What did you have growing up that seems so old fashioned?

Addie Bee's post about the TV and lightning made me think of this question.

Some things that I remember from growing up:

A party line in the Catskills that required you to enter your number when the operator asked "number please" and you hoped the other persons on your party line did not talk much. And rotary dialed phones.

Radiators and unit air conditioners or just fans.

Hanging laundry on a clothes line and not having the neighbors care.

Playing board games, not Gameboy games.

Getting up to change the TV channel.

What about you?

Aluminum ice cube trays with the lever
Hula Hoops
Shag carpeting and a rake!
8 track tapes
Rabbit ear TV antenna

Party lines for the phone and that huge wall-mounted box that housed the guts of the phone
No TV followed by one then had only one channel and it only ran 6 hours a day
Wringer washing machine, no dryer, just the clothesline
Hauling water - wait, i still do that, so nevermind
Coal fired heat
Wood fired cook stove
Coal oil lamps when the power went out and it did regularly
The cool looking push button automatic transmissions
Horse and buggy to school if it was muddy

1941 Chevy.
A TV with a big box but a tiny screen.
Outhouses.
Baths in washtubs.
Barber shops.
We once had an icebox. That was in about 1960, so it was very old even then!

hmm I can't think of a lot, I was born in the 80s..
casette tapes
floppy disks
the original nintendo

ohh and cell phones that were like this

Pookie-poo -- Ahhh! I remember those ice cube trays.

Seltzer bottles

Sitting around the livingroom watching Bonanza and The Ed Sullivan Show with the whole family - including my grandparents

Reel to reel audio and our old 8mm film projector ( still in the closet btw)

My uncle's Caddy sedan that was so big he could take all of the kids out to the drive-in for footlongs!

Real honest-to-goodness penny candy!!

My firts Iphone?....



... ...

Ohhhh man, where do I begin! I was born 1970, I have seen a lot come and go!
First that comes to mind is my father had a computer in the 80's, it was one of the first models, he built it. Remember the 80's movie WarGames? Just like that, black screen, green type set. It was more like a Kindle back then. Games were played by reading and typing in answers, no programs, no internet, nothing but a new technology that you were cool if you owned one, and for no other reason!

Another one that comes to mind is VCR's. I remember when they became available to the general public and so popular that the cinema industry was extremely threatened...

Saturday morning cartoons like Bugs Bunny, Roadrunner, Popeye and others
3 TV channels you got up to change
Playing outside
Skateboards that you made with a board and rollerskate wheels
B&W TVs
Chatty Cathy Dolls (I wish I still had mine)
Playing make believe with your dolls
Movies were double feature with a cartoon and newsreel
Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color on Sunday nights
Ed Sullivan
Truth or Consequences
Beverly Hillbillies
Get Smart
Gilligan's Island
I Love Lucy
and I could go on and on

Ah yes, I Love Lucy. Comfort TV.

Going outside in the morning and not returning to my house till dinner. Just around the neighborhood, in the trees, playing down by the creek. Mom and Dad knew I was safe.

Saddle shoes, anklets.

Beverly Hillbillies. Ed Sullivan.

Being scared of my elementary school teachers. Maybe that was a good thing.

The Honeymooners.

Our party line. The neighbors phone would ring in our house. But it had a different pattern...2 shorts vs our one long. Listening in on the kids nextdoor when they were on it

Summers that lasted forever....now I blink and its fall.

A&W root beer in real frosty glass mugs.

Originally Posted by ut0pia

hmm I can't think of a lot, I was born in the 80s..
casette tapes
floppy disks
the original nintendo

ohh and cell phones that were like this

Click to expand...

Yep I was in the 80's too and I remember all those things.

I also remember when a bag of potato chips was like $.80 instead of over a dollar!

typewriters
wringer washing machines
only three channels on tv
Kodak Brownie cameras
linoleum floors
Chatty Cathy dolls
Barbie dolls (I still have them)
Thumbelina baby doll
full serve gas stations
Bozo the clown
Colorforms
getting our first color tv in the early 60's
mimeograph machines
getting dressed up to fly on an airplane
electric bus lines
garter belts and seamed hosiery (before pantyhose)

Great thread idea!

Originally Posted by butzie

Hanging laundry on a clothes line and not having the neighbors care.
Playing board games, not Gameboy games.
Getting up to change the TV channel.

Click to expand...

all those. Seriously, in our municipality you're not allowed to hang out laundry anymore.

Originally Posted by Pookie-poo

Aluminum ice cube trays with the lever
Rabbit ear TV antenna

Click to expand...

Originally Posted by ut0pia

hmm I can't think of a lot, I was born in the 80s..
casette tapes
floppy disks

Click to expand...

