Going, Going, Gone the Way ...

As a spin-off from last week's Cursive Lament, here are some more on my endangered list.

*  Shoe polish and shoe repair shops
*  Wrapped gifts (now replaced by little gift bags with loose tissue paper plopped on top)
*  Film
*  "Hi" (now, "Hey")
*  Onion-skin paper, carbon paper, typewriter erasers
*  Typewriters
*  Adverbs (more on that another time)
*  Charge accounts
*  The non-invasive clicking/whirring sound of a hand-pushed lawn mower
*  Ship travel across the Atlantic
*  Kids toys made out of wood
*  Telephone booths
*  Receiving prints of family/friends photos that you can stick in a photo album
*  Understanding clockwise.  (A friend was telling his students about a geographic force that rotated clockwise over the northern hemisphere.  "What's clockwise?" a student asked.  The friend noticed that the student was wearing a watch so went over to point it out on his dial.  It turned out to be a digital watch.)
*  Happy car trips with young 'uns.  Now junior car seats not only keep families small, they also make long family car trips impossible.  After all, children need space to fidgit.  (Not that I'm advocating it, but our daughter spent a portion of one car trip to the West Coast standing on her head in the back seat.)
*  Having a live person answer the phone
*  Looking nice.  Looking nice in a grocery store.  Looking nice when traveling on an airplane.  Even--hey--looking nice when walking down the street.
*  Men's shirts and trousers that fit
*  Skirts and dresses
*  Shoes that look as if they're made out of something besides recycled tires or bottles
*  An attendant who pumps gas and washes your car windows
*  Going into a store, dentist's office, car dealership, anyplace and finding it peacefully quiet without some sort of "music" in the background
*  Finding a personal letter in the mail

A file of personal letters once found in the mail.