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?
I remember my brother running in our apartment "Sonny and Cher are buying a car for cash at the Excalibur place!" So, we got on our Stingray bikes (Mine had a stick shift and 5 gears on the center bar). We all went to the big picture window at the high end car dealership on Wilshire boulevard. There were Sonny and Cher! They were at the height of their popularity at the time. I was the youngest of the group, and the only girl, at 10 years old.
Everyone else was chicken, but I was young enough to get away with it. So I marched into that place and politely ask for their autograph. I was small for my age, a cute little blond. Cher was very haughty and aloof, with more make up than I had ever seen before. She was so tall. Sonny was warm and smiling and kindly signed my autograph for both my brother and me. What a thrill!
Specializes in Med nurse in med-surg., float, HH, and PDN.
Oh, yes, Jade East used to make me weak in the knees!
When Calvin Klein underwear came out I thought it was so funny! I had just purchased a used Ford-100 pickup truck (3-speed manual on the column) and it had whitewall tires. I got a black "Magic Marker" and inked the Calvin Klein name/logo onto the whitewalls, identical to how it appeared on the undies waistbands. Once in a while at a stop-light someone in the car next to me would notice the tires and give me a smile and a thumbs-up.
Our state-board exams also took two days with a number two pencil; hated filling in those little ovals! We also had to wait two+ months for our results.
I remember when disco was soooo reviled; when I heard a father tell his over-active, misbehaving son to "Stop being so damned DISCO!"....the kid actually burst into tears, sobbing, "I AM NOT DISCO!"
Specializes in Med nurse in med-surg., float, HH, and PDN.
Ah, yes, Woodstock! I'm afraid I'll have to say more: Boyfriend and I were driving in his little MG convertible, from Greenfield Mass. to Boston. We kept seeing so many hippie hitchhikers on the roads going in the other direction, vans full of people, everyone heading West. Couldn't figure out WHAT was going on!
At first we were bummed out that we missed it, but after seeing the huge crowds, rain and mud on the TV news, were mighty glad we hadn't gone.
I vaguely remember the long gas lines - and laying across the back of my parents 1974 Oldsmobile Cutlass Salon - no corificeats or seatbelts.
The Iran-Contra affair
Judy Blume - the librarian refused to allow me in the 4th grade to check out "Are you there God its me Margaret". The Dewey Decimal System and Encyclopedia Britannica
Getting cigarettes for my parents, walking or biking everywhere, and being within "shouting distance"
1st generation Latchkey kid.
Challenger Explosion, Betamax, VHS, getting our first Microwave oven!
There was NO "going out to eat" - Friday or Saturday nights we'd get pizza.
Getting the internet and a computer - the first email account. Dialup and being online and someone needing to use the phone.
We had our first cellular phone that was actually installed in the car - and then the "bag phone" Got my first handheld in 1996
when if you got caught drinking - the cops just called your parents to come and pick you up - fights in school didn't result in lockdowns, arrests and expulsions
when "bullying" and "sexual harassment" were little more than buzzwords.
I was already a 26 year old adult when 9/11 happened - I remember crying with my boyfriend (now husband) and watching TV for hours and hours. Watched the 2nd tower come down live.
Remember not having to have a passport to go to the Caribbean, Canada or Mexico.
When I started driving gas was between 89 and 99 cents a gallon...$1.10 was expensive gas!
Specializes in OR, Nursing Professional Development.
Born in the early 80s. I remember the excitement of getting a VCR player with a remote- that had a 4 foot cord permanently attached to the VCR (couldn't lose it, but is that really a remote?). Still had to change the TV station manually, and as the youngest, my sister and I were the "remote".
No caller ID until I was in high school, and it cost $7/month. Parents got a cell phone around the time I graduated high school- and all it did was make calls. No texting, no nothing. Family shared the phone- whoever was driving the furthest or the latest was the one who got the phone. Also used only in emergencies.
Calling from pay phones at school after sports practice collect- my name was "Come pick me up!" so that there weren't any actual collect call charges.
Dial-up internet where someone picking up the phone ended the connection. Having to pay for internet by the minute- parents kept changing the password because with 4 of us kids, we always went over the limit.
