Doing things the old fashioned way

[C.Ann]

We only got rid of "party lines" up here at the lake around 1992 or so.. That was the first phone I had here - for all the years prior to that I didn't bother with a phone at all..

There's still no cell phone service up here - dead zones all around me - and there was no cable tv available in this area until around 1998 or so..

I don't think the "ice house" went out of business until the late 1980's or very early 1990's..

Up until the very late 1980's, I still did everything up here the "old fashioned way".. No phone; no heat; no electricity (used kerosene lamps and later Coleman lamps); no a/c; cooked on a kerosene stove (or outside on a campfire or charcoal grill); no running water (hauled it from a well - as well as home); had an old ice box fridge and went to the ice house to get our blocks of ice; obviously no phone or television; washed clothes by hand and hung them outside to dry; etc.. The work was harder, but life was simpler.. There are a lot of those things that I miss and if I had to do without them tomorrow, I know I could manage just fine..

 

[barkley]

I remember when I had to actually get up and walk all the way across the room to change channels. Talk about hardship, I can even remember when i would have to stand there a while slowly rotating the channel nob until I could settle on a show to watch and we only had about 11 channels. Staying home from school meant nothing was on and Saturday morning cartoons were not to be missed because after 12 there was nothing to do but go out and find friends. Sunday there was nothing to do at all expect, gasp, talk to people.

I can also remember a time when tuning in the radio meant standing at my bedroom window and fiddling with the nob and antenna until I got the right station.

My favorite was the roll up windows in a car, I do miss that sometimes.

Ahh, the good old days.... my good old days were the 1970's & 1980's.

11 CHANNELS! you were living the high times as compared to me growing up

we by no means lived "in the sticks", we were in the san francisco bay area, but when i was a kid in the early 60's we only got 3 full time channels (abc, nbc, and cbs affiliates) and 1 part time (pbs-it only ran certain hours a day). the only kid's shows that ran monday-friday during the school day were romper room, captain kangaroo and mr. rogers (on the days pbs showed).

i SO remember the lack of programming if you were home sick from school-only game shows, LOTS of soap operas, and a couple of (in hindsight) VERY odd "talk" shows my mom was hooked on (one was the "Gypsy Rose Lee Show" and if it were available on dvd what a time capsule it would be now to see people who went on to become HUGE internantional stars getting their initial breaks).


it felt like we hit the big time when we picked up another station that did a kid's show for 1 hour after school (consisted of primarily chopped up 3 stooges re-runs), because other than it we had to suffer until saturday mornings (sundays WERE the worst though-only 'davy and goliath', and it ran at like 5:30 in the morning)


ah, but then the 70's hit-afterschool specials, wonderama, ZOOM (we had full time pbs by then) and the local show-charley and humphrey

 

[tvguy]

I have an old TV Guide from the 70's with an article on "Pay TV" (they didn't call it cable back in the 70's). The experts didn't think it would catch on. Why would someone pay to get something you could get for free with an antenna.

 

[tonilea]

LOL A while back I asked my niece to lock the door on my 2009 car. She looked at me like I had grown another head and asked, "With my hand?"

When she got in the car, she noticed the crank windows and commented, "I didn't know modern cars had these!"

 

[LBIJim]

In the Philadelphia neighbor hood I grew up in, I remember that the first two 'digits' of phone numbers were either DE (Delaware) or MA (Mayfair). Ours was MA4-##### and my grandparents was DE3-####. I had forgotten about that!

At the Jersey shore as a kid, we could just dial the last four digits of the phone number to call anyone on the island.

In our Camden, NJ neighborhood it was the same. WOodlawn 4-xxxx or EMerson 5-xxxx.

Was it Sea Isle City at the shore? I think the entire island had a 263 exchange so only the last 4 digits were necessary if calling someone else on the island.

In the 1960s a lot of the rental cottages there didn't even have phones. You'd have to walk a block or two to a store or (gasp) an actual phone booth!!

Jim

 

[LBIJim]

I have an old TV Guide from the 70's with an article on "Pay TV" (they didn't call it cable back in the 70's). The experts didn't think it would catch on. Why would someone pay to get something you could get for free with an antenna.

Cable (pay) TV has been around a lot longer than many people realize. Some areas of the country simply didn't receive over-the-air broadcasts. Many Jersey shore towns didn't receive either Philadelphia or New York stations clearly with an antenna. Primitive basic (pay) cable (the three networks) was here in Long Beach Island in the late 1950s, according to my parents.

But many of the rental vacation homes didn't have it until much later. It was mainly for year-round residents or bars/taverns. People used to actually vacation without TV, phones, or air conditioning. Beaches, fishing, and cool ocean breezes were enough.

Jim