Do You Remember When...

No internet. If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalogue.

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.

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 butts!

You had to wait around all day to tape your favorite song off the radio and the DJ would usually talk over the beginning and @#*% it all up!

We had tape decks in our car. We'd play our favorite tape and "eject" it when finished and the tape would come undone.

If you were on the phone and somebody else called they got a busy signal, that's it!

When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was. It could be your school, your mom, your boss, your bookie, a collections agent, you just didn't know...you had to pick it up and take your chances.

We had the Atari 2600, With games like 'Space Invaders' and 'Asteroids'. Your guy was a little square,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.

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 a** and walk over to the TV to change the channel!

If we wanted to heat something up we had to use the stove!

Oh yeah M-203 I can remember those, but then I have you by a few years. 

I can remember when:

The 'remote' for changing TV channels was Dad saying 'son go change the channel to 7'.

There was only black and white TV programs

78 and 33 1/3 rpm records

My parents knew where I was before I got home because the neighbors called them.

Transitor radios

Rotary dial phones and party lines.

The remote control for the t.v. made a 'boing' sound. (Zenith).

"Pluck your magic twanger, Froggy!" meant a half hour of fun and laughter with Andy Devine.

Pretending you were asleep and trying to stay awake so you could sneak in and watch dad and mom wrap and put presents  under the tree.

Summers never seemed to end until mom took you to Woolworth's to buy school supplies.

You heard the magic sound of the Good Humor truck (looked like a Brink's truck) and the man (always unhappy) opened a tiny door on the side of the truck to pull out a creamsicle and made change with the coin thingy on the front of his belt.

You looked at a policeman with awe, and asked if you could give his horse a sugar cube.

I called my father Sir........find that today.

Doctors made house calls.  (Oh my, I am old)

Buying a Coke for a nickle.

Ditto for candy bars.

Fueling and lighting a kerosene or coal stove.

Gas stations had attendants who pumped the gas,checked your oil,filled your tires,etc.

Popping caps at someone was harmless when playing Cowboys and Indians.

Drive-in movies.

Penny scales at the drugstore.

Drugstores with soda fountains.

Using an outhouse.

We still do. here (and others as well).

*edit - and yes, you are!

• When being sent to the Principal's office was nothing compared to the fate that awaited the student at home?
  We were in fear for our lives, but it wasn't because of drive-by shootings, drugs, gangs, etc.
  
  Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, Laurel and Hardy, the Lone Ranger, The Shadow Knows?
• Summers filled with bike rides, baseball games, Hula Hoops, bowling and visits to the pool and eating Kool-Aid powder with sugar?
• Wax Coke-shaped bottles with colored sugar water inside?
• Soda pop machines that dispensed glass bottles?
• Coffee shops with tableside jukeboxes?
• Peashooters?
• Reel-To-Reel tape recorders?
• Erector Sets?
• 5 cent packs of baseball cards - with that awful pink slab of bubble gum?

hey...i loved that gum! 

Yep,rain or shine and sometimes you got glasses,towels or ashtrays and the road maps were free too!

Plastic Army men or paper dolls.

Toys that didn't use batteries.

Bubbling Christmas tree lights.

4 track and 8 track tapes.

78 RPM records.

Mono radios and TV's. With tubes even!

Saying the Pledge of Allegiance in school.

10 cent comic books.

Freezers you had to defrost.

Wringer washing machines.

Strike-anywhere matches.

• The worst thing you could catch from the opposite sex was "cooties"?
• Saturday morning cartoons weren't 30-minute commercials for action figures?
• All the girls had ugly gym uniforms?
• The worst embarrassment was being picked last for a team?
• War was a card game?

[EDIT]
Speaking of nostalgic, I'm sitting here listening to this Album, and can recommend it to anyone who likes these songs.
Really nice music...

Eeee, when I were a lad...

Navy blue knickers - yuck!

My mom used to love to reminisce about that show with Andy Devine! ... for me it was uncle Soupy.... till he got in trouble!

Thanks for reminding me of a happy memory of mom.

When no one saw any sign of Christmas til the day after Thanksgiving

NO ONE was open on Christmas day.

A special delevery letter (took 2-3 days) was 35 cents, cause we didn't have faxes or Fed-Ex

Tons more but Merry Christmas for now!!

Cork ones were pop guns...

Potato ones were spud guns...;)

The were called 'Fags' ...;)

Having a milk box outside the back door where the milkman would deliver milk in glass bottles with the cream still floating on the top. 

Going to the corner store with an empty green coke bottle worth a nickel and coming out with a bag full of penny candy.

Neighborhood schools where if you lived close enough, you could walk home for lunch and then go back when you were through.

Watching The Wizard of Oz on a black and white television and never knowing that when the door opened after the house landed in Oz the movie changed to color.

Record players with those cylinders that fit in the middle that would hold a pile of records and drop them as each record finished.

Geeze, I'm starting to feel a little old here . . .    Merry Christmas!!

• You'd reach into a muddy gutter for a penny?
• Blackjack, Clove and Teaberry chewing gum?
• Telephone numbers with a word prefix...(Raymond 4-601)?
• 35 cent a gallon gasoline?
• Nearly everyone's Mom was at home when the kids got home from school?
• Mistakes were corrected by simply exclaiming, "Do Over!"?

.... I were so glad, to dance around the hay mound... with my pitch and fork, I'd go there twice daily..... (Adge Cutler & The Worzels)

* Getting the cane at school... which to some (like me) was a status symbol.

(these days the whimps cry "abuse" if teacher raises his/her voice, mentions "cane")

* When being 'politically correct' meant filling out your ballot paper correctly.

* When cinemas actually had balcony seats... front row balcony meant not having to look around/over peoples heads.

* When coppers kicked you up the arse for minor misdemeanors... nowadays it means multiple charges and possible jail time.

* When safe sex meant not getting caught by her mum and/or dad.

* When 'dope' referred to somebody not too bright... and weed was and undesirable weed in the garden.

* The PILL was the only 'protection' you needed.

* A pint of beer was 2 shillings and sixpence (UK when I was 16) Now it's 5 pound 90p, so I'm told.

* Running away from home meant going to grandma's house. (street kids/homelessness was unheard of back then)

LOL, nice one vStyler...

My pleasure...special for wulfie:

* When ho, ho, ho was a Christmas greeting... now you get arrested for trying to solicit 3 hookers.

* When you could tell yer little un's a nursery rhyme... now you're in trouble for scaring them, corrupting them... telling them lies.

* When you got on a train the smell was distinctly of the steam engine... now it's the whiff of where somebody relieved themselves.

* When a virus was simply a cold or the flu... now you gotta put up firewalls and quarantine your PC, or it gets sick.

* When you could have a conversation with the younger generation and understand them... now you're lucky to get 4 incoherrent words strung together.

* and last but not least.... when bankers were halfway human. Now they're organic calculators! 

Donut , ice cream and milk trucks

Ya could go out and play unsupervised and not fear for your life

TV was in black and white only and just 3 stations

No video games or calculators

Every fill up at the gas station ya got a free gift + blue or green stamps

Life was better back then