How Vintage Do You Go? -merged thread-

Foofoogal · Jun 11, 2008

Cell Phones and Needing Help

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Late November and freezing weather, my car died on a busy interstate highway. I did not own a cell phone then. I stood by the side of the road waving at people for help. I did this for three hours. Thousands of cars drove by. Some pointed and laughed. Some gave me the finger, the rest ignored me. Nobody stopped to help, though many hundreds of cars drove by. Hypothermia began. I got confused, emotional, then sleepy, and wanted to curl up in the car and sleep. Finally somebody stopped and helped. He said: "Why didn't you call on your cell phone?"

The point is that nobody stopped, and they all presume that every living human being carries a cell phone. I was dying of hypothermia while thousands of people drove by and watched me. I now own a phone, but learned something about humanity on that day. Bless the one that stopped after three hours of freezing and waving. The rest are blind.
-m

Lord, that is horrible.
The saddest part is it is what we have come to really. I wouldn't take it personal though it definitely would seem personal to the one it happened to.
Too many bad stories about horrid people standing and acting like they need help and then becoming robbers is why I am sure.
As one human to another I am sorry this happened to you.
Cell phones are necessary though really.

Story · Jun 11, 2008

Archéologue said:
Bless the one that stopped after three hours of freezing and waving. The rest are blind.
-m

Unfortunately, you are not alone.
http://www.wtopnews.com/?nid=104&sid=1416141
Kitty Genovese would have understood, too.

miss_elise · Jun 11, 2008

LizzieMaine said:
(My best friend does me one better -- she's deaf and so doesn't have a telephone at all.)

interestingly enough, lizziemaine, a lot of deaf people i know have cell phones.. they love being able to text each other in the same way that hearing people would have a conversation...or to be able to contact other people without having to go through a relay service...

i'm not actually too old school at all, although my sewing machine is a 1970s original... does that count? lol

Paisley · Jun 11, 2008

miss_elise said:
i'm not actually too old school at all, although my sewing machine is a 1970s original... does that count? lol

No--it has to be a treadle.

Lillemor · Jun 11, 2008

I got my first cell phone in December 06 and then I replaced it last summer. I miss all calls and a short text message takes me 20-40 minutes to type and I still don't know how to change from letters to digits:eusa_doh: I mainly use it as a camera.

fftopic: I have a two years old mp3 player, still sitting in its case. I just don't easily get my head around modern technology.

adamjaskie · Jun 11, 2008

Heh, my cell doesn't have a camera. It does phone calls and text messages, that's about it. It isn't a flip-phone, either. I don't like flip phones; too many moving parts. I broke my last one because I got in the habit of opening it like the characters in the original Star Trek open their communicators.

59Lark · Jun 13, 2008

how old school.

I wear fedoras, my car in the summer is a 1959 studebaker Lark, i ride a 1950schwinn green bike, no pee wee herman jokes please, my radio is a general electric cathedral, our pianio is a 1916 berlin birds eye maple, and i live in a 1915 home. But no my wife made sell the gramophone a golden throat 1911, and she pursaded me to give up my pager after twenty years. .sewing machines paisley, yes i have treadle sewing machines, if i am a dealer for them , having sold the amish community them for twenty years. yes i have a cell phone, now i am available anywhere, no dead batteries for the pager. I pay for almost everything by company cheque, i have bought my gas at the same garage since i was eighteen, they are taking the pumps out this week. I prefer wooden handle tools over plastic, my favourite tools are old, my workshop has a tv, with a vcr on it, a metal sign stating studebaker trucks are best hangs over my bench, a picture of my ancestral home with our cows out front, a picture of the fella that was like my dad in this business also sits over my bench, and also a postcard of lammy diner from henry ford is there. So yes i am old school, i wish my wife liked to dance swing, and enjoyed glenn miller, but yes i am lost in the old school.

fftopic:

WallyTWest · Jun 26, 2008

Ok, I think I got a good question.

Vintage as a hobby seems to have many facets and levels of interest. For some it’s a hobby and for some it’s a lifestyle. My friend Josh has decided that life was never better than in the 1950’s and has dedicated his post collage carrier to re-creating that lifestyle. Not so much wearing totally vintage clothing, but emulating the stiles and such.

