What will you tell your grand kids.

[Geysergazers]

I remember practicing Duck&Cover in the school hallway. That's where all the kids knelt with their heads against the wall and with their hands clasped behind their necks. This was in case the "Reds" dropped their Atom Bombs on us.

I remember getting Polio vaccinations and I remember kids with Polio. The "lucky" ones could walk with leg braces and crutches.

I remember when drivers in wrecks were routinely impaled on the one-piece steering column which stopped happening when Federal Safety Regulations came in and steering columns had to be made collapsible.

I remember having to replace Ignition Points and Sparkplugs every few thousand miles.

I remember when car tires only lasted 7000Mi.

I remember car radiators routinely boiling on hills when towing a trailer. My Dad would stop and spray water from a 5 gallon can on the Radiator.

I remember when Ice came only in 25Lb Blocks.

I remember when you couldn't see the Pittsburgh skyline through the Smog.

I remember when refrigerators had one door and wouldn't keep Ice Cream hard.

I remember wearing out LP Records to the point that it would play one line over and over. That's when the term "crack in his record" (someone who repeats himself) had meaning.


No thanks to "the good old days". I'll take the Internets, blood pressure medicine that works and 200,000Mi car engines.



Lew

 

[Dusty82]

True that - it wasn't all fun and frolic.

I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area in the 60s and 70s. While there was a lot of "flower power" and "make love, not war" going on, there was also the Zodiac Killer and the Black Panthers - not to mention the SLA, People's Liberation Front, and all of that other fun stuff going on. Race riots, anti-war protests (and I mean big, violent ones,) the UC Berkley riots, the Stones concert at Altamont - well, you get the idea. It was a simpler time, but by no means was it all calm and pastoral.

 

[mckeapc67]

Wow, this got me thinking of all of the things that I remember too including a lot already mentioned:

- Returnable softdrink bottles - as kids we would pick them up from the side of the road (litter) and return them for the deposit to buy candy bars for .25
- 78, 45, and 33 speed records - Don't forget putting a nickle on the arm to keep it from skipping
- 8-track Tapes
- The Car: (1) only AM radio, (2) no A/C / windows down, (3) seatbelts not required, (3) manual transmission was the norm, (4) no power steering or brakes, (5) changing points, pluts, & condenser, (6) Gas under $1 and gas pumps didn't even have a $ digit, (7) "Regular" leaded gasoline
- Phones: (1) Party Line - had to pick up and listen before dialing, (2) had to tell the operator our home number before calling long distance, (3) Phone actually had a dial and bells
- Manual Type Writers & Mechanical Adding Machines - not electric
- Our home didn't have A/C, Just a big window fan
- We had black & white TV (back before the world was in color), 3 or 4 channels, A knob to change channels. If we wanted to pick up different channels, we would have to go outside and spin the antenna.
- It wasn't uncommon to see guns at school during hunting season . . . If we brought our gun to school, the principle would show us his
- Multiple grade levels in the same classroom at school
- TG&Y & Woolco - before Wal-Mart put the "little guys" out of business
- Closest McDonalds was about 30 miles away
- Movie tickets were only about $2 max

 

[cwolfman13]

Can't wait till he grows up (1YR OLD) and tell him the following.

I remember when we reserved camp sites for 15-20 bucks.
I remember when I use to buy a ice creame cone for 2.50
I remember when my first truck cost 30 K
I remember when a candy bar was 1.29
I remember my first pup was 12 K

He will say " Boy grandpa things were cheap back then"

I remember when minimum wage was $7.50/hr and the median family income was in the neighborhood of $40K

He will say "Boy grandpa, things were cheap back then, but you sure didn't make very much money huh?"

It's all relative....things were certainly cheaper back in the day, but wages were also far less. These two things tend to move in synch....with a few hiccups along the way.

