Apparently recognizing and handling fascists.

Reading analog clocks

Meeting up with people, no phone. You arrange a place and a time, and you show up, if the other person isn't there... You wait.

It was super important not to leave people hanging

Navigation. You used to remember the way to all these places. Now it's just on the phone.

Idling away the time, being bored.

Mending clothing, basic auto repair and woodworking.

Want to say general automotive competency. As in you had to deal with carburetors on cold days so you had to adjust intake, spray starting fluid into it, know about oil pressure and warming it up, etc. Some people are barely able to conceptualize putting gas into the thing now.

Knowing the prices of typical appliances and such. Example, modern The Price is Right compared to the 80s and before. 50 years ago, people were more likely to know the prices for a multitude of reasons, one being there were more home owners in those generations who might be looking at replacements or upgrades. Now, home ownership is less and I couldn't begin to tell you the price of a washing machine being a renter.

Cursive writing

Definitely more than 50 years ago, but this little piece of Americana is interesting

Families often had small nail-manufacturing setups in their homes; during bad weather and at night, the entire family might work at making nails for their own use and for barter. Thomas Jefferson wrote in a letter: "In our private pursuits it is a great advantage that every honest employment is deemed honorable. I am myself a nail maker."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nail_(fastener)#History/

Writing thank you cards and letters.

Using a rotary phone. looking up a book in a card catalog. The ability to solve your own problems.

Social skills. Everyone, especially the young, seem more inward focused than ever.

Threading reel to reel tape.

Social Skills. Navigation. Do it yourself. Touching Grass.

Reading cursive writing (especially from the 18th century or earlier).

There is no significant loss in total skill with each newer generation. The paradigm is constantly shifting. Humans have always adapted and learned to manage whatever is readily available to them and how to maintain it. Your parents complain you don't know their vintage skills. You complain they aren't learning new skills. You complain younger people don't know your "necessary" (vintage) skills.

"The children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise" - some guy in 1907 summarizing Greek beliefs.

The generation that can navigate whatever it is kids navigate (flipper zero?) can't modify an OS. The generation that can modify an OS probably can't tune a carburetor. The generation that can tune a carburetor probably can't change a horse shoe. Your skills are based on what you have to do every day. As technology removes the need to manage those things, the skill is lost and new skills replace it.

There were a lot of older ladies sewing when I was growing up. I think nowadays we just throw clothing away and buy new stuff. At least until lately when there was a large middle-class. Typewriter repair was a thing in my town as well.

Critical thinking.

Sewing/mending and other forms of repairing worn items.

Chopping wood, managing a fire.

In the 80s we had to light a wood-fire hot water system. Chopping wood and managing the fire was one of our chores as kids. We had a wood stove in the kitchen too but never cooked with that because we had a gas oven as well.

Photo retouching as a physical trade. Colour photography and instant development killed the art of retouching black and white photos almost from one day to the next, because nobody could retouch colour photos and nobody wanted to pay for retouching black and white photos anymore, when Polaroids were easy to reshoot. My grandparents did it, but had to close the shop in the 1980s. I still have a few of their pens, but most of it ended up in a museum.

50 years ago was in the 1970s. I actually think more skills were lost just in the 20 years prior to that than after. This is due to mass production and plastic, which created the consumer products since the 1960s. Prior to that, you'd actually consider all products (except food) to be a purchase for life.

Pulse dialing (rotary phones)

Learning how to do things yourself because you had to. Now people have an app for getting somone out to hang a picture