When I was a kid!
 

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 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 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!

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 up ourselves, in the card catalog!!

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!

There were no MP3's or Napsters! You wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the damn record store and shoplift it yourself! Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio and the DJ'd usually talk over the beginning and screw it all up!

And talk of about hardship? You couldn't just go downloading pornography! You had
to steal it from your brother or bribe some homeless dude to buy you a copy of Hustler" at the 7-11! Those were your options!

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!

And we didn't have fancy Caller ID Boxes either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! It could be your school, your mom, your boss, your bookie, a collections agent, you just didn't know!!! You had to pick it up and take your
chances, mister!

We didn't have any fancy Sony Playstation video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games like "Space Invaders" and asteroids" and the graphics sucked! Your 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!

When you went to the movie theater there no such thing as stadium seating! All the seats were the same height! If a tall guy or some old broad with a hat sat in front of you and you couldn't see, you were just screwed!

Sure, we had cable television, but back then that was only like 15 channels and there was no onscreen menu and no remote control! 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 and 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!

And we didn't have microwaves, if we wanted to heat something up. We had to use the stove or go build a frigging fire ... Imagine that! If we wanted popcorn, we had to use that stupid JiffyPop thing and shake it over the stove forever like an idiot.

That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it too easy. You're spoiled.

You guys wouldn't have lasted five minutes back in 1970!


Regards,

-The 40 plus Crowd

I STILL have an Atari 2600. :D

Atari?

Remember when the only games were the ones in the Sunday paper.

wow, Tess said "diatribes" te he!

i remember only having a coal fire as heating, and in the winter we used to hae ice on the windows... then came central heating, double glazing and a very confused child wondering why on earth Dad would get ice on his windows

and get this, only yesterday I showed her my collection of singles and albums that got unpacked - first time she'd seen any.

yup things have moved on a tad

ROFLMAO :D :D

I know exactly how you feel Tess. :) I have been down the same path and even beyond. And as your prospective has changed over the decades, so has mine. The points of you ‘deprivity’ [got that word from my Lixtionary;)] are jokes to me in the same way your kids ‘privilege’ are to you. I’ve even gotten to the plateau with reflection in both directions and truly wonder how my parents and grandparents truly functioned on a daily basis.

I’ve come to the conclusion that it was no worse from their prospective of the time than ours was for us in whatever our time point was. We actually felt pretty cool about ourselves and the ‘modern day’ we lived in. And we now look back with some fondness :rolleyes: to the common implements of our youth. There is no question that technology available to the ‘common person’ has continued to accelerate since the end of WWII and each age group readily accepts their environment as the standard nor. Only with the compounding broadening of comparison can we gage a change.

When you laughed at you 15 channel cable TV, I had to chuckle with memories of the round, 8-10 inch, black and white Fuzzy Vision that first entered our home. My parents were as proud of that as my grandparents had had been of acquiring a way to light up a room by turning a switch and having their own box of crackling sounds.

I have a hunch your kids can’t imagine using a telephone that had you ‘tethered’ to the wall any more than you can recall a phone that took two hands to use or the fact you used it when the other ‘party’ wasn’t on the line.

I remember going to a petrol station waaaaaay back in northern New South Wales where the attendant used a hand pumped (no electricity) bowser, where you pumped the fuel into a measured glass container at the top of the bowser, then allowed it to flow into the tank. Filling a tank may require multiple pumps.

I rang my parents from there, the only time I ever used a rotary (crank) telephone.

I wonder if that's where the expression "crank phone call" comes from?

This was 1971.

I remember one black and white TV in the house that only received 3 stations. The parents bought some cheesy plastic piece of crap that was different colors; it was supposed to "simulate" color TV.

I grew up in the 80's, but i have fond memories of Saturday morning cartoons. I would wake up about 5 am, get my blanket, pillow and couch cusions to make a "nest". Then it was off to the kitchen to make a bowl of cereal--*gasp* I had to add my own sugar! then i'd stare at the test screen until 5:30 when the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show came on. I'd watch cartoons until noon when all there was to watch was sports and *gasp* go. out. side. and. play! My dear mother would almost have to bribe me to come inside for supper at night!

