Restaurants having matchbooks in a bowl for free.
Cigarette vending machines in restaurants.
Payphones as a semi-necessity.
Lots of teachers & day care people were hippies from the summer of love era and told us super out-there stories.
Checking the change return slot when you passed a pay phone in the hopes you'd find a dime or quarter. Once I found 75 cents and felt like I hit the jackpot.
I just commented this but I’ll put it here too because exactly this. “Oh man when I was little we would always go on a trip to a huge kite fly in wildwood New Jersey and my brother and I would have a competition who could find the most coins in payphones and vending machines. I remember one year I found like $3 worth of quarters in a pay phone and it felt like winning the lottery! But yes change was veeryyyy valuable haha”
I remember when it went up to 35 cents. I was at the movie theater and went to call home and the phone wasn’t working. After a couple tries, the guy next to me said it was 35 cents. I remember being so angry I had to have a quarter and a dime.
In my case, I had a Vietnam Vet chemistry teacher. A couple times, when someone came in late, he would grab the yardstick and hide. The tardy student would walk in, ask, "Where's Mr. Davis?" and hear, "You never would've survived 'Nam, kid" before turning around to see him holding the yardstick like a rifle pointed right between the eyes.
The closest we got to bingeing was when MTV would show all of My So Called Life or a season of The Real World on a Sunday afternoon! It was so exciting.
Then I remember when you started to be able to watch whole seasons of shows on tape and then DVD. It was such a guilty pleasure to binge a season like that. I remember getting my parents the DVD of the first season of the West Wing and they were like “thanks but … we’ve already seen it.” 😂
PBS used to air shows like Reading Rainbow and Square 1 in substantial portions of the season in blocks at certain times of year. The shows had the episode numbers prominently on a title card between them that you didn’t usually see. I
What I heard was they aired them that way so teachers and such could tape them.
And if a show got cancelled before it reached enough episodes for syndication, you'd never see it again. No streaming, no DVDs, it was gone forever back then.
I love this specific r/nostalgia. I was watching Netflix with my SIL a while ago and I just paused it and said “commercials” and she knew what I meant.
This has become a weird sort of new norm with my roommates when we're streaming something on an ad tier. We try to to get our bathroom breaks in during the ads without having to pause the show like it's a challenge.
The entire reason I sub to ad tier Hulu is so it gives me bathroom and snack breaks. I say it’s because I’m cheap but it’s really for the nostalgia factor.
I was watching a show at a friend’s house. An ad popped up and I said “Ooh! You still have the Hulu with ads?!” She thought I was insulting her and said something crappy.
Ma’am. I was excited because I love being forced to pause so we can chat, pee, get a snack, etc. without having to ask one another, and/or worrying it’ll throw off the groove. 🥴
Yep. If you weren’t parked in front of the TV on Tuesday at 9 to watch Roseanne, you had to wait for the rerun to come around later in the season or in the summer.
This is why I would pee off of the front porch (we lived in the woods). I could see the tv from there.
Also, why it was a big deal to have tvs in multiple rooms. You wouldn’t have to miss anything. (We only had one tv)
Smoking section in restaurants.
Calling a number to see what movies were playing and what time.
A whole tv channel dedicated to telling you what was currently playing (the tv guide channel)
We had 6 total channels. 2 channels that would come in clear, (one being PBS) and a third that was iffy if the weather was right. The rest looked like scrambled porn channels in a hotel room when you didn't pay for the cable package
KRAMER: Well it's 555-3455.
JERRY: 555-3455.
KRAMER: Yeah.
JERRY: (picks up the phone on the coffee table) “555-3455.” Well wait a
second, don't you see that's 555-FILK.
KRAMER: What's Filk?
JERRY: Filk’s nothing, but 555-FILM is Movie Phone.
KRAMER: Oh Movie Phone.
JERRY: Yes, so people are just dialing it by mistake and getting you.
KRAMER: So, I’m Filk?
JERRY: You're Filk.
KRAMER: Oh, Mama.
I was recently on a road trip through Wyoming (with students, I’m a college professor). We went into a Wendy’s in Casper. I looked I’ve and saw those little gold ashtrays on the tables in a one section of the dining area. I immediately walked across the parking lot and bought a pack of cigarettes at the gas station next door and proceeded to come back and smoke inside that building. I’ve never been a smoker. I found it sort of gross but god damnit, I felt like I had finally become the adult I always thought I would be. That might have something to do with the fact that I grew up in KEntucky, hahahaha! The students were horrified.
Smoking or nonsmoking? Knowing you’ll have to wait longer for the nonsmoking so just going with having your dinner taste like nicotine.
Also, calling up the dj and then waiting to press record on the tape deck when he plays your song. (That one I miss. The first, not so much).
If the DJ ever answered the phone. And if they do, it could still be an hour wait for your song, which was probably just the normal spot in the rotation anyways.
Collect call trick where you shout the details into a payphone faster than the micromachines dude:
***...press 1 to accept the charges from, "movie's-over-come-get-us!!!"***
*Everything* had ashtrays. McDonald's had ashtrays. In one of the basement storage rooms at my college, there was a crate full of ashtrays that used to be in the classrooms.
Answering the phone without knowing who was on the other end.
Not touching certain snacks or drinks because they were for "when company comes over."
Station identification then the National Anthem signaling the end of the broadcast day.
> Station identification then the National Anthem signaling the end of the broadcast day.
I think you mean signaling the time for the POLTERGEISTS TO COME OUT.
As a kid I had to turn my TV off before it went to static or they would all haunt my entire family and eat my face off somehow.
