Remember when...

Some of the things in the news lately have got me thinking about "back when" and how much things have changed and not all for the better.

I remember when...

• kids walked to and from school everyday without worry.

• I carried a pocket knife to school and the teachers would borrow it when they forgot theirs at home.

• we didn't have computers, the internet or video games so we played outside and used our imaginations.

• if we wanted to play one of those new fangled video games we had to walk 5 miles to the closest place that had ONE game.

• walking five miles to do something was no big deal.

• no one had cell phones so if I was going out with friends I left a message saying where I was going and when I would be back.

• You did not have to worry about being PC. No one even knew what that meant though it wasn't long before it meant Personal Computer.

• 25 cents would get you a soda

• we knew who the enemy was and we practiced duck and cover drills

• teachers paid attention to their students and did roll call instead of trying to track kids with RFID tags.

• saturday morning cartoons were good and lasted all morning.

• you would talk with your buddies about picking up some old muscle car to fix up for what seems like nothing now.

• $200 in groceries bought a cart that we heaped full and required four or five trips to bring into the house.

• you could watch TV and not see hundreds of ads for new perscriptions and drugs.

• you could watch TV and not see a ton of lawyers trying to convince you that you should sue someone.

• having cable was a huge deal and having the 30 channels it came with seemed to be more than enough.

• kids went trick or treating after dark.

• going out to dinner was a special occasion and not a regular thing.

• parents taught their children manners and respect and did not expect teachers to instill these values.

• getting in a fight at school did not involve lawyers.

• you said the Pledge of Allegence everyday at school.

• for $10 you and a buddy could go to the movies get popcorn and sodas and have money left over.

• $10 seemed like quite a bit of money to a kid.

• It cost less than $20 to fill the tank on most cars.

• the local paper had a $500 and less section loaded with cars people would pay four times as much for now minimum.

• comics and toys were for kids, not adult collectors.

• sneeking a peek at pictures of naked women meant swiping dads Playboy, not logging into the internet.

• there was no such thing as a $5 cup of coffee.

• there was no MTV.

• when MTV came out they played these things called music videos

• reality television was the nightly news

• book reports in school actually involved opening a book.

Those are just off the top of my head. How about you guys?

Pretty well covered it.

When people drove their cars it was not uncommon to wave at other drivers instead of trying to run them off the road.

(we) kids spent hours building model kits... instead of in front of a TV or latest video game... and we didn't have a phone let alone apps

I don't remember not having MTV around, but other than that, I remember all of that.

rebelgtp wrote: Some of the things in the news lately have got me thinking about "back when" and how much things have changed and not all for the better. I remember when... - if we wanted to play one of those new fangled video games we had to walk 5 miles to the closest place that had ONE game. - 25 cents would get you a soda - $200 in groceries bought a cart that we heaped full and required four or five trips to bring into the house. - for $10 you and a buddy could go to the movies get popcorn and sodas and have money left over. - $10 seemed like quite a bit of money to a kid. - It cost less than $20 to fill the tank on most cars. Those are just off the top of my head. How about you guys?

these are the only ones that were different for me

• no such things as video games ... no matter how far you walked

• you could still find 6oz Cokes for a nickel .. but mostly sodas cost a dime

• don't think you could get $200 worth of groceries into our car

• movies were $1 or less

• my allowance was $1 per week ... so yeah $10 was a HUGE amount of money

• at 25 - 30¢ per gallon it didn't take anywhere near $20

EastCoastMojo wrote: When people drove their cars it was not uncommon to wave at other drivers instead of trying to run them off the road.

I forgot about this one because for the last few years I have lived in smaller towns where this still happens. I try and avoid larger cities when I can.

First:

The pledge of allegiance was adopted in 1942 as Rah-Rah E36 M3 during war time in public schools and may as well be considered part of propaganda conditioning to create a pile of mindless berkeleys who call anything the government wants them to do "Patriotic". Looking around today I say... it worked.

