I was reading True West magazine

[Utah Bob #35998]

And in letters to the editor section somebody asked, “On Have Gun-Will Travel, was Paladin’s name really “Wire?”

I did not make this up.

[Lone Spur Jake SASS #7728]

Uhhh,,,,I think on TikTok some GenX said it was their hero Joe Biden.

[Blackwater 53393]

I recall, very early in my life, when people were said to send or receive a wire!  Many have forgotten that term and many more, younger generations, have seldom if ever heard it!

 
At Christmas, my grandniece made mention of having never seen a working telephone booth except in movies!  I never thought of mentioning “sending a wire” or “wiring someone”!

[watab kid]

there are a lot of things that we knew as kids that dont exist anymore , OR can you still send a wire? i know telegrams are not real common if they still exist , 

[Trailrider #896]

When some people ask to be called on the telephone, some may still say, "Dial such-and-such a number." Fourteen years ago, when my grandchild and our daughter, son-in-law and my wife went to a museum, my s-i-l lifted the kid up and showed how to operate a dial phone. I ask every once-in-a-while if the kid remembers how to do it. You never know when you might need to use one in an emergency!  And most of the even-high-level school systems don't teach cursive handwriting. (Oddly, the Chicago public schools did teach it seventy-odd years ago, but the suburban schools didn't!

[watab kid]

yup , another lost , once common , talent , 

 

dialing a rotary phone should not confuse but remember when you had to crank that oak box to get the operators attention to place your call ? 

remember when you dimmed your high beams with the floor switch on the far left of the floorboard ? 

remember when there was a clutch pedal ? 

 

so many things lost that might be important one day , some just for understanding what might save your life , but then i guess you can google it and figure it all out right ? 

[Rye Miles #13621]

The milkman is pretty much gone taken over by Door Dash and Uber Eats 

 

BTW you can still send a wire for a money transfer 

https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/banking/what-is-a-wire-transfer

Edited January 12 by Rye Miles #13621

[Trailrider #896]

The U.S. military no longer teaches their comm people Morse code!  By the time I was old enough to drive, my folk's cars were all automatic transmission. I didn't learn how to drive manual until one of my NCO's taught me on one of our AF pickup trucks.

[Red Gauntlet , SASS 60619]

I learned to drive on my mom's 1950 Chevy, which was automatic transmission. The '56 Merc we had was also automatic.

 

They have been around for a long time. I learned stick with a '63 VW bug, and 3-on-the-tree with a '64 Chevy Nova.

[Eyesa Horg]

I learned 3 on the tree in my 62 Falcon, 3 on the floor in a 64 Falcon convertible that I changed out from an automatic. Then 4 on the floor in my 64 Plymouth Sport Fury convertible. Sure wish I still had that car!

[Blackwater 53393]

I learned to drive in an MGA!

4 on the Floor. Took driver’s ed in a ‘69 Impala because it would cut my insurance premiums. It was automatic and I did donuts in the high school parking lot with it after I got my grade.

 

Started out on motorcycles at 14 1/2 and got my provisional license so I could get back and forth to work. My dad refused to let me have a motorcycle of my own because he thought my mom would worry too much.

 

By the time I graduated high school, my dad had me driving anything with wheels.

[Injun Ryder, SASS #36201L]

And the thread drift award of the week goes to:

 

[Blackwater 53393]

Getting back to the OP!!  The things that we saw and learned as “Baby Boomers” and grew up taking for granted have begun to disappear from day to day life and unlike we children of the postwar, today’s children and young adults mostly have no interest in learning of or remembering those things!  Many of them don’t even bother to recall the landmark items and occurrences of their own recent past the way lots of us do, much less attempt to learn of or preserve the knowledge, icons, and experiences of those who preceded them.

 

They’re often amazed at some of the things that they learn, or at least hear of, that we and our parents and grandparents did or had to do sometimes in order to just get through the day, much less what we/they did without.

 

Half of them weren’t even born the last time a man walked on the moon!  Not counting electronics and medical advances, they just haven’t seen the kinds of changes that we have seen, never mind the things our parents saw!!

 

To my mind, it’s a shame that they missed out on so much!

 

 

 

Edited January 13 by Blackwater 53393

[watab kid]

i knew why they asked that stupid question , i just never gave much consideration to "wire paladin" as being considered a name - as kids we all knew what that meant - give the guy a call when the SHTF , 

 

rotary dials and the milkman delivering every morning was the perks growing up , along with those great innovations of the times like mcdonalds opening their first outlet in my home town then shakey's pizza doing the same , they changed our lives and grounded them at the same time , the dimes in our penny loafers so you could use the pay phone in an emergency for that crucial call , 

 

i learned to drive in my fathers 57 triumph , i didnt know of auto transmissions then as my moms station wagon had three on the tree , all my grandparents cars were stick shift and my friends all wanted a 57 chev with the crazy knob on that floor shifter , we all grew up with 40s and 50s cars - my folks with 20s and 30s cars , everything was a stick shift , my grandmother learned to drive in the farm field in a model A ford .....kinda close to what we should be going back to instead of electric cars , but not so close as to jump into halters Volkswagen beetle , 

 

ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF GOVERNMENT MANDATED TRANSPORTATION , yes i know there were a lot here after the war and there still are but they never should have been forced down anyones throats , ive known a lot of people in my lifetime that swore they were the best innovation since sliced bread [yes dear young ones we once had to cut our own bread] but the fact that a government mandated them has always turned me off , i liked my VW camper - it was a stick shift as well , but its the only VW ive ever owned , a frend and i drove his bug to ottumwa iowa once to see a girl ............but thats another discussion , 

[Rye Miles #13621]

Since this has gone way off topic, I learned to drive stick, the old 3 on a tree, in a 1962 Nash Rambler. Classic . It was my neighbor's car. He was in his 80's and asked my dad to tech me to drive stick so I could take his car for rides or to the store now and then because he wasn't driving much. So I learned on an automatic 1957 Chevy and a stick Rambler.  I loved that Rambler! It looked like this one.

Edited January 14 by Rye Miles #13621