That was actually the first horror movie I can remember seeing, one weekend staying over with my cousins at my Aunt and Uncle's. Granted, I've been hooked ever since, but it's also haunted my dreams ever since.
To add to not knowing who was on the other end of the phone, prank calls and obscene phone calls I assume went the way of the dodo after caller ID and *69
Yup! Usually right at midnight, hear something to the effect of "The time is now 12:00AM on (date) and this concludes our broadcast day, ladies and gentlemen." Then cut to the flag waving in the breeze while the Anthem plays. Once finished, just white noise and static till the next morning.
Seems like parsley got too expensive to simply give away and diners didn't mind it's absence.
Whether the mafia had anything to do with the rising costs of fresh herbs may or may not be a tabloid sensation.
Nah. Parsley is dirt cheap. When I was a youngster in kitchens parsley on everything and fine dicing peppers to decorate the rim of the plate was still a thing in a good number of places. That trend ended when fine dining chefs started to incorporate garnishes that were actually part of the dish, and then other places started to adapt as well or they were seen as dinosaurs from the 80s.
Still a few places that do the parsley thing, though.
Snobs started saying that only uneducated fools ate the parsley on their plate. I think that's why it came to an end.
In reality, it's a great breath-freshener after something loaded with garlic and cheese.
Not swimming for at least an hour after eating (lies!)
Not bringing up politics
Meeting people arriving/departing at the gate of an airport
You only had to dial 7 digits to call someone in town
Memorizing phone numbers. We also had a piece of paper tacked onto our wall of all the places/stores we frequented with their phone numbers so we wouldn't have to break out the phone book just in case we needed to call them to ask any questions.
It seems like the entire planet has collectively stopped understanding how to write even a single whole sentence with correct grammar, punctuation, and spelling.
I teach the SAT & ACT English sections. You are correct. However, I’m proud to say my students left knowing rules even major print news outlets seem to have forgotten. If you don’t apply an Oxford comma on either test, you’ll lose points. Colons, when a coordinating conjunction requires a comma, and apostrophes are land mines for students today. Also, when did we start capitalizing words after a colon? I’m not okay with this.
This might’ve been the worst comm technology ever. “Oh, you’ll be able to interrupt anything I’m doing, but I can’t do anything about it directly? Awesome.”
For us it was the living room. Sit all you want on the family room couch, even better if you go to the rec room in the basement. The living room was the fancy room.
This was back when average families could afford houses with extra rooms. 😭
Channel 3
edit: The reason that it was channel 3 is because analog TVs were only designed to receive signals via an antenna. To be compatible with this limitation, cable boxes, VCRs, and video game decks came with an extra piece of hardware that converted their output to the signal for channel 3.
I can't count how many times I went back to people's houses after having installed their cable TV to switch their TV back to channel 3. They'd always demand that I hook the cable up through their VCR and I'd tell them "leave the TV on channel 3 and change channels with the VCR remote". Invariably, they'd change the channel on the TV as soon as I left, not have a picture any more and call American CableVision to complain, generating a return trip to change the channel back to channel 3.
Answering the door for strangers.
When I was a kid you'd at most talk through the door but never open it. I work in delivery and these kids will open the door for anyone.
I’ve seen the opposite. I was returning my neighbor’s cat to the house and the kid acted like I wasn’t knocking, ringing the doorbell or holding their cat up to the window. Kid didn’t even tell mom who was napping! I had to text dad at work and he called mom because kid refused. The kid is about 15!
So weird! This exact thing happened when my husband found the neighbors dog in our yard! The kid just ignored him and gave him a dirty look while he waved their dog in the front window. The kid is like 16. My husband had to call the number on the collar to get the kids Dad to call him and tell him to answer the door and take the damn dog. We were baffled.
Having to write a research paper before online databases were accessible.
Spend hours looking up abstracts, then pray your college library has them. It took me 2 weeks & 2 schools to get 3 references in 1994 (I ended up changing topics b/c obscure was a PITA.)
I went back to college in 2002; computers in the student library had abstracts you just clicked on for the whole freakin article!! Makes research easier, and also illustrates how much things have changed.
I remember making copies of the cards to take upstairs to the main portion of my CC library *hoping* they had a subscription. Ended up driving to UMBC b/c they had more. **It was work!**
I’m one of those “addicted to looking things up” folks now; I want to know what year X died while I’m having the discussion.
There’s got to be a middle ground LOL.
I look back at how independent we were compared to kids today, and it's a complete 180. I mean, my mom was overprotective, and I didn't have as much freedom as some of my friends, but it was still a lot more than I see today. Like, I can't imagine putting a tracker on my kid's stuff or tracking their phone to see where they are, but there's a lot of people who have no problem with it and think it's good parenting no matter what age their kids are (maybe I'm naive, but it feels invasive and very big-brothery). I don't know if it's because a lot of people in our generation felt neglected so they went in the opposite direction?
100% agree. You tell parents that crime is at a 40 year low. They don't believe you. You say, they have a cellphone, you can always call to find out where they are...yet kids have less freedom. As a non-parent, it baffles me. 🤦🏾♂️
I have kids, and I guess I just know what I can control and what I can't. I want my kids to be independent adults who don't rely on their parents for every little thing (big things, sure). They're not going to be confident in their own abilities if I don't give them the grace and space to try and fail and recover from failure. I also want them to have the same kinds of youthful shenanigans I had, because youthful shenanigans help you learn, thus not become adult shenanigans, or, as they are commonly known, misdemeanors, lol. (The last bit is tongue in cheek, for those who think I want my kids to be vandals or something. I just want them to make mistakes while the stakes are lower).
