Came across this and thought we need a little humor during out frequent breaks from studying......we need MORE breaks than the youngens.....you know what I mean
Just in case you weren't feeling too old today, this will certainly change things.
The people who are starting college this fall across the nation were born in 1987 . They are too young to remember the space shuttle blowing up.
Their lifetime has always included AIDS.
The CD was introduced the year they were born.
They have always had an answering machine
They have always had cable.
Jay Leno has always been on the Tonight Show.
Popcorn has always been cooked in the microwave.
They never took a swim and thought about Jaws!
They don't know who Mork was or where he was from
They never heard: "Where's the Beef?", "I'd walk a mile for a Camel", or "de plane Boss, de plane".
McDonald's never came in Styrofoam containers.
They don't have a clue how to use a typewriter
Save the earth. It's the only planet with chocolate
The first news story I remember was the hostages being released from Iran. I remember the yellow ribbons and seeing them walk down the stairs from the plane. We used to watch the news EVERY NIGHT without fail; when Peter Jennings died I felt like it was someone I knew.
When I was in the USAF, I was sitting at a table with someone who didn't remember when the Challenger exploded. He was seventeen (he went in the military with his parent's permission when he graduated from HS and was turning 18 in a couple of months). I was only about 27, but I felt as though I was about 87 when I realized he was born in 1983!
I wrote to Ronald Reagan when he was shot and I still have the card I was sent in reply. I thought I was hot stuff when the hand-addressed envelope with the simple return address "THE WHITE HOUSE" came in the mail to ME. I was seven years old at the time. And yes, writing him was my idea; I was all worried because they were saying he was seriously hurt and all I could think about was my parents talking about JFK. So I wrote him, telling him I hoped he felt better soon and that we were praying for him in Sunday School. Of course I got back a prewritten card, but even now I'm impressed by the handwritten envelope and just the fact that I actually got a reply. I always felt connected to Ronald Reagan as a result - I remember having tears in my eyes when he issued his famous challenge to Gorbechev at the Berlin Wall (I'm a big patriotic sap anyway; always have been) and I cried when I watched his funeral.
Our TV had two knobs, picked up a whopping SIX channels on a good day (which was ironically usually when the weather was bad!) but generally just four (which included public TV) and my father used to go out and manually turn the big antenna when a storm would make it move and screw up the reception. DH and I were watching "Awakenings" when he was home last week and it showed Robin Williams adjusting the vertical hold - REMEMBER HOW ANNOYING IT WAS WHEN YOU COULDN'T MAKE THE BLESSED PICTURE STOP FLIPPING???? Or when the picture would clear up if you TOUCHED the antenna, but fuzz back up when you walked away - and it always did that with just a few minutes left in the program, so SOMEONE had to stand there and hold the antenna? I remember the National Anthem playing too! (And Friday Night Videos!)
You used to get stuff REPAIRED, you didn't replace it when it broke. I remember getting new tubes for the old Quasar TV. (I LOVED that TV.)
I was eight years old before we got a car with air conditioning. And it was literally a critical spending decision - even though the car payment was WAY less than $200 a month and the loan was for two or three years. (When I was just under 13 we got a 42 month car loan; I thought my father was going to have a heart attack. I know how old I was because the car was four months away from being paid for when I wrecked it at 16 - LOL! - fortunately it wasn't my fault!)
I remember when the big Christmas gift was Pong (we couldn't afford the real thing, though, so we had a Sears knockoff) and a 13" black and white TV. We have pictures from the Christmas we got the Pong console - you can see it in the background with the B/W TV! My first computer was a Commodore VIC-20 and you saved data onto cassette tapes. Video games now just blow me away.
Our first microwave was so big it took up a whole table top - remember "microwave tables"? And our first VCR cost more than the last set of tires I put on my car! (In fact, I remember RENTING a VCR before we could finally afford one!) NO ONE but Daddy was allowed to touch the VCR and we were in AWE of the thing.
Come to think of it, microwaves and VCRs were practically STATUS SYMBOLS. Uh, Beta, anyone?
The fact that my DH can call me from Qatar on a CELL PHONE and I can talk to him on MY cell phone boggles my mind if I think about it. I remember when long-distance calls to Germany (my brother was stationed there) sounded like you were speaking into one of those phones you used to make as a kid with a string and two cans! And they were UNBELIEVABLY expensive; you only called if someone was practically on life support! (Of course, this was prior to Ma Bell breaking up and telephone deregulation - back when, yes, kids, there was ONE TELEPHONE PROVIDER - BELL TELEPHONE...does anyone else see where phone call prices are heading with AT&T buying back another phone company - isn't it BELL SOUTH they're buying??) Now I call my in-laws in England for seven cents a minute and it's like they're right across the street.
I remember Braniff and People Express and Eastern Airlines and flying before deregulation - back when a plane ticket to Europe cost two grand and it was cheaper to drive to California than fly.
Saturday Night Live was funny, Johnny Carson was king, and "Cagney and Lacey" came on at 10 pm because it was considered "violent". I was just thrilled it came on on a weekend so I could stay up to watch it. I was probably about ten years old.
