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When I was a kid...

Unforgiven

Unforgiven

...eschew obfuscation...
Administrator
...only a few people I knew had touch tone phones. The rest of us still had rotary dial.

I this topic came up in another thread and I thought if could be a fun and interesting thread for the Lounge. Lets see where it goes.
 
We dialed into BBS instead of opening up Internet Explorer where we played text based RPGs. Edit: All on a 9600 baud modem! (I remember upgrading to 14.4k modems and then 56k modems...we thought we were running some blazing fast internet on 56k LOL!)
 
When I was a kid ...

  • TV was only black and white and the remote control was your little brother.
  • We played outside until dark (in the city) and didn't have to check in with mom and dad until supper.
  • The president was still a hero.
  • Scouts were cool and gangs weren't.
  • Smoking was permitted everywhere and most people smoked.
  • Radio wasn't broadcast in stereo.
  • Circumcision was common, breast implants weren't.
  • Allowance was $.50 a week.
 
Parents drove cars with two doors and kids would slide in the back. After all, kids are flexible! We never wore seat belts in the back seat, not sure if my parents did in the front.

We ate lots of candy, drank sugary Koolaid drinks, ate tons of carbs, fats and salt, and weren't fat because we played outside. In the sun. Where the ozone was so thick we never got sunburned even without sunscreen.
 
lunatic59 said:
When I was a kid ...

  • TV was only black and white and the remote control was your little brother.
  • We played outside until dark (in the city) and didn't have to check in with mom and dad until supper.
  • Smoking was permitted everywhere and most people smoked.
  • Radio wasn't broadcast in stereo.
  • Circumcision was common, breast implants weren't.
  • Allowance was $.50 a week.
Click to expand...
-Then, when you finally got color TV it was green, red, black and white.
-5:00 fire whistle/test, we had about 5 minutes to get home...or else.
-Cigarette vending machines were everywhere, no ID required.
-Transistor radios (on AM) were strapped to your bike handle-bars, your banana seat was covered in STP stickers and the baseball cards in the spokes are probably worth big bucks now.
-$.50 a week?? Man, you were a rich kid!!
 
Clementine_3 said:
-Then, when you finally got color TV it was green, red, black and white.
-5:00 fire whistle/test, we had about 5 minutes to get home...or else.
-Cigarette vending machines were everywhere, no ID required.
-Transistor radios (on AM) were strapped to your bike handle-bars, your banana seat was covered in STP stickers and the baseball cards in the spokes are probably worth big bucks now.
-$.50 a week?? Man, you were a rich kid!!
Click to expand...

Our very first color TV was a GE portable set with a massive 12" screen. My dad brought it home in July of 1969 and the very first thing we all watched together on it was the lunar landing live broadcast ... which was broadcast in black and white.

I forgot about the fire whistles. They went off for us every day at noon and 6:00 p.m.

STP Stickers .... LOL (I had Castrol ;) ) I remember one summer writing letters to every company I could think of and asking for stickers. I am still surprised that any of them actually replied, let alone sent them.

That $.50 had to cover milk at lunch, too so at $.05/day for the half pint box ($.10 for chocolate milk) that didn't leave much disposable income.
 
...at town festivals I could go buy my grandfather a beer and my reward was a Mellow Yellow.;)
 
When I was a kid, we sent text messages using a pager. The only pager code I remember is 07734.
-POGs were cool and we had POGs competition at recess.
 
When I was a kid, gas was still cents a gallon and the station was full service. The guys would check your oil, tire pressure and clean your windows.

Ciggs where cents a pack also and we could buy them for our parents at the neighborhood corner stores.

We had a black & white tv for the longest. Maybe by around 1970 when we got our first color tv. We had a rotory phone that used letters and numbers to dial (BRidge 4-3931).

The corner stores also had 2 for a penny candy and cookies, so we, the kids, would sell soda bottles to make us some extra money and/or cut grass with push mower.

Those where the good ole days!
 
  • Krystals were 15 cents.
  • The milkman would still deliver milk right to the porch, taking away the empty quart bottles.
  • NOTHING was safety sealed; and no one died from poisoning or contamination.
  • Coke was 25 cents, including a dime deposit on the bottle. You bring back the bottle, you get a dime.
  • Bazooka Bubble Gum was a penny apiece.
  • We drank from garden hoses.
  • The neighbors all knew each other and could easily whip each other's kids if they misbehaved.
  • We all shared the same soda bottle on a hot day and survived.
  • The playground equipment at the park was all steel. The slide was like 200 degrees in the summer... and we didn't care.
  • We had no allowance. We cut grass around the neighborhood in the summer to make money: front yards were $2 and back yards were $3.
  • We had NO protective gear at all. We scraped our knees & elbows and broke arms... and not only did it NOT kill us or injure our self-esteem, we were actually made stronger by it.
  • We scratched out trails in the dirt to use as roads for our Matchbox cars.
  • We got to wait all week, until Saturday morning, to watch cartoons. And they were actually FUNNY without being crude.
  • There were plenty of TV commercials for cigarettes and whiskey, but not a single commercial, radio spot, or print advertisement for ANY prescription drug.

We had something that most kids no longer have: IMAGINATION.
 
Our fire whistle not only blew at 8A and 5P - it used to have codes. Every street had a code. If it blew 3-8-4, I'd know my mother had done something to the kerosene cookstove.

The whistle in all the fire stations would also blow at 7A if school was cancelled.
 
....milk was $0.10 a quart.
....coffee was $0.30 a pound.
....it cost $2 for mom to take me to the doctor (what is insurance?)
....our new piano was $184 and we listened to my sister or mom play it.
....tooth soap (tooth paste) was a quarter.
....my new shoes cost $0.94 and my father complained about paying for them.
....we played in the fields and by the pond.
....we had horses and had never heard of the automobile.
....school was one large room and everyone had class together.
....my parents complained about the Yankees and never once mentioned baseball.
....we went to bed when it got dark because oil and candles were expensive.
 
OfTheDamned said:
....my new shoes cost $0.94 and my father complained about paying for them.
Click to expand...

That reminded me:

When you needed new shoes for church, they were Red Goose Shoes.
And you were excited to get the Golden Egg bank with candy and toys inside.

doit2it-albums-stuff-picture6097-redgooseshoes.jpg
 
When I was a kid candy bars were a nickle, two for $.08
I don't know what fire whistles are, so maybe that depends on where you were raised, but I was raised during the Vietnam war, and we had air raid sirens every Saturday at 1:00 pm. I remember being afraid of those sirens even as young as I was.
 
Fire whistles are large sirens (much like air raid sirens) usually placed in the center of town. They used to go off at noon and five so the folks working in the fields would know when it was time to go home for meals. At least that is my understanding. Nowadays they are sounded more for tradition. As someone mentioned above, they are also used for calling in the volunteer firefighters. In the town I grew up in one long and two shorts was for a fully engulfed structural fire.
 
Unforgiven said:
Fire whistles are large sirens (much like air raid sirens) usually placed in the center of town. They used to go off at noon and five so the folks working in the fields would know when it was time to go home for meals. At least that is my understanding. Nowadays they are sounded more for tradition. As someone mentioned above, they are also used for calling in the volunteer firefighters. In the town I grew up in one long and two shorts was for a fully engulfed structural fire.
Click to expand...

We just had bells.
 
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