Growing up without a cell phone

[ANYTIME]

If you are 36, or older, you might 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... 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.

8) 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! [/COLOR]

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,

Your parents :biggrin:

 

[clr1024]

LOL- I am 35 and can relate to this!

 

[fkong777]

Yes, I can relate.. 43 this year.

LOL on the recording radio. I remember having to sit thru real time to record radio and vinyl records

at age 11, my parent work early. I make my own breakfast and walk myself to school and home that is a mile away.

however life was better when we had the coleco handheld football and baseball games at $40 each! remember those red dots on a static screen. now my 11yr old has a my old iphone to play online games.

its progress i guess. They have it a little easier. however they are more exposed to violence, crime and danger in todays enviroments.

 

[RSO 34]

Ah, the good old days. I remember thinking I was cool when I was able to wire both a CB and an 8 track into my '68 Mercury Montego.

I also was overjoyed when my neighborhood candy shop got a Pong video game and ultimately "upgraded" to a car racing game where the "race car" was attached to a visible wire hanger-like arm, remained in the center of the screen, and you would "steer" it either left or right as a cylindrical drum rotated with pictures of "other cars" that you had to steer around. The high score at the end of the week would get 5 dollars from the store owner.

And then we had the debate between beta and vhs and all watched the superior beta system die out because sony betamax wouldn't share the technology and every one else made vhs players. But then again, we had the great laser disc revolution aimed to make video obsolete but only to be replaced not long after with DVDs.

But then we would all have to learn the interweb and America On Line was born. I have to confess that I still have an aol address which I obtained with AOL 1.0 when it first started and thought I was king of the tech hill with my US Robotics Sportster 14,400 modem. And with that speed I was happy to see my online costs go down because you paid by the minute for AOL in those days.

Ultimately, with print media dying out I wonder if the next batch of kids will understand what it was like when we were "paper boys" in our youth. I had a route with approximately 150 customers for the Long Island Press where if you took all 7 days in the week it cost 90 cents for home delivery. Most customers paid you one dollar so your seven days of work netted you a dime "profit" per customer for your troubles.

And finally, for now, anyone else remember MTV when it actually played videos? I was living in Manhattan and had my building wired for cable so I caught the premiere of that network and watched The Buggles "Video Killed the Radio Star" as the debut music video.

Ah, but I am dating myself right now. But I am still younger than some on here who will remember that first prize on their original game shows was fire.

 

[TURBO2GO]

Louis CK puts it in great perspective. "We live in an amazing world wasted on the crappiest generation of spoiled idiots"... hahaha

<iframe title="YouTube video player" width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/8r1CZTLk-Gk" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

[nsxinohio]

I am 27 and can relate to this. Granted stuff started to come around when I was around 15 but I never had a cellphone until I was 18. Most of those pertain to my childhood too

 

[NSXrunner]

Amen brother!!! Haha I will be turning 41 this year. I agree with everything you posted. We didn't have MP3 players, we rocked the Walkman!! Then the Discman!! No cell phone, you had to find a pay phone! lol :biggrin:

I have always said though, MP3 players and down loadable songs took away one thing we will never get back. The "experience" of going to the local record/music shop, hang with friends, rifle through the bins of cd's and records looking for random stuff. Heck the local shops used to even have bands come and play. I saw No Doubt there before they got big. To me experience is way more fun than convenience.

High Speed internet? PLEEZE!! DIAL UP!!! :biggrin: Plus you could only dial up late at night because you had to make sure no one was going to call or they would get a busy signal.

2 cents.

 

[Matt_337]

I remember thinking how cool I was with a pager and being connected to my friends when I graduated high school.
We all had different codes so we would know who was paging me at the time.

I'm 34.

Thanks for the post John. So true.

 

[LMR]

+1000 on everything you said John and Bob:biggrin:. I'm 51 and soon to be 52:frown: and can relate to all that and more.

 

[Vic Cardenas]

I'm only 28 and can relate to most of this.

Mix tapes from the radio.
Never had caller ID on any of the phones as a kid.
I got my first computer in '96 but didn't have the internet until about '99, it was too slow to enjoy anyway.
I remember my rich friend having laser disks, thought they were so cool.
Walking 6 miles to school, not afraid of pedophiles and kidnappers lurking.
Saturday morning cartoons!!
Playing outside all day long.
I remember my only association with terrorists was those ones on "Back to the Future". :tongue:
Although, microwaves were commonplace when I was growing up but I've always preferred a stove and a sauté pan.

 

[pgilliam1]

Frankly, I'm glad I'm 56, missed all this "stuff" in my childhood and developed an appreciation for the outdoors and all "things" natural. I feel sorry for these kids not even realizing how awesome nature really is. My son would rather play video games than go with me on river trips. That blows me away. Whatever - into the future we go.
Happy Motoring!

 

[NSXrebel]

I remember thinking how cool I was with a pager and being connected to my friends when I graduated high school.
We all had different codes so we would know who was paging me at the time.

I'm 34.

Thanks for the post John. So true.

I remember this. You always had to have a roll of quarters, and then drive around until you found a payphone, that worked! If you were ballin' you had voicemail, which was more $$ of course. We had no text messaging in those early days, so we used the numbers to "spell" out words/messages.

 

[Midnight_Raven]

I'm 24 and can relate with most of this stuff. I didn't have a cell phone, walked to school everyday in New England weather, no internet until I was like 12 or so, we used to use cassette players all the time. I remember how it was back in the late 80s and early 90s (basically when I was under 10 years old). I'll admit though I was rocking a Super Nintendo. Jealous? But in reality I would spend more time outside playing than inside watching tv/playing videogames back then. I also didn't get a cell phone until I purchased my own cell phone around the age of 18 and a crappy one at that... still pretty crappy actually

As time goes by things are just going to get easier and easier for people in prosperous countries, since technology drastically improves our standard of living each couple of years. It's not neccessarily true for 3rd world countries were they standard of living is still kind of low though so the youth over there still got it bad.

