Des
Member
Posts: 298
My Obsession
Coolidge, Arizona
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« on: August 19, 2009, 01:44:03 PM » |
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 If you are 40 (or older) you will think this is hilarious!!!!
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
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 catalogue!!
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!
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! No where was safe!
There were no MP3's or Napsters! If 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 talked over the beginning and @#*% it all up!
There were no CD players! We had (8 track) tape decks in our car.. We'd play our favorite tape and "eject" it when finished and the tape would come undone!
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 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 Playstation 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!
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! 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 ... Imagine that!
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 the 60's and 70's!
Regards,
The over 40 Crowd
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"If you're lucky you have at least one best friend in your life ... I married mine"   |
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Lyn-Del
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« Reply #2 on: August 19, 2009, 03:10:51 PM » |
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You didnt mention,Cell phones, 400 cable T.V. stations , dvd players in the headrests of the family SUV or rent-a-centers and cash advance /title loan/check cashing on every corner.  I'm spoiled with the cell phone, computer and internet, but I'm not sure most of this is an improvement!! |
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 If all printers were determined not to print anything till they were sure it would offend nobody, there would be very little printed. ― Benjamin Franklin |
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Gryphon Rider
Member
Posts: 5227
2000 Tourer
Calgary, Alberta
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« Reply #3 on: August 19, 2009, 04:04:15 PM » |
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Being in the (barely) Over 40 Crowd, I think my generation might have had it EASIER:
There was no GPS in my dad's car, so he had no way of knowing I had just done 100MPH on a highway not on the way to my declared destination.
I could hike to the top of a mountain with my friends BECAUSE I WAS IN SHAPE from playing REAL games, not VIRTUAL ones.
When I was on the way home from school (grade 1), my buddy and I climbed the light standard up to the curved part, because MOMS DIDN'T DRIVE THEIR KIDS TO THE LOCAL SCHOOL.
On long trips, my mom or dad would fold down the back seat of the station wagon so we could play, sleep, wrestle, and roll around back there because we assumed my dad was a good enough driver to avoid accidents, and there was NO SEATBELT LAW.
We could swing on swings that were COMFORTABLE because they were flat boards, not hip squishing but SAFE rubber straps.
As 10 year olds, we could disappear all afternoon and be a mile from home, our moms trusting that our STOMACHS would bring us home on time for supper.
At church boys club events, we had lots of volunteer leaders, partly because they weren't hassled with police checks, waivers, etc. And we got to do cool stuff like rocketry, carpentry, camping, hiking, shooting, because our dads and volunteers KNEW HOW TO DO THEM.
We had imagination and could easily use it, because if we wanted to experience Star Wars over and over, we had to act it out ourselves or READ THE BOOK again, hoping it would eventually be on TV.
Even if our parents didn't have extra money, we could buy stuff for ourselves, because KIDS could have paper/flyer routes.
We could go play hockey almost any time we wanted, because we could walk to the local OUTDOOR rink that wasn't booked months in advance.
We could read our comic books over and over again because we (or our parents) weren't worried about them losing value as collector's items.
When learning to drive, accidently bumping bumpers wasn't a big deal because they were DESIGNED TO BE BUMPED.
Driving the car while sitting on our dad's lap was fun, not something that would cause a national uproar.
Having a jackknife at school could cause STITCHES, not expulsion.
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Bob E.
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« Reply #4 on: August 20, 2009, 05:41:55 AM » |
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My dad had a remote back in the 70's. In fact, he had 3 of 'em...me and my 2 brothers!  Not like it mattered much, we really only had 3 stations...sometimes 4 depending on the weather. |
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charligirl
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« Reply #5 on: August 20, 2009, 09:13:59 AM » |
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buy a dishwasher until my sister and I were gone. Dad's reasoning was: why spend the money when he was raising 2 perfectly good dishwashers  |
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solo1
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« Reply #6 on: August 20, 2009, 10:28:54 AM » |
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I won't get started on what I remember when I was growing up, well just maybe one or two memories.. My Dad bought this GE table radio in 1940. These radios were called All American 5's because they had 5 tubes (what are tubes?). This GE radio was special because it had "short wave" On this radio we heard FDR say his famous speech declaring war (wahw) on Japan after Pearl Harbor. No tv, no internet, no nothin' Shortly after the war was declared, I was riding my bicycle in the country on the way to squirrel hunting. I was 14 years old and had ridden my bike through Ft. Wayne with my scoped rifle over my shoulder. About 5 miles along this road I had to pull over for a jeep with siren followed by a tank destroyer that was hogging the whole road. I'll shut up now Oh yes, I think that this radio would still play but I need a variac to soft start the capacitors.  |
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Big Rig
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« Reply #7 on: August 20, 2009, 11:08:38 AM » |
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My dad had a remote back in the 70's. In fact, he had 3 of 'em...me and my 2 brothers! Not like it mattered much, we really only had 3 stations...sometimes 4 depending on the weather. I think that is why my parents had 7 kids...one for each day...my day was Wednesday....Middle Child...  |
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valkmc
Member
Posts: 619
Idaho??
Ocala/Daytona Fl
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« Reply #8 on: August 20, 2009, 01:26:54 PM » |
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I grew up on the farm and thought it was great that mom made my breakfast before school everyday, not from Micky D's or Burger King. She made real eggs and bacon, guess what, all I had to do was get up at 4am and feed cows and shovel sh..t even if it was -10 degrees. Then I went to school, wrestling or football practice and came home to another home cooked meal, of course I had to feed cows and shovel sh..t again before I could eat. Great Life wouldn't have changed a minute of it, well maybe the part where my dad beat my as.. everyonce in a while because I did not get up on time.....
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2013 Black and Red F6B (Gone)
2016 1800 Gold Wing (Gone)
1997 Valkyrie Tourer
2018 Gold Wing Non Tour
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alan
Guest
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« Reply #9 on: August 21, 2009, 09:13:14 PM » |
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Think the 60's-70's was rough? Yashoulda been around in the 50's........ 30! miles to school in a raging blizzard, uphill, AGAINST the rotation of the Earth....... AND I grew up in Irvington/Newark, New Jersey!!
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RP#62
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« Reply #10 on: August 21, 2009, 09:46:40 PM » |
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OverdueBill
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« Reply #11 on: August 21, 2009, 11:08:54 PM » |
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I came from the 50"s also. I'm getting Direct TV installed today. In the old days, you changed the channel on the tv (by hand), Dad would watch and shout directions, mom would stand in the front door and relay the directions, and I would be outside to turn the pole antenna. A little more, more, too much, go back, no the other way! And then, if you were lucky, there would only be one or two ghosts following the guy on tv. Static was just the way it was. It sure weren't no "Happy Days"
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