Things from the past that kids will never do

[tulipsandroses]

Call the operator. I don’t even remember when phone operators became a thing of the past. Maybe when phone booths went away? I took my 8 yr old niece and her friend to lunch today. There was a phone on the wall from the 1900s. They asked me how it worked without numbers, I told them back then you had to dial the operator to put your call through. The looks on their faces was priceless. My niece finally said,I’m glad there are no more operators. I’m not a baby, I can make a call myself

[Skittles]

1. you've seen this, yes?

[tulipsandroses]

5. That is hilarious

That looked painful

[Buckeye_Democrat]

8. That's incredible to me!

I suppose that I watched adults dialing phone numbers when I was a small child in the 60's, but spinning the dial all the way around to the finger-stopper never seemed like a hard concept to me.

What makes it seem more strange is that they spun it around for SOME numbers, but not others!



For any young people here:

Instructional video for rotary phones (except you need to keep the receiver lifted while you do it):

Years later, most people only had dial-up internet too. There was usually an option to dial the number using pulse (the click sounds from a rotary phone), or tone (the sounds from a push-button phone).

Here's the sounds using the tone option:

[Skittles]

18. I guess I would have thought they had seen it in a movie or TV show

I never used one of these but I saw enough in movies so I would know how to use it.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

23. Good point! There's also old movies and TV shows...

... showing people dialing rotary phones.

Or maybe they never watch anything old? I used to have a coworker, only about 10 years younger than me, who REFUSED to watch anything filmed in black-and-white! He told me that after I let him borrow my copy of "Dr. Strangelove". He returned the CD to me the next day, saying that he stopped watching it the instant he saw it was a B&W film! Lol... wtf.

Rotary phones were around long after colorized film, of course, but maybe some younger people refuse to watch anything that looks like it was made pre-2000 or whatever?

[Skittles]

29. not sure

I am guessing with the internet and all options for watching new stuff, old TV and movies just are no longer that appealing to the newer generations. A shame, really, because I think it broadens the, er, horizons.

[eleny]

71. Dial up bulletin boards were my first net experience

Then we subscribed to Pipeline that was still dial up. Ka-boing-ka-boing.
Too slow? Get a bigger pipe!

[Buckeye_Democrat]

73. I first connected remotely to my university's...

... text-based system in the early-90's, but I can't remember the terminology or what I did to make the connection from my computer at home! That system seemed pretty useless to me overall, other than acquiring some information from some professors.

I think AOL was my first dial-up ISP, but I'm not sure if that's true either. The technological options were changing so quickly back then, it's hard for me to remember those details!

I remember that Netscape was my browser of choice in those days.

Edit:
I had to search for Pipeline, not remembering that option for me. Was it mostly only available in New York?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pipeline

[eleny]

77. Netsscape browser and Alta Vista was hands down the best search engine

I still miss it since it gave many more pages of options than Google.

I only used the dial up bb's at home. No computers or net at work. My brother started the first bulletin board for poetry and that opened up the world of boards to me. Then we got into the more advanced text based experience with our Radio Shack machine (lol).

At some point we had a Commodore Amiga with the computer in the keyboard. I can still recall the excitement.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

87. I wish that I could remember more from that period.

I surely had to connect to a server at my university through a phone line, but I don't recall what I did at all!

Then I'd see options for Usenet, the World Wide Web, etc.

I wasn't a participant in bulletin boards at all, I guess. Most of my text-based communications over the internet came later, after it looked much more like the early days of DU (for example).

I majored in math and physics, and I took about half a dozen computer programming courses back then (Fortran, Pascal, C/C++). Despite how the programming classes were easy to me, I had some feelings of animosity towards the internet and the rapid changes in computer technology in general. It was like I struggled to see the forest from the trees, and I wanted to have a better idea of where it was headed!

Computers were only useful for calculations, and an occasional game (not online) for me in the early days.

[Archae]

76. Same here, I was connected to the "Fidonet" through local BBS'.

There were two forums I enjoyed a lot, "Politics," (this was during the Bill Clinton years,) and the "Religious Food Fight" called "Holysmoke."

It could get really wild in Holysmoke, particularly when the fundamentalist "Christians" showed up, usually to push creationism.

