Really doesn't seem that long ago....

[skygazer]

...when my father was always yelling at me not to stretch the phone cord (anyone remember phone cords?).

...when I had to heat my lunch on a stove because the microwave oven hadn't yet been invented.

...when you could ask for leaded or unleaded gas and you'd get your oil checked while it pumped.

...when I had a record collection and worried about them getting scratched or warped.

...when I only had to dial five digits of a local phone number.

...when Volkswagon advertised their Beetle as costing under $2000.

...when television stations actually shut down for the night (they'd play the national anthem with a picture of a waving flag and then go to static until morning).


What do you remember?

[ceile]

1. Saturday morning cartoons, for one

B&W tvs were still around even tho most had colored ones (the b&w one was always at gramma and grandaddy's)
music videos on MTV
Kaepas with the plastic triangles were the rage
Parachute pants and Z Cavarici's (sp?)
the ice cream man

[ghostsofgiants]

22. "music videos on MTV"

Liar. :P

[Bucky]

2. Besides the Bill of Rights, I remember

I remember driving from Houston to Philadelphia for family reunions every summer.

I remember fireflies in fields so abundant that you could almost read a comic book by them. They don't exist in such thick flurries anymore. In some places they're totally gone.

I remember walking thru entire neighborhoods with no fences between the backyards. Some backyards went on for a quarter mile and had forests and creeks running thru them.

I remember neighbors who didn't lock their doors in the day time, sometimes even not at night.

I remember having a newspaper route. They don't let kids have those anymore.

I remember being a middle schooler and just learning a few cusswords which we NEVER used around adults.

I remember making our own ice cream. I remember playing fort and cowboys and Indians.

I also remember wondering why some of my cousins could get away with using the word nigger and not get the holy stuffing knocked out them by their parents.

[Mutley]

3. Being five years old and my neighborhood was safe enough

for me to run around without supervision.

[skygazer]

7. Yeah, I remember that, too

I walked to and from first grade alone every day. And no one thought anything of it.

[Mutley]

11. I was letting myself into our house after school at 7 years old.

Can't do that these days.

[skygazer]

12. Yup, me too

And I'd go out alone in the woods behind our house for hours without even mentioning it to my parents when I was that age. Summer nights, I'd take a sleeping bag and a book of matches out to the woods and camp. I was under 10 years old.

[uppityperson]

4. walking uphill to school through the snow, both ways

when push button phones first came out

[Oeditpus Rex]

5. Mom being home

The milkman. (clink)

Playing outside all. fucking. day on Saturdays and during summer.

Getting hurt while playing and not suing anybody.

Black-and-white teevees that looked like furniture with round tubes and knobs and no remote control that got about four channels, but there were lots of kid shows that actually had kids on 'em, like Hocus Pocus, and the coolest thing that could happen was to be on one.

Cars with chrome.

[skygazer]

6. Oh, yeah, and those teevees had 13 channels

Plus UHF. And when you shut them off, that little white dot lingered for the longest time in the center of the screen....

[Oeditpus Rex]

8. That dot scared me

It was like the end of the world or something. Same when a station went off the air. I thought the test pattern was some kinda alien signal. :scared:

[Mutley]

10. Those were the daaaaaaays!

[ScreamingMeemie]

13. This mom is home!

:hi: and it has been worth it. We still have the milk door (50's era home) but no milkman. :hi:

[ScreamingMeemie]

9. I still stretch the phone cord...The microwave is for defrosting in our

house, my kids can't touch my records. ;)

I remember the busses coming for us in elementary school to take us (Catholic kids) to CCD for two hours on Fridays. When I wasn't in a parochial school because we lived out in the country.

[ScreamingMeemie]

14. O! O! I forgot! Filmstrips and Movie projectors in school. My kids

have never seen them. :hi:

[skygazer]

15. Good one!

And mimeograph machines. I remember how cool we always felt when the teacher would let us go to the AV room and use the mimeograph machine. :hi:

[ScreamingMeemie]

17. And having the worksheets still be wet and sort of blurry!

:) I still don't get the mechanics of that machine! :hi:

[livetohike]

20. And pretending to get high off the smell!

Oh my God. I am old. I was a teacher when we still had mimeograph machines.

[livetohike]

16. Adjusting the antenna on the TV

Paying 33 cents for a gallon of gas and figuring out how much money I would need to drive from Pgh to Florida.

Making up games to play outside and staying out until past dark when my Dad would yell out my name to come home.

Staying in the woods all morning and afternoon, picking berries, apples, swinging on vines, imagining the woods as a haunted forest..
Not having to worry about "bad men".

Party lines - listening in on the neighbors calls.

Girdles and stockings before panti- hose were invented :eyes:

Manual typewriters.

[Oeditpus Rex]

18. I still adjust the antenna

Can't get cable out here in the burboonies, and I refuse to deal with the satellite asshats again.

My antenna's got a rotor, though, so all I have to do is turn a knob. And I get like 25 channels. :thumbsup:



Some of which are even in English.

[livetohike]

19. I remember standing in one spot holding the damn thing so

my Dad could get better reception for a ball game he was watching :-).

[Oeditpus Rex]

21. A worthy cause

You are to be commended. :applause:

[texanwitch]

24. My grandparents had that, we could pick up Houston and Austin and we were

at least 100 miles away.

[Hugin]

23. TeeVees without any type of remote...

Led to the strange behavior of leaving a TeeVee on a single channel
for an entire show...

Then came surfing... and I swear to this day an increase in Adult A.D.D.

[texanwitch]

25. That's what the kids were for.

I have to force myself to sit and watch one show.