Oh you young 'un! I was laughing the other day at our cassette collection, thinking about how absolutely clunky and old fashioned they seemed next to an Ipod.

Originally Posted by AddieBee

Reel to reel audio and our old 8mm film projector ( still in the closet btw)
My uncle's Caddy sedan that was so big he could take all of the kids out to the drive-in for footlongs!
Real honest-to-goodness penny candy!!

Click to expand...

My dad used to show home movies on a projector like that. And our car fit 5 kids, don't know how, but we all got in there for Sunday drives and ice cream, don't think car seats were invented then. And we would go to the shop and get 3 lollies for 1 cent!!

Originally Posted by cheylink

First that comes to mind is my father had a computer in the 80's, it was one of the first models, he built it. Remember the 80's movie WarGames? Just like that, black screen, green type set. It was more like a Kindle back then. Games were played by reading and typing in answers, no programs, no internet, nothing but a new technology that you were cool if you owned one, and for no other reason!

Another one that comes to mind is VCR's. I remember when they became available to the general public and so popular that the cinema industry was extremely threatened...

Click to expand...

Ooh us too! We were one of the first families on the block with a video and a computer. First and only time we were cool!

Originally Posted by Catkiki

3 TV channels you got up to change
Playing outside
B&W TVs
Playing make believe with your dolls
Movies were double feature with a cartoon and newsreel
Beverly Hillbillies
Get Smart
Gilligan's Island
I Love Lucy

Click to expand...

Imagine 3 whole channels to choose from. And it was an argument each time about changing the channel/volume. Love those old shows we watched as kids.

Originally Posted by farleyv

Going outside in the morning and not returning to my house till dinner. Just around the neighborhood, in the trees, playing down by the creek. Mom and Dad knew I was safe.
Being scared of my elementary school teachers. Maybe that was a good thing.
Summers that lasted forever....now I blink and its fall.

Click to expand...

What a concept, playing outside and also being respectful of your teachers. Now I feel old fashioned! Summers do seem so endless when you were a child. Apparently there is a mathematical formula that explains that concept.

At the movies they would always show a news report before the movie, of course it was in black and white and it told what was going on in the world at the time.

Roller skates, you needed a key to tighten them.

Only having a black and white TV and very few channels.

Mom throwing down some change wrapped in a piece of paper from the 3rd floor of our apartment building so I could run to the corner store to pick up a loaf of bread or a carton of milk.

Summer nights sitting outside on the stoop telling ghost stories with a bunch of friends.

Those were the days my friend and gone forever. What has taken place in the world since shocks me.

I was born in 1982

Polaroid cameras
Music tapes
Shell suits
Cordurouy trousers

My first mobile used to look like this:



I now have this

Originally Posted by AddieBee

Reel to reel audio and our old 8mm film projector ( still in the closet btw)

Click to expand...

I may have to borrow that! I have a ton of 8mm films from my parents and grandparents houses that I really want to watch.

Catching lightning bugs in a jar to make my own lantern (mom always let them go after I was asleep).

Wonderful World of Disney and Mutual of Omaha's Wild kingdom...on B&W TV.

Happy Days and Lavern and Shirley on Tuesday night (8:00 and 8:30)

Legos

The "Tea Man"...a door to door salesman that came with a suitcase of stuff..best coffee cake mix ever!

Mustard yellow and avocado green furnishing, and VERY bad clothes (I was a kid in the 70's what can I say )

Oh, in college the big thing was car phones in the HUGE boxes. It took me forever to start calling them cell phones.

I'm not sure what some of you are going on about, there were remotes for tvs in the '50s - the first wireless one being in '56.
My house's AC unit is original, the house was built in 1963. Thankfully the electric range is newer - our former neighbors' house had the original '63 range top when they moved in.

A lot of older stuff overlaps into stuff I grew up with in the 80s, just because we didn't have that much money and had an older tv and other things for a while.

Some things I remember:
Being able to go rent a beta or vcr
Those huge stereo systems so common in the 70s and 80s, as a child the speakers were taller than I was.
LPs, we had some cassettes but listened to more stuff on vinyl
80s clothes/styles. (why is some of this stuff coming back? it looked terrible enough back then)
Mullets..... wait, people still get those
We had a water cooler instead of AC
Macrame wall hangings, printed on wall murals, really bad looking faux stone and paneling..
Signs and adverts. Everything is more plain and streamlined now.

The 80s MCI commercials.

I was born in the eighties too. My first though reading this was VHS! They're so funny now compared to DVDs and Bluerays.

I should say I was born in 1952

I also remember mothers who were home all day and were there when we got off the bus.

The neighbors getting together weekly for cards. People don't even know their neighbors anymore.