Growing up without a cell phone
 

If you are 45, or older, you might think this is hilarious!

When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were. W hen they were growing up; what with walking five miles to school every morning....Uphill... Barefoot...BOTH ways...yadda, yadda, yadda....

And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on my kids about how hard I had it and how easy they've got it!

But now that I'm over the ripe old age of forty, I can't help but look around and notice the youth of today. You've got it so easy! I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in Utopia! And I hate to say it, but you kids today, you don't know how good you've got it!

1) I mean, when I was a kid we didn't have the Internet. If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalog!!

2) There was no email!! We had to actually write somebody a letter - with a pen! Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox, and it would take like a week to get there! Stamps were 10 cents!

3) 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 ***! Nowhere was safe!


4) There were no MP3's or Napsters or iTunes! If you wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the record store and shoplift it yourself!

5) Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio, and the DJ would usually talk over the beginning and @#*% it all up! There were no CD players! We had tape decks in our car. We'd play our favorite tape and "eject" it when finished, and then the tape would come undone rendering it useless. Cause, hey, that's how we rolled, Baby! Dig?

6) We didn't have fancy crap like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called, they got a busy signal, that's it!

7) There weren't any freakin' cell phones either. If you left the house, you just didn't make a damn call or receive one. You actually had to be out of touch with your "friends". OH MY GOSH !!! Think of the horror... not being in touch with someone 24/7!!! And then there's TEXTING. Yeah, right. Please! You kids have no idea how annoying you are.

8) And we didn't have fancy Caller ID either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! It could be your school, your parents, your boss, your bookie, the collection agent... you just didn't know!!! You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!

9) We didn't have any fancy PlayStation or Xbox video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games like 'Space Invaders' and 'Asteroids'. Your screen guy was a little square! You actually had to use your imagination!!! And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen.. Forever! And you could never win. The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died! Just like LIFE!

10) You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on! You were screwed when it came to channel surfing! You had to get off your *** and walk over to the TV to change the channel!!! NO REMOTES!!! Oh, no, what's the world coming to?!?!

11) There was no Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons on Saturday Morning. Do you hear what I'm saying? We had to wait ALL WEEK for cartoons, you spoiled little brats!

12) And we didn't have microwaves. If we wanted to heat something up, we had to use the stove! Imagine that!

13) And our parents told us to stay outside and play.... all day long. Oh, no, no electronics to soothe and comfort. And if you came back inside... you were doing chores!

And car seats - oh, please! Mom threw you in the back seat and you hung on. If you were lucky, you got the "safety arm" across the chest at the last moment if she had to stop suddenly, and if your head hit the dashboard, well that was your fault for calling "shot gun" in the first place!

See! That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it too easy. You're spoiled rotten! You guys wouldn't have lasted five minutes back in 1970 or any time before!

Regards,
The Over 40 Crowd.....

Re: Growing up without a cell phone
 

Boy is that the truth thanks for the memories Ken.

Re: Growing up without a cell phone
 

Wow! The memories! I remember losing a tooth after hitting the metal dashboard of my dad's '51 Chrysler while he was trying to avoid a sailor crossing the road in front of us. Ahhhhh....... the good old days! Jim


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Re: Growing up without a cell phone
 

Drive-in movies...$1.50 a car load. Mom had a station wagon, needless to say she was a very popular Mom with us kids!

MacGregars, in CA this was what they called McDonalds before they were McDonalds.

.15 cents - Burger
.10 cents - Coke
.10 cents - fries

Re: Growing up without a cell phone
 

:eek::eek: Boy, do those memories ring true. Life was better, in many ways, in the 50's and 60's. Technology is great, but the way of life, in many cases was better. I am 62 and glad that I grew up when I did. Not that I really grew up, just got older. My biggest problem of today is respect, for elders and others in general. Many kids don't have it because their parents didn't teach it. Here's a few of the fun things for me as a kid:

1) We had a "party line" , so if you wanted to make a call you had to wait.
2) Getting stopped by the cops wasn't as bad as going home to Mom and Dad.
3) Our remote was me.
4) Time out for me was Dad taking time out to whip my butt, if needed.

I could go on but let's hear from some more of us older and wiser guys and gals. LET'S HEAR IT FOR THE GOOD OLD DAYS.

Re: Growing up without a cell phone
 

...or the annual event, when Dad would put on his suit and tie, Mom would get her hair done and put on her best dress... us kids would get all "spic-and-span"... and we'd all go down to the car-dealer to look at the new cars.

Re: Growing up without a cell phone
 

Thats perfect! Last weekend we were at the local Dodge/Kia Dealership. There was actually a 20 something woman in there with her husband in her pajamas and slippers. The saleman asked her about it and her quote was "My old man got me out of bed and said lets go get a new car so I put on my hoodie and here we are". Oh, how we long for the good old days.

Re: Growing up without a cell phone
 

Or when your Mother said "come on son I'm going to the city and we'll stop at McDonalds for a treat!

Or when you might be late getting home on a Saturday night you stop at the pay booth on the courthouse square to let your parents know!

Re: Growing up without a cell phone
 

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Every truck I owned had an ashtray full of dimes.
Car phones was for billionaires on TV!!
Hell I remember when I got a pager, it was like holy frick, this is cool.
I was probably in my 30's??

We had prince castle hamburgers around my neighborhood.
Also jack in the box, which is around, but not Chicago.

Plus gas was under a buck, and rarely moved, and definitely not like what these crooks
are pulling now a days with every sneeze, it jumps up 50 cents!!!



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