Retro Photo (Anything Retro)

[Stonecold]

I remember my parents having one when I was in grade school. The last Maytag wringer washer was made in 1983.
They are still being made today by Lehmans.

 

[gorgik9]

I remember my parents having one when I was in grade school. The last Maytag wringer washer was made in 1983.
They are still being made today by Lehmans.

Well at least I got it right on the main point, that it is a laundromat

 

[waistingmytime]

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And if you lived in America this might seem to be the case


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[trencherman]

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Was going to bring this up in Classic Cars which was one of the two things
I remember of my grandpa's Mercedes-Benz 190D from the sixties. The
other was the feel and smell of its leather interior.

Remnants of rolling the window down will probably persist just like the way
barrer la porte is still current usage in Quebec while it has become quaint
if not extinct in France.​

 

[trencherman]

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Hard to imagine now why one would ever need the above or these two below at home but I had all three of them.
Mine was a smaller one, a 16mm which I acquired, even harder to imagine now, mainly for porn. At least, the Kodak Carousel I bought for a nobler purpose, to magnify slides of paintings I picked up in museums I visited. I wanted to avoid the embarrassment of face to face confrontation with customs officers over pornographic flix you know, so I mailed them back home instead of carrying them with me. Until I received a letter from the Ministry of Justice informing me that they have impounded the illicit importation. The same Ministry of Justice, btw, that recently avowed ‘There’s no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation.’





I love the Dymo label puncher for the smell. It reminds me of school openings; new books, new schoolmates, new subjects to learn.

 

[W!nston]

​

trencherman mentioned loving the smell of his Dymo tape. Well I'm sure he loved the smell of mimeograph ink fresh off the press early mornings in class.

This was how copies were made efficiently before the Xerox copier became affordable enough to be common.

It seemed like everyone in class always volunteered to pass out the tests or worksheets just to get a good sniff of that fluid! At least it seemed that way.

:cheers:

 

[trencherman]

What I loved more was the smell of the mimeograph stencils. I used to type out stencils for an aunt and before feeding them into the cylinder of the typewriter I’d sniff each one first. Not as furtively as a fetishist would sniff rubber paraphernalia in a sex shop but quite innocently and unconcealed.

The word mimeograph would probably pass into desuetude too just like photogravure which you only hear now in an early Judy Garland song.

 

[trencherman]

Thank you but they are some forgotten other person’s buried in my memory that these vintage pix bring to the surface much like the scent of madeleine dunked in tisane did for Proust.

Dedicated to Wastingmytime:

 

[waistingmytime]

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This is something some of the younger people here may not remember.
We did not have one but a lot of people who lived outside of the city still did when I was young. Here in the states we called it an outhouse.

 

[waistingmytime]

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Old Library cards

 

[W!nston]

Safety Razors

I remember being very, very young watching my daddy shave. Like everyone else I loved to watch him shave. Something about it was magical.

Wet your face. Wet the brush. Swirl the brush around inside the shaving mug til the soap lathers up. Paint your face with the lather. Open the razor doors. Carefully open the new Blue Blade and drop it in the razor then close the doors. Draw some hot water in the sink. Rinse the razor in the hot water then get to work.

I loved the sound of the razor as it cut the whiskers off his face. I loved watching how his face went from lathered to clean shaven. I loved to watch him raise his nose, puff out his cheeks, stretch his lips and maneuver around his Adam's Apple to get a clean, close shave. I loved watching his face as he shaved in the mirror.

He had something called a styptic pencil to stop the bleeding when he occasionally nicked himself. Sometimes a dot of tissue was required, lol.

He had a straight razor from the days before safety razors became popular. He kept that razor oiled and sharp enough to slice a hair lengthwise. It was beautiful with that bone handle and leather sheath. He would let me hold it sometimes when he was sharpening it on his whet stone. But he kept that it his top drawer with his watch, rings, cuff links, tie clips & pins, belts and dress socks. I would sneak in and look at it sometimes. My oldest brother inherited it and still has it.

I started shaving with the safety razor but when I got a little older I learned to use a straight razor. I like the safety razors better, lol.

​

 

[brmstn69]

Who here can identify these?




I ask because one of the college kids at work found one stashed under the counter and had no idea what the fuck it was...

 

[trencherman]

Who here can identify these?

They were called imprinters. Even cabdrivers who took credit cards had to carry one. Cabs in NYC, of course, only accepted Mastercard and American Express because the mention of Visa made the majority of taxi drivers there nervous.

 

[waistingmytime]

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Transistor radio​

 

[trencherman]

I can see from your evolutionary chart that I am stuck in 1998. I too started shaving with the safety razor but never learnt to use a straight razor. Have always been paranoid of it even when an expert barber is wielding it. Stopped in the 1998 model because I found that its three blades are adequate to give me a smooth shave for a whole month. Did not want to spend any more money for the fourth or fifth blades which I deemed superfluous.

 

[gorgik9]

To add a bit about radios, transistor & vacuum tube reciever!

The very first transistor radio my parents had when I was a kiddo in the mid 1960s, was precisely this model of the brand Philips!

Before the era of transistor radios were the vacuum tube radio recievers. The radio below comes relatively close to the radio standing on one of the benches in my maternal grandparents kitchen!

 

[waistingmytime]

Mostly useless info from 40 years ago




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[trencherman]

Now that you mention it, yes I can recall all of the above. But without any prompting, the only thing happening that year that I remember was the Jonestown massacre. I heard it on the radio while it was happening.

 

[waistingmytime]

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Bounty - The Quicker Picker Upper




Please Don't Squeeze the Charmin​

 

[trencherman]

Were these two above married too just like Uncle Ben and Aunt Jemima?