How'd we survive?? I remember when....

montanajoe

public restrooms had a large  continuous roll cloth towel to dry your hands on.  It was suppose to lock after being completely used and removed to be laundered.  I don't think any of the units locked, they just kept re-rolling back and forth.  

mohawk600

I remember.........haven't seen one of those for years.

mark christian

I remember them, but can't think of the last time I saw one.

hillbille

in most of the gas stations they were supposed to be white, but would come out brownish/black ........ shirttails got a lot of use back in those days

US Military Guy

Then we moved to nobody washing their hands.

- and from there we went to those stupid "hold your hands under this fan kinda thing that is supposed to blow the water off your hands"

- now back to nobody washing their hands.

Do you suppose the next step is some decent way to dry your hands . . . so folks will start washing their hands again?

Wild Turkey

those "cloth loop" hand dryers were banned after some kids playing in one got tangled up and suffocated.
Now some research has shown the "High velocity air" hand dryers just drove the germs deeper in the nooks and crannies of your hands so they've fallen out of favor.

Sam06

When I was a kid I rode my bicycle all over without a helmet

jimdeere

Remember when you could go in a restaurant, pay one price, and all the food was laid out on hot bars? Eat all you want? Buffet?
Oh, wait, that was just last year.

Horse Plains Drifter

Sam06 said:

When I was a kid I rode my bicycle all over without a helmet

You daredevil you!

hillbille

Sam06 said:

When I was a kid I rode my bicycle all over without a helmet

but I bet you will need one when you take the training wheels off............

ltcdoty

Eating icicles off of buildings...

Nanuq907

Drinking right out of the creek

Grasshopper

Nanuq907 said:

Drinking right out of the creek

Can't tell you have much lake water I drank after a day of bailing and putting up hay, then head to the lake to clean up. Cool, crisp and felt good. No issues afterward.
Icicles off of building, like candy canes, a lot.
Snow ice cream, yep.
Air hand dryers, yuck and then you have to grab the door handle with your shirt. 
So many thing, so little time.

buddyb

How about the kiddie seats for cars with the 2 metal hooks that went over the seat back.Most even had a plastic steering wheel so you could pretend you were driving.

yoshmyster

Or guns having "warnings" engraved on them. Or chocolates with cancer warnings (at least here in California). 

savage170

All of the above and a set of lawn darts

hillbille

savage170 said:

All of the above and a set of lawn darts

we use to move the circles out to about 50 yards or so then thow them as hard as we could, never did hit anyone with one but we did kill an old spider bike once, had the dart come down on the banana seat and went clean through the sheet metal base of the seat and stuck!!  some black electric tape and it was good to go again with a war story no one else had......

hillbille

we used to use the red ryder type lever actions ones to shoot kitchen matches, slide one down barrell and shoot it down driveway or sidewalk and it would light, then used the burned ones to shoot flies. neighbor had a screened in porch with the old metal screen we would sit in it and shoot the matches at flies on the inside of the screen, only downside was it would stretch the screen as the matche stick in it to the size of the match, which left a bunch of slightly larger square holes all over the screen, once his dad found out what was causing it, we got the double whammy, a spanking from him and one from my own dad when I got home an he called and told my day what we had done...........

bambihunter

Tons of farm equipment with hardly any guards over belts and such. I lost a school classmate from an accident with a combine.

I see pictures of us kids driving powerful tractors unsupervised, out doing farm work and can't even remotely imagine many kids now doing that, even that are much older.

I don't remember this one very well, but my dad tells a story of me driving our really old 2 ton truck (I think maybe late 40's early 50's). He would start it, put it in low, and put the two speed rear in low. Then, I would STAND on the seat and drive it around the field where he walked along and threw bales up on it. As I got a little better, we'd use the bale elevator. Well, I started going up a hill and the truck started to really struggle. So, seeing others drive, I knew I needed to push that pedal on the right. So, I JUMPED off the seat onto the gas pedal. My dad was on the top of the load and he said the load just kind of dissolved below him as it fell off the truck. He said he was sitting on the pile of hay, now on the ground laughing his rear off. Then, he was like oh crap, I need to go get him (me) because I never took my foot off the gas pedal. LOL

Butchdog2

Started driving a farm tractor when I could barely reach the pedals, mowing, raking and baling hay on ground so steep that I can hardly walk on now. Yep know all to well about loading hay bales twice. Helped with big work horse, been stepped on several times and worked with cattle and pushed around pretty bad quite often. Took a good bit of courage to grab ole Bossie around the neck with one arm and hold on to her head with the other. Snotty fingers kinda stuff for those that have raised cattle would know about.  You could prevail if you meant business.  That was over 55 years ago. Just a way of life then.

Butchdog2

Never could ride one of these contraptions,  almost hurled just watching them go round.

hillbille

Butchdog2 said:

Never could ride one of these contraptions,  almost hurled just watching them go round.

seems like they allways put wooden mulch down around them too, so when you flew off you had a big pile of splinters to break your fall..........

Butchdog2

Shucks the one where I went to school was inside a big class room, Wooden walls and big cast iron steam radiators for cushions. One of the teachers decided she would give it a try, no too smart, she sat down on it with her legs out. She scooted across the floor like a like dog scratching his butt.

nemesisenforcer

I remember the gritty pink powder soap

pulsarnc

Our playground at school had one of those carousels. Always good for someone throwing up every recess

cbxjeff

Heck KenK/84Bravo , they are still having bottle rocket ( and larger) wars in Portland.

allen griggs

Four minute video by Jeff Allen.   "The America I Grew Up In."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vSOKh8u-Aw

Nanuq907

Mr. Perfect

I liked those towels.

BikerBob

Sleds roped to car bumpers.

(But we only did it in the winter.)

pulsarnc

We didn’t have sleds , we used old car hoods tied to the bumper when it snowed . That and skinning cats for those who know what that is .

mohawk600

BikerBob said:

Sleds roped to car bumpers.

(But we only did it in the winter.)

We used to hide behind trees and run out to grab the back bumpers of city buses and "ski" when the brick streets were iced over in Amarillo.

allen griggs

I was a 10 year old kid in the Atlanta suburbs.  Our driveway went downhill from the road.  Driveway was 100 feet long, hill was fairly steep.
But we had a cold snap one winter, I got out there with a garden hose and I spent all day hosing down the driveway.  By 4pm the driveway was a sheet of ice.  We got on a car hood and slid down the icy slope.   To kids from Georgia this was like the Winter Olympics.   We had a ball.
Next day, the guy from the gas station was returning my parents' car, having just done some repairs.  He just pulled onto the driveway.  He didn't know it was a sheet of ice.   He swapped ends a couple times and would have gone off the little cliff at the bottom, except the two willow trees stopped him.