[eleny]

78. We go way back in the machine!

[Archae]

82. My first modem was 2400 baud.

I got up to 56000 baud before going to cable Internet.

[eleny]

86. Husband was a computer hardware guy before going into telecommunications

Now in retirement, from time to time, we talk about how hardware that took two guys to carry back in the day had far less capacity than thumb drives of today. Just as baud from way back can be compared to lightening fast cable of today - that we still complain about sometimes for being too slow.

Your old baud rates sound familiar but I'm too old to remember ours, lol!

[Stinky The Clown]

121. Our first modem was 300 baud. Connected to a local BBS.

They could only have one user connected at a time. Our screaming machine was a Commodore 64 with a tape drive and soon after a 5¼" floppy drive.

[Silent3]

118. What's even scarier is how the pulse dial system works (or had worked)...

...behind the scenes.

Where we're now used to the idea of things like routing phone numbers being handled by microscopic digital circuits and software, back in the day each single digit you dialed in a phone number was being handled by a very macroscopic electromechanical switch, and it took enormous banks of such devices to handle thousands of customers in each telephone exchange.

As time went on electromechanical switches were replaced with more compact electronics that counted dial pulses electronically instead of mechanically.

[krispos42]

133. That was interesting

I grew up during the transition to touchtone, so I've actually used this on a regular basis. Not in decades, of course, but I know somebody that still has a rotary phone in their house, at the top of the stairs. They can't call out anymore because the system won't support pulse dialing, but it still receives calls.

Actual mechanical bells!

[bluecollar2]

2. Rewind a cassette tape with pencil....n/t

[Skittles]

3. use a matchbook to steady a 8-track in a car

[11 Bravo]

66. Using my "Cheap Thrills" album cover to separate out seeds and stems from the buds.

[eleny]

70. Lol! I still have that album nt

[11 Bravo]

74. Same here. Janis was the best!

[eleny]

81. Can't let go of her music! And with that great R. Crumb cover, too

[Skittles]

97. haha I had Cheap Thrills

so many of us did

[DBoon]

132. You are and old timer

I used Jethro Tull albums to clean dope

[robbob]

51. Child's play!

Try opening up a cassette tape after the tape has broken, untangling the tape, cutting the irrevocably mangled tape away, splicing it back together and then rescrewing the cassette back together. I’ve rescued many favourite tapes like this, and if you’re lucky you only lose 1-2 seconds of recorded material.

[electric_blue68]

127. 😄 Had to do that once or twice for most favorite stuff!

[oldtime dfl_er]

4. Get up and go to the tv

to change the channel. Does the phrase "Don't touch that dial!" have any meaning anymore?

[shanti]

98. That's been a game changer, hasn't it?

We're so lazy now.

[BeerBarrelPolka]

6. .

Play a 16 2/3 RPM record on a record player.

[mwooldri]

9. That's pretty rare...

33.333, 45 and 78 rpm are common... I think I've seen a record player that had 16 2/3 but never a 16 2/3 record.

[BeerBarrelPolka]

20. They

They were designed mainly for talking records where they could play for a LONG time. I believe some old cars even had record players in them as a luxury item, and they played 16 2/3 records.

[IcyPeas]

7. Walk to school

[sakabatou]

12. That depends on where you live.

I lived fairly close to my middle school, but it was much quicker to just ride my bike instead.

[Ron Obvious]

93. Ooh, that's a big one

I've noticed that the kids are not just driven to school these days to be dropped off at the curb, the little fatheads aren't even trusted to walk from the curb to the front door and back any longer so they have to have door-to-door service. Schools resemble airport terminals at certain times of day. When the Hell did we get so paranoid about practically non-existent dangers?

It can't be healthy for their development not to be allowed to find their own way.

[IcyPeas]

95. I noticed it on Friday. I was in my car sometime just past 3:00

and passed by a small school and I couldn't believe the line-up of cars picking up their kids. It's sad really. I used to enjoy the walk back and forth from school. (and, yes, it was about a mile each way ) We'd be carrying our books too and back then I don't remember ever seeing a back-pack. We could also get a monthly bus pass back in the day to take the bus.

What if both parents work? who picks up the kid(s)?

[fierywoman]

10. Walk a mile each way year round on Long Island to a music lesson.

[FuzzyRabbit]

11. I bought a dial telephone a few years ago

and showed it to a 20-something colleague. She said "I don't even know how to use that!" I showed her how and asked her to dial her own phone number. She quit dialing about half way through and said "that takes too long".

