I roller skated all over the central California coast.

No rinks involved.

OK, different story rob, not what I was responding or referring to.

"Airmail letters. I remember my mother carefully slicing them open so we didn't mess up any of the message inside."

Are you talking about aerogrammes? I remember those - purchased at post office both here and abroad. They were one very thin sheet of paper that was folded back on itself and with lick to stick tabs to seal it up. The reverse side of where you wrote the letter was an area resembling an envelope (though still the same thin sheet of paper) where you entered destination and return addresses.

It was an airmail letter all in one to save weight, the letter itself and the "envelope" were the same thin piece of paper. Fixed rate, no enclosures permitted. You indeed had to cut open the sealed tabs carefully or you could mangle the message written on the inner side.

Used those alot myself to/from Europe for personal mail. I'd forgotten about those. That was back in the day when airmail was a bit more expensive than now (inflation adjusted) and free international phone and video calls and internet communications were not available. They were popular and widely used.

Culver City had an ice skating rink when I lived there in the 1990s, and I think it might still be there. It also had a drive-in theater, and those are getting rare now. I went to those a lot when I was a child, and they had playgrounds in front of the screen where my sister and I used to play. We went to drive-ins more in the winter because we had to wait too late in the summer (at least once DST was initiated) to go there.

I also ice skated when I lived in Houston, but I never roller skated in public.

I had a Pogo stick when I was a child, and I've not seen those in a while.

There were also a lot of Wham-O toys in the 1960s that are no longer available - for safety reasons.

28 cent gas

we still have an indoor skating rink ...

slinky and a number of now extict board games

super balls

bubble gum cards

push button vehicles

vehicles which ran on 6 volt batteries ... 63 vw

overhead projectors

Photograph booths in the 5 and dime where you sat on a seat, pulled the curtain, and got 4 pictures for, I think, 4 quarters.

A variety of department stores to shop in, before Macy's bought them all and then closed them.

Nabisco Bacon Thins, how I miss them

People that made an effort to look presentable before going out in public

Ladies bed slippers

Ladies nightgowns

Sewing patterns and material that didn't cost an arm & a leg

Walking to school

Being able to chose individual options when purchasing a car

FizzNiks. Oh, how I wanted one as a child! i recently saw them on EBay for about $20. (I think they originally sold for about 25 cents.) Thought about splurging on one for my brother's birthday, then realized that it would only work with the old glass sodapop bottles.

Long distant phone calls used to be a luxury or an expense that you occured only on really special occassions. Then, you had short conversations, at that . Not that I miss that, but it is one change that happened and most young ones do know how important recieving a long distance phone call could be. Long distance might just be the next state over or the other big city in the state. Calling long distance used to an occassion and everyone would gather around and try to speak into the handset and hear and share. Or, the phone would get passed around to each person for a brief "hello".

Raye, I too remember when it was a good thing to walk into a fabric store and buy what you needed to sew a nice garment and it was very afforable. That has all gone, all of it. All of the nice fabrics have gone away too. I have just about entirely quit sewing at all, after over 50 years of it.

To the original poster, if your memories of things gone past include video games, computers and floppy disks, you must be still, relatively, young.

You know that you are old if you remember television tubes and replacing them. Now, that is the past.

I never see kids playing in my neighborhood, ever.

Much of what has been posted, but most of all, my friends and relatives. At almost 99 many (most) of them have "gone before." Seniorgal

Neighbors coming and going Sunday morning heading to their respective houses of worship.

Horse riding stables.

Nicole, there are still quite a few riding stables around our area. North Alabama. A friend’s daughter is in fact training in jumping and dressage and doing very well. I also have a couple of adult friends who are doing various forms of training. All very interesting.

Wednesday Morning, I remember waiting until evening, or even better the weekend, to make long-distance calls when the rates were cheaper!

I remember some WWII-related things, like saving ration coupons for clothes, shoes, car tires, gasoline. No one saves bacon and other grease to return to the neighborhood butcher -- good thing, since he's gone, his trade enfolded into grocery chain stores.

Very little is a 'special occasion' these days. You can call anyone anywhere in the world and talk for ages; no careful pre-planning of call content needed to save expensive minutes -- and no waiting for individual operators to make trunk connections. We have a wide choice of entertainments available 24/7; no waiting to see one of two 'features' at the local movie palace at set times on set days, and no need to all gather to listen or watch a radio or TV show we could only enjoy once a week.