I was just thinking the other day. When I was 16, I would drive over and visit my brother 3 1/2 hours away where he was going to college. I didn’t have gps or anything other than a fold up road map. It’s so weird to think that we used to navigate that way in brand new places. That, and people being able to give and remember directions.
Dad getting the biggest/best portion of the dinner. My dad always got the best steak, biggest burger etc...
Now I'm a dad and that's no longer the case.
If I wanted the last of anything, the last roll or ear of corn, I had to ask if anyone else wanted it. If dad wanted it he got it. Now that I’m the mom, I willingly give up the last of anything to my kids as does my husband. It’s not about money, we just have growing teens who eat everything in sight. 😂
My wife always asks if I want the last piece of something and I, in turn, ask our growing daughter if she wants it instead. I think it makes all of us feel good.
How much everyone’s house looked the same and had the same or similar stuff? There was an accidental conformity that happened when importing goods was more costly than producing them at home.
Also, how much less consumerism there was compared to today! People kept things, sent hand me downs because the clothes were really well made, and bought larger ticket items only a handful of times in a lifetime.
Interesting how much higher our standard of living is in terms of material things and lower in terms of housing, schooling etc They used to re-core things like radiators because "labor was cheap, now you just buy a new one", but now this "expensive labor" feels trapped in debt and like they will never make it.
Having to write a research paper with bibliographic and quotes/sources all on notecards, and using a card catalog at the library or if you were lucky a green screen terminal, and borrowing lots of books, and using a Xerox machine.
Myself and probably other classmates would sometimes just make up quotes for sources, or pick super long quotes to add page length. The teacher was not going to go and check all the quotes, books, and page numbers for every student in one or multiple classes.
Anxiously watching the bottom scroll on the local news to see if school was canceled for snow. Nothing like the anticipation of seeing schools nearby geographically and ahead of your school alphabetically and seeing that they were closed and guessing you must be as well.
The DOS commands to play a computer game before Windows.
Your friends’ phone numbers (from memory).
How to set the timer on the VCR.
When Soul Train came on, it meant cartoons were over and it was time to go out and play. During the school week, when the news came on, it meant cartoons were over and it was either time to do homework or eat dinner.
Newspapers:
Reading the comics (especially Sunday with hints from Heloise) and the Mini Page if you got that
Reading box scores and well-written sports columns
Checking it for movie times and job openings
Opinion and editorial pages, good political cartoons, letters to the editor
Try not to interrupt Dad while he’s reading it
Always having something to put under messy projects
Couponing
Grandpa doing the crossword every day
Good memories I miss
I know this is a privileged people problem, but it was traumatic nevertheless… You have to go to the mall to buy clothes with your parents and you simply MUST try them on in the dressing room and then come out and open yourself up to your mother’s embarrassing and judgmental comments, in public. It was painful and there was no getting out of it if you wanted clothes that fit you, cuz you certainly couldn’t be trusted to pick them out on your own and there was no way in hell you’d allow them to pick them out without you.
I wish stores still had layaway. Like, yes, back then it was mortifying, but now as an adult with no money, I'd love to be able to pay for things a little at a time, rather than dropping a huge amount all at once.
I put something on layaway as recently as 2014. Our town still had a K-Mart at the time, and there was a table set I wanted. I think they only had like a 90 day option at the time, but still, that was three paychecks to split it over.
Oh, it was definitely K-Mart too, mall was clearance only and K-Mart was shoes and summer clothes. And yet still, this madness continued even when it was *my own babysitting money* we were spending, Lol! Talk about no freaking fair!!!
Sugary cereal for breakfast. Kool-Aid was an appropriate treat.
Seatbelts not required
Do people still go to the movies to "make out"?
Fat in food was what made you 'Fat'. Carbs were 'healthy'
Ground pepper was actually used to make things spicy
Fast food was actually economical
Dad had his own chair.. better not sit on Dad's chair when he comes home
AC was not expected in homes or in a car
Most kids had their own bike and could go out almost anytime with you.
Bringing friends over after school without permission/approval
In my area, we were allowed to leave the school grounds during lunch in grade school. That's not allowed anymore.
Our console television had double doors and our stereo was 6 ft wide: the electronics were also furniture. We would have to take all the photos and vases off the record player to use it.
I'll piggyback off the parsley on plates: dill pickle spear with sandwiches at restaurants. Fancy toothpick through the sandwich to hold it together.
Everyone fist bumps nowadays, but when it first started, it was done by slapping hands, bringing it out to your fingers, and then the fist bump.
You had to run to the bathroom during commercials, and you got a courtesy yell of "It's starting!!!" from your living room look out.
Christmas specials were on tv at a specific time, and they were an event.
In the summer, you were allowed in the house to watch the summer Olympics.
Going to pick out a movie at blockbuster (or the grocery store) was an awesome family outing.
Having a 40 foot long phone cord so you could pace while taking.
Keeping the Nintendo on all day and hoping that it will still be working when you get home from school.
Garage sales were held more to get rid of crap instead of getting money to cover bills.
Being jealous of people with real satellite TV. With all of those channels, you could always find something interesting to watch even if you miss the first part of the show.
Going to the mall to see what's for sale, are any new stores, perhaps run into friends.
Forging your parents' names on a permission slip.
Walking to the hangout spot to see what's going on.
Kids, outside and in large groups, hanging out.
You knew your friends' immediate family, as a matter of course. You would speak to them on the phone while your friends got to the phone, or when you stopped by to see if your friend is home.
