Things you love that went away- Nostalgia thread

Spork

Spork

Active member
So I'm specifically NOT talking about people, or lovers, or anything like that. I mean random stuff.

Ever been really into something, like it really brightened your life, and then it went away or they stopped making it or selling it?

I'm having one of those moments, remembering a website called Regretsy. Does anyone remember Regretsy? It vanished, and that makes me very sad.

What thing (food, business, product, website, etc) do you remember and miss?
 
Trader Joe's had the best babaganoush ever for many years. It was slightly more chunky and had bits of eggplant not completed pulped. Then they got rid of it. I complained bitterly. I've yet to find another store bought babaganoush that's anywhere near. I've tried to make my own that's similar but have yet to reproduce it.

I'm still cranky they discontinued it.
 
Stewart's Key Lime Soda!
Lenders Big 'N Crusty Bagels!

SCREAMING YELLOW ZONKERS.

*sigh*
 
Opal Pyrex. Nowadays it's all clear, not the nice white glass with all the pretty colours and patterns printed on them.

Drive In movies.

Short shorts on men.
 
First, one word -- memberberries. Anyone who's been keeping up on South Park recently will understand why nostalgia is a little creepy right now. :D

Much food-like substance is troubled by faddishness, ever-shifting consumer tastes (literally & figuratively), supply & distribution problems, & the ever-dangerous recipe tweaking. Here's a very short starter list --
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_defunct_consumer_brands#Food_and_beverages

I miss being able to pick up a big glass jar of Beefamato at any grocery store. When I'm feeling depleted, this stuff always set me to rights -- mixing tomato juice with Campbell's consomme (NOT broth -- ewww) is just not quite as good.

The Internet tempts with lies; at first dig, Beefamato looks to still be available (in 32 oz plastic jugs, available by the case), but alas.

In like manner, I kinda miss OK Soda. How it missed its market, yet a few years later fruity glutinous "beverages" with floating candy pellets (namely Orbitz) got national saturation for a few moments, is totally beyond me.

Ah, Crystal Pepsi. Cola freed from the smoky oppression of burnt-sugar coloration!! :cool:

And I dare anyone to find Schweppes Blood Orange or Bitter Lemon soda -- much less Russchian ("an enchanting touch of berries and a daring hint of hibiscus and carrot" -- :eek:). Northeast Minneapolis had this really cool deli/grocery...
Spork said:
Stewart's Key Lime Soda!
Lenders Big 'N Crusty Bagels!
SCREAMING YELLOW ZONKERS.
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Yah, kinda SOL on the Zonkers. :( I remember Mom discovering them in 1969 -- the Anti-Crackerjacks. (Our whole family loved Laugh-In, too.) I saw them less & less through the 1980s.

I miss REAL Lender's bagels, like when you actually had to CHEW the things. Now, all bagels are like slightly stale bread pushed into a funny shape. I get kinda manic when I actually manage to find GARLIC bagels rather than one sugary thing or another.

stewarts-key-lime_4dc8168b-7692-486a-982d-fbf00096e0e2.png

https://www.beveragesdirect.com/pro...D6s7NuDKgCbpzuRXA6bti886Vl_hpu2V2YaAhhl8P8HAQ
https://taldepot.com/stewart-s-fountain-classics-key-lime-12-oz-glass-bottles-case-of-12.html

...but I'd appreciate aid if anyone can recall a soda that was definitely still available retail in the mid-1990s. As I recall it, the main flavorings were strawberry & mint, & had some "Southernish" name that brough to mind some terribly unPC images of whitefolk sitting on the verandah listening to the slaves sing as they worked... but oh my was the stuff great on a hot summer day. :eek:

Oh, well. As Stan Kenton observed,
Nostalgia ain't what it used to be.
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Magdlyn said:
Drive In movies.

Short shorts on men.
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OMG, the first thing I thought of... Drive-Ins! Miss that experience so much.