 

[Idahawk]

I remember when things were much slower and people weren't in a rush all the time . It was yes sir and no sir , yes maam no maam . You did something wrong you got spanked . And we didn't whine about everything. I remember vacations in our vista crusier station wagon and my brother and I riding in the rear facing back seat. I remember how good hamburgers used to be at the old greasey spoon and Hamms was the beer refreshing !

 

[heathdavis]

Yesterday I was telling my kid about how the milkman used to come to our house and we'd pick stuff to buy out of his truck.
(crap that makes me sound old)

 

[heathdavis]

When you had to "flip over" the cassette to hear more music...

Umm, cassettes are new-fangled. What about records with grooves in them and stuff? And the shellac kind (we had those when we were real little and good at breaking them).

 

[Unstable_Tripod]

I remember when transistor radios came out. It was so cool that you could actually carry a radio around. Before that they were as big as televisions (which were black and white and had three channels which you changed manually by turning a dial on the TV). I also remember when everyone started getting "hi-fi" music systems (hi-fidelity sound record players with powerful tube amplifiers and big, high quality speakers). These were usually in a large piece of furniture. Stereo? No, not until several years later. Eight-tracks and cassettes were many years in the future too.

 

[cwolfman13]

How about "what will your grand kids tell you about"?

Look Grandpa...check out the new Motororola Droid Chip I just had inplanted. It's a human/cyborg chip that is implanted in my temple and I can download music and videos, get online, make virtual 3D hologrphic phone calls, play video games, watch t.v., and so much more.....there are so many apps for this, it's amazing....and it all downloads straight to my brain. It's sooooo much better than the iChip.....has way more apps and the iChip gets spotty service. Don't you just hate it when you're out of area and your brain turns to white noise....drives me crazy.

By the way grandpa....when are you going to ditch that old fasioned keyboard and that clunky Droid cellular phone? Does that thing even work anymore? I think they stopped making compatible apps for that like 20 years ago or something and it's not compatible with my Droid Chip unless I download the "old fasioned phone call" app....which is free, but it doesn't really get such good reviews......so you're going to have to upgrade if we're going to keep in touch.....and none of that stupid "email" stuff either......sheesh, you'd think we're living in 2020 or something. Time to get with the times grandpa.

 

[screwballl]

Umm, cassettes are new-fangled. What about records with grooves in them and stuff? And the shellac kind (we had those when we were real little and good at breaking them).

I just went with the theme of the thread... what will you tell your kids and/or grandkids... since I am still in my early 30s, I posted the specifics

 

[cheyo]

I'll tell my grandkids (because I BETTER NOT HAVE ANY FOR A LONG LONG LONG time)...how there used to be this place called the internet...and this thing called FaceBook and Twitter.

Sadly, I will probably have to tell them that "I used to camp where that new XYZ Mart is"

Oh Yeah I'll have to tell them that everyone used to shop at this place called WALMART.

LMAO....I'll tell them Justin Beiber and Lady Gaga used to be cool!

I'll tell them that there once was a professional sport called Ice Hockey.

I'll tell them that people used to actually sit down with a pen and paper and write letters to each other and they would send them to their friends through this thing called the US Postal Service.

I'll tell them that way back in the day, we had to use this stuff called money to pay for stuff.....it was really confusing though....it had all these numbers on it and pictures of old guys.

I'll tell them coffee basically had three brands.....Maxwell House, Folgers, and the hioty toity stuff in the small square cans.

I'll tell them that California was once part of our Nation.

I'll tell them that you used to be able to go out on a boat and use this thing called a fishing rod to catch these things called fish.

Sorry....really I'm not THAT cynical.

 

[cheyo]

This thread really got me thinking....

I'll tell them we used to be able to walk and sit with our friends when they were leaving from the airport.

I'll tell them that we used to be able to greet loved ones as soon as they stepped into the terminal at the airport.

I'll tell them that you didn't ALWAYS have to take your shoes off before boarding a commercial flight.

I'll tell them there used to be Airlines like Eastern, and TWA and Air Florida.

