.

The article linked above does not mention the original actual second family, the one with the wife he continued to consort with throughout his marriage to the two mentioned in the article. As I recall, they also ended up with a portion of the estate.

added: Hunt claimed in some of his writings that he had a superior genetic makeup, to which he attributed his success in business. He was a Social Darwinist, and claimed that his prolific reproduction was an obligation to society to contribute superior people. I'm not sure how he accounted for having a paranoid schizophrenic son (diagnosed, and lobotomized) or a daughter who evidently was considerably handicapped intellectually. He also claimed that voting in a "democracy" should be allocated based on wealth, so that one like him, who was very wealthy, should get many votes, while a poor person should get few or none, because they were evidently less capable of choosing wisely, and besides paid less tax.

I have also read that his political ambitions were to be an advisor and power broker, rather than to stand for elective office. But he was not successful at those efforts, either, being regularly rejected by the two presidents he most sought to influence, Nixon and Johnson.

Graduating seniors in Dallas high schools used to tell each other that inviting Hunt to one's graduation would elicit a gift. Some of us did so as a lark. We actually did get a gift from the effort -- a paperback copy of one of his self published books and a lapel pin U.S. flag.

Dave McNeely



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 11/11/2020 03:24PM by old man from dallas.

My earliest memory of eating black eyed peas for luck first thing New Year's
morning, was that the peas were the first food in your mouth that day.
As I recall, it was BPs, greens and cornbread. The BP represented coins,
the greens paper money the cornbread gold. Additionally, my Gmother would
create a tiny cachet with uncooked BP inside, that the female family members
carried in their purse and males carried in their pocket.

The tradition seems to go back to at least the Civil War era and possibly as
long as 1500yrs ago to Jewish tradition.

[www.tripsavvy.com]

[www.thespruceeats.com]

Additionally, our BP were ALWAYS cooked with salt pork, which even some
canned varieties still contain a miniscule bit of today.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/12/2020 08:09AM by Frank.

Well, like I said, Tolbert's version was likely a part of his adherence to the writer's (entertainer's) approach of not letting the truth prevent one telling a good story. It has often been said that he was good at that. That said, it may have a kernel of truth in that Hunt may indeed have used the good luck tradition to promote his product. Never heard the part about the greens and the corn bread symbolisms. My mother always said that the real basis for the tradition was not that eating the peas would bring future luck, but simply that one was lucky to have the peas.

The business about carrying a pea around with one as a good luck talisman is completely new to me.

We always ate salt pork with our peas also, not because we considered it good luck, but because that was how we seasoned a lot of foods. The first article you referenced states that hog jowl is a tough cut of meat. I don't know where that came from. It is almost pure fat with little or no tougher tissues. I have not eaten it in decades, but I remember it well. I still use salt pork when I cook beans, but it is "side meat," not jowl. Of course, the inclusion of pork with the tradition would not have arisen with ancient Jewish people, though they may have eaten BEPs either for luck or not.

I do not like dried black eyed peas at all, and haven't tasted them in decades. If I bother with peas on New Years Day, it is only frozen ones from the summer's production. Since those are not available here in Washington where summers are short (while BEPs require a long, hot growing season), I just eschew the peas. When I first heard of the New Orleans dish called "hoppin' john," basically BEPs on rice, I actually prepared a dish but used fresh peas. I learned that was a no no and though I continued to prepare BEPs with rice, I didn't call it hoppin' john again.

The idea that Sherman's army would have left peas and pork because the northern soldiers thought they were animal food seems unlikely to me. Sherman destroyed huge stores of almost everything, including even livestock, to deprive the populace of the means to resist. Livestock food would certainly have been among the things that would have contributed the means to resist.

All interesting nevertheless.

Dave McNeely