1. I miss 10% CD rates.
2. And insurance companies that would insure ANY home no matter if the location was in the woods with heavy foliage covering the area or a log cabin.
3. I'd like a cell phone that has a record button, like my land line phone had on the answering machine.

" I'd like a cell phone that has a record button "

What phone do you have that can't record (directly or with an app)?

@Toronto Veterinarian....I have a Samsung Galaxy A13.

How weird that it can't do that......Well, there are free apps that will allow you to record.

Toronto Veterinarian, I've changed the batteries in my key fob a few times. I buy them at Dollarama. They have small watch batteries and these larger ones.

I miss the flyers for browsing flyers, I really hate enlarging and looking at them on my phone. When price matching I had the flyer opened and the item circled so they could see in an instant what the item is.

I have paper maps still, I dislike the turn by turn on my phone and portable GPS.

I still get the daily newspaper but it's so thin, just one small section whereas it was full of news, recipes, classifieds, etc.

PS tell me more about recording phone calls. My new Google phone doesn't have a record button, nor did my Samsung Galaxy

"Well, there are free apps that will allow you to record. "

When speaking with a former property manager for instance...they said, "I don't work for you, I work for the tenant." I'd like to have hit a button...and have recorded what was said after that. If I have to change screens, call up an app...engage....I pretty much can't catch someone off guard that I'm recording what they're saying.....can I....no point at all. 🙄

In many areas it's illegal for one person to record a call without informing the other party, so I believe that the phone manufacturers don't include that functionality for liability reasons.

@Bookwoman...I already checked into that...no worries. My land line message machine had a button to "record".....perfect! Not on cell phones.

I understand that insurance companies can't insure homes in over grown forests because they burn down. (Insurance companies where I live are backing out). I understand 10% fixed rate CD's are not going to happen either(I just got 4% for 7 months).......this thread is about things we USED TO HAVE that are not around any more.

DH and I love reading newspapers and have often remarked that their absence have greatly added to the ” dumbing down” of America.

I was a Girl Scout and sold them door-to-door when I was young. We have no interest in eating them now, but just purchased many boxes of them from our granddaughter. We live in Pennsylvania and she lives in Florida. The personal touch is totally gone. We were sent a link for an order form, filled it out , paid for the cookies and postage via Paypal, and received the cookies in the mail a week later.

" I miss 10% CD rates "

As someone who has real estate investments, it's surprising to hear you say that. Think of the bigger picture.

I remember when CD rates were over 16%. Mortgage rates were over 18%. It was 1981.

House values declined, for-sale inventory in most markets climbed to excessive levels since no one could afford to buy because mortgage payments at such rates were unaffordable. Homes were stuck on the market and couldn't be sold.

Interest rate levels are the major control the Fed has to manage inflation (which causes wealth loss across the board). They raise rates to cool down inflation and drop them when it shows signs of easing.

Lower interest rates benefit everyone. If you don't like CD rates, buy securities, companies other than banks do better with lower interest rates.

Elmer...I have a diversified portfolio. Not everything is tripling in value...but a LOT of it is. I do keep "cash" in ONE CD....I was up late last night looking at local properties to "fix up". :0) I'm inbetween projects right now...

" The personal touch is totally gone. "

Yup, that's one of the consequences of people becoming too afraid (or too anti-social) to answer their door to strangers. And of people being too afraid to let their daughters go to strangers' houses alone.

I was an old-school Girl Scout who tried to sell GS cookies door to door. I didn’t much enjoy it because all the houses in our neighborhood were spaced out and on hills. I can’t say i like the new system much better where every grandmother or aunt of a scout is passing around a sales list at work for their dear relative. I get they are trying to have the most sales, whatever, and I usually would oblige one person. Now they are selling at local stores and the scouts still aren’t engaged in the transactions. The GS leader does all the work and the young girls just stand around. At least I think they should teach the kids to interact with the public in some way. I still like to support the organization so i suck it up and buy a couple of boxes.

I’m not much of a shopper, but occasionally I do miss having a real store to shop in such as Bed Bath & Beyind and Pier 1 for certain items.

