Joys lost in the name of progress

[Tommy_Carcetti]

Last edited Mon Jun 22, 2015, 01:12 PM - Edit history (1)

I don't consider myself a luddite. I'm also fairly technologically literate, and I'm pretty much up to date on most of my technology.

I also understand that as a matter of course, things constantly change in society.

That all being said, some of the things and experiences that have either diminished because of technology or progress or disappeared altogether, I have to say I'll miss. And part of me feels sad that my kids won't experience it.

Take trips to the video store, which nowadays are all but extinct. These days home movie viewing either consists of the Red Box shoved in the corner of your neighborhood supermarket vestibule, or some streaming service like Netflix or an On Demand service. Is it more convenient? Perhaps. But I honestly enjoyed actually going to the video store, and taking a half hour to leisurely browse the walls before arriving at a contemplated decision and taking that video home for the night. Frantically going through the menu of the Red Box while six people behind you impatiently tap their feet just doesn't have that cache. Neither does praying that Netflix or On Demand actually has whatever you want to see in its selection.

Or take the decline of music on a physical media. There was no greater sense of excitement than opening up the packaging on the CD (or if you go back further, cassette tapes and LPs) and popping it into the player. Instantly downloading bypasses that joy. It's completely a soulless, unexciting experience.

Or opening up your mailbox and finding an honest-to-god handwritten letter from a special someone living far away. You could actually feel your heat skip a beat.

All of these things my kids are probably not going to enjoy in their lifetimes. And that got me to thinking, because while I enjoyed my formative years in the 80s and 90s, there had to be certain things and experiences that I lost out on because they had more or less gone away when I was growing up. I don't know. Maybe getting milk on your doorstep was exciting? Or maybe it was just a pain in the ass. I don't know. But I know I missed out on things, too.

So, speaking as a child of the 80s/90s, what joys lost to progress did I not have the pleasure of experiencing?

[sarge43]

1. I miss

the Sunday funnies. Precursors to graphic novels and some of them, like Prince Valiant, were works of art.

radio dramas and comedies

Saturday afternoon movies

[Tommy_Carcetti]

2. I got a slight taste of radio comedy/drama....

My parents would listen to Prairie Home Companion when I was a kid, and that sort of harkens back to that era. I still enjoy listening to it when I have the time.

FWIW, I still enjoy the Funny Pages as well, although it's no longer the golden era I'm afraid.

[Art_from_Ark]

26. I used to listen to the CBS Radio Mystery Theater in the '70s

It took quite an effort to listen to the broadcasts, as they faded in and out because the radio station was a bit too far away.

[RebelOne]

3. I miss all of that also. You and I must be around the same age. n,t

[sarge43]

5. Coming up on 73

Just got in on the final days of classic radio drama

You remember this one?

[RebelOne]

19. Yes, very well. I am 76. n/t

[kentauros]

38. ZBS is still producing radio dramas (called "Audio Stories" now.)

ZBS Audio Stories
I've been listening to their stuff since their first production "Jack Flanders and the 4th Tower of Inverness" (though I didn't hear it until the late 70s.) I don't have that much of their productions, but do recommend the Jack Flanders adventures. Plenty of Eastern mysticism and mystery. And I've been thinking of getting into their "Lady Windermere" series as it's steampunk

And you can get all kinds of radio drama shows on the Internet Archive

[sarge43]

39. Thank you, kentauros

I'll check it out.

[kentauros]

40. You're welcome :)

The Internet Archive is a treasure trove. And best of all, it's free

[NightWatcher]

4. I worked in video rental stores and a CD store in a mall (remember those) and had a blast doing so.

It was the few years that I got to live out the movie "Clerks".

Smokin weed, working late, acting like an idiot....Fun times.

[First Speaker]

6. real movie theaters...

...sitting alone in the dark with hundreds of people--thousands, in some of the bigger ones--and seeing larger-than-life faces up on a huge screen. By the 1980s, we were all crammed into "cinemaplexes", and the days of the nickelodeons were back...

[CanSocDem]

7. Some say 'mandatory' drug tests are...

...a sign of progress. I miss the days when you could travel the country with, at the very least, a weed hang-over.





.

[Arugula Latte]

8. I'm a kid of the 70s/adolescent-young adult of the 80s, and

I miss the satisfying feeling and sound of sticking your finger in the hole of rotary phone dial, moving it all the way over, and letting it slide back. It was particularly satisfying with "0s" and "9s" because you had to make almost a full rotation.

[Coventina]

10. Haha! What are the chances I'd bump into you in this thread?!?!

I miss rotary phones as well.
When they could be legitimately used as a lethal weapon, if necessary!!



