When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were. When they were growing up; what with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning .... Uphill ... Barefoot ... in the snow …BOTH ways. yadda, yadda, yadda.
And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way in hell I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on my kids about how hard I had it and how easy they've got it!
But now that I'm over the ripe old age of forty, I can't help but look around and notice the youth of today. You've got it so easy! I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a damn Utopia!
And I hate to say it, but you kids today, you don't know how good you've got it!
1) I mean, when I was a kid we didn't have the Internet. If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the damn library and look it upourselves, in the card catalog!!
2) There was no email!! We had to actually write somebody a letter - with a pen! Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox, and it would take like a week to get there! Stamps were 10 cents!
3) Child Protective Services didn't care if our parents beat us. As a matter of fact, the parents of all my friends also had permission to kick our ass! Nowhere was safe!
4) There were no MP3's or Napsters or iTunes! If you wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the record store and shoplift it yourself!
5) Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio, and the DJ would usually talk over the beginning and @#*% it all up! There were no CD players! We had tape decks in our car. We'd play our favorite tape and "eject" it when finished, and then the tape would come undone rendering it useless. Cause, hey, that's how we rolled, Baby! Dig?
6) We didn't have fancy crap like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called, they got a busy signal, that's it!
Right. Please! You kids have no idea how annoying you are.
8) And we didn't have fancy Caller ID either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! It could be your school, your parents, your boss, your bookie, your drug dealer, the collection agent... you just didn't know!!! You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!
9) We didn't have any fancy PlayStation or Xbox video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games like 'Space Invaders' and 'Asteroids'. Your screen guy was a little square! You actually had to use your imagination!!! And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen... Forever! And you could never win. The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died! Just like LIFE!
10) You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on! You were screwed when it came to channel surfing! You had to get off your ass and walk over to the TV to change the channel!!! NO REMOTES!!! Oh, no, what's the world coming to?
11) There was no Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons on Saturday Morning. Do you hear what I'm saying? We had to wait ALL WEEK for cartoons, you spoiled little rat-bastards!
12) And we didn't have microwaves. If we wanted to heat something up, we had to use the stove! Imagine that!
13) And our parents told us to stay outside and play... all day long. Oh, no, no electronics to soothe and comfort. And if you came back inside... you were doing chores!
14) And car seats - oh, please! Mom threw you in the back seat and you hung on. If you were lucky, you got the "safety arm" across the chest at the last moment if she had to stop suddenly, and if your head hit the dashboard, well that was your fault for calling "shot gun" in the first place!
15) See! That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it too easy. You're spoiled rotten! You guys wouldn't have lasted five minutes back in 1970 or any time before!
Regards, the Over 40 Crowd
-------------------- Si Allen #562 La Mirada, CA. USA
(714) 521-4810
si.allen on Skype
siallen@dslextreme.com
"SignPainters do It with Longer Strokes!"
Never mess with your profile while in a drunken stupor!!!
Brushasaurus on Chat Posts: 8827 | From: La Mirada, CA, USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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no flame inhibitators in our food, no a bomb or terror to have nightmares about, no sex advisors in every magazine and no drugdealers on every corner either
-------------------- Stein Saether GullSkilt AS Trondheim Posts: 1183 | From: Trondheim Norway | Registered: Nov 1998
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Hate to spoil it Stein but we had air raid drills, everyone in the hall against the walls, sitting with your head down and covered. Atomic testing on TV showing those horrible mushroom clouds over & over. Even Ed Sullivan had occasional film clips of the Russian bombers. Sputnik went up and the next thing would be Commie ICBM's raining down on the cities. At least the cars were cool, but wouldn't start in the winter unless you gapped the points and plugs every 10,000 miles, a battery lasting more than 3 years or a car still running after 100,000 was a miracle, plus they rusted. I sure liked the music better.
-------------------- Eric Elmgren ericsignguy@comcast.net A & E Graphic Signs Park Ridge, IL "The future isn't what it used to be" -Yogi Berra Posts: 192 | From: PARK RIDGE, ILLINOIS | Registered: Aug 2009
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Actually Si we did have remotes for our black and white tv sets,I ought to know I was one,..my dad would say,..."Timmy go change the channel" and I knew better than to challenge him after the first and only try to get out of that responsibility,..hahahahahahah
edited to add,...I got very adept at adjusting those old black and white sets and learned alot about antenna's in the process,(rabbit ears w/ aluminum foil,..rotating roof units later on)
-------------------- fly low...timi/NC is, Tim Barrow Barrow Art Signs Winston-Salem,NC Posts: 2224 | From: Winston-Salem,NC,USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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quote:and I knew better than to challenge him after the first and only try to get out of that responsibility
Gotta laugh about that Tim.
I remember challenging my dad at age 16 about a girlfriend he didn't approve of.
I got about half way through "I'll date who I want..." Next thing I remember was waking up on the lawn with a very sore jaw!!!
Dad was a lot tougher than me in those days!!!