Knowing how to use a library card catalog with the little old drawers. Having to copy encyclopedia pages because with only 1 copy in the library, they couldn't be checked out. Actual paper books.
Finally getting an ancient window AC unit. Entire family slept in the one room it worked in during hot nights.
Thinking nothing of knocking on a total stranger's door to ask to use the phone if there was car trouble.
Playing outside from breakfast to dinner. People in the neighborhood always knew each other and watched out for and disciplined any kids in the neighborhood. My favorite house to play at? The one with the dad (R.I.P.) who would play baseball with the whole neighborhood. Instead of sliders and fastballs, we had armpit balls, spit balls, and booger balls.
Having to blow on the cartridge to get the Nintendo games to work.
I remember when MTV came on the air. "Video Killed the Radio Star" was on for 24 hours.
I played Space Invaders on an Atari game system. And that was considered to be the newest technology
I took computer in high school and it involved writing programs in binary.
I was 18 when the plane crashed over Lockerbie, Scotland. A friend of mine was on that plane. He was on his way home for leave.
I remember the blizzards of '77, '78(Indianapolis) and '79(Chicago)
I watched Superbowl XX on TV when the Bears won the Super Bowl.
I saw baseball in Chicago get ruined when they put lights up in Wrigley Field to play night games. (My friend and I cried)
I watched the news when John Lennon was shot, and cried through my fathers birthday dinner.
I watched the very first space shuttle taking off on TV at school. I was in Junior High
I watched MASH, Emergency!, Hill Street Blues and The Carol Burnette show, and they weren't reruns.
Movies were cheap, gas was cheaper and my mum still freaked out about the cost of food.
Exercise induced asthma was not a diagnosis and as a result, I have screwed up lungs.
And I hated the 80's with a passion and my daughter is wearing some of the same clothes I loathed back then. LOL
We are kindered spirits...I graduated in '87 too! Oddly enough, I had a friend who was killed on the plane over Scotland as well. She was studying abroad and on her way home.
Hated the 80s?! Oh my..really...I absolutely loved the 80s and was/am happy a lot of our things are coming back. Different strokes for different folks I guess.
Born in 1990...and Canadian so these might be specific
Answering machines with a little tiny tape inside
Collect-calling our parents from the mall to come pick us up, and so they didn't get charged we would say "ITSANDREACOMEGETMEATMALL" really fast when it prompted you for your name
The boys telling us to dial "1-900" numbers and thinking it was so bad to be calling them, and calling them from the payphone in the mall
Puppy in my pockets, pokemon cards, spice girl stickers and beanie babies were all the rage to collect...make sure to put a tag protector on your beanie babies tag so it will be worth millions in 20 years.....!!!
Having a limited time on the internet each day, and not being allowed on it when my parents were expecting a phone call.
The crazy "dial-up" noise when the internet was connecting
Chatting on ICQ with my cousin who lived in Ohio, sneaking on the computer in the middle of the night to go on chat rooms where people would ask ASL???
YTV's "hit-list" with the top music videos for that week
I grew up in the era of TV dinners, hamburger helper, casseroles, lots of fast food...the "convenience era"
Those HUGE printers that had the paper with the tear off strips on the sides with the holes in them...and making really loud noises as they printed
Got my first cell phone in grade 10 (age 15) when I got my own job at Arby's in the mall food court....was one of the first people my age to have one...was a little flip phone, I loved that thing
Taping your favourite shows on a VHS tape if you were out while they were on
Meeting your friends at the park and hanging out all evening until it got dark
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Wrench Party
823 Posts
I remember...
Saturday morning cartoons.
Walking to the corner store to buy my dad cigars.
My school district was the absolutely LAST one in the area to cancel class. For anything.
Among the highlights:
-trudging to school in our snow pants and boots, with snow piled 3 feet high on either side (blizzard of '93 I believe)
-my school bus sliding down a steep hill from a glazing of freezing rain, when every other district had cancelled class outright
-walking to classes in high school, with my hair frozen from swim class
Bicycling without helmets.
Sharing an AOL account with the entire family.
Chatrooms.
Imagining what the Soviet Union would turn into when it was breaking up.