I miss photo albums, you know, hard copy pictures, not transient images on someone's cell phone (that never seem to become permanent).

Air conditioning killed the neighborly front porch -- and the neighborhood.

Working mothers resulted in the end of neighborhoods where kids were afforded communal safety as they played outdoors.

A few things I miss are kids being able to play outdoors without constant supervision or participating in an organized sport. I was also explaining to my 12 year old son, what it was like when everyone saw the same movie or TV show around the same time. I do love streaming what I want to watch when I have time to watch it, but am still sad that we lost the shared experience of talking about what happened on a show the next day. I was also explaining to my son, about radio stations and DJs. Back in the day, they had a lot of power in introducing us to new music, and that also became a shared experience. They are still around today, but in a more diminished capacity.

You know that you are old if you remember television tubes and replacing them. Now, that is the past.

I am old. I remember my mom taking tubes out of the tv and sending one of us to the local drug store to test them. They had a machine there that would tell you if they were still good or not.

i still have those things mentioned in the OP. I have lots of photo albums, even some of generations past, of great grandparents time period. pics of my dad in WWII.

25 cent beer night...

Lynda, I miss that shared experience, too. And the television specials that the family would watch together that were not just kid-oriented.

Airplane seats that have enough space for an average person to move around.

Chicken pox

People smoking indoors

Clothes lines full of a week's washing.

Kids playing outdoors. During a snowstorm last winter as I walked I saw no one outside. Back in my day (and my kids) we were out sledding till it got dark. Although I have all the new conveniences like TV remotes, computers, laptops, big-screen TVs ,big screen desktop computer, iPhones , Apple watch , central AC, Subaru which practically drives its self, cable TV with 14 gazillion stations, ability to call anywhere in the world ....I'd almost give it all up for the simplicity of the days when I was young. I walked almost 6 miles to school when I was in first grade and the only time I was given a ride was when my father picked me up if it rained. Today parents drive their kids to school or wait at the bus stop to drive them a block home!!

Horse riding stables.

If Nicole meant stables where the public could simply pay to ride she is mostly correct. There are boarding stables and schooling available but horses for the public to enjoy are becoming rare. Same situation with open pasture for horses to graze. Turnout for horses too often means a large pen shared with a few other buddies instead of being sent out to play in a pasture. In the area I live we have one public riding facility open. The others have been taken over by land grabbers (who claim to be "saving the green belt" for hikers (gawd forbid they see horse poop) and for developers. A little further out there is one other training facility that offers trail rides to the public. A handful of others have been incorporated via long term lease agreements.

I grew up basically around the corner from a stable...in NYC. I used to ride in Central Park most weekends, and it was a joy. It was the last public stable in Manhattan, and closed in 2007.

Wildchild, that is probably very true. Now that i think about it, our closest state park used to have horse rides available (100 years ago it seems, but really not that long ago). Not anymore. Someone probably got hurt because they were stupid and that ended that.

I think recreational horseback riding has a market that's declining rather than growing in numbers. One would expect locations to do so to be similarly declining in number, businesses that can't produce adequate profits for owners because of reduced customer demand don't stay in existence. I think that's the story rather than land use changes.

It may vary from one area to another but horseback riding has never been a widely popular activity to begin with. And unlike other activities, whether growing or waning, an obstacle horsey things have in common is that a big chunk of the population seems to be less interested in horses than does another. To wit - I think a large majority of horse aficionados are female. The absence of a large male contingent from the potential customer pool further cuts participation numbers.

I live in an equestrian community in Orange County CA now , but used to live in one inLos Angeles County, both communities put a high value on the pens and arenas for the horse community. I enjoy walking by the horses but have no desire to own one. I know some of the houses sold have the stables but the new owners dont have horses. I enjoy the miles of trails I walk on each morning.

Horses are time consuming and expensive., of course people who love horses make it work.

I think the decline in horse rental stables is a bit of both the time and money caring for horses and the price the public is willing pay for a rental. Lawsuits and insurance has driven out many businesses, I'm sure this contributes to the decline of many businesses.

C Marlin, there are still plenty of hot air balloon operators, private plane clubs and rentals, scuba diving schools, diving and fishing boat operators, helicopter tours, sky diving, gliding and hang gliding schools and operators, etc, all of which I suspect offer an equal or greater risk to customers as riding a horse. Customers must surely sign a liability waiver, acknowledge they assume the risk on their own and agree to hold the supplying operator or individuals harmless and without financial liability, no matter what may happen.