 

[sportmarc]

48 here and a rural midwest location growing up, here are a couple things that come to mind:

High School did not have a computer, only a Teletype/terminal dial-up modem networked to a timeshare computer at an area college
Early years an 8 party land phone line. 8 families shared the same line, and there were different ring patterns for each line (like Morse code). If you really needed the phone, you may have to interrupt and negotiate with whomever was on it at the time
I Remember my older brother proudly showing off his new reel-to-reel tape player (not casette, but movie size reels) to me.
Cars had AM only and maybe an 8 track. Couldn't listen to the radio during a thunderstorm, and could probably pull in 5 stations max
First video game experience was Pong
3 snowy TV channels (if the weather cooperated, sometimes 1) that went off the air at 11:00 pm. Later you got to watch a test pattern, on our massive 15 inch B/W TV

I've worked in IT for many years but I don't have any personal electronics except a cell phone that I only have for emergencies. Don't feel like I'm missing anything. My 9 and 7 year olds want a Nintendo DS and smart phone to text their friends. :frown:

 

[ajnsx]

Louis CK puts it in great perspective. "We live in an amazing world wasted on the crappiest generation of spoiled idiots"... hahaha

<iframe title="YouTube video player" width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/8r1CZTLk-Gk" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

i watched his stand up about the iphone (or similar phone) very well put, i'm 37 Op post is spot on though, this how getting old feels.:redface:

 

[ajnsx]

Frankly, I'm glad I'm 56, missed all this "stuff" in my childhood and developed an appreciation for the outdoors and all "things" natural. I feel sorry for these kids not even realizing how awesome nature really is. My son would rather play video games than go with me on river trips. That blows me away. Whatever - into the future we go.
Happy Motoring!

Check out the video games of today, they're amazing, especially since i started with a vic 20 (precursor to the commodore 64) i don't blame him! :biggrin:

 

[SFNSXguy]

My father was an "early adopter"... we had the first TV in the neighborhood... watched the (indian head) test pattern for a couple of months before the first San Francisco TV station started programming. All the kids on the block would come over and sit on the floor around that TV watching that test pattern hoping they would be among the first to see an actual program.

 

[SaleenS7Rs]

I can relate to some of this stuff. Im 27 I never had cable TV till I was 21. This was cool because I was always outside enjoying the outdoors as a kid. I didnt get the internet till I was 18. At that point and time I needed the internet for college. I didnt get a cellphone till I was 26 lol. I thought I never really needed one and I hate the phone so much but just in case of a emergency its kind of needed these days. With videos games I was always pretty update. They were the only thing that kept me inside for a few hours at a time. If I had cable, the internet, a cellphone, and updated gaming systems I would of never left home. I would of probably missed a lot of cool stuff if I had all those things.

 

[davidf]

Ok all you guys that think your old. I had a Schwinn stingray bike.:redface: I stepped up the a Schwinn 10 speed. 10 speeds, thats all that was available. You were king if you had a 10 speed then.

 

[Texas91Brent]

Ok all you guys that think your old. I had a Schwinn stingray bike.:redface: I stepped up the a Schwinn 10 speed. 10 speeds, thats all that was available. You were king if you had a 10 speed then.

I had one too David....actualy several stingrays.......We did not have malls either.....Kmart and Gibsons was a big deal as was Dairy Queen and Mr Quick. Hell video games was Pong which was black and white from Radio Shack. Coolest cartoons besides Bugs Bunny and Roadrunner was Speed Racer.....No tv recording but we had cassettes eventually.......Kids were not as fat and lazy as today either............we even built our own tree houses...imagine that!!!:smile:

P.S. I even had a Yamaha Motobike bicycle.....was the beginning of bicycle motocross

 

[passline]

I remember playing the Electric Flag and The Mothers of Invention on a Muntz 8-track player in my VW. At home the system was a Thorens turntable, Tandberg reel-to-reel, and Wharfdale speakers. Computer was a Compu-Add with a Prodigy search engine and 5 1/2" floppy disk trays. :smile:

 

[EdinKali]

Turning 45 this year. I totally relate.

 

[Russ]

I remember reading TAP and building a blue box...

 

[Sylvan]

31 here, and I totally relate! I actually had a flashback to my youth last year, when I accidentally locked my keys, wallet, and cellphone in my car. I had to walk almost a mile to find a pay phone, and call my roommate collect so he could bring me a spare key. Luckily he is one of the few phone numbers I actually remember. (how many phone numbers do you memorize these days?)

 

[LJSB]

A few more...

Using a Mimeograph to make copies.

Driving to a store or library to make a copy at 25 and later 10 cents a page.

You mowed your own lawn and if you were lucky your mower had a motor.

Plow? You shoveled the driveway.

You had to write it down if you wanted to remember something and you used cursive because it was faster.

Doing math in your head.

You didn't have a bell to tell you that you were driving with the door open or left the headlamps on....idiot.

Maps. You had copies of different maps in your glove box and you figured out how to get there.

Monaural records were what you got unless you paid more for stereo, IF it was available,

The remote for your TV made a "boing" sound and you were awesome to have one.

4-7 TV channels with snow. 2-3 you could barley make out but you watched anyway.

You doctor smoked, right in the office. You could too if you were old enough.

Fighting, fist fighting was a real possibility at any time, any day at school.
No police were called and the next day you were friends again.