Happy May Day!

Feel like a leisurely stroll down Memory (i.e., Collectible) Lane?
Let's go!

  

Until the 1960's, mascara came in hard 'cake' form

with a little toothbrush for applying to eyelashes:

 

 

 

Before 1975, the first thing you checked when a baby

cried?  To see if a pin was poking him (or her!):

Dads use to always get ties for Christmas and

moms use to always get handmade pot holders:

To younger readers these might be two

of the most unimaginable inventions:

As odd as it seems, many mid-century homes had a washing machine but not a clothes dryer.  So, if it was raining and you couldn't hang clothes out on the line, what did you do with the wet clothes?  Often they were sprinkled with more water (note bottle sprinkler, left) wrapped up and stored in the refrigerator until the weather cleared up or until you had time to hang them on the line.  Metal pant forms were used to keep wrinkled out of trousers as they dried.  Yea, we have it a LOT easier today.

 

 

 

 These soda bottle-shaped wax treats

were filled with KoolAid-ish liquid:

During the entire 20th century, regardless of the type of cut or

scrape you had, it was always dabbed with Mercurochrome:

But in 1998, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration ruled that

Mercurochrome (merbromin) was not safe nor effective as an

over-the-counter antiseptic and banned it. 

 

 

Before iPods, cds, and cassette tapes single songs or instrumental

music was delivered through a medium known as vinyl records.

 

The first of these recordings was produced on a "78" which was

a plate dish-size disc.  That meant that record players had to

have adapters for smaller 45 size records to be played.  So the

little discs were what you stuck in the hole of the 45 in order

to play music on an old record player.  Click here for the

history of sound recording. 

What cell phones are to teens today, portable

radios were to teens in the 1960s:





 

Before portable cd players, a musical must-have

was a portable cassette tape player and recorder:



Teachers and school administrators didn't have the luxury of copiers

until the 1980s.  Memos, hand outs and tests were created on a "master"

which was then placed on a mimeograph machine (which used purple

ink that got on everything because the copies were wet):

 

 

During the Age of Paper, everyone kept a little box of reinforcers for when the punched hole tore open and the document kept falling out of the 3 ring binder.

 

 

This pause on our Memory Lane tour is devoted to the hair treatment

options that were popular during the second half of the 20th century.

Believe it or not, beauty shops (i.e., hair salons) didn't use to

sell products.  You had to get those at the pharmacy.  The

earliest of hair gel was Dippity-do which took foreverrrrr to dry.

Blow dryers were in common use by the 1970s and eliminated the barbaric machine called a portable hair dryer (left).  Home perms were almost a requirement for little straight-haired girls in 1960s and are still sold today.

 

 

Ahhhhhh, such a sweet memory.  If you dig through your

grandmother's attic you'll probably find a pair of bronzed baby shoes.

Multi-colored aluminum glasses, tumblers and

coasters were popular in the 1950s and 60s:

Source



Boy, were these glasses sweaty in the summer!

A great Christmas stocking stuffer during the 1950s and 60s

was a can of pick-up sticks.  Another childhood staple for

the second half of the 20th century was a can of Tinker Toys.

 On Sunday nights between 1948 and 1971, everyone watched
the Ed Sullivan show, a variety program that featured iconic
musical luminaries such as Elvis Presley, the Supremes, the
Beatles, the Rolling Stones.  One other popular recurring character
on the show was Topo Gigio, a little mouse puppet.  Think of
the marketing opportunities if he was on television today!


I hope today's post brings back great memories for you.  Be on the lookout for some of these collectible items at your local flea markets, thrift shops and yard sales.