Some other things they will never do:

Fold a paper road map.

Put film in a camera.

[sakabatou]

13. It's been a long time, but I know how to put film in a camera.

[dalton99a]

60. And take the film someplace

[I_UndergroundPanther]

123. I found paper maps

At a bookstore in smyrna beach deleware!!

Bought my copy of peril there for reading on the beach.

Kicking myself for not getting the map.

[NJCher]

14. Mow the lawn

On the weekend.

[rpannier]

15. Push a non-power mower

At least push one that doesn't work on people power

[LeftInTX]

104. My son has a reel mower...It's a millennial thing

[Tommymac]

108. Unpowered push mowers are back in style.

In my neighborhood of small yards probably 60% of the people use non powered push mowers.

Thing is, the newest battery powered lightweight mowers are pretty much the same price as the non powered push types. You can get a decent one of each type for around $150.

[rpannier]

16. Work on their own car

Unless they're a mechanic and have a garage

[hunter]

85. My parents were hard-ass about cars.

If me and my siblings wanted to drive we had to support our own cars. The Mom and Dad cars were largely off limits to any teenage pleasure driving. Cars were strictly school and work.

Suffering old worn out cars meant me and my siblings had to learn how to repair cars ourselves. It was that or no cars.

Me and my sister once replaced the starter of her car in a movie theater parking lot.

I once replaced the warped head of my car in a K-Mart parking lot.

Today's cars are not so amicable to parking lot repairs but they do break down less frequently.

[StClone]

17. Pull off a pop can tab

As for phones we had a party-line, two shorts and two longs was our ring and the phone unit base was wooden. Visit a real outhouse.

[milestogo]

47. Don't pop cans still have tabs?

[IL Dem]

62. They don't have the ones you completely pull off.

Now the ring stays on the can and the tab folds back under the top of the can. With the old style, the ring and the tab came completely off the can. It was a big litter problem in some places because people threw them on the ground.

[Hekate]

88. And a big hazard to bare feet! A kid I was babysitting went sliding down a hill & sliced his foot...

I took him to the ER and was that foot filthy. The nurse gave me a bowl of suds and told me to make him soak it but he howled and wouldn’t. That would have been 1976 or ‘77?

[Tommymac]

110. Jimmy Buffett sang about this on his vinyl 45 RPM disk 'Margaritaville'

Blew out my flip flop, stepped on a poptop
Cut my heel, had to cruise on back home
But there's booze in the blender
And soon it will render
That frozen concoction that helps me hang on

[I_UndergroundPanther]

124. Intead of throwing them away

You could take those tabs and build like a weird chain mail vest out of them. I did I had it for years.

[StClone]

75. Check this out

https://soda.sou.edu/cans/ANTH02m_schr.xx.01.pdf

[sarge43]

19. Change the ink cartridge on a first generation copy machine

Bonus points if the machine still works when they're done.

[NotANeocon]

27. Type a Gestetner master for a gestetner multi copy machine

and spread the jello ink to make extra copies when it gets too light to read.

[Tommymac]

111. Fill up the ink on a high school mimeograph machine without spilling any.

[GPV]

21. Get super psyched to play

[meadowlander]

117. Go to the bank for rolls of quarters so you can play arcade games down at the 7/11 after school.

I don't even what to think how many weeks' worth of allowance I blew on Mortal Kombat.

[GPV]

22. Ride a one speed bike with a banana seat

[ProfessorGAC]

63. There Are Lots Of One Speed Bikes

The small, super light bikes meant for X-Game style tricks are pretty popular around here. They don't have coaster brakes, using the hand brake design. I think that being able to pedal backward helps set the balance for landing on a jump trick.
They all have regular bike saddles, though. So, no banana seats.

[LeftInTX]

92. One speed bikes with balloon tires are making comeback

They have usually have hand brakes...It's a boomer thing and even a Gen-X thing...
Easier for old people to ride!

[ashredux]

24. Party Line....📞

[Buckeye_Democrat]

26. Those were before my time too.

Last edited Sun Oct 17, 2021, 06:30 AM - Edit history (1)

But this thread lead me to discover other types of "party lines" that I never knew about in the 70's!

