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?
We had to do the stupid photo thing where, as teenagers, we had to sit on the couch in the same manner as we did when we were ages 4 though 10
And there were the yearly grade school pictures - the ones where we all had hairstyles like someone stuck a bowl on our heads to cut our hair. And we all had zits. (Should have had stock in Clearisil (sp?!)
Did public school kids have those magazine drives and gift/wrapping paper sales like the Catholic school kids did?
We used to be able to walk door-to-door thru neighborhoods without fearing any danger.
Yes, amoLucia, my kids had to sell magazines and wrapping paper. As a kid, I had to sell ads to our local businesses for our school newspaper. I remember Mom driving me 30 miles to the nearest "city", dropping me off to sell ads, and picking me up hours later.
Kelly, my first career was as a secretary . . . I STILL take notes using shorthand when on phone, for example. I also learned typing using a non-electric typewriter . . . one of those old black monsters.
My pixie hair style came from Audrey Hepburn in "Roman Holidays".
I also had to take Home Ec when I wanted to take shop, but only boys took shop. To this day, I cannot cook worth crap or sew, but I can hang ceiling fans, install garbage disposal, remove popcorn ceilings and replace with textured design, etc.
My husband brought a Polaroid home when he returned from VietNam.
No stars, I had forgotten about the bomb drills! We lived in the middle of the Ocala National Forest on a huge lake. There were huge wooden crosses at either end of the lake that planes used for bombing practice. Whenever they flew over, we'd have to remove breakables from table tops. During the cold war, they scared me to death! I remember once hanging clothes outside when a group of planes flew over at tree-top level. I took off and jumped into a gulley.
Drive-in moves were where one went to make out!
Although I LOVE the electronic age, and wish I could live longer to what else is coming, I've thoroughly enjoyed most of my life with what little we had. Climbing trees, horseback riding throughout the forest, jumping into the lake (with Mom or Dad watching for gators) after a hot day of helping Dad in the greenhouses, stealing watermelons from farm "down the road" . . . can't complain (except for those stupid planes! The bombing range, now electronic, is still there, btw.)
Specializes in Med nurse in med-surg., float, HH, and PDN.
Oh, gosh, I just remembered our church used to do 'paper-drives'..... the Youth Group always helped out. This was WAAAAAY before anyone thought about recycling. We collected newspapers and magazines to sell to the paper dealers and raise money for the church. I still remember the big truck into which we'd unload all the smaller loads, and that it had a particular smell from all the paper. It was a lot of fun; plus, for me, personally, as a Print Junkie, I got to see magazines I'd never heard of before (no, nothing racy). It was hard not to take a huge pile of reading material home, but they did let me 'borrow' some to look at. :)
Paper drives and weekend thrift sales done by juniors/seniors to fund the senior trip to NYC and DC. That was a HUGE event in a town that had only 19 seniors! (Boy did we ever have FUN!! Chaperones? What chaperones? We wore them down.)
Specializes in Critical Care, Med-Surg, Psych, Geri, LTC, Tele,.
8 tracks were just before my time.
I was at a garage sale as a little kid and there was a box of 8 tracks, and I thought they were a selection of really weird Atari video games.
I think they were just before my time also. My grandma had an 8 track player when I was young and I can vaguely recall my parents having an 8 track player in their Pontiac Grand Prix!!
I remember having to take Home Ec in 9th grade and typing in 10th grade. I failed both courses because I wasn't interested in being forced to learn to sew or type.
I still can't sew and I knew that typing would be phased out by computers.
Specializes in Med nurse in med-surg., float, HH, and PDN.
I lived through falling on a glass milk bottle and breaking it with my right elbow (three stitches);
I lived through jumping into a lake and landing with my right knee on a broken glass coke bottle ( butterfly stitches per my mom the RN, doc out of town at the time);
I lived through falling down a 14-steps staircase...three times over the years;
I lived through getting bit by a Burmese python on the right hand;
I lived through being bit twice through the left thumbnail by a skunk. Treated by the Vet with Lugol's solutuon, no infection + very quick healing;
I lived through getting bit by a lizard on the heel of my right hand;
I lived through several car accidents....once in a car that flipped onto it's roof , no injuries (a corvair, no less!);
Being t-boned by a van, no injuries;
I lived through an accident while sitting in a cab on my way home, and a car came barreling through a blind corner/redlight...t-boned us and sent us through a plate-glass drugstore window, no injuries;
I lived through 4 months with severe mono;
I lived through breaking the crap out of my left ankle, slipped on a dewy, grassy hill and landed on my ankle, had a trimalleolar repair and a torn tendon bundle repair.
I lived through 8 solid hours of retching r/t Morphine drip after that surgery.
I lived through ten to twelve years of The Menopause Fom Hell;
I lived through an emotional breakdown; treated in 2 & 1/2 week outpatient clinic, with follow-up care with visits to a psychologist, over several years and later follow-up care for relapse.
I lived through someone who thought was my best friend trying (ineptly) to blackmail me to break up me and my then boyfriend, now my husband of 25 years.
amoLucia
7,736 Posts
Did public school kids have those magazine drives and gift/wrapping paper sales like the Catholic school kids did?
We used to be able to walk door-to-door thru neighborhoods without fearing any danger.