The Over 40 Crowd

[Picturepro]

If you are 40, 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 40, 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!

 

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!!

 

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!

 

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!

 

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!

 

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?

 

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!

 

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 GOD !!! 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!

 

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!

 

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?!?!

 

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-finks!

 

And we didn't have microwaves. If we wanted to heat something up,

we had to use the stove! Imagine that!

 

 

 

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

[Theakerr]

Gets better or worse (depending on one's perspective) if you are over 60

[igcitng]

Being someone in the just under 40 crowd I relate to every word of that. Just this morning I said to a coworker that I can't imagine life without computers and cell phones, and how did we ever do it. Even though now we can do a lot more good things because of technology, a whole lot of bad things happen because of it too, so there is a trade off. I had a car with an 8 track player in it and now I have an iPod in a car that talks to me. Cassette tapes and cds in between. My first cell phone was a bag phone that took an hour to set up and a phone plan so expensive that you could only use it if your life depended on it. And unfortunately the 80's style clothes that I was happy to forget are back and look even more rediculous on anyone that was around to wear them the first time.

[radicon]

Amen to that!!

[rwolson]

Ok, you young guys, here's a few more.

 

Many of us grew up without color TV, but instead, just a single B&W for the entire house. I always watched the Winzard of Oz in B&W.

 

Phones, remember dial phones? Yup, no touch tone phones. Also, you rented your phone from the phone company. Where's Lilly Tomlin and her skit about the phone company?

[tknice]

Ok, you young guys, here's a few more.

 

Many of us grew up without color TV, but instead, just a single B&W for the entire house. I always watched the Winzard of Oz in B&W.

 

Phones, remember dial phones? Yup, no touch tone phones. Also, you rented your phone from the phone company. Where's Lilly Tomlin and her skit about the phone company?

39 here and i can relate to everything in this thread. What i don't get about the younger generation (cant believe im saying that) is how they get by without ever knowing about some things. It surprises me constantly when mid twenty somethings at work are like ummm no, sorry don't know who or what that is. U2 or knight rider, the three stooges or ghost busters... I'm like, really?? You have no idea?

 

I mean I wasn't sitting around watching howdy doody on the family room carpet... But I know who he is. Wasnt alive for WWII but most of us know at least a little bit about it.

[igcitng]

39 here and i can relate to everything in this thread. What i don't get about the younger generation (cant believe im saying that) is how they get by without ever knowing about some things. It surprises me constantly when mid twenty somethings at work are like ummm no, sorry don't know who or what that is. U2 or knight rider, the three stooges or ghost busters... I'm like, really?? You have no idea?

 

I mean I wasn't sitting around watching howdy doody on the family room carpet... But I know who he is. Wasnt alive for WWII but most of us know at least a little bit about it.

 

 

Can I join your 39 club? I am holding on tight to my last days of being 39, even though I turn 29 on my birthday every year LOL. I work with mostly younger people, almost all females. Recently had a chat with one about how I typed book reports on a typewriter for school and she looked at me like I had a disease. Too funny. And how I survived without a cell phone and internet. That I drove a car in high school that had an 8 track and is now considered a collector item. Don't forget Dukes of Hazzard and the other cult shows of our time. I saw the Knightrider TA and the Dukes of Hazzard cars at a museum this summer. Made me feel old. Then this weekend I went to a party where there were kids and they informed me that Loony Tunes and Strawberry Shortcake and Smurfs are coming back. You know it has been awhile when they recycle stuff from our childhood. Yikes!

[radicon]

Don't forget about having a party line to go with that rotory phone. Uh oh, here comes that questions on that one.

[igcitng]

Don't forget about having a party line to go with that rotory phone. Uh oh, here comes that questions on that one.

 

 

My mom was a kid in the 50's and had that. Made for close neighborhoods. Today neighbors do everything they can to ignore each other. Phone numbers were short, numbers and letters. My grandma had her rented rotary wall phone until she died in 1994. When we figured out she had paid rent on it for all of those years we were floored.

[radicon]

Actually more like NOSEY neighbors! Nothing like trying to use the phone and someone was already talking on the phone OR you were using the phone and you would here a CLICK at the end of your call. You knew that someone was listening in.

 

Also since this was a rural area, we only had to DIAL 7 numbers to call someone. Only had to DIAL all 10 numbers when one was calling long distance. Ring-a-ding-ding!

