It's 2025. What things don't you miss now that used to be commonplace?

[The Salt Umpire]

About 10 years ago, the company I was working for was moving offices. During the cleanup, someone found an old typewritten office memo outlining the office's smoking policies from days gone by. Looking at it from my perspective, it was wild. You could basically smoke at work all you wanted, as long as you used the ashtrays, and put your cigarettes out properly when you were done. I think the thing that stood out the most was that the policy stated that even if you were a non-smoker, you had to remember to leave your company-supplied ashtray on your desk at all times, in consideration of smokers who dropped by to talk to you!

1) I have seen people with traches put a cigarette in their throat
2) I don't know if these are urban legends or not, but I've heard of smokers blowing up their 02 tank
3) Remember buying a used car that smelt of smoke? You never get all the smell out

So glad I never caught the addiction. Maybe 'cause I grew up around smokers and was repelled by the door.

 

[Pumpkin Bread]

In many ways, I think the no-smoking rules are still relatively recent. To see so many pro-smoking rules even in the mid 80's is wild though.

People hadn't realized the danger of sidestream smoke yet. They knew it was dangerous for the smoker, but not so much for those around him.

 

[DarrenTR1970]

I'm trying to remember the last time I was in a restaurant with a Smoking and a Non-Smoking section, and the only thing I can think of would have been in the early nineties at my cousin's high school graduation. We went to a restaurant and, while we were waiting to be seated, another cousin and myself went to the bar and had a drink and appetizers, and they were definitely smoking in there.

 

[Tim Walker]

You and me both. Got asked if I'd attend a reunion, and my reply was 'expletive of your choice no'. I've no desire to experience my classmates again.

You reminded me...my class (of '75) would have had their 50th high school reunion this year. As I was bullied in high school, it never bothered me that I never received invitations for any of the reunions.

 

[The Friendly Jewish Ghost]

This is turning into the "smoking sucked!" thread. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but do you remember anything else from bygone days that you're glad is gone now?

 

[Pumpkin Bread]

You reminded me...my class (of '75) would have had their 50th high school reunion this year. As I was bullied in high school, it never bothered me that I never received invitations for any of the reunions.

35th for me. No invitations either. Wonder if there were any... I was practically within walking range of my high school.

 

[Owain Taggart]

People hadn't realized the danger of sidestream smoke yet. They knew it was dangerous for the smoker, but not so much for those around him.

Yeah, I seem to remember it was around the 90's where they really started taking that seriously. And now we know second-hand smoke can be as much a cause of cancer, and it makes sense, because if a smoker is not only filling their lungs with it but is surrounded by the smoke, then why wouldn't it affect those they're around?

And thinking back to that poster in the movie and the patients smoking in their beds, the smoke affecting those around them, ewww, just gross.

I'm trying to remember the last time I was in a restaurant with a Smoking and a Non-Smoking section, and the only thing I can think of would have been in the early nineties at my cousin's high school graduation. We went to a restaurant and, while we were waiting to be seated, another cousin and myself went to the bar and had a drink and appetizers, and they were definitely smoking in there.

I'm thinking 94-95, and maybe it depended on the different parts of the world, but yeah, definitely around that time.

 

[Faintly Macabre]

This is turning into the "smoking sucked!" thread. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but do you remember anything else from bygone days that you're glad is gone now?

I can think of things that I am glad are gone:

Coal fires and the pollution caused (plus they took a lot of work);
Doing the laundry by hand (my mother got her first automatic washing machine when I was 18 and I am old enough to remember coppers, mangles and dollies);
Outside lavatories and tin-baths-in-front-of-the-kitchen-fire;
Leaded petrol;
The hole in the ozone layer;
People dying of whooping cough.

but I am old and the UK and Europe suffered more from the Second World War than the USA did.

By the 1980s, the big changes, the big gains had been made. For people for whom "bygone days" are the 1980s, the pendulum was starting to swing against social improvements and governments interested in the general public, and towards profit and big companies. There weren't as many significant improvements and positive changes that had been made were starting to be rolled back. Things that were (and are) trumpeted as "improvements" rarely offered any real advantages, frequently had significant downsides but were cheap and profitable.