# For The Over-Forty Crowd



## SeaBreeze (Nov 19, 2012)

*(for the over 40 crowd) 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			



*

*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 junk 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 darn 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 darn 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 butts! 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 darn 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! We **had 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 a** 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-b**tards!*

*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!*


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## maybenot (Nov 19, 2012)

How true!. I remember going to my friends house after school to watch their TV,
we didn't own one until I was 10yrs old.


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## SeaBreeze (Nov 19, 2012)

I forget how old I was, but we went for years without a TV, phone, etc. too.


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## maybenot (Nov 19, 2012)

PHONE!!???, When I left the UK in 1972 to come to Australia
we still didn't have one .:ambivalence:


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## Elzee (Nov 29, 2012)

Yes, I remember the days of playing outside. We walked to the park, which was a block away, by ourselves. Our parents knew where we were and knew we were 'safe' at the park. The ground under the playground equipment was cement. The sand box was never covered. The swings were the high ones and so was the slide - again, with a cement ground cover. Never heard of chipped bark, rubber mats or cut up rubber tires for padding under children's playgrounds.   Somehow, most of us did survive.


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## SifuPhil (Nov 29, 2012)

maggis said:


> PHONE!!???, When I left the UK in 1972 to come to Australia
> we still didn't have one .:ambivalence:



LOL - I STILL don't have one! But it's by choice, not by circumstance.

I liked the _TV Guide_ reference - that little weekly booklet was even more important than _Reader's Digest_, but not quite as important as _National Geographic_. I think I took a look at the _Guide_ a few months ago at the supermarket - it was more like a tabloid magazine now, and the listings seemed to take very low importance compared to the ads and the stories.

And the library ... that was my Heaven. There was always so much choice, so much pure potential, and unlike the 'Net I didn't receive constant offers for ****** from the librarian. layful:


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