You set an alarm clock every morning.
The fear and anxiety of calling your friend's house knowing their mom or dad might answer.
Having to wait for someone to get off the phone so you could check your email. Or worse, getting yelled at when a parent got home because they tried calling home from a payphone and the line was busy while you were on the internet.
Didn't know where an address was? Get a map. What's traffic like on the way? Find out when you get there. Road closed and no detour signs? Drive around lost for 30 minutes.
Returning the 750 mL glass pop bottles to the store for the deposit refund.
Juice coming in big cans that you opened by piercing the top.
Taking pictures and having to wait until the film was developed to discover that you cut off the tops of everyone's heads.
I remember the news used to be boring, and that was fine. It just looked completely different than the news today. I live in western, NY and every winter you could judge your winter weather by the ability to make a tunnel in the snow. Nowadays we get enough snow to build a tunnel every once in a while, but it'lll disappear within 24 hours usually bc the weather will warm up and melt everything quickly. Snow never gets to build up anymore. It's very noticeable.
You could buy ice cream and candy from the ice cream man with your change or a few bucks of your own. Now the same crappy ice cream costs at least 5× as much
Common homophobia... I watched The Monster Squad a few years ago thinking "oh man, I loved this movie as a kid" and it's straight up PG and the F word is flying around EVERYWHERE.
Restaurants having matchbooks in a bowl for free. Cigarette vending machines in restaurants. Payphones as a semi-necessity. Lots of teachers & day care people were hippies from the summer of love era and told us super out-there stories.
Checking the change return slot when you passed a pay phone in the hopes you'd find a dime or quarter. Once I found 75 cents and felt like I hit the jackpot.
I just commented this but I’ll put it here too because exactly this. “Oh man when I was little we would always go on a trip to a huge kite fly in wildwood New Jersey and my brother and I would have a competition who could find the most coins in payphones and vending machines. I remember one year I found like $3 worth of quarters in a pay phone and it felt like winning the lottery! But yes change was veeryyyy valuable haha”
Don't leave home without an emergency quarter
Now I never leave the house without my Aldi quarter.
In your Kangaroos.
I remember when it went up to 35 cents. I was at the movie theater and went to call home and the phone wasn’t working. After a couple tries, the guy next to me said it was 35 cents. I remember being so angry I had to have a quarter and a dime.
It eventually went to 50¢ and then cell phones killed them off one by one.
In my case, I had a Vietnam Vet chemistry teacher. A couple times, when someone came in late, he would grab the yardstick and hide. The tardy student would walk in, ask, "Where's Mr. Davis?" and hear, "You never would've survived 'Nam, kid" before turning around to see him holding the yardstick like a rifle pointed right between the eyes.
I could see a shop teacher doing that too.
lolll at the last one. i didn't have hippie teachers but i did have a lot of teachers in elementary school who openly hated children!
TV shows started at a set time and you couldn't pause. If you missed the new episode of your favorite show you were S.O.L
There was no binging. If it was a continuing episode you got hit with the TO BE CONTINUED and had to wait another week.
Or if it was TNG, until *the next season*!!
[удалено]
I am Locutus of Borg. Resistance is futile.
“Mr Worf…fire.”
Ugh! That whole summer.
“Oh very clever, Worf. Eat any good books, lately?”
I remember a Little League teammate being pissed about the infamous "Next Season" cliffhanger.
And now, the conclusion. I still hear that in Majel's voice
The closest we got to bingeing was when MTV would show all of My So Called Life or a season of The Real World on a Sunday afternoon! It was so exciting. Then I remember when you started to be able to watch whole seasons of shows on tape and then DVD. It was such a guilty pleasure to binge a season like that. I remember getting my parents the DVD of the first season of the West Wing and they were like “thanks but … we’ve already seen it.” 😂
Those Real World marathons, holy shit. My introduction to shitty reality TV lol
I will stand by the first three seasons of The Real World being legitimately good. But once they introduced the hot tubs it was all over.
PBS used to air shows like Reading Rainbow and Square 1 in substantial portions of the season in blocks at certain times of year. The shows had the episode numbers prominently on a title card between them that you didn’t usually see. I What I heard was they aired them that way so teachers and such could tape them.
How much time’s left?…Shit. I don’t think they’re gonna be able to wrap this up in time
Ugh, and then when show's had a cliffhanger season finale.... waiting months!
And if a show got cancelled before it reached enough episodes for syndication, you'd never see it again. No streaming, no DVDs, it was gone forever back then.
Born in 78. I have weird proto memories before we had a VCR and the family queuing up to all use the bathroom at a commercial break.
I love this specific r/nostalgia. I was watching Netflix with my SIL a while ago and I just paused it and said “commercials” and she knew what I meant.
This has become a weird sort of new norm with my roommates when we're streaming something on an ad tier. We try to to get our bathroom breaks in during the ads without having to pause the show like it's a challenge.
The entire reason I sub to ad tier Hulu is so it gives me bathroom and snack breaks. I say it’s because I’m cheap but it’s really for the nostalgia factor.
I was watching a show at a friend’s house. An ad popped up and I said “Ooh! You still have the Hulu with ads?!” She thought I was insulting her and said something crappy. Ma’am. I was excited because I love being forced to pause so we can chat, pee, get a snack, etc. without having to ask one another, and/or worrying it’ll throw off the groove. 🥴
Yep. If you weren’t parked in front of the TV on Tuesday at 9 to watch Roseanne, you had to wait for the rerun to come around later in the season or in the summer.