I remember the first season cliffhanger - yes, I was allowed to watch "Dallas" and my mom and I were addicted, even though I was about eight years old! - and how EVERYONE was talking about who REALLY shot JR (it was Kristin!), even the kids I went to school with!
Remember Apple IIe computers? And how COOL it was when you got to play with one in the library at school? I remember my teacher saying that they were VERY expensive - that they cost $1500 and we had to be VERY careful. (Of course, $1500 was more than my sister's entire first year at UNC cost in 1981. It still blows my mind that she had student loans!)
How about little kids' clothes - Garanimals, anyone? That's going WAY back. I remember running around the department matching up purple monkeys and blue elephants - you could tell what matched by matching the tags up!
THIS IS SUCH A FUN THREAD!!!! Sorry so long - I got carried away in the nostalgia!!
And ANYTHING made in Japan was pure junk, literally..... Especially true over in Europe, you wouldn't be seen dead with anything made in "Japan":lol2:
The national anthem......HOW OLD IS YOUR HUSBAND?????????
I'm 32 and I remember that!! They didn't stop that TOO long ago...it might also have depended on where you lived and what programs your local affiliate would get...my brother (who's 51!) lived in Connecticut and my dad's brother lived in Philly, and they had different shows on regular TV than we did. Their channels were on later.
I was talking to someone about aliens the other day and I jokingly said Nanu nanu earthling and started laughing, that is when I noticed I was the only one laughing haha! No one knew what I was talking about. I think the worst was one day I was singing Crazy by patsy cline and someone said what is that you are singing I said patsy cline and they said who... Oh dear.
LOL!! I've done that. A few of my friends are just enough younger than me that there are cultural references I remember and they don't...I always feel like a real jerk when I'll say something funny and they don't get it - I don't MEAN anything by it!
I was telling someone the other day about a reel-to-reel and had a hard time figuring out why they were looking at me like I was some sort of an idiot...keep in mind my parents were born in the early years of the Depression and I have a 51 year old brother, so I've been exposed to a lot of stuff that even people my age don't know about!
OH YEAH - THE OBLIGATORY VACATION SLIDE SHOWS!!!! Remember hanging up the sheet for a screen?
Speaking of changing the channels, wasn't that us? Our parents used us kids to change from channel 2,11,13 or 45! Remember just 4 channels?
I guess that's why reading was so much fun, more variety than TV! Now we have over 300 channels and there's nothing on TV! That's what I love!
And don't forget - "and you pay sixty bucks a month for the privilege of having nothing to watch!" Hey, we only had 4 channels - BUT AT LEAST THEY WERE FREE!!!!
how about when a tv channel actually didnt have something on, and then the colored bars came up with that horrible monotone noise, or the crying indian pollution commercial, or when the emergency broadcast system tests actually made noise.
Do you remember..."NO gnews is GOOD gnews with Gary Gnu"? GREAT SPACE COASTER!!! YEAH!!!! Remember "Emergency"? LOVED that show. I made a nurse's cap out of typing paper and pretended to be Dixie. And the Muppets...my dad loved the two old fogeys up in the balcony.
Looks like it was already in the rerun stage when I watched it; I know I was REALLY little (it's about the first "real" TV show I remember!). I do remember it coming on on Sunday afternoons.
I saw the Planet of the Apes movies on TV. LOVED them.
Does anyone else remember the public TV show "Readalong"? With Boots (the boot!) and Pretty (the pink ladies' shoe)? And that crazy old explorer dude (all of these characters were puppets)? "Read along with us at Readalong and ride, ride, ride - cuz reading is a lot of fun, and easy, too...." And then there was 3,2,1 - Contact! with the Bloodhound Gang mysteries...that was the first place I saw a pinhole camera and stuff under an electron microscope (they showed a grain of salt in the eye of a needle and some sort of a bug). And that show ZOOM! (The OLD, 1970s version where the kids sang the theme song while they were climbing on the giant letters - they used to tell you you could send them ideas - "Send it to ZOOM, Box 3-5-0, Boston, Mass - O-2-1-3-4 - SEND IT TO ZOOM!" - I used to get in major trouble for singing the theme with them while I was climbing on the back of the couch!)
"HHHEEEEEYYYY YOU GUYS!!" No one younger than us remembers that THAT is where Morgan Freeman first showed up on TV! And to this day I can't see Rita Moreno without hearing her scream that line!
And what about "Mutual of Omaha"....my husband is always talking about it...it was one of the shows he always watched when he had his 4 channels way back....
Star Treck and CHIPS were also very very popular over in Europe!
I remember going to the movies to see "Easy Rider" and the Who musical "Tommy"
I had never seen anything weirder in my life!
And my mother went to see "A Love Story" with Ryan O'Neal....we were way to young to figure out what the fuss was all about.....I thought Papermoon was a cute movie
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stpauligirl
2,327 Posts
And ANYTHING made in Japan was pure junk, literally..... Especially true over in Europe, you wouldn't be seen dead with anything made in "Japan":lol2: