ole heads will feel this ....

[TonyB06]

If you are 30 ....

When we were kids, adults used to bore use to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were when they were growing up; what with walking 25 miles to school every morning ... uphill BOTH ways .. yadda, yadda, yadda

And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way in hayle I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on kids about how hard I had it and how easy they've got it!

But now that I'm over the age of 30, 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 friggin’ Utopia! And I hate to say it but you kids today, you don't know how good you've got it!

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 musty-a** library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalog and the friggin' duey-decimal system! And if you couldn’t find it you had to deal with the crusty attitude of that old a** librarian lady, who was like 68 years old and had that chain holdin' her glasses down like dem joints was going to fly off, yeah, that lady who felt like she was doing you a favor by being there.

There was no email! We had to actually write somebody a letter ... with a pen! and a stamp! 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!

There were no MP3's or Napsters! You wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the damn record store! Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio and the DJ'd usually talk over the beginning and @#*% it all up!

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! And we didn't have fancy Caller ID Boxes either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! It could be your school, your mom, your boss, your bookie, your drug dealer, a collections agent, you just didn't know!!! You had to pick it up and take your chances!

We didn't have any fancy Sony Playstation video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600 and thought it was the isht! With games like "Space Invaders" and "asteroids" and the graphics sucked a**! Your 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.

When you went to the movie theater there no such thing as stadium seating! All the seats were the same height! If a tall guy or some old broad with a hat sat in front of you and you couldn't see, well that was just too dayum bad!

Sure, we had cable television, but back then that was only like 15 channels and there was no onscreen menu and no remote control! 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 you’re a** and walk over to the TV to change the channel. And don’t let your a** have insomnia, cause at 1 a.m. guess what --> TV went OFF! You got the Star Spangled Banner then America took its a** to bed!

And 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-bastids!

And we didn't have microwaves, if we wanted to heat something up we had to use the stove or go build a frigging fire ...imagine that! If we wanted popcorn, we had to use that stupid JiffyPop thing and shake it over the stove
forever like an idiot.

That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it too easy. You're spoiled. You guys wouldn't have lasted five minutes back in 1975!


Regards,

The over 30 Crowd

[1908Revelations]

Hey TonyB...I'm not 30....but I can identify with some of this stuff

[StarFish106]

Tony as someone that was proudly concieved and born in 1971

let me be the first to say YOU ROCK!!

and as far as the Atari went....some of us had that mess from Radio Shack that played 2 (count 'em) 2 games. Pong and the one you had to shoot at the screen with the big colt 45 controller gun. And that was Pre-Atari.

Picture in Picture on the tv screen for us was Picture ON Picture because we all had that big azz 25" console tv that was broke in the living room with the 15" sitting on top of it.

But we had names for the remote control: John, Stacy, Derrick, whatever kid walked by the tv was the remote control. Feel sorry for us only kids...after awhile I got stuck on pause.

But I still will write a letter on occasion

[FeeFee]

From a person who's proud to be in the over 30 crowd:

THIS TOTALLY ROCKS!!!!

I still have vivid memories of my Atari and Colecovision (until our apartment was broken into and my game was stolen). I used to love playing Donkey Kong.

On Fridays and Saturdays, you would find me faithfully sitting in front of the radion recording the latest hip-hop songs spun by DeeJays Marley Marl, Chuck Chillout and Red Alert.

[laylo]

Ha ha ha ha ha

Well I'm not 30 either, but most of this stuff applied when I was a kid. I remember when we first got portable phones. I was like, "This is so cool! I can walk into my room with it!"

[delph998]

I love you Tony! And though I'm not 30 or older, I can relate to everything you said because I lived down South where you had to make your fun. Nuff said.

[black_princess]

"Yes Grandpa TonyB06 . . . . I know"

*my impression of a young girl ignoring what my elders are talking about*

"back in ancient times . . . .it was soooo hard"

Just jokes. But honestly, I really cant remember life before most of these things. I remember playing a Nintendo (the original and Sega Genisis), call waiting, computer class in Kindergarten, SNICK & Nickelodeon, microwaves. .ect. But I do remember (way off in the 4 courners of my mind)the silver Jiffy pop, and trying to record stuff off of the raido. Im an 80's baby / 90's kid . . .so does that make me fall somewhere in the middle??

[pinkies up]

As a future member of the "30 and Still Dayum Fine" club, I can relate to all of the above!
My kids do not believe that we couldn't watch cartoons on the weekdays; only between the hours of 7-11:30. After that, it was straight up clean up day in the house.