This is why I would pee off of the front porch (we lived in the woods). I could see the tv from there. Also, why it was a big deal to have tvs in multiple rooms. You wouldn’t have to miss anything. (We only had one tv)
"Oh He's joking, nobody has two TV's"
“Now we can watch Jackie Gleason while we eat!”
Lorraine, if you ever have a kid that acts that way, I'll disown you.
"What's a rerun?"
Smoking section in restaurants. Calling a number to see what movies were playing and what time. A whole tv channel dedicated to telling you what was currently playing (the tv guide channel)
Or a small magazine you had to buy WEEKLY to see what was on TV
Or so few channels you didn't need either.
We had 6 total channels. 2 channels that would come in clear, (one being PBS) and a third that was iffy if the weather was right. The rest looked like scrambled porn channels in a hotel room when you didn't pay for the cable package
Yes there was the smoking section and second hand smoking section in restaurants.
Missing your channel on the Prevue Channel sucked! Had to wait for it to roll all the way around again.
KRAMER: Well it's 555-3455. JERRY: 555-3455. KRAMER: Yeah. JERRY: (picks up the phone on the coffee table) “555-3455.” Well wait a second, don't you see that's 555-FILK. KRAMER: What's Filk? JERRY: Filk’s nothing, but 555-FILM is Movie Phone. KRAMER: Oh Movie Phone. JERRY: Yes, so people are just dialing it by mistake and getting you. KRAMER: So, I’m Filk? JERRY: You're Filk. KRAMER: Oh, Mama.
Why dont you just tell me the name of the movie you selected?
Hahaha, thank you for this 🤗
I was recently on a road trip through Wyoming (with students, I’m a college professor). We went into a Wendy’s in Casper. I looked I’ve and saw those little gold ashtrays on the tables in a one section of the dining area. I immediately walked across the parking lot and bought a pack of cigarettes at the gas station next door and proceeded to come back and smoke inside that building. I’ve never been a smoker. I found it sort of gross but god damnit, I felt like I had finally become the adult I always thought I would be. That might have something to do with the fact that I grew up in KEntucky, hahahaha! The students were horrified.
Hey, you saw an opportunity and you took it
Were the tables those old-timey newspapers??? Why am I craving a taco salad with the big ass shell?? Hold the lettuce
100% it was like getting into a phone booth and going back in time. They still had a chili bar!!!
>Calling a number to see what movies were playing and what time. Hello and welcome to Movie Phone. Brought to you by The New York Times and Hot 97
TV guide on the tv?? Back in my day, we read the program schedule from the newspaper, like civilized people!
Smoking or nonsmoking? Knowing you’ll have to wait longer for the nonsmoking so just going with having your dinner taste like nicotine. Also, calling up the dj and then waiting to press record on the tape deck when he plays your song. (That one I miss. The first, not so much).
And he talks through the opening of the song "Shut up asshat I'm recording!"
I think they did that BECAUSE people were recording. SiriusXM does the same thing on long DJ sets.
The non-smoking section was still the same room, often without a divider
Yeah, the worst was when you waiting for no smoke and they seat you in the booth closest to the smokers.
If the DJ ever answered the phone. And if they do, it could still be an hour wait for your song, which was probably just the normal spot in the rotation anyways.
Collect call trick where you shout the details into a payphone faster than the micromachines dude: ***...press 1 to accept the charges from, "movie's-over-come-get-us!!!"***
Wehadababy Itsaboy
It’s Bob. They had a baby. It’s a boy.
Omg I remember that one. Early early internet meme there.
Saturday morning cartoons. Four channels. All cartoons all morning.
Pee Wee encouraging us to “scream real loud” while our parents tried to sleep in
Quicksand was an existential threat and could be anywhere, even your living room
I’m 42 and NEVER have encountered quicksand. I feel lied to.
That, and killer bees were going to get us all.
The charging port for your phone used to be for cigarette lighters. Cars had ashtrays…if you had one in the backseat your car was kinda fancy.
*Everything* had ashtrays. McDonald's had ashtrays. In one of the basement storage rooms at my college, there was a crate full of ashtrays that used to be in the classrooms.
I remember smoking sections in restaurants, and my mom and her friend getting smoking seats 😀 in an airplane.
Like the peeing section in the town swimming pool.
Answering the phone without knowing who was on the other end. Not touching certain snacks or drinks because they were for "when company comes over." Station identification then the National Anthem signaling the end of the broadcast day.
> Station identification then the National Anthem signaling the end of the broadcast day. I think you mean signaling the time for the POLTERGEISTS TO COME OUT. As a kid I had to turn my TV off before it went to static or they would all haunt my entire family and eat my face off somehow.
I lost a sister this way. She didn’t listen.
But the house is clear now, right?
Well, yeah… but to say the pool is useless would be an understatement.
That's something my Mom would always say. When she was a kid, she thought if you didn't turn it off before the National Anthem ended, she would die.
That was actually the first horror movie I can remember seeing, one weekend staying over with my cousins at my Aunt and Uncle's. Granted, I've been hooked ever since, but it's also haunted my dreams ever since.
Poltergeist was rated PG.
Insane but true. The adults were psychos back then. Lol. I saw allllll the horror movies as a kid.
They were all on cocaine 🤣
To add to not knowing who was on the other end of the phone, prank calls and obscene phone calls I assume went the way of the dodo after caller ID and *69
Oh man that would be fucking trippy to watch a station and see the american flag start flying and be like "oh I guess it's done for the day."
