1. Joyland Amusement Park, Wichita, Kansas Joyland was the kind of place where kids could ride a wooden coaster that creaked with every turn and parents could relax under the shade of the midway. It opened in 1949 and ran […]
1. Bologna Sandwiches Sometimes the quickest lunch was just two slices of white bread and a cold slab of bologna. If you were lucky, maybe there was a squirt of mustard or a slice of cheese, but often it was
1. Cast-Iron Meat Grinders Back in the day, the hand-cranked cast-iron meat grinder was a common sight on kitchen counters. You’d clamp it to the table, feed chunks of meat through the top, and twist the handle to push it
1. Peanut Butter When peanuts were piling up and going bad before they could be eaten, creative thinkers found a way to grind them into something new. The earliest versions of peanut butter came from people who wanted to stretch
1. The Doll With Missing Eyes Imagine digging up a patch of earth and finding a doll buried face down, its eyes long gone. The dirt had worn its features down until it looked almost human, but not quite. People
1. Orbitz Soda Back in the mid-’90s, Orbitz looked like something out of a science fiction movie. The drink was filled with floating, brightly colored gelatin balls that bobbed around in the bottle, making it feel more like a lava
1. Knocker-Uppers Before alarm clocks became affordable, some people made their living as human alarm clocks, called knocker-uppers. They would walk the streets at dawn, tapping on windows with long sticks or even pea-shooters to wake their clients. It sounds