I also like shorter shorts on guys. The big baggy shorts guys wear are so infantilizing, I think. They remind me of the shorts that go over diapers, and their big sneakers look like giant baby booties when worn with those stoopit shorts.

Let's see, what else...

I miss want ads/classifieds that actually have phone numbers in them. Years ago, even if you didn't have the exact right experience they were looking for, you could always convince someone to give you an interview anyway by schmoozing them on the phone. Now, it's all done by email or some central website that analyzes your resume, and if it doesn't have the minimum number of keywords they're looking for, it just goes into a digital black hole and no one calls you.

I miss writing and receiving letters. My friends and I used to make and decorate our own envelopes and fill them with glitter, and I had special pens in a variety of colors... sigh.

I miss shooting with film.

I miss the old department stores - Gimbel's, Alexander's, Stern's, Woolworth's, and others.

And Friendly's. Are they still around?

I miss the old 42nd Street/Times Square before it became Disneyfied.

Movie theaters! So, so many in NYC have closed.

I miss the cool, smooth, yet crisp 100% cotton percale sheets in glorious prints and colors that used to be made in upstate New York, and New England, mills. Hard to find any USA-made percale sheets that aren't plain solid colors.

I'm sure I'll come up with more, I'm kinda cranky.
 
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Cindie, I get all my sheets at thrift stores! Cotton sheets from the 70s all flowery and shit. Sometimes you can find them new in the package, because lots of daughters in law bought their MILs sheets and the old lady never opened them.

I miss Woolworths and Grants. We had both in our shopping center!

Before my time there was a movement against Victorian design called the Arts and Crafts movement, with an emphasis on straight line design, natural wood grain, hearty strong earth centered design. It spawned Bungalow houses! God I love those. They used first growth quarter sawn oak, they had fireplace "inglenooks" with built-in cabinetry beside the hearths, and built in storage in the dining room, and porches and subway tiled kitchens, bathrooms in lavender, pink and jade green tile... mmmm...!

We still have Friendly's in Massachusetts as it was born here. I've seen where they came from. Also seen the original Dunkin Donuts, still in operation! I don't like Friendly's though, service is always so slow and sluggish. But I do have a fondness for Dunkins on the road.
 
Ravenscroft: Yes, this morning as I was driving to work, I was chuckling at my nostalgic mental meander, thinking, "member Zonkers? member good bagels? yeah I member that..." My son has been watching a lot of Southpark in the living room lately.

Also on my drive to work, I remembered that years ago when I moved to a state where my Stewart's sodas weren't being distributed, I ordered a case from Beverages Direct and I wondered if that was still possible. I also wondered if anyone had hoarded any old cases of Screaming Yellow Zonkers and might be selling them for outrageous prices on Ebay. You never know.

The Screaming Yellow Zonkers actually make a comeback every so often. Originally produced in the 60's but in the 80's when I was a child we had them, they had cool little plastic finger monsters in the box then. And just a few years ago, I spotted them in Walgreens and bought EVERY BOX ON THE SHELF. I was so excited. The cashiers must have thought I was out of my mind. I was gleefully telling everyone I saw to "LOOK WHAT I FOUND!" Then I took the boxes everywhere, including work, and made everyone eat them. EAT!

The packaging and advertising was so iconic they actually had a box on display at the Louvre at one point, if I remember correctly (member?)

Bagels...dude you are so right. It makes me sad. Especially since I used to live on the east coast, where not only did Lenders make decent bagels when I was growing up, but there were bagel shops where you could get really good bagels, basically anywhere. It's harder to find small, indie bagel shops with really good bagels in places like Iowa, Washington, Colorado. *sigh* Einstein and Panera bagels are alright though I guess.

Magdlyn: You mentioned Victorian and Arts & Crafts and bungalows and stuff. Here in Colorado Springs, the housing in downtown and "the Old North End" (mega expensive area, think walking tours) and Old Colorado City...there are many Victorian homes. And then we've got a big area stretching just to the south and east of downtown a little ways, called Shook's Run, where there are lots of adorable bungalows. There's also a lot of stucco and southwest styling sort of mixed in among other things. It IS Colorado.

