You kids today have it made...

[A Guy]

If you are 36, 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. When they were growing up; what with walking twenty-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 in hell 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 a damn 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 damn 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 ass! 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, your drug dealer, 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! Wehad 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 ass 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 rat-*******s!

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

A Guy

 

[Golden]

Haha. That brought back memories.

 

[pincushion]

As one of the over 60's crowd and from the UK I might add -

14) We had food and sweet rationing for several years after the war.

15) Many vehicles were still horse-drawn - manure great for the garden apparently.

16) There were many dangerous bombed-out buildings (great fun however,lol).

17) My first personal radio was a crystal set.

18) Tape decks? We had to make do with nasty vinyl long-playing records with all the background pop, crackle and hiss - what a joke!

19) Our family never had a car. My first cycle was put together for about a few pounds.

20) For all that, we were I think healthier than most today since as our parents went through the war they had to make sure every penny went towards their family's welfare - so thanks mum (not with us any more), you did a great job with my health - can't fault her on that score.

Not so grumpy old git!

 

[Layback Bear]

A Guy that is a great post.
I still remember when going to the John meant taking a trip across the back yard. If mom had a need one of us kids had to go first and check for snakes.
The only water in the house came from a pump with a handle one must use. Two rooms in the house were heated. Living room with what they called heating oil and the kitchen, moms cooking.
The chicken coop was within shot gun range from the window to stop the varmints from getting our chickens and the eggs. The damn dog was to lazy. My first few years of schooling was in one room, one teacher and 6 grades. No teachers union that I can remember. Had no idea what a school bus was.
I can remember coming home from school and seeing a phone on the wall. Party line of course. No one ever called but it was fun listing to other on the party line.
My father allowed no music, radio or books in the house. I never new why and didn't dare to ask. He did buy us a record player but no records were allowed. No I didn't ask about that either. No lawnmower. The animals and kids kept the lawn short or dead. Those were great times! We were pore but didn't know it.

 

[boogieboy]

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 ass! Nowhere was safe!

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

3) In Asian and Middle-Eastern countries there are no Child Protective Services so feel free to whoop you kids ass anytime Trust Me! anytime you like...

12) You come to Pakistan and you will actually forget about the Microwave as there's no electricity about half of day all over the country and well in villages it used exist some years ago now not at all.. you'll be living older memories if you know what i mean

A Guy all i can say that you............. really made me Laugh :roflmao::roflmao::roflmao: I loved reading it over and over again.....

 

[0pTicaL]

My kids will never image how I had to wait more than a minute to fully reboot into Windows. They will think waiting is prehistoric even with today's SSDs.

 

[DirtRider]

ROTFL Love this thread

 

[Joan Archer]

ROTFL Love this thread

Such memories, and just imagine if you wanted to play games you went outside into the fresh air and hopefully sunshine.

 

[dwarfer66]

I remember going out on the horse and cart with my great grandfather collecting wood for the hot water boiler, that would have been about 1970-71.

 

[Imperfect1]

Anyone remember the milk man? And the ice man? And the paper boys hawking the headlines? And the Western Union delivery guy who almost always had very bad news!

 

[sk0t0s]

Im not yet on my 30's but I'm sure I have experienced some of it.

Nice thread Bill.

 

[Joan Archer]

I remember going out on the horse and cart with my great grandfather collecting wood for the hot water boiler, that would have been about 1970-71.

I did that with my father but it was collecting scrap or delivering paint for a local firm when the petrol strike was on, think that was the 50's.

 

[LittleJay]

Thanks for making me laugh A Guy! My childhood dates back from the mid 50's to the early sixties. Life was far different then. Most of the people in the small farming community I grew up in didn't have much money, so we had to make due. But back then nobody ever locked their doors and us kids could roam the neighborhood without fear. Life may be far easier now, but often times I wonder it is better.

 

[TVeblen]

I expressed mirth in a clearly audible manner.

Thanks A Guy!

 

[Layback Bear]

Anyone remember the milk man? And the ice man? And the paper boys hawking the headlines? And the Western Union delivery guy who almost always had very bad news!

I remember the milk man. He ran over my dog Jiggers and killed him.

 

[boohbah]

we used to get extra sweets by returning pop bottles to the sweet shop and getting 2 pence per bottle,

the funny thing was we were getting the empty pop bottles out of the stack of crates behind the sweet shop.

years later my mum told me that the shop keeper knew and she (my mum ) would pay for the sweets later .
not sure that taught me any lessons about honesty though!

i think it had more to do with keeping it from my dad.

 

[Layback Bear]

Yes I remember the bounty on glass bottles. The best recycling program their ever was. No big trucks, special processing plants, separate disposal containers. The kids kept the bottles gathered up at a very low cost.

 

[rraod]

We had no computers, no TV, no Video games back in 60's and 70's. All we had was a valve radio (Bush-England). Used to listen to movie songs, programs (specially Binaca Geeth Mala by Amin Sayani on every wednesday night) on Radio Ceylon.

Kids in those days never used to say that they are bored. We used to read books and magazines, play board games like Snakes and Ladder, Playing Cards, Monopoly, Trade, and outsidegames like ball games, climbing trees, flying kites, gilli-danda, marbles, Police Thief etc. We used to dream about school vacations and plan in advance how to spend the vacations.

Those days were golden days... No worries... No tensions...

Thanks A Guy for bringing back those memories...

 

[bigseb]

You want to talk about change over time? I grew up in apartheid era South Africa and I can't help but notice how todays youth take freedom for granted. It came at huge cost...

 

[Imperfect1]

You want to talk about change over time? I grew up in apartheid era South Africa and I can't help but notice how todays youth take freedom for granted. It came at huge cost...

You're so right, bigseb. When it comes to our freedoms, many people have very short memories and totally take those freedoms for granted --- completely ignoring the fact that those rights were fought hard for, and if not protected, can be lost.