I was shocked, I had considered the pursuit of this hobby to be limited to the use of vintage attire but my friend has taken it to a different level. For him it’s about EC Comics and Superman, Real Butter, Mayo and Cheap Coffee.

I hate to sound… well like a guy… but one thing that really stood out to me was his fridge. It was a new whirlpool with a 1950’s casing, on top was a wood cased modern radio that looked perfectly vintage. When purchasing produce he goes out of his way to avoid plastic in the packaging, and instead focuses on selecting product with vintage era packaging or farm stand goods. The effect was fascinating, most everything was in glass or homemade in their own containers.

His whole house was like this. Very retro, from a restored toaster to his couches. I must admit that I am very jealous; it was like stepping into a time machine. A real pleasure, and I must admit it was appealing.

What is your own personal level of interest? How far do you take the hobby and at what point does it become something else?

(Image of Fridge)
http://www.appliance.com/images2/front_jadite.jpg

db5zx · Jun 26, 2008

Well, my main phone is a Western Electric 202, my backup phone a German W38 from late 1940's. I do wear 1940's or 1950's suits at least on two or three days a week, never leave my home without a hat or cap (newsboy cap, that is... NOT baseball cap). My furniture is new but I try to buy vintage pieces when replacing furniture. I own a gramophone and a couple of 78rpm records (not too many, though, I just started with that.) I regularly take my 1941 Speed Graphic out to take photos or use my 1930's Filmo 16mm camera to shoot film.

That said, I love my cell phone, am an absolute TV addict, use my iPod almost daily as well as my cable internet. Every once in a while I try to go just with pen and pencil but usually fall back to the good old Windows Notebook or MS Word.

I'd love to put more vintage stuff in my life, though...

Jens

Darhling · Jun 26, 2008

I am with Jens here, I guess my apartment and furniture is modern and I couldn't be without cell phone or internet and so on, but I am trying to add a vintage feel to my outfits and I know I behave much more ladylike than almost any other women, so for me I am not that vintage, but I do what works for me. I wouldn't mind living in a 50's home though!

retrogirl1941 · Jun 26, 2008

I wear vintage repro at least 4 or 5 times a week and the other 2 times my clothes are more vintage inspired. By the end of summer this will have changed. I cook like they did back in 40-50's and clean the same way(vinegar, ammonia, bleach basic things). We have internet(obviously!

) and I have a cell phone only because its our house phone. But being on a budget, total vintage living is not within reach at the moment. The husband said when we get a house he also wants to hide anything modern and make it look like a house from the 1940s. So......... eventually.

Samantha

Miss Neecerie · Jun 26, 2008

This is an oft discussed topic..

Many answers here:

http://www.thefedoralounge.com/showthread.php?t=31006

I know there are a few more threads...but have to run to work now so cant keep searching

Burnsie · Jun 26, 2008

Wow - attempting to answer this one makes me confront my vintage OCD insanity - my first house was built in 1951 and every stick of furniture, the lamps, radios, phones etc. were from the 40's and 50's. My current house I've been in for a little more than a year and though I initially wanted to go older than '51 I wound up in a 1959 split level because it was an original owner home with NO updates and kept in great repair - 3 original bathrooms, original kitchen, no updates anywhere that weren't cosmetic and easily changed. This set off buying all new stuff to reflect the late 50's vibe - new furniture and decorative items etc.
Personal style - I am nutty about wearing only vintage or stitch for stitch accurate repros...repros have to be absolutely period correct and manufactured on vintage equipment which generally means buying high end Japanese made stuff which is not cheap but as you may have gathered, I'm a little crazy.

Dr Doran · Jun 26, 2008

For us: no microwave (they smell disgusting), no credit cards (as soon as we got married, my wife and I paid those off), no constantly buzzing TV (it gets about 2 channels) but I use a cell phone. Text-messaging is like telegraphing.

I don't really want to give up all technology because I like retro-future as much as I like vintage. So technology fits into my aesthetics if it is stylish. I'd just as soon camouflage my laptop by keeping it in a folding hinged wooden box with a checkerboard on the outside if I could find one the right size.