I frankly ADORE Victorian houses. The porches, the neat roof structures, and oh my god the woodwork...I get chills just thinking of it...I recently re-watched a film called Crimson Peak, and I just adore the set design, I don't care much about the ghosts and the plot and whatever, I want to lick the woodwork, it is so...indulgent. Sexy. But at the same time, I've also seen that weird thing they did in so many Victorians with the busy wallpaper designs that I hate hate hate...and I'm not a fan of Victorian furniture either. Whether it's tacky or not, I like to mix a bunch of different style elements, not stick strictly to any one.
 
nycindie said:
And Friendly's. Are they still around?
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We have Friendly's all over Long Island.


Spork said:
I'm having one of those moments, remembering a website called Regretsy. Does anyone remember Regretsy? It vanished, and that makes me very sad.
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Regretsy was great - the bane of many an Etsy seller (I'm very involved in that community) but the writing was stupendous. April Winchell - she's Paul Winchell's daughter, if anyone remembers him. Regretsy had a well organized philanthropic component in addition to all of the snark. Hands down, some of the best writing that ever walked the internet.
 
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FallenAngelina said:
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Regretsy was great - the bane of many an Etsy seller (I'm very involved in that community) but the writing was stupendous. April Winchell - she's Paul Winchell's daughter, if anyone remembers him. Regretsy had a well organized philanthropic component in addition to all of the snark. Hands down, some of the best writing that ever walked the internet.
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I agree. But I felt like it got to a point eventually where making it onto Regretsy...you could choose how to react. On the one hand, it was saying your crafts were bad. Or absurd. But on the other hand it was kind of like when Weird Al parodies your music, you kind of "know you've made it" and I am betting it drove some buyer traffic to some Etsy stores. There were people who were actually buying and collecting weird items that were featured on Regretsy, eventually. Some of that stuff was so bad it was good.

Bums me out bigtime how completely Regretsy vanished from the internet. I even had a hacker buddy try to recall old archived versions of the site (in that "nothing is ever truly deleted from the internet" way) and nope...no dice. It just is not there. :(


EDIT: Found one archived page. Tragicrafting: Hurricane Sandy edition. http://wayback.archive-it.org/all/2...hrough-tragicrafting-hurricane-sandy-edition/
 
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Pay phones.

Yes, I'm that old.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payphone

In my little city, most of the pay phones are still there, but haven't been functional in many years. I guess there's no money in removing them.
 
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River said:
Pay phones.

Yes, I'm that old.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payphone

In my little city, most of the pay phones are still there, but haven't been functional in many years. I guess there's no money in removing them.
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My father-in-law said something along the lines of "why didn't you guys hassle us for a phone when you were teenagers?" on Thanksgiving when I had my phone out after dinner, coordinating with my mom by text to get a ride to my sister's house. His youngest child is 41. I told him that it would have been embarrassing, not fun, to have one of those huge cell phones that existed back then.:D
 
I wish we had more bungalows in Mass. For some reason we don't. We have lots of colonial, and a few Victorians, and farmhouse styles, and lots of post WW2 ranch homes, but I very seldom see Bungalows or Foursquares.

I was out West some years back, in Oregon and Washington and saw entire huge neighborhoods of bungalows and I was SO excited!

One of the most exciting scenes in the movies ever (IMO), was when Tippi Hedron gets trapped in a glass phone booth by the attacking seagulls in the Hitchcock movie, The Birds!! 'Member?

Our grocery store has excellent freshly made bagels in the bakery section. Dunkin Donuts makes pretty good bagels, but the grocery store ones are even better! Just as good as the ones I used to have on LINY as a kid. Sorry you can't get good ones out West. You don't have enough Jewish culture I guess.
 
Pay Phones

I joined the world of cell phones quite late, having refused to own one for the longest time, mostly because I have an ethical problem with paying companies to put those antennas everywhere. The antennas emit a form of electromagnetic radiation which isn't healthy for us. This has been scientifically demonstrated, but the industry is so big and rich and powerful, like all such industries, that it's able to put up a big public relations smokescreen of ignorance about this fact.