There's more than 3 stations? :confused:










lmao :D to me that went without saying. lol Now there are 11 local broadcast station without cable. The nightly news was 15 minutes TOTAL. 5 minutes for the weather forecast, 5 minutes for sports scores and 5 for the all incompassing news.

We must have been in a better area, we got 4 stations. Our PBS station just celebrated their 50th yr of service. And I remember when the came on the air. I had to turn the dial one more click between cartoons. :D

Three stations and we'd occationally have to adjust the antena on the roof to get those to come in decently.

I will say this, one of my favorite childhood moments was when my father and his two brothers were regaling all of us of their hardships growing up. They grew up on a farm and I know that many were true, but after telling us about walking to school (uphill both ways in the snow) my grandmother leaned over, rolled her eyes and said, "They took the bus" :)

And after John Cameron Swayze finished the news it was time for 15 min of Kukla, Fran, and Ollie.

I thought that things had changed alot,when our kids were growing up!There
is REALLY a differance,with our grandkids.I graduated HS in 1961,enlisted in
Aug of 1961 & was honerably discharged in Aug 1965.I remember, if I should ask my parents,to spend $7.00 on a plastic toy lever action rifle,that I
wanted for Christmas.Last year,my grandaughter,told my oldest daughter,that
she wanted one of her presents,to be a lap-top computer!
When I was 15,I was pissed that gas for my lawnmower,went to .25gal.I had
8-9 lawns to cut & it made my profits less.My grandsons think that manual
labor is someone of spanish desent! Irish :eek:

ON THE LIGHTER SIDE


Tim McGraw said it in a song.....

Back When by Tim McGraw

Don't you remember
The fizz in a pepper
Peanuts in a bottle
At ten, two and four
A fried bologna sandwich
With mayo and tomato
Sittin' round the table
Don't happen much anymore

We got too complicated
It's all way over-rated
I like the old and out-dated
Way of life

Back when a hoe was a hoe
Coke was a coke
And crack's what you were doing
When you were cracking jokes
Back when a screw was a screw
The wind was all that blew
And when you said I'm down with that
Well it meant you had the flu
I miss back when
I miss back when
I miss back when

I love my records
Black, shiny vinyl
Clicks and pops
And white noise
Man they sounded fine
I had my favorite stations
The ones that played them all
Country, soul and rock-and-roll
What happened to those times?

I'm readin' Street Slang For Dummies
Cause they put pop in my country
I want more for my money
The way it was back then

Back when a hoe was a hoe
Coke was a coke
And crack's what you were doing
When you were cracking jokes
Back when a screw was a screw
The wind was all that blew
And when you said I'm down with that
Well it meant you had the flu
I miss back when
I miss back when
I miss back when

And another one.....


Nineteen Something

I saw Star Wars at least eight times,
Had the Pacman pattern memorized
And I've seen the stuff they put inside Stretch Armstrong

Well I was Roger Stauback in my backyard,
Had a shoebox full of baseball cards,
And a couple of Evil Knievil scars on my right arm

Well I was a kid when Elvis died,
And my mama cried.

It was 1970 somethin', in the world that I grew up in.
Farrah Fawcett hair-do days, bellbottoms and 8-track tapes.
Looking back now, I can see me.
Oh man, did I look cheesy.
I wouldn't trade those days for nothin',
Oh it was 1970 somethin'.

It was the dawning of a new decade,
When we got our first microwave.
Dad broke down and finally shaved them old sideburns off.

I took the stickers off my Rubik's cube,
Watched MTV all afternoon.
My first love was Daisy Duke in them cutoff jeans.

Space shuttle fell out of the sky,
And the whole world cried.

It was 1980 somethin', in the world that I grew up in.
Skating rinks and black Trans-Ams, big hair and parachute pants.
And looking back now, I can see me.
And oh man, did I look cheesy.
I wouldn't trade those days for nothin',
Oh it was 1980 somethin'.

Now I've got a mortgage and an SUV
But all this responsibility
Makes me wish – sometimes -
It was 1980 something, in the world that I grew up in.
Skating rinks and black Trans-Ams, big hair and parachute pants.
And looking back now, I can see me.
Oh man, did I look cheesy.
I wouldn't trade those days for nothin',
Oh it was 1980 somethin'.

19 Seventy Somethin'
Oh it was 19 somethin'.