Things that Disappeared When You Weren't Looking Archives
Lunchboxes Man has been eating lunch since time immemorial. And you might think that the portable lunchbox like you carried to school in the 50's, 60's, or 70's would have been just as ancient. But you would be wrong. In 1950, Nashville, TN-based Alladin came up with a concept that they...
When Big Catalogs Came in the Mail These mailmen today have it made. Why, back in my day, they used to haul a hundred pounds of catalogs five or six times a year! One of the most pervasive memories we Boomers have locked away is a big catalog or two sitting on the coffee table right next...
The Libraries of Our Childhoods This will be a fun write, almost 100% from memory, no research needed! My favorite type of I Remember JFK article. Okay, transport yourself back to, say, 1967. You are entering an imposing building: your own local public library. One of the earliest concepts that you learned as a child...
Stretched Pop Bottles Thanks to Awkward Family Photos for reminding me of this one. Remember walking into the houses of friends and seeing these stretched pop bottles? They definitely had a youthful appeal, so it may have been in the bedroom of a teenager where they might be most readily spotted. I couldn't...
Dialing for Dollars Oh Lord? Won't you buy me a color TV? Dialing for Dollars is trying to find me! Janis immortalized a local TV phenomenon with her very last recording, "Mercedes Benz." Indeed, this writer may have completely forgotten about the home-grown giveaway program if not for that lyric, memorized many years...
Shrinkage Seinfeld added a large number of terms to the English language. One of these is "shrinkage," but the shrinkage that is the subject of today's piece has nothing to do with cold water in swimming pools. If you're like most Boomers, you don't live in the same house in which...
The Laredo Cigarette Machine The year was 1970. Cigarette prices had been steadily climbing throughout the 60's. Why, they had just hit an obscene 40 cents a pack! Something had to be done. Thus, the Laredo cigarette rolling machine was released. The plastic device would compress tobacco into a tube of cigarette paper to...
Rexall Drug Stores We grew up with drug store chains. Drug stores were one of the earliest types of retail establishments to form franchises, and by the 50's and 60's, the US was covered with them. Osco, Katz, Longs, Walgreens, the list goes on and on. Some survive today, others vanished with bad...
Hot Lather Machines What a happy coincidence. The younger members of the Boomer generation began shaving at roughly the same time that a formerly familiar device began appearing in our bathrooms: the hot lather machine. Shaving is a rite which few of us guys enjoy. I'm sure you ladies enjoy it even less....
The Polaroid SX-70 1972 was a banner year for inventiveness, consumer-product-wise. That year, Mr. Coffee was born. The coffeemaker, which forever changed the way the morning brew was prepared, will no doubt rate its own future mention here. The other big release that year was the Polaroid SX-70. Polaroid had long ago made...
Daisys, Bugles, Whistles, Buttons, Bows Sometimes, the things we enjoyed as kids are shrouded in obscurity. That was the case of today's subject of Daisys, Bugles, Whistles, Buttons, and Bows. These are shaped salty snack foods I'm talking about. And I know Daisys is misspelled, but notice that it is in the pictured ad, too....
Vanished Toy Companies We Boomers grew up with the greatest toys ever made. Indeed, the 1950's-1970's has been hailed as the Golden Age of toy manufacturing by more than one authority. And those toys were brought to us by a number of manufacturers who, sadly, have disappeared from sight. I've already written about...
Dad's Auto Accessories Today's I remember JFK remembrance is the result of a conversation which took place between a coworker and myself earlier this week. My buddy John Sorrells walked in, threw an object on my desk, and said "okay, nostalgia expert, what's this?" Without hesitation I said "Why, that's a curb feeler."...
Flash Bulbs If you were to time-travel back to the mid 60's, you would find that photography was a pretty technically challenging affair. I mean, nowadays, we shoot auto-focused, auto-exposed, auto-flashed shots with our $100 digital cameras and see the results as soon as we plug the memory chip into our computers....
Kenner, We Hardly Knew Ye The year 2000 was a big one. We used to dream about someday seeing the year 2000 when we were kids. Arthur C. Clarke figured that by that year, commercial spaceflight would be commonplace (in fact, there is a bit of commercial space flying, if you want to buy a...
Jesus Freaks ...And eleven long-haired friends of Jesus in a chartreuse microbus... When Convoy came out in 1975, the world knew exactly what C.W. McCall was singing about. An offshoot of the hippy generation, Jesus Freaks tended to grow their hair long, just like their hippy brethren, but overall lived lives that...
Vanished Sound Alert: the Ka-Ching of the Cash Register First of all, I'm taking a two-week break. We're off to Sunny St. Pete Beach for a vacation. See you when we get back. The sounds that we grew up with were things we took for granted. I always assumed that I would hear the five-days-weekly noon whistle at the...
Vanished Restaurant Chains As long as there has been human society, there have been eating establishments. Let's face it, some nights, cavewomen just didn't feel like cooking. We Boomers grew up with a lot of familiar names on billboards which have sadly slipped from the scene. The good news is that some of...
Kodachrome "Mama, don't take my Kodachrome away" sang Paul Simon in what is clearly the greatest song ever written that paid homage to slide film. Unfortunately, mama, i.e. Kodak, didn't listen. Earlier in this year of 2009, Kodak announced that Kodachrome was going away. They had actually been making it disappear...
Falstaff Beer We're all in this together. That was the message of Falstaff commercials I used to hear on the radio in the 70's. Well, we may all continue to be in this together, but it's sadly without Falstaff. Falstaff beer had its start way back in 1840. That's when German immigrant...
Oil Cans When I envision a new article for I Remember JFK, I am often surprised by the amount of information that is out there for me to research. As regular readers know, I like to ferret out the history of whatever subject I cover. In the case of the bikini, that...
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Your First Color TV:
For us Baby Boomers, the appearance of HDTV a few years ago brought back memories of the last big jump in TV technology. When homes first started sprouting TV antennas in the 50's, black and white sets were the norm. They weren't cheap, either. A new one was an investment...
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