 

And I am not that old (by my standards anyway), still less than 50.

[JOEHIO]

:shades:

How many of you remember party lines with telephones? You would pickup the phone to make a call, and a neighbor mightbe on the line talking tom someone, and you would have to hang up and try later,

when she was finished talking. How about TV show's like Sky King, Roy Rogers, Sugarfoot, Leave it to Beaver,The life of Riley, The Donna Reed Show, and so many more. Heck, back in the 50's and 60's, we actually played outside with our friends, no such thing as staying inside to play. Bring back the good old things ! .............................and by the way, I am over 50.

Joe

[Picturepro]

[Cranice]

Gets better or worse (depending on one's perspective) if you are over 60

How true Most of the "things' he speaks of did not exist when we were at school

[fordlover]

Absolutely love your post, its priceless and you should be emailing it to everyone so the rest of the world can read it! How very true it is and we all turned out fine....I think!!! LOL

PRICELESS!!!

[Victor Wolansky]

Totally agree, very well said.

[KonaSport11]

Great post. I shocked my kid recently by telling him I had to handwrite all essays and type them on a typewriter to get them graded in highschool and college. No computers for quick editing and spell checking. One of his friends also asked me last week what an encyclopedia is! Can you imagine having to research without the aid of a computer. If they only knew...

[marklisa03]

Love it!

[rwolson]

My parents purchased a set of Colliers encyclopedias which cost them a bundle in the day. We yearly received an updated book which I read cover to cover. The yearly books provided our glimpses of lands and people outside our area. Today, the web provides instant updates, but I still missing curling up with a big book of the world.

[yogregb]

Just great! I remember seeing the Beatles on Ed Sullivan and that disney hour every Sunday evening.... We live in a great age, but if I could be frozen in a time period it would be the fifties for me, seems the world was a much kinder/ safer place....

[julena]

Loved it.It was really interesting and funny to read.I really liked it.Thanks for sharing it with us.It was good to know.Nice thoughts.

[rwolson]

Just great! I remember seeing the Beatles on Ed Sullivan and that disney hour every Sunday evening.... We live in a great age, but if I could be frozen in a time period it would be the fifties for me, seems the world was a much kinder/ safer place....

 

 

Add to your list of TV shows, I Love Lucy, Andy Griffiths, Bonanza, etc. Good TV back in the day. No canned laughter on Lucy's show; people laughed for real. I still watch some of her Youtube epsiodes and just laugh. I'd take Lucy over Seinfeld any day.

[Tulsa]

My God, I'm old...

[jeffdelta]

I miss penny candy...going to the 5 and dime store to buy pixie sticks...our local grocery store would sell a hot dog and a pepsi for 25 cents every Saturday......I miss spending all day looking for pop bottles to return to the store so I could buy a pop from the pop machine...the same pop machine where you put in a dime and pulled out the bottle of pop and then used the opener on the machine to open it......I miss playing high school football and having the coaches with hold water from us as punishment.....I miss being able to fit up in the back window of my parents car(while they were driving)......I miss Adam 12 and Emergency........I miss Strat-o-Matic Baseball......I miss when the Harlem Globetrotters were on Scooby-Doo........I miss my Dingo boots.....Even miss my Members Only jacket.......Don't miss the President being on all three channels at the same time......I miss getting free air at the gas station......I miss the smell of whatever was in that green bottle at the barbershop........I miss my transistor radio.......I miss Evil Knievel .........I miss my G.I. Joe(with the kung-fu grip).....I miss hitting a roll of caps with my Dad's hammer......I certainly have come a long way from having to roll down the car window to feel cooler in the car, now I just say,"65 degrees".

[cj04]

I don't miss having a coal furnace,a wood burning water heater and sadistic nuns and priests hitting me every chance they got.

[11Edge]

Our first phone was a big wooden thing mounted on the wall with two big batteries supplying the power. You took the ear piece off of the hook and turned the crank. If you were calling on your party line you would crank like two longs and a short or whater ever. No matter what you cranked, the operater would come on and ask for the NAME of the person you were calling. In 1953 we moved to another state and did not get another phone until about 1957. You would dial the first two letters of a name. All of the phones in our town were on the same name so we only had to dial 5 numbers.

 

We got our first TV in 1953. No changing channels because there was only one. It came on at 2:30 in the afternoon and went off at midnight. Eventually we got cable and could get four or five channels. No VCRs to record for later viewing.