To the Over 30 crowd

Marlite

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Memorable email reprinted for your viewing.


Subject: To the over 30 crowd

If you are 30 or older you will think this is hilarious!!!!

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 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 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 thirty
, 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. 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!

3. There were no MP3's or Napsters! You wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the damn record store and shoplift it yourself! 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!

4. 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!

5. And we didn't have fancy Caller ID Boxes either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! It could be your school, your mom, your boss, your bookie, your drug dealer, a collections agent, you just didn't know!!! You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!

6. We didn't have any fancy Sony Playstation video games
with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games like "Space Invaders" and "asteroids" and the graphics were horrible! Your 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!

7. When you went to the movie theater there no such thing as stadium seating! All the seats were the same height! If a tall guy or some old broad with a hat sat in front of you and you couldn't see, you were just screwed!

8. Sure, we had cable television, but back then that was
only like 15 channels and there was no onscreen menu! You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on!

And 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!

9. And we didn't have microwaves, if we wanted to heat something up, we had to use the stove or go build a fire ... imagine that! If we wanted popcorn, we had to use that stupid Jiffy Pop thing or a pan with HOT oil and Real popcorn kernels and shake it all over the stove forever like an idiot.

10. When we were on the phone with our friends and our parents walked-in, we were stuck to the wall with a cord, a 7 foot cord that ran to the phone - not the phone base, the actual phone. We barely had enough length to sit on the floor and still be able to twirl the phone cord in our fingers. If you suddenly had to go to the bathroom - guess what we had to do.....hang up and talk to them later.

That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it too easy. You're spoiled.

You guys wouldn't have lasted five minutes back in
1980!

Regards,
The over 30 Crowd
 
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Re: To the Over 50 crowd

I am over 15 years removed from 50 and I can relate to all of your points. Perhaps you should retitle the thread to "To the Over 30 Crowd". We did have Nintendo to play with, however :) .
 
glockboy and adam lau you guys are sharp. I never had those toys when I was younger and I think it was sent to me in deference to my age ......over 50. So edited for correctness.

Thanks guys. :thumbsup:

P.S. CPF has the smartest youngsters in any group, I was going to say brightest but might have seemed left handed.
 
When I was young, there wasn't even cable in my town and we had to have an outdoor antenna on a mast to get signal from only 3 tv stations available.

I remember my dad going up there and manually rotate the friggin mast to get better reception and us yelling when to stop.

I also remember being able to roam the neighborhood with our air rifles and bikes don't get an evil eye from the people around, today we would probably get shot.

AlexGT
 
Near and dear my friend!!! I think I almost shed a tear for the "good ole' days"



Now I can't get the song from "Three's Company" out of my hear LOL Dam 80's!!! :)
 
I'm 61.

- When I was a young kid in Halifax, Nova Scotia, there was only 1 channel on TV.
- 3 People in my Grade 1 class had TV - black and white.
- Milk was delivered by horse and wagon door to door by Farmer's Dairy.
- An ice man would come by every few days to put a new block of ice in the ice box.
- Phone numbers were five digits long, like: 5-7754; long distance cost a fortune
- Hardly anyone could afford a car.
- People used slide rules to figure out numbers.
- Satellites hadn't been invented yet.
- When crossing over Halifax to Dartmouth on the ferry, women sat on one side of the ferry, men on the other.
- Everyone attended church.
- My (Catholic) school was segregated: girls on one end of the school, boys on the other
- There were no diesel buses. We had electric trolleys with overhead wires
- Fast food stores weren't invented yet (except for the fish and chip place)
- People were either Protestant or Catholic
- Comic books were ten cents; paperback novels were 35 cents; newspapers were a nickel
- Gas was about 25 cents a gallon (don't know for sure; didn't own at car at age 7)
- Chocolate bars were in two sizes: 5 cents and 10 cents
- Later, when I lived in Ottawa, I could buy a comic book, a bottle of pop and a bag of chips with my 25 cent allowance.
- Coke in 7 ounce green-tinted bottles was 36 cents for a six pack, plus 2 cents deposit per bottle
- Ice cream cones were 5 cents for 1 scoop for 10 cents for 2 scoops
- It cost a nickel to mail a letter.
- Transistors hadn't been invented yet, radios and TVs used hot, glowing red tubes
- On Sundays, the whole world stopped
- Newspapers were a nickel
- Blacks and the native MicMac Indians were discriminated against
- The fish monger came around once a week, ringing a bell, offering fresh fish
- Each summer, a man would come down the street with a push cart with a grinding wheel, offering to sharpen knives
- My dad would shovel coal into the furnace in the winter to warm the house
- On Wednesdays, they'd sound the air raid sirens at noon to test them
- Hamburger was about 35 cents a pound
- There were no jet airplanes for civilian flights
- Canada was still on the English system of weights and measures
- I could go on, but you're probably busy.....

Gee, things have changed a lot, haven't they?
 
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We didn't have these super bright things called LED flashlights. We had dim plastic flashlights with bulbs that would burn out as often as the batteries would run out of power (which was very often!).

Kids are spoiled these days!!!
 
For the OP, I'm not sure microwaves belong in that list. They were invented quite a few years ago, and I know people still using '60s-vintage Amana Radaranges.
 
