It is a little sad that I think back to all of the things that I did when I was a child that my kids will not experience. Have you thought of these? There are a TON of them!!
– I remember true team work, as you turn the antennae on the roof little by little until the three channels you had came in clearly.
– We had rabbit ears on the TV that you encased the ends with aluminum foil to get even better reception.
– We had to reference the TV guide for what shows were on TV.
– We had CB radios in our cars and houses.
– Yelling to get someone into the room to change the channel because you had no remote control and were comfy on the couch under the covers.
– Not having a VCR and missing your favorite show completely if you were gone. Oh, no hulu.com to watch it either.
– We had to watch commercials.
– We had a telephone with a cord, you can only go so far.
– The telephone had no hold button.
– We dialed the telephone, with a rotary dial. No push buttons.
– If your friends were not home, you just didn’t reach them. There was no machine.
– If your friends were on the phone, you just didn’t reach them, you got a busy signal. No call waiting.
– If you turned on your radio, you had to manually move the dial to your station. There was no scan or seek. Same thing in the car.
– We grew up with records and 8 tracks. Then came cassettes.
– We had to lock each car door individually, there were no power locks.
– We had to manually hand crank each window down and up, there were no power windows.
– There was no ABS braking system. You had to pump the brakes.
– There was no power steering.
– There were no air bags.
– There was no fuel injection – you had to pump the gas before you started the engine.
– There was no remote lock, you had to walk to the car and put the key in the lock and turn it. Then remember, no power locks? You had to crawl across the seat and unlock everyone else’s doors.
– There was no computers, internet, email.
– We hand wrote and received letters via the US Mail.
– We had to hand wash dishes, no dishwashers.
– We had to cook everything the long way – the stove – there were no microwaves.
– When we went out at 16, our parents had to know where we were and the phone numbers. We didn’t have cell phones to check in or receive calls. When we were not home, we were not home.
– We had to apply for jobs old school, by typing up a resume and hand delivering it or via US Mail.
– We didn’t have radar detectors.
– We didn’t have remote start on the cars, we had to walk to the car, unlock the door, pump the gas, start the car, and scrape the windows.
– We didn’t have GPS… we had maps. We had to read them.
– We could walk to the grocery store and buy 1 cent candy.
– I used an outhouse as a child when visiting my grandparents.
– We took pictures and had to wait until all 36 pictures were taken so we could develop them and see if the picture turned out worth a crap.
– We had paper books which we rented from the library that we used the card catalog to find said book.
– When we researched for a paper, we went to the library and used the card catalog to find books that we had to read to find supporting information.
– We didn’t have fax machines in our homes.
– We had black and white televisions.
– We didn’t have a Wal-Mart.
– We know what carbon paper is.
– We said the pledge of allegiance every day as school started.
– We had to flush our own toilets and turn on and off faucets to wash hands and hand crank the paper towels out.
– We didn’t have ATM cards. We had bank books. The teller would write down the transaction in your bank book.
– We wrote paper checks – no debit cards.
– Our typewriters were not electric.
– We didn’t have alarms in our schools.
– We didn’t have video cameras or cameras to take pictures at a moments notice.
But, we played outside, rode our bikes, watched cartoons on Saturday mornings, did our chores and we minded our manners so that we didn’t get spanked. We talked to grandparents on the phone and it was special. We made prank phone calls because there was no caller id. We didn’t have a lot of conveniences of today but we have memories.
Did I miss any?
Lisa Leslie's blog 