I saw Tears for Fears for the first time EVER on Friday night.
Wow, did they put on a fabulous show!!

They did all my favorites, plus a really cool cover of Radiohead's "Creep."

AND!!!!!

JESUS AND MARY CHAIN ARE GOING TO BE HERE IN AUGUST!!!!

[Arugula Latte]

12. Woohoo!

I didn't know Tears was still together, and I only recently heard that JAMC was touring! I've gotta see if they're coming to my town!

on edit: Looks like the furthest west they're getting is Las Vegas.

Glad you saw another great show!

And ... Yeah-- those rotary phones were PHONES. If you got pissed off you could slam down the receiver with a satisfying thunk and bell jangle!

[Tommy_Carcetti]

11. Those phones remind me of my grandmother.

Even when touchtone phones came into vogue, she stubbornly stuck by her old rotary phone. And I do admit they sound really cool.

Whenever I get caught up in automated voice directory hell, I lie and claim I have a rotary phone just so I can talk to an actual person.

[DamnYankeeInHouston]

29. I must be your grandmother's age.

We had two dial phones in our house strategically places so you could hopefully answer them before the caller gave up. Y grandmother had a wall phone with a crank. The number of rings told which house the call was for. All the houses could listen in.

[malthaussen]

15. Ha, I still have my black rotary phone.

Orignal Ma Bell equipment, currently over 40 years old.

You forget how annoying they are to dial on a slippery surface with one hand occupied.

And unfortunately, not all places have a "human" option on their voice mail anymore. I've actually had to resort to the U.S. Mail to communicate with one medical office.

-- Mal

[snagglepuss]

30. LOL I too love rotary phones and I loved when offices had beige rotary

phones with a line of buttons that lit up, one of which was red. As a kid I was totally mesmerized by those phones.

[DebJ]

31. And it was great when you could slam down the receiver....

hitting the little red off button just does NOT help you vent.........

[Throckmorton]

42. Party Lines, and the feeling of superiority it gave me as a child,

because we had a private line in our house.

[Coventina]

9. The excitement of album artwork.

A new album by your favorite artist was a whole "thing".
And, would it have the lyrics to the songs inside!?!?!

It was audio and visual.

Downloads are just not the same.

I still buy CDs when I can.

[Snobblevitch]

13. I remember the milkman deluvering milk and

other dairy products. We didn't have one of those insulated boxes. If my mom was not going to be home, she would leave a note taped to the door listing what she wanted. Rusty the Milkman would then go into our kitchen and put the dairy into the refrigerator. I was in high school before I ever saw my mother buy milk at the store.

I remember when you could not only rent video tapes at the video rental store, but VCRs too. Back in the 80s they cost close to $800 and a lot of people could not afford them.

[malthaussen]

16. Dairy delivery was so convenient.

And milk bottles were so much more satisfying than paper cartons (or plastic bottles). I still remember my last bottle of milk, bought off a delivery truck in 1974. End of an era for me.

-- Mal

[Snobblevitch]

23. I don't remember milk being delivered in bottles,

but I do remember one gallon caryons of milk. We had a plastic handle that the carton fit into but we were not allowed to pour the milk because even with the handle we would spill.

While I am too young to remember the bottled milk, I remember going to my frind's birthday party and one of the games had us kneeling over the back of a kitchen chair and attempting to drop a clothespin into a milk bottle.

I remember the milkman would let us ride in his truck around the block. Back in those days we knew the name of the family who loved in every house in our neighborhood and the road that went along the lake, it was over a mile long. Kids are not allowed to roam all over like that anymore.

[Art_from_Ark]

27. We used to get milk delivered when I was in elementary school

I don't remember when it stopped. I do remember it was in returnable quart bottles, and it was delivered into a little milk box that was sitting on our porch. One day, it was really cold, and we had forgotten to bring the milk in quickly. When we finally realized we hadn't brought in the milk, we found that it had frozen enough to break the bottle.

[Ino]

14. Drive-ins & Halloween

Drive-in movies were so great! 3 movies for the one admittance fee. You could bring your own food/drinks, or go to the concession stand. Sit in the car, in lawn chairs, or stretch out on the car hood. The tinny sound of the speaker in your car. Didn't they have car heaters for the winter too?

And there was nothing like the excitement & joy of a whole neighborhood of kids going door-to-door trick-or-treating -- usually unescorted -- getting SCADS of candy. Everyone's porch light was on, everyone was dressed up. You had to tell a joke or do a trick to get your treat. You just roamed everywhere without fear.