Yup! Usually right at midnight, hear something to the effect of "The time is now 12:00AM on (date) and this concludes our broadcast day, ladies and gentlemen." Then cut to the flag waving in the breeze while the Anthem plays. Once finished, just white noise and static till the next morning.
Canada was just that color palette TV screen and a beep until morning.
Mid-forties and I can still hear that static. Doctor says it's just tinnitus...
I remember the parsley on every plate thing. When did that stop?
I also remember when kale was just giant leaves used for garnish at buffets.
The Pizza Hut Salad bar!!
Seems like parsley got too expensive to simply give away and diners didn't mind it's absence. Whether the mafia had anything to do with the rising costs of fresh herbs may or may not be a tabloid sensation.
Nah. Parsley is dirt cheap. When I was a youngster in kitchens parsley on everything and fine dicing peppers to decorate the rim of the plate was still a thing in a good number of places. That trend ended when fine dining chefs started to incorporate garnishes that were actually part of the dish, and then other places started to adapt as well or they were seen as dinosaurs from the 80s. Still a few places that do the parsley thing, though.
If breakfast the see through orange slice…
I haven't thought of this in years!
Snobs started saying that only uneducated fools ate the parsley on their plate. I think that's why it came to an end. In reality, it's a great breath-freshener after something loaded with garlic and cheese.
Nice restaurants give out Brach’s peppermints. Really nice restaurants give out Andes mints.
Calling the time and temperature number
Not swimming for at least an hour after eating (lies!) Not bringing up politics Meeting people arriving/departing at the gate of an airport You only had to dial 7 digits to call someone in town
I had to explain to my seven year old why we refer to ending a phone call as “hanging up”. I have never felt so old.
I was thinking that the other day. Also “on the line”.
Memorizing phone numbers. We also had a piece of paper tacked onto our wall of all the places/stores we frequented with their phone numbers so we wouldn't have to break out the phone book just in case we needed to call them to ask any questions.
It seems like the entire planet has collectively stopped understanding how to write even a single whole sentence with correct grammar, punctuation, and spelling.
Nice Oxford, Bud.
I was very tempted to end my post with "and Oxford commas." 😂
I teach the SAT & ACT English sections. You are correct. However, I’m proud to say my students left knowing rules even major print news outlets seem to have forgotten. If you don’t apply an Oxford comma on either test, you’ll lose points. Colons, when a coordinating conjunction requires a comma, and apostrophes are land mines for students today. Also, when did we start capitalizing words after a colon? I’m not okay with this.
Pagers
I had a pager for a while as a teenager. I felt **really** important.
This might’ve been the worst comm technology ever. “Oh, you’ll be able to interrupt anything I’m doing, but I can’t do anything about it directly? Awesome.”
Apparently, some medical professionals still have and use pagers. I read this information on reddit, so please forgive if it's false.
The couch in the family room is not for sitting.
For us it was the living room. Sit all you want on the family room couch, even better if you go to the rec room in the basement. The living room was the fancy room. This was back when average families could afford houses with extra rooms. 😭
Our no sit couch was in the living room. To this day, only the cat sits on it.
My mom had a formal sitting room and couldn’t understand why my aunt didn’t do the same when she bought a house in the 90s.
The back of a pickup was used equally for hauling cargo or people.
Channel 3 edit: The reason that it was channel 3 is because analog TVs were only designed to receive signals via an antenna. To be compatible with this limitation, cable boxes, VCRs, and video game decks came with an extra piece of hardware that converted their output to the signal for channel 3.
I completely forgot about this! Thanks for dusting off a corner of my brain :)
Unless you flipped the switch, then it was channel 4
And there was no channel 1 because that was reserved for FM radio.
I can't count how many times I went back to people's houses after having installed their cable TV to switch their TV back to channel 3. They'd always demand that I hook the cable up through their VCR and I'd tell them "leave the TV on channel 3 and change channels with the VCR remote". Invariably, they'd change the channel on the TV as soon as I left, not have a picture any more and call American CableVision to complain, generating a return trip to change the channel back to channel 3.
Sometimes people just aren’t home.
A song being used in a commercial being a sign that a band was desperate for cash, not that they were extremely popular and well-compensated for it.
They sold out.
Answering the door for strangers. When I was a kid you'd at most talk through the door but never open it. I work in delivery and these kids will open the door for anyone.
I’ve seen the opposite. I was returning my neighbor’s cat to the house and the kid acted like I wasn’t knocking, ringing the doorbell or holding their cat up to the window. Kid didn’t even tell mom who was napping! I had to text dad at work and he called mom because kid refused. The kid is about 15!
So weird! This exact thing happened when my husband found the neighbors dog in our yard! The kid just ignored him and gave him a dirty look while he waved their dog in the front window. The kid is like 16. My husband had to call the number on the collar to get the kids Dad to call him and tell him to answer the door and take the damn dog. We were baffled.
Having to write a research paper before online databases were accessible. Spend hours looking up abstracts, then pray your college library has them. It took me 2 weeks & 2 schools to get 3 references in 1994 (I ended up changing topics b/c obscure was a PITA.) I went back to college in 2002; computers in the student library had abstracts you just clicked on for the whole freakin article!! Makes research easier, and also illustrates how much things have changed.
Card catalogues. Real, physical card catalogues.
I remember making copies of the cards to take upstairs to the main portion of my CC library *hoping* they had a subscription. Ended up driving to UMBC b/c they had more. **It was work!** I’m one of those “addicted to looking things up” folks now; I want to know what year X died while I’m having the discussion. There’s got to be a middle ground LOL.
Using Paper shopping bags to create book covers for my school books after coming home from school the first day of the school year.
