And of course the span just before cell phones took off, and everyone had a pager. I can't even remember the last time I saw a pager anymore. Now, I look at my life, and I realise I haven't had a landline phone in my home in (8? 9?) years (tho one of the commentors did remind me that we DO have a house line now for the security system – though it's a VOIP line). I decided it was silly to pay $45/ month for the privilege of letting telemarketers leave me messages on my machine to annoy me when I got home.

I actually read something not long ago about cursive making a comeback – Slate, perhaps? The thrust of it was that though most people DO key in most of their lives, there are still – as noted – many times a keystroke won't get it done (essay exams, forms in offices, etc), and there is an uptick in a hybrid print/ cursive version like so many of us have gone to over time.

Sadly, I remember buying cigarettes at a machine in the hotel lobby and bitching 'cos they were so much more expensive at the machine than the drug store – at $2/ pack instead of $1.25.

Or saving my money so I could buy an $8 album.

… This makes it sound like I'm 50.

I'll be 35 in two weeks.

Then there was the two-man version, which involved the "chicken" laying down on the ground, letting the other person toss the dart in the air, and then you rolled out of the way at the last possible second before the dart hit you.

Of course, then there was the neighbors' old rusty metal swingset that we managed to wrench out of the ground and tip over while trying to push the little glider swing over the crossbar (with four kids in it). How any of us lived past the age of 10 is kind of a miracle when I look back at the stuff we played with (and HOW we played with it!).

I absolutely agree. I loved rollerskating as a child, but as I do not have a death wish, I will not be putting on a pair of inline skates ever.

Thought you and maybe your readers might be interested: if they feel quite strongly about something that's been declared obsolete, our bookstore is hosting a debate where they can present a two-minute defense of behalf of that item! Winners will get prizes from obsolete entities like ourselves, a local record store, etc. There's more info on our events page: http://wordbrooklyn.wordpress.com/events/

Stephanie Anderson
Manager, WORD

The author will be present, and Brokelyn's Faye Penn is moderating.

Margaret in CO: Now, if you go to a stationer's, you can get a DISPOSABLE fountain pen!!! I stared at one in fear and longing – apparently cartridges aren't available, and it just seemed wrong to me to throw out a fountain pen when it was empty … until I realized that's what I do with EVERY SINGLE BALL-POINT PEN I've ever owned! – the ones I kept long enough to run out, that is, that weren't FILCHED before then.

YES! I had those metal skates, too! And your Mom wouldn't let you put them on when you were wearing SNEAKERS, oh, no! You had to go and put SHOES on, and THEN put your skates on!

Honestly, I really preferred those side-by-side pairs of wheels. I never learned to ice skate, which meant, of course, that I never mastered in-line skates, either, and since I have the weakest ankles on the eastern seaboard, I'm not rollerskating until someone brings back skates with pairs of wheels.

Think of the generations of little kids who won't know why it's funny when the turkey on Bugs Bunny eats corn by pecking away at it down each row and the bell goes DING! at the end of the row ….

Secondly, Dad would take us golfing with him, and in the little shed where the pop machine lived on the ninth hole, there would always be a foot-high pile of discarded pop tabs. Everywhere else you went in public you'd see one or two of those things on the ground (along with bottlecaps,) and you'd step on them in the grass at parks and stuff and hurt yourself. Obsolescence can be a good thing.

And then there were the crocheted hats made of panels from beer cans…

I had skates that pinched onto your shoes, made of all metal, no rubber stop-toes and adjustable with a skate key.The wheels were two in front, two in back, on opposite sides of your feet. Indestructable, fit everyone, weighed a damned TON. I still have that skate key.

Do they still make caps & cap-guns? Letting children play with gunpowder was nothing as compared to…
…LAWN DARTS! Wiki says "They are typically 12 inches (30 cm) long with a weighted metal or plastic tip on one end and three plastic fins on a rod at the other end." Ours were metal & sharp as hell. They were banned in 1988. They were awesome weaponry. I could show you scars…

And I grew up on a party line – the same landline was shared by several families because there were no phone facilities. Each household had a different ring (we were one long ring, another house was two shorts, the third house was a short and a long ring.) Sometimes when you picked up the phone, you didn't get dial tone, you got the middle of someone else's conversation. You could ask politely to use the line or wait your turn. Our party line was three little old ladies and our family of 8. When they left the house we were thier answing machine…"I'll be away this afternoon, if you hear two shorts, would you pick up & take a message?" They listened in on us all the time, you could hear them breathing. I remember Mama asking us to "quit baiting the old ladies! They came to the shop today to tell me you go to orgies & use heroin. (We were 12 & 14 at the time….)

Wow, I really miss my childhood now! Not sure I'd want to read that book, though, based on the girdle entry…