-------------------- Dave Grundy retired in Chelem,Yucatan,Mexico/Hensall,Ontario,Canada 1-519-262-3651 Canada 011-52-1-999-102-2923 Mexico cell 1-226-785-8957 Canada/Mexico home
My mind wanders. And that's not a good thing, 'cause it's too small to be out there alone. Posts: 3129 | From: Tooele, UT | Registered: Mar 2005
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We only had 12 channels...2-13...Never was a channel 1. Never figured out why that was?
I know someone is gonna enlighten me on that one!!!
Now we have 292 channels of crap and 8 movie channels.
-------------------- Dave Grundy retired in Chelem,Yucatan,Mexico/Hensall,Ontario,Canada 1-519-262-3651 Canada 011-52-1-999-102-2923 Mexico cell 1-226-785-8957 Canada/Mexico home
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The "13 channels" are from Pink Floyd lyrics, but it really is interesting how we kept ourselves entertained with so few. I think we had 5 or 6 actual channels back then and now you can have 30, or 300, or 3000 channels and STILL not find anything worth watching.
My mind wanders. And that's not a good thing, 'cause it's too small to be out there alone. Posts: 3129 | From: Tooele, UT | Registered: Mar 2005
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We had an egg man and a bread man who had donuts, the dry cleaners man, the milk man, the can/rag man, Azzie who mowed our grass with a push mower and the TV man who came out with a suitcase of tubes that looked like Einstein needed to figure out what was wrong with the idiot box. We only had three channels of TV, CBS, NBC and ABC, but we did have two radio stations that played rock 'n roll. In the summer we had a window unit that cooled the dining room and living room where we all camped out when it was hot and a couple times a summer we would drive all night to Colorado to cool off. Weather radar was in its infancy and whenever the sirens went off all the neighbors came over because we had a finished basement and my old man had a bar. Mom would fix appetizers of Ritz crackers and Deviled Ham. One time a twister ripped off the neighbor's roof and set it under my old man's Caddilac. The car was untouched and he drove it right off.
Griff's Burger Bar was the new hit before McD's. Hamburges were 15c, fries a dime and a coke was a nickle. Pizza Hut started in Wichita, so once a month dad would start and get us a pie carry out. Pepperoni seemed like a rare delicasy. Carl Bell's delivered groceries. You would just call in your order and they delivered them in cardborad boxes whether you were home or not. They even put into the reefer whatever needed to stay cold.
On Halloween we would go to the Lear's house (Lear jet fame). Mrs. Lear gave out fruit! Where were the snickers or butterfingers, Mrs. Gotrocks? Olive Anne Beech had a butler give out bubblegum, but at least five pieces per bag.
My grandparents lived a block away, so whenever I heard we were having liver or beets, I biked it over the their house for a real dinner of beef and potatoes. In late June, I sold all my pop bottles and rode my Schwinn over to Mr. Kelly's where I could buy a 400 pack of Black Cats for a dollar. Cherry bombs and M-80s were $3.60 a half gross under counter only. Sometimes they had Silver Salutes or Can Openers (other illegal big firecrackers).
Gas was 19.9c and I remember seeing it go down to 15.9c in a gas war. It cost us about five bucks to heat the house with gas for a month! Our first color TV cost over $500. My first job in high school paid me $1 an hour working at the Pontiac store parking cars and dusting them, but I had already been working for the old man at his car lot since I was six....and yes, I still have the first money he ever paid me...a 1943 copper Mexican Centavos! I used it to buy an ice cream cone at the Dockum's drug store down the street from the car lot and the dollies made my old man take back the Mexican money for the dime he owed them. I remember going in there and looking up at the high bar stools at the fountain, not imagining how I could get up there. They never let him get over the fact that he was paying his kid with Mexican money! I earned that money digging weeds out of the sidewalk with a kitchen knife for hours. I still hate grass that grows in sidewalks, but somehow that 20c piece is still in my drawer of old money.
-------------------- Preston McCall 112 Rim Road Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 text: 5056607370 Posts: 1552 | From: Santa Fe, New Mexico | Registered: Nov 1998
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Our soda came in the form of seltzer bottles that were delivered by the case with a squirter on top and the flavors came in jars you bought either at A&P or the delivery guy. Sure you could buy a bottle of Coca Cola but the syrup was the way to go
-------------------- HotLines Joey Madden - pinstriping since 1952 'Perfection, its what I look for and what I live for'
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My dad bought one of the first black & white TV's in our town...a 12 inch Crosley. We got 3 channels. They were on air from 6 in the morning til 11:30 at nite, and you could always find something decent to watch. Ten times that on air today, and look at the crap we've got on now.
My uncle, who lived with us, got what was called a remote control. It was basically two long rods, in about 3 jointed sections, with a clamping thingee on one end, that clamped onto the TV knobs. The other ends had little handles to turn. Theoretically, you could sit in a chair, ten feet away from the TV, and change the channels. It turned out to be a piece of crap. Imagine that.
We used to ride our bikes up to a neighboring community,about ten miles away, to a new dairy store, to get ice cream cones. You could get 5 dips of ice cream for a quarter. That riding all those miles probably negated the effects of the ice cream. Course, in those days, there weren't any published concerns about saturated fats or the evils of cigarettes, or any of that stuff.
