Things about your childhood that would baffle younger people of today

[Ben E N]

Using a phone book to find a friend's number.

 

[disykat]

Having to go to blockbusters if you wanted to watch a movie.

We had a movie theater that showed one movie and reruns of movies that were over 10 years old on tv, mainly on weekends during the daytime or really late at night.

 

[jo-jo]

Pay telephone booths...was a quarter at one time.

A dime to use the phone and we carried a dime in our penny loafers.

 

[kimblebee]

Playing outside without being supervised. I live in a fair sized city too. Granted, it was a nice area of the city but still. At 12, I spent many days at the neighbourhood pool, being in charge of my younger sister.

 

[Ben E N]

I'm a 6th grade teacher, and am already telling the students "back in your older siblings' day, they had to know how to write down APA citations." Now the kids just go a newfangled website, put in a URL, and it looks up all the needed information for them.

 

[scrhsa]

I got sent to the store all the time for cigarettes for my dad. As soon as we could ride our bikes to the store we were getting his cigs.

We lived about an hour away from Carowinds amusement park near Charlotte. My dad worked in Charlotte. Several times a summer he would drop us off on his way to work and tell us to be at the car pick up at 5:30 to go home. We would be there all day with no cell phones or way to contact anyone. Today I can't imagine going to the mailbox without one.

We did the same thing with Astroworld near Houston. It was a good 45 minutes from home. My Mom must have really wanted some time alone to drive that far AND come back to pick us up at 9/10pm.

Only having AM on some radios. My friends car in High School( Plymouth Fury III aka the Shark) only had AM and that was very difficult to us teenagers with some awesome tunes to listen to in the 80's
How to work an 8-track. What? You HAD only 4 songs on a "track" and you couldn't skip a song?
Lawn Darts.
Giant metal slides that were the temp of the Sun in mid-July. That you either landed in a big mud puddle or the sun-baked/cement like dirt at the foot of the slide.

 

[jo-jo]

Having to learn to use a slide rule.

We still have one, along with a rotary phone (not in use), a typewriter, and flash cubes and flash bulbs. Stuff to amaze grand kids or bore them to tears, depends on the age.

 

[Happyinwonerland]

DH and I were just discussing this last night. We both grew up with the order "play outside so I can clean and don't come back until lunch/dinner". My parents had no idea where I wss most of the day, but trusted that I was safe. Today kids can't spend 5 minutes alone without fear of CPS being called.

 

[Brett Wyman]

Having only 5 TV stations - well 6 if you count PBS - but nobody counted PBS.

And switching the tv to UHF!

 

[TheFloatingBear]

Having to run downstairs when my mother called me so that I could change the station on the tv for her so she didn't have to get up. Then she'd say, "While you're up, will you get me a Tab?"

Having to pick up the phone and drag it as close as possible to my bedroom, so I could slide the cord connecting the phone to the headpiece under the door so I could talk in "private" but I had to sit with my back pressed up against the door or it wouldn't reach. The "privacy booth" downstairs was the coat closet.

Making a mix tape off of the radio and having to time things perfectly to get the entire song!

 

[PollyannaMom]

Making a mix tape off of the radio and having to time things perfectly to get the entire song!

Yes!

 

[Floridaman999]

And switching the tv to UHF!

Spending a lot of time being dads remote control before they existed.

 

[TheFloatingBear]

Yes!

Nothing like the satisfaction of making a good mix tape!

 

[dclpluto]

Riding a bicycle or skateboarding with no helmet.

 

[Skippy918]

Having to adjust the antenna on the TV whenever I changed the channel.
Stretching the phone cord so I could talk on the phone in my room. Being so excited to get a phone line extension in my room. Back then you had to call the phone company to do this.
Going to a new kids on the block concert by ourselves at a big stadium. I was 11 or 12 and my cousin was 10.
Playing outside all day in the summer.
Because the a/c in our house was a window unit, the cold air didn’t reach my room so I slept with a box fan.

 

[MrsPete]

I can relate to lots of these -- being dropped off at the pool for the whole afternoon (with .50 admission and a thermos), a mix tape was the ultimate gift, and the extra-long phone cord -- but I'll add:

- Aluminum foil "ears" on top of your 18" B&W TV.
- When MTV first came out, it was all about music.
- Pong was a big deal for a home video game.
- You wore long calico dresses to look like your favorite TV show: Little House on the Prairie. Honorable mention to Grizzly Adams.
- You couldn't run without making a do-do-do-do sound like your other favorite TV show: The Six Million Dollar Man. Honorable mention to The Bionic Woman.
- You learned to square dance in gym class.
- You could only watch Charlie Brown's Christmas and The Grinch once a year, and it was an event ... Mom made Jiffy Pop. If you missed it, you literally cried.
- Riding in the back of a pick-up truck.
- Riding on your friend's handlebars.
- Wiping out on your bike because your bell bottoms got caught in the chain (and although no one had a bike helmet, I never knew a single person who sustained even an owwie on his or her head).
- Being excited for the day the Bookmobile came to your area.
- McDonald's didn't yet sell Happy Meals.
- Drinking from the hose.
- Laying out in the sun with baby oil.
- You learned to drive on an automatic transmission.
- Everyone's seat belts were tied in knots so they wouldn't make that beeping noise.
- No one's house was "decorated" ... you just had stuff.
- You went into the woods with your Dad and watched while he chopped down a Christmas tree.

 

[LongLiveRafiki]

No a/c in the car and burning your legs on the seats in the summer when you wore shorts.
Having to rewind tapes before returning them to the video rental store.
The pogs craze. Kinda nuts to think that many schools had to ban the little round pieces of cardboard...
So many places not having public restrooms, or if they did, many times you really didn't want to use them.
Kids didn't use car seats past the age of maybe 2, and many adults didn't use seatbelts, nor did the car beep at you for not doing so.
Going to the library to use encyclopedias and looking up books with the card catalog to write research papers.
Occupying yourself for hours in the woods during the summer without a single toy.
Learning in school on a black board and smelling chalk dust every day.
Clipping coupons out of the newspaper and filing them into an organizer by section of the grocery store.
Manually counting bottles and cans when returning them to the grocery store.

 

[maxiesmom]

Going on road trips and having to run in to the hotel to see if they had a room available.

 

[fla4fun]

Having to make plans in advance to get together with your friends and then wondering if they would show or why they were late because there was no way to contact them.

Going to WDW when MK was the only park. Having to show your resort ID to use WDW transportation because only resort guests could use it without buying a separate transportation ticket (my sister dropped her card off a boat into Bay Lake and it was a big deal). No FP, no ADR, and using individual tickets for each ride.

Having a milkman bring dairy products to the house and leaving them on the front porch. We had an insulated box on the porch and they would even leave ice cream.

My dad watched tv lying on the floor next to it so he could change the channel. He probably invented channel surfing and it was annoying then too. TVs were in big wood cabinets and had big tubes inside that had to be replaced sometimes.

We would sit on the floor in the back seat of the car and use the seat as a desk to color and play all the way to Florida. I never got carsick sitting backwards. Staying in little mom and pop motels because there wasn’t much in the way of chain hotels on our route. Actual keys to open hotel room doors instead of cards or apps. The “Magic Fingers” that cost a quarter and shook the hotel bed like an earthquake. I was a picky eater and would eat spaghetti, grilled cheese, or hot roast beef sandwiches only. A lot of places had hot roast beef sandwiches.

I am sure my growing up years would seem like a Stone Age relic to kids growing up today.

 

[BrianL]

Nothing like the satisfaction of making a good mix tape!

From songs recorded off the radio!