How many remember when window vans were the craze and about every 3rd driveway on the street had a custom window van?
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Quoted from zombywoof:In keeping with your wall-phone mount, we have these is every room of our house, and outside next to all of the exterior doors. The master unit in the kitchen has an AM/FM radio that you can listen to remotely. 1970s tech!
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And you still have these? Cool if you do.
Quoted from cottonm4:And you still have these? Cool if you do.
Yes. They are original to the home, which was built in ‘77. While they mostly still work, we really only still use the doorbell integration. There’s a whole industry centered around refurbing these old systems. I opted to just scatter a bunch of Apple HomePod minis around the house.
I was! 
I saved a lot of my toys, and my kids. My Granddaughter, 3, comes over and is in Heaven!
Im kinda weird, as I often have given to many family friends, and customers, Toys for the Holidays,
instead of something useful.
One Year, I sent out 5 pound blocks of Gold Silly Putty!
I still have a blob of it here!
20220822_200042 (resized).jpgQuoted from OLDPINGUY:I was!
I saved a lot of my toys, and my kids. My Granddaughter, 3, comes over and is in Heaven!
Im kinda weird, as I often have given to many family friends, and customers, Toys for the Holidays,
instead of something useful.
One Year, I sent out 5 pound blocks of Gold Silly Putty!
I still have a blob of it here![quoted image]
I never have seen gold silly putty.
I recall I was in 1st or 2nd grade when silly putty first came out. I was jazzed with the way it would lift the ink from a cartoon in the Sunday funnies.
I had a customer who worked at Crayola, I ordered something like 200 or 250 pounds, at around $3.00 a pound.
I then found an 8" display cube with a black acrylic base, and threw in a clump.
I added an engraved Plaque, and sent to my top customers as a Christmas Present.
It was very well received, and for many years, it would come up in conversation.
I felt it would be a good "Adult Silly Putty Gift"
Quoted from cottonm4:Here is an antique. When I moved into my house 43 years ago, I had a wall phone installed. I dumped the land line in 2014 but got rid of the wall phone many many years ago.
This is a wall phone mount. I guess I should take it down but it is in an out of the way place.
You have to be young. I still have POTS phones in my house. Two lines in fact. Much more reliable than cell or IP phones. And I am sure I have some of those wall plates new in the plastic bags in my telecom tools. That said when the pandemic hit and I needed reliable cellular I got a 4G LTE Network Extender and installed it in my home office. Essentially it is a local cell tower. Even the guy across the street says his cellular connections were better.
I understand getting rid of POTS phones because we all have a cell phones. But as long as Verizon supplies the service, I will pay for it.
///Rich
Quoted from cottonm4:Here is an antique. When I moved into my house 43 years ago, I had a wall phone installed. I dumped the land line in 2014 but got rid of the wall phone many many years ago.
This is a wall phone mount. I guess I should take it down but it is in an out of the way place.
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What the heck? That is the worst phone jack mount I have ever seen. Gotta love the wire poking out through a hole in the wall, then going up a few inches along the wall and finally under the plate.
Quoted from xsvtoys:What the heck? That is the worst phone jack mount I have ever seen. Gotta love the wire poking out through a hole in the wall, then going up a few inches along the wall and finally under the plate.
Anything covering that wallpaper is an improvement 
Quoted from xsvtoys:What the heck? That is the worst phone jack mount I have ever seen. Gotta love the wire poking out through a hole in the wall, then going up a few inches along the wall and finally under the plate.
When mounted, the phone covered the wire.
Quoted from mcluvin:Anything covering that wallpaper is an improvement
You sound like my girlfriend You should see my 1950s avocado green floor tiles made with asbestos
Quoted from cottonm4:Does this qualify as youthful memory for some of you younger pups?
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I went to “the farm” to buy a Gateway computer in the 90’s. Made sense at the time. I think?
Quoted from RichWolfson:You have to be young. I still have POTS phones in my house. Two lines in fact. Much more reliable than cell or IP phones. And I am sure I have some of those wall plates new in the plastic bags in my telecom tools. That said when the pandemic hit and I needed reliable cellular I got a 4G LTE Network Extender and installed it in my home office. Essentially it is a local cell tower. Even the guy across the street says his cellular connections were better.
I understand getting rid of POTS phones because we all have a cell phones. But as long as Verizon supplies the service, I will pay for it.
///Rich
What is a POTS phone?
