So many things could be named here ...
Somewhat akin to the near disappearance of drive-in-theaters, as of a year ago there was only one Blockbuster video store left in the continental US. (Surprising. Talk about a momentary flash.)
On the nostalgia line for the true oldsters in this thread (I don't think the OP qualifies) do you remember when you used to take the vacuum tubes out of your radio or TV, run down to the drug store, and test them one by one in a special machine to see which one was burnt out? Or, looking at your feet in a pair of shoes with an X-ray machine at the shoe store to see how they fit?
I miss using true inner tubes for floating in a lake or river. The things made just for floating in water just don't do it for me.
Roger, I agree, there are so many things that can be named.
I'd heard about Blockbuster. But to be fair, when was the last time you needed to rent a video? VCRs are done, DVDs are easily downloaded. I'm surprised the one Blockbuster is still around. I own hundreds of movies on DVD that I never even open - just about everything I have is now digitally converted and stored on my home network, so I can launch anything I want to see with a few clicks of the remote. It's convenient, but shows the technology has greatly changed from the early days.
I appreciate you thinking I'm too young to remember vacuum tube checkers - but I do. We had an ancient Zenith TV when I was a kid that had power issues. The picture would slowly fade to black after about ten minutes, and we had to turn off the set, and let it cool down. Then we'd turn it on and start the process all over again. I only saw about a third of every TV show we tried to watch. I remember going with my Dad to the hardware store to test one tube after another, but it never seemed to help. It was a banner day at home when that old TV was finally replaced. Color TV had come along, and I got to watch Batman in color. I knew I'd died and gone to comic book TV watcher heaven!
I don't remember ever doing the "X-ray your shoes" thing. That had to have been before my time. But I certainly do remember the days of my Mom using a Brannock Device* at the shoe store to measure my foot size. (Do they even use those anymore?) She'd worked in a shoe store before I was born, and she was expert at picking the right sizes for us. Mom always insisted we wear clean socks to the shoe store so the shoe salesman wouldn't have to smell our dirty feet. We kids always thought she was crazy - our feet didn't stink. Much.
I remember changing many a flat tire on my Schwinn bike. I always had a patch kit, and learned to be pretty good at it. Had to go to the gas station down the street to use their dunk tank to check the tube for leaks, and their tire pump to inflate it after fixing the hole. We'd ask if they had any car tire inner tubes so we'd have fun out at the lake. I never figured out where those inner tubes went from one summer to the next. But it seemed we never had enough. Maybe my Mom used them to fix the flats on her old '59 Buick.
I remember root beer flavored popsicles. My favorite when I was about 10. They sold at the market for 8 cents each. If I was careful with my money, I could manage to buy three with my 25 cents per week allowance.
We'd scrounge the neighborhood trash cans so we could turn in empty pop bottles for the 4 cent refund, and beer bottles for the 2 cent refund. A filled wagon load would yield enough to load our pockets with penny candy, including those wax lips and coke-bottle shaped things with the nasty colored liquid inside
@sdbrier mentioned above.
Dave
*
