Old people, attend me!

[Mr. S£im Citrus]

Okay, so you don't necessarily have to be "old" old, but you'll probably enjoy this thread more if you're at least thirty-plus years old. As I am wont to do, as the unofficial Marco Polo of KingsFans.com, I was captivated by a fascinating discussion elsewhere on teh interwebs, and I thought I would bring it back here. I don't expect this to last the full DOS, not by a long shot, but it should hopefully provide an interesting alternative to the draft threads. This starter topic will be:


Things you remember from your childhood that would be considered ABSOLUTELY UNTHINKABLE today.


I'll lead off with a few, so you have an idea of what we're trying to do here:

- When I was a kid, every Saturday, after cartoons and doing my chores, I was allowed to go to the comic book store. So I would walk across town, just about three and a half miles each way, by myself, to get to the comic book store. Sometimes, I would even stop on my way back and just find a park bench or something to sit on and read my comics... I was ten at the time.

- My mom would take my sister and I to the mall when we were twelve and eleven. We would enter the mall in JC Penny, and our mom would tell us to meet us back there in an hour, and then the three of us would go in our separate directions.

- Grocery shopping: we would either be banished to the part of the store where the magazines/toys were, in order to stay out of our mom's hair, or we would wait in the car and read books until our mom was done... This was happening as early as when we seven and six years old.

- Walking to the playground without supervision, and playing on equipment that was all sharp metal edges, over concrete and/or gravel.

- And one more, for men in the US over thirty. Three words: Smear. The. Queer.

 

[VF21]

My brother and I (ages 12 and 9 at the most) would leave the house at about 8 a.m. on Saturday mornings, heading out to spend a day filled with random adventures and playing with friends. We lived in a pretty rural area, BTW. Our only restriction was that we had to be home in time for dinner.

 

[pdxKingsFan]

Jeez, seems like I rationalize these things every day - what was totally normal and safe in my childhood and is now grounds for capital punishment.

Car seats - well, by age 3 my only car seat was the passenger seat. Apparently reality dictates that my child will be in a car seat until age 5. At which point we might be able to go for a ride in my 2 seater.

Bike Helmets - You couldn't get one anywhere near me. And I rode BMX, MTB off road and just about every dangerous thing under the sun. I think my reckless bike riding as a kid makes me very cavalier about wearing them today under safe conditions (slow speed, no traffic, good weather). I do plan on wearing one this year though. Ski helmets are still unfathomable to me.

- When I was a kid I got knocked over by my puppy and cracked my head and suffered a black eye. Seems pretty normal, nowadays you could lose your kid over this.

 

[kennadog]

1) Like you VF, I can remember my brother and I being outdoors playing, almost all the time in grade school. Even when it was pouring rain. I loved running around splashing in my galoshes. If it was daylight and not school time, we were outdoors. And we lived in urban and suburban areas. (We moved around.)

2) I was a Bluebird (pre-Campfire Girls) in grade school. We sold nuts every year. I went door-to-door by myself with my little red wagon. And, at 7 and 8, I made change without a cash register telling me what the amount of change was.

3) From first grade on, I walked quite a ways to and from school, down a very busy city street, including crossing a major urban intersection that had crosses painted where pedesetrians died in traffic accidents.

4) If an adult wasn't Mommy, Daddy, Aunt (name), Uncle (name), grandmother or grandfather, they were Mr. or Mrs. or Miss. No calling any adult by their first name, ever.

5) In my grade school years, I had one teacher who was a Mrs. The rest of my female teachers were all unmarried "misses." Even the old gray-haired ones and most were definitely middle-aged or older. (Well they looked old to me, anyway.)

6) For a lot of years, my mother sewed almost all of my clothes, including a wonderful red dress that she hand-smocked across the bodice.

7) Does anyone else remember having huge paper drives at school? We'd collect humongous piles of newspapers and classes would compete to see who collected the most. There would be stacks all around the playground perimeter.

8) Mom and Dad taking us to Bob's Big Boy for dinner (burgers for us) was a rare treat and special occasion. Having a frozen TV dinner on TV trays on the occasional night we were left with a baby sitter was actually exciting. We got to pick what dinner we wanted! Wooohoooo!

 

[Prophetess]

being a 10 yr old female walking alone from school and back.

riding in the back of a pickup truck without any kind of "restraint" (this is one i think my kids have really missed out on, as well as the parent )

leaving the house and going to play all day until dark without mom and dad knowing EXACTLY where I was.

 

[Mad D]

I think I was part of the transition age group where they starting taking away things or enforcing new rules.

We used to be able to sit underneath the shopping carts when I was little. I don't even think they have the seats to sit in the cart anymore. I remember passing by other kids while grinning.