I carried a little "flip phone" for a couple of years before giving in and getting an iphone7 ("smart phone"), which I did because my work has often required me to send and receive text messages to set up actual phone time with folks. Text messages are too slow and laborious with a flip phone. Actually, I speak my text messages into my iphone's voice-to-text thingy. So easy!

I miss pay phones anyway. It was very difficult to live in this world without a cell phone after all of the (functioning) pay phones disappeared. I would have to borrow a stranger's cell phone at times! And initially I was embarrassed because I'd have to ask them to show me how to use one!
 
I was late to the game in a few respects. I didn't bother to learn how to drive until I was 24 years old. I lived in cities that had good public transit, and I walked a lot. I didn't see the point in the expense of having a car, the hassle of parking one in the city, etc. Just didn't want to deal with it.

Then I moved to Norwalk, Iowa. A suburb to the south of Des Moines. You can't really live a decent or normal sort of life in Iowa if you don't drive. I had to learn. My ex taught me. That was 2002. It was only then, because the winters are perilous and I had to drive with my kids in the vehicle as an inexperienced novice driver, that I decided a cell phone for emergencies would be a really good idea.

For years now, I've had my HTC One, and I absolutely adore it. I don't like Applemacs and i-Thingies. Too proprietary. Although they do retain value quite well for resale though.

I miss all the walking I used to do even if it was because I had to. But even though it's creepy having a device that is always watching and listening (cellphones do passive listen to you, even in sleep mode)...I kind of like having a tiny computer with all of the information of a Google search right at my fingertips at all times. The wide world of cloud based media and Youtube and Amazon music and everything. It's nice.

In late 2011, I drove across the Mohave desert. My Grandma talked about making one of her many cross country road trips back in "the day" and how perilous the desert was, with sandstorms and roving bands of ruffians and all sorts of awful hazards. I blew through there at 90mph with gorgeous weather and full bars on my cell phone, not a care in the world.

I miss road trips, I haven't done one in a while.

Magdlyn: If you go to Google maps and search 1110 E Platte Ave, Colorado Springs and just spin the view in a circle and look around, that's what I'm talking about with the bungalows. We seem to have a mix of Craftsman and southwest stucco most represented in our bungalow neighborhoods. They're cute alright. I'm not sure if I love them or the Victorians more. It's the woodwork and stonework and stained glass and covered porches, the interesting shapes and angles...*sigh*...
 
I love Victorian houses. Arts and Crafts come in second there. There is practically no Victorian architecture here in South Florida. There are some in Seattle, but the Arts and Crafts bungalows are more prevalent.

I can't think of any commercial foods I miss. I do miss soda made with real sugar instead of corn syrup. I miss the returnable glass bottles.

As far as food, I miss my grandma's lemon cake sort of thing she made. My mom wasn't much of a cook but I miss a couple things she used to make.

I miss records, even though I have a big collection of them. I also have tons of mp3's but they are just not the same.

I miss the days when cars were actually stylish.

Mostly I miss the days when my biggest worry was if I was going to get laid that weekend.
 
The original version of Star Wars IV.
 
Remember all those fun, dangerous toys we had in the 70s?




Clackers in the school yard!
klackers.jpg


The Footsie on cement!
fff9a92117b1775ce1d16afbe5c21518.jpg


Creepy Crawler burns!
d49e1147e92970771895508f930c6327.jpg
 
I had Kreepy Krawlers in the '60's. My sister and I had asked for them for Xmas and we never thought my parents would go for it. My dad was probably curious lol.

I miss my Pebbles doll. She had a soft body, a bone in her hair, a leppard nightie, and a little leopard edged blanket. I got her for my 8th birthday, 1963.
 
Oh man...you forgot those lawn darts called Jarts! My neighbor threw those up in the air once and they landed within inches on either side of his little brother :eek:
 
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