When I was a kid....

[SUBMAN1]

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
Thirty, 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 @#*% it all up!
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, your drug dealer,
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 Play station video Games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games Like 'Space Invaders' and 'asteroids'.
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 on screen 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 Jiffy Pop 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 1980!

Regards,
The over 30 Crowd

[Sailor Steve]

:rotfl:

Of course I go back a few more than that. No cable TV - five channels and no rabbit ears. I remember my dad going up on the roof and fiddling with the antenna until the picture looked sort of-almost-maybe good.

My daughter once asked me what kind of computer I had when I was her age. When I told her we didn't have computers at all she stared at me and then said "No, really. What kind of computer did you have?"

I remember Jiffy-Pop! I could never get it to work right...kind of like microwave popcorn. But then cooking it on the stove seems to be a lost art.

No cell phones either. Ever have your dad say "GET OFF THE PHONE! I'M WAITING FOR AN IMPORTANT CALL!"?

[jpm1]

1 week for a mail , i lived in Colombia when i was a kid when we wrote to the family in Europe it took 3 monthes for the letter to arrive concerning the Amiga the caution message about epilepsy we see in the games date from this time i still remember the electronics bips and the games one couldn't end because of the difficulty . i agree life's too easy for kids today but in the same time i'm sure our parents could have said the same concerning our lives :rotfl:

[bookworm_020]

The time before ATM's, internet, credit cards, VCR's, microwaves, personal computers (before C64's and the other tape loading computers!), FM radio and sunday shopping. I can remember!:up:

Boy that does bring back memories!:roll:

[Monica Lewinsky]

When I was a kid, "D" batteries just got invented, back then they were the rage and cool to have/own.

Way back then there was the adventure series BOOKS - yea you were FORCED to READ a book, by Tom Swift. "Tom Swift and the Nuclear Caves of Fire" was my first book- was a COOL thing to do in 1959 - READ and imagine an adventure. Now considered - boring. :(

[bookworm_020]

Way back then there was the adventure series BOOKS - yea you were FORCED to READ a book, by Tom Swift. "Tom Swift and the Nuclear Caves of Fire" was my first book- was a COOL thing to do in 1959 - READ and imagine an adventure. Now considered - boring. :(

Be careful what you say next about books and reading. I'm a librarian and I'm not afraid to SHHHH! you!:yep:

[Platapus]

Kids, I don't know what's wrong with these kids today

Kids, who can understand anything they say

Kids, they are so ridiculous and so immature

Noisy, lazy, sloppy crazy loafers, and while we are on the subject

Kids, you can talk and talk to your face is blue

Kids, they only do what they want to

Why can't they be like we were

Perfect in every way

What's the matter with kids these days

<bowing>

[Rhodes]

Sure, we had cable television, but back then that Was only like 15 channels And there was no on screen menu and no remote Control!


In your contry, since this in mine, at the same time we got 2 Tv channels, and the second only opened at 4 or 5 o'clock in the afternoon...;) But at 6 we got the dukes of hazzard....:lol:

[Tchocky]

Kids today are always troublesome :p

[kurtz]

Away from my books at the moment but their is a record of a guy in the 14th/15th centuries going on about the introduction of chimneys as he thought the smoke cured diseases and that was why kids in (his) modern times always had coughs and sneezes. My Parents blamed it on central heating:hmm:

[AVGWarhawk]

I had to laugh the other day. My 10 year old daughter was explaining to me a device she saw on TV. She said it went tap, tap, tap and the paper was in this thing that went to one side and a bell would go off. At that point, the user pushed the paper holder to the other side and started tap, tap, tap again. I fell off my chair....I said it was a typewriter honey. :rotfl: This is what I used in college but I was ahead of the game. It was a Smith Corona and electric:D.


TV, we had about 10 stations that came in good with the rabbit ears. Yes, cartoons were for Saturday morning. However, I did get to watch the Three Stooges before school. Cable did not show up until I was about 14 years old.

I could go into the druggist and get my Mom cigarettes without being ID'd. It was $1.00 for two packs of cigarettes. However, model glue was a different story. Mom and Dad had to be called by the store owner if kids were buying model glue. Apparently the stuff was darn potent back then if sniffing it was your thing. :o


The internet was a group of books called encyclopedias. A guy would sell sets from door to door.

There are numerous others but most covered in the first post.