There were apparently several young people taking advantage of cross-talk that happened sometimes with the old electromechanical phone systems, dialing particular numbers so they could have group-chats with other people. The trick enabled them to avoid long-distance charges as they did it too.

It's mostly mentioned after the 20-minute mark of this video:

EDIT:
I mean, party lines were before my time if you mean the old system in which neighbors would share the same phone line and they could easily eavesdrop on your conversations if they wanted.
Like depicted in the 1960 "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" episode titled "Party Line".
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7ypxaw

[CaptainTruth]

28. Me too, with the nosy neighbor who liked to listen in.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

31. From my understanding, everyone's phones...

... would ring if they shared that party line!

Good grief, I'd probably only consider using the phone if I was making the call! Less chance of nosy neighbors being aware of the conversation that way.

[2naSalit]

52. And only needing to dial 4 digits...

If you had to dial rather than ask the operator to do it.

[Sapient Donkey]

25. I was born in '82, calling the operator is something that I rarely did.

I vaguely remember calling the operator, but I can't remember what I was doing it for. Maybe collect calls or information. does 411 count as an operator?

I don't think kids today will have to worry about being kind....


....by rewinding

[CaptainTruth]

30. I remember dialing just 5 numbers to talk to my friends.

If I remember correctly, the last digit of the exchange indicated that the call was to be routed through our small in-town switchboard (our small town of about 2000-2500 had it's own telephone company & mechanical switchboard), so to talk to someone else in town we just had to dial that digit plus the last 4 of the person's number.

[A HERETIC I AM]

37. I lived in Alice Springs, Aus in the 70's and we had a 5 digit phone number.

The town was around 15,000 people back then. It’s only 25K now.

I still remember the number;


22292

[muriel_volestrangler]

116. The house I grew up in had a 5 figure number until about 1975

in a town that, by then, had maybe 60,000 people in it. When my parents moved in in 1960, it had a 2 figure number - when the population was perhaps 20,000. Not that that meant there were under 100 phones in the town, just that it had been one of the first to get one, and the way the numbers had been distributed meant it kept it for years.

[betsuni]

32. I've seen stories that young people (and not so young) can't tell time on analog clocks.

I just can't believe it. So if they watch "Back to the Future" they can't understand the clocks important to the story? How is that hard?

[Buckeye_Democrat]

33. I've heard that too, but it's too hard for me to believe.

Like you, that just seems too bizarre!

All the kids in my kindergarten class could tell time from an analog clock!

And they're still commonly used at various public places!

I've also heard many young people can't read cursive writing anymore, but that's believable if schools stopped teaching it.

EDIT:
I used to downplay the importance of cursive writing myself, but then I remembered all of the old documents that I read while doing genealogy research years ago.
Would younger people interested in such things need someone older to read it to them? I seriously doubt that some cursive-to-print phone app could do the trick, given the many variations of cursive writing styles. Artificial intelligence often struggles with those types of differences.

[Mariana]

101. If you were interested in genealogy, and couldn't read cursive

why wouldn't you learn to read cursive?

Some people must not have learned to do anything new after they left school, since they seem to think it's impossible to do.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

107. Good point! They could surely learn to read cursive...

... on their own if they had the will to do it! Like so many things that I learned over the years, never taught to me in school.

Most of the cursive letters resemble printed letters anyway, so it certainly doesn't strike me as difficult as learning Egyptian hieroglyphs or whatever.

Edit: So you flipped me back to my earlier "it's no big deal" feelings about it.

[I_UndergroundPanther]

126. What bothers me

Is the kids who cant read cursive will be unable to read the bill of rights or constitution, off the parchments they were written on.

[ProfessorGAC]

64. I've Seen It

As you may know, I substitute teach since I retired.
Several times I've had kids ask how many minutes before class ends. I might say, "Class ends at 9:55.".
The reply is " His many minutes?". I say "There's a clock right there." Reply "I don't know how to work that clock."
Understand that I don't do any grades below 6, so I'm talking 12 years old or more.
I'm guessing this has happened at least a half dozen times.

[LeftInTX]

65. Just spoke with hubby who was principal of a high school that opened in 2005

He was active during the construction. Clocks were not standard...I was surprised. School had policy against student devices in class...I guess teachers had clocks on desks? Weird...

