Do you remember these?

[ladycat]

I came across this phrase yesterday.....

'FENDER SKIRTS.'

A term I haven't heard in a long time, and thinking about 'fender skirts' started me thinking about other words that quietly disappear from our language with hardly a notice like 'curb feelers'

And 'steering knobs.' AKA suicide knob.

Since I'd been thinking of cars, my mind naturally went that direction first. Any kids will probably have to find some elderly person over 50 to explain some of these terms to you.

Remember 'Continental kits?'

The rear bumper extenders and spare tire covers that were supposed to make any car as cool as a Lincoln Continental.

When did we quit calling them 'emergency brakes?'

At some point 'parking brake' became the proper term. But I miss the hint of drama that went with 'emergency brake.'

I'm sad, too, that almost all the old folks are gone who would call the accelerator the 'foot feed.'

Didn't you ever wait at the street for your daddy to come home, so you could ride the 'running board' up to the house?

Here's a phrase I heard all the time in my youth but never anymore - 'store-bought.' Of course, just about everything is store-bought these days. But once it was bragging material to have a store-bought dress or a store-bought bag of candy.

'Coast to coast' is a phrase that once held all sorts of excitement and now means almost nothing. Now we take the term 'world wide' for granted. This floors me.

On a smaller scale, 'wall-to-wall' was once a magical term in our homes. In the '50s, everyone covered his or her hardwood floors with, wow, wall-to-wall carpeting! Today, everyone replaces their wall-to-wall carpeting with hardwood floors. Go figure.

When's the last time you heard the quaint phrase 'in a family way?' It's hard to imagine that the word 'pregnant' was once considered a little too graphic, a little too clinical for use in polite company, so we had all that talk about stork visits and 'being in a family way' or simply 'expecting.'

Apparently 'brassiere' is a word no longer in usage. I said it the other day and my daughter cracked up. I guess it's just 'bra' now. 'Unmentionables' probably wouldn't be understood at all.

I always loved going to the 'picture show,' but I considered 'movie' an affectation.

Most of these words go back to the '50s, but here's a pure-'60s word I came across the other day - 'rat fink.' Ooh, what a nasty put-down!

Here's a word I miss - 'percolator.' That was just a fun word to say. And what was it replaced with? 'Coffee maker.' How dull. Mr. Coffee, I blame you for this.

I miss those made-up marketing words that were meant to sound so modern and now sound so retro. Words like 'DynaFlow' and 'Electrolux.' Introducing the 1963 Admiral TV, now with 'SpectraVision!'

Food for thought - Was there a telethon that wiped out lumbago? Nobody complains of that anymore. Maybe that's what castor oil cured, because I never hear mothers threatening kids with castor oil anymore.

Some words aren't gone, but are definitely on the endangered list. The one that grieves me most, 'supper.' Now everybody says 'dinner.' Save a great word. Invite someone to supper. Discuss fender skirts

Someone forwarded this to me. I thought some of us of a 'certain age' would remember most of these.

Just for fun, pass it along to others of 'a certain age'! Even those not!

[Ravenlost]

Well, around here you hear "supper" all the time. I've even got my Yankee hubby saying supper although I still haven't gotten him to say "dinner" instead of "lunch". And we still say "emergency brake" and "store bought".

[ksfarmer]

Sadly, I remember all those things and still use a lot of the terminology.

[RoseGarden]

'Suicide doors' were rear doors that were hinged at the back instead of the front, so they in essence opened up 'backwards'. Not sure why they were considered suicidal.

An elderly uncle was talking a while back about his work as a steeple jack in his younger days. I bet that's a rare occupation these days.

My MIL always makes long distance phone calls to family collect (we don't know why, she just thinks this is how it's done) but she tells the operator she wants to 'reverse the charges'. Then she always has to explain to the operator what she wants to do.

[ladycat]

In case anyone is wondering, I didn't make that up, I received it in an email.

Originally Posted by Ravenlost

Well, around here you hear "supper" all the time. I've even got my Yankee hubby saying supper although I still haven't gotten him to say "dinner" instead of "lunch". And we still say "emergency brake" and "store bought".

I say "store bought", and I'll bet lots of people here at HT also do.

[big rockpile]

Wide Whitewalls with Baby Moons,Flathead 8 under the Hood,3 on the Collum.

big rockpile

[Spinner]

Most of those words are still used in the area I live in. That's part of what attracted me to this part of the country. When you get down in this part of the hills, it's like walking back in time 50 years. But sadly the "now" is starting to move in. The kids are getting "hip" and modern.

