Do you remember? A generational perspective ...

My dad would always try to get my sister and I non-smoking seats when we flew up to see him and often times our seats would be right behind the smoking section.

Sometimes the airline would use a little sign jammed into the top of the seat which states whether the section was non smoking.
 
My dad would always try to get my sister and I non-smoking seats when we flew up to see him and often times our seats would be right behind the smoking section.

Sometimes the airline would use a little sign jammed into the top of the seat which states whether the section was non smoking.
Back in my early career days I sat one row in front of the smoking section in a 747 on a 12 hour flight. It was HORRIBLE!

Scott
 
Party line phones. I don’t think we had a private line until 1980.

Sometime in the early 70’s we went on a trip to West Virginia to visit some of my dad’s relatives. I remember scraping the muffler of his 67 Impala on the rutted gravel road driving way up into some holler to stop at a small wooden home where his elderly uncle lived. He drew his water from a bucket in a hand dug well and still had ceiling mounted gas lights. I don’t recall if he had electricity, but I doubt it.

I wonder how many, if any, homes in the US still use gas mantles for domestic lighting? It can’t be many because it was very unusual even back then.
 
I remember the teachers were manic about us Vancouver kids taking off our rubber boots as soon as we arrived at school because we were insulated until the feets touched the floor. Kids could explode with all that built up energy not getting grounded !!

We ate the white glue from the paste pots, went home to Mom waiting to use the phone because the lady on the party line was hogging the line. I remember when Pepperidge Farms started selling stuff.
 
The air on airliners was partly recirculated. So even if you didn't sit in the smoking section your clothes smelled of cigarette smoke by the end of a flight.

Same with going to the pub. The bad part was how your clothes smelled the next morning.

We lived on a farm until I was in Grade 2. We had no electricity, no running water, and no indoor plumbing. We had a single Aladdin kerosene lamp that provided a bright white light (like a gas lantern without all the hissing). We had a battery powered radio and a battery powered telephone - on a party line of course. The roads were so bad we put the car away for several months in the winter and traveled across country by a sleigh pulled by horses or a tractor. Well into the '60s we took a train for long trips.

I received my first job offer by hand delivered telegram when I graduated from engineering (1971).
 
I remember growing up when Amazon was just books. Just today I received 4 new shocks for one of my semi trailers, custom engraved tags for the dog's collar, and some mower parts for my grandparents.
 
i rember when kids in school were disciplined rather severely, as saw one kid hanging by a coat hook with feet off the ground or being told to stand in the corner, or when I was a kid had a large paper route in the early morning before school, though I was the seemingly one one with money in my pocket earned the hard way.
 
My dad would always try to get my sister and I non-smoking seats when we flew up to see him and often times our seats would be right behind the smoking section.

Sometimes the airline would use a little sign jammed into the top of the seat which states whether the section was non smoking.
My Brother was A&P mechanic back then and he told me they could find cracks in the airframe cabin skin from the nicotine stains on the outer paint.
 
I remember the teachers were manic about us Vancouver kids taking off our rubber boots as soon as we arrived at school because we were insulated until the feets touched the floor. Kids could explode with all that built up energy not getting grounded !!

We ate the white glue from the paste pots, went home to Mom waiting to use the phone because the lady on the party line was hogging the line. I remember when Pepperidge Farms started selling stuff.
One day in science class, the teacher showed us a little vial of Mercury, and she spilled out a few droplets of it and let us take turns breaking it into smaller drops and then putting them back together. Our only precautions were that we all had to wash our hands afterward. Nowadays, if that happened the entire school would be evacuated, and they'd probably have to tear down the school and haul away all the debris and everything else in it to a special hazardous-waste dump.
 
Oh, for Heaven's sake....another, "We used to drink VOCs and play with mercury and we liked it", comment.
Well… my job starting in 1985 they had a drum of benzene on a lay down rack for the production workers and the maintenance guys to wash their hands. It took the stink away better than anything else they tried. The wives insisted they rinse off with the “good stuff” before they brought the stinks home. I worked in a very smelly place. That (the benzene wash station) lasted until about 1989. Saw/smelled it with my own eyes and nose. I never used it and stayed away.

Sadly, many of those wives are widows now..
 
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