Vintage Things That Have Disappeared In Your Lifetime?

As an aside to the private club discussion, a city where I used to work had at least two private unlicensed clubs that were only for people of their own ethnic group. One only allowed membership if you were black, the other was only for people from Mexico and their descendants. As far as I know, both are still operating today. One of my friends belonged to the Mexican club through his father. They pay dues to support the building and expenses and alcohol was bought in large quantities from various sources and resold by the drink at a small profit.

 

As I said several posts back, among the more pressing challenges facing the traveling drinker is learning the local code.

I’ll spare y’all the boring particulars of the legalities regarding the dispensing of alcohol in the state of Washington and how those regulations changed with the times, but having had friends and family members in the business over the decades, I can offer that the laws as they used to be all but begged the licensees to game the system one way or another.

On many occasions I heard it said that if a bar operator followed the rules to a T, he’d be out of business in a week. Perhaps such commentary was a bit overblown, but only a bit.

 

Ethnic social clubs were very common in the Era, particularly in cities with large immigrant populations. Growing up in Tampa there were still the old Centro Espanol, L'Unione Italiana, and Centro Asturiano. These clubs not only served as social centers for their particular ethnicities, but acted as mutual aid societies providing services for members such as banking, health care and hospital services, cemeteries, legal services etc. They were vital to the local communities, but also provided other "services" such as drinking, gambling, prostitution, etc.

 

I wondered aloud if the public smoking bans that (ahem) caught fire 15 or 20 years would spawn "smokeeasies,” underground establishments where nicotine fiends might find camaraderie and ashtrays, and alcoholic beverages, just like they had just about everywhere back before the “nanny staters” had their way.

I once had a personal interest in this, but I gave up the drink and the smokes at the same time, 13 years ago this September. Still, I can see how an unreconstructed smoker would long for a smoke-filled bar.

Most of my friends smoked back when I (and they) were young. Few of us survivors smoke anymore. So it appears that tobacco smoking may be a “vintage thing that (mostly) disappears in our lifetime.”

 

From the Memory Hole in George Orwell's 1984 to the Taliban destroying the Bamiyan Buddhas to the destruction of the statues of Confederate soldiers, the same impulse is at work.

 

Yes, and I fear the trend is inexorable.

 

Are debutante balls still around?

 

Wien.

 

Very much so in the South. Debutante balls, cotillions, and in local Hispanic communities the "quinceanera" are still very common.

 

?

 

Vienna opera ball (incl. debutantes).

 

Pantyhose seem to be on-the-chopping-blocks nowadays. Ladies are moving on to bare legs or even back to stockings. And tights or leggings are all the rave during the chilly seasons.

 

LUVIT

 

I don't often offer an opinion on womens fashion, but tights, leggings and "yoga pants" worn without anything over them should be somehow licensed or at least policed by other ladies. It must be for some reason that looking in a mirror before leaving the house is no longer a common practice. Too many times I see people who look approximately the same way in these garments as my overfed self would or am somewhat embarrassed for them for what is displayed. As much as I don't care for pajamas as shopping attire, better that than me seeing what only your partner and gynecologist should.

 

Only loosely related, but this brought up the memory of people of the tribe you describe being outraged when they came into the YMCA to do their exercise routine of choice being unable to park in the spots closest to the entrance. The large lot across the street required a walk of no more than 50 yards, but to hear them complain, it should have been a mile. Telling them it was a good warmup didn't generally get a positive reaction.

 

"I want to perform all of my exercise on a treadmill, as the Good Lord intended."