We still say "pop" instead of "soda" when we ask for a soda pop. If you go into the local store and ask for a soda you get a box of "arm & hammer".

[crafty2002]

It was lovely to go back in time, even for a few minutes.
I remember daddy's 59 caddy with fender skirts. I hated them. I was always the one that changed the flat and there were a lot of them, [when running on "re-caps" !!!!] As we always did.

Castor oil??? Heck, that's what kept us in school. I don't care what was wrong with you, you felt better and ready to go when you seen that bottle coming out!!!! Out the door we went!

Back then, I didn't care if you called it a brassiere or bra. Us boys just wanted to get into them. Forget the panties.
We didn't have picture shows. We had "Drive-In's" That's where we tried to get into the brassiere at every Saturday night. Then we would take notes on Sunday before church to see what every one else done....

I have hard wood floors now, and wish I had the money to go wall to wall carpet, LOL. I guess I am going for round two on this one, Huh???

SpecTraVision??? Now we have DTV. I am so old it takes me a couple of years before I figure out what the initials stand for.

How about the 56 Chevy Step Side pickup. Mama brought us all a milk shake home one day in "the truck" and stopped and gave it to us before she got to the driveway. We were playing baseball in the street. I jumped on the step side and fell off backwards. Knocked me cold as a cucumber.
I woke up in the doctors office. What happened to them. Use to be you went in and they said hi. Mr. Phillips. Now it's sign in here and have a seat!!!

rockpile you gotta be older than me. It was Gragar S/S mags and Mickey Thompsons, 283 and 409 Chevy's, 289, 390, and 406 fords when I was a kid.
Then came the factory race cars. I had a 63 Falcon Sprint, 260 4 speed. And ungraded to a 69 Mach 1 Mustang in 1972. How that car didn't kill me I'll never know until I meet my maker. I hope he has some good videos of my old times, LOL.

And Last, but not least, Spinner, where do you live??? I would give anything to go back 50 years. I'll help you keep the modern out.

It sure was some fun back then, wasn't it???
Dennis the Mennis is what I was called back then. By a lot of people, LOL.
Dennis

[hotzcatz]

Doesn't the new Prius have fender skirts? And some of the Jeeps still have running boards. Seems some of the new fangled stuff is still okay even if'n it is store bought'n. We just got a "new" '51 MGTD, that has running boards. We did see a Model T for sale by the side of the road today. I might be able to talk my DH into getting it. He could put an electric engine in it and then nobody would be surprised if we were driving slowly. We could save the original engine in case he wanted to make it original again.

I had to have the magneto cleaned on my tiller the other day. Our local fix it guy didn't have new parts but he could make the old ones go some more.

[clovis]

I am alot younger...I just turned 40.

Anyone remember when "Color Television" was advertised on hotel/motel signs?

Or that at least half of the local businesses had large lettering on the front door that read "Air Conditioned"?

When I was a kid, if you knew someone that owned 2 family cars, they were considered well-off.

Remember when you went to a record store, and bought a record of your favorite artist? 33 or 45? Now that was a big decision for me.

Clove

[oldgaredneck]

Oh the memories....
Was just thinking about how I use to find, collect and recycle glass Coke bottles. Would stockpile 'em until the local bottler put out the word they were paying ten cents apiece for the empties.
I usually had $10 or $15 worth - I'd load them up and Dad would drive me to town. Bought a boatload of comics with my earnings.
Those were the days, and if I had kept those comics, I could sell some of those today for mega-bucks....

[culpeper]

I don't remember most of the 'car' ones, because very few people I knew while growing up HAD a car! The first one I ever rode in had a dicky-seat at the back, which I thought was wonderful. I don't recall what model it was, but it had those new-fangled lever-operated arrow things near the front windows to indicate whether the driver intended to turn left or right - much better than having to put your arm out in the weather to give a signal!

http://images.google.com.au/imgres?i...%3Den%26sa%3DN

We often went to the 'pictures' (we called them 'flicks' to annoy our parents). They were usually shown in a 'theatre' (no such thing as a cinema back then), but in many towns there was an open-air theatre which did bad business in inclement weather, but very good business in good weather. Later, in the 60s, came drive-ins. As kids, we HAD to attend the Saturday Matinee, which was half-price, and which always had a Serial feature, and cartoons as well as the main 'flick'. Of course, we had to stand for the National Anthem at the end of the show.

My family didn't have a telephone until I was nearly adult. It wasn't a problem. There was a telephone box on every second street corner or so!

It was the late-70s before I had my first television set at home. Black-and-white, of course!

We did have a radio, however. A wooden contraption with bulb things to run it. It was turned on religiously every evening at 7pm for the News, then switched off religiously 15 minutes later.