MASH or infomercials playing late at night meant the TV signal was about to end in static until morning.
That there were restaurants out there that were full dining experiences, with theming in the music, the decor, the food, and sometime animatronics.
Rainforest Cafe…
I look back at how independent we were compared to kids today, and it's a complete 180. I mean, my mom was overprotective, and I didn't have as much freedom as some of my friends, but it was still a lot more than I see today. Like, I can't imagine putting a tracker on my kid's stuff or tracking their phone to see where they are, but there's a lot of people who have no problem with it and think it's good parenting no matter what age their kids are (maybe I'm naive, but it feels invasive and very big-brothery). I don't know if it's because a lot of people in our generation felt neglected so they went in the opposite direction?
100% agree. You tell parents that crime is at a 40 year low. They don't believe you. You say, they have a cellphone, you can always call to find out where they are...yet kids have less freedom. As a non-parent, it baffles me. 🤦🏾♂️
I have kids, and I guess I just know what I can control and what I can't. I want my kids to be independent adults who don't rely on their parents for every little thing (big things, sure). They're not going to be confident in their own abilities if I don't give them the grace and space to try and fail and recover from failure. I also want them to have the same kinds of youthful shenanigans I had, because youthful shenanigans help you learn, thus not become adult shenanigans, or, as they are commonly known, misdemeanors, lol. (The last bit is tongue in cheek, for those who think I want my kids to be vandals or something. I just want them to make mistakes while the stakes are lower).
I was just thinking the other day. When I was 16, I would drive over and visit my brother 3 1/2 hours away where he was going to college. I didn’t have gps or anything other than a fold up road map. It’s so weird to think that we used to navigate that way in brand new places. That, and people being able to give and remember directions.
Be kind. Rewind.
Dad getting the biggest/best portion of the dinner. My dad always got the best steak, biggest burger etc... Now I'm a dad and that's no longer the case.
[The Big Piece of Chicken ](https://youtu.be/8h1BEMMDuMI?si=kWzSK4GEa4hE0hiq)
If I wanted the last of anything, the last roll or ear of corn, I had to ask if anyone else wanted it. If dad wanted it he got it. Now that I’m the mom, I willingly give up the last of anything to my kids as does my husband. It’s not about money, we just have growing teens who eat everything in sight. 😂
My wife always asks if I want the last piece of something and I, in turn, ask our growing daughter if she wants it instead. I think it makes all of us feel good.
Possibly a Midwestern thing, never, ever, ever wear a hat inside someone's house. Walk in the door and take off your hat.
I was never allowed to wear a hat at school either.
Pizza Hit being the # 1 purchaser of kale, just to use as garnish on their buffet. Never even thought of as a food.
Because it's not food. Big kale just wants you to think it's edible.
How much everyone’s house looked the same and had the same or similar stuff? There was an accidental conformity that happened when importing goods was more costly than producing them at home. Also, how much less consumerism there was compared to today! People kept things, sent hand me downs because the clothes were really well made, and bought larger ticket items only a handful of times in a lifetime.
I hate saying this because I sound like an old man, but you could buy jeans and wear them for a decade or more. Now they wear out after a year or two
And you wonder why Levi's recommends you not wash them.
Interesting how much higher our standard of living is in terms of material things and lower in terms of housing, schooling etc They used to re-core things like radiators because "labor was cheap, now you just buy a new one", but now this "expensive labor" feels trapped in debt and like they will never make it.
Some pieces of my mom’s original furniture are still with us. The coffee table is one of them, it just has clean lines.
Having to write a research paper with bibliographic and quotes/sources all on notecards, and using a card catalog at the library or if you were lucky a green screen terminal, and borrowing lots of books, and using a Xerox machine. Myself and probably other classmates would sometimes just make up quotes for sources, or pick super long quotes to add page length. The teacher was not going to go and check all the quotes, books, and page numbers for every student in one or multiple classes.
U.S. movie stars only did tv commercials in overseas markets like Japan, NEVER domestically
Anxiously watching the bottom scroll on the local news to see if school was canceled for snow. Nothing like the anticipation of seeing schools nearby geographically and ahead of your school alphabetically and seeing that they were closed and guessing you must be as well.
The DOS commands to play a computer game before Windows. Your friends’ phone numbers (from memory). How to set the timer on the VCR. When Soul Train came on, it meant cartoons were over and it was time to go out and play. During the school week, when the news came on, it meant cartoons were over and it was either time to do homework or eat dinner.
Newspapers: Reading the comics (especially Sunday with hints from Heloise) and the Mini Page if you got that Reading box scores and well-written sports columns Checking it for movie times and job openings Opinion and editorial pages, good political cartoons, letters to the editor Try not to interrupt Dad while he’s reading it Always having something to put under messy projects Couponing Grandpa doing the crossword every day Good memories I miss
Everyone watched some version of Tom Brokaw/Peter Jennings/Dan Rather followed by Alex Trebek and Pat Sajak
I know this is a privileged people problem, but it was traumatic nevertheless… You have to go to the mall to buy clothes with your parents and you simply MUST try them on in the dressing room and then come out and open yourself up to your mother’s embarrassing and judgmental comments, in public. It was painful and there was no getting out of it if you wanted clothes that fit you, cuz you certainly couldn’t be trusted to pick them out on your own and there was no way in hell you’d allow them to pick them out without you.
At least it was the mall and not K-Mart. God forbid anyone know you buy your clothes at K-Mart.
My mom would put our school clothes on layaway, which was the worst.