Quoted from cottonm4:What is a POTS phone?
It's that thing that AT&T would bend you over and abuse you with when you needed to make a long distance call. I don't miss that shi*...
Quoted from amxfc3s:Plain old telephone service, duh
Aka, a "landline" phone
Evidently, POTS is an acronym for "Plain Old Telephone Service".
Quoted from cottonm4:What is a POTS phone?
Plain Old Telephone Service. Copper wires. It takes two wires to run the phone and it has enough voltage to fry you when it rings if you pick up from the bathtub and drop it in although since I have fibre to the house, I don't think there is enough voltage to ring an old bell phone.
And if the wires were close, the phone worked.
///Rich
Quoted from mcluvin:It's that thing that AT&T would bend you over and abuse you with when you needed to make a long distance call. I don't miss that shi*...
Oh yeah, 25 cents a minute. Or a pocket full of change for a pay phone.
Actually, it was not all that long ago that cell phone plans were sold by the minute at bend over prices.
I like today. $25.00 per month and I can talk to the east coast or west coast 24/7; No extra charges.
Quoted from BMore-Pinball:Speaking of phones, who is old enough to remember when you could not buy a phone and had to rent them from the phone company[quoted image][quoted image]
Yeah weren’t aloud to buy, so had to lease. My Grandma leased her old rotary phone for over 20 years. She was one of the last to let the lease go. Back in the day being aloud to buy your own phone was freedom!
Cordless was pretty awesome when that arrived. Funny how you used to have to stand close to the cord phone and talk. But with such high phone rates then you didn’t want to hang out and talk. Long distance wasn’t just out of state but could be a few towns over. It was a racket!
Quoted from pinnyheadhead:Yeah weren’t aloud to buy, so had to lease. My Grandma leased her old rotary phone for over 20 years. She was one of the last to let the lease go. Back in the day being aloud to buy your own phone was freedom!
Cordless was pretty awesome when that arrived. Funny how you used to have to stand close to the cord phone and talk. But with such high phone rates then you didn’t want to hang out and talk. Long distance wasn’t just out of state but could be a few towns over. It was a racket!
I lived between Dallas and Ft. Worth in early 70s. If you did not want to pay long distance rates, you got a metro line for just a little extra so you could avoid LD costs.
The other racket? You had to pay extra for an unlisted number. They wanted your name in that phone book.
Quoted from BMore-Pinball:Speaking of phones, who is old enough to remember when you could not buy a phone and had to rent them from the phone company[quoted image][quoted image]
That was in late 70s when deregulation started opening up the phone industry. My step brother had a cabinet making shop and got a contract to set up the new telephone stores. And there was that little "bug" that you plugged your phone into. He had to make demo bug units that the sales rep could pick up with 3 fingers and show grandma how to plug her new phone in when she got it home.
And this is when you started seeing Micky Mouse phones and other phone styles that looked like footballs, etc.
Quoted from cottonm4:I lived between Dallas and Ft. Worth in early 70s. If you did not want to pay long distance rates, you got a metro line for just a little extra so you could avoid LD costs.
The other racket? You had to pay extra for an unlisted number. They wanted your name in that phone book.
I remember the early 90’s when I first paid my own phone bill in college being able to steadily get lower rates on long distance. $.22 a minute with $3.95 fee per month, then six months later switch .19 a minute with $2.95 fee, then .16 and $1.95, …………….. Thanks MCI!
Shared a phone with a couple of others then and had to track money down to split the bill. There was always one dumb ass guy who called his out of state girlfriend each Saturday late night drunk for an hour each weekend during the month and had to add $60 to the bill. Just one of the many benefits of a local girlfriend. 
Quoted from mooch:Holy crap— The fastest I’ve ever heard this song played.
I bought the album right after I saw those guys on TV. As you may have guessed, other than that one song, the rest of the album was trash.
You make me think of this one. I bought this album by Gentle Giant in early 70s. . Not long afterward, I had to move. I moved into some crappy old duplex. Someone left a coffee cup behind that had the exact same picture as the one on this album. The only difference was the name Gentle Giant being added on. Of course, I was stoked.
Eventually, during one of my house cleaning purges years later, both the album and the coffee cup went bye-bye.
Quoted from BMore-Pinball:Speaking of phones, who is old enough to remember when you could not buy a phone and had to rent them from the phone company
And accessories. A friend discovered an external ringer buried in a wall in his parents house. He discovered it going over bills. They'd been leasing it for a few bucks a month for probably over 30 years.