[csziggy]

69. I had to learn how to read an analog clock in school

The main clock in our house when I was little was what was called a flip clock. It looked a lot like this:

That was what I learned to tell time on since it was in the Florida room on top of the TV where we spent most of our time.

We had a mantle clock on top of the piano and a clock whose case had been made by great grandfather by cutting filagree designs out of a piece of veneer wood. But the mantle clock was in the living room where we were not allowed to play and Mom wouldn't let Dad wind the filagree clock since it's ticks and chimes resonated in the thin wood.

I learned to tell time on analog clocks when I got to first grade since that is what they had in the classrooms.

[leftyladyfrommo]

102. Collect Green Stamps and put them in books

To take to the Green Stamp Store

[I_UndergroundPanther]

125. I can read a roman numeral analog clock.

There was a psych unit I was on that removed all the clocks on the unit but the analog roman numeral one.

Younger people couldn't read it. They'd ask me to tell them what time it was all the time.

I think it was weird they took all the clocks off this unit.

They also installed tilted shelves so your stuff would fall out onto the floor if you didn't put it on the shelf just right.

They put these heavy plates on the bottom of the chairs,all hell broke loose if you stubbed your toe on it.

And on this particular psych unit you weren't allowed to wear shoes either.


Annoyed the shit out of me.

Plus they painted the unit in gross colors to top off the abject stupidity.

[malaise]

34. I remember my parents booking overseas calls

for special occasions

[CTyankee]

55. my granddaughter called me from Rome the other day. I don't know why I should have been amazed

at how "normal" her voice sounded, like she was next door!

[malaise]

61. and it probably cost her zero dollars

Lovely to see that she's carrying on the family tradition re trips to Italy

[DBoon]

131. When Frank Zappa was young ...

... a special birthday present was a long distance call from California to New York so Frank could chat with the composer Edgar Varese.

[EYESORE 9001]

35. Write something in cursive

and it could be impossible for youngsters to decipher.

[A HERETIC I AM]

38. We could paralyze a generation if.....

We started writing in cursive, went back to rotary phones and made all the cars manual transmission again!

[ProfessorGAC]

109. I've Been Pleasantly Surprised About That

When I'm subbing, I tell kids that don't know me yet, about myself. One thing I tell them is I've been to 36 countries outside the US.
I have a handwritten (cursive) list I let them see.
I've shown it to maybe a hundred kids, and I've never had one not be able to read it.
I expected far worse.

[senseandsensibility]

134. They still teach cursive in elementary school,

at least it's still part of the curriculum. But what is never taken into account is how long each day it takes to teach it well. So in many cases, it gets short shrift.

[berniesandersmittens]

36. Blow into a video game to make it work

[A HERETIC I AM]

39. Set a record on a video game at an arcade and have your name listed at the top for weeks.

[leftyladyfrommo]

40. Running a memeograph machine to make copies.

First you had to type up a stencil.

[Archae]

42. Getting high from the ink...

Oh right, you never did that?

[leftyladyfrommo]

48. I didn't know you could do that. I didn't run the machine.

That's how our teachers made copies of everything.

[doc03]

41. Push a button on the floorboard of a car to dim the lights and another to start the car.

Pull out the choke to start the car. Roll the car window down manually. Drive a car with a stick shift especially a three on the tree.
From the ones I had to train before I retired "work", their idea of work is using a mouse.

[luv2fly]

43. Play outside for hours and hours on end

With no electronics present nor parental supervision.

[Igel]

44. She can make the call herself because a lot of people figured out a lot of

technology that does the work that required several others to do.

She's pleased that she doesn't need other people.

Of course, that tech also allows robocalls and enables phone spam.

[The Jungle 1]

45. Wife got son

My wife once told my son their first TV had a crank. He bought it. One of life's pure joys is bull shitting a teen.

[eleny]

72. A friend used to fool her son when he was very young

He was watching too much tv. The tv was plugged into an outlet that was controlled by a light switch that she'd switch to "off". When he got upset because the tv wouldn't turn on, she'd tell him that the tv needed to rest before it could play again some more.

[forthemiddle]

46. Make a prank call

Or play ding, dong, ditch. No way to not get caught now a days.
Plan your week around the TV Guide. If you missed an episode, you didn’t get to see it again until they ran reruns at seasons end.

