Things our kids can't imagine...

[jo-jo]

Playing stick ball in the street and every so often having to yell "car" when a car was headed your way.

The baby had a booster seat that hung over the front seat with it's own little steering wheel.

Cars with no power steering.

Grocery stores with good paper bags that you then used to cover your school books.

Making a scooter out of a box and a roller skate.

Roller skates that you needed the key to adjust.

 

[indimom]

Calling the movie theater and listening to the automated recording with movie showing times.

Wow, that's one I completely forgot about. That post was a real blast from the past!!


And prior to Blockbuster, our local grocery store and pizza restaurant were the places we went to rent movies. And they only had ONE copy of each movie, so you had to wait FOREVER to see the new releases. I still remember the first VHS we ever rented. Out of Africa.

 

[old lady]

Movies that starred Mickey Mouse.

 

[indimom]

My kids have always been a bit grossed out by any imperfect fruit or veggie. They are so spoiled by the perfected versions you find in the grocery store, it's hard to convince them that you can cut off a bruise and still eat the apple, etc. Shoot, I'm still old school enough that I will eat some minor bruises/blemishes and this completely grosses them out. lol

 

[jo-jo]

Yes, oh yes.....MOOOOMMMM should I throw out this carton of strawberries, there's mold on them. Grandma (me) took them, sorted thru them, cut off the bad spots. I wonder if this is when you get the "every year people throw away 50 million pounds of food, you need to buy super gizmo to keep food fresh." We hardly throw any food anyway. Yes, sometimes that package of cream cheese hides behind the ketchup and turns that lovely shade of green. But not a grocery bag full every week.

When we were kids and dropped candy on the sidewalk, we "kiss it up to God" and ate it. I mean it was candy after all.

 

[Maistre Gracey]

Playing stick ball in the street and every so often having to yell "car" when a car was headed your way.

The baby had a booster seat that hung over the front seat with it's own little steering wheel.

Cars with no power steering.

Grocery stores with good paper bags that you then used to cover your school books.

Making a scooter out of a box and a roller skate.

Roller skates that you needed the key to adjust.

Just sold my old car last year...
roll up windows and no power steering.

MG

 

[tarheelmjfan]

I was watching a home movie with my cousin from a 1991 trip to WDW when we were kids....I actually don't think my kids can imagine going there with no fastpasses....like just winging it. I know ppl still do that, but we don't.
Although I can remember a time when the longest wait I'd ever seen was 60 min for splash mountain when it was new.
I miss the Disney of the 90s - never as crowded or as scheduled, it was kind of nice.

I'm getting old. This was in the 70s & early 80s. Back when MK was WDW, it was common to stand in line 2 hrs. for a ride. Despite what parents seem to think now, kids can & did wait in line patiently to ride.

In 1985, we still took guns to school (not INTO the school) with no repercussions here. It was a pretty Mayberry kind of existence

I parked beside plenty of trucks with guns too & never once thought someone might go on a shooting rampage. This is yet another reason I shake my head when a few people here insist that we're safer now than ever.

FWIW, I hate guns & definitely don't have a pro-gun agenda. I'm just stating how it used to be.

The teen that lives here can't imagine that I know more than him.

I think that could be said for all teens. Apparently, we were idiots, when DS was a teenager. Somehow, we became much more educated by the time he was 20.

 

[jo-jo]

This isn't that long ago but minivans with the sliding door only on one side. That's our van from 92. Still running.

Having to count how many times you stirred the cake mix. I remember holding the bowl with a wooden spoon, beating 1,2,3,4,,5..............I think 600 was the correct amount. These were the directions on the box. Not everyone had a mixer in those days.

Having a coal bin in the basement.

 

[here757]

How do you not have parallel parking? How do you park?

Valet!
Drive around til something opens up!
Last time I did it, I was nearly half way in road but so proud of myself I took pix and texted lol

 

[Diznygrl]

Ahhhh, yes. How I miss the smell of a piece of fresh purply ditto paper!!

I just thought of one as I heard my daughter and her bestie talking about Zelda.

My kids couldn't imagine not having or being comfortable enough to show off their "fandoms". When I was growing up only "weirdos" liked certain things, like video games or anime...Let alone anyone over the age of 8 liking Pokémon! A lot of people were afraid to admit they loved stuff like that. I was obsessed with Buffy the Vampire Slayer (I even had the comics and trading cards) but only my best friend knew because I didn't want to get made fun of. I think it's good that kids are more accepting of one another and it's almost it's own trend to have that one show or thing to love! And people bond and form friendships over those things.

So true! Especially if you were a girl, you weren't 'allowed' to like any of that nerdy stuff like Buffy or The X-Files or even video games. I had a friend in high school who was obsessed with Xena: Warrior Princess and she got a LOT of flak for it. I watched it too so I tried talking to her about it in order to make her not feel so outcast but she was always hesitant to do so, probably because she was so used to being made fun of for it. Nowadays, geek is chic and you're weird if you DON'T get into all of that comic con-esque stuff!! I think we have the internet to thank for that, since it allowed like-minded people to find each other, and eventually it proved that maybe we really weren't in the minority after all.

