Growing up without a cell phone
05-08-2012 | 06:46 AM
#1
Thread Starter
Senior Member
Joined: 11-10-2007
Posts: 180
From: South side of Houston
Growing up without a cell phone
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!
9) We didn't have any fancy PlayStation or Xbox video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! Wehad 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,
The Over 40 Crowd
(Send this to someone you'd like to make smile
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!
9) We didn't have any fancy PlayStation or Xbox video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! Wehad 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,
The Over 40 Crowd
(Send this to someone you'd like to make smile
Amen!
I remember that....
05-08-2012 | 08:42 AM
#5
Senior Member
Joined: 05-13-2008
Posts: 2,075
From: Knoxville, TN
My mom and yours too, used to hold babies in their arms in the front seat! They wouldn't let us take our baby home without a hospital approved car seat!
Oh, and BB guns, no soft paintballs and goggles for us. We bled for our fun.
Oh, and BB guns, no soft paintballs and goggles for us. We bled for our fun.
05-08-2012 | 09:21 AM
#6
Deceased
Joined: 06-30-2010
Posts: 25,739
From: Kannapolis NC
And no bike helmets, back in the 70's a Styrofoam helmet on your head with the matching knee and elbow pads would have gotten you beaten up before you left the driveway.
Cool kids had chopper bikes with banana seats and sissy bars, a bald rear tire was a sign that your weren't a wuss and you could slide it around corners.
Forget reflectors and headlights, the more invisible after dark, the better....That's why they put headlights on cars man.
But you did have to have an AM/FM handlebar radio to listen to Foghat and The Doobies while you delivered papers.
I remember spending a July 4th afternoon carefully taping firecrackers to my spokes so that when sundown hit, I lit 'em off and "exploded" for two full city blocks.
Cool kids had chopper bikes with banana seats and sissy bars, a bald rear tire was a sign that your weren't a wuss and you could slide it around corners.
Forget reflectors and headlights, the more invisible after dark, the better....That's why they put headlights on cars man.
But you did have to have an AM/FM handlebar radio to listen to Foghat and The Doobies while you delivered papers.
I remember spending a July 4th afternoon carefully taping firecrackers to my spokes so that when sundown hit, I lit 'em off and "exploded" for two full city blocks.
05-08-2012 | 09:54 AM
#7
Senior Member
Joined: 02-16-2012
Posts: 148
From: Oldsmar, Florida
Wow oh the memories.I think they were the good old days.We were brought up to respect and honor,and seems today kids do not have respect for anything.
And all they say is how hard they have it......
(slowly put away soapbox)
Thanks for the post.
Happy HHR_ing
And all they say is how hard they have it......
(slowly put away soapbox)
Thanks for the post.
Happy HHR_ing
05-08-2012 | 09:55 AM
#8
Senior Member
Joined: 12-19-2011
Posts: 2,308
From: Somewhere
I remember riding up in the back window on the deck behind the back seat.
You had to EARN a spot in the little league team... you had to win and excel to EARN a trophy.
I rode a purple Schwinn Stingray with the high rise sissy bar, ape hanger butterfly handle bars a chopped front fork extended by cutting one off a junker bike and welding them together.
As for the texting being annoying.... AMEN... I was in a movie and 3 kids in the row in front of me spent the first 15 minutes texting..... EACH OTHER.... All I saw was flipping iPhone screens flashing. I finally leaned up and told them to put the @#$% things away.... they looked offended that I called them on it, but they put them away.... 10 minutes later they left the theater.... I guess they went into withdrawal... got the "DTs" (Disused Thumbs) or something.
Sorry about the rant
Cheers
Doc
You had to EARN a spot in the little league team... you had to win and excel to EARN a trophy.
I rode a purple Schwinn Stingray with the high rise sissy bar, ape hanger butterfly handle bars a chopped front fork extended by cutting one off a junker bike and welding them together.
As for the texting being annoying.... AMEN... I was in a movie and 3 kids in the row in front of me spent the first 15 minutes texting..... EACH OTHER.... All I saw was flipping iPhone screens flashing. I finally leaned up and told them to put the @#$% things away.... they looked offended that I called them on it, but they put them away.... 10 minutes later they left the theater.... I guess they went into withdrawal... got the "DTs" (Disused Thumbs) or something.
Sorry about the rant
Cheers
Doc
05-08-2012 | 09:57 AM
#9
Senior Member
Joined: 10-22-2008
Posts: 1,831
From: hemet, calif.
Im 80 didnt have a radio ever hear of a crystal set had to make our own, skater board get a 2 by 4 and an orange crate go to the junk and get an old pair of skates. and we were homeless sleeping in the park, now that I look back could have worse.
05-08-2012 | 10:15 AM
#10
Senior Member
Joined: 03-06-2010
Posts: 6,869
From: Ohio
" chopped front fork extended by cutting one off a junker bike and welding them together."
Elitist! You had a welder.... We used to have to deal with the fact that any wheelie we pulled could be our last when the extended forks came apart... Some of us lost front teeth over this.
Elitist! You had a welder.... We used to have to deal with the fact that any wheelie we pulled could be our last when the extended forks came apart... Some of us lost front teeth over this.