For the Over 30 Crowd

[Galaril]

I don't know this may have been posted before but if it not it is rwally funny and sad to say quite true.


The Spoiled under 30 Crowd

If you are 30 or older you will 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 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 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!

There were no MP3's or Napsters! You wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the damn 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!

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, mister!

We didn't have any fancy Sony Playstation video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games like " Space Invaders" and "asteroids" and the graphics were horrible! 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. The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died!. Just like LIFE!

When you went to the movie theater there was 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, you were just screwed!

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 your ass and walk over to the TV to change the channel 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 bastards!

And we didn't have microwaves, if we wanted to heat something up, we had to use the stove or go build a 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 1980!

Regards,
The over 30 Crowd

[Lorena]

And we didn't have microwaves, if we wanted to heat something up, we had to use the stove or go build a 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.

I was re-heating some mac and cheese for my little girl this morning and I thought, "Wow, I'd have to put some water and put it in a saucepan if I wanted to re-heat this in the 80's!"

How funny you posted this!

[Lorena]

How about the remote controls with cables?! LOL Now we have fancy shmancy do-it-all remotes.

[Crim]

How about the remote controls with cables?! LOL Now we have fancy shmancy do-it-all remotes.

The funny thing is, at the time we thought it was the cat's tits, not having to actually stand up to change the channel... all the while straining our rotator cuff trying to use it.

lol we moved the couch two feet away from the wall, decreasing the living room space, just because the "remote" control's cable wasn't long enough!

[Galaril]

I remember even having a genesis or something game system and thought that was the greatest. I also remember a star trek game in space that was on 286s or 386s and it had just terrible graphics. The ships were actually made out of a bunch alphanumeric characters bunched together into the shape of a starship and they were bright orange just hideous.Good times.

[oliegirl]

Jeez, no TiVo, no DVD players, no Razor Scooters, no cell phones...how the hell did we all survive?????

[JPhillips]

When I wantd to play a game on my TI computer I had to wait until the damn cassette tape was downloaded.

[Desmond]

I was the bees knees in 2nd grade when i brought my cassete deck (not radio, just cassette deck) to school and played Somebodys Watchin Me by Rockwell during recess. How did I tape it you ask? I put it next to the radio during the top 40 countdown and hit 'record' when the song came on.

[gstelmack]

I was re-heating some mac and cheese for my little girl this morning and I thought, "Wow, I'd have to put some water and put it in a saucepan if I wanted to re-heat this in the 80's!"

How funny you posted this!

Our microwave died Thursday night. I have no idea how we are going to last until Monday morning when the repair guy gets here. I'm still trying to figure out what to make for lunch...

[Tasan]

I was re-heating some mac and cheese for my little girl this morning and I thought, "Wow, I'd have to put some water and put it in a saucepan if I wanted to re-heat this in the 80's!"

How funny you posted this!

I'm a card carrying member of the over 30 crowd, and we had a microwave in our house every day of my life. Was this not normal? My dad was always an early adopter, so maybe not everyone did, but I always assumed so. And holy cow that thing lasted forever, my mom didn't get a new fangled digital microwave til I went to college.

[Buccaneer]

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!

That is so true.

[Eaglesfan27]

I'm a card carrying member of the over 30 crowd, and we had a microwave in our house every day of my life. Was this not normal? My dad was always an early adopter, so maybe not everyone did, but I always assumed so. And holy cow that thing lasted forever, my mom didn't get a new fangled digital microwave til I went to college.

Your right, of course, it is still funny. Microwave ovens came out in the late 70's if I recall right. We were always late adopters due to tight finances and I remember we got one in 83 or 84 when the price had come down considerably.

[A-Husker-4-Life]

Great Read, now I feel very old.. Thanks :)

BTW, I remember recording music off MTV with my old tape recorder.. Ohh those were the times..

[Suburban Rhythm]

When I wantd to play a game on my TI computer I had to wait until the damn cassette tape was downloaded.

While I didn't have the C-64, the kids down the street did.
You know you are born before 1980 if you had to type ' ,8,1 ' to play a game.

