When I was your age...

[Deleted]

(This thread reminds me of my dad, who used to ask my friends how old they were and then when they said "Twelve," he would say ""When I was your age I was 15!")

That's hilarious! That sounds like something the dad from Freaks and Geeks would have said.

Speaking of Freaks and Geeks, I was in school when they were in school. So, I could actually relate on a personal level.

I'll second the mention of SNL actually being funny. Yeah, those were the days...

[lemons]

More when I was your age fun:

When you went to McDonalds and ordered certain foods, they came in styrofoam boxes and you were obligated to put your French fries in the top part.

Dan Rather just replaced Walter Cronkite on the CBS Evening News

I had school detention the week the Challenger exploded.

My bologna had a first name.

[mcat15]

When I was your age:
It was Punks vs. Preppies

SNL really was funny and you tried to make it home on Saturday night to watch it since nobody had VCRs

A stereo with a turntable, AM/FM radio and cassette recorder was the best Christmas present ever!

I never thought I'd hear a Ramones song in a beer ad or a Clash song in a Jaguar ad or Elvis Costello collaborating with Burt Bacharach

We had something called VUE, which was predecessor of Cable TV but it was only one channel which showed movies like The Rose, Animal House and the classic Summer Lovers (which explains my Peter Gallagher love)

You had to get up at 6 am so you could get your Farrah Hair (which involved using blowdryer, curling iron, hot rollers and a half can of Aquanet) and be to school by 8 am

The gayness of the Village People eluded much of America

Grease was the word

Bruce Springsteen wasn't all muscular and reportedly lived on Twinkies and Pepsi

Basketball players wore shorts instead of those baggy drawers they wear nowadays

We didn't have Zima but we had Boone's Farm Tickled Pink and Country Qwencher and the drinking age was 18

Charles and Di had a fairytale wedding and we thought they'd live happily ever after

[tmi]

We didn't have Zima but we had Boone's Farm Tickled Pink and Country Qwencher and the drinking age was 18

Because of the drinking age, when we were freshmen the seniors could buy us booze in our state (and later we were grandfathered in across the river).

You could leave the high school campus for lunch, and they only called your parents if you were absent more than 10! TIMES! in a quarter.

Later they programmed a robot thing to do this if you missed even one class period (the reagan years had arrived), and of course everyone pretended they were talking to someone when it called during dinner.

This was possible b/c not everyone had answering answering machines yet. And cellphones? DON'T make me laugh. (That could be a thread in itself-- life before cellphones).

[vacationland]

Hey, anyone else remember when your movie ticket cost less than five bucks? (nobody faint at feeling old, OR upset at the impossible prospect, ok?)

Dude, my movie tickets cost less than that now! Well, just for shows before 6pm, but still, the past does live on in some of your more sophisticated backwaters. After living in a major city for most of the last 2 decades (and paying $7-11 for movie tickets, over the years), I was as shocked as anyone to discover that movie bargains still existed here in the [comparative] sticks. I hadn't paid $4 a ticket since I was in college 20+ years ago!

This isn't the dollar movie theater, either...these are first-run films. Locals are still bitching because until 5 or 6 years ago, the ticket price was a dollar. Then it went up to $2 (gasp!) and then $3. Tuesday nights are still matinee prices, too. It's like having my own time machine back to 1982 or something.

Of course, when I was your age, you could buy a huge bucket of movie popcorn for a buck, too. Sodas were 35 cents. Now? At my local place, the food costs about twice as much as the tickets! And when I was your age, you didn't need to take out a second mortgage to spring for a package of Twizzlers, either.

I never thought I'd hear a Ramones song in a beer ad or a Clash song in a Jaguar ad or Elvis Costello collaborating with Burt Bacharach

Oh my God ain't that the truth! Right there with you on that one.

Count me in with those who:

Had to provide a credit card to rent a VCR (and to sign up for a video store membership)
Purchased a videotape for more than $50
Spent a week's pay on a Walkman (and it was duty free!)
Bought a pack of name-brand cigarettes for less than a buck (not on sale...and in a price-gouging convenience store, no less!)
Subscribed to Rolling Stone when it still had some relevence
Used an ATM for the first time at the age of 19 (in Europe, 'cause we didn't have 'em back home yet)
Had a rotary-dial phone until after I was out of college
Stayed up late to watch the first episode of SNL, but thougt that ultimately, SCTV was funnier
Once attended a Police concert with only 28 people in the audience (and paid $5 for my first U2 tickets).
Remember being shocked when the average car price on The Price is Right jumped to more than $3000!

[mostlyharmless]

In 1977 I can remember my dad phoning a friend in the US from here in the UK. You called the operator and told them the number, and then you'd hang up. An hour or so later, maybe, the operator would call back and say that they can now make the call for you.

In 1982 I went to university to study computers. The big "mainframe" thing that lived in its own room and powered thirty or so VDUs around the building? Its TOTAL memory, ALL it's hard drives etc, was 550Mb. I have that on a USB key fob now.

When 3.5 inch floppies came out we were all "Wow! 1.44 MB! I can get ALL my files on one disc!" My digital camera uses two Mb for EACH photograph!

The first car I ever owned that had electric windows, I'd sit there and use them, just so everyone could see what a cool guy I was. Though come to think of it, that was three months ago....

I can remember when vegetarians were weird.

There were three TV channels. Our TV at the time only had four buttons, so there was no way of getting five anyway!
All these channels shut down at 11.30 or midnight. MAYBE a movie or something would go on later. And they didn't start until nine in the morning.

In the papers here a couple of weeks ago they had a photograph of a bus being driven with a child sitting on the ledge at the base of the windscreen as it drove along a motorway. The whole article was what a complete lunatic the driver was and he should be locked up and shot for doing such a crazy and irresponsible thing.
And I was thinking "Hey, I used to do that when we went on school trips"

[Deleted]

It must've been 1973 when I was stationed at the US Naval Hospital in Bethesda and there was the "oil shortage" (*nudge*nudge* going on. We'd have to rotate people in and out of surgery so they could go fill their car on the correct even/odd day. I am SOOOOOO glad our leaders have made such great strides over the last thirty freaking years to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. [/sarcasm]

[garnet927]

...You had to wait for a movie to get shown on TV, if you wanted to see it again (& it wasn't in theaters anymore).

...You might have still owned & used a B&W TV (my first TV, circa age 11)

[Deleted]

When I was your age...(well, I'm 20, but still)

Big Brother was only a book.

Reality soaps were non-existent.

[prickle]

When I was your age....

Madonna showing off her bellybutton was considered scandalous.

Saying words like damn, bitch or ass weren't allowed on TV at all.

There were these things called phone booths. If you were out somewhere and needed to make a call, you had to walk around and find one. And a call was only 10 cents. Also? Some phones didn't have push buttons. They had big ol' rotary dials.

Most cars didn't have air conditioning. And you didn't have to wear seatbelts. Even if you were driving.

There was no such thing as PG-13. There was G, PG, R and X. That was it.

Gas was 85 cents a gallon.

You could buy candy for a PENNY at the store.

Velcro shoes were considered high tech.