Topic: If you are 40, or older, you might identify with this....

[Fuzzball]

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 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

[luder]

          good one

[Skunk Stripe]

! thing though. Many of you over 40's take full advantage of EACH of these things. So what was that you were saying?

[Retro Rocket]

! thing though. Many of you over 40's take full advantage of EACH of these things. So what was that you were saying?

Yes, but they are a necessary evil, doesn't mean we have to like them.....

Mick

[eworth]

Every one of those points were right on the money.   Remember all of them.   That said,  I'm adjusting well to the change in technology.

Unfortunately however,  I jumped off the fashion train about 1989!!!  LOL !

 T-shirts (concert t-shirts!) , blue jeans, ball cap ... etc.  My kids tease me about my old mullet hair cut and parachute pants from high school.  funny.

[Fuzzball]

Absolutely we take advantage. We paid our dues. 

[bluezboy]

 Oh my, I just wet myself from laughing so damn hard! Funny and true as you-know-what!

[Skunk Stripe]

Well mick, I am not over 40 but I would rather be unplugged on a number of things compared to most my age.

[gmonkey]

I'm not over 40 and most of this is true for me.

9).  I didn't even have atari.  If I wanted to play videogames, I had to take a bus to the arcade.

10).  No remote?  Big deal.  We had a channel-changin' stick.  Anyway, what's to change, there was only like 3 channels.

[Ichiban 4]

And..

If you go back a little further..to the mid 40's..early 50's:

We didn't have TV's (most of us anyway)..or tape recorders/decks (just wire recorders and/or more probably vinyl discs)..

There was no power steering..or air conditioning in cars/trucks..

Most of us didn't have air conditioning..just fans or transom windows (as in school/public buildings)..a few really "rich ones" would maybe have swamp coolers in the summer..

Cops rode on side-shift Harley's with canvas-Isenglass wind screens..wore calvery riding pants ("waffle butts")..with knee boots..and cloth caps..(gas was .25 cents a gallon..leaded of course)..

There were no chain fast food places..mainly "Drive-In's" (McDonald's..who started in my home town..in 1949..had 4-places in Southern California.  A burger was 15 cents..fries 10 cents..milkshake 25 cents..could eat like a king for $1.00!).

The Hell's Angel's (who started in Fontana California..around 1948)..rode basically war-surplus Harley's that they stripped-down to bobbers..who's idea of a good time seemed to be staying drunk..smoking cigarettes..and trying to keep their bikes running.  Most seemed to be suffering from what we now call Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome..which is why they couldn't hold down jobs..much less relate to regular society (wonder if younger folks ever wondered why the Hell's Angel's are considered "cool" today?).

Gosh..guess I'd better shut up here..before I sound like too much of a geezer..

Cheers..

Ichi

[Grnrngr]

heh...you an me both buddy...didn't even have a tv until I was 10, and it was a 13" black and white with no uhf, remote?? that was daddy sayin "I said git yer ass up, git over there and change the channel". Seemed to work pretty good for him tho..    heck, we didn't even have good fm radio until I was 13. Our "computer lab" in college was 6 dumb terminals connected to the UCBerkely mainframe with a 300baud modem, you had to sign up a week in advance to get to use it for a half hour, and it was only available like 3 times a week. when I was 23 or 24 video games looked like pinball machines at the 7-11 and cost a quarter..I'd rather spend $1.50 on a six pack back then, or spend $4 and fill the 16 gallon tank in my car. Geez..it cost me almost $8 to fill my 2 gallon plastic can the other day.

[kayjohn]

LOL.............. I thought I had it good back in 1980.I was 20,had a job, newly married,was able to buy our first house by 1982. cable tv with MTV wired through my home stereo( the best...when it was about music not this reality stuff today) still had my first car with a cassette and 8-track player. We had to work hard to get and keep what we still have today. I have two kids in there early 20s today. fortunately they learned good work ethics from us but even in todays economy things have been easier for them. they both have newer cars than we do, they have cooler cell phones then we need and they are doing it on their own. but every time we tell then how good they have they look at us like we're nuts.

[Fuzzball]

Ha! This is becoming a trip down memory lane. Remember the UHF/VHF switch on your TV? UHF was like the original public television, usually a local college.

And we got like 4 channels on our black and white TV set. I remember watching "Wizard of OZ" for the first time on it---it was much later that we realized it changed to color half way through. And I never knew til later that Gilligan's Island changed to color at some point in it's run. (Ginger, by the way)

And howabout candy? The little wax coke bottles with colored sugar water in em?
Or the strips of paper with candy dots glued on it.
Wax paper covered taffy strips.
Flavored wax lips and teeth?
Howabout root beer barrels?

And last but not least: Candy cigarettes, complete with talcum-powder fine candy dust that you could blow out of them to imitate smoke....

Them was the days, gents.....

Maybe I'm now talking 50 or 60 or over though, eh?

[Grnrngr]

And a candy bar was a nickle... I remember an actual news report back then Hersheys announced that, after much corporate discussion, they weren't going to raise their price, they decided to make smaller candy bars. School lunches were 35 cents and there was a cafeteria with people who actually cooked food there, sure can't have that nowadays, unfair to compete with all the fast food places setting up food courts in the schools. Electronic devices were absolutely not allowed...if you brought your transistor radio to school, it could be confiscated and your parents would actually have to go there to get it back and that wasn't always successful. I read something the other day that some teachers encourage kids to bring their ipods and earphones cuz it keeps 'em quiet in class.   and cigarette commercials...."I'd rather FIGHT than switch.."

[Operator]

I remember going from Ontario to Nova Scotia laying in the back window of my dad's 71 Satellite.

[TwoTired]

I remember going from Ontario to Nova Scotia laying in the back window of my dad's 71 Satellite.

$250 fine for that in California these days.  And probably a report to Child safety and about the parents reckless endangerment.  Couple more like that and expect a mandatory house search/evaluation before they take your kids away.


Must save future taxpayers, Ahem, I mean the children.

[Fuzzball]

More tripping down memory lane courtesy Billy Joel and some guy from the University of Chicago with a lot of spare time and Google. The older you are, the more pictures you will recognize. Anyone over age 60 should remember over 90% of what they see.  But it's great at any age.

We Didn't Start the Fire
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