For us not so senior citizens!

[bigvalkriefan]

If you are 36, or older, you might think this is hilarious!
I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way in hell I was going to lay a bunch of crap 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.

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
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 up ourselves, 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!
7) There weren't any freakin' cell phones either. If you left the house, you just didn't make a damn call or receive one. You actually had to be out of touch with your "friends". OH MY GOSH !!! 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.
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!
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!
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

[SANDMAN5]

Ah, the memories!!!

[Hoser]

"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?"

8 track or cassette?  Got an 8 track when they first came out, I was 22 years old.  Up to then it was rock on AM radio.  The very few FM stations around were mostly Sunday church stations.  Funny thing is I still listen to the same era of Rock.  Love my mp3 player!  I am a very senior citizen.  Medicare and older is another way of saying it.    Hoser    

[Stanley Steamer]

I just turned 41 last Friday and I can relate to EVERY ONE of those points below!!......


My Wife laughs at me as I cuss at all the damn college kids here in this University town.....they get on my nerves...take up too much space in the restaurants, on the roads, etc etc.....she said...."You used to be one yourself"....I told her I would have kicked my OWN ass if I ever acted like some of these current ones do......but then I was a poor boy and had to work and pay my way through school.......

One other thing that drives me nutty is how all the little HS kids, especially girls, are always saying..."It's LIKE...ya know??....LIKE"......is that the ONLY word they teach them in school these days?.........

[Tx Bohemian]

8 track or cassette?  ...Up to then it was rock on AM radio.  
...Funny thing is I still listen to the same era of Rock.  

Yeah, me too on the 8-track...
But eventually I got a cassette, WOW, was that great or what?!?!?  A tape with the same songs and 1/5th the size!!

The last one I had I could hit "skip" or "next" (or whatever it was) and it would go to the next song!! ...without having to guess when to release the FF button.
Don't know how it did it but I was glad it did.
Man, was I $hittn in high cotton then!!!

Yeah, memories...

[Jess from VA]

Eight tracks, that takes me back, way back to my first car, a '62 VW Karmen Ghia.  I got a deal on a used eight track, but the problem was my VW had a 6-volt system.  So I took an old abandoned 12-volt car battery from the gas station where I pumped gas for $1.25 an hour, and strapped it down under the hood (trunk).  I was good for a few tapes, until I had to put the battery on the charger again.  LOL

That car was so high-tech, the windshield washer fluid was powered by the air in the spare tire.  If you put 60psi in it, you could shoot water in the convertible behind you. 

[CajunRider]

Speaking of cars... I bought a new truck a few years back.  Being the cheap-@$$ I am, I opted for the no-frills model. 

This truck has nothing but an A/C and an FM Radio.  No power locks, no power windows, nothing!!!

Well... my niece (about 9 at the time) hopped in the truck to ride with me one day.  She looked at the window roller... studied it for a few seconds... and then asked "What's that for???"    

After I finally caught my breath, I told her to grab it start cranking.  It still took her a second to realize that it made the window move.    

[Michvalk]

When I was 8 or 9 years old, my parents bought our first TV set. They thought that watching TV was something only rich people did. We had a radio that played music from the time Mom got up until suppertime. I got my first portable radio when I was 14 for my birthday. It was Made in Japan!!! Nuthin' but the best!! Bought my first FM radio/ 8Track tape player for my first car (65 Ford Galaxie hardtop. It was 3 years old. Purchase price was 510.00 Dollars) Boy, Got me thinkin' about what was

[Gary]

I had a 4 track player (Craig brand I think) in my first ride, 62 Rambler Classic before moving uptown to my swap meet special - Pioneer with FM. Now THAT's what I'm talkin about. As long as you had that matchbook cover to prop up certain 8 track tapes to avoid hearing a couple of tracks at the same time. There always seem to be a matchbook available back in those days for some reason...

This all later transfered to my VW bug where I added a couple more speakers to the rear for genuine quad. Well, it at least presented like a genuine quadrophonic system. They all 4 pumped out sound...   

[Oss]

How many car stereos were stolen from you. I only lost one.

how about tube FM radios vs the solid state

I still say that an LP played on a tube amp sounds cleaner than on a regular stereo

but kids today dont have stereo's everything is downloaded digitally  Still have my stereo and record player and one that downloads records to WAV files

Somethin about when you hear the pops in the record and remembering (mostly) how they got there and the memories.

Anyone remember how and why the double albums were popular in college?  besides Strider and joe that is

[old2soon]

  :2funny:I know how old i am-but you touched on some valid points. these young uns today scare the crap out me especially when i'm on the phat gurl and thet are texting or whatever the heck they are doing behind the wheel-cause whatever they are doing-it ain't drivin. well i will try not to start a rant-aw he%%-guess i already did. OH WELL

[CISE]

I have other fond memories of being thrown in the back seat for drives -

Like sleeping on the shelf under teh rear window on long drives

The joy of being in teh back seat in a long sweeper curve - and the seat was covered in plastic to keep us kids from ruining the fabric

When A/C was open windows
 

[Serk]

Speaking of cars... I bought a new truck a few years back.  Being the cheap-@$$ I am, I opted for the no-frills model. 

