I recognized all of these instantly except the milk chute (perhaps not something that was as common out West). Skate keys were pretty rare when I was growing up, too (as those kind of clamp-on skates were rare).
I was just commenting about .45 inserts like this the other day; there's a restaurant at DIA that has a logo that always reminds me of one.
#ddtb
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11 “Modern Antiques” Today’s Kids Have Probably Never Seen – Mental Floss
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I always thought a church key was the thing you used to roll back the top of sardine cans and the like. I have no idea why I thought that. I always called this thing a bottle opener.
We got green stamps when i lived in North Dakota. When we moved to California, we got Blue Chip stamps. I still have the iron I got with them 30 years ago.
No milk chutes for me, either.
I’ve heard church key used for both, and we usually (but not always) called this a bottle opener. It’s been a long time since I had to use one to open up a can of food (or can of motor oil), but a lot of beer still comes in non-twist tops (not sure why). Thus we also have some strategically placed bottle openers (the wall mounted kind mentioned here) mounted in the house (one in the pantry, one in the garage, one down in the basement).
We were mostly a Blue Chip Stamp family, in California, though I seem to recall there were some places that gave S&H Green Stamps. Always thought pasting up the books with them was fun.
I'm glad this list didn't just have the usuals like "rotary phone" and "a record". One of my big pet peeves is when people say "You've probably never even seen a record before HURR HURR." A lot of that stuff on the list is pretty obscure but the only ones I haven't seen are that 45 adapter and the tube tester. I have a lot of family in the near Cleveland suburbs and many of their homes still have milk chutes. I think my grandma still has typewriter erasers in her pencil jars.
I remember all of those very well. So, today if a kid accidentally hears Jimmy Buffet sing, “Stepped on a pop-top,” they won’t know what the heck he’s singing about? Probably a good thing. Tip on milk chutes, though: If a friend asks you to squeeze through one because she forgot her key, make sure she tells you whether or not it’s over a stairwell. Trust me on that.
@Ellie – Heh. And, yes, just as glad to know that “stepping on a pop-top” is an unknown thing.
I did use the tube testers back in the day. You would get a set of stickers (paired numbers). You would remove the tubes from the device and place a number on the tube and the corresponding socket for each tube you suspected might be bad. When the tester identified the bad tube, you would buy a replacement and use the numbers to get each tube back in the appropriate socket.
@Avo – Yes, I remember the paired set of stickers. Upon consideration, I think my folks did that routine at least once.
We had a lot of 45 adapters when I was growing up (heck, my folks still had some old 78s in the garage at one point … I wonder what happened to them?).
I don't know if my dad ever did the tube testing thing, but I can recall the machines down at the local Payless, and thinking it would be cool to p;lay with them.
My house here in Denver has a milk chute. Now makes for a nice little shelf right above the garden spigot for holding garden sheers or hose adapters of various kinds.