Yes, I know I am dating myself by making this list (I am five years away from the half a century mark, after all) A few weeks ago, I got ahold of a photo album of mostly black and white photos from the years I was between ages three and eight and it brought back a flood of memories for me. Some still so real that I could almost smell them. So, I have been in a reminiscent mood lately.
nuns
Well, hardly any wearing the "habit". There could be nuns all around me and I wouldn't know it because I think many sects(is that the right or wrong word?) don't make them dress like that anymore. (when I first read Madeleine to my daughter I had to explain what a nun was, since she had never seen one, and to this day, she is rather fascinated with them)
nurse's caps
It's funny watching old TV shows or movies and seeing nurses in the caps(some with frills and lace, even) and dresses. Today, nurses that I have seen wear Crocs on their feet, brightly patterned smocks, trousers and nothing at all on their heads.
comic books
I don't mean the Graphic Novels you can buy in bookstores and music stores today, but Richie Rich and Little Lulu and Archie & Betty comics. Those simply disappeared off the magazine racks, didn't they?
phone booths
There is actually one still by the road in the parking lot of where work. I never see anyone in it, using the phone and it seems a sad and lonely phonebooth to me. Will there come a day when it is removed? Probably. In the day of the cell/mobile phone, who uses a public pay phone anymore?? I remember when there were phone booths everywhere. Especially those wooden glassed in ones in bus and train stations. I took the photo up top in Brookline, Massachusetts in 1984.
tableside jukeboxes
Some of the old diners still have them, but it is a novelty. Now that I think of it, the types of restaurants that had these tabletop mini jukeboxes usually had a magazine rack near the register, with comics like Little Lulu, Caspar The Friendly Ghost and Aquaman for sale.
kids playing marbles, skipping rope
It meant spring had finally sprung when I was a kid! The boys (mostly, although my sister was a marbles player and collector) playing marbles in the dirt off to the side, and the girls with their jump ropes on the playground at recess at school. Do kids even do this anymore?? What about jacks? (I loved playing jacks....I was pretty good at it, too)
bathing caps
Sure there are always a few older ladies who still can be spotted on the beach wearing these..but it isn't very often. In a way, that is a good thing. No one, unless you are an Olympic swimmer or Esther Williams looks good in those! Especially the ones decorated with big, fake plastic flowers!
I'm sure there are more "things you just don't see anymores" that could be added to this list: Hare Krishna members in airports, smoke-filled bars, those fold-up clear plastic rain "bonnets" you got for free from the hair salon, kids riding in the back of station wagons and pick-up trucks, paper dolls, etc.
10 comments:
Oh GF - I loved this post!! I am going to put my thinking cap on and try to think of more.
XXX
This is great... thanks for the memories!!! :) I was having a similar train of thought this morning actually... funny!! You made me realize some things I hadn't noticed... like the fact that nurse's DON'T wear those little caps anymore, and I never see nuns. Hmmm.
I was a HUGE fan of Archie comic books...had stacks of them. I used to sit at a counter and read them while I ate lunch, and mom always tucked some new comics under the car seat for me when we went on long trips! :)
Around here the phone booths are mostly gone already. It's a shame really... if you DON'T have a cell (or it's dead?!!) you're just out of luck.
Not all changes are good... or am I just getting old-fashioned and can't let go of the good old days??
I love playing jacks too!!...good times. Girls these days don't even know what jacks are, and the "in" thing are cell phones, video games and Ipods.
One can stillsee tons of nuns around Guatemala. Many private schools are Catholic-oriented, and if int's not nuns, then it's priests. Though I should also say that even if they are still around, there are fewer of them, than what there were in the past. My former school, nun-ran, has a lot fewer of them than in my time. Curiously, they have moved to El Salvador, which makes me wonder how the nun-scene looks like there....
(I would say "order" instead of sect. Sect - at least in Guatemala - is a term used when referring to a group of people who follow an idea that to others is a false one. My two cents)
Q.C.,
I would love to see your list if you make one--mine is rather Ameri-centric, so yours could have completely different "disappearing" things on it...
Sherry,
I loved Mad comics, too, in addition to Archie comics. We always had some new comics to read for any long trip or plane ride too(I loved reading the back with all the adds for the joke mail order companies and Sea Monkeys!)
After I wrote this entry I read a section of the Sunday paper I had missed and right on the front page was a winning photo in a local photo contest of a nun in full habit, on the Block Island Ferry!! How strange..
Claudia,
Thanks for the word "order"--I could not think of it and knew "sect" wasn't quite right...
My husband went to a Catholic school(and he haas memories of very strict, mean nuns as well as very kind ones) as did many of my friends and there certainly used to be more nuns around. It has changed around here so much.
Hi Tina. its Minxie. Thanks for the link here. You have a great looking page! Ill be in touch later on when im not so busy and I'll have time then to look thru your blog pages. Im glad all is well with you guys.
Volcano Girl!! :-)
I am pleased you found me and commented...please stop by anytime.
I don't know that I have a "good-looking" page since it is mostly plain white, but I like that, actually.
phone booths (boxes) are disappearing in the UK too. We have one in the centre of my village but the local vandals delight in smashing the glass repeatedly. I don't think I've ever seen anyone in there actually using the phone. I pass another phone box on the way to work. It's in a rural area on a small patch of grass in the middle of a junction. In the spring the grass sprouts hundreds of daffodils. It always makes me smile - red phone box, green grass, tons of yellow daffodils. Every year I mean to take a photo and every year I don't get round to it.
Hobbit,
Thanks for stopping by and adding your comment to this !! How sad to think that even the more distinctive British red phone boxes are falling out of use--would hate to think they will eventually disappear. :-(
I can just about picture in my mind your local "lonely" phone box with the yelow daffodils growing by it in spring. You really ought to get a photo of it!!
Having worked in the behind the scenes of the catholic world some years ago I know there are still nuns in habit, but I agree they are less visuable in streetlife.
I was thinking the same thing about phone booths when camping. 'Cause that's the only place where I still see the real old fashioned phone booths: where you need to put money into. We do have some more modern ones which need phone cards, e.g. on train stations.
Even old diners are disappearing more and more. I find it so sad, 'cause I really like those above all the chains there are nowadays.
Here marbles and skipping ropes are still toys for the kids. But I so loved doing that as a kid. Instead of the skipping rope we also had a rubber band to jump. That was awesome too.
In Germany there are still swimming pools where a bathing caps is obligatory and I remember that as a kid I soo hated that. So I still do have a bathing cap (a thin one, not those ugly thick ones) in our camping equipment for when it is needed lol.
Oh yes those clear plastic rain bonnets from the hair salon. I still can picture my grandma with those!! I think she also had some more permanent ones ;-)
Those were the times!!
Cessie,
Actually, I can see that bathing caps would still be used at a pool(indoors), especially if it is a public one. But we used to see them on women at the ocean and lake..no more. I vaguely remember my mother wore one a few times, too.
Post a Comment