dutchtreat
Forum Contributor
Global user
Registered: 11-2003
Location: Rome, Georgia
Posts: 181
|
|
Reply | Quote
|
|
I remember when (age thing)
"Fender skirts!" What a great blast from the
past! I hadn't thought about fender skirts in years. When I was a kid, I considered it such a funny term. Made me think of a car in a dress.
Thinking about fender skirts started me thinking about other words that quietly disappear from our language with hardly a notice.
Like "curb feelers" and "steering knobs."
Since I'd been thinking of cars, my mind naturally went that direction first.
You kids will probably have to find some elderly person over
50 to explain some of these terms to you.
Remember "Continental kits?" They were rear bumper extenders
and spare tire covers that were supposed to make any car as cool as a Lincoln Continental.
When did we quit calling them "emergency brakes?" At some point
"parking brake" became the proper term. But I miss the hint
of drama that went with "emergency brake."
I'm sad, too, that almost all the old folks are gone who would call the accelerator the "foot feed."
Here's a phrase I heard all the time in my youth but never anymore - "store-bought." Of course, just about everything is store-bought these days. But once it was bragging material to have a store-bought dress or a store-bought bag of candy.
"Coast to coast" is a phrase that once held all sorts of excitement and now means almost nothing. Now we take the term "worldwide" for granted. This floors me.
On a smaller scale, "wall-to-wall" was once a magical term
in our homes. In the '50s, everyone covered their hardwood floors with, wow, wall-to-wall carpeting! Today, everyone replaces their wall-to-wall carpeting with hardwood floors.
Go figure.
When's the last time you heard the quaint phrase "in a family way?" It's hard to imagine that the word "pregnant" was once considered a little too graphic, a little too clinical for use in polite company. So we had all that talk about stork visits and "being in a family way" or simply "expecting."
Apparently "brassiere" is a word no longer in usage. I said
it the other day and my daughter cackled. I guess it's just "bra" now. "Unmentionables" probably wouldn't be understood at all.
It's hard to recall that this word was once said in a whisper -
"divorce." And no one is called a "divorcee" anymore.
Certainly not a "gay divorcee." Come to think of it, "confirmed bachelors" and "career girls" are long gone, too.
Most of these words go back to the '50s, but here's a pure-'60s word I came across the other day - "rat fink." Ooh, what a nasty put-down!
Here's a word I miss - "percolator." That was just a fun word
to say. And what was it replaced with? "Coffeemaker." How dull. Mr. Coffee, I blame you for this.
I miss those made-up marketing words that were meant to sound so modern and now sound so retro. Words like "DynaFlow" and "ElectraLuxe." Introducing the 1963 Admiral TV, now with "SpectraVision!"
Food for thought - Was there a telethon that wiped out lumbago? Nobody complains of that anymore. Maybe that's what castor oil cured, because I never hear mothers threatening their kids with castor oil anymore.
Some words aren't gone, but are definitely on the endangered list. The one that grieves me most - "supper."
Save a great word. Invite someone to supper. Discuss fender skirts.
---
Steve
1972 f-100 SWB
|
|
5/17/2004, 1:38 pm
|
Send Email to dutchtreat
Send PM to dutchtreat
|
MudinMan4x4
Blue Oval Fan
Global user
Registered: 11-2003
Location: Back Woods ,Texas
Posts: 270
|
|
Reply | Quote
|
|
Re: I remember when (age thing)
Well...I guess you dont live in Texas we use all of those and more young'uns and the older fella's of course i dont know about in the city but around here we do =D
---
"Gas' Guzzler fer life" "Eat'n Chevys Shit'n Japan cars" "Southern Pride""It's not what you buy it's what you build"
|
|
5/17/2004, 3:06 pm
|
Send Email to MudinMan4x4
Send PM to MudinMan4x4
AIM
MSN
Yahoo
|
Merlin68F100
Forum Contributor
Global user
Registered: 12-2003
Location: Austell, GA
Posts: 174
|
|
Reply | Quote
|
|
Re: I remember when (age thing)
Good points Dutch. BTW will it show my age if I call the FE 360 a "mill"?
If I can remember when my boss would fire me if I pumped $2.00 worth of "ethel" and didn't wash the windshield, check the oil and the air in the tires.
If I can remember when you couldn't pump your own gas.
If I can remember wearing my uniform to school because I didn't have time to change after school got out and when I had to become the man "you could trust your car to because I wore a star"?
---
Merlin 1968 F-100, 360, C6
Life is to short to dance with ugly women, drink cheap wine or drive Chevy trucks.
|
|
5/20/2004, 8:36 pm
|
Send Email to Merlin68F100
Send PM to Merlin68F100
AIM
|
dutchtreat
Forum Contributor
Global user
Registered: 11-2003
Location: Rome, Georgia
Posts: 181
|
|
Reply | Quote
|
|
Re: I remember when (age thing)
My old hot rod club was called the steel mills,because we had a large steel mill in
town....wish I still had one of those old plaques. I have pumped a few gallons of ethel myself
---
Steve
1972 f-100 SWB
|
|
5/20/2004, 9:50 pm
|
Send Email to dutchtreat
Send PM to dutchtreat
|
willowbilly3
Blue Oval Guru
Global user
Registered: 01-2004
Location: Black Hills
Posts: 972
|
|
Reply | Quote
|
|
Re: I remember when (age thing)
Where's Bob? Oh he's in the back pumpin' Ethel.
Did any of you have the early Bill Cosby records ( yeah that's right, records, not casettes or CDs) Go-carts was a good one and then the story about getting his Shelby. Every pump jockey ( not attendant) was named Bob and had his name on the shirt.
And the gas station "uniform" was born out of patriotism somewhere around the end of WW2 and used well into the mid 60s
Remember when highways come through the middle of town? Some tired traveler fell asleep and drove right through our gas pumps in about 65. With a new 409 Impala SS.
I loved hanging out at the gas station on Saturday nights as a kid. That was when all the hoods ( short for hoodlums I think ) with cool cars would be congregating. Them old guys ( 19-20 ) really had the cool cars. A 57 Chevy with "Fuelie" heads and a Corvette cam, 64 Malibu SS, 61 Chrysler 300 G with 2-4s. And my favorite, a black 63 427 Galaxy with the name "Bad News" on the bottom of the front fender and those well pipe dumps coming out from behind the front tire.
And of course I was on the cutting edge of all this by "chopping" my almost new Hiawatha bike by stripping it of all unnecessary pieces, mounting a set of "apes" and putting the front fender on the back. I had paid for that bike with a paper route.
---
Buy The Ticket, Take The Ride
|
|
5/21/2004, 5:19 pm
|
Send Email to willowbilly3
Send PM to willowbilly3
|
Powered by AkBBS 0.9.5b - Link to us
- Blogs
- Hall of Honour
- Chat
Click here to get your own free message board
|
You are not logged in (login)
Board's time is: 1/7/2009, 12:37 pm
|
|
|