[gstelmack]

Your right, of course, it is still funny. Microwave ovens came out in the late 70's if I recall right. We were always late adopters due to tight finances and I remember we got one in 83 or 84 when the price had come down considerably.

I remember staying up late one night for my mom to come home from her 3-to-11 shift at the hospital so we could be in on the surprise: my dad had bought her our first color TV. I am 39.

[Surtt]

Great Read, now I feel very old.. Thanks :)

BTW, I remember recording music off MTV with my old tape recorder.. Ohh those were the times..

Yeah, how long has it been since MTV played music.

[Lorena]

I'm a card carrying member of the over 30 crowd, and we had a microwave in our house every day of my life. Was this not normal? My dad was always an early adopter, so maybe not everyone did, but I always assumed so. And holy cow that thing lasted forever, my mom didn't get a new fangled digital microwave til I went to college.

We were late for everything. I was the only person that didn't have a VCR... IN HIGH SCHOOL!! That's right, high school! My parents were old fashioned and very, very tight with their budget so I was deprived of many things.

[Buccaneer]

so I was deprived of many things.

LOL.

[Crim]

LOL.

+1

[Oilers9911]

Remember when portable music players were the size of a brick too? Not razor thin IPods for us.

[Warhammer]

While I didn't have the C-64, the kids down the street did.
You know you are born before 1980 if you had to type ' ,8,1 ' to play a game.

I remember having to have a casette player next to the computer to load programs. Then to load a program you had to play the casette and wait until it got to the right place on the tape, or you'd have to fast forward to that place.

The best game we had was Lunar Lander and loved it because it was the only game we had.

[Tasan]

I remember having to have a casette player next to the computer to load programs. Then to load a program you had to play the casette and wait until it got to the right place on the tape, or you'd have to fast forward to that place.

The best game we had was Lunar Lander and loved it because it was the only game we had.

Oh yeah. 1 hour load time for Temple of Apshai on the C64 with a tape drive, good times!

[Ragone]

Pirates on the c64.. or Mail Order monsters!

Someone get me the fast load cartridge stat!

[Apathetic Lurker]

We were late for everything. I was the only person that didn't have a VCR... IN HIGH SCHOOL!! That's right, high school! My parents were old fashioned and very, very tight with their budget so I was deprived of many things.

Amateur! Vcr ? please, I was 28...I didn't get cable Or a microwave till I got married.... Two years ago.... I'm 41.....

[Antmeister]

When I wantd to play a game on my TI computer I had to wait until the damn cassette tape was downloaded.

LOL! I can relate to this. And if the tape was getting worn down, you would get an error and had to start all over again. For some of those long games, it could take as long as 20 minutes. And if someone stopped the play button, you just get pissed (accident or not).

http://www.stageselect.com/images/picviewNEW.asp?pictype=game&picid=1499

[JPhillips]

Mail Order Monsters kicked ass.

But I don't remember what it was about!

[Antmeister]

Back then, our adventure games were pure text and you had to come up with the right VERB/NOUN combination to move along in the damn game. It's amazing how much patience I had in playing those things because the developers decided to use an obscure verb.

[sabotai]

That wasn't even remotely funny. Not one bit. Mainly because it reminded me that I just turned 30.

And yes, Mail Order Monsters definitely kicked ass. That and 4th And Inches were the two games I played most on the C64.

[Toddzilla]

I sat at the big dining room table and spread out my charts and played Strat-O-Matic with cards and dice and little yellow pegs for baserunners. I kept boxscores on looseleaf paper and used 1/4" graph paper for team statistics. No electronics or fancy gadgets, just dice, cards, paper and pencil.

Still the best gaming experiences of my life....

[hawk4669]

Load "*",8,1 :D

I still have my old Commodore 64 with all the games. I cannot bear to part with it. I still fire her up from time to time.

...and yes, this posting made me feel a BIT older at 32.

But not much.

Cheers!

[BYU 14]

I remember even having a genesis or something game system and thought that was the greatest. I also remember a star trek game in space that was on 286s or 386s and it had just terrible graphics. The ships were actually made out of a bunch alphanumeric characters bunched together into the shape of a starship and they were bright orange just hideous.Good times.


I remember that game from like 1983 or 84, me, my brother and law and father in law would play that for hours while the women did whatever they did when we were over there. Thought that was an incredible game.

With Thanksgiving coming up I also remember how much I looked forward to Turkey weekend back then because of "all" the Football on TV, LOL.

We had 2 pro games and a College game Thursday, a College Game Friday, 2-3 College games Saturday and of course 3 pro games Sunday. I thought 10 games over 4 days was Football Heaven. Now in the days of Satellite, Cable, TIVO and PPV sports packages you could feasibly watch/record 40 plus games on a normal 2 day weekend. Spoiled Bastards :)

[BYU 14]

Amateur! Vcr ? please, I was 28...I didn't get cable Or a microwave till I got married.... Two years ago.... I'm 41.....


No Microwave, how did you survive as a Bachelor? I am just in awe :eek:

[JPhillips]

We did have one advantage over young uns.

Jarts.

[Galaril]

I sat at the big dining room table and spread out my charts and played Strat-O-Matic with cards and dice and little yellow pegs for baserunners. I kept boxscores on looseleaf paper and used 1/4" graph paper for team statistics. No electronics or fancy gadgets, just dice, cards, paper and pencil.

Still the best gaming experiences of my life....

Yeah me too on that being some great memories.

[Galaril]

I remember that game from like 1983 or 84, me, my brother and law and father in law would play that for hours while the women did whatever they did when we were over there. Thought that was an incredible game.

With Thanksgiving coming up I also remember how much I looked forward to Turkey weekend back then because of "all" the Football on TV, LOL.

We had 2 pro games and a College game Thursday, a College Game Friday, 2-3 College games Saturday and of course 3 pro games Sunday. I thought 10 games over 4 days was Football Heaven. Now in the days of Satellite, Cable, TIVO and PPV sports packages you could feasibly watch/record 40 plus games on a normal 2 day weekend. Spoiled Bastards :)

That was so true and New Years Day was great when all the bowl games were on from like noon till midnight no Jan 4th National Championship game crap like today.

[Buccaneer]

That was so true and New Years Day was great when all the bowl games were on from like noon till midnight no Jan 4th National Championship game crap like today.


Yep. As a kid, the weekend sports schedule was This Week In Baseball followed by the Baseball Game of the Week on Saturdays. In the fall, there was the early college game from the east coast or the south followed by a west coast game or a late midwest game. On Sundays, it the early game at 1:00 and the late game at 4:00. MNF was too much of a gimmic, even back then. Thanksgiving weekend and New Years were very special football days.

[Suburban Rhythm]

That wasn't even remotely funny. Not one bit. Mainly because it reminded me that I just turned 30.

And yes, Mail Order Monsters definitely kicked ass. That and 4th And Inches were the two games I played most on the C64.


4th and Inches was the game we played the most. And Hardball. For whatever reason, the name Herby Lemay (was a pitcher for I believe whatever the blue team was) stands out in my head.

[Apathetic Lurker]

No Microwave, how did you survive as a Bachelor? I am just in awe :eek:

Mom was'nt too far:D

and in college one of my roomies worked at mcd's. Lots and lots of cold cheeseburgers for breakfast and lunch. Dinner was lukewarm and at midnite when he got home. Later on I could afford to go out to eat in nice places most of the time. And I worked in a bar so I got free food there and the waitresses at the bar next door.

[EagleFan]

We did have one advantage over young uns.

Jarts.

Except when you had to waste your Saturday afternoon trying to hide the body after another Jarts accident. ;)

[EagleFan]

I sat at the big dining room table and spread out my charts and played Strat-O-Matic with cards and dice and little yellow pegs for baserunners. I kept boxscores on looseleaf paper and used 1/4" graph paper for team statistics. No electronics or fancy gadgets, just dice, cards, paper and pencil.

Still the best gaming experiences of my life....

