That vintage feeling

To me, that vintage feeling is a feeling of "perfection". That everything is right in my world, even just for a little while. My clothes and my hair are right. The music is right. The weather is right. The company is right. Or when being alone feels right. It can be situational, or maybe just in my mind. I guess it's kind of hard to put into words really....it's when I feel like I'm in the "era" of my own creation. When things just feel right.

I guess you could say it's a down-to-earth feeling; a wholeness, a clarity and maybe a grounded feeling. There's also a sweet, romantic sense of loss. Sometimes that feeling of loss is overwhelming and it pulls me down into a mild depression.

I find that the best way to deal with that depression is to stay as far away from the Modern Zeitgeist as I possibly can. It's not easy to construct your own bubble of sanity in a world gone insane, but it's certainly worth the effort.

undertow made a great point and lizziemaine followed through. And I'll be damned I have to agree with it.

Modernity smacks you in the face the moment you pull out of your driveway and into the insanity of modern-day America (insert your country here). I can't help but feel depressed with Hollywood's torture-genre of movies, today's commercialized food by-products and abstract consumerism which is then shoved down our collective throats on t.v. There has to be an escape and I think thats what vintage provides. Real people, real food, real products. Reality.

That Golden Age feeling? The fleeting mention or reference to lard or polio.

In my Blue Heaven

For me it's sitting in my living room surrounded by all of the 1930's furnishings that I have restored, in my suit ,reading the paper with a glass of our locally brewed libation Narragansett Lager with the 1920's radio network playing in the back ground and then the female announcer's voice comes on at the top of the hour with the "bing ,bing ,bong, " chime and slowly stated "the time is three pm eastern" just like they used to do in the good old days.

All the Best ,Fashion Frank

fashion frank said:

For me it's sitting my living room surrounded by all of the 1930's furnishings that I have restored, in my suit ,reading the paper with a glass of our locally brewed libation Narragansett Lager with the 1920's radio network playing in the back ground and then the female announcer's voice comes on at the top of the hour with the "bing ,bing ,bong, " chime and slowly stated "the time is three pm eastern" just like they used to do in the good old days.

All the Best ,Fashion Frank

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What station is that? you have peaked my interest!

For me, it is taking rememberance to a time that has past. A time where one's word was kept no matter what.

splintercellsz said:

What station is that? you have peaked my interest!

For me, it is taking rememberance to a time that has past. A time where one's word was kept no matter what.

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Google :: www.the1920snetwork.com and you might have to download and install winamp program that is free.

Justin also on i tunes is radio swing worldwide ,that is also good although I like the network the best.
All the Best ,Fashion Frank

fashion frank said:

Google :: www.the1920snetwork.com and you might have to download and install winamp program that is free.

Justin also on i tunes is radio swing worldwide ,that is also good although I like the network the best.
All the Best ,Fashion Frank

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And then there's my own Cladrite Radio. No chimes at the top of the hour, but lots of toe-tapping tunes of the 1920s, '30s and '40s.

skyvue said:

And then there's my own Cladrite Radio. No chimes at the top of the hour, but lots of toe-tapping tunes of the 1920s, '30s and '40s.

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Agreed. Love you station too (have it saved as an opening tab on my browser)!

St. Louis said:

....I was .... thinking about how nice it was to have a pleasant conversation with another living human being face to face, in complete sentences. I miss the sense of quiet civility and decorum. No, I don't think it's completely gone, but it's harder to find now and sometimes it seems to take much more effort.

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I have just read this thread for the first time. I am not as die-hard vintage as many on here. I don't customarily dress in an anachronistic style, for example. But St. Loius' answer resonated with me, and I realized how eloquent so many of the posters on this site are.

Do you suppose that part of the vintage-feeling can be due to the others involved being educated, thoughtful, considerate, etc? Elements that seem to be pretty rare in the modern world.

If one reads the comments after news items on the general world-wide-web they are often misspelled, badly punctuated, bizarrely capitalized, and full of politically-partisan rants. Then you can read posts here. Here, some people clearly still have brains that they use, appear to have read books, have a variety of interesting interests, and seem to have stayed awake in school and actually benefited from it. It's refreshing. It restores ones faith in humankind.

Peter_E said:

I have just read this thread for the first time. I am not as die-hard vintage as many on here. I don't customarily dress in an anachronistic style, for example. But St. Loius' answer resonated with me, and I realized how eloquent so many of the posters on this site are.

Do you suppose that part of the vintage-feeling can be due to the others involved being educated, thoughtful, considerate, etc? Elements that seem to be pretty rare in the modern world.

If one reads the comments after news items on the general world-wide-web they are often misspelled, badly punctuated, bizarrely capitalized, and full of politically-partisan rants. Then you can read posts here. Here, some people clearly still have brains that they use, appear to have read books, have a variety of interesting interests, and seem to have stayed awake in school and actually benefited from it. It's refreshing. It restores ones faith in humankind.

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My good man you are so right in your observations ,the people on this forum are just plain awesome .
I have been on this Forum for a year and had only one problem ,so I would say that's really good for the internet.
I would almost be temped to say it's because most of us are older ,but as you can see even on this Forum there are person's who are young but like the Forum and everything vintage because they know that things and people were different and better than they are today.

