The Good Old Days

A

ACSpectre

Guest
If you are 36, or older, you might think this is hilarious!

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, mister!

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
 
Very good post... It was better before...LOL !! Talking about video games, I remember playing nights long "Elite" on my Commodore 64, the game was on a tape recorder before diskettes (my first 5 1/4" diskette player was bigger than the computer and weighted 2 lbs..) I remember playing "Silent Service" the same and all the first Microprose flight sims on PCs. F15 Strike Eagle or F14 Fleet Defender were on 10 x 3 1/2 diskettes. In fact only the graphics look was a revolution across the years, the most important, the gameplay, was already there... And the game were released almost bug free because there was no way to issue a patch afterwards. I never regretted buying a Microprose game (except the first issue of Falcon 4 which later, thanks to the players community evolved into a fantastic sim...)
 
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My first pass cassette, a similar pattern to this, Panasonic, year 1979/1980

My first video game, called Family Game
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I liked Matchbox cars
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Corsaire31 said:
Talking about video games, I remember playing nights long "Elite" on my Commodore 64, the game was on a tape recorder before diskettes (my first 5 1/4" diskette player was bigger than the computer and weighted 2 lbs..) I remember playing "Silent Service" the same and all the first Microprose flight sims on PCs. F15 Strike Eagle or F14 Fleet Defender were on 10 x 3 1/2 diskettes. In fact only the graphics look was a revolution across the years, the most important, the gameplay, was already there... And the game were released almost bug free because there was no way to issue a patch afterwards. I never regretted buying a Microprose game (except the first issue of Falcon 4 which later, thanks to the players community evolved into a fantastic sim...)
Click to expand...

I used to play Flight Simulator 2, Fighter Bomber and Elite. Sometimes Ocean Conqueror or Diplomacy with my friends :)
I still play some of these on one of my 3 C64's :)

And i do agree with ACS.
Todays kids are retards. They don't know anything, and they don't want to know anything.
 
@ACSpectre:

If you are 36, or older, you might think this is hilarious! Sadly I think it´s more sad as hilarious as our children grow up. And I´m still not that old.

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

I experienced it not so heavy but YEAH, You´re right.

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!

You aren´t doing that. You tell only the truth! :)))

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!

I can only speak for my country because I grow up only here and have no comparison of other countries. We had a good and sheltered youth. It became very much harder after the fall of the wall.

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???)

I didn´t know it earlier. ;) Our libraries worked commonly after the russian way. But was very well.

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!

Yeah, the good old time! :) It was common during my schooldays to find penfriends. Every pupil had at least one. But sadly only friends of other socialist countries were allowed official. I had luck to have a few from western countries but lost contact as I grow up.

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!

:))) Very good!!! Slaps in our faces were OK for our breeding but had one see another one kicking a child the police had had their way with that people.

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!

It wasn´t that easy to shoplift as today. The stores were much clearly arranged and if You did a shoplift and was catched - OH my God! First slap from the owner. Second slaps from the family - and sometimes a arse paddle from Your father so You can´t sit for a longer while. The ABV (Abschnittsbevollmächtigter - no exact translation can be found) - I think district agent isn´t that wrong - came to Your home and had a talk with Your parents. Next day the whole class of You - and because of office grapevine - the whole school knew about Your failing. :))) You had luck if it wasn´t telled again on the next morning muster which was holded every month. It was not the best way but a better one as today.

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?

Absolutely right! Man was that a trouble everytime the DJ did it wrong. But there were a youth broadcast to special times extra to record Your favourite songs from the radio. That was in the 80´s as all became a bit leisure. We could record music from the western countries. I´m wondering what the GEZ (Central radio and televison toll collecting agency) had thought to that time. :)))

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, mister!

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!

We had the KC 85 and KC 87. :) Was a better calculator just as the C-64.

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?!?!

We had only the daily newspaper and there was the TV programm for that day. Only for the weekend they did the programm for saturday and sunday in one issue. Color TV was very very rare. Till to the mid 80´s most of us had a black and white TV. And that was already luxury. Remotes??? - What´s that?!!! :)))

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!

Cartoons were only for children and were broadcasted in the early afternoon. In the mornings You had to hurry to come to school. Our school week was about 6 days - so sunday was our only free day.

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

Wonderful!

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!

I don´t know anymore how we could play football all day long with only two or three breakes for the whole day. And we were always sad if we had to go home for lunch. And what a hue and cry if our parents told us we had to do work for the school or similar things instead of to go back and play football. :)

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!

Car was luxury and You had to wait about 16 years to get one. So it was common Your parents (if they had the money therefor) booked a car for You if You was born so You get it to Your 18th birthday.

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!

Or in the eastern 80´s :)))

Regards,
The Over 40 Crowd
 
Good Bye Lenin !!! lol
I was near the border when the wall came down (my group had a factory in Selb where I used to go often.) I saw the first Trabants coming from across the border. I will never forget the look on these people's faces when they first came into a western supermarket...
 
is this also the reason that the youth of today is fat, lazy and out of shape?
 
I must say that my generation (baby boomers) should be thankful every day of their life.
I am thankful to be born among the 10% of the world population living in a rich democracy. I am thankful I was part of the first generation in my country who never had to go to war outside playing CM, I am thankful I had an interesting job flying around the world paid by my company and to have been able to go see the boss every year and ask for a pay raise, I am thankful that when the companies I have been working for had trouble I was able to find another job in the next weeks with the help of a few phone calls.
I think the main difference with the new generation is that we were born with almost nothing and had the chance of discovering new things all the time (TV then color TV, records then CDs, ZX81 then PCs, etc...)
The new generation is born with all these things but will have to learn step by step to live without them... And I think that's not going to be a lot of fun...
As someone stated he was better off than us because he was still young, I would like to answer that I have never felt better in my life than since I turned 50. These last almost 10 years now have been the most enjoyable in my life. Kids are grown up and are far away, I work half the year and play music the other half, and the half year I work I can play games at work...
 
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