The Now Defunct Museum

Back to Haunt You 

Stuff that faded from the scene... or was replaced by something easier, faster, cheaper

• In the 1950s a TV was called a TV "set" for some reason. Perfect for watching Howdy Doody.
  
  
  
  
  
• White Front - A fledgling Wal-Mart in its day. White Front is just one of a long line of household-name retailers to go defunct.
  
  
  
  Along with the demise of the dime store (Woolworth, W. T. Grant, J. J. Newberry) there were defunct drug stores (Rexall, Thrifty, and Sav-On--more below) as well as former going concerns Montgomery Ward, Western Auto, Alpha Beta, Mayfair, Big Bear, the Akron, the Boys, Food Basket, Hudson's, Bullock's, Buffums, the Broadway, Orbach's, Zody's and Zachary All.
       Although defunct on the West Coast, Piggly Wiggly is still around. Thankfully, our culture hasn't become homogenized to the point that there isn't a place for a store named Piggly Wiggly.
  
  Update 1.16.09: Circuit City joins the ranks of defunct retailers with the liquidation of the entire company, something that isn't supposed happen under Chapter 11. 30,000 people will lose their jobs.
       Who will be next?
  
  
  
• The backyard incinerator - Standard equipment on SoCal homes into the '60s.
  
  
  
  
  
• Milk home delivery. Newer homes had a receptacle built into the wall, so Mom could retrieve the bottles without leaving the kitchen. The typical milkman wore a spiffy white outfit on his predawn rounds. Milkman was a valid occupation, not a menial job.
  
  Get this: The milk came in glass bottles. The milkman would take the empty bottles back to the dairy, where they were sterilized and used again! Now we have convenient disposable plastic and we have to schlep our own milk from the supermarket. Plastic is contaminating the environment beyond repair, but other than that I think we can all agree that modern conveniences make life far better. Don't they?
  
  
  
  
  
  
• The Good Humor man. The pedophilia craze would make a scene like this impossible today.
  
  
  
  
  Present day ice cream truck.
  
  
• Gas station attendant. Typically a friendly guy from the neighborhood. He would stride up to your car with "Yes ma'am, what can I do for you today!" Men actually made a living doing this. Gas stations, aka "garages" or "filling stations" had (clean!) restrooms.
  
  Each gallon of gas was noted with a crisp ding! from the pump, much like the correct answer on a quiz show.
       For extra measure, every car that pulled in announced its presence with its own jaunty ding! by driving over the black tube in the driveway, sending a pulse of air that activated a bell inside the station. You can see the tube draped across the driveway in the picture.
  
  
  
  
  
  This picture has everything but an arrow pointing to "kids in car." Probably about 90% of people born before the '60s remember being treated to a thrilling ride on the grease rack at the local garage. It didn't take much to entertain kids in those days.
  
  
  
• Phone booths. They were everywhere. By today's standards, a civilized way to communicate. You conducted your business in private (a feature no longer considered important).
  
  
  
  
  
• Osborne Computer - Clunky and bulky, with feeble computing power, this machine was a status symbol. Also noteworthy as one of the last computers to use the CP/M operating system, at the time thought to be the likely standard.
       The machine was an improvement over the original "pocket" calculators that would only fit in a very large pocket.
  
  They could only add, subtract, multiply and divide. All that for $200 (a jillion in today's money). They sold so fast stores couldn't keep them in stock.
  
  
• Old basketball uniforms. Do old school players envy the guys now with their baggy oufits?
  
  
  
  
  
• Clunky $3,995 "brick" cell phone. The first cell phones were strictly toys for the elite, or for dudes who seriously wanted to make a big impression. Having one meant you were a mover and a shaker.
  
  
  
  
• Stern librarian. Libraries were once quiet as tombs. Should you thoughtlessly raise your voice, the librarian was sure to give you a good shush! Asking a kid to tone it down these days invites a vicious outburst from the parent.
  
  
  
  
  
• Movie theater usher. They showed you to your seat with a flashlight.
  
  If you misbehaved, the usher would train his light on you and tell you to knock it off. Ushers had the authority to eject you from the theater. The threat of violence makes the job obsolete.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Sandlot Baseball. I spent endless hours of boyhood summers playing workups at Gormley's, the neighborhood empty lot where we played baseball. No one knew why it was called Gormley's.
      Nothing was organized or prearranged. You just showed up. If kids were there we would play catch or shag flies until there were enough players to start a game. You only needed a few. It was called workups because every player moved up one position when a batter was put out (strikeouts were unheard of). The retired batter would start over again in right field.
      You got to play every position. It was a great way to learn the game. It taught us to be flexible, adaptable. It was true multitasking. Not doing a bunch of things ineffectively at once but working at several things until we got them right.
      There were no umpires. No foul-mouthed drunken Little League coach to tell you where to play. No parents screaming every move to make. There were no grownups, period. We didn't have helmets or bases. No uniforms. We resolved disputes among ourselves. Or if not, a kid might go home crying. He probably wouldn't show his face again for a few days.
      Sometimes there were fights, but they weren't serious. We needed each other. We all had to hang together for the game. The game was what really mattered.
  
  
  So what do today's kids have that might be the equivalent of our sandlot experience?
  
  
  
• "Lowly" jobs that paid a living wage.
  
  
  
  School bus drivers, school janitors and cafeteria workers were respected members of the school staff. Mr. Russet, my school bus driver, was a happy-go-lucky guy with three kids. His job afforded him a middle class lifestyle. Economies of scale and cost efficiencies are all well and good but should we welcome the downsizing of our culture?
  
  
  
• Night speed limits.
  
  There was this old concept that you should go slower at night. Sorta like the one that you shouldn't follow any closer than one car length for every ten miles per hour of speed.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• A perfect fit through the miracle of modern science.
  
  
  The foot X-ray machine was standard equipment in shoe stores through the '50s. They were eventually outlawed for safety reasons. The youngster would mount the machine and stick his feet into the opening. Mom and the sales clerk could peer through the other spy tubes and observe what a fine fit Johnny was getting with his new pair of shoes.
       January 23, incidentally, is Measure Your Feet Day.
  
  
  
• Tonsillectomy - In the 1950s virtually every kid had their tonsils out, whether it was medically warranted or not.
  
  
  
  
  
• The rabbit died!
  
  
  Depending on the circumstances, this was either joyous news or the beginning of a tragedy (and not just for the rabbit).
  
  
  
  In a long-forgotten era, adorable bunnies were used for pregnancy tests. It was widely believed that results depended on whether the rabbit lived. A dead bunny meant jackpot!
       This is a misconception, I assure you! The poor female rabbit was injected with a sample of the woman's urine. (No, not at home, the doctor's office!) Then the rabbit's ovaries were observed for telltale changes.
       This usually took a couple of days while those involved either sweated in agony or fretted in happy anticipation.
       Aren't you glad pregnancy tests today are so easy and convenient? Who said modern technology isn't wonderful?
  
  
  
• Shell No-Pest Strip. A familiar sight in homes and restaurants in the '60s and '70s.
  
  A rare early example of consumer protection that worked, these were withdrawn from the market amid concerns that they contained a deadly poison. The maker fought requests to attach a warning label. The situation was seen in some quarters as the government overreacting to groundless safety concerns. I had inside information, however: I knew an exterminator who was nervous being around these even for a few seconds.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Telescoping gas storage tanks. Once a familiar sight in California. They moved up and down with the contents of the tank. They blended into the cityscape so well that nobody noticed when they disappeared.
  
  
  
  
  
• Movie palaces. Somehow we've convinced ourselves that multiplexes attached to malls are way better than neighborhood movie palaces, part of an architectural heritage that is being obliterated in the name of progress.
  
  Thank you to readers in Joliet, Illinois who let me know that the Rialto Theater is not defunct. Let's hope there aren't any developers licking their chops over the property as you read this.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Hair tonic. Virtually every household in America had a bottle of Wildroot Cream Oil or Brylcreem. JFK favored the dry look, however. That was the beginning of the end. Along came the Beatles with their free-flowing moptop haircuts and that clattering sound you heard was millions of bottles of hair tonic hitting the trash.
  
  
  
  
  
• Hats. It seems like everyone suddenly quit wearing them.
  
  
  
  In the mid-50s, people even went to the movies in suits and hats. Women wore furs with the heads of snarling critters still attached. They blamed JFK for killing the hat business too, but that's not true. Hats were nearly gone by the time JFK was elected president.
  
  
  
• Hitchhiking.
  