I never see kids playing in my neighborhood, ever.

Around here, many houses, esp. new builds have those wooden swing set/club house/Noah's Ark thing sitting in the back yard. I have yet - ever - to see a single child playing on one. Do realtors throw these things in for free with the purchase contract or something?

Roller skates that fit over your shoes and required a key to tighten them.

Smoking sections on planes, smoking cars on trains

NYC subway tokens

Ice cream cones at the corner store that were 13 cents plus one more for sprinkles

Knowing how to use a slide rule, a card catalogue at the library, how to calculate square roots without the button on a calculator. My children marvel at me.

Buster Brown shoes and the commercial and song

Top 25 countdowns of the hits on AM radio.

I can go on forever....

Schoolhouse, I agree. i never see a kid on those contraptions. However, my street has plenty of kids riding bikes and playing games. i still hear the shout of ”car” when they have to move out of the way.

Seniorgal,, my mom is nearly 104 and dearly misses her friends. i wish there were just one left that is her age.

Another thing gone forever is those crazy x-ray machines in shoe stores. i remember watching the bones in my feet wiggle around.

We have neighborhood kids playing, riding bikes, skateboards, outside where I live. It's nice to see. They are out every non pouring rainy day.

One thing I don't like about our little town is there is no longer a swimming pool here. Lot of people donated money to replace the old one that they filled in, but stupid people decided to use the money to build one of those water parks that have a pad that shoots up water from the ground instead. It's pretty small and basically for little bitty kids. The nearest pools are now in neighboring towns.

Another thing that doesn't exist: safe schools where you didn't have to worry about getting shot to death. Oh and safe public spaces period. Same as above. No one is safe anywhere. Some man got shot in my daughter's small apartment complex the other day. Didn't even make the news station that I normally read.

Going home for lunch during school day/walking to school.

Pay phones.

Kids sharing rooms.

Rotary phones

typewriters

Doctors--house calls

Street atlas for my car before GPS

Bus tokens

Green savings stamps

Savings bonds that were not electronic

I don't miss this, but... so many people smoked... in their car... in their house, restaurants, etc. I rarely see anyone smoke anymore. If I do, I smell them first. You certainly can't smoke in restaurants or planes or a lot of other places.

Party lines... we don't even have a landline anymore.

Annegriet, I always walked or biked home for lunch, until I went to junior high and took the bus. i loved the walk or bike home, having lunch, and walking or going back, ready for the adternoon. So when my own child started 1st grade in the same school district, i planned to give him lunch at home, too. But no. I had to send a note to school every day with him, then go to the school, go into the office, sign him out, bring him back, sign him in, and he was the only one going home. After 2 weeks, he ate lunch at school forever after. No cafeteria at that district, so we packed his lunch. When we moved, his middle and high schools had cafeterias, but he didn’t want to wait in line so he still brought his lunch. And, we just packed lunch for the younger brother, too.

Until last year, so much of our lives moved from the home, to outside the home. To work, to school, etc. I think that’s why so many people had trouble with the stay-at-home!

There is no lack of public interest in recreational horseback riding. I ride at a facility that offers trail rides. They are so booked that they have to turn people away. All the children's day camps are at full capacity also and schools are constantly reaching out for programs as well as other youth organizations like scouts. Social services for low income children have also reached out and asked for contracts for their children to ride.

The issue is not lack of public interest in horseback riding but the lack of land to keep the horses.

Unlike what many people outside the equestrian equestrian world believe the majority of horseback riders are not any where near wealthy. Most make sacrifices and some take second jobs to be able to ride.

We have ownership in a shared ranch that keeps horses and does trail rides daily. Most of the other owners are far from wealthy, but are interested in having somewhere they can get away from the stress of city life. The original developer created, I think, five of them - four in California and one in Georgia. They are called R-Ranch and each is independently owned. This one is the one we own at - https://rranchinthesequoias.com/ , here is the one in Georgia - https://rranch.com/ , the one in Napa - https://r-ranch.net/ and this one in Northern CA - https://r-ranchca.com/

Annegriet

5 hours ago

Kids sharing rooms.

Not only do my two grandsons share a room--they share a bunk bed!

What I don't see anymore is sharing cars. Teens seem to get their own once they have a drivers license.

Cashiers counting back change without help from the register.