Then they will look at me with a quizzical look and ask....PaPa (or whatever they will call me)....what's an airport?

 

[Steve88W]

"don't pee on the campfire"

Ah... Timeless wisdom passed down

 

[thermonieum]

no we're not there yet, don't make me pull this internet over

 

[Dusty82]

I was the remote control. (Turn that up, boy... Put it on channel 2, boy...)

Having to pass the microphone for the reel-to-reel tape recorder around the kitchen table to record a "letter" to my uncle who was in Viet Nam.

The reel-to-reel "micro recorder" was the size of a phone book.

The phone book was something printed every year that had everyone's phone number printed in it.

Soda cans were made of tin, not aluminum, and you had to use the pointy end of a can opener to open them.

Bottles didn't have twist off tops - you used the other end of the can opener to open it.

KFC was called Kentucky Fried Chicken, and there was a real Col. Sanders who did the TV commercials for it.

Most passenger cars had huge fins on the tails ends, were over 20 feet long, weighed 2 - 2 1/2 tons apiece, got rotten gas mileage, and smoked like crazy.

Pick-ups were for work. The seat was the only thing in the interior not made of metal. You weren't worried about scratching the paint, because it was expected that you'd beat it up at work.

T-shirts were worn under button-up shirts, and had nothing written on them.

The only NASCAR on TV was the Daytona 500 - maybe.

If you were a rotten kid and did something wrong, the neighbors would take you by the ear and lead you home, mom and dad would thank said neighbor for bringing you home, apologize for your behavior, then punish you the way they saw fit.

If you acted up in school, the teacher could give you a spanking or send you to the principal, who would then give you a spanking. Parents didn't sue either - they apologized for our behavior, then punished us again for whatever we did to need a spanking for in the first place.

 

[Kdugan]

I remember when things were much slower and people weren't in a rush all the time . It was yes sir and no sir , yes maam no maam . You did something wrong you got spanked . And we didn't whine about everything.

AMEN!!!!

 

[cwolfman13]

I remember when things were much slower and people weren't in a rush all the time ........................

Wish I remembered that....must have been before my time

 

[BillNH60]

Girls(there are 4 of them) I remember gas at 23cents a gal, cars with no seatbelts,they came in the 70-80s, walking a mile to the bus for school, candy bars for a nickel, hitchhiking(it was safe then)20 mi to the county fair. too many others to mention

 

[aslag]

Just in the 20 years I've lived in my neighborhood...Where the Safeway store sits was once a horse pasture and there was an old dairy farm where the Fred Meyer is now. They tore down the area's last drive-in theater when they built that state of the art emergency only hospital. We'd see deer and coyotes while on walks in the forest where that 2 mile long apartment/townhouse neighborhood is now. Then I moved here it was a semi rural area with woods, wetlands and wildlife. That's been transformed to buildings, parking lots and people.

 

[CoxClan]

Yes! Drive in movies - Mom made popcorn and dumped it into a brown grocery bag, put GLASS bottled sodas into the cooler, I packed my blanket and a pillow. First movie was always a kiddie flick, and then i was ordered to lay down...LOL Usually was asleep by the time first grown up movie was halfway through. I have no idea how long they stayed. I ALWAYS begged to go to the snack bar, (remember the dancing snacks?) and I remember Dad giving in ONCE. Incidently, that was the ONLY time I was allowed to drink the soda straight from the bottle until I was a teenager and just did it anyway...Mom always insisted a bottle was AT LEAST two servings! LOL

I had 45's and 33's. I did laugh at 78's, though, sorry! My first car had an 8 track player....I loved that car. I thought I was awesome when I got the little portable cassette Walkman! I never dreamed of an iPod!

My first computer was a TI-99-4A. No floppy - I backed things up on a normal cassette recorder! That was, after typing in THOUSANDS of lines of code in BASIC! All to make a program that my kids would consider lame today....but was so cool then.