Official Old Fart Thread!

[Jack Straw]

Have you ever explained to today's youth how things have changed since you were young? You know things like; soda cans that needed an opener, pay phones, wearing bread bags on your feet to keep them dry in your boots and 8 tracks. It's amazing how things have changed since I was young. What changes do you remember?

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Jack, I once started to list some things and was amazed at how long the list was and I'd barely gotten started.

Just today a neighbor and I were talking about when we first saw the speed limit signs that read 65 mph but at night they read 55 mph. That was amazing back in those days. But so many changes. One could start just one one subject and come up with hundreds. Take automobiles, trucks or tractors for example. I remember when we had 3 tractors and every one of them had either a crank or you spun the flywheel to start the engine. But then, I also remember our family car when I was a little boy and we had to crank start that one too. Then think of little things like when we saw the first turn signals. Wow! Folks no longer had to hold their arm out the window to signal where they were turning. What about the dimmer switch for the headlights? Used to always be on the floor and you used your left foot. Sometimes that got interesting during the winter when ice would freeze up the switch.

And how about schools. I wonder how many of us had attended a true country school, where grades went up to 8th and there was only one teacher for the whole school. Also our first task every morning through most of the school year was to start a fire in the furnace. We weren't too bad off as we lived only 1 3/4 mile from the school so the walk wasn't so bad.

I also remember our first television set and our first phonograph that would play records and we didn't have to crank the thing up first. Of course we could go on and on but maybe this will get things started.

 

[Ashful]

Have you ever explained to today's youth how things have changed since you were young? You know things like; soda cans that needed an opener, pay phones, wearing bread bags on your feet to keep them dry in your boots and 8 tracks. It's amazing how things have changed since I was young. What changes do you remember?

I remember all those things (was just talking about the bread bags with someone recently!), but... soda cans needed an opener? I remember juice cans needing an opener, and soda / beer cans having the hateful pull tabs that would slice open your foot on the beach, but never a soda can that needed an opener!

Kids today will never have to rewind or fast-forward any cassette of any type. Most have never actually touched a record with their own hands. Weird. Perhaps the biggest change is the entire concept of waiting for things. If you missed the Charlie Brown Halloween special or Rudolf on TV... you had to wait 'till next year to see it again. My son thinks everything is instantly available right now. He's right!

<-- just rounding the top of the hill now

 

[webbie]

I remember when women didn't wear bras!


But, realistically, not too much has really changed. We went on vacation on jet aircraft when I was a kid, drove in cars with AC and automatic transmissions and made phone calls. Cable TV even came along when I was in my mid to late teens!

The biggest change, IMHO, is in communication, specifically the internet and other networks.

8-tracks sounded great! I'll bet a decent one still does. I remember my buddy firing up the 8-track with the Beach Boys "Good Vibrations" and telling me how all the tracks were laid down...

We had $60 Harmony Electric guitars when I was a tween...my bro still has his and uses it regularly!

 

[osagebow]

Kind of in the old fart kiddie pool at 42. Remember bread bags in 3rd generation hand me down boots and a steeler hat with a pom pom on top lol...we had it kinda rough.

And our video games were horrible.

Our shop teacher hit a deer one winter coming to school, and butchered it in shop the next day. Never would see that today. I can't even let kids dissect a USDA beef heart. Gotta be a pickled biological specimen.

But I'm so glad the stuff I did in my teens didn't wind up on facebook or youtube within the hour

 

[hossthehermit]

 

[webbie]

I would have been arrested as a terrorist and tortured. I don't think making gunpowder for bombs and chlorine gas just for kicks would go over well today.

 

[BrotherBart]

Before 1962 you didn't put bread bags on your feet. Bread all came in waxed paper packaging up till then.

 

[Jags]

Never would see that today. I can't even let kids dissect a USDA beef heart.

For my Freshman year in high school I did a speech on how to clean a shot gun - with a real shot gun. Can you even imagine that today? Loose .22 shells were common pocket fodder.

 

[webbie]

How will I ever explain that my parents drank.....cocktails? Beer was only for the poor and wine was thunderbird.

 

[Jags]

7 and 7's and old fashions (brandy).

 

[BrotherBart]

How will I ever explain that my parents drank.....cocktails? Beer was only for the poor and wine was thunderbird.

An hi-balls didn't refer to how you wore your jeans.

 

[Jags]

An hi-balls didn't refer to how you wore your jeans.

heck - they even had their own glass (rounded and heavy bottomed).

 

[Delta-T]

tupperware parties (apparently these still exist, but I think they are more like reenactments, SCA type stuff where people dress up in fake armor and swordfight)

tupperware comes from NH
also, the first retractable tape measure invented here too...both in Berlin.

 

[BrotherBart]

Three words, Fuller Brush Man.

 

[Delta-T]

look at that guy's square manbag! that is old fashioned.

 

[Ashful]

I would have been arrested as a terrorist and tortured. I don't think making gunpowder for bombs and chlorine gas just for kicks would go over well today.

We used to make pipe bombs in the basement, and set them off on the railroad tracks as teenagers. The thought of taking one into a school never even crossed our minds.

I once took my Swiss Army knife to school to show off to a few friends. A teacher saw it, and simply told me to put it away. Point taken. No zero-tolerance suspension necessary.

 

[webbie]

I remember showing off my boy scout penknife in elementary school.

We never considered bombing the school, but cherry bombs in the toilets were not considered "the school". I don't remember ever doing it myself, but it was the promised land in terms of rumors.

Here is a small sampling of our gas and explosives story:
(broken link removed to http://www.craigsfire.com/?p=349)

 

[webbie]

Although this still occurs, there was a time in the 70's where many of your friends turned into insurance salesmen and hassled you to no end.
MLM is a pox on us all.

 

[webbie]

Of all the proof of the "way things were", the least believable might be my concert ticket to see

Jimi Hendrix
Grateful Dead
Steve Miller
Cactus (big at the time)
NY Rock and Roll Ensemble (also fairly well known).

ALL TOGETHER in one night.

$5

 

[Jags]

I remember showing off my boy scout penknife in elementary school.

I carried a pen knife (and still do) since I was 6 years old.

 

[begreen]

I can recall when rock and roll was taboo and considered too racy. Of course, we ignored that ban completely. I also remember when a "portable" radio weighed no less than 10 lbs and often more. Our first TV, a 1948 Philco, had an 8" screen in a 30" cabinet. Postcard stamps were 1 cent.

 

[Jags]

And mom would drag out the old cast iron hand grinder and feed it bologna and pickles and a bit of onion to make a sandwich spread.

 

[begreen]

Cool, that sounds creative.

 

[begreen]

How many folks were on a party line? Two nostalgic losses for me were the passing of the steam engine on the Hudson line and losing our local telephone operator. I never met her in person but she was nice to us kids when we wanted to use the phone.