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Remember Those Fender Skirts

13/11/08

Remember Those Fender Skirts

submitted by

Janet Krider (Duncan)

from an E-Mail pass-around

FW_REMEMBERFENDERSKIRTS_.eml

 



I came across this phrase  yesterday ‘FENDER SKIRTS.’

A term I haven’t heard in a long time, and thinking

about ‘fender skirts’ started me thinking about other words  that quietly disappear from our language with hardly a notice like  ’curb feelers’



And steering knobs (aka) suicide Knobs

Since I’d been thinking of cars, my mind  naturally went that direction first.
Any kids will probably have to find some elderly person over 50 to explain some of these terms to you.

Remember  ’Continental kits?’

They were rear bumper extenders and spare tire covers that  were supposed to make any car as cool as a Lincoln  Continental.

 When did we quit calling them ‘emergency  brakes?’

At some point ‘parking brake’ became the proper term.   But I miss the hint of drama that went with ‘emergency  brake.’

I’m sad, too, that almost all the old folks are gone who  would call the accelerator the ‘foot feed.’

 

Didn’t you ever wait at the street for your  daddy to come home, so you could ride the ‘running board’ up to  the house?

 

Here’s a phrase I heard all the time in my  youth but never anymore – ‘store-bought..’  Of course, just about everything is store-bought these days.  But once it was  bragging material to have a store-bought dress or a store-bought  bag of candy.

                                        

‘Coast to coast’ is a phrase that once held  all sorts of excitement and now means almost nothing. Now we take the term ‘world wide’ for granted. This floors  me...

 

         

On a smaller scale, ‘wall-to-wall’ was once a magical term in our homes.  In the ’50s, everyone covered his or her hardwood floors with, wow, wall-to-wall carpeting! Today, everyone replaces their wall-to-wall carpeting with  hardwood floors.  Go figure.

 

When’s the last time you heard the quaint phrase ‘in a  family way?’  It’s hard to imagine that the word ‘pregnant’  was once considered a little too graphic, a little too clinical  for use in polite company, so we had all that talk about stork  visits and ‘being in a family way’ or simply  ’expecting.’

 

 

Apparently ‘brassiere’ is a word no longer in usage. I said it the other day and my daughter cracked  up. I guess it’s just ‘bra’ now.  ’Unmentionables’ probably wouldn’t be understood at all.

I always loved! going to the ‘picture show,’ but I considered ‘movie’ an affectation.

 Most of these words go back to the ’50s, but here’s a pure-’60s word I came across the other day – ‘rat  fink.’  Ooh, what a nasty put-down!

 

Here’s a word I miss – ‘percolator.’ That was just a fun word to say.  And what was it replaced with?  ’Coffee maker.’  How dull.. Mr.. Coffee, I blame  you for this.

 

I miss those made-up marketing words that were meant to sound so modern and now sound so retro. Words like  ’DynaFlow’ and ‘Electrolux.’  Introducing the 1963 Admiral  TV, now with ‘SpectraVision!’

 

Food for thought – Was there a telethon that  wiped out lumbago?  Nobody complains of that anymore.   Maybe that’s what castor oil cured, because I never hear mothers threatening kids with castor oil anymore.

Food for thought – Was there a telethon that  wiped out lumbago?  Nobody complains of that anymore.   Maybe that’s what castor oil cured, because I never hear mothers threatening kids with castor oil anymore.

Someone  forwarded this to me.  I thought some of us of a ‘certain age’ would remember most of these.

 


 


 Just for fun, pass it along to others of ‘a certain  age’!

 

 

 

 

IF YOU AREN’T OF A CERTAIN AGE. YOU MUST KNOW SOMEONE WHO IS.

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