I miss the Yellow Pages phone book. I just found it easier to pull out the phone book to find someone to do whatever instead of sifting through webpages nowadays. With the Yellow Pages, it was just all laid out in one place.

Try Yelp, porkchop. Put in what you're looking for and your location. Skip over the sponsored listings that appear first and go to the bottom. Change Sort from Yelp Sort to sort by Ratings.

I discount the numerical ratings a bit, especially when they're few in number or the opposite, seemingly more than would be expected. Comments can be useful. It's usually much more information for comparisons than printed directory books ever had.

"Try Yelp, porkchop. "

Can I not just state what product or service I miss that has vanished -- which is what this post is about. I miss the Yellow Pages, so let me miss them!!

We've driven through national parks (Death Valley, notoriously, and Joshua Tree) that has almost no cell phone service, and so for GPS, we had to rely on Kevin's Garmin GPS, which uses satellites, I think. Anyway, it would work where cell phone GPS did not, and this could be extremely helpful in Death Valley, where it can be easy to get lost. I also have paper topographical maps of Death Valley, and those are most helpful than cell phones.

The last B&B where we stayed in Costa Rica was definitely in the boonies. It was strange talking to the owners in Spanish, since we were both more fluent in German and English.

Of course, as you see it.

I think you misunderstood my comment or I misunderstood yours. You mentioned an apparent annoyance of "sifting through webpages". With Yelp, there's the page your search takes you to and sometimes the next page too if there are many choices. Rarely more and easy enough but maybe you see it differently. Fine!

" it would work where cell phone GPS did not, and this could be extremely helpful in Death Valley, "

Exactly. I've done the local map and longitude/latitude approach with my phone in Death Valley as part of a National Park trip. Iit works there as most everywhere else in the civilized world. I won't speculate about Central America but I suspect it would work if Google maps has reasonably accurate road data. Remember that all GPS functionality, no matter what the device whether a Garmin type thing or a smartphone, comes from radio transmissions from the network of GPS satellites

A bit more adventuresome from a navigation perspective but not really, was a two week driving trip we did in the French countryside. We covered a fair distance, visiting the Loire Valley, Burgundy, and Champagne. All areas we'd been to before but I think there were 4 different hotels in the boondocks, none of which we'd been to before. The longitude/latitude coordinates, which took about 15 minutes one evening to assemble, were spot on. This was using a dashboard Garmin we have with Western Europe road data. (Predates reliable usage of smartphones)

@porkchop_z5b_MI, here in Oz we have online Yellow Pages. Don’t they have that where you are? How odd.

"here in Oz we have online Yellow Pages. Don’t they have that where you are?"

I miss the BOOK. I prefer hard copies of some things. Which reminds me of another thing I miss -- magazines. Some of them are still around but are shadows of their of former selves; so many have disappeared entirely. Flipping through magazines (or catalogs) while soaking in a hot bath was one of the simple joys in life for me.

i miss the days when US mail service was dependable. i don't know what kind of civil service exam one has to pass to become a mail carrier but apparently, reading isn't a requirement because almost every day, i get someone else's mail. always makes me wonder who might be getting MY mail and just throwing it away.

^^^ Yes! Over the past 2 years our US mail service has has become a roll of the dice. The carrier will on average skip at least one day per week (he doesn't show up on our street). When he does drop off the mail it's very late, rarely delivered before 6pm and sometimes as late 9pm.

“Yes! Over the past 2 years our US mail service has has become a roll of the dice”

Its still better than up in Canukistan… Lol

I've had little mini-rants about my US mail service before too. Mine used to be as dependable as the sunrise. Sadly, those days are gone.

Did you know that you too can sign up for Informed Delivery, which serves as a handy guide for you of the mail that you may never get. (Ha ha.)

Fun Fact #2 - do you know that clicking, "I never received this mail" in your informed delivery screen does....literally nothing useful about it?!

I guess the silver lining, for me, is that it pushed me over into electronic delivery of everything possible. That works just fine for my purposes. Now 99% of what hits my mailbox goes straight into recycling - and if the USPS goes the way of the Dodo bird, my life will go on just fine.

" Did you know that you too can sign up for Informed Delivery, which serves as a handy guide for you of the mail that you may never get. (Ha ha.)

