WillRace4Food

Back In 1980

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 both ways through year 'round blizzards carrying their younger siblings on their backs to their one-room schoolhouse where they maintained a straight-A average despite their full-time after-school job at the local textile mill where they worked for 35 cents an hour just to help keep their family from starving to death!

And I remember promising myself that when I grew up there was no way I was going to lay a bunch of STUFF like that on kids about how hard I had it and how easy they've got it!

But....


Now that I've reached the ripe old age of thirty-one, 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 Utopia! And I hate to say it but you kids today you don't know how good you've got it!

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 damned library and look it up ourselves! Ever have to rely solely on Encyclopedia Britannica (the printed version)? I didn't think so!

And there was no email! We had to actually write somebody a letter--with a pen!--and 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!

And there were no MP3s or Napsters! If you wanted to steal music, you had to go to the record store and shoplift it yourself! Or we had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio and the DJ'd usually talk over the beginning and screw it all up!

We didn't have fancy stuff like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called they got a busy signal! And we didn't have fancy Caller ID Boxes either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was it could be your boss, your mom, a collections agent, your school principal, you didn't know!!! You just had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!

And we didn't have any fancy Sony Play station videogames with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games like "Space Invaders" and "Asteroids" and the graphics stunk! Your guy was a little square! You 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 faster until you died! Just like LIFE!

When you went to the movie theater there was no such thing as stadium seating! All the seats were the same height! If a tall guy sat in front of you, you were screwed! And sure, we had cable television, but back then that was only like 20 channels and there was no screen menu! You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on! And there was no Cartoon Network! You could only get cartoons on Saturday morning... ...Do'ya hear what I'm saying!?! We had to wait ALL WEEK.

That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it too
easy......


You guys wouldn't last five minutes back in 1980!

88'Cubka

I lived in RURAL Nebraska for 10 years. They are just now hitting 1980... :p:

fauxrs

1980!!!! try 1970.....Ok sure, like you we didnt have E-mail, the internet...not only did we not have call waiting and caller ID, We didnt even have buttons on our phones, you had to use your finger and rotate a dial. This is the origin of the Phrase "dialing a phone".

We didnt even have cable TV, some of my friends didnt even have Color TV - we had like 3 or 4 channels - some places didnt even have that many. And only the best setups had aimable antenna - Of course, to you an antenna is something that you get radio in your car on, but you used to have to have one on top of your house, and if you were well off you could point it with a large electric motor attached to it.

Video games? We didnt have Video tape!!!

Avette4me

:iagree: I was one of those kids without color TV. Remember asking my dad why they kept saying "in living color" with the NBC peacock.

88'Cubka

In nebraska, we didn't have a color tv until 1990, which also happens to be when we got our first computer, a tandy 1000, and our first satalite tv.

mrvette

1980?? you youngin' you need your whipper snapped!!!!

I born in 1944, so was my cousin....my dad taught snipers how to kill....too old for combat...me uncle was following Patton in battle of the Bulge....

I remember Howdy Doody in Black and White on an old split chassis Philco...
no one ever even HEARD of Philco under the age of 20, that is....
family thought it was high cotton getting a Zenith TV....B/W of course...around '58 or so....
Dad drove a Packard Clipper...'53, new.....
only car in the family....hats were narrower brims and small feathers....
wide ties....WHITE shirts....suits were brown, black blue forget any other color....

the wildest car my dad ever bought was a '56 Caddy, 4 dr Sedan DeVille....yellow...with a/c vents in the 'ceiling' and tubes up the rear window....USED of course....paid a fortune to have the tranny fixed....he was PISSED....I remember the refrigerator door slamming, and mom saying watch it...food in there!!!!

I remember being a geek in the cool basement in Wash dc summertimes....it was SO hot and humid out, with NO breeze the only comfortable spot was in the basement of the house....I took up the electronic hobby....became a TV shop foreman/manager...cheif tech....alll of that ending in the late 70's...when oriental imports trashed the industry....
did EE/design tech work for 5 years in the early 80's.....

never did make the swith to dig-it-allll though...sorry, stuck in the analogue age....at least I know what a 6L6 is....or a 6JE6....snicker....

I remember wiring a bootleg phone into my bedroom.....and thinking it was a HUGE deal I could 'hold my weenie' as I talked to my first girl friend....

today if your' a 12 year old virgin....you'r a caveman....

it's crazy the way the electronics industry has changed the world....
mind boggling crazy.....
downfall of communism, hitler, mao, now NK in turn...sooner or later even islam....

yeh, the days of instant gratification are at hand.....

grab your crotch and hang ON!!!!


GENE

Gotta Fix my '76

MY Goodness....:eek:

Whew, I know I'm a youngin, (23) but man you guys are really revealing your age.:D ..I may be mistaken but we, us kids, may have aton of nicer things then back in the days, but hey it's all relative. :yawn: Think about it. We're all benifiting from this "new" stuff you talk about and it's the older generation that knew when they were younger what would make things better, so as you got "older" you made it better, truly making it your fault that you get to rant.. :nopity ....Thanks!!