[Sympthsical]

100. Just had this happen on Next Door

Some kids, maybe 10ish, ding dong ditched. The neighbor posted Ring footage of the kids and ranted for like three paragraphs about kids today, how something had to be done, etc. etc.

The commenters, 10-1, weren't having it, thankfully.

[forthemiddle]

115. I love it!

Some pranks are just innocent fun.

[Buns_of_Fire]

50. Walk 10 miles to school. Uphill, both ways.

Through 20' snow, except in July when the sandstorms started. Vicious pumas around every corner. Barefoot.

And we liked it that way!

[Buckeye_Democrat]

79. That's right!

[Wingus Dingus]

53. Order a product with an order slip clipped from the Sunday newspaper ads,

filled out by hand, with a check in the envelope, and wait an eternity of 4-6 weeks for it.

[dalton99a]

56. +1

[Wingus Dingus]

58. LOL, I thought Columbia House was going to dog me to my grave..

What if I don't WANT any more albums??!?

[hunter]

54. These days it wouldn't be a problem to use old style telephones without a dial.

When those phones were invented every call was connected by human operators. You'd lift the receiver off the hook, the operator at the exchange would notice the light, ask who you wanted to be connected to, and make the connection.


An American candlestick telephone being used by
Genevieve Clark Thomson, circa 1915 w

Now we can use artificial intelligence to connect calls. My wife frequently uses her cell phone that way, simply telling the phone who she wants to talk to.

I'm some sort of Luddite. I don't like "digital assistants" always listening in.

[dalton99a]

57. Send/receive a fax

[LeftInTX]

67. Someone had something to send me. He wanted to send it fax..LOL That was 2 weeks ago!

I said, "Email is fine"...I don't have a fax machine.

I think fax is still used in businesses...but yeah that home fax modem has gone the way of dial up.

[bluecollar2]

59. Put ink in a fountain pen

Refill inkwells.

[LeftInTX]

68. Forget that. Never did it. I was born in 1956.

My dad had fountain pens, but they were on the way out. They were messy. (My dad kept locking them up because I kept getting into them because I wanted to do some art with a pen) I was told, "No fountain pen for you. You will use ballpoint pens".

Never owned one or used one..LOL

[bluecollar2]

83. English born here

Born in 57. Growing up and going to boarding school we used pencils and fountain pens only.

It was with some reluctance that we were allowed to transform from ink out of the well to replaceable cartridges.

I liked fountains because of the variety on ink colors. Blues and reds with different hues...

Ball points were seen as bad for one's handwriting skills

[dumbcat]

103. Similar experience here

I was born in 1948 in upstate NY. In grade school we also learned to write with pencils and fountain pens. The inkwell holes in our desks actually had bottles of ink in them. I remember filling fountain pens using the lever on the side of the pen. I also remember going to the five and dime store in town sometime in the early '50's and getting one of the new-fangled Shaeffer school pens, which was a fountain pen but used a disposable ink cartridge.

To this day I still use a fountain pen daily to write in my journals. I have a collection of Waterman, S.T. DuPont, Pelikan and other vintage pens. I still write well in cursive with them.

[bluecollar2]

114. I had several of those damned side fill pens....

As far as I can recall though, all of mine were Parkers...

The stainless and royal blue were the most common.

At some point I remember the lads from Hong Kong showed up with the stainless combination packs...fountain and dry ink pens in a boxed set.

The status symbol became whether one had a gold plated clip or a stainless clip.

Somewhere I've got a box full of pens and a couple of bottles of "Quink"

[tulipsandroses]

84. Change a typewriter ribbon

Or take a typewriting class. My niece probably texts faster than I can type.

[LeftInTX]

90. I do not miss typing at all!

Hated it...I took 2 years of it. Our instructor did not allow any mistakes and was against Liquid Paper.

[Skittles]

99. a lot of people really need to take a typing class

I work in IT and it drives me NUTS when I am IM'ing someone....I type very fast (I learned to type to morse code in the military)....then I have to sit there and practically feel my hair growing as they are finger-typing fairly short replies.

[LeftInTX]

106. They need keyboarding, not typing...

[Hekate]

89. I liked having a local Operator who knew what you were talking about when you said...

“Can’t remember the name of the store but it’s on Main Street next door to …” and she knew exactly what you meant.