[clive bradbury]

Talking of ATMs, does anyone else remember the first designs? It would be the late 1970s, and Barclays introduced an ATM which used paper vouchers. They were about six inches by three, and worth (I think) about £10 each. To use it you pulled open a drawer, placed the voucher on two lugs, and push the drawer back in. If you were lucky and didn't crease the paper, you got a ten pound note back.

Anyone else ever use them?

[clive bradbury]

Further to the above, a bit of web research shows that they were indeed first introduced (in the UK at least) by Barclays in 1967 - no photos, yet, unfortunately. Did you have them in the USA?

[clive bradbury]

Ah...now a photo:

http://www.atmmarketplace.com/article.php?id=8541

Apparently this was the world's first, and the vouchers WERE for £10 each - so my memory isn't quite as poor as my wife says...

[AVGWarhawk]

Check out the first fax machine...note the rotory dial. This was high tech stuff in my day:shifty:

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1250/1409476664_026b0d532c_o.jpg

[Platapus]

I remember my father using a Marine Midland bank "teller by starlight" back in the late 60's or perhaps 1970. That was on the east coast.

[Kapitan]

I live with my 86 year old nan it wasnt untill 1998 that we got some mod cons, our boiler is 34 years old, the cooker was bought in 1974 and she still has the reciept, the telly is around 10 years old its one of the newest things we have.

It wasnt untill 1999 that i got a computer, it also wasnt untill 1997 that we got the "new washing machine" before that we had one that was about 25 years old (our tumble dryer spin dryer what ever you wanna call it is 12 years older than me im 20!).

The only person who has more than 4 channels is my dad my nan as 4 and a very fuzzy 5 (its always been that way)

In the mornings there was little hot water so it was a very strict strip wash at the sink using just enough water to submerge the flannel (my nan was brought up in the 1930's so rationing later on and ect)

the decor in most of the house well ive only ever seen the bathroom being done (cause i did it!) other than that the house was built in 1952 and remains exactly the same inclding the metal framed windows the only thing we dont have thats origional is the two doors which are still a good 25 years old anyway now.

untill 8 months ago i used a a second hand lawn mower which was bought in 1985 it was in good nick untill my dad ran over a tree stump and well you can guess the rest.

the iron well i aint a clue how old that is but its old enough to qualify that ive only seen it a dozen times since i can remember.

We dont have a CD player in the house we have a wireless which doesnt even play casette tapes is locked onto radio 2 all the time (god help us if we do try and change the channel) and my god i didnt realise how boring terry wogan really is !should be called Old farts FM.

my bedroom well ive never re decorated and aparently this is how it was when my dad had it.

I recently pulled up the carpet which the gap between the floor tiles and carpet is lined with news paper which ready july 26th 1974 i kid you not !

so thats how easy my lifes been i feel lucky !

[StdDev]

Kids today are always troublesome :p

Troublesome!!!! Thats got to be THE understatement (http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/children-admit-to-being-little-****s-20080225750/) of the year!!!

[ReallyDedPoet]

I could go into the druggist and get my Mom cigarettes without being ID'd. It was $1.00 for two packs of cigarettes.

He, he, my Dad would get me to go up street and get him pipe tobacco :yep: Still remember the brands: Irish Mead, Borkum Riff were a couple.


RDP

[bookworm_020]

My Parents complained when there dryer died a month or two back. It only gave 25 years service!:doh: They got twenty out of a frying pan (then they gave it to me when I left home and I got another 5 years out of it till my wife demanded a new one!:roll:)

There original Colour TV gave close to 35 years of service!:huh:

[clive bradbury]

Tell the kids of today and they wouldn't believe that:

1. To change TV channels you had to get up and walk to the box
2. You had to wind car windows down by hand
3. You could not afford 'designer' clothes - which didn't exist anyway
4. Not everyone on the planet wore a baseball cap
5. You had to eat proper food - not burgers
6. To become a celebrity you actually had to achieve something first
7. You had to buy your first car yourself, instead of having Daddy and Mummy buy one for you
8. Almost everybody smoked
9. If you talked back to an adult, they would be very likely to hit you, and all the other adults would approve
10. Trains were still cheaper than air travel.

