I remember still having a milkman as a child in the very early 1970s….telegraph poles…
We had a milkman when we lived out in the county, and in the city ('60s and '70s). The milk came in glass bottles, and we had to wash them ourselves and leave them for the milkman to take when he brought the fresh milk.
I miss two sci-f related items from my teen-age years:
1. Starlog Magazine
2. The Science Fiction Book Club
Sure, I can get all my sci-fi news now in real time online, and, sure, I can easily download any sci-fi book to my Kindle instantly. However, I miss the feeling of surprise and anticipation from that time, finding out about a new movie in early production in Starlog ("Whoa, they're making a second Star Wars movie!?! Is it a film version of 'Splinter of the Mind's Eye?") or reviewing the newest books listed on the monthly book club card ("What! A sequel to Frederick Pohl's 'Gateway'? Take my money!").
Yes, I'm old, and yes, current channels of sci-fi news and literature are objectively better. I still miss them...
Starlog was my initial introduction to the wider world of SF TV shows and movies, to know what had happened, what was current, and what was planned. The earliest issue I have is #3 (still have most of my collection).
This was back in the days when a lot of fandom occurred via snailmail. You sent in money orders for subscriptions, and had to wait a month between issues, either for the mail or for the magazine to arrive at the store. It was entirely a fluke that I got into Starlog. It was one of the nights in the month that my mother had visitation (dad had custody), so she and I and her second husband were out somewhere. They decided to pop into a convenience store, and I spotted Starlog on the magazine rack.
This was back in the days of babysitting for 50 cents/hour, so of course I didn't have enough for it. My mother had no patience with my interest in science fiction, but this time she gave in (probably so I'd quit asking; I think it was actually her husband who paid for it).
That started me on a lifetime of interest in the wider world of production of TV shows and movies... though it was specifically the book The Making of Star Trek that got me interested in how TV shows are made from a behind the scenes aspect. Since we had nothing like that locally, I ended up working backstage in musical theatre, usually with props, sometimes with costumes.
I can't imagine how life might have turned out without these things happening. It would have been much less interesting, I think.
Going to the video rental store. Browsing was fun. Coming across titles you haven't heard before was fun. What you ultimately chose to watch meant more.
Now it's all disposable content.
I remember when video rental stores were first a thing. Those crazy membership rates that would allow you to rent movies... we only got our membership because my grandmother decided to buy a VCR and it came with a free year's membership to Video View.
The membership rates eventually went down to something more affordable, and after some years I don't think they worried as much about it. The main thing was they were concerned about letting a VCR be rented and then not getting it back. Since we had our own VCR (and learning to program it was one of the most useful things I ever learned in my life), renting one was something we never had to worry about.
The store had a decent selection of stuff, so I'd do the "7 movies for 7 days" deal, and because the store was where it was, I liked it that I could take the outbound bus, get off at the mini-mall, run into the store, drop off the old movies, grab 7 new ones, get them checked out, and grab the bus on its inbound run - a total of about 15 minutes. I'd get a selection of 2-3 science fiction ones for myself, some comedy or western for my dad, and a couple of family movies for my grandmother. So I saw a bunch of stuff I'd never have seen at the theatre or on TV. Some were clunkers, of course, but much cheaper than going to the theatre (where the movie could turn out to be not worth it anyway).
Of course I had blank VHS tapes and created my own collections of TV series, movies, documentaries, and I remember how nerve-wracking it was during the Opening Ceremonies for the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympic Games. Calgary is just 90 minutes south of here, I actually knew someone who was going to be performing in the ceremonies, and my grandmother wanted me to record it.
The nice thing about taping with VHS is that you could pause the tape to cut out the commercials (and this is why you could fit 10 hours' worth of stuff on an 8-hour tape). But when the event is live, they don't have predictable intervals where you'd expect commercials. So pausing for CBC's commercials and switching to another channel that didn't have commercials at that exact time, and switching back again, trying not to miss anything important...
I'm just going to say that in this era of streaming, modern audiences are spoiled. Utterly spoiled. Whole seasons and whole series at their fingertips, no waiting necessary, and I don't even mean waiting a week for the next episode. I mean waiting YEARS between series. They've no clue what it was like in the '70s and '80s when Star Trek fans didn't have so many series to pick from that I actually don't remember how many there are now.
That's why fanfiction and fanzines happened. People created their own stories. I've got a huge collection of the ones published in print form, and while a lot of the stories were eventually uploaded to various fanfiction sites, the wonderful artwork, poetry, songs, comic strips, etc. didn't go with them.
My normal bedtime reading consists of a historical novel - usually Plantagenet/Tudor, sometimes Roman, maybe Borgia, but last night I opted for something else. I've got some Classic Doctor Who fanzines among my collection, and grabbed one to read. So far, it's a story about the Fourth Doctor, Sarah Jane Smith, they're in New York (this is after she was left on Earth), and the Doctor disappeared while on an errand to buy some bagels. Sarah's out looking for him (his TARDIS is in her living room). No idea what happens next, but this 44-year-old fanzine story is much more entertaining than any of the nuWho stuff ever was.
