The Age thread

[mercurytheatre]

I am " had to get off the couch to change the channel" years old.

or

I am "full service gas station" years old.

[3sheets2thewind]

Remotes were clickers.

My aunt in Canada would get her milk and butter delivered to her house.

Phones were attacked to the wall and they all had dial wheels not buttons. Every one in Los Angeles had the same area code (213)

Air and water were both free at the gas station.

Bread was under a dollar a loaf.

Watermelon sold for under $0.20 a lbs.

Keyboards were typewriters.

[SoCal]

There were only 13 channels on the television.

Televisions were huge pieces of furniture.

Owners of televisions could repair them themselves by taking tubes out of the back and going to the grocery store to a stand that had replacements.

At least once a year dad had to go onto the roof of the house and adjust the TV antenna.

All houses used to have TV antennas.

Doctors used to make housecalls.

Helm's Bakery operated trucks that would go aroung town tooting its horn to let you know fresh baked goods were for sale.

[3sheets2thewind]

Watches told the time with arrows and a face with the numbers it had no other function.

You had to take the roll out of the camera and get it developed to see your pictures.

You could smoke cigarettes every where.

Chinese food had a lot of MSG in it.

Most cars sold for under $3,000.00

Gas was under a $1.00 a gallon.

[Deleted]

I am "staying outside until the street lights come on" years old.

I am "you've got mail" years old.

I am " you misbehave, you get your ass beat. And no one calls CPS" years old.

[Aeryn]

Sept 10, 2014 9:39:52 GMT -5 @smallvillian0 said:

I am " you misbehave, you get your ass beat. And no one calls CPS" years old.

[3sheets2thewind]

Frozen TV dinner were sold in tin fold trays and had to be cooked in the oven.

Teachers told student to sit down and shut up.

[mercurytheatre]

I am "the smell of fresh Kodak film when you opened that red and gold wrapper with the shiny, foil interior" years old.

[3sheets2thewind]

Telephones didn't come with a message recorded, there was no way to know about missed calls or who was calling.

Almost all cars were not automatic and you had to learn how to shift gears manually.

People would drink water from the tap not from a pre packaged bottle.

[avp60685]

I am a child raised in the 80s who learned to respect my elders regardless of they were, I learned to behave or get a whipping of some kind without people getting suspicious or calling the cops on my folks, I learned to eat the food placed on my plate and ever question what it was, I learned that when the street lights come on outside you came inside the house, I remember the most expensive ice cream on the ice cream truck was $2.00, where I had to use a quarter to make a phone call using a pay phone, the only cellphones I saw were in people's cars and they were big and bulky and you plugged them into your cigarette lighter, I grew up where you never sassed your teacher, I grew up where I didn't have a television remote I had to literally change the channel by hand, I used VCR tapes to watch my Disney movies, I remember buying packs of gum for 25 cents each, I grew up where we had an answering machine but we had no Caller ID, I grew up where customer service meant just that, I grew up where the lowest price for gasoline was $1.09 a gallon and you might travel to another town just to save a few extra pennies, I grew up where there was no e-email you literally had pen-pals who you would mail letters with actual stamps to various parts of the country, I grew up when you didn't need passport to travel to Canada you could use your birth certificate, I grew up in a time when computers were beginning to have color monitors, laptops were expensive like $5000 and were big and bulky. I also remember postage stamps being 25 cents, I also remember a lot of unforgettable moments like the death of Princess Diana, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the beginning of the Gulf War, the days of George H. W. Bush who said a lot "Read my lips" I remember when television shows were good family fun and we had shows like The Cosby Show, Family Ties, Growing Pains, how Jonathan Taylor Thomas was considered the cutest boy in Hollywood and girls called him JTT, I remember all of these things and so much more, what a life and yet it seems like too long ago and we have lost something along the way, pity, we may never get it back again~

[KyleEl]

I remember gas for less than 30 cents a gallon. All phones were rotary. We didn't even have UHF on our TV. We got three networks. There was no PBS. Our cars didn't have FM radio, but all it played was "beautiful music", which was in a lot of the stores. I liked it.