Amen

[Schmidty]

My favorite game as a kid was this box (2' x 16") with a light in it, and a white screen on top. You and your opponent had to choose a play from these huge cards (offense, defense, special teams), and then you would lay them on top of each other to find out what happened. Your players were x's and o's, and the offensive play was a line with an arrow for run plays, and a dotted line with an arrow for pass plays.

I miss that game so much. :(

[Apathetic Lurker]

I sat at the big dining room table and spread out my charts and played Strat-O-Matic with cards and dice and little yellow pegs for baserunners. I kept boxscores on looseleaf paper and used 1/4" graph paper for team statistics. No electronics or fancy gadgets, just dice, cards, paper and pencil.

Still the best gaming experiences of my life....

did that exact same thing with both strat-o-matic and statis-pro football.

[Leonidas]

And I can go a step further for the 40 and over crowd.

We didn't have CDs, we had cumbersome vinyl with really cool album covers. Periodically you had to clean your records and change needles on the stereo.

Cable TV? Hah! We had ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, and an independent channel on UHV that you needed a separate antenna (from the one on your roof) on your TV that you had to bend around or sometimes tell your little brother to hold and stand next to to see old 3 Stooges reruns because that was the best that channel offered.

Of course there were no superstations. You got to watch baseball on Saturday's game of the week with Joe Garagiola. You got two college football games a week, and one would have Keith Jackson calling the game. The NFL had the NFC on CBS with Brent, Irv, Phyllis, and the Greek. NBC carried the AFC with Bryant Gumble of all people in the studio and Curt Gowdy calling their top games. Dandy Don and Howard did Monday Night Football. It was worth watching the game just to hear what Don and Howard would say next.

Atari? Until I was 10 if I wanted to do something I went over to my best friends house, got him, and we played catch or shot free throws. Then when I was 10 Mattel came up with that handheld football game that didn't even have passing.

Our version of a microwave was a toaster oven. My sister almost burned our house down on a toasted cheese sandwich in one of those.

Popcorn was done in a pan, and half of it would be burned.

Coke and Pepsi came in glass bottles and beer cans had pull tabs.

The only frozen food were TV dinners.

And my favorite recollection, there was only one brand of baseball cards and they cost a quarter for a pack of 10. Cello packs with 25 cost 50 cents.

[CraigSca]

Ping: Schmidty

hxxp://cgi.ebay.com/CADACO-FOTO-ELECTRIC-FOOTBALL-GAME_W0QQitemZ270179290012QQihZ017QQcategoryZ2530QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem (http://cgi.ebay.com/CADACO-FOTO-ELECTRIC-FOOTBALL-GAME_W0QQitemZ270179290012QQihZ017QQcategoryZ2530QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem)

My brother and I used to play this game non-stop when we were young.

[gkb]

My favorite game as a kid was this box (2' x 16") with a light in it, and a white screen on top. You and your opponent had to choose a play from these huge cards (offense, defense, special teams), and then you would lay them on top of each other to find out what happened. Your players were x's and o's, and the offensive play was a line with an arrow for run plays, and a dotted line with an arrow for pass plays.

I miss that game so much. :(

I had that game as well and I loved it.

I also had a C-64 and played the hell out of The Bard's Tale as well as 4th & Inches. Sadly I lost my c64 and all of the games I had. Those were great times.

[Fidatelo]

Our microwave died Thursday night. I have no idea how we are going to last until Monday morning when the repair guy gets here. I'm still trying to figure out what to make for lunch...

Repair guy? This isn't 1965, just throw that broken shit away and buy a new one!

[sabotai]

Coke and Pepsi came in glass bottles

The way they should...

The only frozen food were TV dinners.
Those things were awesome!

[Apathetic Lurker]

I still have my vinyl.... Refuse to get rid of them.

[path12]

Magnavox Odyssey.

Young punks. =)

[Chief Rum]

Back then, our adventure games were pure text and you had to come up with the right VERB/NOUN combination to move along in the damn game. It's amazing how much patience I had in playing those things because the developers decided to use an obscure verb.

