What have you lived through? (Let's reminisce)

[ixchel]

I'm a 30-something, and havent experienced much more than the general membership here, I'm sure, but I get the most amazing "stop and think about this for a second...." moments when I consider how much our world has changed over the lives of us all.

For me - I've lived without a cell phone. I was in high school when people who had pagers were considered to be drug dealers. I grew up with Oregon Trail in my teens. Most people didn't have computers at home. The mountain I lived on didn't have cable TV, so we had only 3 channels. Our roads weren't paved, and Saturday afternoons were spent jumping into the river swinging off vines. Call waiting and caller ID were a really big deal, but we didn't get them because they cost more money.

My grandma tells me they didn't have wheelchairs. She was a nurse in her white cap and skirt and tights. She had an alcoholic, abusive husband at a time when that was shameful to even mention. My grandpa tells me no one on his street had a TV. It was a really big deal when someone got one, and everyone whispered about it.

My 90-something patient told me about how so much of healthcare took place at home because you really, really had to be messed up for mom to go get the horses and carriage ready to go to the doctor. She got in big trouble once when she broke her arm falling from a tree.

What have you lived through? What pieces of history stay with you?

[thenightnurse456]

I love these types of threads!

I remember watching Aladdin on VHS.

I remember taking a roll of film to get developed.

I remember playing outside until it got dark with the neighbor kids.

I remember going to watch cartoons and instead saw 9/11 change the world.

I remember mobile phones were for business people with corporate jobs. And the phones were.. Phones.

I remember dial up internet people...

[ixchel]

I love these types of threads!

I remember watching Aladdin on VHS.

I remember taking a roll of film to get developed.

I remember playing outside until it got dark with the neighbor kids.

I remember going to watch cartoons and instead saw 9/11 change the world.

I remember mobile phones were for business people with corporate jobs. And the phones were.. Phones.

I remember dial up internet people...

Oh, God, dialup. My grandfather and I split his internet access plan on dialup. It was measured in time, not GB. We had a total of 5 hr/month. I'd go over my 2.5 hours playing on Usenet.

I was just about 21 on 9/11. I remember the Thursday night right after, I was at work (at a bar) when Bush was to address the country. The band was sitting nearby with a teenaged kid who complained loudly over everything Bush said, saying stuff like, "what has this country ever done for me?" If I could have reached over that bar and knocked him across his face, I would have!

[DoeRN]

I remember our microwave from the 80's. It had a "wood" panel on the side and it was built into the cabinet.

My very first computer was a Tandy computer from Radio Shack. I had an Atari too.

I remember sneaking and watching Falcon Crest, Joan Rivers, Hunter and Dynasty when my parents thought I was sleeping.

I remember Alf, Care Bears, I had every My Little Pony, I watched He-Man and She-ra on tv.

I remember when pagers were cool.

My first cell phone was contained in a bag like a fanny pack.

I remember 8 tracks and my parents had a huge record collection.

In my dad's "man cave" he had a console tv and everyone thought it was so cool. It was a new "streamline" console tv lol.

I remember my aunt wearing her nursing dress and hat to her clinicals.

Our first VCR was HUGE!!

My mom had a red Datsun sports car. I think that's how you spell Datsun.

I also remember Rainbow Bright, Family Ties, Punky Brewster, The Jeffersons, the original Hawaii Five-O.

Yep was a 70/80's kid.

[Farawyn]

I remember the Brady Bunch on at night, as well as Little House on the Prairie. Soul Train on Saturday mornings. You stood up and walked across the room to change the channel.

I saw Jaws and Rocky and Star Wars and Grease in the movie theater. Movies cost less than 1$

A slice of pizza and a small soda was 75 cents meaning you still had a quarter left to play Ms. Pac Man.

I remember the first time I called my friend and a fancy machine called an answering machine picked up.

We had a phone on the wall with a looooong cord.

My mom wore her cap and a white dress to her ER job.

EVERYONE smoked. There were "smoking sections" in restaurants, movie theaters, trains and planes.

We played outside with whomever was around. We came home for lunch when the church bells rang and home for dinner when the 6 o'clock whistle blew.

