When I was Younger

[rocknrod]

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
in hell I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on kids about how hard I
had it and how easy they've got it!

But now that I'm over the ripe old age of thirty, 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 a damn 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
damn library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalog!!

There was no email! We had to actually write somebody a letter . . .
with a pen! 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!

There were no MP3's or Napsters! You wanted to steal music, you had to
hitchhike to the damn record store and shoplift it yourself! Or you had
to wait around all day to tape it off the radio and the DJ'd usually talk over
the beginning and @#*% it all up!

And talk of about hardships? You couldn't just download xxx! You had to
steal it from your brother or bribe some homeless dude to buy you a copy of
"Hustler" at the 7-11! Those were your options!

We didn't have fancy crap like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone
and somebody else called they got a busy signal, that's it! 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 school, your mom, your boss, your bookie, a collections
agent - you just didn't know!!! You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!

We didn't have any fancy Sony Playstation video games with
high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600!
With games like "Space Invaders" and "Asteroids" and the graphics sucked ass!
Your guy was a little square!
You actually 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 harder and faster and faster until you died!! Just like LIFE!

When you went to the movie theater there no such thing as stadium
seating! All the seats were the same height! If a tall guy or some old broad
with a hat sat in front of you and you couldn't see, you were just screwed!

Sure, we had cable television, but back then that was only like 15
channels and there was no onscreen menu and no remote control! You had to use a
little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on! You were screwed when
it came to channel surfing! You had to get off your ass and walk over to the TV
to change the channel and there was no Cartoon Network either! You could
only get cartoons on Saturday Morning. Do you hear what I'm saying!?! We had to
wait ALL WEEK for cartoons, you spoiled little brats!

And we didn't have microwaves, if we wanted to heat something up, we
had to use the stove or go build a frigging fire. Imagine that! If we wanted
popcorn, we had to use that stupid Jiffy Pop thing and shake it over the stove
forever like an idiot. That's exactly what I'm talking about!
You kids today have got it too easy. You're spoiled.

You guys wouldn't have lasted five minutes back in 1980!!!!!

[Haggis]

Your killing me Rod. You forgot cellphones!

[Bluerauder]

Funny, but true !!

You actually had to use your imagination! .....
The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died!! Just like LIFE!

Alot of truth here ^^^^^^.

[duhtroll]

Hmmm. We had a microwave in 1980. Musta been spoiled.

[1 Bad Merc]

We were the first people in my neighborhood to get cable in 1982. Saw M-TV for the first time and it was all music videos.......cool. First movie I ever saw on Cable was "Heavy Metal". I had never seen anything like that before. Stayed up all night watching it and missed school the next day! Most of my friends spent the summer at my house watching cable as they did not have it yet. Those were some great times!

Question for you members.....What was the first movie you ever saw on cable and what year was it?

[Bluerauder]

Question for you members.....What was the first movie you ever saw on cable and what year was it?

I moved to Lindenwold, NJ in December 1980 and had to have cable there. Reception out of Philadelphia on the airwaves was not all that terrific. Ended up getting HBO along with the basic cable service.

Can't remember the first movie. However, I do remember sitting up late one night with my Mother-in-Law (she was visiting just before my daughter was born in Feb 1981). We watched "Richard Pryor - Live". Both of us were quite surprised at the language .... but neither of us stopped watching. Not sure whether this counted as "Quality Time" or not.

[Haggis]

...However, I do remember sitting up late one night with my Mother-in-Law (she was visiting just before my daughter was born in Feb 1981). We watched "Richard Pryor - Live". Both of us were quite surprised at the language .... but neither of us stopped watching. Not sure whether this counted as "Quality Time" or not.

No, she was just learning new words to call you behind your back.

[2003 MIB]

We were the first people in my neighborhood to get cable in 1982. Saw M-TV for the first time and it was all music videos.......cool. First movie I ever saw on Cable was "Heavy Metal". I had never seen anything like that before. Stayed up all night watching it and missed school the next day! Most of my friends spent the summer at my house watching cable as they did not have it yet. Those were some great times!

Question for you members.....What was the first movie you ever saw on cable and what year was it?

Coal Miner's Daughter...seems like 1980 or so... hated it.

[Haggis]

Question for you members.....What was the first movie you ever saw on cable and what year was it?

My friend had cable at his house in NJ back in the '70s. The first movie that I remember watching on HBO was about a robot that impregnant a woman. The robot had a syringe at the end of a machnical arm that it used to impregnant the woman. Does anyone remember the name of the show?

[2003 MIB]

Does anyone remember the name of the show?

"At Home with Al & Tipper Gore"

[hitchhiker]

My friend had cable at his house in NJ back in the '70s. The first movie that I remember watching on HBO was about a robot that impregnant a woman. The robot had a syringe at the end of a machnical arm that it used to impregnant the woman. Does anyone remember the name of the show?

Demon Seed.

[jerrym3]

Uh, I remember Mom/Dad getting their first refridgerator, and going next door to the landlord and paying our monthly rent: $24.

First TV: 14" b/w Admiral

First car my father had that I can remember: 1936 Nash

First car I ever drove (Dad was a firm believer that his son should learn how to drive even before the age of 17) 1951 Plymouth flathead six, 3 speed/column, station wagon; at age 15, he let me drive on regular roads on our summer vacations in NH; Mom would have a canary

Hiding under the desks at school during air raid drills

Playing a form of ball and base running called "kick the stick" (the stick replaced the ball); the four curbs at street intersections were the "bases".

First dance partner: Diane "X", big sister of the kid who became the drummer of The Rascals

[Haggis]

Demon Seed.

Thanks....