All the Best, Fashion Frank

Let me quickly echo your thoughts on the character of the people on this forum. It is a pleasure to come here and know that the conversation will be intelligent and respectful. Even when there is criticism or disagreement, it is almost always done with respect and in a professional manner. And I am amazed at the depth of knowledge that many (not me) have on a variety of subjects. LizzieMaine is an encyclopedia of the Golden Era, but so many contribute so much information everyday. I visit a few other boards (and post on one other), but consider this one as "home," as it is comfortable and informative and, again, its participants are impressive.

Hercule said:

I've enjoyed reading through the thread asking what gives you that vintage feeling, and am curious to know just what exactly that vintage feeling is for you. Describe the sensation or however you experience it, and what it means to you.

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Today I'm writing greeting cards to proud new parents. They are not blood relatives, but I have known the families for at least fifty years. I have seen the new parents grown from childhood, and not having children of our own, seeing others celebrate new life is very pleasing.

Whilst writing these cards a cherished memory came flooding back to the early days pf my own childhood. Grandparents had given my sister and I a ToyTown Post Office compendium for Christmas, we were delighted. There was rubber stamps, ToyTown postage stamps, writing paper, envelopes and so much more to keep two small children very happy.

Mother said that we must sit down and write a thank you note to our Grandparents, in our best handwriting mind, which we duly did. The reason that I remember it so clearly was because of my sister needed help, big brother had cracked literacy early on, but his four year old sister still had a way to go. The letters duly written we took them along to the post box and posted them off.

At the sortation centre the letters were marked "Excess to pay." My grandmother had a post lady, a kindly woman who had a good word for everyone. However, when officialdom rears it's head the red mist comes down. The post lady was scathing. She was so cross at the excess to pay. Taking the two envelopes she went into her manager's office and put them down in front of him. He looked perplexed, "they aren't stamped correctly," he explained, "I know that," the post lady replied, "look again, do you not see the writing of children?" "Two little ones, writing to their grandparents, not knowing ToyTown stamps are not Post Office tender, shame on you." The excess was deleted and the letters delivered.

It was years later, by the time I was a young adult, that I found out about that incident, and writing the greeting cards today brought it all back. I wonder if in today's enviroment such magnanimity would be permitted? The manager would probably be sacked.

For me, one of many triggers is remembering being a child in the '50s, but that's not what does it. It is remembering staying with my great-aunt and uncle in Kenedy, TX. They were born in the 19th century, and I doubt that anything in the house dated from later than the '20s or '30s, except maybe the radio and the b&w tv, so all of it seemed exotically ancient to me. I remember opening a closet door and seeing her father's cavalry saber and spurs hanging on it. The telephone hung on the wall in a wooden case and had a crank on the side to charge it up. The system was still "Partyline," and you could listen in on other people's conversations. There was always a deco-era Fiesta Ware water pitcher in the ice box (still called that though it didn't use ice for cooling). There was an incinerator in the back yard where we burned trash, a chore assigned to the kids. Also in back was a little building called, for some reason "the blue room," where during Prohibition my mother and her sister helped my great-uncle bottle his bootleg beer (the sheriff would always warn him if Prohibition agents were coming to town.) My great-uncle was an insurance man and a member of the volunteer fire department. He knew how people died in fires, so every room in the house had a door leading to the outside. I only became aware of the Era many years later but I feel that I lived then for a few childhood years.

Great thread. For me, it is a fleeting moment that strikes unexpectedly. A song or a book can trigger it. The sight of someone dressed in “period” clothing never fails to make me pause and feel nostalgic. Around here, especially in the winter, I’m delighted at how people sometimes dress, even though I suspect they aren’t even completely aware themselves that they look retro. Long coats, great hats, quality shoes. Old trams and old buildings and feint echos of the past, of which there are a lot in Vienna. The other day I was pleasantly surprised when a colleague in her 50s self identified her nationality as “Habsburg”.

I was born to late........make it a birth date that I would be spending my 20s and 30s during the 30s. I was listening to the music of the 30s as a young boy in the 50s and 60s. I belonged in the 30s. I think about that and ask myself, would I have survived WWII? My father did and so did I, so I have a reason still to enjoy drawing a breath every morning when I open my eyes. I am the generation created by our greatest generation who grew up during the 30s, I have their photos and in those photos I have their memories just like I have/had their morals, work ethics and love of life. With the use of music, cars, clothes and photos, I can step back into the 30s almost instantly. Talking with and listening to our greatest generation is almost gone, I have spent many times with them, shame what I am are seeing today of the generations that have followed me, very very few will have the interest to learn what life was like before TVs, computers, smartphones, etc.

In an age when global warming was unheard of, steam train travel was the order of the day. Early flight too had an air of romance about it. Dressing up to enjoy the experience is a must.

The Union Pacific Big Boy came through my area pulling a vintage passenger train. The Big Boy was built in 1941, and is the largest steam locomotive. Wheel configuration is 4-8-8-4. It is an impressive machine.

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