Back In MY Day…..

It’s official.  I’m old.

Yeah, yeah..I’ve said it before, but this time it is a certainty.  How did I come to this conclusion?  Was it because of the hundred sit down breaks that it now requires just to get the house cleaned?  NAH..I’ll attribute that to being out of shape.  Is it because I sometimes hear these strange guttural sounding grunts coming out of my mouth when attempting to get myself up?  NAH..well, maybe. 🙂  Perhaps it is because I’m happiest when watching old re-runs of shows from the 1970s and  TVLand is my new best friend.  Possibly, but the REAL reason I am officially old is because I’ve caught myself saying one simple phrase several times in recent weeks.  That phrase is “back in MY day“!  🙂

Subtle Changes

Because things have evolved slowly over time, some changes aren’t that noticeable.  For example,  it never dawned on me until a few years ago that kids don’t  “drag Main” or “cruise Central” (or whatever chosen street) anymore.  I mentioned cruising Central to one of my kids a few years back and they had no clue what I was talking about.  When did that stop?  I used to spend hours going up and down the same street with my friends.

Let’s stop and think, stop and compare, stop and remember.  Here are just a few things that come to my mind…

Microwave Ovens

I remember the very first time that I operated a microwave oven. Before this particular instance I had heard of them, and I think my sister had one of the very first models…but not my parents.  My parents were old school, so we never got things until they’d been around for quite a while.

We moved to my current town when I was 15 and that summer I babysat from time to time for a co-worker of my dads (Matt Cross..some of you reading this probably have fond memories of this guy).  The first time I sat for them, they told me that I was welcome to use their microwave.  WOW!  A microwave?  I had no clue how to use a microwave and didn’t mention this to them.  I melted a piece of cheese on a slice of bread.   It was amazing (but tasted bland and boring).  That cheese melted so fast!  Kids today wouldn’t know how to live WITHOUT a microwave.

Televisions

Growing up, we had a big old console television that sat in the EXACT same spot in our living room for the first 15 years of my life.  My mother had a green ceramic windmill planter that sat on the top.  It may not have been the exact same tv, but as many times as the television repairman (good ole Kenny Evers) came out to our house to fix it…it just may have been the same one all of those years.  If the channel needed changed, we (I) had to get up and walk across the room to change it.  Come to think of it, I was the remote control! HA!

When we moved, my parents got a new “fancy” console television that swiveled AND had a remote control.   Since then, televisions have evolved..bigger screens, flatter bodies.  No more green ceramic windmill planters on top.  🙂

Telephones

We had a black rotary phone with an extra long chord that hung on our kitchen wall.  If someone was using the phone, we had to wait our turn.  There was no such thing as Caller ID, no answering machine-no way to screen calls.  Mother used to always tell me we were lucky because we had our own private phone line, instead of a “party line”.  Party lines were telephone lines that had to be shared with other people in other households.  Our family friends, Betty and Flip, had a party line.  I always thought it was the weirdest thing, and frankly…I still don’t really understand how it worked.  How did people know if they were calling the right household?  Hopefully one of my readers can enlighten me on that, since I was just a kid and never figured it out.

Once again..after we moved, things changed with our phones.  I guess we really “moved on up”, ha!  We got our first answering machine, AND cordless telephones.  We could actually walk all around our house and talk on the phone.  How fancy is that?

Speaking of fancy, it was shortly after moving to the new town that I had my first experience with a cell phone.  This was in the mid 80’s , and it was actually a car phone that belonged to my friend’s father.  It was like a regular phone, with a cord, inside of a bag.  I can’t recall how it was plugged in, but probably to the cigarette lighter.  The reception was HORRIBLE, but it was still OH, SO COOL!  We sat in the car and called everybody we knew, just so we could tell them we were calling from a CAR.  Most of the calls were horribly static filled and nobody could hear us anyway, but we were living in style!

GPS

Remember when we used to read maps to find our way to a particular destination?  I’m sure none of my kids remember this, but it really wasn’t so long ago.

“Sicilian” Pan Pizza

The year was 1979, and I was 12 years old.  Before this, Pizza Hut only offered thin and crispy crust.  My sister and I couldn’t wait to order the new Sicilian pan pizza, and I distinctly remember the first time I tried it.  It was a Saturday night.  We ordered a late night pizza and devoured it while watching Saturday Night Live.  It was the best pizza I had ever tasted, so unique.  It was thick and SO cheesy…I can still taste it.  This was the beginning of what is now known simply as pan pizza on the Pizza Hut menu…but of course they taste nothing like that pizza so many years ago.  A while back, Pizza Hut actually started advertising another Sicilian pan pizza and I was excited to try it.  Still wasn’t the same, nothing ever is.

Computers

Back in MY day, we didn’t have computers!  No video games, no computers…how did we live?  🙂  I can’t count the number of times that I’ve told my kids that (especially when they used to fight over computer time on our one family computer).

In high school, we learned the keyboard in typing class..with typewriters.  I had never touched a computer until adulthood.  My first computer class was as an adult at the local community college.  I took the class with a few friends from work, and it was …embarrassing.

The other students in this class were kids straight out of high school.  My friends and I didn’t even know what a mouse was, let alone how to use it!  Our first class consisted of simply learning mouse control.  We played solitaire using BOTH hands on the mouse.  One hand was used to click and the other was used to help guide and hold the clicking hand stable.  Oh, I bet those other students got a good laugh out of watching us!  I am happy to say that my computer skills have come a LONG way since then.  🙂

Internet

Since we’re talking about computers, let’s talk about internet.  I got my first computer with internet in 1998.  Back then, it was all dial-up internet.  It was absolutely fascinating, but we could never stay online for long because it tied up our phone line (we didn’t have cell phones).  Remember that high pitched squeal as the internet connected?  Remember AOL and the familiar voice saying “you’ve got mail”?  Again, we’ve come a LONG way.

Your Turn!

I could go on and on with this list, but instead I’d like to hear YOUR stories.  What do you remember from “back in the day”?  Things have changed so much, even since my oldest children were young.  Post a comment on here, or on the Facebook link to this post.

C’mon, my fellow “old farts”- let’s have some fun with this trip down memory lane!