Fun Fact #2 - do you know that clicking, "I never received this mail" in your informed delivery screen does....literally nothing useful about it?!"

Yes & Yes......We do like Informed Delivery where they will email you photos of the mail that will be delivered later that same day. Just one piece of mail was never delivered, fortunately it wasn't very important. My neighborhood has mailboxes on the street with generally a long walk to the end of a driveway, This photo mail service saves me that long walk in the dark and/or rain when pics of only junk mail are expected that day.

I guess I'm lucky to have nothing but good things to say about our mail service. For decades, we had one fellow whose attitude was "anything is possible, just ask me". Mail holds, putting mail in alternative locations, special instructions (given to him) for parcel deliveries, all were smooth. He retired and we had several years of people rotating in and out of the delivery route, none measuring up to the fellow who retired. No problems, just a notch lower on the scale.

We've now had a permanent carrier assigned and he's been on post for the last 3 or so years. He's just like the first guy.

I feel sorry for those with issues. Like ally de but for a different reason - I've long preferred not getting paper communications and have always switched to electronic communications when possible. It's not for problem minimization, simply personal preference.

Magazines! They are nothing but ads. About like todays commercials. about 2 good pages to 5 + advertisements

Torontovet and blubird - DH has always been my knife sharpener and for years he swore by the triangular whetstone. Then he tried a Chef's Choice electric sharpener which was OK. But now he uses this inexpensive, handy gadget "Gatco Edgemate Pocket Knife Sharpener " from the Big A store. I doubt it will revive a dull knife but he finds that it does create a fine edge.

Customer Service in general has become mediocre. Just the thought of having to call Verizon or Comcast makes my BP go up. At least I have a Comcast store about 1 mile away and if I can't resolve the problem on the phone I can always go to the store.

But for some reason I have very few issues with the US Mail and my local post office is fantastic. When my 'mail hold' is over they promptly deliver it to the house. Once they even called me at home to verify that I was back because they had a box marked 'perishable' and wanted to make sure it was OK to deliver. We've had the same mail deliverer for at least 7 years and he's a gem.

And since I'm also in NJ I seldom pump my own gas. We drive to upstate PA frequently and can make it there and back on one tank of gas. But I usually stop at the LAST GAS sign in NJ before crossing the Delaware and fill up.

How I miss a good newspaper! Yes, I read online, but it ain’t the same.

We too lost a couple of lovely mail carriers, only to have temps in and out for a couple of years . We now have a terrific guy and feel lucky to have someone so dependable delivering our mail.

I use Informed Delivery and it's okay. I also miss using the phone book and speaking to a human on the phone when calling a company. What i really miss are companies that produced quality items. I go through more socks because the heals get holes in them after a month. I noticed the material is very thin that they use.

I miss the old-fashioned Weight Watcher meetings. There used to be a variety of local locations to choose from.

The pandemic changed all of this. Now, it is no longer convenient for me. While I no longer need the program itself, I miss the commarderie.

I finally came up with a service I miss. I was posting on the thread about JoAnn stores closing when it struck me that my service complaint on lower price coupons that I was writing about belonged on this thread. So, here I am venting about it!

The thing I miss is being able to shop in grocery stores & combo retail & grocery stores without the constant coupon price / regular price membership or electronic coupon only process instead of the old ”sales & special price” options temporarily offered on specific items. These stores aren’t offering a short term special or sale price on items. Instead, it’s a members only price for which one must enter their member # or phone # at checkout to receive that lower price. Of course, one must already be enrolled in the store’s membership program in which your email, address & other contact info was required. Or, one must use the store coupon at check out & said coupon is only available via the store app which must have been downloaded to one’s smart phone. The stores that don’t use this annoying feature are higher end grocers which I do shop for specialty or produce but for staples I prefer the standard chain stores which are all trying to consolidate but tied up in anti monopoly fights.

Weekly Milk Delivery!

The Automat--that was a big treat to get a slice of pie out of hte litttle window when I was a kid!