If my mom ever knew how far we went on some our bike hikes, she'd probably die. We made many trips to nearby towns,some were 40+ miles,round-trip. I guess it helped keep us in good physical shape, and as long as we didn't get run over, it served to occupy a great portion of our idle time. As a side note, in seventh grade,I held the jr. high record for the longest running broad jump, for over nine years. Bike muscles!
We got eggs from my great uncle's farm. Mom fixed soft boiled eggs, cottled eggs, scrambled eggs, poached eggs, and umpteen other different types of eggs that you would never dream of eating without getting sick today.
Same for chickens. My grandpa used to bring a chicken home from the farm every Sunday, and kill it, so grandma could fix it for dinner. No health concerns for that either. Course, many of the negative effects of the chicken were probably cancelled out by grandma's homemade lemon chiffon pie.
Obesity wasn't much of an issue either. Aside from having to ride our bikes almost everywhere we went, we played outside. There were no video games or computers to make couch potatoes out of us. We played baseball, football, shot baskets, played gang catchers, played war, cowboys and indians, and were pretty much on the move, from sunrise to dark.
As a kid, the first phones I remember, still had an operator. When you wanted to make a call, pick up the phone, ane the operator would say, "number puleeuz". We didn't have all numbers; each area had an exchange; ours was WILLOW. "I'd like WIllow 4299". She'd say, "That's WIllow fower, two, niyun, niyun, correct?" It was kinda comical how they distorted the numbers.
We didn't know how bad we had it then....or did we have it so bad?
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Timi beat me to it. We had a remote on our first TV, and it was "VOICE ACTIVATED" dad would tell me which channel he wanted, or how much to turn the volume up or down.
We also had to listen to HOW the phone rang to know if we were supposed to answer it or not. The call could be for someone else on the "PARTY LINE"
As far as caller ID... When I was in my teens I was sitting home alone one night watching one of the 3 TV stations when the phone rang. Of course I was in the living room, and I had to get up and go to the kitchen to answer it(no cordless phones)and it wasn't even a commercial. When I picked up the phone, there was no one there. I hung it up and got back to the living room just as the commercials started. This happened several times, and on the 5th call I had tired of having to miss my show and go to the kitchen to answer the phone with no one on the other end(but you HAD to answer because we didn't have machines to do that). Being in my teens, I thought I was pretty clever, so on the 5th phone call I picked up the receiver and said,"Hulsey's donkey farm, which ass would youu like to speak to."... My Dad's boss replied,"Donnie, is that you?" I told him he had a wrong number and hung up. Of course I had used the name, so it didn't work. The next day my Dad gave me a short lesson on the proper way to answer a telephone.
-------------------- Don Hulsey Strokes by DON signs Utica, KY 270-275-9552 sbdsigns@aol.com
I've always been crazy... but it's kept me from going insane. Posts: 2273 | From: Utica, KY U.S.A. | Registered: Jan 1999
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Dale I can remember after milking the cows and robbing the hens for eggs the milkman would come and trade those old glass bottles with paper tops of homogenized milk for the butter Grandma would churn and her excess cream from the process,(we were well off, she had an electric butter churn)..we would let the milk sit for an hour or so so the cream would separate from the milk,..needless to say if we drank any milk at her house it was "skim" milk,..go figure,...my grandpa would kill a hog and or a cow and then go trade a third to half of the animal with the meat packer to dress and butcher the meat which we kept in an old freezer.We lived about twenty miles from any sort of town so he would go to the mill at harvest time and have them grind our wheat and dried corn to flour and cornmeal,for bread(bisquits) and cornbread,...I still remember those huge 100 lb flour sacks made of cloth,....
[ January 15, 2011, 10:32 AM: Message edited by: Tim Barrow ]
-------------------- fly low...timi/NC is, Tim Barrow Barrow Art Signs Winston-Salem,NC Posts: 2224 | From: Winston-Salem,NC,USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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OK...I'll chime in. My mother made all my shirts from feed sacks. She would go to the farm supply with my Dad to buy feed and pick out which bags she wanted in order to make my shirts. The feed inside was all the same, just different patterns on the cloth sacks.
She took the scraps and made them into quilts. I still have a quilt she made for me when I graduated high school made from my shirt scraps.
She made quilts for each of us boys and our children. They were all pieced together by hand - no machine work.
-------------------- Chapman Sign Studio Temple, Texas chapmanstudio@sbcglobal.net Posts: 6306 | From: Temple, Texas, USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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We've still got some of that around, Ray. My uncle used to work for a grain company, and used to bring feed sack material home. We had many feed sack shirts, growing up, and my wife still has some of that old material my aunt used in the 50's. She makes quilts and old timey craft items too, also hand-sewn. Neat.
It's amazing that old material hasn't rotted, after all these years, but it's not.
-------------------- Dale Feicke Grafix 714 East St. Mendenhall, MS 39114
"I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me." Posts: 2963 | From: Mendenhall, MS | Registered: Apr 1999
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