When I Was Your Age....

[Food Lady]

I believe I'm guilty of having used that phrase. I remember things like:
1. loooooong phone cords: Mom would stretch it out 5 feet to get out the back door & close the door to get away from us.

2. our black/white TV in the den, with no remote and actual channel DIALS, one of which was UHF

3. not having to wear a seatbelt because Mom's car was manufactured before that law

4. The days of playgrounds without the benefit of rubber mats or other safety ffeatures

5. the days of riding my bike all over the extended neighborhood from 9:00am to 9:00pm, coming home only for snacks

6. the choices for video game systems were: Atari, Atari, or Atari

[NorthernZel]

* cell phones were almost non-existant (unless you owned a shitload of money to pay the telephone bills AND had the stamina to carry a 10-pound battery around)

* all - I repeat, ALL shops were only open Mon-Fri 9-17.30 (Sat 10-14) and even the cinemas, restaurants and bars were closed during Easter and Christmas

* MTV actually played MUSIC VIDEOS all day

* there were at max 16 channels on the telly to choose from (and that was if you had cable!)

Oh boy I feel old now.

[PhotoChick]

on the topic of cell phones... anyone else remember car phones?

my dad's company had one installed for him... at the time I know I thought we were hot shit to have one.

[BookstoreEscapee]

I believe I'm guilty of having used that phrase. I remember things like:

I am too...and I'm only 33!

1. loooooong phone cords: Mom would stretch it out 5 feet to get out the back door & close the door to get away from us.

and every once in a while you had to dangle it from way up high to get it to untangle itself.

2. our black/white TV in the den, with no remote and actual channel DIALS, one of which was UHF

It's not black and white, but we still have one of those in the basement by the treadmill. I think it's 13 inches and it used to be the kitchen TV when I was a kid.

3. not having to wear a seatbelt because Mom's car was manufactured before that law

OK, well, I always had to wear a seatbelt.

4. The days of playgrounds without the benefit of rubber mats or other safety features

Nothing better than hanging upside down above some hard-packed dirt!

5. the days of riding my bike all over the extended neighborhood from 9:00am to 9:00pm, coming home only for snacks

and no helmets! When I was 11 I got a ten-speed for Christmas (purple ) and I was really just a little too short to ride it, but that didn't stop me.

6. the choices for video game systems were: Atari, Atari, or Atari

we had a Texas Instruments system... every once in a while it would freeze and you'd pull out the cartridge and blow in it. My brother's friend had Colecovision - Smurfs and Qbert!

[telecom_goddess]

I believe I'm guilty of having used that phrase. I remember things like:
1. loooooong phone cords: Mom would stretch it out 5 feet to get out the back door & close the door to get away from us.

2. our black/white TV in the den, with no remote and actual channel DIALS, one of which was UHF

3. not having to wear a seatbelt because Mom's car was manufactured before that law

4. The days of playgrounds without the benefit of rubber mats or other safety ffeatures

5. the days of riding my bike all over the extended neighborhood from 9:00am to 9:00pm, coming home only for snacks

6. the choices for video game systems were: Atari, Atari, or Atari

Yup I remember all that....and my mother had a rotary dial phone too! And our playgrounds were concrete.

[JoitheArtist]

...Pluto was a planet!

So sorry, couldn't resist.

It's always a little tricky for me to answer these, because when I was a kid, my area was always about 5 years late to catch fads and new tech. But...

...The only way to skip commercials was to put the TV on mute, or tape the show and hit the fast-forward button

....anyone over the age of 5 riding a miniature scooter (think the Razor) would have been laughed off the streets.

...Cell phones weighed more than walkie talkies and were too big for jean pockets.

...not all toys were branded with characters from TV and movies, but carrots, peanut butter, and spinach were.


Dammit, now I feel old. I'm gonna go hide under a rock.

[dalesys]

Children, children...

I remember when you got stereo radio by having one channel on AM and the other on FM.

When boys hair more than 2" was freaky long.

When a mini-store open from 7AM to 11PM was an astounding concept. (The nearest 24 hour store was 10 miles away)

A 3-speed bike was super high technology.

Practically every kind of store had a tube tester so you could replace whichever one had failed this month in your TV or radio.

A color converter for your TV was a sheet of plastic tinted in bands: blue top, flesh center & green bottom.

The only unleaded gasoline was white gas... for camp stoves and lanterns.

(Raises hand from walker, shakes fist in air "You kids! Get outta mah yard!)

[Kinoo]

6. the choices for video game systems were: Atari, Atari, or Atari

When we finally got colour TV our Atari had to go as it only worked on B & W.

[hinakiba777]

I was born in 1988. I'm too young to play this game. The only people i can scare are the children under 13.

[Trayol]

I was born in 1988. I'm too young to play this game. The only people i can scare are the children under 13.

I'm in the same boat. The best thing to tell them is "I remember when EVERYONE thought Power Rangers were cool." Let them shudder on that.

[BookstoreEscapee]

I'm in the same boat. The best thing to tell them is "I remember when EVERYONE thought Power Rangers were cool." Let them shudder on that.

I never thought Power Rangers were cool.

[tropicsgoddess]

When I was your age.....

56k Dial up was the fastest internet connection speed

Doctors and Drug Dealers weren't the only ones that had beepers

If you wanted to make your own mix, you had to press the record/play button to record your favorite songs from the radio on your cassette tapes

The only two portable gaming systems were either the Gameboy (which was the thick one that had the spinach green screen) or the Game Gear (from Sega).

The only way to record your shows and/or skip commercials was by VHS.

Social networking was either chat rooms or IM and yes, that was life before MySpace,Twitter,Facebook and such. (that would shock the 15 and under crowd )

[Toujin]

I was born in '81, so let's see...

*The letters on Wheel Of Fortune actually had to be turned, and the contestants got to pick out their prizes.

*Only true computer experts (like my dad) could get online.

*Joe Camel showing up in magazines and on billboards.

*CDs and CD players were very expensive.

*Using a computer actually required hooking it up to a TV monitor.

*Having to blow on game cartridges to make them work.

[Food Lady]

I remembered one: In elementary school we had the Tandy computers that used not hard drives, not floppy disks, but............................................... .......CASSETTE RECORDERS! I remember when floppy disks appeared for the first time. 56k connection? There was no internet connection for the general public. Cassette tapes were new technology; Mom had the 8-track stereo that was a piece of furniture. CDs didn't even exist.

[BethB]

-commodore 64. we owned that ancient thing.
-Saturday morning cartoons!!!!
-NO "reality" tv.
-very few channels as opposed to the 600 channels...and we still have nothing to watch.