This post is part of our series ranking the top 25 bygone products and trends we'd like to see return.

I guess I should have known the end of the phone booth was coming when I first saw the movie Superman in 1978. Christopher Reeve, as Clark Kent, races to a phone booth to change into his costume when he realizes that he's staring at one of those new fangled public telephones -- without the booth.

Phone booths were great in their day, though. If you needed to make a phone call, and it was raining, for instance, you could jump in the booth and talk to your heart's content and your mouth grew weary -- or at least until you ran out of spare change. Then, of course, there was the simple idea of some privacy. You could talk inside a phone booth and its glass walls and not worry about anyone overhearing you -- except possibly the operator.

And, of course, Hollywood loved the phone booth. Two of my more vivid phone booth film memories, aside from Superman, is, of course, Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure -- their time machine was disguised as a telephone booth -- and Cannonball Run. An uptight bureaucrat gets stuck in a phone booth when a car parks next to the door. And, now that I think about it, I think Jack Tripper got stuck in a phone booth in Three's Company. By the time Hollywood came out with Phone Booth in 2003, with Colin Farrell stuck in the thing and trying to survive a sniper attack -- it was a film that seemed kind of quaint. Not surprisingly, the film's screenplay had been written years ago -- I remember reading about the upcoming film somewhere in the mid-1990s.

But phone booths were prone to not just graffiti but vandalism -- a simple rock and glass was too irresistible to some people, apparently -- and it was just cheaper to maintain a phone without the booth.

So, yeah, phone booths are gone -- and even public phones without the booths are on their way out -- thanks to cell phones. But I kind of miss phone booths. Especially when I look at my cell phone bill.

Geoff Williams is a business journalist and the author of C.C. Pyle's Amazing Foot Race: The True Story of the 1928 Coast-to-Coast Run Across America (Rodale).

What obsolete conveniences would you like to see return?

This post is part of our series ranking the top 25 bygone products and trends we'd like to see return.

I've always loved the year I was born -- 1970. To me, it was this perfect time when the world was modern and advanced, and yet still with one foot in this quaint and old-fashioned universe. What do I mean? Well, on one hand, we had traveled to the Moon by this time! Yet the country was still using rotary telephones, there were only three television networks, MTV was just letters in alphabet soup, and, yes, we were listening to vinyl albums.

I almost missed that era -- I didn't really start buying music semi-regularly until the early 1980s and 45 rpms, the small version of the big vinyl records, were going out of style, as were the bigger vinyl albums, being replaced by cassette tapes. But vinyl records were still selling in the 1980, and I clearly remember when Bruce Willis, then star of TV's Moonlighting, came out with a single, "Respect Yourself." I probably bicycled over to my local K-mart, or embarked on one of my early drives in the family car, bought the 45 and happily listened to it in my room, taking a brief break from listening to my favorite artists, Huey Lewis and Debbie Gibson.

Ah, good times.

Anyway, the beauty of the 45 was that -- unlike today -- you could buy a song for a buck and you didn't have to purchase the entire album. That's sadly something that kids... er... oh, yeah. Downloadable, often for free if illegal, music.

So you may well wonder, especially if you're under the age of 30, why anyone would want the 45's to come back. I do think I have one good argument.

This post is part of our series ranking the top 25 bygone products and trends we'd like to see return.

My first real job outside of babysitting was for an odd local fast food chain in Portland, Ore. called "Arctic Circle." We were famous for three things: our fry sauce, our enormous taco salads, and our milk shakes. The milk shakes were made with soft serve ice cream, seasonal mix-ins, and real milk, mixed in old-fashioned steel cups. I still remember the grinding noise of the milkshake blades grazing the edge of the cup, and working the milk machine, purposely making a shake that was far too much to fit in the cup so I could pour the leftovers into a little cup and indulge.

Unfortunately, today's milkshake is barely recognizable compared to those of the middle of the century. Most milkshakes consumed by Americans today come from McDonald's, Wendy's or Starbucks; where they are all individually "branded", Shamrock Shake, Frosty, Frappuccino, so that it's clear the milk is but a minor player. Nonfat milk solids, corn syrup solids, guar gum, dextrose, cellulose gum, vanillan. Is this progress?

Not in my book. Give me simple ice cream (maybe even made with actual cream!), a handful of berries or a teaspoonful of vanilla, and a nice pull from the milk machine. Mix it up with the original "immersion blender," pour it thickly into a glass, and give me a long-handled spoon. Now that is a milkshake.

What soda fountain treat do you miss the most?

