A Griffon - Mythical Creature
I thought I’d take a moment to write out some things about ‘when I was a kid’ so when my two are a little older I can read it to them and they’ll realize I’m like a dinosaur or other ancient mythical creature and not really of this world.
When I was a kid:
There were no cell phones
There was no internet
Nobody had computers at home, we didn’t get our first one until I was 14ish.
It didn’t have Windows…it had DOS
Our TV only had 12 channels and there was no way to record any of them.
Elmo didn’t exist
Neither did Dora or the Wiggles.
Pooh was cool though.
My toys weren’t noisy
There were no video games
I used to play outside with nobody watching me
Once or twice I was spanked
and I likely deserved it
Cameras had film
Phones had wires – and rotary dials
There was music but you couldn’t take it anywhere unless you had D cells and wide shoulders
The letter ‘E’ was never seen precisely prior to the word ‘book’
There was no Starbucks…really, no Starbucks!
Did I miss anything? Do you remember anything from your childhood that would have your kids scratching their heads? Are you feeling old yet? 
photo credit to RobW
Seatbelts were lap belts and never required; rarely worn.
If you wanted the answer to a question, you had to look it up in an encyclopedia.
Air conditioning was a luxury, not a given.
We had a full set of encyclopedia at home and I used to love looking up random stuff in them. Thanks for reminding me…I completely forgot they existed!
I could ride around the block or walk to my friends house 6 blocks away without a parent going with me.
Actually, i bet there were cell phones..just not as common. My dad has had a cell phone since the early 80s..one of those big ones. LOL!
I had a computer as a teen, but it had GREEN text, thats how new the whole thing was.
Its kinda amazing that tech has come this far.
trisha
You’re right Trisha, according to Wikipedia:
“hand-held mobile radio devices have been available since 1973″
Prior to that they had those big ‘box’ like phones in WWII that some poor bastard had to carry around on his back.
I had an Apple IIc when I was a child – got it somewhere around my 9th birthday. It has a printer too – if you can even call it that – with the paper that had the holes down the side, LOL
I remember Sunday night the highlight of the weekend was watching Tinkerbell fly across the screen to light up Cinderella’s Castle.
I remember when VH1 played videos… all day… every day.
I remember the intro to the HBO movies.
Teddy Ruxpin was the MAN. lol
Ahhh, Memory Lane is a fun trip….
I’ll never forget the grating sound of those old dot matrix printers….that sound and the sound of fax modems gearing up! Fun times
Wow, that was a definite flashback. Yea, I had to be home by the time the street lights came on. My dad used to tell me to always have a dime in my shoe in case I needed to make a phone call. I could ask for $1 to go to the store and come back with two or three things. I actually had people’s phone number memorized. Not written, not typed, not input…
LOL… I remember my first Commodore computer that I had to program every time I wanted to use it ’cause I only had the keyboard part that hooked to the television. I was 13ish. I watched that ball bounce across the screen a thousand times and tried to get it to do different things. Wow, the memories. Very cool post.
it’s awful now with phone numbers! If I forget my phone I have no information in my head. I can hardly remember my own phone number half the time!
There was no google. Just think about that. How many arguments have I rectified with my husband by saying “let me google that?!” Thanks for the list. I have a feeling we’re close in age.
Google is the best thing ever. It’s not just the quick access to info that I find important, but being able to find a variety of viewpoints on any one subject is so valuable. When we looked up something in a book in the olden days, whatever was there was taken as gospel…now, we can find info from several resources so fast that it facilitates us forming our own opinions or realizing when we need to do more research to find the ‘truth’. Love it. Oh and I’m 32!
That describes my childhood.
I’m dying laughing over the no Starbucks. What would we do without Starbucks?
The library had a card catalog (not a computer search) and encyclopedias where we looked up information.
I rode my bike…without a helmet, or knee pads and guess what? I survived! Cartoons were only on on Saturdays!
I was just saying today, when I was a kid, phones had cords and DIALS. Ah, the simple life!
Isn’t it amazing how times have changed? Remember when you actually had to look through the viewfinder of a camera? Now we pay a lot of money to do so!
I would put all that LOL they will be like “wow, what did you do for fun?”
I would add:
we read books as books, not on e-readers
I listened to casette walkmans
cameras had film
oh good times!!
When I was a kid there were no car seats. We just bounced around all over the place.
lol
I have to chuckle a little bit because pretty much everything I had as a kid, my own kids have had, just a more advanced version of.
We used to camp in the backyard and ride our bikes to 7-11 when the sun came up. (We always tried to go to Dairy Queen but they didn’t open that early.)
I remember when they had voting to decide what the new colored M & M’s would be!! You’re right–so much has changed-and not all of it for the better!
To do research for school papers required a lot of foot work back and forth from the card catalog to the book on the shelf…
When I was growing up there weren’t any microwaves,
milk was delivered to your house by the milkman. We used to have huge neighborhood games of hide and seek.
There was a penny candy store in town. The neighbors would call if they saw us standing on the roof.
There always was a ‘cocktail hour’ before dinner.
At the holidays there was always a kid table, away from the grown ups.
We had a chalkboard in the kitchen. When we left the house, we were supposed to write down were we were going. And we could then go wherever we liked. Alone. We just had to be back in time for tea.
Just thought of another one – watermelons, grapes and cucumbers all had seeds in them.