There used to be trucks that would go down the street to sharpen knives/scissors.

We had milk delivery. I had a crush on the milkman and would give him dandelions. Then our dog nipped him, and he wouldn't come any more.

Popcorn made on the stove in a saucepan with hot oil -- no microwave.

Gas stations where attendants would clean your windshield, check your oil, radiator, tire pressure for no charge.

No bicycle helmets etc. No seat belts. No supervision really. Just "go outside & play!"

Standing outside your friend's house yelling, "Ohhhh Barbara!" because kids DID NOT ring the doorbell and make the mother answer it.

I graduated high school in 1970, so these were the 50s-60s.

[malthaussen]

17. You seriously want us to belive you went to drive-ins and watched the movie?

-- Mal

[Arugula Latte]

22. I live in Oregon, one of two you-can't-pump-your-own-gas states (NJ is the other)

and just the other day an attendant filled up my tank and cleaned my windshield for me. It's awesome.

[malthaussen]

18. My great-uncle was an ice delivery man.

Bet you never knew that people used to have ice delivered to their "iceboxes," which were used instead of refrigerators.

-- Mal

[RebelOne]

20. My grandmother in Philadelphia had ice deliveries for her icebox.

This was in the 1940s and the only way to keep the food cool.

[Throd]

21. I don't care for cars built after 1973.

I know the ones they're making now are much more reliable and safe, but they just don't appeal to me.

[HeiressofBickworth]

24. In my hometown, after delivery of dairy products stopped

a "Milk Barn" was opened. It was a drive-through dairy store. I was a teenager with a new driver's license. My mother asked me to go to the Milk Barn, gave me the money, but forgot to tell me to separate the two glass bottles of milk -- one gallon each. I put them on the floor of her new 1964 Cadillac Sedan De Ville, right next to each other. As you can well imagine, at the first bump, the glass bottles knocked into each other and the back was flooded with milk. It took quite a while to clean up that mess. And the smell lingered for a few weeks, too. She had to explain the odor to her clients every time she took them out to view real estate properties -- she was an agent.

And now, we don't even have the Milk Barn. I found glass bottles at the local grocery store -- and from a local dairy farm. I bought some whipping cream last Thanksgiving. I used the bottle for flowers for a couple of months afterwards -- it looked kinda cute. I stopped drinking milk years ago but I'll get the glass bottles next time I need cream, just as a rememberance of things past.

[riderinthestorm]

25. Weekly trips to the library - now I/my family just download

I used to love browsing the aisles, similar to your experience with the video store. Spotting new releases would make me giggle even from the doorway.

Actually listening to the teevee news to catch the weather forecast (because it wasn't available anywhere else but radio). Weather news people are hilarious!

Going to the shoe store and getting properly fitted for new shoes every year by a knowledgeable shoe salesperson. What luxury! Nothing like their capable hands on your feet!

[MicaelS]

28. Fireworks.

Fireworks...woo-hoo. Spending today's equivalent to $200 on a shopping bag of fireworks. Blowing up cans, ant hills, plastic army men, damn near anything with them. Being able to shoot them off right in the city in your own front yard and no one said a damn thing because EVERYONE was doing the same thing. I never heard or knew of a single kid who got injured back then, or a house being burned down, either. One year, circa 1968, during Vietnam, our next door neighbor brought home some ARTILLERY Simulators (think an M-80 on steroids) from his Air Force position as a War Dog Trainer. Holy shit. Someone did that today they would find themselves in prison.

Being able to get a "hardship" driver's license at the age of 15, without much trouble.

Records stores, lots of them, with tons of LPs, not CDs. Being able to go in and browse for hours, looking at the album covers.

[snagglepuss]

32. Hanging out with someone before cell phones and even answering machines.

There is no comparison.

[snagglepuss]

33. Full scale department stores that had absolutely everything, including

a department called Notions and lounges with big comfy chairs for tired shoppers.

[snagglepuss]

34. The absence of security guards. Companies used to have nightwatchmen

but you'd only see security guards with Brinks or in govt buildings and even then they were not dressed like commandos.

[snagglepuss]

35. Hearing the sounds of rakes scraping over lawns instead

of god-awful leaf blowers.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

36. And the smell of the burning leaves. nt

[bigwillq]

37. Just got rid of my CD/Cassette Radio

It's too bulky, takes up too much space, and I don't listen to it anymore.

I really miss video stores.

[WinkyDink]

41. "Trips to the video store"?! Try "trips to the movie theatre"! Or "watching the same TV program as

the rest of the nation AT THE SAME TIME!"

[clarice]

43. Couldn't agree more. nt