A funny look back on life before cell phones etc.

[Masscre]

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 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. 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 headhit the dashboard, well that was your fault for calling "shot gun" in the first place!

See! That'sexactly 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

[Toptwo]

Gotta love this..its all true. I would add to it:

We rode our bikes with NO protective gear....no helmets, knee pads etc.AND Our bikes never had more then 10 speeds and weighed 40lbs.

We took pictures with FILM. You took the shots, then marched your ass down to the drug store and sent your pic's off and waited a week or 10 days to get them back, then paid like $1 a pic to get them...crappy ones and all!

We drank water from any stream or lake, or even the garden hose, and NEVER worried about it, and NEVER got sick!

[gimlet]

Ahh the good old days when the air was clean and sex was still dirty!

[Masscre]

AHMEN !!!!!!

[onlyindreams]

I'm only 28 but I can still relate to a lot of that stuff!

[Masscre]

I still remember when gasoline was less than .50 a gallon !!

Cokes in a bottle where 20 cents a bottle and a snack was 5 cents extra and those prices where out of vending machines.  There was a mom and pop station about a mile and a half from our house and we would do chores through the week to get enough coins to go on friday (walk of course) to treat ourselves to a coke and chips or peanuts.

[onlyindreams]

I still remember when gasoline was less than .50 a gallon !!

Cokes in a bottle where 20 cents a bottle and a snack was 5 cents extra and those prices where out of vending machines.  There was a mom and pop station about a mile and a half from our house and we would do chores through the week to get enough coins to go on friday (walk of course) to treat ourselves to a coke and chips or peanuts.

Lowest I remember was $0.75. But a week or two after 9/11/01 it dropped to $0.90 a gallon. Only gone up since.

[gimlet]

Dang i remember 17 cents/gal and less with price wars (plus they gave green stamps!)

[cutter]

Same here I remember those days.  you actually called someone and made plans. At the same time you didn't talk on the phone that long because someone was always waiting for a call. 

At the same time.  parents didn't buy a riding lawn mower.  they bought a push mower (even if you had five acres) and you had to mow the lawn or you didn't eat that night at least once a week.   

Playing outside is what we did from sun up to sundown. 

And Kids talked to parents correctly with respect or you would get back handed. 

[Masscre]

Dang i remember 17 cents/gal and less with price wars (plus they gave green stamps!)

I remember the green stamps also, but were they not used for gifts and other items and not free gas?

[gimlet]

Dang i remember 17 cents/gal and less with price wars (plus they gave green stamps!)

I remember the green stamps also, but were they not used for gifts and other items and not free gas?

Not free gas - but almost anything else. I remember when my Mom got a new toaster with green stamps (she had saved up for 2 years!)

[Masscre]

We turned in enough stamps once to get one of the hand held TV's that had projection screen and then a big mirror inside it to project the image toward you so you could see it. It was black and white, but was really neat. The first TV I had ever seen that you could carry around with you, besides the ones James Bond had with him. It could only really pickup one channel and it sometimes had a lot of static but still was like really neat at that time.

[Outlaw Josey Wales]

I rember walking to the ice cream parlor geting ice cream cones with licarish for 10 cents.  You don t see any of the old style ice cream parlors anymore

[Goliath]

I love this... My teenage daughter would be lost without her phone.  We actually had to memorize peoples phone numbers.  Hell I still remember my home phone number from when I was a kid.  I don't think my daughter would know my phone number if you asked her.

[JustAnotherFace]

And if you "acted up" in public, you got your ass beaten. No discussion, no wait till we get home, no stand in the corner... you got beaten right then and there, no matter WHERE you were or who was around watching.  In fact, other adults EXPECTED your parents to keep you in check while you were in public.

We respected any and all adults, because if we didn't and our parents found out... well see my first point!

We got paddled in school for misbehaving... and the teacher would call your house and tell your parents, so when we got home you got beaten again for having to get a paddling at school.

We worked and saved up our pennies for the things that we wanted extra.  We didnt have 1/100th of the stuff that kids now have and the stuff we did have was not just handed to us, we had to learn the value of money.

If you back talked mom, you got a switching.... THEN of course she told Dad when he got home and you got a whooping from him because you made her have to switch you.

You didn't even THINK about back talking Dad... at least not where he could even imagine that he heard something, else you may have a few loose teeth from the backhand across the lips.

We went to school and we actually were expected to study and learn... Man what a concept.

When we got home from school, we sat down and did homework before doing anything else... then we did all our chores, then if there was any time left we could play.

We had 2 or maybe 3 pairs of blue jeans at the most, with a hand full of shirts, one pair of everyday shoes and if we were lucky, one pair of "Sunday shoes".

We knew better than to butt in on any "grown up" conversation. It didn't matter if your leg had ben cut off and you were holding it on with your hands, you waited until the adults were finished talking before you dared say anything, else you may lose a hunk of ass along with the leg.

We took brown paper grocery bags and cut them and made book covers for all our school books every year.

Ahhh the good ole days!!

JaF