Some Everyday Items which Every US Home Once Contained and How We Used Them.

 October 30, 2026

#554

Gentle reader,

This image showed up on Facebook the other day in a Group devoted to "Boomers". ALL of these listed things, I experienced, or was aware of. Today, most people have no idea to what the post highlighted. Which was it's point. Some miss the "Good old days" when life was simpler. But, was it?

When this image showed up on Facebook I reposted it, stating, "Heck, most young people today have no IDEA what most of these are!" That gave me the idea to write this article. Not a collection of objects, per se, but interesting, to me at least.

First item is: ALUMINUM ICE TRAYS WITH LEVER

This image is an aluminum ice tray which the model supposedly just broke the ice free from the tray with the lever. 

Believe it or not, refrigerators did not always have icemakers in their freezers. When we were kids, the only way to get ice, was to fill the ice tray with water from the kitchen sink faucet, carefully carry it across the kitchen, trying not to spill any water on the way, to the "ice box", open the freezer door and carefully slide it inside. 

Here is a really old one. It required a lot of strength, something I lacked as a child, to break the ice free by pulling the lever shown.

In 2026, OUR refrigerator does not have an icemaker. So, we still use ice trays, albeit, plastic ones. Those things sticking up are an unusual phenomenon called "ice spikes". I will be writing about them in the future. We have two more of those white ones. However, Nancy bought fancy ones which make semi-circular "cubes" which require tops to be stack. That blue piece is the top.

Next on the List is SHARING ONE TV IN THE HOUSE. This film photograph was staged and is from the late 1950's. That's Roy Rodgers in the scene. Families did not dress up to watch TV. Nor, did they sit at an angle to the TV set.

I believe that the image above was made by AI. Something, I try to avoid. Skynet and all. For example, what is holding up the front of the arms of their chairs? Still, it demonstrates a typical living room back in the day of yore. Small and "cozy". A cute word our parents used to make us think our crowded house was normal.

All five of us in 1964. I'm the one with glasses.

Ten years later, top left is me. No glasses, but I could have used sunglasses!

Large houses, which comprise much of what is being built in the United States of America today, were a RARE sight to the average American when we were growing up.

We did not own ANY television until sometime in the 1960's, it was used and had a black & white image. Not color. I personally did not even SEE a television show in color until the early 1980's when we bought our first TV.

Homes were much smaller then, heck, our own house, built in 1987, is LESS than 1500 square feet. This image above is from the 1950's in Levittown, New York. Note that each house is similar and SMALL. Only the shape of the front or added dormers break up the similarity. Note also the TV antenna on top of each house. 

Perhaps you are wondering what I meant by "...TV antenna on top of each house" above? Believe it or not, one can, right now, in the year 2026, STILL receive HD full color Television channels for FREE with a Television Antenna! NO: Cable box, Internet, Router or Cellular anything is needed. For FREE! That is our chimney and the TV antenna I put up attached to it. It brings all of the broadcast TV channels from Washington, D.C. right into our TVs for FREE! Don't buy cheap plastic HD TV antennas, you will be disappointed. 

Up next is WRITING A CHECK IN A STORE. 

Something which comes naturally to Boomers like me, is writing a CHECK. What with using one's phone to pay for things nowadays, believe it or not, there was a time when: Cellular Telephones, the Internet and digital ANYTHING, did not exist! To pay for things, one needed two things: Money and a Bank Account. If you did not have enough cash on you, out came your checkbook and you paid for something by filling out a check, just like John Doe did, above. 

Next on the list is HANGING CLOTHES OUTSIDE. What you see above is a Clothesline. Before clothes dryers existed, EVERYONE had to hang their clean clothes outside on a clothesline to dry. EVERYONE. In fact, I actually did that in our back yard, in the 21st Century!

Excellent vintage black & white film image of kids long ago watching television SITTING CLOSE TO THE TV. Image found on the Internet. We are halfway through the list!

Net up on the list: PHONE ATTACHED TO THE WALL. Another thing which will blow your mind: To call someone up in "The Good Old Days", one needed a landline telephone. They were OWNED by the Telephone Company for most of the history of telephones. As a result, most families could only afford to rent one. The logical place to put one was in the kitchen, on the wall.

WAITING ALL WEEK FOR ONE SHOW is hard to show in an image. This is from long ago when all Television shows were in Black & White. The boy in front is Billy Mumy. He was most famous from playing Will Robinson the 1960's TV show, LOST in SPACE. This image is from another hit show called THE TWILIGHT ZONE.

Here's the thing: There was NO Internet! There was no Streaming. US Television Networks were THE only source of visual entertainment at HOME. They created all kinds of TV shows. They made 26 Episodes of each. All twenty-six were shown, in order, once a week. To see the next episode, one HAD to WAIT one week. PERIOD. New seasons (and new shows) came out in September. 26 episodes. Then, they replayed them again. 26 episodes. 52 weeks in a year. Right in time for the New Season. 

These six images are going to blow your mind. 

These are all real images, made with film cameras, of everyday people talking on PAY PHONES. They were everywhere! IF you wanted to call someone, and were not at HOME, you looked for a PAY PHONE. You would be lucky to see ANY of them in the 21st Century, at least in the United States. But, that was how people communicated for most of the 20th Century.

MEMORIZING PHONE NUMBERS is the last of the list. Try as I did, I could not find one photo of someone with a "little black book" like I used to carry in my wallet with friend's phone numbers in it. That's how I remembered phone numbers. I was hoping to find a picture of someone talking on a Pay Phone holding their little book of phone numbers in one hand while holding the telephone's receiver in the other hand.

You may be thinking, "What's a 'receiver'?" That's the part of a traditional telephone one picks up and holds one end to their ear, (see all six photos above) the other end (where the coiled wire is attached) is what we spoke into. The circular thing with the ten holes in it is the DIAL. When calling someone up, say: 814-976-1234, put one finger in the #8 hole rotate the dial clockwise until is stops. Let go. The dial spins back. Same finger in the #1 hole, repeat until all ten digits are dialed. Archaic and slow, I know.

Thanks for taking the time to read this article. I hope that you learned things doing so. Never take for granted what you have. Technology has come a LONG way in my 70 years. Imagine what things will be common when YOU are 70!

Scott Robb

October 30, 2026

#554