  
  
  The practice of thumbing rides by the side of the road had its last heyday in the 1960s and early '70s. The longhair subculture depended on each other for reliable transportation. Before that, WWII servicemen got around by thumb travel. In those days if you couldn't trust a soldier you couldn't trust anyone. During the Great Depression, it was either thumb a ride, hop a freight, or walk.
       These days the threat of violence is too great for extensive use of thumb travel. (Note: I know, the guy pictured is not traveling in America.)
  
  
  
• Keane. Wildly popular artist of the '60s. Touched off "Is this Art?" debates.
  
  
  
  
  
• Rod McKuen. Wildly popular poet/songwriter of the '60s. A tamer version of disreputable counter-culture poets of the era (Dylan, Ginsburg, etc.). It's an insult to say he's defunct, since he's not entirely forgotten.
  
  
  
  
  
• Harold Robbins.
  One of the all-time bestselling authors, Robbins is virtually forgotten today. Sexually-charged content was a novelty in the '60s, and Robbins was the most successful practitioner of the genre. Robbins's success encouraged revered authors to try their hand, among them John Updike (Couples).
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Sav-On drugstores. Sav-On staged a bold comeback after Osco tried to obliterate a name that generations grew up with. It looks as though CVS has finally done the deed.
       Some kids learn nursery rhymes. I learned the Sav-On jingle (sounds like a college fight song):
  
  Sav-On, Sav-On!
  Join the Sav-On hit parade,
  It's fun to serve yourself and save at
  Sav-On Drug Stores, Sav-On Drug Stores
  [boom, boom]
  SAV-ON!
  
  I saw in a movie that radio waves continue to bounce around somewhere in the universe. I guess that means the Sav-On jingle will go on for eternity. But for us Earthlings, it only exists in the minds of the few who are still around to remember. When we're gone, it will be as if it never existed.
  
  
  Casting about for an excuse for poor performance, the brain trust at Macy's wiped out such venerable names as the 150-year-old Marshall Field's in Chicago, Meier and Frank in Portland, Rich's in Atlanta, Goldsmiths in Memphis, Bon-Marche in Seattle, Lazarus in Columbus and Burdines in Miami. The rationale: Look at Wal-Mart and Target. All their stores have the same name. That's the secret of their success!
  
  
  Burdines: Wiped Out. Thanks, Macy's.
  
  August 15, 2008 update: The homogenization continues. Long's bites the dust. The venerable drugstore chain, noted for its selection of Hawaiian products, is being absorbed by CVS.
  
  
  
• Steady job. Between downsizing, mergers, hostile takeovers, consolidation and reorganization, workers are lucky to keep a job for more than a few years. Age discrimination figures to be an obstacle for downsized seniors as employers struggle with the notion that people over 50 retain basic mental and physical functions.
  
  
  
  Patty Smart managed to stay on the same job 50 years.
  
  March 31, 2008 update: Aloha Airlines is kaput. A company that would keep the same person employed for 50 years probably deserves to go belly-up. They obviously are not up on modern management theory (employees are the one expendable asset).
  
  
  
• Doggie Diner. A fixture for decades in the San Francisco area. Best dogs ever.
  
  
  
  
  
• Orange groves. A culture says a lot about itself when it decides that suburban sprawl is better than orange groves.
  
  
  
  
• Santa Clara Valley fruit orchards. Silicon Valley was once known as the Santa Clara Valley, home of vast fruit orchards. Between Southern California's orange & avocado groves and Northern California's fruit & nut production, there was more than enough to satisfy our country's needs. Now they are imported green from obscure third world countries and taste like a feeble imitation of the real thing.
  
  
  It was probably wise to squander these riches since there are no longer enough bees to sustain major agriculture. Besides, aren't vast housing tracts, freeways, and shopping malls better?
  
  
  
• Big Old Barn
  
  
  
  In a front page article (Sept. 7, 2008), the New York Times reports on the vanishing barns of Iowa. During the Great Depression, barns numbered 200,000 in Iowa alone. Now they're down to 50,000 and disappearing daily. Like many vanishing aspects of American life, our agricultural heritage will never be restored once it's gone. When it becomes a thing of the past, a new theme park will be built: "Farmland."
  
  
  
• American Manufacturing. In just a few decades, America went from Jim Crow to the first African American President, something that even the most optimistic among us thought might not happen in our lifetimes.
  
