Things that people don't do anymore.

[Blue-Jay]

"saucer and blow". This is a coffee-drinking technique that my granddad used to employ. It involved tipping ones coffee cup to spill the hot coffee into the saucer. He'd then blow into the saucer until the java was a tiny bit cooler (like lava), and sip the remains out of the saucer. I only saw one other person do that in my life, and he was about 95 years old.

Any other practices that have been all but forgotten?

[bigwillq]

1. Saying please, thank you and excuse me

just to name a few.

What happened to having manners?

[Blue-Jay]

3. I still do that.

I'm polite.

[bigwillq]

7. I still do it too but

it amazes me when I'm out in public at a store but more often at a night club and a person is trying to get by, steps on your feet and doesn't even say excuse me. That really pisses me off.

[grace0418]

12. I always hold the door open for people when going in

or out of a restaurant or store at the same time, and I'm amazed at how many people can't manage a thank you. I don't do it to be thanked, and I guess it could be argued that they didn't ask me to open the door for them. But is it so difficult to say two simple words? Many times I just very loudly say "You're welcome!" as cheerfully as possible to embarrass them. Not that assholes like that can be shamed but it gives me a chuckle.

[SheilaT]

41. I do those things.

Okay, so I'm 56 years old, by my two sons, 17 and 21 say all those things, even to me, their mom.

[amazona]

43. people say thank you but not you're welcome

"You're welcome" has fallen out of style. When someone says "Thank you," how often do you automatically say, "Oh no, thank you" or "no problem" or anything but "You're welcome." I catch myself doing this all the time.

[vajraroshana]

52. thank you for mentioning that

Manners are important. And children should know the basics of manners by the time they're 5 at least.

[maveric]

2. People taking a drink from a garden hose.

We dont even drink from the indoor faucets anymore, let alone outdoors, from a damn dirty hose!

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

18. We still do. I guess it depends on your fear level.

[TheCentepedeShoes]

21. Nothing tasted better

when outside on a hot day than garden hose water.

[jpgray]

34. Nothing tasted better as a kid after playing six hours of football

:D

[MichiganVote]

4. Toothpicks at the dinner table

[Blue-Jay]

6. Using or providing them?

My dear old Ma has a toothpick dispenser on her table.

[MichiganVote]

8. Both

[ret5hd]

5. not a practice, but a condition...

my wife had a great great aunt whose obituary listed her cause of death as "apoplexy".
Don't believe i've seen that in the obit pages lately.

[Fridays Child]

11. Neither have I. I think it's the same thing as a stroke, though.

[Demit]

9. people don't tip their umbrellas on crowded city streets when they pass

or, at crosswalks, do a little dogleg so their path will go behind you.

[NNadir]

10. Thinking.

Thinking has been largely forgotten.

[Lindacooks]

14. That's exactly what I thought of...

:)

[NNadir]

15. Ah, you were thinking then. How eccentric.

[Philostopher]

13. Actually watch others stop at a four-way stop.

It incensed me so badly the other day, I 'chickened' a guy at an intersection because he just stopped and started again, even though two of us had gotten there before him -- I waited for the person who stopped before I did, but this jackass just blew right on through, once he'd come to a stop, without looking around to see if anybody else had stopped first.

Do they not teach that in driving classes, anymore, that the person who stopped first has right-of-way, and that if everybody stops at once, everybody defers to the person to the farthest 'right' at the intersection? Seems like at least once a week somebody does this to me.

[short bus president]

62. How's somebody gonna be "furthest right"

at a four-way intersection? Furthest to the right of what?

[Philostopher]

63. Yeah, I know. It defies logic, as read.

But that's what they told us in driver's ed back in the eighties.

Because how often do four cars actually stop at the intersection at exactly the same time? Practically never. It's usually two or three drivers who stop at the same time, and one of the berths is empty or somebody got there before you.

Usually, in that situation, one of the drivers on the road with the most traffic will go, and then you're supposed to alternate to the right of that driver until everybody passes through. Really, that's what they told me in driver's ed.

I'm thinking that precise situation has never, in almost a quarter of a century of driving, actually occurred when I was at an intersection. Maybe we'd all just sit there staring at each other until we ran out of gas. I live in Ohio, so it's entirely possible that could happen.

[Nimrod]

16. Use turn signals

That's my biggest argument for gun control. There are people out there who don't know how to use a turn signal, and you want to give them an assault weapon?

