The over 30 crowd

[240 LTS]

If you are 30, or older, you might think this is hilarious!

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 crap 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 thirty, 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 damn 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 damn library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalog!!

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!

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 ***! Nowhere was safe!

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!

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?

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!

There weren't any freakin' cell phones either. If you left the house, you just didn't make a damn call or receive one. You actually had to be out of touch with your "friends". OH MY GOD !!! 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.

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!

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!

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!!! NO REMOTES!!! Oh, no, what's the world coming to?!?!

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-finks!

And we didn't have microwaves. If we wanted to heat something up, we had to use the stove! Imagine that!

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 luckily, 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 1980 or any time before!

Regards,

The Over 30 Crowd

Edited March 29, 2010 by 240 LTS

[crash1371]

wow how true. I grew up on the reservation playing cowboys and Indians shooting Indians

Edited March 29, 2010 by TimW Texas

[one4water]

Well said.

How bout digital cameras? We actually had film. You had to wait a week after you got home to see your vacation pictures.

Remember encylcopedias? Yep, no Googling and clicking and scrolling for our high school homework. we actually had to look it up and read it. Not copy and paste the answers.

[DFreedom]

Amen Brother! I call it the wussification of America. Too damn many metrosexuals out there now.

[welder]

wow how true. I grew up on the reservation playing cowboys and Indians shooting Indians

Tim I did the same, well almost , the Reservation was about 15 miles away [ Pala Mission ] but we still shot Indians. There were a few times we got to shoot some Mexicans . I grew up in SoCal.

[auguste]

Believe it or not but we had an ice box

A big block of ice was delivered 3 times per week

The telephone had a crank on the side . . . had to wait because we were on a party line . . . our ring was 3 short rings

[team oldschool]

Oh how true.

Speaking of camaras, remember when kodak came out with the polaroid? That thing was bad a$$. At least until you had to buy more film or the flash bar.

[Capt Rick Hiott]

How about the 4track tape player,,,,(but Im not as old as Auguste.........)

[240 LTS]

The guy that delivered our dairy and bread was "Billy the Bread man". He would put it in a slightly insulated "Box" on our door step.

I had a Polaroid Square Shooter II. It was awesome. I still have it and some photos I took with it..

We used to kneel real hard on my parents station wagon bench car seat in search of loose change If we found a quarter, we hit the mother load!!!!

I high school, I had two pairs of pants and two shirts, hand me downs, that's it. How many ensembles can you make out of that selection?

I was just glad my Mom gave me clean clothes.

When I was 18, I had my 66 Mustang broken into "down by the river" (Big Gunpowder River trestle) when my brother and I were fishing. They stole my radio with 8 track player and all my 8 tracks in a case.

I had just an 8 track player at home so I installed that for some tunes and the only tape I had that wasn't in the car was Jim Croce, Life and Times.

I had no money to buy another radio, tape player or more 8 tracks so that Jim Croce album was all I had to listen to. I know every word to every song.

Today's MP3, IPOD, blackberrys, I-phones, etc.... baaahhh humbug, kids don't know how good they have it.

Maybe those past experiences are part of the reason why I appreciate what I have now.

Jeff

Edited March 30, 2010 by 240 LTS

[Boz]

I had to laugh out loud last night when a co-worker mentioned that her 7-year-old daughter gets so engrossed in playing on her own laptop computer that she doesn't even answer her personal cell phone or return text messages.

Excuse me now while I go take my Geritol and Metamucil.