 

[Pea-n-Me]

What about having just one bathroom in the house? Or worse yet, an outhouse? Or a bathroom just in the cellar? (Which my mother had when she was little.)

Or multiple siblings sharing a bedroom? Or even sharing a bed? (Which one of my closest friends growing up had to do; with three girls in one bedroom with just two twin beds, they switched around nightly. If I stayed over, I had to share the twins with them, too. Lol. Come to think of it, I may have wound up on the floor!)

That may still be the case with landline phones.

Not sure about Canada, but it was definitely a U.S. thing to have letters at the beginning of a phone number. I'm pretty sure it started even before the 40s & 50s, and lasted well into the 70s in some areas. It may have mostly prevalent in the northeast rather than other areas of the country.

That WO4-997x in the photo stood for the exchange WOodlawn4 and translated into 964. Most people in the same neighborhood had the same exchange.

There are plenty of instances in old movies and TV show where characters state such a number. Lucy Ricardo's number in I Love Lucy was MU5-9975. The exchange name was MUrray Hill and had the numerical equivalent of 685. When Alice Kramden got a phone briefly in the Honeymooners, the number was BE 0-7741. Exchange name BEnsonhurst. People either said the two letters or the whole exchange name when reciting their phone number.

This was how my parents grew up, just outside of Boston. I remember hearing the names (like Kirkland) but never learned them myself, as things had changed by then.

Here is more info: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_exchange_names

BTW my grandmother was a longtime supervisor for the Bell NE Telephone and Telegraph Co. Interesting history on that company: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Telephone_Company

Cell phones work everywhere in our hospital except the basement. Kicker is she's an outpatient nurse so she's rarely in the hospital and never in the basement. lol. Our surgeons only carry iPhones that are reimbursed by the hospital.

I carry an iPhone in my hospital.

My mom used to talk about enjoying diagramming sentences, too! They'd stopped teaching it by the time I started school (the 70's).

I spent my entire 7th grade diagramming sentences! (Parochial school.)

SERIOUSLY.... There are no chalkboards anymore???

Not really. Not in newer classrooms, anyway. They are multi-function white-type boards now.

 

[kimblebee]

Valet!
Drive around til something opens up!
Last time I did it, I was nearly half way in road but so proud of myself I took pix and texted lol

I don't think there's one place in our city that has valet parking LOL

Maaaaaaaaybe the fanciest restaurant but that would be it. Definitely not a common thing here.

 

[mi*vida*loca]

SERIOUSLY.... There are no chalkboards anymore???

MG

We have dry erase boards and promethium boards that connect to the teachers lap top.

 

[CdnCarrie]

Yes, oh yes.....MOOOOMMMM should I throw out this carton of strawberries, there's mold on them. Grandma (me) took them, sorted thru them, cut off the bad spots. I wonder if this is when you get the "every year people throw away 50 million pounds of food, you need to buy super gizmo to keep food fresh." We hardly throw any food anyway. Yes, sometimes that package of cream cheese hides behind the ketchup and turns that lovely shade of green. But not a grocery bag full every week.

When we were kids and dropped candy on the sidewalk, we "kiss it up to God" and ate it. I mean it was candy after all.

slice the berries up and serve with whip cream for dessert. No need to chuck them out. People are silly.

 

[CdnCarrie]

I don't think there's one place in our city that has valet parking LOL

Maaaaaaaaybe the fanciest restaurant but that would be it. Definitely not a common thing here.

Casino does I think.

 

[tarheelmjfan]

I don't think there's one place in our city that has valet parking LOL

Maaaaaaaaybe the fanciest restaurant but that would be it. Definitely not a common thing here.

Unfortunately, it's common in many US cities. We don't like it, but many times it's valet parking or no parking. We often take Uber rather than deal with valet parking.

 

[kimblebee]

Casino does I think.

I stand corrected. I totally forgot they do..considering I used to use it all the time LOL

 

[superme80]

I am loving this thread. We get a little local paper for free every week. My husband and I started talking about newspaper delivery and my son interrupted us, "You mean they STILL have those things?!" He was shocked. We never had the daily newspaper, but my grandparents did. I remember when I started working in 1998 I had an ATM card only. It was for depositing and using the ATM. A year or so later it turned into a debit/credit card with a Visa logo. My mother flipped out thinking I had a credit card. I loved the Sears and Montgomery Wards catalogs. Hours looking at toys. I remember waiting 2 hours the Indiana Jones ride without complaint. Use the bathroom and get comfy with those around you.

 

[Aliceacc]

Parallel parking hasn't gone anywhere. People in lots of areas still do it.

Kids in the suburbs have always done more stall parking than parallel.

Our kids cannot imagine a world where you say "See you tomorrow" to your friends at the end of the school day, and then have no further contact with them until the next morning.

 

[Soldier's*Sweeties]

WDW not costing a bazillion dollars+your first born son.
My parents had it so good! $99/4-Day/4-Park tickets.
(I'm making the final edits to our summer trip )