[Blue-Jay]

17. I use them MOST of the time.

Unless I'm in a turn-only lane, and it's obvious.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

19. DIAL a telephone.

[Blue-Jay]

20. I haven't seen a rotary phone for nearly 15 years.

Gramma had one that weighed 50 pounds.

[Nikia]

30. My grandmother has one

she has a push button phone now too, but she still uses the rotary one often enough.

[last_texas_dem]

44. My family still has one

When my parents first got married they lived in a neighborhood somewhere between the suburbs and the country that wasn't equipped for touch-tone phones so they had to buy a rotary phone. This was the early eighties and this phone is still hanging in there! In the meantime my family's been through nearly a dozen or so cordless phones that have all gone out within a few years. I know rotary phones can't do a few things we've gotten used to using a phone for, but I love our old rotary phone 'cause it's reliable, "retro" in a cool sort of way... plus, I just like dialing! haha

[Bluebear]

22. Cigarettes after dinner

You didn't say "Mind if I smoke", the proper hostess had cigarettes,lighter and ashtray waiting in the pattern matching the china....

[eyesroll]

23. Do people still swipe Sweet & Low packets from restaurants?

My maternal grandmother did that everytime we went out to eat with her. Apparently, all of the widows in her building did the same.

She passed away in 1996, and I haven't seen anyone else do it. In fact, now I see people on Atkins bring their own Splenda packets to restaurants.

[Blue-Jay]

24. That's not old-fashioned.

It's being a cheap bastard.

She was frugal.

I only steal deep fryers from fast food joints.

[eyesroll]

25. Well, yes, of course my grandmother was cheap.

I'm just wondering -- is swiping the Sweet & Low old-fashioned cheap or timeless cheap? ;)

[DS1]

26. Eat Twinkies!

:7

Develop film, rewind cassette tapes, copy floppies, pump diesel.

[Ivan Sputnik]

27. Type on typewriters

And around here, they don't actually stop at stop signs or some red lights -- just slow down a bit (maybe).

[Blue-Jay]

28. They don't stop ay stop signs?

DANGER, Will Robinson!

Sorry. Had to.

[AlCzervik]

29. Hang out on Sundays instead of treating them

like they are yet another retail day. When i was a kid almost nothing was open on Sundays, we used to watch black and white movies or play scrabble and generally just be together. It seems since everything is open all the time now that Sunday is just another day of the week.

[Kellanved]

31. Beer for lunch

eom

[sundog]

40. Heroin for lunch

Things just ain't the way they used to be

[Nikia]

64. Evidently it was given out at my company

The owner would buy all the workers, who numbered less than 20 at the time, beer for lunch every Friday. The man who has worked there the longest said that they were still doing this when he started in the late 50's. Now workers get fired for showing up at work drunk.

[blondeatlast]

32. Listen to records. nt

[JimmyJazz]

33. Have bread and milk delivered to their home on a daily basis...

I still recall the tin milk box sitting on our back stoop when I was a kid.

Use a key to adjust their roller skates.

Make a recording of their favorite music from vinyl to cassette by putting the cassette recorder REALLY close to the record player speaker and insisting everyone be very quiet.

Get Olgilvy home perms that stink up the entire house for a week. Then, when it rained and the perm got wet, your head would start stinking all over again.

Lick stamps.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

35. Try to play a specific song in an LP

Requires superior motor coordination.

[sundog]

36. Women don't wait on the front porch for gentlemen callers...

Though maybe they do at Liberty University

[Nay]

37. Put their hair up in curlers overnight.

Hang clothes out on a clothesline (boy, did they ever smell good after!)

Write and mail real personal letters by snail mail. Use the titles "master" and "mistress" when addressing letters to children aged 12 or under. After that age, you were "Mr." and "Miss."

Give their kids castor oil for general health.

Use sweet oil for earaches or clove oil for toothaches.

Make a 'bottle tree' -- put empty glass bottles (usually blue, for best results) over the bare branches of a small bush. This was done to ward off evil in the South.

Bake a penny (wrapped in wax paper) into a birthday cake. The guest who got the penny was supposed to have good luck for a whole year.

[sundog]

38. pink curlers with a net over them

[skygazer]

39. Sing

When I was a kid, my dad would get out his guitar after dinner and we'd sing songs. We'd go to friends' places and they'd pull out their instruments - Dad on guitar, mom on tambourine, dad's friend Ed on the fiddle and another friend on a banjo - and we'd all sing and laugh and have a good time. No TV, no videos.