He contacted the phone company about it. The only way to get it off his bill was to return it. He told them fine, you come get it. And repair the wall it's in. They decided they didn't need it back and canceled it from his bill.
LTG : )
Quoted from mooch:Holy crap— The fastest I’ve ever heard this song played.
If you want to hear it even faster, crank up the playback speed on YouTube!
Quoted from mooch:In the 60’s, my family’s front door had a stone-age purely mechanical doorbell.
Much like a pinball chime box.
Pressing the button made it go “Ding” and letting it go made it go “Dong.”
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Right! And there was always the wiseass who would press it in and hold there for like a minute, then let it go to make the dong. I'm not saying who the wiseass was. But it was me.
Sometime in the 60’s, my Dad brought home a freebie wall thermometer with a mysterious blue disc on it.
Its color predicted the weather- blue for fair, pink for rain.
I was fascinated by it and found that if I breathed on it or got it wet, it would turn pink- then turn back to blue after it dried.
But I never saw it turn pink on its own.
Maybe you had to hang it outside to predict rain like the “Redneck Weather Rope.”
030A1628-D073-4FAF-8155-AD7A733A8F1F (resized).jpeg3D4AF749-7CE7-4FF3-90BD-3A590B992203 (resized).jpegQuoted from mooch:Sometime in the 60’s, my Dad brought home a freebie wall thermometer with a mysterious blue disc on it.
Its color predicted the weather- blue for fair, pink for rain.
I was fascinated by it and found that if I breathed on it or got it wet, it would turn pink- then turn back to blue after it dried.
But I never saw it turn pink on its own.
Maybe you had to hang it outside to predict rain like the “Redneck Weather Rope.”
[quoted image][quoted image]
Sounds a little bit like those mood rings that were a hit in the early 70s. Back when everybody was reading their horoscopes in the daily paper.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/was-the-mood-ring-a-gateway-drug-to-an-era-of-self-obsession
I like the redneck weather rope. I never saw that one before.
Quoted from mooch:My Grandpa had one of these novelty wooden crank gizmos.
I had a blast playing with it when I was 8 or 9 years old.
I don’t remember what he called it, but it’s known as a “Do Nothing Machine” or a “Bullshit Grinder.”
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When I lived out side of Dallas in the early 70s, a diner I ate at was selling those things. They were called Ozark Do Nothings. You know. Arkansas. Where you are likely to see flowers growing from an old toilet planted in the front yard
Quoted from mooch:My Grandpa had one of these novelty wooden crank gizmos.
I had a blast playing with it when I was 8 or 9 years old.
I don’t remember what he called it, but it’s known as a “Do Nothing Machine” or a “Bullshit Grinder.”
[quoted image]
Quoted from mooch:My Grandpa had one of these novelty wooden crank gizmos.
I had a blast playing with it when I was 8 or 9 years old.
I don’t remember what he called it, but it’s known as a “Do Nothing Machine” or a “Bullshit Grinder.”
Mooch, our parallel universes match in so many ways YOU'RE FREAKIN' ME OUT, MAN!!! 
I inherited this one that belonged to my parents...I think it's from the 70s or maybe 80s.
Still works fine!
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20220829_073448_1.gifI don't really think in terms of youthful memories because I still own this Schwinn. I bought in new in 1977 at a bike shop in Hastings Nebraska.
I have not ridden it in a couple of years but I probably give it another go when the weather cools. Except for the seat, it is all original.
This bike has the Shimano gearing that Schwinn dropped years ago. It was probably 10-12 years ago that I took it to the Schwinn shop and the guy said he had not seen the Shimano gear set in years.
What is cool about this gearing is that the forward sprocket freewheels when you are coasting. This allows the gears and the chain to always be in rotation. What is so cool about that you might be wondering? It means you can shift the gears up and down quickly without pedaling.
Perhaps I will try to make a movie of this gearing in action.
IMG_1307 (resized).JPGQuoted from dirkdiggler:Anyone care to guess how much a 1980 Hand Held Poker game retailed for?
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$30?
Quoted from dirkdiggler:Anyone else have Little Professor?
Nice find! Especially for just a couple bucks!
And definitely I remember. My mom was a teacher and that was the closest thing to a portable video game that she bought me. Mine was LCD though. The professor icon on the right would animate when you answered correctly.
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Wichita, KS