Then came Transistor Radios, guaranteed to drive every parent of teenagers crazy. Which was one reason teenagers bought them, of course!

I remember hankering desperately for a roped petticoat (used to give extra flare to a skirt), and only getting one when they were passing out of fashion. Of course, no self-respecting would ever venture forth without a petticoat - and I remember welcoming half-slips (petticoats starting at the waist).

I was very envious of my best friend, who family had a brand-new Radiogram installed. It was like a large, low cabinet, and as well as having a radio in it, it had a record-player and speakers, all hidden behind doors. You accessed the record-player by lifting a hinged lid back, and you could load up several records for continuous playing. Very swish. Then came Stereograms.

http://glasgow.gumtree.com/posting_i...22.__big__.jpg

I remember shops had a thing (I forget what it was called) that the girl behind the counter would use to put money in, pull on a lever, and the container would whizz along and up a sort of rope system to the office upstairs, where another girl would write out a receipt and put in the change, and the thing would whizz back down to the counter again.

I clearly remember the day my mother's first refrigerator arrived - in a wooden crate! Back then, a refrigerator was the last word in luxury, and for a while we were the envy of the neighbourhood.

[indypartridge]

Originally Posted by big rockpile

Wide Whitewalls with Baby Moons,Flathead 8 under the Hood,3 on the Collum.

big rockpile

It was "3 on the TREE" where I grew up.

[Shinsan]

I remember well those things Ms Culpeper... and miss many of them!
Loved the canvas deck chairs at the open air movies during summer, (though you couldn't roll Jaffas down the aisles like in the indoor places, lol).
5/- would get fish 'n chips for the whole family - and the 'fish' was invariably 'shark'.
Ice was delivered for the ice-chest on the back of a horse-drawn wagon, as was the milk and bread. ("Clothes props....clothes props" was sometimes heard too.)
After school main job: Cut wood for the combustion stove, so dad could cook dinner.

Now when I wander through the antique and old wares shops with the daughters in tow, I'm able to tell them what 'those things' are, and what they were used for
They think it's fun to see all the old things, but do they see the far-away look in my eyes as the memories return? (Sighing with a wistful smile.)

[ginnie5]

We had a buick station wagon with fender skirts and the sideways back seats. I remember curb feelers and suicide doors. I still say supper and store bought and so do the kids. I made corn dogs last night for supper...they were downright ugly looking (I wanted them to look store bought!) the kids said they were better than store bought....so much for me wanting them to look pretty I guess. My grandparents had a black and white tv. Saturday nights were filled with watching HeeHaw, The Porter Wagoner Show, and Gunsmoke on that tv....heck even cartoons were better on that tv! They even had an old victrola that they would crank up for us to listen to. Old, old bluegrass that the name of the person who sang it has temporarily left me. And if Grannie fired up the oil lamp it was an even better night. I still love oil lamps and collect them. Occasionally for no reason the kids and I will take a night and turn the tv off and light an oil lamp and play a game or something. And yes I'd LOVE to know where to live that you could go back 50 years...100 would be even better. As much as I would miss certain things, like the internet, I'd gladly give it up to have live in simpler times..

[EDDIE BUCK]

Brylcreme, Vitalis, Jade East, Lucky Tiger, four an eight tracks, Recordplayer mounted on trans hump, Them shiney things you put on the upper half of the headlights, Bike sirens with that chain tied to the handlebars, T-Bird, Vette, GTO, 396, Deuce & a quarter, ragtop,teardrop spotlights,kerosene and black paint on tires, long bilfolds where half of it stuck out of pocket, Hollywood glasspacks playing that good music to the ears. Eldibrock headers. And most important was A FIVE DOLLAR BILL would get enough gas plus buy two movie tickets,two boxes of popcorn and two drinks and still have a little rattling change in your pocket. Those were the days. lol Eddie

[big rockpile]

Remember setting on the Fenders,straddle the Headlights,coming in from the woods or fields.Coke Bottles brought .02,you collected them along the road to get a Tank of gas.We had a Edsel that had Push button in Center of the Steering Wheel to shift.

I remember arguing trying to get my car to pass Inspection because it didn'thave turn Signals,like I told them I didn't need them because the car didn't come out with them.

Wonder how many remember picking Corn and always getting the Down Row because you were the Kids.

OH!OH! Disappering in the Feather Bed.

Listening to Music,having to clean the Needle.

Dating with a '59 Chevy with a Back Seat Big as my Bedroom.

big rockpile

[big rockpile]

Its bad knowing people that made Stean Engines for the Railroad.

big rockpile