There are also stables that cater to handicapped children and veterans. I live in an area where horses out number people by far, but like wildchild said, land values have increased to the point that stables have often been sold for further development. There used to be a stable in Houston at Herman park, Almeda Stables, and another a little farther out on the loop, Pin Oak Stables. I know there were bridle paths in Herman Park, but don't know if it was for the boarders or if they rented horses also. I think maybe boarders. Pin Oak stable was for boarders and famous for their big horse shows. And another stable for polo and they also gave riding lessons. I think that one may still be there. The Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo has about ten days of various breed shows, including donkeys and mules. Horses are still a big business here....even tho the stables in city areas may now be farther on the outskirts

Remember those Ball Knockers on strings?

Yard Darts

Metal ice cube trays with a handke to release the cubes

Dept stores had bigger bags fur sale fur 10 cents on machines near the escalators. I never saw anyone buy one

Free gift boxes were offered with purchses

TV antennas on houses or on the TV

Metal swing sets

Car ash trays even in the rear doors

Bobble head dogs in the back window

Watching people dance on American Bandstand on Saturdays

Pull tabs discarded on the ground

Hair dryers with bonnets

Women shopping in curlers

Kids using coffee cans and strings for stilts

Whistling. I recall men whistling a tune walking down the street and it seemed to be a background noise in the grocery store. Not just a note or two but full length songs of a sort.

So much changed when 'the little woman' went to work en masse. 'The latchkey kid' became common. Areas where wives and mothers were at home, "keeping an eye out", were no longer believed to be safe enough for kids to play unattended or to walk to and from school. Schools had to provide food for students. There was no one home to provide lunch -- sometimes breakfast. School days were lengthened and programs for care were added, to 'mind' children over their parents' full work days.

I never heard the term 'day care' until about 1960.

I recently learned that post-WWII Americans (men and women) declared they wanted shorter work days and more leisure over more pay. Nope. The government needed to pay war costs. That required more individual consumers. Now we have an economy 70% dependent on the consumer. Rat Race? Do you think?

I never heard the term 'day care' until about 1960.

The US Funded Universal Childcare During World War II—Then Stopped.

When the United States started recruiting women for World War II factory jobs, there was a reluctance to call stay-at-home mothers with young children into the workforce. That changed when the government realized it needed more wartime laborers in its factories. To allow more women to work, the government began subsidizing childcare for the first (and only) time in the nation’s history.

An estimated 550,000 to 600,000 children received care through these facilities, which cost parents around 50 to 75 cents per child, per day (in 2021, that’s less than $12). But like women’s employment in factories, the day care centers were always meant to be a temporary wartime measure. When the war ended, the government encouraged women to leave the factories and care for their children at home. Despite receiving letters and petitions urging the continuation of the childcare programs, the U.S. government stopped funding them in 1946.

https://www.history.com/news/universal-childcare-world-war-ii

Who Took Care of Rosie the Riveter's Kids?

Even though quality varied at the Lanham-funded centers and bureaucrats in charge of the program occasionally stepped on each others’ toes, the program, with such a broad base of beneficiaries, changed public sentiment about child-rearing. Until then, daycare had been considered a pitiful provision for poor mothers. Having served families across the socioeconomic spectrum, the centers familiarized the public with sending young children away from the home for part of the day. In fact, the journalism professor Rose Kundanis observes that it was during the Lanham programs’ tenure that the term “day care” was coined.

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/11/daycare-world-war-rosie-riveter/415650/

Thanks for the history, Bookwoman. What surprised me was reading that women and men chose 'leisure time' over longer hours and more pay after the war. Do we think ending state supported childcare was a greater reason -- for women anyway?

I'm not sure where daycare has been a national norm other than in communist countries -- and other 'communes' -- where individualism is not encouraged.

Photos of people as they look in real life, without filters and enhancements.

I skipped ahead, so perhaps I missed this.

As a child, I used to love going with my mother to a particular department store that had this magical pneumatic tube delivery system for cash, receipts and so on. watching the containers whiz through the overhead network of transparent tubes was mesmerizing.

i had no idea how it worked back then, just that it captivated me, particularly the first time I saw it.

In some medical and pharmaceutical settings they are still used. There are some videos of youtube (of course).

Eating at the counter at a Woolworth’s.

Things you don't see anymore:

One room country school houses.

Crank style pencil sharpeners.

Typewriter corrector ink.

Party line telephones.

Dial phones.

Pay telephones.

Country stores.

20 cent comic books

Wing windows on autos.

Cowl vents on autos.

Radiator cap with thermometer.

Slide rule

Mechanical calculators.

Typewriters.

Vacuum tubes.