I live in the South, so this means more here. I am not old enough to remember all-white classes, but when I was in the third grade because my school burned we were sent to what had been the black school. It was nice, so later on when I learned about segregation I didn't understand what was so bad about it. Had I moved to that community earlier I would have been in all-white classes, I have been told. Where I lived before there were a few black kids going to my school.

My first-grade teacher read from a book of inspirational stories that had a Christian message. Actually, we had devotional readings and sometimes prayer the entire time I was in school. I have heard they took God out of the schools before I even went to school, but not my schools. We had music time in elementary school where some of the songs were religious.

My sixth-grade teacher paddled kids. A lot. She was very religious and she didn't keep her faith a secret. We had to say a Bible verse each day. A bunch of the kids said, "Jesus wept."

When I was in college a few select students had email. It was just mail, and when they signed in to a computer they got the message "You've got mail". But there were only a few computers that were the size of computers now. The rest were monitors hooked up to a great big computer. The Internet? That was a room in one building where you gave them what you wanted to send and they sent it to some big central computer and I guess you picked up your reply there.

[SoCal]

If you wanted to place a call from California to Arizona, you dialed "0" and asked for the "long distance operator."

Drive-in theaters were fun.

We didn't have the world wide web, we had The Encyclopedia Brittanica. Usually about a 26 volume set of books....one for each letter of the alphabet.

Motel 6 was given that name because they only charged $6 per night.

[SoCal]

Nylons didn't come as "panty-hose." They were individual stockings and were held up by...ugh...a garter belt.

There were no hot rollers, curling irons or flat irons at home. You had to try to sleep all night in rollers that were bobby-pinned into place.

People still carried handkerchiefs (and used them) not disposable Kleenex.

No disposable diapers.

Department stores didn't start decorating for Christmas until.......December.

[Kimba116]

I remember when:

Sweaters came with buttons sown on them.
A decent pair of shoes cost $20-$30.
The holiday season started the Friday after Thanksgiving aka Black Friday not right after Halloween.
When trick-or-treating was held at night.

[mercurytheatre]

I am "Watergate hearings ruined my summer" years old.

[SoCal]

Hey MercThr, I am "Who shot JR" years old.

Remember when stores were closed on Sundays?

Remember when transistor radios and 8-track tapes were new?

Remember when a new microwave cost over $500?

[avp60685]

A few more things I remember from my childhood:

You could buy cigarettes from a cigarette vending machine
Summer vacation meant from the middle of June until August and we didn't start school until after Labor Day!
I remember the incident with Monica Lewinsky and how furious it made people feel about our President.
I remember stores that are no longer in business like Montgomery Ward's, Hects, Heckingers, and Ames
I remember creating my own radio show with a cassette tape recorder, a set of batteries and a blank tape (I recently had to throw it away because the tape got ruined) plus my own voice.

I remember how there used to be at least 5 different soap operas on television because my babysitters would watch them (they didn't do such a great job in watching but hey I learned some good music from the television show themes!)

I remember the first Pixar animated film came out and how everyone was like "Huh?"

I remember how certain cartoon characters used to look and now they don't look the same!

I remember how 3D meant wearing a set of cardboard glasses with one red lens and one blue lens

I remember when there used to be television movies on various stations and sometimes you would record an entire movie on two blank VHS tapes.

I remember the year a kid caught a baseball in the stands and how that was major news.

I remember the year a kid at my school got killed just for chasing down a hat on the highway because he went in the woods and us children were forbidden to play near the woods outside the school yard (we still did it anyway but we made sure we weren't caught).

I remember when there wasn't many security checks at the airports and how I actually rode in a small airplane around the Washington Mall before 9/11 without anyone stopping or questioning us.

These are some things that come to mind when I think of my childhood!

