Finding that I'm vintage
 

Our Guild will be having a Quilt Show in the fall. My Gkids have been sewing for a couple years now (ages 9 and 10). They want to make things to sell and I have made some suggestions of easier things. One was to make a little quit to put over a buggy - then 'What's a Buggy?' Next I suggested making coasters and bowls out of clothes lines - then 'What's a clothes line'. Really?

I remember, probably, 15 years ago, I told my GD that we didn't have soda in cans when I was a kid. The look on her face was priceless. "You mean pop didn't come in a can?"

We have that whenever my husband mentions some old TV show at the office and we laugh and our employees who are young have no clue what we are talking about.

Nancy Z. just aired a 2-part show on making clothes line bowls and totes. And a very young girl was the guest teacher! We better find all our old stuff packed in the attic. It's coming back and they are calling it "new" and "stylish".

My granddaughter is decorating her kitchen with "antique" license plates...she found one from 1996 and was thrilled:(

I told my grandson to look it up in the phone book. He seriously asked, "What is a phonebook?"

:D This made me laugh out loud!

I told my sixteen year old granddaughter that when we were at Morning Glory Pool in Yellowstone in 1953, it was full of coins, cigarette butts and flashbulbs. She asked, "What's a flashbulb?"

omg! this is so funny to read this today, my clothes line after 17 years fell apart last summer went to lowes the other day and asked a young girl where i could find the clothes lines and i knew the second the words where out of my mouth and the look on her face i knew she had no clue what a clothes line was lol i quickly asked where the rope is, well i found it but it's not the same it's braided nylon thinki'll shop around and hope i can find a good ole cotton rope........not holding my breath tho.

I was talking to a young customer one day and mentioned folding something like a map. He had no idea what a gas station type map was.
And I took a picture of my granddaughter when she was about 3 (she's 15 now). She came running over to look at the picture I had just taken on the back of the camera. She couldn't understand why she couldn't see it immediately.

Try a feed store that also sells other ranching needs. A cotton rope was used as a calf rope when I was growing up. Daddy made me jumping ropes from them.

yep, what is an iron? and what is a slip? recently asked by my youngest granddtr. Oh and my husband was shopping once and asked a female clerk where the bath sponges were. She said they don't make them anymore! really? well ,maybe one day the ocean will be dry.

I have vinyl coated clothes line. Have had that type for over 20 years. Cotton clothes line, yes it is sold locally, rots in our climate. I only use it for crafts. You ca buy it through Amazon if you cannot find it locally. Home Depot sells it here.

Tell her there was no computers if you really want to see an expression! Lol. I asked an eight year old what time it was, and after wandering around my house (where there is a clock in every room), she came back and told me she “could not find a clock”. She had only ever seen digital. Lol. We spent a lovely hour teaching her how “my type” of clock worked. I am “vintage” too.

Vintage here, too! And darned proud of it! :)

What's a diaper pin? What are rubber pants?

Tothill. My clothesline is still the good old-fashioned blue-vinyl type.

Walgreens in our area has cotton clothesline rope.

Here in Canada, where rain, snow, bitter cold (freezing), and relentless heat-waves are all part of our daily life, I wonder how well a cotton line would stand up.

At least with my blue vinyl line, I can wipe it down (when needed), and it's so durable, waterproof, and doesn't stain or build with mildew.

It's also funny to take them to an antique shop. The wonder in their eyes to see a rotary phone, coiled phone cord and a telephone booth - 'you had to put quarters and dimes in there to make a call?'
Then there's the typewriter. Oh my!!!!

I used 1930s film cameras for a long time. Some air safety crew insisted that I turn it on before I could board an airplane. Their supervisor straightened it out. I thought it was funny. Don't need no stinkin' batteries.

My GF gave me a fitbit and told me not to wear it beside my watch since the electronics would mess with it. I Just grinned .. then she remembered my watch is a wind up and doesn't use a battery. Heck, one car I had in high school had a wind up clock on the dash.

Old-fashioned? When I was growing up, our wash line was metal. Some kind of strong wire: really a cable of many smaller wires.twisted together. It really held those barn jeans blowing in a strong wind. Such fun trying to hang them up, too. We used clothes-pins made of wood. A round piece of wood about 5 inches long with a slit cut about half way up. The really old clothes-pins had a piece of wire at the top of the slit. They were called "iron-clad". They held on tight in the wind, well, most of the time. Often we had to go collect the dry clothes from various places around the yard.

I also remember metal lines. Never used one, but definitely remember seeing a couple in my day. I can't imagine the discolouration and rust stains that happened.

I actually have a good handful of the old iron-clad pins. I never use them... also have a good number of old wooden dolly pegs, but don't use those either. I quite prefer spring pins.

LOL! I had a few pairs of rubber pants take flight off the line a few times on diaper wash day! After that I started using two pins for each pair of rubber pants is it was breezy out.

OMG! My husband has "antique" license plates on the wall in the den. But they are from the 30's :D I did see a sign on eBay listed as "vintage". It was from 1986 :eek:

Maybe New Zealand was a little behind the times when I was growing up because I'm in my mid-20s and I remember seeing and using nearly everything listed here. Maybe the word "vintage" is a little loosely used nowadays? I've seen fabric called "vintage" and the copyright date on the selvege was the year I was born! I thought, 'Nice try!' I don't call my 1956 Singer 201-2 vintage, because it's as old as my DH's father.

I don't think it was just New Zealand. And I agree, "vintage" is used way too loosely. If something has an older look to it, people call it vintage. It's not vintage if it was made last year! :D

To be “Antique” it should be about 100 years old. Everything else is “Vintage” or “Collectable”.
It’s a common mistake made all the time.

This is classic.... Giggled out loud.