Annegriet, I'm with you. That place was such fun. I remember the kiosk where you would get your nickels and the lion's head fountain where the hot cocoa came out of the mouth. They had the best baked beans and mac and cheese! I think there's a piece of the Automat wall in the Smithsonian American History Museum.

What KW said - having to provide personal information to grocery stores and then being tracked has been a pet peeve of mine for years. Oddly, I'm happy to do so with Costco.

Indigo Rose - Costco feels more like a good friend though doesn’t it? And if you have above a basic ’friendship card’ with them, they reward you with giving you a check for enough $$ each year when your membership renewal is due and often that reward pays for the dues + some. What’s not to like? 😉

KW PNW, Yes, yes it does sort of feel like a good friend, and my executive friendship card certainly does pay off! I welcome and cherish my long-term Costco relationship as much as I despise my area grocery stores which feel like bullies, fake friends,, trying to take advantage of me, etc.

So I guess what I miss that is gone/has changed is being able to just go to any grocery store and buy sale items without having to identify oneself/sign-up/"belong" and so forth. Can you imagine walking into a major department store or even Target, Walmart or any such and having to provide an ID to get a sale? Whole foods offers additional incentives for prime members, but regular sales prices are available to anyone....

I want this hair detangler back. I think it was a victim of the pandemic.

Out of Town News in Harvard Square has been gone for a while. It was a landmark.

➡️ https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/11/out-of-town-out-of-time-iconic-harvard-sq-newsstand-sells-last-edition/

Here is the text, but click links to see photos. So many people from all walks stopped in if they were in HS.

”

The socially conscious communal pop-up CultureHouse will take Out Of Town’s place until construction begins and will host free public events such as live music.

Out of Town News’ departure marks the end of an era. The newsstand has been a staple in the neighborhood it was founded in 1955, and was arguably the Square’s most recognized fixture since it moved from its original location — a nearby adjacent building — to the kiosk in 1984. The shop was known for its wide selection of local, national, and international publications, and in more recent years, as print news became less viable, as a spot to stock up on Harvard souvenirs or book tours of the Yard.

The business was founded by Sheldon Cohen, who became known as the “unofficial mayor of Harvard Square” for founding the beloved newsstand. In 1994, Cohen sold the business to Hudson News and in 2009 it changed hands again to the current owners. In its time, Out of Town News saw clientele like celebrity chef Julia Child, poet Robert Frost, and Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft. In fact, it was there that Allen bought the magazine that inspired him and Bill Gates to start the company.

Construction on the kiosk that housed the newsstand includes a renovation of the elevator that leads to the underground subway station and repairs to its historic structure. In 1978, the kiosk, which was originally the entrance to the Harvard Square T Station, was added to the National Register of Historic Places.“

➡️ https://www.wbur.org/news/2019/10/30/out-of-town-news-closing-harvard-square

Maurice Lennel cookies

@petalique is this it? I couldn’t link just to the serum so had to screen shot

Yes!Wow! I have looked all over and even went to the company website, looked and searched. THANK YOU!

So Walmart has it!

Can anyone do a search to find a place where, broadly, truth, honesty and integrity can still be found? I know some pockets here and there but not enough. Thanks in advance

For me, to be clear, my thinking and my disposition are not focused on current events. Some years back, when stark stupidity and blind dogma started their resurgent presence in the world of politics and discourse, I stopped following this portion of the news. To the extent I can. I also stopped being bothered by it, also to the extend I can. I hope the ship will right itself before too long and without too much irreparable damage but there's nothing I can do about it.

While I began this thread thinking of childhood memories like Cocoa Puffs or visits to amusement parks at the beach no longer in existence, whatever twists and turns conversations take make them more rather than less interesting to me.

Same here!

My focus right now is going outside to enjoy the sunshine and melting snow. We’ve spotted a Great Gray Owl living on our property and I’m going out to watch him.

I miss the days when all that was available was a telephone with a cord, and no answering machine. (Yes I am that old). When you called someone, you talked to a real person unless the line was busy. If you weren’t home when someone called, they had to call back. Things seem more streamlined now but not necessarily more efficient. Back then the world seemed to spin slower.

One thing that has definitely declined or vanished are what were interesting threads.

vgkg, maybe a result of the decline in activity here?