The Spoiled Under-30 Crowd!

[BarbC]

THE SPOILED UNDER-30 CROWD!!!
(from an email)


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 kids about how hard I had it and how easy they've got it!

But now that... I'm [well] 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 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 catalogue!!

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!

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! No where was safe!

There were no MP3's or Napsters! You wanted to
steal music, you had to hitchhike to the 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 mess 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 the tape would come undone. Cause that's how we rolled - dig?

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 either!
When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! It could be your school, your mom, your boss, your Bookie, your drug dealer, 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'. 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!


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 butt and walk over to the TV to change the channel! 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!

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

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 or before!

 

[BarbC]

THE SPOILED UNDER-30 CROWD!!!
(from an email)


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 kids about how hard I had it and how easy they've got it!

But now that... I'm [well] 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 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 catalogue!!

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!

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! No where was safe!

There were no MP3's or Napsters! You wanted to
steal music, you had to hitchhike to the 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 mess 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 the tape would come undone. Cause that's how we rolled - dig?

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 either!
When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! It could be your school, your mom, your boss, your Bookie, your drug dealer, 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'. 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!


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 butt and walk over to the TV to change the channel! 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!

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

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 or before!

 

[2Loud4You]

I'll be 34 next month and can tell you that I know what you're talking about.

 

[gunsmith11]

10 cent stamps what a rip off, I remember when they went from 3 cents to 5 cents,,people were pissed, that was the same time a cup of coffee at the restaurant was a nickel and so what a soda

 

[Bassamatic]

Oh no...I've become my mother!.

Makes me laugh, happens to everyone when they look at the younger generation. You know, it actually gets worse as you get older.

I have a 22 year old daughter who has been out of High School now, what? 4 years? Since she graduated, they built a brand new high across the street. She told me she was talking to her younger cousin who goes to the new school and caught herself going..."we never had that", through the whole conservation. She said, I screamed when I realized I sounded just like you.

 

[tops]

I was jerked up dirt poor years ago. I remember when pop was 5 cents. Radios were an option in cars. I can't remember for sure but I think heaters were an option. I remember not having a refrigerator. An ice truck would come around and you could buy big blocks of ice to go in your ice box. We didn't have running water or indoor plumbing until I was 15 or a TV until I was 18 and somewhere about that time we got a telephone. You will have had to be really poor and under privileged to beat this true story.

 

[deralte]

Tops,there are some of us that can still remember those things. As late as 1946 you had to order both the radio and heater if you bought a new car. I also remember paying for my dads gas - one whole dollar for 10 gallons as in 10 cents a gallon. Also remember my first car - a 1937 Ford V8 60. It had been worn out twice before I got it and it had a gas heater that worked quite well. However, those were the days when you could be gay without being queer and cool meant not hot.

 

[LTC]

First car, 1929 Chrysler, no heater or radio. Second and third cars had a portable transistor radio hung off the rear view mirror, but did have heaters.

How many here had to get the crank out to start their car? Vacume wipers that didn't work going up hill?

TV had 6 channels out of NY and 3 more out of Phila., but NY and Phila. broadcast the same programing. All stations signed off at midnight. TV was black and white for the most part until the early 60's.

Radio and 45's or lp's for music or even 33's for the old stuff.

After school activities were homework, chores, maybe a few innings of softball in the school ballfield with the kids on the block.
Vido / computer game substitutes were playing Army or cowboys and indians.

We had it great!

LTC

Mom didn't call your cell or text you, she hollared out the back door and you had better be within ear shot.

LTC

 

[crofoot629]

I know your post is in jest, but………

……I'm frequently sad that I don't feel like my kids can safely roam the neighborhood as I could growing up in the 60's and 70's. No such thing as Active Shooters in my youth either.

Emory

 

[Wheelgunner840]

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!

This line always cracks me up!

Thanks for the laughs!

WG840

 

[semperfi71]

My story does not compare to Tops or others here but it is true.

In 1964 we moved from San Antonio, Texas to La Vernia, Texas. My Dad wanted to get closer to his "roots'. He did!! Dragging us along.

We lost T.V. altogether. We had to wait SIX MONTHS before he had time to hook it up [I think he did that intentionally].

We lost a bathroom. We had to use an outhouse for a year and a half.

We had no heating system. We had to buy portable electric heaters.

We had no telephone for about a month.

We had no cooling system. We put portable fans in the windows.

Originally the house had no plumbing at all. But Mom nixed that. Dad, he was a carpenter, had to install a kitchen with a real sink and faucet or Mom wasn't moving! So we had ONE set of plumbing [the kitchen water faucet] in the house.

We lost a bathtub. Dad bought a large galvinized tub that sat on the floor and we had to fill it with hot water heated on the stove. I had two older brothers and the three of us took separate baths...all using the same water. The last one had LOTS of soapy water to bath in...and dirty too. Once in a while Mom inspected the water and determined that it was "too dirty" for the next "bather" and made us empty it out and start over.

