In a recent conversation with my Libyan-raised stepdaughter about political resistance today and various eras of America’s past, we took a detour into pop culture, specifically the pop culture of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. In the course of talking, I mentioned waterbeds. “What?” she asked. So I explained, noting how much they had been loved, particularly by couples looking to enhance their … uh … coupling pleasures. The late sexual predator Hugh Hefner reportedly had one covered in Tasmanian possum fur. Go figure. Upper Midwesterners loved them not so much for any erotic qualities but because all that water could be heated against sub-zero nights, which was better (in many minds) than four layers of blankets and quilts.
So popular were the beds and their frames with built-in drawers that by 1986 they were a $2 billion business. At the peak, nearly one bed of each five sold was a waterbed. And then the bottom fell out, so to speak.
Landlords detested them. They were heavy and prone to leaks that could cause more harm to an apartment than the damage deposit covered. Buyers discovered that they took a lot of maintenance. The market collapsed in the 1990s. Oh, you can still buy them, and they are far more sophisticated than they used to be, with lots of internal bladders and other add-ons to make them more stable and weigh less than the old ones amounting to not much more than a big water balloon. But most retailers don’t carry waterbeds anymore, and sales are a small fraction of what they once were.
Which got me to thinking. What else that was once everywhere has virtually disappeared, only to be found in attics, specialty shops or eBay? When I cleaned out my parents Colorado house last year, I found a few such things. Among them two rotary dial phones still hooked up, though they had mostly switched to cellphones 15 years ago. Stored deep in a closet I discovered two early 1900s “candlestick” telephones taken from my stepdad’s parents’ house when they passed. There was also a battered early 1900s coffee-grinder. I decided to break the chain and leave them behind.
What else has disappeared that was once ubiquitous or almost so that seemed at its peak to be the epitome of pop fashion or technological achievement or practicality?
Berry-colored shag carpets. Massively flared bell bottoms. Car window cranks. Car ashtrays.
Long-distance charges. Answering machines.
Single-sided, single-density floppy discs and the sound of dial-up 300-BAUD modems.
Beepers. Remember them? Get beeped and you would have to find a pay phone to make a call back. And whatever happened to those pay phones anyway?
Slinkies. Cabbage Patch dolls. Beanie Babies.
Paper maps. When I first moved to Los Angeles, I was encouraged to buy a Thomas Guide, a fat, oddly shaped spiral-bound book showing all of a city’s streets. An icon of California, I learned. These were updated every year. You can still buy them, but neither they nor the digital database is updated annually, and the quality is, frankly, shoddy. Like other mapmakers, Thomas Guide used to put in mistakes, “traps” designed to catch copyright violators. This could consist of streets that didn’t exist or were drawn slightly wrong. For 20 years, I lived on a Los Angeles street that dead-ended. But the Thomas Guide intentionally showed it as a through street in edition after edition. As a consequence, delivery people frequently called: “Sir, I can’t find your house.” Now, we’ve got GPS and Google Maps that not only show you how to get where you want to go but also hold your hand the whole way there.
Okay. Your turn. What else has disappeared besides moderate Republicans and a president with a working brain and a compassionate heart?