[kurtz]

Tell the kids of today and they wouldn't believe that:

2. You had to wind car windows down by hand


Some time ago due to being in straitened circumstances I bought an old Ford Escort with wind down windows, my kids thought it was the best invention since sliced bread-a window grownups couldn't stop you opening:D

[jpm1]

Tell the kids of today and they wouldn't believe that:

1. To change TV channels you had to get up and walk to the box
2. You had to wind car windows down by hand
3. You could not afford 'designer' clothes - which didn't exist anyway
4. Not everyone on the planet wore a baseball cap
5. You had to eat proper food - not burgers
6. To become a celebrity you actually had to achieve something first
7. You had to buy your first car yourself, instead of having Daddy and Mummy buy one for you
8. Almost everybody smoked
9. If you talked back to an adult, they would be very likely to hit you, and all the other adults would approve
10. Trains were still cheaper than air travel.

yes kids are really lucky nowadays http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b264/jpm1/Emoticons/smiley_roule.gif

[kurtz]

Tell the kids of today and they wouldn't believe that:


Ha! Found it!

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Xe1a1wHxTyo

[Rhodes]

Tell the kids of today and they wouldn't believe that:


Ha! Found it!

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Xe1a1wHxTyo

Great Find:up: ! This thread remind me of this sketch! :rotfl:

[Polak]

Those where the days... where they not gentelmen?:D

[Stealth Hunter]

Yeah... uh... we didn't have a TV... we had a radio that was about 15 years old, but no TV.

Had an old typewriter that dad constantly used (it must have been from the 1930's or 1940's).

We had an old car. What kind it was, I'll never know. I remember that it was a silver color and the interior smelled like leather; looked a lot like a Lincoln (but it definitely wasn't a Lincoln...).

We never had a computer. The first one we bought was from a friend, and it was an old Microsoft computer in the mid-1990's.

We ate "Aash-e Anaar", as my mother called it, every single night. Tasty? Yes. Repetitive? Yes.

Nobody in my family smoked or drank... though dad occasionally snuck a pipe out onto the deck and took a few puffs of it around dusk. Mother didn't approve of it, and caught him more than once.

I walked to school every single day with my brothers and sisters, and we walked home every single night. If it was ungodly hot, we still walked. If there was a slight blanket of snow on the ground, we still walked.

The "beta" version of the Internet to us was a few shelves packed with books on the West side of the house, including some which were strewn about in the basement closet.

The phone we had was from 1947, and wasn't very reliable. Still, when we needed it, we were happy to have it.


I really don't remember much else from being a kid. I wasn't a noisy person, though. I was very quiet and very shy. I was always reading and always being teased or picked on by the older boys because I wasn't like them at all (I was short and skinny; shortest boy in the entire class when I first started school). I liked to run and to swim (when dad drove us to relax by the sea, that is), but I wasn't a very athletic boy. School was packed, and I hated my teachers (ALL of them; constantly banging things about and yelling; gets quite old).

I wasn't like the other kids in my studies. I loved to write and I loved history. The first book I read all the way through was a Charles Schulz "Peanuts" book that my Uncle Sayyed sent me from England (and I must have been about 5 or 6 at the time; I just remember that I was very short). Though our family was Muslim, we really didn't believe in it. We just went with the crowd. Dad taught me to read and write English, and he made me perfect it (under the pain of being smacked on the knuckles!). He taught at the university in Tehran as a professor in history; mother, of course, was a house-wife. She fed me sweets constantly and I was close to her as was I to my father.

That's all I can sum up.

[nikimcbee]

Okay, everybody needs to read Turgenyev's "Fathers and Sons."

On a side note, it was pretty funny when my grandparents got their first computer.:rotfl: ;) . Entertainment at it's best.

[nikimcbee]

It was really funny when I did my student teaching. Keep in mind, I was only maybe 6 years older than my students, but I discovered that the gap was greater than I thought. I discovered, just how old they thought I was. I was like some ancient fossil compared to them. You listen to Pink Floyd, that's so old.:roll:

[Sailor Steve]

Observations on age (by me):

When you're eight, your fifteen-year-old babysitter is a grown up.

When you're fifteen, a nineteen-year-old college freshman is old.

When you're a kid, your teachers are positively ancient. On the other hand, I was recently in our huge modern library and saw a group of school kids on a field trip. I looked at one of the teachers and said to myself "I have kids that age!" In fact, my older daughter is a high school math teacher.

Finally, I once saw a cartoon that had a dad and son on their way into the supermarket. When a gorgeous babe is walking out in a low-cut dress, dad is staring at her with his tongue is hanging out, as junior says "Oh, that's just my teacher, old lady Smith!"