Sounds like a Quest game complaint! I loved those old Sierra games, though.

[Chief Rum]

Repair guy? This isn't 1965, just throw that broken shit away and buy a new one!

Okay, good, so I wasn't the only one who thought that. You can go get a new one for $100 can't you? :)

[Apathetic Lurker]

Okay, good, so I wasn't the only one who thought that. You can go get a new one for $100 can't you? :)

crap, you can get a cheapie at biglots for like 30 bucks. Or go to chinamart.

[Chief Rum]

crap, you can get a cheapie at biglots for like 30 bucks. Or go to chinamart.

Heh...I thought I was aiming high. I haven't bought a microwave in about 6-7 years.

[tarcone]

1980 season of Statis-Pro Baseball. I made two 4 team leagues. I have played 154 games of 162 game schedule. I cant bring myself to finish it.

I remember having to turn a dial that was connected to the antenna on the roof. You got better reception.

Mopeds were great.

[JW]

Okay, 50 and over crowd.
1. No air conditioning when I was growing up, in Louisiana. We had an a/c uint put in the living room when I was in high school. We couldn't turn it on until dad got home from work. There was a big window fan in my bedroom though, and at night we kept all the doors in the house open so that fan circulated air through the whole house. Parents didn't put a/c units in the rest of the house until after I left home.
2. Two channels. CBS and NBC. I knew there was an entire network I was missing but there was nothing I could do about it. Except late at night sometimes you could pick up extra stations on the antenna.
3. I played a dice baseball game for fun. 2=HR, 3=2b, 4=out, 5=1b, 6=out, 7=K, 8=out, 9=out, 10=1b, 11=W, 12=3b. I eventually figured out how to manipulate the numbers to get more realistic stats and by the time I stopped playing that game I had a big occurrence chart and individual player differences. I used something called a SLIDE RULE to figure batting averages and ERA. I played some cheap football game with card-based results that I bought and then manipulated that game for more realistic results.
4. Listened to a lot of sports on the radio. The St. Louis Cardinals baseball and the St. Louis Hawks basketball, as well as LSU.
5. I went to segregated schools until my junior year in high school.

[saldana]

I had that game as well and I loved it.

I also had a C-64 and played the hell out of The Bard's Tale as well as 4th & Inches. Sadly I lost my c64 and all of the games I had. Those were great times.

ahhh the bards tale....

you have entered a room with 99 skeletons, 99 skeletons, 99 skeletons and 99 skeletons.

cast fireball.

fireball has done 8 points of damage to skeleton, and killed it
fireball has done 8 points of damage to skeleton, and killed it
fireball has done 8 points of damage to skeleton, and killed it
repeat 393 more times...i used to get up and go get a drink while it was killing all the damn skeletons

and the original one was before the days of AutoMap, so you had to sit there with a piece of graph paper and draw out the maps as you explored or never get out.

[Chief Rum]

Okay, 50 and over crowd.
1. No air conditioning when I was growing up, in Louisiana. We had an a/c uint put in the living room when I was in high school. We couldn't turn it on until dad got home from work. There was a big window fan in my bedroom though, and at night we kept all the doors in the house open so that fan circulated air through the whole house. Parents didn't put a/c units in the rest of the house until after I left home.
2. Two channels. CBS and NBC. I knew there was an entire network I was missing but there was nothing I could do about it. Except late at night sometimes you could pick up extra stations on the antenna.
3. I played a dice baseball game for fun. 2=HR, 3=2b, 4=out, 5=1b, 6=out, 7=K, 8=out, 9=out, 10=1b, 11=W, 12=3b. I eventually figured out how to manipulate the numbers to get more realistic stats and by the time I stopped playing that game I had a big occurrence chart and individual player differences. I used something called a SLIDE RULE to figure batting averages and ERA. I played some cheap football game with card-based results that I bought and then manipulated that game for more realistic results.
4. Listened to a lot of sports on the radio. The St. Louis Cardinals baseball and the St. Louis Hawks basketball, as well as LSU.
5. I went to segregated schools until my junior year in high school.

