Remember When....

[Kitty 34]

Going to the restroom involved a trek out to the outhouse.

Going somewhere involved hitching up the horses.

OK, Floridaman999......just how OLD are you???

 

[Floridaman999]

OK, Floridaman999......just how OLD are you???

I guess it was a bit of an exaggeration. Or I'm Amish. Yeah, let's go with that. I'm Amish with a computer.

 

[Micca]

Most of the stores had restaurants in them. The dime stores, department stores like Pennies, drug stores and nice stores had tea rooms.

This reminds me that many stores used to carry records (now known as "vinyl")

 

[fla4fun]

OK, Floridaman999......just how OLD are you???

My grandparents lived on a farm when I was little. They had indoor plumbing, but they also had a functioning outhouse out behind the barn. As a kid, I thought it was “exotic” and asked to use the outhouse instead of the bathroom. They also had horses. I loved the farm, but they sold it about the time I started elementary school. It still exists. I look at it on Google maps every so often.

I am not old enough for senior discounts yet . . .

I remember getting excited when we got a second tv and a second landline telephone, so we kids didn’t have to share with the parents. I remember when we first got cable tv too. Technology changes so fast!

I remember the dime store restaurants. The last one I went to was in a McCrory’s at the small local mall when we first moved to Florida. Excellent grilled cheese and fries! I miss the huge downtown department stores. We had one that took up a whole block and was six stories tall. They did the animated store windows at Christmas and it was always a big deal to take the bus downtown to Christmas shop instead of hitting the local mall. I think they had five restaurants if I remember correctly. When I went to Harrods in London a few years back, it was like deja vu, the experience was so similar. Unfortunately the big department store is now converted to government offices .

 

[aunties]

Like Meriweather, I use a camera, my cell phone is not Web-enabled, and I use my fitbit as a watch. It was really funny to watch my 17-month old great nephew try and figure out how to talk on my camera. He did figure out how to turn it on and take a picture!

 

[ronandannette]

You got a paper paycheque and took it to the bank to stand in line and deposit it? You had a little passbook the teller put in a dot-matrix printer to record all your transactions and your balance? Or if you're even older, the teller used to write manually in your passbook (back in my parents' day). Oh, and it doesn't seem like all that long ago you still got all your cancelled cheques returned to you by mail every month.

 

[goofyernmost]

And you got exercise watching TV when having to get up and changing to either of the other two channels.

That's what we had children for... someone to change the channel. I bought a TV that had a push button tuner. They used to fight to be the one that changed the channel. We also had a roof antenna that was controlled by a dial inside. You had to turn the antenna to get certain channels with as little snow as possible.

I remember when my brother was hogging the internet and I wanted to make him mad, I could just pick up the phone and ruin his afternoon.

You're a mean one Mr. Grinch! And that sound that dial up internet had...

 

[tarheelmjfan]

That's what we had children for... someone to change the channel. I bought a TV that had a push button tuner. They used to fight to be the one that changed the channel. We also had a roof antenna that was controlled by a dial inside. You had to turn the antenna to get certain channels with as little snow as possible.

You're a mean one Mr. Grinch! And that sound that dial up internet had...

DH once told DS we had him so he could change the channels, when we couldn't find the remote.

 

[L&Lfan]

It was a draw that certain shows were broadcast in color. And now...Marlo Thomas in That Girl... IN COLOR!

 

[bcla]

And phones had cords and you always had service.

You never got "all circuits are busy"?

 

[bcla]

Remember when web pages loaded a line at a time on your 14.4k modem?

Not me. I've used dialup in the WWW era, but it was typically a 56k modem.

I remember a relative had a 300 baud modem and used it with a trial subscription for CompuServe and The Source. And a family friend let me use his work computer to just randomly type stuff in. It was connected to a mainframe via a standard phone handset on a cradle modem.

 

[barkley]

And phones had cords and you always had service.

now then, if you had a party line you had to wait your turn. they still had these in northern california in the 60's and i remember my dad grumbling about how much our phone bill was until mom reminded him it was either pay that amount or go back to sharing a number with 'some god knows who stranger'.

And cars didn't have seat belts.

sure they did-it was only in the front seat and consisted of your mother's right arm flying in front of you at every stop (drove me nuts when my mom aged into being the passenger w/me as the driver-out of habit she kept trying to throw her arm in front of me).

And cigarettes were healthy.

and the corner grocery store would let us buy packs for our parents when we we 6 and 7 and 8 (so long as they had a note on file giving them permission).

We also had a roof antenna that was controlled by a dial inside. You had to turn the antenna to get certain channels with as little snow as possible.

i remember those-i also remember watching satellite tv for the first time and thinking it was the most time consuming viewing ever b/c of the lengthy down time between changing channels when the satellite had to readjust.

 

[John VN]

Finally hit me ----

Stores were closed on Sundays and major holidays.

This law is STILL in effect in Bergen County, in northern NJ, (right across the George Washington Bridge from NYC.) They had a new vote on it a few years ago to repeal the law and the residents voted to still keep the Blue Law in effect. It may be the only county in the U.S. which still keeps it's Blue Law.

https://www.njtvonline.org/news/video/behind-bergen-countys-blue-laws/

LONG AGO Paramus Boy here so yes, I remember when

 

[Dan Murphy]

When you picked up the phone (no dial or touch buttons) and the operator would say, 'Number please?', and then manually connect you to your party being called. This was not in farm country, it was Chicago, in the early 50's.

 

[tcufrog]

I remember when it was a big deal to get a color TV, VCR and a CD player. I also remember our first remote. It was connected by a cable to our first VCR.

 

[AppleDumpling]

And phones had cords and you always had service.

I remember how frustrating it was to call someone and get a busy signal, and having to call them back until you could get through. And using a rotary phone to dial the number. We were so excited when we got a “push-button” phone!

As for the cords, at some point we got an extra long one (the curly kind), that could stretch from the kitchen wall phone down the hall into the bathroom, so we could have some privacy, LOL.

 

[tvguy]

You never got "all circuits are busy"?

Yes, when hurricanes hit where my FIL lived in Texas, but I would have gotten those with a cell phone too since the circuit congestion was on that end.

 

[tvguy]

now then, if you had a party line you had to wait your turn. they still had these in northern california in the 60's and i remember my dad grumbling about how much our phone bill was until mom reminded him it was either pay that amount or go back to sharing a number with 'some god knows who stranger'.

I was three when we shifted from a party line to a private line in 1960, so I never had to deal with party lines myself. But my mom talked about the few times her work (she was a nurse) had to call her into work in an emergency and they would have the operator cut in and tell the other person on the party line to hang up so they could reach my mom.

 

[AppleDumpling]

It was a draw that certain shows were broadcast in color. And now...Marlo Thomas in That Girl... IN COLOR!

Yes, I especially remember that from the opening credits of The Brady Bunch.

And NBC would show an animated graphic of their peacock logo spreading its feathers as the announcer said, “brought to you in living color”.

 

[soccerdad72]

I guess it was a bit of an exaggeration. Or I'm Amish. Yeah, let's go with that. I'm Amish with a computer.

You must have been the guy I drove behind the other day - in the van that was for an Amish Barn builder, with a URL on the back door