Funny isn't it? Just the other day my husband asked if we had anything that could be put out for a charity coming around our neighborhood. "Something old we don't need any more" he said. I thought about it for a minute and said "Everything we have is old. I woke up one day, looked around and realized not only were we getting older, everything we owned was vintage!"

"What does vintage mean?" my young granddaughter asked her dad...... "Well, something old" he replied. "Oh, like Grandma" says she. :(

On another occasion, I was telling her that there was a time when the only phone we had was not only in the house, but connected to the wall. "Did that mean that you had to stay in all the time?" she asked. Clearly it would be just awful for the modern youngster to miss a phone call wouldn't it?

Had a great time reading all your stories. Nearly every thing I do these days is "vintage" - just hope I'll make it to "antique" status. I still make my egg salad with the wire egg cutter, cook my own dinners, grow my own chard, lettuce and spinach - they green up the flower beds nicely. Use a hand crank glass nut chopper. Am pleased I don't have to hand pump my well water, however - and am grateful for the modern niceties that my mom didn't have - automatic washing machines, vacuum cleaners, etc. And I still love making blankets "the hard way" like my grandmothers did way back when.

I refused to buy digital watches for my kids when growing up. Almost all of the clocks (and we have LOTS) in my house are analog...old fashioned. Now they only use the analog ones and sure do know how to tell time!

Same with a map. Taught our kids how to know North from South with one of those. Our 10 year old daughter directed her Girl Scout leader to a camp-out one summer. (HINT--We mounted a paper map on a foam board and gave the kids 3 push pins only ---so they wouldn't stab each other while driving. One pin at the starting point and one for ending point and they took turns moving the pin as we drove from Michigan to Texas. They couldn't read yet but could recognize the next town that started with a T or L or a specific letter. That stopped the "Are we there yet?" questions).

My daughter needed a watch to take pulses (studying to be a physician's assistant). She wanted a digital one. Told her that she was going get to awfully tired from counting a pulse for a full minute until her digital watch changed. She bought an analog one. Then she HAD to wear it on her right hand "b/c all of the kids do that."(She is right handed). Told her that she would have to stand on her head to get a pulse and count on her watch at the same time. She switched...SOMETIMES they do listen!!!

you got to love it ..............:D :D

Wonderful ideas here. Maybe kids could learn something from these. When I was young, I had to remember that New York was toward town and "Out west" was beyond all those farm fields. I knew the barn was north of the house so south was across the road in the direction of the neighbors house. Most children have no idea of these "directions".

I grew up farming in Kansas. We are so much a grid here. Everything was "2 miles north, 1 mile west and 1/4 mile South." We learned our directions early. Married a woman who grew up in Louisville. She knew up river and down river and turn right at Macy's. Dad was a mechanic. We learned "righty tighty and lefty loosey" right after we learned right and left. Then wife used her watch to figure out clockwise and counterclockwise. She and I both puzzled over each other.

I took a pulse with an analog watch the had spiderweb for the face and a spider for the second hand. It was a close to death moment and I felt a bit bad about using that watch.

Oh showing my age here again. My home town was a flag stop for the Santa Fe railroad. if there were passengers to pick up, the station manager had huge flags he'd fly to stop the train. If it didn't need to stop there was a hook on the station to snag the mail bad as they passed, I learned a lot of geography on train trips. and time from time tables.
By the time I was 15 I was making multiple state trips on my own.

A quote from Grampa played by Peter Falk in The Princess Bride:

The Grandson: A book?
Grandpa: In my day, television was called 'a book.'


I guess I am vintage too.

I love this thread!!

My grandson stayed with me before school so his mom could go to work. I took him to school in my DH 79 Cutlass. It is his 'baby' and grandson had been asking for a ride in it. He wanted the window down. It has a hand crank so I told him to use it. He reached over with one finger and pushed the knob like a button....'It doesn't work, Grandma!" The kid was only 7 and I realized he has had push buttons to put car windows down his whole life! Too funny!

My daughters and I were going thru my mom's house and cleaning out everything so we could sell it. The girls brought downstairs a manual typewriter. I had gone to the store next door for a pizza for lunch. When I came back, 2 of my grandsons, aged 15 and 20, were sitting on the floor trying to figure out what it was. One said..'there is no place to plug it in.' They other said the keyboard is the same as a computer but it isn't a computer. Grandma to the rescue! I put in a piece of paper and started typing. I told them to listen for the bell. They both told me 'the bell rang! Now what?' I reached up and slowly pushed the lever to turn the paper to the next line and move the carriage over to start it. They thought that was the coolest thing they had ever seen. The 20 year old asked what that ribbon was for so I told him that was the ink for the keys to strike and make a letter on the paper. He asked what happens if it runs out. I told him you get a replacement one. He used his smart phone and Googled where to buy one. Old school meets technology!!
I was laughing so hard, I didn't even try to explain a party line to them!

They never rusted. Sometimes we wiped the lines with a wet cloth before we used them, but usually we just hung up the wash and didn't worry about it. I think the wiping was for dust in dry conditions. I don't ever remember stains from the lines on our clothes. Those lines lasted a long time.

yeppers, I wiped down steel lines too. Galvanized steel, didn't rust. And it was strong enough to yank me off my bicycle when I forgot to duck under it. Only did that once.

That old saying, you learn something new everyday, sure rings true related to this one. Thanks for enlightening me.

As for my regular blue-vinyl line, I wipe it down regularly with a damp cloth with cleaner.

Ouch! LOL! Kids will be kids, but you'd think you would have learned after the first episode. (Cupping hand over mouth while giggling).

i no longer enjoy browsing antique shops.
i have to keep picking my eyeballs up off the floor when i see what's considered "antique."
they are chock full of stuff i have used in my lifetime.

not at all good for the ego.
or the eyeballs.

lol lol lol