This post is part of our series ranking the top 25 bygone products and trends we'd like to see return.

If I had a time machine, the first place I'd go would be back into the 1970s, to visit a Howard Johnson's.

OK, maybe, actually, it wouldn't be the first place I'd go. I'd enjoy seeing dinosaurs from a distance, touring the Roman Empire, and I'd have to try to get Abraham Lincoln's autograph. There's no way I wouldn't visit the 1920s, an era I'm fascinated with, and come to think of it, I'd have to check out one of Shakespeare's plays, and... well... okay, Howard Johnson's may not be the first place I'd visit. But I would want to go there.

In fact, now that I think about it, it probably would be my second or third stop. Running from dinosaurs would be thirsty work.

Back in the 1970s, when I was a kid, I didn't know it then, but whenever my grandparents took my parents, younger brother and I out to a Howard Johnson's for breakfast, lunch or dinner or just an ice cream -- we did it all -- we were engaging in a part of American dining history that had encompassed much of the 20th century.

This post is part of our series ranking the top 25 bygone products and trends we'd like to see return.

Neither my husband nor my eldest son will eat pie crust. As I believe my talents in the pie department are at least an A-, it's my theory that the vast majority of today's pies have so disappointed the two that they're helplessly pessimistic, certain that every pie is encased in the same rubbery, tasteless mess. Rather than suffer through such a simpering shell, they dig out the middle.

If only the first pie they'd eaten had been made with lard.

My mother made pie crusts with lard when I was a girl, and I grew up with the firm belief that there was no better part of the pie than the crust. I can recall vividly arguing with my siblings over who would get the piece with the sloppiest-hanging-over-the-edges-iest portion of flaky pastry. Pie experts know that lard "makes the flakiest, most flavorful crust known to man." It's due to the chemistry of lard's lipids, which form unusually large crystals.

Worried about lard's unhealthy reputation? First, you shouldn't be eating enough pie so that it's an enormous portion of your diet, anyway. But second, it's a rich dietary source of Vitamin D, and is actually only 40% saturated fat; 50% is the healthy monounsaturated fat. So if you can find a good source of lard without additives, a good pie crust with lard can make a comeback in your kitchen.

And maybe mine too. Now if I can just coax my husband to try a bite...

What home cooked foods do you remember best?

This post is part of our series ranking the top 25 bygone products and trends we'd like to see return.

Ive 2 ADmre a gNR8N dat hs lrnD 2 liv w/o vowels. Textglish is so much more efficient, allowing the young to increase the speed of their communications while keeping anyone over 30 from understanding them. Thumbspeak messages can be composed one-handed under the desk away from the teacher's eyes. Messages can be keyed while driving 70 mph, or blindfolded, or both.

Also benefiting from the new language are stockholders of cell phone companies, who are making fortunes from text-addicts who send "Wassup" to their friends every hour on the hour. Who would be so callous as to put a dollar value on friendship, though? As the bard so eloquently wrote, "I count Mself n Ø Ls so happy As ina soul rememberN my gud F?"- Shakespeare, Richard II

Nonetheless, I have a soft spot in my heart for vowels, probably because I labored so long to learn them. Or perhaps because I still hope to collect on my ex-friend's IOU.

What out of fashion forms of communications do you miss?

This post is part of our series ranking the top 25 bygone products and trends we'd like to see return.

Before Martha Stewart was even born; when Mid-Century Modern was in the future; before anyone had come up with the moniker "shelter mag," House & Garden magazine had already hit its stride. The magazine was launched in 1901 as an architecture journal, and was transformed into one of the first publications about interior design when the legendary Conde Nast took over a decade later.

While House & Garden would go through several rough spots (notably, being renamed "HG" when Anna Wintour, later to be the famous "Devil" and Vogue editor, was editor-in-chief), even closing down for a few years in the early 1990s, it was still always at the top of the list of venerable magazine titles. But in November 2007, Conde Nast announced abruptly that the December issue would be the magazine's last.

It was a personnel issue that prompted the magazine's closure; its publisher had left a month earlier, abruptly, after having set an awkward direction for advertisers. The declining ad revenue, housing downturn and rudder-less staff meant a turnaround would be slow and expensive; Conde Nast's management didn't have the stomach for it.

The magazine's departure, though, didn't sit well with its loyal readers' stomachs, and they've been clamoring to get the stylish title back (along with its vivid and talented editor, Dominique Browning) since the announcement was made. What will it take to give H&G one more life? We don't know, but we're certainly eager to see it happen.

Which defunct magazines do you miss?