[gamma_girl52]

I loved this thread!! I'm not 30 yet (I'll be 29 this year) but I remember ALL that. Kids got it pretty easy these days...I didn't get with the video games until I was older!! What did we do after school? You came in, changed from your school clothes to your play clothes, and WENT OUTSIDE AND PLAYED!!

And pinkies up I feel you on those Saturdays...it was straight clean up day in my house too

[crimsondanger10]

Originally Posted by TonyB06

I work in a school and these kids don't know the first thing about a dewey-decimal system or card catalog. EVERYTHING'S on computer!

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 musty-a** library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalog and the friggin' duey-decimal system! And if you couldn’t find it you had to deal with the crusty attitude of that old a** librarian lady, who was like 68 years old and had that chain holdin' her glasses down like dem joints was going to fly off, yeah, that lady who felt like she was doing you a favor by being there.

I wrote plenty of letters to my first boyfriend who lived only 30 minutes away.........and it was "long distance" to call him .

There was no email! We had to actually write somebody a letter ... with a pen! and a stamp! 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!

Yep, remember that!

There were no MP3's or Napsters! You wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the damn record store! Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio and the DJ'd usually talk over the beginning and @#*% it all up!

Remember when somebody's line was busy you would call like 50 times in a row just to see if you could (magically) get through this time.

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! And we didn't have fancy Caller ID Boxes either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! It could be your school, your mom, your boss, your bookie, your drug dealer, a collections agent, you just didn't know!!! You had to pick it up and take your chances!

Oh, we had movie theaters back then?

When you went to the movie theater there no such thing as stadium seating! All the seats were the same height! If a tall guy or some old broad with a hat sat in front of you and you couldn't see, well that was just too dayum bad!

Man, I hated waking up in to that screen with the red, blue, yellow, and green lines.....and that dayum buzzing sound is what woke you in the first place.

You were screwed when it came to channel surfing! You had to get off you’re a** and walk over to the TV to change the channel. And don’t let your a** have insomnia, cause at 1 a.m. guess what --> TV went OFF! You got the Star Spangled Banner then America took its a** to bed!

Tis true

And 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-bastids!

Yep, you better not mess up those school clothes! Do you remember going to the neighbors house and asking (yes you had to ask), "Mrs. Jones, can Kelly come out and play?" Mrs. Jones says, "Not today, baby. Kelly didn't clean up her room so she's on punishment." And you walk away feeling like Kelly had just died !

Originally Posted by gamma_girl52

What did we do after school? You came in, changed from your school clothes to your play clothes, and WENT OUTSIDE AND PLAYED!!

[Dionysus]

I'm not 30 yet, and I identify with most of this stuff too. The only thing I couldn't ID with was not having microwave. That had to suck. lol

[mmbrown23]

Originally Posted by pinkies up

As a future member of the "30 and Still Dayum Fine" club, I can relate to all of the above!
My kids do not believe that we couldn't watch cartoons on the weekdays; only between the hours of 7-11:30. After that, it was straight up clean up day in the house.

Pinkies Up, it is still like that in my house! I am over 30 and I tell my 11 yr old all the time how good she has it. Every Friday she says, what are we doing on Saturday and I just look at her and she says, man we got to clean up again? She stays on punishment and I don't know what she tells her friends at school but they call the house from when I step in the door from work until after 9pm and I'm like Raven's sleep and you should be too and don't forget she is on punishment! Then she had the nerve to give out my cell phone number and her friends be textin me! I had to put one little soldier in check real quick! Sorry, I had to rant!!!

[SummerChild]

LOLOLOL! And then when your Mom got home, she was ticked off talking about how she had been calling all day and somebody was on the phone so she kept getting a busy signal!!! Ha! That was hilarious in my household - of course we never laughed when she was complaining.

ETA: Of course, your Mom could call the operator and have her "cut in" on a call and then she would amazingly appear on the line with you and whoever you were talking to. Yes, it happened to me before. LOL. Those were some crazy times.

Originally Posted by TonyB06

If you are 30 ....

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! And we didn't have fancy Caller ID Boxes either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! It could be your school, your mom, your boss, your bookie, your drug dealer, a collections agent, you just didn't know!!! You had to pick it up and take your chances!

[SummerChild]

And if we wanted to play, we actually had to get up off our butt and sweat a little outside. We actually had to go outside the house most times.

These kids today all coooked up in the house all evening after homework. GO OUTSIDE AND PLAY. Dang!

SC

[crimsondanger10]

Originally Posted by SummerChild

ETA: Of course, your Mom could call the operator and have her "cut in" on a call and then she would amazingly appear on the line with you and whoever you were talking to.

OH Snap! I forgot about the emergency cut-in, that was some bull