There are a few things missing these days. One for instance are DADS. "Back in the days" Dads used to stick around to show their children, that's you, what it took to be a man in a working world and how to be a father and bread winner, they used to discipline their children (remember those days)...but now that generation (your parents) have left their kids to crap. Did you know that 2 out of 3 marriages end in divorce before 7 years, whats that teaching us (Jerry Springer :crazy: )
Yeah, our kids have it better...eh no (by the way, I'm of the lucky ones, my parents have been married for 40 years)

So yeah, maybe we've given our kids go-peds that can beat pontiacs, passed down corvettes, paid for education, but we've replaced raising them with sitting them on their happys in a nice sofa playing Playstation, and "menu" tv that can keep them busy flipping through 1200 channels. So does that mean that the older generation has done all of this for us younger kids just so they could make up for all the work they did when they were younger and can now be lazy... I dunno?!?, Maybe

I'm not pointing fingers, and I appreciate all that this forum is and does, but a post about how easy our children have it now is not real relivant to why my brakes aren't working...but thanks for posting your opinion and I appreciate you letting me post mine...Ahh 1st Ammendment it's beautiful :)


I don't expect to get alot of :grouphug: but I'm not trying to ruffle any feathers, but I just think that there are alot of things missing in our kids lives these days and they have alot more options therefore giving them alot more opportunity to make some pretty big mistakes...and heck if we don't show them, then whos gonna pay our social security tax when we retire ;)

So, don't run off and adopt 3 teenagers just because I'm posting this, but don't just disregard it as some little kids lack of experience with bad grammar either...Thanks

~Ian

73 LS-4

You haven't lived until you have to actually get up and turn the dial on the television to get to the next channel :eek: , remember those days before remotes :lol: I think I was the remote for the first 10 years of my life :lol:

:cheers:
Pat Kunz

terryrudy

:lolg: :lolg: :lolg:
Sorry, that was pretty darn funny.
-terry

Gordonm

We had a black and white TV. A remote :lolg: I was the remote. We had a whole 5 channels. We actually had to go outside and play with our friends and we liked it. Times have changed

Schmucker

Actually there was. Stadium seating are seats with steps and each row of seats on their own level plane. What is most oftenly used now is a sloped seating arrangement with offset seats (using some that are wide and narrow so you look between the seats in front of you). I work in a movie theater with both seating arrangements. The upstairs auditorium (used to a balcony, but was split in the '80's for two screens) has stadium seating with offsets. The downstairs seating is sloped with offsets. Both of these auditoriums have seats out of the 60's and 70's. The theater was built in 1946. You must have just had crappy theaters or were really short.

The_Dude

I guess I'm well off... for 1970. I still depend on a roof mounted antenna sitting on an electric motor. :rolleyes:

98RKC

One word as to when the whole world got soft:
PONG :lol: :lol: :lol: :banghead:

Black Magic

I think that was the reason my folks had me. I had to lay in front of the TV and change the channel or adjust the volume when the "Lawrence Welk Show" came on after the "Muppet Show".

Don't forget the biggie, MICROWAVE OVENS!!

But the young guy tellin' us all the he is missing is actually pretty damn right. My dad supported us on a single income, and that was as a Teamster truck driver. How come parents today with TWO incomes seem barely able to make ends meet? All this technology that was supposed to make our lives easier costs money. In my day (1970's), the house hold entertainment revolved around pretty much just the TV. Now to go along with that TV, you need to get surround sound, DVD player, VCR, Playstation, Nintendo, expensive butt cable programming, etc.

Things are better, but there is always a price to pay. I think the family has suffered the most. I don't want to go too much into it. I just feel like I am lucky to remember the pre-electronic age. I'm a simple guy, I like simple things, I want a simple life. That's why I have a '71 instead of 2001.

:)


[Modified by Black Magic, 12:57 AM 1/17/2003]

Clink69

You may think kids have it easy today but in reality they don't . They may be more coddled at home with all the new devices , games etc. but in the real world of school and generally outside the home they have significantly more stress on them then past generations ever did. Think about what kind of furture a kid has to look foward to now with jobs the way they are. Look at terrorisim, violence in schools (now you don't just get beat up, you die). I really wonder how future generations are going to fair....

I am 46... I have two sons...I worry...

Chris
:flag

tshort

Hey, I was the remote too! :lol: I remember when we got a VCR. I didn't even know what it was. My dad said, pick a movie and we'll go rent it. Course, there was a selection of like 10 movies but it was soooo cool. And our second VCR had a remote. But it wasn't wireless and the cord didn't quite reach the couch. That's when we started realizing how technology was making us lazy. We would actually balance on the end of the couch to reach the "remote" and you'd get it on one channel and be happy. And then we'd moan about having to "reach" for the remote when the program was over. :lol: :lol:

PRNDL

I have lots of thoughts on this topic - and in many ways today's teens have it lots tougher than I did.... but let me ask you guys this:

How many of you realize that before Chubby Checker popularized The TWIST , all dancing involved various degrees of holding your partner!! Before the twist, there was virtually no dancing apart !!! I know, it boggles the mind, but it is true!! :lol: MJ

Paul L

I love these trivia posts! Can you say M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E? And the distant love of lmy life when I was an early teenager: Annette!!! On black and white TV of course. My parents could not afford colour.
http://ggf.tripod.com/annette.html




[Modified by paul79, 8:37 PM 1/16/2003]

PRNDL

Our first color TV was left behind by some deadbeat renters! We rented our house out while we were away for the summer. They didnt pay last month rent but they left us 2 color TVs. We (the kids) thought that was pretty cool!! :) MJ

Jughead

Man, I thought I had it good until you brought up this topic. I'm 50 and the largest TV screen I own is 19 inches! :eek: :nopity They all have remotes though. :D I don't own a DVD and my Cam-corder is 15 years old. Heck I still have two stereo systems from the 1970's---remember component systems?

Yeah you guys are bringing back some fond memories. :skep: :D