Long ago, people would gather in the parlor around the piano or organ and they'd sing. They'd entertain themselves. Now we buy all our entertainment or go out for it.

Kinda miss that.

[amazona]

42. making ice cream outdoors

When I was a kid, on long summer nights, someone or other's dad would eventually come out and make some hand-cranked ice cream, and the whole neighborhood would come out and give it a taste. I still remember a certain peach ice cream...sigh....

I've lived in suburbia almost my entire life, not just in childhood...but haven't seen this in years. I don't think they even make hand-cranked ice cream machines any more.

[BensMom]

45. Dang walnuts

When I was a kid I had to pick up walnuts and shell them. They were black walnuts - impossible to crack except with a mallet or a sledge hammer. My ingenious uncle would drive over his with a pickup to try to crack the shells. The dang shells would then stain your hands for a week. I would have to sit and try to get the meat out of the cracked shell. And that was a pain.

The real problem is we could never eat any of them -had to save them for Christmas baking. I think they ended up in some goofy raisin type cookie I didn't even like.

Today the best tree in my yard...a black walnut. Huge shade providing beauty and the branch structure is fantastic. It still is a very powerful tree to me. This time of year when those walnuts fall, I see just how far out into the field I can throw them.

[sundog]

46. Receive visitors in the parlor

[scarlet_owl]

47. Men don't take their hats off when entering buildings.

Well, most men I see don't, and it's one of my biggest pet peeves.

[Rabrrrrrr]

49. I'll agree with you on that one!

Damn igjits. Take your fershlugginer hats off and show some *@(*^&$%^*# respect for people!

[SheWhoMustBeObeyed]

48. Wait patiently

God forbid people should have to wait half a fucking minute to get what they want or where they're going. People edge ahead at stoplights and ride your bumper in heavy traffic. They huff and sigh when there's more than two others in line at a checkout counter. And nothing makes a line more fun to wait in than some loudmouth who's carping on a cell phone about how long and slow the line is.

People also rarely hang their laundry outside to dry...which is probably more along the lines of what you are asking.

[Rabrrrrrr]

50. Go to the barber for surgery

and thank God for that!

[sundog]

54. lmao

[sundog]

51. put their children on goat-driven carts...

[Rabrrrrrr]

53. Eat peas with a knife

I also grew up in a family with the tradition of the spill and blow method of coffee drinking. They also ate their peas with their knives, scooping them on with the fork.

[Rabrrrrrr]

55. Believe that the stars and sun and moon control their destiny

well, some do. But, not most anymore.

Someone else posted about themilk delivery - I was just thinking of that yesterday, remembering as a small child we had milk delivery. I can remember the milk crate thing we had outside the house, but I know that stopped before I was four. So I just made it!

[sundog]

56. shit in pans & throw it in the street

[theoceansnerves]

57. observing a code of silence in a library

it's like anywhere else now- loud conversations, cellphones, anything. it's like these people never grew up being told to shut the hell up when you're in a library. AND i worked in a library for two years, and we weren't really given instructions to tell people to be quiet. however, i took it upon myself to tell people to shut the hell up, and the supervisors never seemed to mind ;)

[kitkatrose]

58. Listen to me when I tell them something damn it!

Not like they did in the first freaking place, but I shouldn't have to repeat myself 232,124,654,733,738 times cuz you have a pencil touching your brain.

[sundog]

59. lalalalalala i can't hear you!

[Rabrrrrrr]

60. Honor the Sabbath

In so many ways - used to be that in communities, stores weren't open on Sundays. Everyone, except emergency workers andpolice, etc., got to spend the day off to spend time with the family, go fishing, go for a drive, work in the house, whatever.

Now we demand our stores be open, and all those poor people have to work on weekends.

Also used to be that schools never did anything on Sundays, either. And usually never on Wednesdays, either.

And it's not even about Sunday - certainly now we have many religious sabbath days, and we can't all take them all off; and I'm not deriding athiests for not having a religiously mandated day off. I just think its important that everyone get a sabbath day every week, and that the community itself get one. It would be nice if we could agree again, as a country, that at least one day a week no one will have to work unless absolutely necessary, no school swill schedule anything, and we can spend the day hanging with our mates or families or just enjoying the day off with no stress of having to go do something other than maybe pop over to mom's for family dinner.

[texas1928]

61. Nobody wonders what their kids are doing anymore

All the little runts have cell phones now. So parents do not have to worry where they are and what they are doing. Man my parents had gray hair when I was out. Cuz they could not call me every five minutes to see what I was up to. Those were the days.