I remember red jellybeans being "bad" and green M&M's making you horny.

I remember CBGBs, and seeing Metallica concert at a movie theater, Prince's 1999 sounding so far away, and concert tickets costing 16 bucks, and MTV launching and disco sucks.

Being scared of the Soviets and the USA hockey team beating the USSR and crying with emotion.

I remember taking my boards on paper and with a number 2 pencil.

I remember books.

[BrandonLPN, LPN]

I remember rotary telephones.

I remember when being slapped in the face by an adult for being sassy wasn't considered a traumatic event.

I remember the Soviet Union existing.

I remember a time before 24-hour cartoon channels, and kids got up early on Saturday mornings to eat froot loops and watch cartoons.

I remember having to look up things in an actual encyclopedia.

I remember when Pluto was a planet.

[macenroe]

Growing up, when I had a cold, I was given Father Johns.

I remember watching "The Homecoming" when it aired on television the first time. (One of my favorite Christmas shows, even to this day) That movie lead to the series "The Waltons", which I watched every week. I also liked Little House on the Prairie. We only had three channels to choose from, and television stations went off the air every night, and resumed programming the next morning.

Candy cigarettes were sold at every corner store.

My first car had the dimmer switch on the floor.

Pay phone booths were used frequently when traveling.

Our phone line was a "party line", that we shared with five or six other neighbors.

When I was a teenager, I would take my babysitting money and spend it on 45 or 33 rpm records, 8 track, and cassette tapes.

We didn't have the modern technology of today, but there was always something to do. The kitchen was the "heart" of the house, and that's where everyone gathered. When friends came over, the kitchen table became a game table for playing cards, Monopoly and Yahtzee.

In healthcare, I remember when AIDS was first known as GRID. I also remember nurses wearing the white dress, stockings, and cap.

[meanmaryjean, DNP, RN]

I remember when the treatment for hypoplastic left heart was to wrap the baby in a blanket and hand it to it's mother to be cuddled and loved until it passed away. THEN I remember working on the drug trials for the miracle drug Prostaglandin E1.

[amoLucia]

I don't ever recall having a 'snow day' when school would be closed because of weather. Bad weather has always been around.

[TheCommuter, BSN, RN]

I was born in 1981. When I was attending high school in the mid and late 1990s, none of my classmates had cell phones. Back then, cell phones were only being used by executives, drug dealers, celebrities, and higher income people.

I grew up without a home computer or internet access. I didn't get my first computer with internet access until 2000, when I was 19 years of age.

During my growing-up years every gas station, supermarket and convenience store had at least one pay phone in the parking lot.

During my early childhood years my parents has a 1975 Pontiac Grand Prix and a 1981 Datsun 200SX. Of course, the Datsun was a stick shift.

I remember a time when laporascopic surgeries did not exist. My mother had a cholecystectomy in 1983 and the incision scar extends from her sternum to her navel.

I had not heard of caller ID until 1998, when I was 17.

My favorite television show was Unsolved Mysteries. It was hosted by Robert Stack. He always wore a beige trench coat while narrating.

I was 20 years of age when the 9/11/01 attacks occurred. I was living in my southern Californian hometown and found out about the attacks while at my workplace, a paper products factory.

I was one month shy of 5 years old when the Challenger explosion happened.

I was 8 years old when the Tianenmen Square massacre occured, and 9 years old when troops were deployed to the Persian Gulf War.

My favorite cartoons were the Smurfs and Tom & Jerry.

[enuf_already]

Beer could be legally bought and consumed by 18 year olds (3.2%)

Forget cable, forget color--Black and white TV!

Vietnam--the first televised war

The assassination and funeral of a president (Kennedy) and the reaction of the American public

the draft ending

Technology--the Internet, video games, MRIs, portable vents (none existed until well into my adult years)

GI Joe doll--better than Barbie because his legs and arms bent

[ixchel]

I remember this, and not understanding why it was so important. I was 10.

The Berlin Wall Falls 1989 NBC Coverage Pt1 - YouTube

The challenger explosion was terrible. My elementary school felt like it was appropriate to bring in firefighters and discuss with us (kindergarteners) what happened. I had nightmares after that.