This truck has nothing but an A/C and an FM Radio.  No power locks, no power windows, nothing!!!

Well... my niece (about 9 at the time) hopped in the truck to ride with me one day.  She looked at the window roller... studied it for a few seconds... and then asked "What's that for???"    

After I finally caught my breath, I told her to grab it start cranking.  It still took her a second to realize that it made the window move.    

My dad, also being a cheap SOB, recently had a car with manual windows too... He referred to it as having a fancy new safety feature, windows that can be rolled down even if the car's under water and all electronics have shorted out.

[Hoser]

The album covers had uses other than protecting the records.....  Hoser

[Varmintmist]

When I was still doing residential, there was a lady that had a rotary dial phone in her kitchen. I told her I could change it out to a push button and she said NO WAY!! It seems her sons friends would come over for a while and when they had to call home, she pointed them to that phone and watched them try to push the holes.





I fixed the rotary for her.

[Jess from VA]

The album covers had uses other than protecting the records.....  Hoser

Are we talking about seeds rolling downhill?

You bunch of criminals.   
 

[mattfidaho]

well I am not quit "that" old
but.......

 "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!"


I remember figuring out I could dial 0 and get the operator and have them do an "emergency break through"    it was a blast calling friends when their line was busy and then having the operator jump on their line and say there was an emergency break though from XXXX would you like to except the call?  LOL   It was fun... until my parents got the phone bill and it was like .25 each time it was used :-/ man my hide was tanned
we also would call friends in the middle of the night and let it ring once so parents wouldn't wake up then they would call right back and we could talk with out them knowing.   
 

[solo1]

I had three cars before i bought one with a radio in it.  6 volt radio with tubes and a multivibrator in it ( no sexual overtones intended but that's what it was called.)

The multivibrator converted the 6 volts dc to 6volts AC so that the transformer could increase the voltage on the plates of the tubes to 200 volts (after going through a gas tube rectifier and a pi network of capacitors and chokes.)  Kinda complicated, oh yeah!

In 1954 when I was on emergency call as an Xray tech at the local VA, I pulled strings and got the first landline phone in the neighborhood.  Not only that but it was the first PRIVATE line, no party line.
Wow!!

As far as today goes, I have never seen more people that are impolite, can't spell, can't drive, and don't take responsibility for their actions. I agree with Stanley that the word 'like' used in conversations tells me that person is dumber than a box of rocks in regards to the English language!

I won't even go into detail about when I screwed up and got my arse beat like a TomTom.

Yessir I'm an old, old fogey of almost 83 and proud of the fact that I can still bitch.

[JerryH]

I'm 64 and have seen all the things listed above and 20 years earlier.  Up the line there was a comment made concerning "Is that the only word/s they teach kids in school today".  I am a teacher -and proud of it.  I started teaching in 1969, then spent four years (active duty) and 1 year (active reserves) in the US Air Force.  In 1979 I returned to teaching and continue teaching today.  I have never taught kids to say "It's Like uh, Like, You know---".  None of the professional teachers I have worked with over the past 40 years have taught those phrases to kids either.  For the most part all of us as students were "taught" correctly, however, some of us failed to learn. I have experienced my share of teacher bashing over the years (school boards, superintendents, principals, parents, students, policitians, media). The majority of those doing the bashing have NEVER spent time in a classroom working with kids.  Some kids bring so much baggage to school with them (some their own and some from society) that its a miracle if you can teach them anything some days.

The things that teachers are held responsibile to teach students today is "a mile long" and it has nothing to do with the subject matter of the class.  Kids bring their cell phones to school today and guess who's on speed dial - their parents and their lawyer. I run a tight classroom.  Students were/are told from the start that they are here for one reason and that is "to learn".  If that dosen't fit their "life style" then they better find another classroom. I have had a number of students threaten me over the years - I stood up, they backed down. I have had many students and parents over the years say "thank you".

I now teach in an Adult Ed. classroom to help those who didn't make it the first time around.  I help them with studying for their GED or High School Diploma.  Guess what most of them tell me - "this is a lot harder now then when I was in school - I wish I would have stayed in".

If you can read this - Thank a Teacher.

If you consider this a Rant - I guess it is.

Jerry
97 BumbleBee

[chuckinVA]

Great post....

"Funny thing is I still listen to the same era of Rock.  Love my mp3 player!  I am a very senior citizen.  Medicare and older is another way of saying it.    Hoser"   

I know what you mean Hoser.  I'm 68 and my Ipod is full of AC/DC.  Great riding tunes....

Chuck

[Big Rig]

The album covers had uses other than protecting the records.....  Hoser

Ahh I remember that sort of...crap...now I have the munchies