  
  
  At the same time, we saw America topple from world dominance in manufacturing, something even the most pessimistic among us thought would never happen. With the automobile industry on life support, our agricultural resources largely squandered, the steel industry in death throes, where are the new areas of leadership for America? Science? Technology? Energy independence? Let's hope we don't settle for being #1 in service jobs, fast food, and video games.
  
  
  
• Newspapers
  
  The Chicago Tribune, founded 161 years ago, has gone belly-up. The parent Tribune Company, which also owns the Los Angeles Times and the Baltimore Sun (founded in 1837), filed for Chapter 11. History is being dismantled before our eyes. Once newspapers are defunct, we'll have to reinvent them. According to surveys, most people now get their news online and have no use for a newspaper. Forward thinkers say there's an upside: We're saving trees. Meanwhile, we're throwing out a rich newspapering heritage. Literary legends Mark Twain, Ambrose Bierce, Frank Norris, Willa Cather, Upton Sinclair, Ernest Hemingway, H.L. Menken, Tom Wolfe, and Hunter S. Thompson had careers as reporters.
  
  News flash 2.27.09: The Rocky Mountain News is kaput. Colorado's oldest newspaper, launched in Denver in 1859, has printed its last edition. The Denver Post carries on as the only daily in town. 3.16.09: The 146-year-old Seattle Post-Intelligencer is gone. The San Francisco Chronicle is hanging by a thread. Herb Caen and Charles McCabe are thrashing in their graves.
       I guess I'm just an old fogey. I think the newspaper is one of mankind's great inventions. I can't imagine anyone thinking an electronic device can replace a Sunday paper.
  
  
  
  
  Hunter S. Thompson started as a sports reporter. Literary lions of the future will start as bloggers.
  
  
  
• Bygone brews. Scores of old trusty standbys for millions of beer drinkers are now consigned to that megabrewery in the sky: Hamms, Falstaff, Pfeiffer, Country Club, Schlitz, Olympia, Rainier Ale (aka "Green Death"), Regal Select, Ballantine Ale, Jax, Pabst Blue Ribbon, Blatz, Blitz, Rheingold, Burgermeister ("Burgie"), Lucky Lager, Stroh's, and Dixie.
       Just because a product has been around 100 years doesn't mean it deserves a place today! It's commercial Darwinism. Only the bland survive. Besides Bud, Miller, and Coors, how many beers do we really need? I understand Rheingold has made a comeback.
  
  
  
  This is the Hollywood Freeway going past the Brew 102 brewery. When I was a kid, I marveled at that giant tank of beer. Note the telescoping gas tank.
  
  
  
• Conventional baby names. In the movie "Splash!" Tom Hanks asks the mermaid played by Daryl Hannah what her name is. They are standing on a street corner in New York City. She glances up at the name of the street. "Madison!" She replies.
  
  That's where it all started. Madison went from being a wacky name in a movie to now being the third most popular name for a girl. That was the beginning of a trend to give kids imposing unisex surnames for first names: Taylor, Tanner, Spencer, Morgan, Leighton, Faulkner, Sutton, Chandler, Bennett, Riley, Barclay, Jordan, Hayden, Quinn, Nelson, Bronson, Logan, Harper and so on.
       Back in the day a kid named Madison would have been ridiculed. Now it's kids with names like Nancy or John who are scorned. "Where'd you get that weird name?"
  
  
  
• Cute imports. Before anyone had heard of Toyota, Datsun (Nissan) or Honda, our family was an early adopter of Volvo. Fellow Volvo owners gave us friendly waves. We were like our own little club.
  
  
  
  This is the Hillman Minx, one of a tide of models by Peugeot, Citroen, Borgward, Fiat, BMW, MG, Opel, Austin-Healy, Sunbeam, VW, Vauxhall, and Renault among others.
      It wasn't just cuteness that drove Dad to buy a Volvo. We couldn't afford an American car. The undoing of the American car industry began after WWII, when Detroit automakers turned their back on the entry-level car market. That opened the gates to a flood of low-cost imports and a few models developed by fringe car makers in the U.S., including Crosley, Kaiser, Willys, and Nash.
  
  
  The Allstate, a Kaiser model sold by Sears. Yes, you could buy it through the catalog.
  
  
  Nash Rambler, cool economy car of its day.