You and Bucc go get your own thread! :)

[Izulde]

I used to play a basketball game with cards and dice in the 80s. It was those cards that were grey with some colored lettering. Really clean layout. Don't remember the brand.

Glad to hear I'm not the only one who taped stuff off the radio all the time. :D

I'm only 28, though, so I've avoided the 30 dread.

[Schmidty]

Ahh.....that brings a tear to my eye. I need to pick that thing up once my paypal account problem is fixed.


Ping: Schmidty

hxxp://cgi.ebay.com/CADACO-FOTO-ELECTRIC-FOOTBALL-GAME_W0QQitemZ270179290012QQihZ017QQcategoryZ2530QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem (http://cgi.ebay.com/CADACO-FOTO-ELECTRIC-FOOTBALL-GAME_W0QQitemZ270179290012QQihZ017QQcategoryZ2530QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem)

My brother and I used to play this game non-stop when we were young.

[Warhammer]

Ahh.....that brings a tear to my eye. I need to pick that thing up once my paypal account problem is fixed.

I loved that game!

[Buccaneer]

This was the best I could manage in playing a football game in the early 70s (that and the electronic vibrating game)...

http://www.operationsports.com/fofc/showthread.php?t=52851

[Arles]

I was the only person that didn't have a VCR... IN HIGH SCHOOL!! That's right, high school! My parents were old fashioned and very, very tight with their budget so I was deprived of many things.
I never had cable TV until the very end of HS. I also remember our first VCR (I was in middle school). We got it Christmas morning. Our neighbors, though, got a VCR with no movie. Not to be outdone, we got a VCR and a movie (TRON) but no cable to hook up to the TV.

This, of course, was back in the 80s when no stores were open on Christmas day. So, we borrowed the video cable and watched Tron and then lent our neighbors Tron when we gave back the cable so they could watch a movie. I also remember my Aunt getting a BetaMax player and being envious of her because the local movie rental place (and there was just one) would only have the "smaller tapes" in stock for all the movies I wanted to rent. Little did I know, Beta would be toast in a couple years ;)

[panerd]

While the quality of cable has gone up with digital, HD, and 100's of channels you still can't beat the old cable boxes from the 80's. I used to be able to use the up and down tuning arrows on my remote to get skinimax and playboy channel and see a boob floating by in color or sometimes even a fully nude woman in black and white with really bad background noise. Now the box just says that I don't subscribe to that channel. :(

[Buccaneer]

You and Bucc go get your own thread! :)

Nah, I still play in the 40 and over crowd. :)

I remember our first color TV. It was around 1967 or 1968. Dad worked for GE and I think he got a good deal from the company store. We did 4 channels though because I remember the first seasons of Sesame Street, Mr. Rogers and Electric Company very well. I spent most of my childhood in front of the TV and there were enough of everything to watch; day, night and weekends - sports, reruns of classic sitcoms and esp. the cartoon shows. I think the biggest difference is that I was 8-12 years old watching all of this. Kids that age nowadays would find all that pretty lame since they started out doing that as a toddler.

Someone brought up radio. It's funny, I remember my Dad listening to Syracuse football on the radio but I didn't start listening to sports until we moved out West and picked up the Dodgers. I don't know why, probably spent too much time watching TV instead.

I do remember when we first got HBO in 1976 (as a trial). Seeing actual boobs on TV was something else.

Other than that, I pretty much did the same thing I do now: play games, collect baseball cards and talk with family and friends. It's just the mechanics have changed.

