The over 40 crowd.....

[Soberjulie]

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... Barefoot... BOTH ways...yadda, yadda, yadda

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 my 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 forty, 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!

1) 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!! (how many of you know the Dewey Decimal System???)

2) 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! Stamps were 10 cents!

3) Child Protective Services didn't care if our parents beat us. As a matter of fact, the parents of all my friends also had permission to kick our ass! Nowhere was safe!

4) There were no MP3's or Napsters or iTunes! If you wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the record store and shoplift it yourself!

5) Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio, and the DJ would usually talk over the beginning and @#*% it all up! There were no CD players! We had tape decks in our car. We'd play our favorite tape and "eject" it when finished, and then the tape would come undone rendering it useless. Cause, hey, that's how we rolled, Baby! Dig?

6) 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!

7) There weren't any freakin' cell phones either. If you left the house, you just didn't make a damn call or receive one. You actually had to be out of touch with your "friends". OH MY GOSH !!! Think of the horror... not being in touch with someone 24/7!!! And then there's TEXTING. Yeah, right. Please! You kids have no idea how annoying you are.

8) And we didn't have fancy Caller ID either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! It could be your school, your parents, your boss, your bookie, your drug dealer, the collection agent... you just didn't know!!! You had to pick it up and take your chances!

9) We didn't have any fancy PlayStation or Xbox video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games like 'Space Invaders' and 'Asteroids'. Your screen 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!

10) 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!!! NO REMOTES!!! Oh, no, what's the world coming to?!?!

11) 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 rat-bastards!

12) And we didn't have microwaves. If we wanted to heat something up, we had to use the stove! Imagine that!

13) And our parents told us to stay outside and play... all day long. Oh, no, no electronics to soothe and comfort. And if you came back inside... you were doing chores!

And car seats - oh, please! Mom threw you in the back seat and you hung on. If you were lucky, you got the "safety arm" across the chest at the last moment if she had to stop suddenly, and if your head hit the dashboard, well that was your fault for calling "shot gun" in the first place!

See! That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it too easy. You're spoiled rotten! You guys wouldn't have lasted five minutes back in the 1970's or any time before!

Regards,
The Over 40 Crowd

[sharonsiff]

Oh that made me laugh Julie :)

[Colleen]

I am almost there and most of that rings true, lol

[bakon]

we also ate lead paint. smoked, drank, took Babs into the back seat of cars, threw tomatoes at everything, put lawn furniture in swimming pools, tortured anyone younger than us, laughed at adults who chased us, got sent to principles office and he knew our names....kids are better behaved today.

 

Devils night was practiced for two weeks ahead of time just to be ready for the big night. Kids don't know what it is now.

 

Pony bottles of beer, if that wasn't meant to be kid's size...

 

Sports- favorite pick up game...Smear the Queer...which had no rules but run with the ball and get tacked then throw it to next guy you want punished, wait that's rugby..

 

And black lights....anyone's kid have one?  Dope smoking and make out parties.

[Jenny]

LOL, the "safety" arm!  My sister and I still talk about this!!

 

Too funny!

[Ladybug]

I ate unwashed apples and pears from the trees...and nobody got a heart attack :-)

They dropped me at school and told the teacher "if she doesn't behave...smack her" 

[El Bandito]

I believe on one occasion I got a clip round the ear from the local policeman.

 

I ran home crying.

 

There I got a clip round the ear for getting into trouble with the police.

 

Nobody sued anyone...

[Paul723]

We waited in line not online.

[sharonsiff]

We waited in line not online.

That creased me up! How true.

[sherry]

ROTFL!!  Julie, i am SO sending this to my kids!!!

 

My youngests phone was run over by the forklift at work Friday (their freight day) so she skype's me on her laptop -in a tizzy - cuz

it's  "such a freaking hassle mom " to get a new phone - of course it's all the fork lift drivers fault that she's have'n to "suffer", so by all rights the company should give her time off to get a new one, but of course they wont, and it "just takes SO long!!"... i said "ok, well hon, you're off work now, why don't you get off here, go get yourself a new phone and call me back?".. she say's (and i'm not kidding)  " but i don't want to waist my day off like that- i want someone to bring me a new phone"    :blink:

[sgt.barney]

We didn't live The DirtBagger's Suite in Mom's Basement until we were 30 [1], either ...

 

 

 

Easy Peasy

 

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The Sarge moved out at 17 back in 1987 (yeah, do the math -  he's old, too.) - moved right into a large bay with 60 other young new Privates in Basic Training not two weeks after graduation.  The Sarge traded his Mom for three Drill Sergeants.

[ChRiSpY]

WOW... perfectly said.

[Amy]

LOL- don't forget we got to ride in the back of the pick up truck.. make sure you sit down and hold on.

[Doreensfree]

I remember in my Xmas stocking every year.....a tangerine and a tin of toffee,s.....

I was actually very pleased to get these items.....

[TAC]

I believe one of the first video games was called "Pong" on a green screen with no fancy digitizer like a mouse or track ball.

 

My mother actually told me the story about walking to school up hill in the snow with bare feet both ways.LOL

 

And I watched "The Three Stooges" (which would be considered too violent in today's world) every morning before I went to school.

[El Bandito]

I remember in my Xmas stocking every year.....a tangerine and a tin of toffee,s.....

I was actually very pleased to get these items.....

I still miss the walnuts... :)

[TAC]

Going back even further, cavemen used to etch messages in stone, do you remember "film"?

 

To take a picture, you had to go to the store and buy a roll of "film", wrestle with it to get it in the camera, you got 12 or 20 shots, then you had to take it out of the camera, back to the store to have it "processed", pay more money and hope like hell you didn't screw them up.

 

Does anyone remember the big computer/robot scare of the 70's? Well the first computer called the "PET" came out in the late 70's along with machines that were controlled by computers called robots. Everyone was afraid of losing their jobs to these new fangled gizmos.

 

Nowadays you can lose your job if you don't know how to use a computer. LOL

[TAC]

There is one very important exception to the subject of this thread, CARS.

 

Simply put, cars were soooooooo much easier to work on in the old days.

 

Nuff said.

[JackiMac]

Oh the memories, we had a polaroid camera that took pics then you stood and shook them like you were going crazy and watched the pic develop. My mum used to send me off in the morning on school holidays with an apple and bottle of water and we would all go to the beach and be told home for tea!  We used to watch the top 40 not download it,  Great Times lol, and I know I am beginning to sound like my mum!! 

[El Bandito]

Yep...kids got up, and were told...be home before it gets dark...

[sharonsiff]

Yep...kids got up, and were told...be home before it gets dark...

Aww yes, them were the days. Parents only saw us when our hungry bellies sent us home, to recharge. Such fabulous days.

[joe]

Yep...kids got up, and were told...be home before it gets dark...

real similar in my house...we HAD to be home BEFORE the street lights came on.....I cant really tell you what would have happened if we weren't ..I never tested those waters  :O :wacko: :blink:

[Ladybug]

My first date, the poor boy had to pick me up and he had to come inside...there was an interview...he survived :-)  He called my parents "Mr" and "Mrs" and I did the same to all of my friends parents. "Yes Mam" and "No Sir" that's how we were raised

[REZ]

How about 3.2 beer, spent more time in bathrooms and had big headache next morning!

 

Cars were fun and fast then too, big motors with loud mufflers and gas was cheep!!!!!

[TAC]

A gallon of gas and a pack of cigarettes were both under 25 cents.