Second:

I pre-date the widespread use of color TV, Cable, video games and honestly, can do without them now.

EDIT: I miss the F1 coverage on Wide World of Sports from my childhood though

Third:

We didn't walk 5 miles for anything. We rode BMX bikes EVERYWHERE.

Fourth:

Kids didn't walk to/from school without worry. We walked in packs so older kids wouldn't beat the berkeley out of us and take our E36 M3. There was a reason we had pocket knives in school :)

Fifth:

$10 was a lot of money - I could get a gram of weed for that kind of scratch. Rumor has it from even older guys $5 used to get you a nickel. Inflation sucks but it beats deflation if you happen to own anything you don't want to be upside down on.

Sixth:

We thought we knew who the enemy was. We used to get under our desks to protect ourselves in case of a nuclear berkeleying holocaust. Now I know better... the enemy is the same bunch of jackholes berkeleying up air travel with security theater.

Seventh:

Get off my lawn with your rose colored glasses.

Remember when people didn't forward chain email about the good old days?

In the words of Penn and Teller, nostalgia is bullE36 M3.

Remember when being anything other than a white male made you a second class citizen.

Remember when teen pregnancy was brushed under the table, the girl would be sent away and then come back with a new little 'sister or brother'

I could go on.

Those are actually all things I remembered from my childhood and didn't get them from an email. GPS is right we did ride our bikes all over the place though a couple of my friends didn't have them so when going somewhere with them I would normally walk.

As for the walking home in packs at most I normally walked with two other people and that was rare because most of the kids didn't live in the same direction as I did.

We had black and white TV when I was really young then replaced it with one of those two ton console jobs with separate UHF/VHF dials. I don't have cable now either and don't miss it most days.

Neon Honestly I think Penn and Teller while funny at times are idiots. Basically you can come up with crappy conditions about any time period. E36 M3 changes sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse. I can remember going through airport security without having to be groped and fondled. I guess it is better getting felt up before taking a flight these days right?

I showed my daughter how to put a nickel on the rail road tracks and have the BNSF Metra flatten it when we hanging out watching trains fly by this past Friday night.

Last spring I showed her how to throw sticks into the woods by a creek.

Yeah, her iPad is cooler.

plus ca change c'est la meme chose

I remember when the TV was a friggin' piece of furniture with lifelike wood grain and you had to get your ass up off the chair to change between the three or maybe four channels that you had to choose from if you had UHF.

I remember when you had to sit next to the phone if you wanted to talk on it instead of pulling it out of your pocket.

I remember when the ice cream man could be trusted not to kidnap you.

I remember sneaking into the twelve story hi rise (lol) apartment building down the street from my grandmom's and going up to the roof and dropping pebbles off and counting the seconds until it hit the ground.

I remember when the news was not depressing.

EastCoastMojo wrote: I remember when the ice cream man could be trusted not to kidnap you.

I'm not sure... this is probably just because you were innocent and trusting. The Ice Cream Man has always been one run down from full-on clown scary.

EastCoastMojo wrote: I remember when the TV was a friggin' piece of furniture with lifelike wood grain and you had to get your ass up off the chair to change between the three or maybe four channels that you had to choose from if you had UHF.

Or, if you were like my parents, make one of the kids get up and go change it.

I have to admit, I really enjoy being able to carry around the phone. I prefer now to the old days on that one.

See: Midnight in Paris. Very appropriate to this conversation. Every generation looks back fondly on previous times. As if now could never possibly be as good.

I never said it was better. I said I remember it.

I remember:

TV: WTH is that? The big entertainment was listening to Amos & Andy and Fibber McGee and Molly of the big(3'x4'x2') Philco radio that cost my father a months wages.

Phone: You had to dial the operator and have her connect you.

Cars: It was a big day when my father came home with a brand new 1947 Chrysler sedan.

Everybody had a pocket knife and when we went out to play in the woods we usually took our Boy Scout axes with us as well.

