For the 30 and over crowd

[GoldenRivet]

Got this in my email today... If you are 30, or older, you might think this is hilarious!


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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.... BOTH ways…you all know the drill...

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 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!

so, here goes...
when I was a kid we didn't have the Internet.

If we wanted to know something, we asked a grown up, and you know what they said? "LOOK IT UP!" so...we had to go to the damned library and sift through a card catalog and research it for an hour in an encyclopedia!!

There was no email!!

If we wanted to communicate with friends on the other side of the country, we had to actually write somebody a letter - with a pen! Then you had pay 10 cents for a stamp and put it in a mailbox. The "reply" would take about a week and a half!

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 asses! Nowhere was safe! And, if you got an ass whoopin' down the street, there was another ass whoopin' waiting on you when you made it home!

There were no MP3's or Napsters or iTunes! If you wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike or ride your bike to the record store and shoplift it your damn self!

Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio, but 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 sometimes the tape would come undone rendering it useless. eventually we had portable tape decks called "walkmans" and they were about the size and weight of a brick.

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!

There weren't any freakin' cell phones either. If you left the house, you just didn't make a damn call or receive one either. You actually had to be out of touch with your "friends". OH MY GOD !!! Think of the horror... not being in touch with someone 24/7!!! And then there's TEXTING. Yeah, right. Please! You kids have no idea how annoying you are.

If you wanted to maintain contact with your friends you had to carry quarters around... for the pay phones!
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, the cops, a prank... you just didn't know!!! You had to pick it up and take your damned chances!

We didn't have any fancy PlayStation or Xbox video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With top of the line games like 'Space Invaders', 'pong' and 'Asteroids'.

In the game... your "guy" was a little colored square! Your enemies, were little different colored squares. 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!

kida like LIFE!

Dish Network???
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! because You had to get off your ass and walk over to the TV sit next to it to change the channel!!! NO REMOTES!!!

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. and when they finally came on... your mom was vacuuming the floor with her giant hoover bag vacuum cleaner that sounded like a monster truck.
And we didn't have microwaves until much later on in life. If we wanted to heat something up, we had to use the stove! You know, the big metal box in the kitchen with fire on top! Imagine that!

And our parents told us to stay outside and play... all day long. No electronics to soothe and comfort. And if you came back inside... you were doing chores!

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!

Why the hell do you think its called shot gun?
See! That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it too easy. You're spoiled ass rotten! You guys wouldn't have lasted five minutes back the late 70s and early 80s!

Regards,
The Over 30 Crowd (or Close To It!)

[Task Force]

Lol, I get it. well... things are easyer but still not easy.

[Wolfehunter]

This rules and is so true. Great one.

Wait you forgot one..

There was no online porn.. So you had to steal your older brothers playboy magazine..

[GoldenRivet]

Originally Posted by Wolfehunter

There was no online porn.. So you had to steal your older brothers playboy magazine..

yeah and you always had that friend at school who had a huge stash, and he was going to show you one day.

but always came up with an excuse why he couldnt

[Sailor Steve]

I turned 30 twice today. Can I take one back?

I used to tell my kids how wonderful Southern California was. I used to ride my skateboard a half-mile to school, and it was downhill both ways!


I also remember a Hagar the Horrible cartoon, where Hagar is telling his son Hamlet how when he was that age the snow was over his head. "You believe me, don't you, son?" "Yes, sir!" replies Hamlet from behind. We can't see him because the snow is over his head!

Originally Posted by GoldenRivet

yeah and you always had that friend at school who had a huge stash, and he was going to show you one day.

but always came up with an excuse why he couldnt

Then you had to be happy with National Geographic!

[GoldenRivet]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Then you had to be happy with National Geographic!

not the kind i wanted to see though!!!

[Ducimus]

Originally Posted by Wolfehunter

There was no online porn.. So you had to steal your older brothers playboy magazine..

Hah, i didn't have an older brother. I did have one of those cool uncles who'd buy me skin mags at the local liqure store as long as i promised not to get caught with them. He'd always get Hustler cause Playboy sucked!

[Buddahaid]

Originally Posted by Task Force

Lol, I get it. well... things are easyer but still not easy.

I'm 54 and I think things are harder for kids now. To much crap and distraction, nanny feelgood laws, moan, moan, moan.....

[Ducimus]

That was both awesome and true.

[Skybird]

Don't want to be young again now, I think that my age group (I'm 43) had it much easier in it's teenage years, and also more friendly future expectations. I also think that school (in Germany) was better . Of course, back then we did not realise it, but now when I'm looking back, I know it better.

For those being young now, the job world is much more complicarted, and their economic existence will be much more at risk from beginning on. School is worse today in quality, no doubt.

After WWII, our grandfarthers and fathers tried to rebuild the world. Today, the young one live in a world where our civilisation is eating up itself. And the burden of the demographic change is put on their shoulders additionally to the greater problem to found a family today. In Europe, the social states sooner or later will be so very bancrupt that they will start to eat their own populations directly, or indirectly.

In my last job, there was a constant fluctuation of schoolgirls and -boys jobbing, and during breaks I talked with them and listened what they said about their school experiences. And more of them than back in my own school times, were afraid of the future. No doubt, my generation has had it much easier when we were young.

Within the influence sphere of the EU, I would not raise children these days anymore, if this would become an issue. Family for me only when being able, economically, to move out. But that this will become a scenario, is extremely unlikely anyway. That gives me a lonely life, which makes me sad at times. But it saves me from the worries more and more families these days are facing. And that is a relief for which I am thankful.

No matter how you live, there seem to be almost always some good and some bad in it, and no matter how well you live, there is a price for it.

I therefore have invested my few free ressources - and those bigger ones that will become free in case of my death - into the future fate of the children of very close friends of mine, with whose family I am very close indeed since long time now. the mother used to laugh at me and called me a pessimist. Meanwhile, she does not anymore, and stopped laughing.

For parents of children, this must feel especially grim.

The earlier generations after WWII had it more difficult? I only laugh.

[SteamWake]

Dont damn the library thats hallowed ground

Seriously Im a tad older than 30 and it all rings so true.

[Morpheus]

Originally Posted by Skybird

The earlier generations after WWII had it more difficult? I only laugh.

Yes, at least they had a direction ... we don't have that today, other than making money ... money ... money

But who knows, maby there will be something good in the future also, you cant only see everything black.

[SteamWake]

http://s0.ilike.com/play#The+Rolling...d12064f6e45f16