The very last time I did that it turned out the lady lived far out of my state.

Kids will never know what “dial me up” means, or how the term “drop a dime” came to be. Does anyone in a crime drama even know what “I dimed him out” actually means?

Back in the day, one of my favorite songs had the lines, “I call you up, invest a dime, say you belong to me and you’ll be mine … So happy together…” If you get an earworm from that reference I know how old you are.

[Ptah]

91. Walk two miles to school uphill both ways. In the snow.

[hunter]

94. Fourteen year olds legally driving.

Picking up hay for the family farm.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

96. They don't use a slide rule!

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slide_rule



Kids today!

Confession: I never needed to use a slide rule to help with calculations either! Electronic calculators were available, and pretty inexpensive, by the time I was in high school.

One of my older brothers attempted to teach me how to use a slide rule when I was a teenager, and I REFUSED to pay attention. I just kept telling him that I'd never need a slide rule... which was indeed true.

[LeftInTX]

105. Yep...used one my first year of college.

They're kinda cool, but. My first calculator was a 2 digit decimal thing, so I relied on my slide rule alot.

But I got a new calculator and ditched the slide rule.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

113. My brother was getting upset at me...

... for refusing to learn how to use it, so I only felt a little bad about that happening.

I asked him how it could prove more useful to me than a calculator, but his answers never convinced me it was worth my time.

Lol, people sometimes act like burning a few extra calories on something we deem to be impractical will cause immediate starvation. Yet we'll do all kinds of other impractical activities that we think are "fun".

And I later majored in math, yet I still didn't want to learn how to use a slide rule!

[LeftInTX]

122. LOL...I was a math major...

It's been almost 50 years, but there is some geometric spatial thing with slide rules and that is how they work.

[ripcord]

112. Way back in the 70s

We would take off on dirt bikes in the morning and not come how until it was getting dark, we were told as long as our parents didn't hear about anything we did on the news we were good.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

120. There's indeed more paranoia about children...

Last edited Sun Oct 17, 2021, 08:43 PM - Edit history (1)

... among parents. Maybe justified? I don't know.

Me and my neighbor-friend, both of us in kindergarten at the time, wandered all over the place. Nobody that saw us ever acted concerned about 5 year olds being unattended by adults.

We indeed got lost one time, and we walked through some thick bushes only to see an interstate highway on the other side! So that was clearly the wrong direction, and my little buddy started BAWLING about it like we'd never get back home! I kept my cool, saying that we had to just keep walking back from where we came until we recognized stuff again.

That worked, but we were both late to kindergarten (the afternoon classes) that day and we got earfuls from our parents about it.

Which reminds me... we had analog watches and we realized that we were going to be late after getting lost. So we could tell time with analog clocks back then.

Edit: Despite how he cried, I was glad that he was with me because it turned out that he recognized landmarks better than me -- e.g., "Look! That's the tree where we found the bird's nest!" Then once we both recognized where we had earlier entered that wilderness area, he stopped crying and we ran home as fast as we could despite how we knew we'd be in trouble for missing most of school that day.

[meadowlander]

119. As an adult, I can barely remember the last time I handled paper money.

Is that true for kids as well? Do parents tend to get them debit cards and at what age? Or are kids still handling change?

When I was 11 or 12 my brother and I used to scour the parking lots at the dollar theater. We could usually find enough dropped change to get both of us in to see a movie in less than an hour. Now I can't remember the last time I saw a coin on the street or in a parking lot.

[electric_blue68]

130. Wow, that seems somewhat unusual to me...

You don't carry any in case of emergency - what I'd your debit, or credit card gets scratched?

I don't want every transaction of mine recorded so I use cash 60 % + of the time.

I have a debit, and credit card. I pay some of my bills over the phone with stored card info. I use zelle for on time to time.

[UnderThisLaw]

128. Care about privacy? NFM

[CRK7376]

135. I am teaching high school

Sociology this semester and have my kids looking at the Marist MindsetList. it's always fascinating to look that this list and see what is no more or what the kids have missed that was common for me.....rotary phones with the long cord, stamps that had to be licked to attach to the phone bill etc....

https://www.marist.edu/-/marist-mindset-list-class-of-2024