While at the mall when my mom was shopping I used to explore and hide inside the circular clothing racks.

When she was younger, my cousin would refuse to wear seat belts.

We also used to dominate the McDonalds play pens by camping up top in the slide area and throwing ball pit balls at the older kids. To get more ammo I had my little 4 year old sister get some more because the older kids wouldn't bother her. I see McDonalds now and they have play zones but they just consist of a hamster tubes, no more slides or rope nets to climb.

In the second grade I remember playing outside with realistic toy guns at a friend's house. No orange painted tips, just metal cap guns and wooden rifles.

- And one more, for men in the US over thirty. Three words: Smear. The. Queer.

Way under 30 and we used to play this in elementary school. Probably a different variation of the game though.

 

[kennadog]

Being actually happy about getting a "fancy" new school notebook for Chrismas in middle school. Well it had beautiful colored stripes and I could zip it closed around all three sides. I can't imagine kids today doing anything but groan about that as a Christmas present. LOL

 

[GoGoGadget]

- I'm far from a prude in terms of what I consider to be acceptable television, and am generally annoyed by the fact that sex and sexuality are so much more taboo than displays of violence, but every now and then I'm shocked (to the point of gasping, even) when I see a soap opera scene or music video that is almost as racy as anything I saw when sneaking a few moments with the scrambled channels.

- Like many of the comments already made, as the only child of working parents, I was alone far more than my sisters have ever been. I spent sick days taking care of myself from a fairly early age, I went to the grocery store on my own, I waited in the car on my own, I walked to friends' houses alone, I rode my bike around the neighborhood alone, and on and on.

- My mother would slap the you-know-what out of me in the grocery store (believe me, I deserved it). A lot. And she was never arrested.

 

[GoGoGadget]

- I also remember the evening one of my mom's friends brought over his Betamax player so that we could watch movies. It was amazing.

- VCRs with remote controls that weren't wireless. The resulting game of sneaking out of the room with remote in hand and fast forwarding the movie everyone else was trying to watch.

 

[pdxKingsFan]

We had one of those plug-in remotes. And it may have been a Betamax. My dad bought like 3 of the things before finally getting a VHS in the 90s!

 

[Mr. S£im Citrus]

We had one of those plug-in remotes. And it may have been a Betamax. My dad bought like 3 of the things before finally getting a VHS in the 90s!

During the summer time, I remember being my mom's "remote." She would record her stories to watch when she got home from work, and my job was to sit in front of the VCR and pause the machine when the commercials came on.

I used to know waaaaay more about Luke and Laura than I would ever have wanted to admit.

 

[kennadog]

Being a one-car family until I was 10. Then my Dad got a VW bug to commute in. Two cars was a big luxury. All of our vacation destinations were reached by car and most were to visit family.

Every school from grammar through high school had a library with an actual master-degreed librarian. And every one had a school nurse available every day all day.

We had one black-and-white TV until was in high school Color TVs were around long before that, but in my home, you didn't buy a new TV when you had a "perfectly good one" already. We never had more than one TV.

 

[VF21]

I remember my brother and I playing superhero as we climbed from the backyard fence to the roof, walked to the peak in the middle and - after tying bathroom towels around our necks - ...








Yep, we jumped off the roof. And we lived to tell the tale.

I don't think they even make fences kids can walk on top of any longer and seeing a kid on a roof would probably result in at least a dozen 911 calls.

 

[Jespher]

I remember when school started after Labor Day weekend. Now the kids go 'til mid June, and are back around August 13th.

Also, I remember gas was $1.05 a gallon my freshman year in college. That was only in 2001!

 

[Alacron]

I had great fun as a kid sliding around in the backseat of our 1950-something Mercedes which did not feature seatbelts or door locks. And of course, while stopped at a red light, a random drunk passerby opened the door, hopped in next to me, and asked to be taken to a nearby bar... my mom informed him in all seriousness that the trucker in front of us had already agreed to give him a ride, and so he got out and talked to the driver briefly... and sure enough, got his ride.

Jagged metal playground equipment... jagged metal toys... toys made out of solid (gasp) LEAD!!! Which undoubtedly explains my obvious brain damage.

Playing with matches as a one-year old... this huge jar of matches was seriously my favorite toy... I have pictures.

Swimming in the lake... without a lifevest!

And no words necessary:

~~

 

[hoopsfan]

I remember a lot of what others have written!! (And I had a TV with pliers fod channel changing when I moved out and was in college!)

-I was 'latch-key kid' in elementary school and I loved it.

-We had a VW Bug when I was little and I would sit on my mom's lap with no seatbelt and hang on to that little handle on the dash with my face about 2 inches from the windshield!

