Fender Skirts (Part I)

[Muriel]

FENDER SKIRTS

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 nob.?

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. 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? Coffeemaker.' 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.

Some words aren't gone, but are definitely on the endangered list. The one that grieves me most is supper. Now everybody says dinner. Save a great word. Invite someone to supper. Discuss fender skirts.

Now that you've read all of that, move on to the quiz, another post entitled How old are you?

[recce101]

Hey, there's some good ones there, and I remember them all. Some I still use.

You should write for Andy Rooney! Aloha,

Ned

[Muriel]

Someone sent me that post about Fender Skirts. It's not mine. When I read it, I thought some of you might enjoy it. I read through it again and had the sinking feeling that someone borrowed it from Andy Rooney. It seems to have rung an "Andy Rooney" bell for Ned, also.

Muriel

[J.C.]

Fender skirts went with

the fuzzy small rug made from

the aluminum paper from cigarettes

packs, used for the back window of

the car??

a name for it?

Jackie

[Patti B]

Just to show how old I am - anyone remember the old cigarette packs from in the 50s??? My dad used to smoke and his cigs came in these boxes - but instead of the top flipping open, the entire insides pushed out from the outside. He used to give some of the empty ones to my sister and I to put our jewelry in. Anyone remember those??

And why do I want people to know how old I am??

Patti B.