We did ride a bus to school but we had to walk a mile to catch it.

$200 of groceries would have probably lasted our family of 4 for a month, but we did grow all our veggies in the garden and my mother canned some of them and a lot of fruit from our trees.

As a lttle kid I had no idea what gas cost but when I was in high school I pumped a lot of it at ~$0.20 a gallon while working at a gas station(where we were expected to wash the windows and chck the oil when finished pumping the gas.

In reply to friedgreencorrado:

I like and dislike cells. Convenience wise they are great however I hate how everyone expects you to always be available these days. I can go up in the mountains for a day and come dack to a dozen messages on my phone.

Giant Purple Snorklewacker wrote: First: The pledge of allegiance was adopted in 1942 as Rah-Rah E36 M3 during war time in public schools and may as well be considered part of propaganda conditioning to create a pile of mindless berkeleys who call anything the government wants them to do "Patriotic". Looking around today I say... it worked. Second: I pre-date the widespread use of color TV, Cable, video games and honestly, can do without them now. EDIT: I miss the F1 coverage on Wide World of Sports from my childhood though Third: We didn't walk 5 miles for anything. We rode BMX bikes EVERYWHERE. Fourth: Kids didn't walk to/from school without worry. We walked in packs so older kids wouldn't beat the berkeley out of us and take our E36 M3. There was a reason we had pocket knives in school :) Fifth: $10 was a lot of money - I could get a gram of weed for that kind of scratch. Rumor has it from even older guys $5 used to get you a nickel. Inflation sucks but it beats deflation if you happen to own anything you don't want to be upside down on. Sixth: We thought we knew who the enemy was. We used to get under our desks to protect ourselves in case of a nuclear berkeleying holocaust. Now I know better... the enemy is the same bunch of jackholes berkeleying up air travel with security theater. Seventh: Get off my lawn with your rose colored glasses.

That's almost word for word what I was thinking.

I also remember before Miata was the answer.

rebelgtp wrote: I also remember before Miata was the answer.

ROFL! So do I. When they came out, the "early adopters" in my crowd described them as an MG that actually started in the morning without having to fiddle with it first.

I remember when you received letters from people in the mail or sent postcards and birthday cards. Now everyone sends emails, texts, or hits you up on Facebook.

I remember receiving phone calls from friends and family seeing how you're doing because they hadn't heard from you in a while. Now someone shoots you an email or hits you up on Facebook.

I remember when getting together with friends involved picking up the phone and calling them.

I remember when other kid's parents would scold you for something, then having to go home and get scolded by your parents for embarrassing them for raising such a "thoughtless" child.

I remember when things like McDonalds, Burger King, and Dairy Queen were a special thing, not dinner every night.

Hal wrote: I remember: TV: WTH is that? The big entertainment was listening to Amos & Andy and Fibber McGee and Molly of the big(3'x4'x2') Philco radio that cost my father a months wages. Phone: You had to dial the operator and have her connect you. Cars: It was a big day when my father came home with a brand new 1947 Chrysler sedan. Everybody had a pocket knife and when we went out to play in the woods we usually took our Boy Scout axes with us as well. We did ride a bus to school but we had to walk a mile to catch it. $200 of groceries would have probably lasted our family of 4 for a month, but we did grow all our veggies in the garden and my mother canned some of them and a lot of fruit from our trees. As a lttle kid I had no idea what gas cost but when I was in high school I pumped a lot of it at ~$0.20 a gallon while working at a gas station(where we were expected to wash the windows and chck the oil when finished pumping the gas.

Hal, we're about the same age... you're right about the radio .. we didn't get our first TV 'til ~ 1960 ...

and the first phones I actually remember didn't have a dial ... you lifted the ear piece and waited for the operator to come on the line ( they were party lines back then )

and I seldom walked home from school ( never walked TO school)... the bus stopped in front of my house...

and yeah while we rode our bikes pretty much anywhere, we walked a goodly amount also