-We would go on family vacations in the VW bug and have to leave in the middle of the night so we could get through the Arizona desert before it was too hot to habdle during the day. Oh, and we would stop at rest stops and sleep on the tables and benches 'cuz it was free!

- Once when I was riding my bike, the chain came off and one of those UPS type delivery vans stopped and offered to take me and my bike to my mom's office...and I got in and he dropped me off just like he said. I was probably around 10 years old.

- We had an RCA COLOR tv that had a bad picture tube, so when it got to heated the picture would shrink and we had to turn it off during commercials. (This was before remotes) We would use a yardstick to hit the off button...wait for a while and then pull the string to turn it back on!
Oh,,,and we had another yardstick that we had to put under the channel dial and give it a good kick so we could watch the channel we wanted, otherwise it would slip to another channel. We were so ghetto!

 

[Bricklayer]

I can't believe none of you has mentioned the dinosaur hunts yet.

 

[Mr. S£im Citrus]

Oh,,,and we had another yardstick that we had to put under the channel dial and give it a good kick so we could watch the channel we wanted, otherwise it would slip to another channel. We were so ghetto!

Another sign you're old: you can remember when "ghetto" wasn't automatically associated with poor and/or ignorant blacks.

 

[kennadog]

Another sign you're old: you can remember when "ghetto" wasn't automatically associated with poor and/or ignorant blacks.

And you're really old (I'm old...not really old, yet.) you can remember when "ghetto" was where the Nazis made the Jews live in Europe.

Hoopsie: I grew up in SoCal and we had extended family we visited often in Salt Lake City. I remember leaving late in the day, so we'd drive through the desert overnight.

I can remember when pretty much all commercial flights were prop planes, no jet engines.

I can remember when High-Fidelity stereo was the big deal, replacing mono sound. In a big piece of console furniture.

I really liked the Burma Shave signs. I still remember..."He lit a match...near the tank....now they call him....Skinless Frank."

 

[Prophetess]

as a young child (4-7), i remember all of the nieghborhood kids playing in the street and then we'd go in one at a time into the one of the houses for milk and cookies. The house belonged to an elderly man. (completely unthinkable now days)

 

[Superman]

I remember loading "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?" on our old 386 Packard Bell, from a DOS prompt. Using 5 1/4" floppy disks.

 

[Warhawk]

We had a party line telephone for a while, where multiple homes shared one phone line. We could have conference calls with the neighbors! My grandmother lived up the road and liked to try to listen in on our conversations.

I passed a German class with an A because the instructor said we could turn in our entire semester's worth of homework at the end of the class on a floppy disk and a friend and I did so, but he couldn't read the newfangled HD floppies with his SD/DD drive! He gave us an A because he couldn't review the work in time to get the grades in otherwise as he was off somewhere without another computer.

I have computer punch cards from my dad's work with my name on them.

 

[est.1999]

my childhood basically consisted of being out doors all day all night and just getting in trouble. Not that rules or laws prohibit this nowadays. But these freakin kids these days stay inside all day with their myspace and video games and cheezy cartoons and tv shows. I swear they do not see the outside world.

 

[Kingzrool]

We were in rural Vermont and if you wanted to change the channel, you had to go out and spin the gigantic 30 foot antennae to the designated direction. One time, I lifted it too high off of the nail and it fell and crushed my finger on the deck rail. We had to drive halfway across the state to the hospital.

By 7, I was dropped off at the Ski Area in the morning and picked up in the evening every single weekend day during snowfall, as were all of my friends.

 

[AleksandarN]

How about this; going to the beach all day atleast 8 hours without getting sun burnt. This is without sunscreen too. Now a days I would last maybe 45 minutes before I start getting red.

 

[hoopsfan]

How about this; going to the beach all day atleast 8 hours without getting sun burnt. This is without sunscreen too. Now a days I would last maybe 45 minutes before I start getting red.

W used to slather baby oil on...what were we thinking??

 

[Spike]

W used to slather baby oil on...what were we thinking??

I approve!

 

[kennadog]

I typed high school and college term papers on a manual typewriter.

 

[Mr. S£im Citrus]

I used to do that also, not because personal computers didn't exist, but because they cost more than a used car.

 

[Mad D]

At Hagan Park there used to be a 20 foot stand alone steel slide in the middle of the park. No guide rails, no soft sand pit to meet you at the bottom. During the summer it was like sliding down an over pan.

Me and my trouble maker cousin also used to go to that park unsupervised. One time she found a duck nest and she grabbed one of the eggs. The ducks went crazy and they started to dive in from all over the place. They started jumping out the bushes, flying in from the air and swimming over from across the pond. We got lucky that my grandma came driving by looking to pick me up. Things like this was not an unusual occurrence when we visited that park.