[AntiArbitrator]

I am "one car to a family" old.

I am "two movies and a cliff hanger for one price at the theater" old.

I am "regular homes had beautiful marble steps" old.

I am "Coca Cola contained cocaine" old.

I am "no" meant "No!" old.

I am "secret admirers were shy guys instead of stalkers" old.

I am "girls wore girdles even when they did not need them" old.

I am "Mohair sweaters were the latest fad" old.

I am "the jitterbug was a wild and crazy dance" old.

[SoCal]

Hmmmm.....anyone else remember slide rules before calculators?

When your kid was misbehaving in public, you could swat him on the butt without worrying about someone calling CPS.

I am old enough to remember A-E ticket books at Disneyland. "A" rides were baby rides, and "E's" got you on the Matterhorn.

Did anyone else use Baby Oil as a "suntan" lotion?

I remember when teachers graded your penmanship.

I remember when all nuns wore habits.

[AntiArbitrator]

The baby oil comment reminded me we used "Skin So Soft bath oil" as insect repeĺant.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N900A using proboards

[mercurytheatre]

Johnson's baby oil with a few drops of iodine.

[SoCal]

Oct 7, 2014 20:47:27 GMT -5 mercurytheatre said:

Johnson's baby oil with a few drops of iodine.

MC, I didn't mention the iodine in the Baby Oil because I thought no one else would know about it or believe me!!! You're awesome. My older sister would slather that mixture all over herself before staking out a sunny spot in the back yard on a lawn chair. Man-o-man, that stuff was greasy! What a memory!

[mercurytheatre]

Oct 7, 2014 21:09:09 GMT -5 SoCal said:

Oct 7, 2014 20:47:27 GMT -5 mercurytheatre said:

Johnson's baby oil with a few drops of iodine.

MC, I didn't mention the iodine in the Baby Oil because I thought no one else would know about it or believe me!!! You're awesome. My older sister would slather that mixture all over herself before staking out a sunny spot in the back yard on a lawn chair. Man-o-man, that stuff was greasy! What a memory!

[mazeman]

I am "Happy Days/Laverne & Shirley" Tuesday Night's old

I am "Libby's Libby's Libby's on Your Table Table Table…" old

I am Shaun Cassidy old

[mercurytheatre]

Oct 8, 2014 11:48:11 GMT -5 mazeman said:

I am "Happy Days/Laverne & Shirley" Tuesday Night's old

I am "Libby's Libby's Libby's on Your Table Table Table…" old

I am Shaun Cassidy old

Ha ha ... I recently posted a tweet about that Libbys ad.

Maze

[mercurytheatre]

If it says

Libbys
Libbys
Libbys

on the

Label
Label
Label

It's Rainman advertising.

[mercurytheatre]

I am " tv trailer for Midnight Cowboy w/Nilsson playing in the background" years old.

[mazeman]

That's awesome! Timmy!!!!

I am... Barbra Streisand was a sex-symbol old

I am... OJ "Juice" Simpson was an American football hero old

I am…. no safety-seals on pills old.

[avp60685]

More memories from me:

I remember using floppy disks to store files and put them on the computer to print or to cut and paste to your computer

I remember vaguely Baby Jessica falling down the well in Texas (I was only like 2-3 years old when it happened)

I remember how Tara Lapinski was America's sweetheart and how she beat Michelle Kwan

I remember Nancy Kerrigan's attack by Tonya Harding and pretending to be a skater wearing my dressy shoes at church with other girls and we would try to mimic the moves that had been been made.

I remember getting ice cream in gallon containers and half gallon containers.

These are a few of memoreis of childhood

[mazeman]

I remember being little and watching Nixon resign on TV

I can somewhat remember my parents waking me up from a nap to watch the moon landing… just bits and pieces. I was 2.

I remember the 1976 bicentennial and all the hoopla surrounding it.

I remember Bob Barker with brown hair on "Price Is Right"