AND WE DID HAVE TO WALK UPHILL EVERY DAY TO SCHOOL!!! It was 40 yards up the slight hill to La Vernia I.S.D.

[Independent School District]. Only four buildings and one grade each from 1 to 12. That year the Senior class graduated 12 or 14 kids.

I learned later in life how lucky I was.

I have appreciated real toilets ever since!

 

[RonJ]

Just about the time I turned eight years old my Mom got her first dish washer. She called it Ron.
I complained incessantly because the trash can didn't have wheels.

I had to lift it and carry it to the curb.

 

[Bassamatic]

That's nothing.

I can remember being on a party line with over ten houses. Our ring was two shorts. Plus, you had to listen to all the rings until the other house answered.

My daughter still thinks I'm making that one up.

 

[DWFAN]

How about the big old round open top washing machine with the rollers on top to squeeze the water out of your clothes.The darn thing would shake the whole house. Our first fridge was a Philco and still resides in my aunts basement. My father used to defrost it with a blow torch.

Remember the food plan sales were you ordered meat and frozen foods and you got a side by side fridge in the deal. The salesman would stop by every three or four weeks with a refrigerated truck to fill your order. That behemouth is still in the house.
DW

 

[venomballistics]

Originally posted by Bassamatic:
That's nothing.

I can remember being on a party line with over ten houses. Our ring was two shorts. Plus, you had to listen to all the rings until the other house answered.

My daughter still thinks I'm making that one up.

I remember that too. only our party line didnt have distinctive rings and directed tot he proper number most of the time.... it was an improvement .... but did NOTHING to address the issue of the gossip down the road who kept the line tied up mercilessly for hours while the neighbors house burned to the foundation

 

[Iggy]

Bassamatic.

Our barb wire net work phone number was two longs and a short!!

We finally got real phones in 1961. A number of ranches furnished the labor and material and built 60 miles of phone lines to Ma Bell specs and sold it all to Ma Bell for a $1.00.

I represented our family's ranches in providing the labor. I climbed every pole on that 60 mile line.

Oh did I mention riding a horse to school for the first four years, and the school district payimg me to drive across country to meet the school bus during high school?

Even then, every call we made until 1999 was long distance.

 

[nicky4968]

When we had the "bob-war" phone, you had to turn a crank. The crank turned a magneto. The magneto sent current to all the phones on the system and rang their bells. That was a hard crank, believe me.
When we got the real telephone, you had to give the operator the number (3181, I think) to call to town to talk to your mother or stepfather at the law office. Sometimes the operator wouldn't connect you; she would say, "Your parents are in court this afternoon".
When we got a telephone with a dial, we had to dial it. We were making little sparks and sending them down the line to the phone company. The sparks activated a bundle of seven rods which moved, one at a time, to make all the required connections.
If you dialed that telephone 15 times in an hour (for whatever reason) your forefinger wouldn't fit in the holes in the dial.

 

[nicky4968]

I forgot to add:

"Operator, I wish to make a station-to-station call to Kankakee, Illinois . . ."

"Sorry, the long distance lines are busy".

You waited by the phone while the operator worked her way through 3 or 4 or 5 telephone companies to connect you to your grandmother in Illinois. When she had the connection, the operator called you back and started your call.

 

[BLACKHAWKNJ]

When we moved to Vermont in 1956 the house had a hand cranked wall phone and a party line.
In defense of today's under 30 crowd:
1. When my parents divorced in 1956 I became one of the 10-15% of kids made fatherless by divorce-today I'd be one of the 50% or more. A college professor I knew in 1988 told me that in his daughter's 6th grade home room she was one of THREE kids out of a class of 25 living with both parents. 50% of divorced fathers refuse ALL contact with their children of their failed marriages, 2/3 of divorced fathers give the children of their failed marriages NO help whatsoever with college expenses.
2. Stepfathers and boyfriends are a poor substitute for real fathers.
3. Some tribute should be paid to all the kids, especially older girls, who are nothing but their parents maids, cooks and babysitters.
4. "The worst part of growing up is finding out you parents never did."

 

[wbraswell]

Well, I'm only 55, so there are some things like crank phones, that I never dealt with, but I do remember these.
Black and white TV, only. 3 channels, all in Shreveport, so all we got was Louisiana news and weather.
Our phone number was 6 digits. No air conditioning, no central heat, and no carpet. And our house was new in 1955. Almost no one drove trucks except men who used them for work. The vast majority of homes had one car. When I started driving in 1969, you could find gas for .19 a gallon. Cigarettes were around .20, and no one except your parents cared if you bought them. A six pack of premium beer was 1.50 and there was no light or imported stuff. 22 LR ammo was .50 a box. The minimum wage was 1.60 and the whitewalls on your tires may have been wider than the tread on them. I remember when a friend and me went to the drive thru at Burger Chef and got 2 burgers, 2 fries and 2 cokes for a dollar. Oh, and rock and roll WAS the alternative.