My house is full of antiques which were all free or very very cheap, mostly free.

Suit, tie and fedora almost every day ...

anglophile · Jun 26, 2008

Mostly I just enjoy the style form the 30's-50's. Clothes,furniture etc. Love TvLand reruns and TCM. I would like to get more items from that period. I do wish I was a college student in 1935. Then I wouln't have to dress better than my professors.

KittyT · Jun 26, 2008

WallyTWest said:
Vintage as a hobby seems to have many facets and levels of interest. For some it’s a hobby and for some it’s a lifestyle. My friend Josh has decided that life was never better than in the 1950’s and has dedicated his post collage carrier to re-creating that lifestyle. Not so much wearing totally vintage clothing, but emulating the stiles and such.

I think trying to live a vintage lifestyle is great - I wear vintage most days, I love vintage furniture and decorating, but I can't afford to fill my home with such items. Buying all Heywood-Wakefield furniture is sort of cost prohibitive.

However, I really think people need to step back every once in awhile to evaluate where to draw the line. I mean, if your friend was diagnosed with cancer, he wouldn't want to take the chemo treatments that my grandmother did back in the 50s, that came in glass vials and ate through the kitchen linoleum if she accidentally dropped one. If he became diabetic, he wouldn't want to use huge syringes that he had to boil to sterilize and use until they were dull. At some point, we really need to be able to step back to find a renewed appreciation for what our modern world has to offer us, and I personally am glad that I don't live in an era where having something like diabetes was pretty much a death knell.

Lefty · Jun 26, 2008

Agreed, Kitty. The retro-ness of our place is for purposes of simplicity, saving money (on some things, blowing way too much on others), and living in a style that we enjoy. We're not going to give up what we consider to be necessary modern conveniences - credit cards, medicines, etc. just for the purposes of style. I think that everyone, regardless of the degree to which they live retro, is going to draw the line somewhere. We are, after all, discussing this on that interweb doo-hicky.

pigeon toe · Jun 26, 2008

I grew up with a computer in the home, got a cell phone when I was 16 and have been making food with a microwave ever since I could read the instructions on the box. I don't think I could do without those things (well, perhaps I could do without the micro!) simply because it's how I grew up.

And to be honest, I have no real desire to remove modern-day convenience from my life.

Credit cards, stuff like that, is another matter though. I am quite attached to my debit card, but I never purchase anything on credit that I can't afford. And this past semester, while I was in Europe, I was pretty much cash-only, which was great until I couldn't find an ATM!

I love the vintage aesthetic, but I also enjoy the comforts of modern living and technology.

LizzieMaine · Jun 26, 2008

pigeon toe said:
I grew up with a computer in the home, got a cell phone when I was 16 and have been making food with a microwave ever since I could read the instructions on the box. I don't think I could do without those things (well, perhaps I could do without the micro!) simply because it's how I grew up.

I think that's a good point -- a lot of how we view such things is generational in nature. Those who grew up with modern technology are much less likely to voluntarily separate themselves from it than those who came of age before such things existed. That's not to say that those of us born into an age of rotary telephones, black and white television, manual typewriters, and clotheslines can't be as tech-driven as the young crowd but I'd also suggest it's a lot easier for us to do without it if we choose to.

Paisley · Jun 26, 2008

KittyT said:
However, I really think people need to step back every once in awhile to evaluate where to draw the line. I mean, if your friend was diagnosed with cancer, he wouldn't want to take the chemo treatments that my grandmother did back in the 50s, that came in glass vials and ate through the kitchen linoleum if she accidentally dropped one. If he became diabetic, he wouldn't want to use huge syringes that he had to boil to sterilize and use until they were dull. At some point, we really need to be able to step back to find a renewed appreciation for what our modern world has to offer us, and I personally am glad that I don't live in an era where having something like diabetes was pretty much a death knell.

OTOH, Eastern medicine hasn't changed much since the 50s, and it can be very effective. My dog had cancer and couldn't stand chemo and antiinflammatories. I put him on a regimen of herbs instead. My vet was skepitical and the oncologist said he'd live about 2 months without treatment. In fact, he lived over a year--my vet said she'd never seen a dog live that long with oral melanoma.

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