[Apathetic Lurker]

Okay, 50 and over crowd.
1. No air conditioning when I was growing up, in Louisiana. We had an a/c uint put in the living room when I was in high school. We couldn't turn it on until dad got home from work. There was a big window fan in my bedroom though, and at night we kept all the doors in the house open so that fan circulated air through the whole house. Parents didn't put a/c units in the rest of the house until after I left home.
2. Two channels. CBS and NBC. I knew there was an entire network I was missing but there was nothing I could do about it. Except late at night sometimes you could pick up extra stations on the antenna.
3. I played a dice baseball game for fun. 2=HR, 3=2b, 4=out, 5=1b, 6=out, 7=K, 8=out, 9=out, 10=1b, 11=W, 12=3b. I eventually figured out how to manipulate the numbers to get more realistic stats and by the time I stopped playing that game I had a big occurrence chart and individual player differences. I used something called a SLIDE RULE to figure batting averages and ERA. I played some cheap football game with card-based results that I bought and then manipulated that game for more realistic results.
4. Listened to a lot of sports on the radio. The St. Louis Cardinals baseball and the St. Louis Hawks basketball, as well as LSU.
5. I went to segregated schools until my junior year in high school.

I got you beat on the TV front.
I vaguely remember only 2 channels. One had news and a movie and a series. All commie propaganda type of stuff like farming shows(I was born in Poland). When we moved to Libya we had something like 3 channels in Tripoli. Three wonderful channels of Religious programming or shows like Bollywood musicals without the gratuitous views of womens faces. Something disconcerting in seeing what look like women swaying and singing with no real emotion. And hearing bugs bunny talking in Arabic(shudder).Did you know Elmer Fudd and Bugs sound just the same in Arabic? I had no idea there were any other kind of shows till we moved to Rome. At least you guys in the states had "real" tv.

[sterlingice]

because I remember the first seasons of Sesame Street, Mr. Rogers and Electric Company very well

I'm sorry, Buc- most of the "you're old" cracks are in the "haha, what was it like talking about george washington/julius caesar/neanderthals" but this one really is somewhat :eek:

:D

SI

[Buccaneer]

I'm sorry, Buc- most of the "you're old" cracks are in the "haha, what was it like talking about george washington/julius caesar/neanderthals" but this one really is somewhat :eek:

:D

SI

That's funny because I truly don't feel that it was that long ago. I think kids now can relate to kids growing up in the 60s and 70s a lot better than kids back then hearing about their parents grew up. That makes sense? I think TV is the cross-generational connector, unlike my parent's generation.

[sterlingice]

That's funny because I truly don't feel that it was that long ago. I think kids now can relate to kids growing up in the 60s and 70s a lot better than kids back then hearing about their parents grew up. That makes sense? I think TV is the cross-generational connector, unlike my parent's generation.

Makes sense, definitely, and I think you hit the nail right on the head. If nothing else, we can see the tv stereotype of that time and, frankly, tv stereotypes have changed little in 50 years

SI

[path12]

That's funny because I truly don't feel that it was that long ago. I think kids now can relate to kids growing up in the 60s and 70s a lot better than kids back then hearing about their parents grew up. That makes sense? I think TV is the cross-generational connector, unlike my parent's generation.

I totally remember my second grade (maybe first) teacher telling us to watch a new show called Sesame Street one afternoon. My younger brothers first 45 was "Rubber Ducky".

[Lorena]

And kids nowadays won't uderstand the saying, "you sound like a broken record"... I had to explain it to our daughter.

[Butter]

4th and Inches was the game we played the most. And Hardball. For whatever reason, the name Herby Lemay (was a pitcher for I believe whatever the blue team was) stands out in my head.

I played the crap out of Hardball. I loved that game. I loved the pitchers who could throw Fastball... and Fastball!

[CamEdwards]

I can remember my dad bringing home a Pong game for the tv... this would've been 1977 or so.

My mom told me she was divorcing my dad as I was playing Frogger on the Atari.

My first casette tape was either Bobby Brown or Tiffany (Good God, did I just admit that?) but my first LP was Quiet Riot's "Mental Health". My first cd was Def Leppard's "Hysteria" (though the Michael Schenker Group was the 2nd cd I bought).

My favorite game growing up was Micro League Baseball for the Apple IIe. We also had a text game for Stephen King's "The Mist" that was incredibly hard to play. I don't think I ever managed to leave the grocery store.

[Coffee Warlord]

That and 4th And Inches were the two games I played most on the C64.

You could not stop Flash Darling.

(He was on the apple version of 4th & Inches, dunno if they used the same names)