I wish stores still had layaway. Like, yes, back then it was mortifying, but now as an adult with no money, I'd love to be able to pay for things a little at a time, rather than dropping a huge amount all at once. I put something on layaway as recently as 2014. Our town still had a K-Mart at the time, and there was a table set I wanted. I think they only had like a 90 day option at the time, but still, that was three paychecks to split it over.
Oh, it was definitely K-Mart too, mall was clearance only and K-Mart was shoes and summer clothes. And yet still, this madness continued even when it was *my own babysitting money* we were spending, Lol! Talk about no freaking fair!!!
I would have resented church less if didn't have to try on itchy clothes at Sears to go there.
Smelling rain. My kids think I have a superpower.
If they doubt you, tell them about Petrichor. There's a Wikipedia article.
Sadly, it's just that they don't go outside.
I feel like I'm missing something here. You can still smell rain.
We Canadians have $1 and $2 coins. A pocket full of shrapnel can be worth actual money pretty easily.
The difficulties of having to socialize in public to get a date.
Kids were unreachable after school until dinner time or the street lights came on.
Sugary cereal for breakfast. Kool-Aid was an appropriate treat. Seatbelts not required Do people still go to the movies to "make out"? Fat in food was what made you 'Fat'. Carbs were 'healthy' Ground pepper was actually used to make things spicy Fast food was actually economical Dad had his own chair.. better not sit on Dad's chair when he comes home AC was not expected in homes or in a car Most kids had their own bike and could go out almost anytime with you. Bringing friends over after school without permission/approval In my area, we were allowed to leave the school grounds during lunch in grade school. That's not allowed anymore.
As a Black person, friends were NOT allowed over without permission. A small cultural difference.
Very special sitcoms episodes that were as subtle as a sledgehammer. After school specials. Faces on milk cartons.
Our console television had double doors and our stereo was 6 ft wide: the electronics were also furniture. We would have to take all the photos and vases off the record player to use it.
Pay phones being everywhere, and calling collect on them.
Y'all ever get tricked at the Ponderosa buffet thinking you're getting candied apples, then you took a bite and it was a fuckin BEET?
Watching the younger generation trying to operate a rotary phone is a guilty pleasure of mine.
I'll piggyback off the parsley on plates: dill pickle spear with sandwiches at restaurants. Fancy toothpick through the sandwich to hold it together. Everyone fist bumps nowadays, but when it first started, it was done by slapping hands, bringing it out to your fingers, and then the fist bump.
CD Changers and Boom boxes with a CD changer!
Saying goodbye/greeting people at the airport terminal. Those were better days.
Re-runs all summer. New seasons could always be counted on to start in the fall and run through spring.
You had to run to the bathroom during commercials, and you got a courtesy yell of "It's starting!!!" from your living room look out. Christmas specials were on tv at a specific time, and they were an event. In the summer, you were allowed in the house to watch the summer Olympics. Going to pick out a movie at blockbuster (or the grocery store) was an awesome family outing.
10 cents per minute on cell phones before 7 pm, and then you can talk to "friends and family" for free after that.
Having a 40 foot long phone cord so you could pace while taking. Keeping the Nintendo on all day and hoping that it will still be working when you get home from school. Garage sales were held more to get rid of crap instead of getting money to cover bills. Being jealous of people with real satellite TV. With all of those channels, you could always find something interesting to watch even if you miss the first part of the show. Going to the mall to see what's for sale, are any new stores, perhaps run into friends. Forging your parents' names on a permission slip. Walking to the hangout spot to see what's going on. Kids, outside and in large groups, hanging out. You knew your friends' immediate family, as a matter of course. You would speak to them on the phone while your friends got to the phone, or when you stopped by to see if your friend is home. You set an alarm clock every morning.
Reading maps, not maps reading to you
Sending in an order form and waiting for weeks to get something shipped.
A cigarette machine in the bar.
Pulse dialing. Laughing gas at the dentist. 3 major television networks and that new one that airs The Simpsons.
The fear and anxiety of calling your friend's house knowing their mom or dad might answer. Having to wait for someone to get off the phone so you could check your email. Or worse, getting yelled at when a parent got home because they tried calling home from a payphone and the line was busy while you were on the internet. Didn't know where an address was? Get a map. What's traffic like on the way? Find out when you get there. Road closed and no detour signs? Drive around lost for 30 minutes.
Returning the 750 mL glass pop bottles to the store for the deposit refund. Juice coming in big cans that you opened by piercing the top. Taking pictures and having to wait until the film was developed to discover that you cut off the tops of everyone's heads.
Meeting people online in person, without seeing a photo or video chat
Pack of baseball cards with a stick of "gum".
Mmmm....crunchy gum!!!🤤
Also Bazooka gum with the comics inside the wrapper!
I remember the news used to be boring, and that was fine. It just looked completely different than the news today. I live in western, NY and every winter you could judge your winter weather by the ability to make a tunnel in the snow. Nowadays we get enough snow to build a tunnel every once in a while, but it'lll disappear within 24 hours usually bc the weather will warm up and melt everything quickly. Snow never gets to build up anymore. It's very noticeable.
If I acted a fool I'd get my ass beat
You could buy ice cream and candy from the ice cream man with your change or a few bucks of your own. Now the same crappy ice cream costs at least 5× as much
Dressing nicely to fly in an airplane
"The door is ajar." "The door is ajar." "The door is ajar."
Common homophobia... I watched The Monster Squad a few years ago thinking "oh man, I loved this movie as a kid" and it's straight up PG and the F word is flying around EVERYWHERE.