For the OP, I'm not sure microwaves belong in that list. They were invented quite a few years ago, and I know people still using '60s-vintage Amana Radaranges.

First microwave I saw was in 1982. It was hideously expensive and belonged to a wealthy guy whose house I spent a couple of days looking after.
 
Youjust reminded me of our first "Micro". Probably in about 1982-84 we (mom, dad and I) went ot the store and got a microwave!!!


we came home and did "the test". The test was the "hmm... will this work?"


My mom, dad and I put a coffee cup of water in (after my parents debated if the cup was safe) and turned it on. After aa few seconds my mom pulled it out and dipped her finger in to test the temp.. She proclaims: It's warm!!!!!

Real scientific!!! HAHAHA


It cracks me up to think about it due to them being so funny and the looks on their faces!!!

Priceless!!!

For the OP, I'm not sure microwaves belong in that list. They were invented quite a few years ago, and I know people still using '60s-vintage Amana Radaranges.
 
I'm 61.

- When I was a young kid in Halifax, Nova Scotia, there was only 1 channel on TV.
- 3 People in my Grade 1 class had TV - black and white.
- Milk was delivered by horse and wagon door to door by Farmer's Dairy.
- An ice man would come by every few days to put a new block of ice in the ice box.
- Phone numbers were five digits long, like: 5-7754; long distance cost a fortune
- Hardly anyone could afford a car.
- People used slide rules to figure out numbers.
- Satellites hadn't been invented yet.
- When crossing over Halifax to Dartmouth on the ferry, women sat on one side of the ferry, men on the other.
- Everyone attended church.
- My (Catholic) school was segregated: girls on one end of the school, boys on the other
- There were no diesel buses. We had electric trolleys with overhead wires
- Fast food stores weren't invented yet (except for the fish and chip place)
- People were either Protestant or Catholic
- Comic books were ten cents; paperback novels were 35 cents; newspapers were a nickel
- Gas was about 25 cents a gallon (don't know for sure; didn't own at car at age 7)
- Chocolate bars were in two sizes: 5 cents and 10 cents
- Later, when I lived in Ottawa, I could buy a comic book, a bottle of pop and a bag of chips with my 25 cent allowance.
- Coke in 7 ounce green-tinted bottles was 36 cents for a six pack, plus 2 cents deposit per bottle
- Ice cream cones were 5 cents for 1 scoop for 10 cents for 2 scoops
- It cost a nickel to mail a letter.
- Transistors hadn't been invented yet, radios and TVs used hot, glowing red tubes
- On Sundays, the whole world stopped
- Newspapers were a nickel
- Blacks and the native MicMac Indians were discriminated against
- The fish monger came around once a week, ringing a bell, offering fresh fish
- Each summer, a man would come down the street with a push cart with a grinding wheel, offering to sharpen knives
- My dad would shovel coal into the furnace in the winter to warm the house
- On Wednesdays, they'd sound the air raid sirens at noon to test them
- Hamburger was about 35 cents a pound
- There were no jet airplanes for civilian flights
- Canada was still on the English system of weights and measures
- I could go on, but you're probably busy.....

Gee, things have changed a lot, haven't they?

This is such an interesting list! Thank you for taking the time to compose it. :thumbsup:

I remember talking about gas prices with my grandfather, who was born in 1912. The lowest he remembered was 8 gallons for a dollar!!
 
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The modern microwave oven came out in the late '60s and by the mid '70s was a pretty big seller. I guess in some areas they were more common than others.

My father used to talk about 14-cent gasoline all the time.
 
Some of you guys must remember the party lines on the telephone and then I think when they first came out you paid extra for a "private" line. We had a private line (1970s) but the operator would ask the number you were calling from if you dialed long distance. And yes I remember forever adjusting the vertical and horizontal sync on the black and white tube TV which was a console and a true piece of furniture. We got three channels where I lived, never knew NBC growing up. I had to watch what my parents watched, so we watched Gunsmoke, The Waltons and The Carol Burnette Show, however every Saturday I watched American Bandstand. Yeah, we had antenna rotor problems as well, I don't think it ever went a whole year without breaking down.

Also I remember as a kid piling in the back of a pickup truck with a bunch of others with no restraining devices at all.

About the video games, I remember playing Pong on the TV when it first came out when I was in the 7th grade I think. Around that time also, my uncle who used to like to flaunt his money, bought a six digit LED calculator for something north of a hundred dollars.

When I was a kid, I had surgery and they gave me ether instead of sodium pentathol and man was I ever sick to my stomach when I came out of that.

Lastly in the early 80s my room mate bought one of the early cd players for about $500 and then had to send it in a year later to be "calibrated" when it started skipping.

Great thoughts guys.
 
When I was young, everyone had toy guns. Not only that, we used to play tag with bows and arrows (the one's with the suction cups on the end). At one time a drive by shooting was three or four pea shooters sticking out of the car window next to you.
 
I'm 21 and I weep for my generation.
I keep a cell phone but I prefer my wind up pocket watch...theres nothing like GOOD OLD ANALOG TIME :grin2:
I have friends my age that CAN'T READ ANALOG TIME! :wtf:


anyone remember radial phones? try speed dialing on that thing...ha!
 
I'm confused...a lot of the list makes it look like I had it better as a kid than kids today. :crackup: Poor little kids today with their electronic tethers, too many choices, and over scheduled lives.
 
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