What about those sorta spherical little black cans filled with kerosene with a wick sticking out the top that the cops lit at night to use as traffic cones and lane dividers.

Clothes wringer/washer.

Round push button light switches attached to a rocker for on/off. There were lots of houses fitted with them when they became electrified using aluminum wire wrapped in cloth.

Rich people in big houses had intercoms consisting of a tube with a funnel on the ends.

Coal chutes on houses.

Toilets with a chain to open a valve on an overhead reservoir.

I‘ve actually operated every one of the above that were in everyday use at Grampa’s house. It’s weird being the same age as old people.

A thick phonebook.

The little window in the basement wall through which the coal was delivered.
Horse drawn fruit wagon though that didn't last much past my very early years.

After Sunday mass I went to the bakery for bread, my brother went to the butcher for meat both within two blocks of home.

Playing with asbestos siding
Fumes from leaded gasoline
Metal lawn darts
Soul train
The bookmobile

From this thread
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/off-topic-discussions/1137772-biggest-raise-i-ever-got-percentage-wise.html

Bottle deposits kept a few pennies in my pocket but the candy store had nothing but penny candy.
Nickel Cokes made with fresh syrup.
Paper and rubber drives.
Learning to shoot on my high school rifle team.

Running behind the DDT truck! :eek:

Like globs of mercury we used to roll around in our palms in chemistry class.

I think I remember twice growing up where a thermometer broke and mom dumped the mercury into a bowl, but I wasn't allowed to put it in my hand.

I know that these aren't totally gone, but I feel like they are more rare than they used to be.

https://i5.walmartimages.com/asr/2e8...f04f2f302.jpeg

I remember many hours of riding my bike along the road looking for pop bottles. Picking up all I could carry in a basket I rigged to the handle bars. Going to the grocery store, cashing them in, and buying Super man comics for 12 cents and some candy with the proceeds of the bottle sales, two cents per bottle.

We even used to pick up bottles, gather the whole $25 cents for the Saturday matinee at the movie theater. A second quarter was for candy and a coke. The matinee had a cartoon or two, the newsreel, a serial that continued last weeks serial, then the previews, and then the movie. We rode our bikes to the movie theater, parked out unlocked bikes outside the theater, and road home after the light came up. All with no parents hovering around.

Fixing your favorite Dead or Springsteen bootleg cassette by winding the tangled tape slowly back into the cassette with a pencil in the hub.

The old passion pit...drive-in movie. (whoops...already mentioned.)

snap-in 45 record inserts. Stacking ten records on a turntable spindle.

Using the National Geographic as a spank-bank.

Using a double record album cover to sort hard bits of organic matter from the usable organic matter.

Crank windows
Cans that opened with the triangle punch
The sound of of 14.4 modem handshake
Smoking on airplanes and in restaurants
Getting an orange for Christmas (before my time also)
B/W tv and green computer monitors
Pressing the cassette answering machine when you got home to see who you missed

My 1968 Dodge D100 has a foot dimmer switch and it has a foot operated windshield washer.

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http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1680805788.jpg

And my daily driver El Camino has manual crank windows and manual locks. We still have a "church key" can opener. I have not used on in a long time.

Both of those are uncommon, but do still exist.

The Bible…

Advertising with hillbillies and rifles.



http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1680807167.jpg

Amazing what I have forgotten. My Mom was a stickler for sugar content (no sodas) in the house and she made a passable popscicle out of something reasonably enjoyable...using those exact molds.

Great stuff.

To the OP: Parents who raise children without coddling. I had a fairly significant bike crash, on dirt, at around 7/8 years-old.

I get home, my Mom looks me over, Mom EMT-like, and pronounces me fit for duty: cleans me up, dressing the scrapes with a bit of this and really bad bandaids:

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1680807529.jpg

I was back in the fray in no time.

There were 2, methiolate and mercurochrome. I seem to remember that methiolate stung a lot and mercurochrome wasn't too bad, so we mostly used mercurochrome for any and all cuts and scrapes.

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/08...g?v=1652315873

My mom actually was a nurse that had worked in a GP/Family Dr office and also in ER and hospitals. Her mother was also a nurse, and I think for a time, her sister was also a nurse.

And don't forget the applicator that was built into the lid. I feel like when I was little it might have been glass which was soon replaced by plastic.
https://cdn.britannica.com/38/123238...curochrome.jpg