The good old days for people over 40: Check this post.

[Chelle in MO]

The only reason I know about the whole "Wayne" part is that my Uncle, to this day, can imitate my Dad trying to get some privacy in the house and asking the operator to complete the call so he could ask out my Mother. :)

 

That's adorable!

[eaglei]

I loved the one about having to actually go to the library and look things up! I had to explain to them about the library having card catalogs with drawers and drawers of index cards...and that was how you found the book you were looking for!

 

And don't forget you had to actually hand write your name on each and every card for each and every book you signed out!

 

Great thread - thanks for posting!

[mama2cntrykids]

I have to add one: cigarette machines with pull-knobs!! I used to live in a big trailer court and at the "office", there was a pop machine, a candy machine (with pull-knobs) AND a cigarette machine!! I remember thinking I was SO COOL when my uncle's then girlfriend told me to go buy her some cigarettes. She even gave me a note in case an adult in the office questioned me lololol.

 

Btw, I'm 33. Don't kick me out quite a bit of that stuff applies to me! Not the party line or rotary phones (although my grandpa did have one in his house when I was young) but MUCH of the other stuff applies!

[Mejane]

I remember the safety arm, lol!

 

Me, too. I was "clothes-lined" more than once by my mom. :D

[Laurie4b]

Ds 18 was reading over my shoulder and I was reading in the comments section and he said, "Were you really alive when they had rotary phones?" :lol::lol::lol:

 

Something they didn't mention, but when we were growing up, there was NO air conditioning. We had fans and you tried to lie very still to fall asleep on summer nights.

[JennifersLost]

I think my parents had a rotary phone until very, very recently.

 

This all applies to us except the party line. I think there was one when I was a kid at my grandparent's lake house, but never "in town."

 

I think I'm old because as much as I like technology - forums, my Kindle, etc. - more and more I want to toss all of it and sit on my back porch with a glass of lemonade. It feels like our grandparent's generation had so much more time.

[elizam]

" 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 but! Nowhere was safe!"

 

Yep, the good old days:confused:. (I know this is supposed to be taken light-heartedly, but this part annoys me. I see this type of essay written in different variations in different places, but let's face it, some things have changed for the better as well).

 

Lisa

 

 

I was just about to add this comment myself. I haven't been on WTM in quite a while, so here I am on like page 4 of posts and I just HAD to post my two cents...:001_huh:

 

the damage done is irreparable by parents who thing "beating" and "butt whuppin" is the be all end all to child discipline.

 

My 17yo ds has some serious working through of issues to do now that he is dxed with bipolar but has been beaten by his dad, had the cops say that is absolutely the best thing my ex could have done to his delinquent little hiney, and that bipolar does not exist, it's called delinquency.

 

2 weeks of suicidal thinking and adjusting to a mood stablizer resulted in 2 weeks of school absences...to which a cop commented that ds is lazy and should be beat for missing all that school.

 

And eventually the school just told him to drop out and make their lives easier because he obviously didn't "want to" act right and stop being depressed and raging and using substances...

not sayin that any of that is "ok" or that Im advocating it...but I do have some understanding of the illness, whereas these butt whuppin enthusiasts do not!

[Laurie4b]

Umm, we definitely had a toaster! In fact, I think toasters were around for my parent's generation (the 50's and early 60's)

 

I remember the safety arm, rotary phones, and the first microwave. I had to walk to school. I don't remember a party-line, though... maybe growing up in Silicon Valley had its advantages!

 

I remember when MTV played Music Videos (and I remember that there were a very few... and they repeated over and over). We got one of the first PONG sets when I was in the 5th grade, and we got the Atari a few years later.

 

I remember when the VCR came out... and I remember the BETA. I remember having a color television... in fact, that's all I remember, except when the television started to go out and it was various shades of green. My dad wouldn't replace it until it died.

 

I still have the toaster my parents got for a wedding present in the early 1950's. Still works. (It was made before companies figured out they could make more money if a toaster burned out in 3 years.)