When I was your age...

[chiqui]

My brother was born in 1969 and dads still weren't allowed in the delivery room. My dad tells the story of how all of these fresh newborns were brought into the dads' room by the doctor and there was a cloud of smoke and then they'd light up cigars with the doctor while passing the baby around.

I still have my baby cigar box! It says "It's a girl" and there's a picture of a little Native American baby with a pigtail and a pink bow.

[Laira]

When I was your age, phones were capable of making calls only, and if you were a kid, you didn't use the phone much. "Why do you need to call your friend, they live three houses away?" said my depression era parents.

[chitowngirl]

Feb 7, 2019 10:40:17 GMT -4 Laira said:

When I was your age, phones were capable of making calls only, and if you were a kid, you didn't use the phone much. "Why do you need to call your friend, they live three houses away?" said my depression era parents.

Now I have to remind my husband and kids-that thing in your hand that you’re always staring at? It’s also a PHONE!

[scarlet]

Feb 7, 2019 10:40:17 GMT -4 Laira said:

When I was your age, phones were capable of making calls only, and if you were a kid, you didn't use the phone much. "Why do you need to call your friend, they live three houses away?" said my depression era parents.

Heh, I thank a higher being every day that cell phones didn't exist when I was a teenager, as my Dad would've had every alert imaginable on mine to keep track of me.

Also, my cousins and I still talk fondly (and laugh) at being at our grandparents' house where their only phone was a wall phone in the kitchen--with a rotary dial! God help you if you had to call someone with lots of nines in their number.

[Ladybug]

When we got call waiting, *69, three-way calling (wow, these are suggestive) it was like a wave of the future. Also, when you saw a family listed in the telephone book who had an extra line just for the kids (usually labeled "children's phone") you thought, "wow, they are rich."

My friend had a party line (woo hoo, party!) and we thought "now we can eavesdrop on people!" and were so excited. We ended up listening in on one end of what was obviously a real estate related call. Juicy stuff!

[scarlet]

I had my own landline when I was in high school and I thought I was hot shit, tbh.

[mrspickles]

Feb 7, 2019 11:40:42 GMT -4 Ladybug said:

When we got call waiting, *69, three-way calling (wow, these are suggestive) it was like a wave of the future. Also, when you saw a family listed in the telephone book who had an extra line just for the kids (usually labeled "children's phone") you thought, "wow, they are rich."

My friend had a party line (woo hoo, party!) and we thought "now we can eavesdrop on people!" and were so excited. We ended up listening in on one end of what was obviously a real estate related call. Juicy stuff!

I remember that there was some magic code you could dial that would call your number back right after you hung up. We used that to 'call' my sister for dinner all the time, since she was The Phone Answerer. It was usually for her anyway, and my dad had been known to mess with her friends when he answered. I always wondered what that feature was really meant for.

[mandasant]

Before call-waiting, if someone's line was busy, you could ask the operator to make an emergency breakthrough. Although we never had an actual emergency, my friends and I did this to each other all the time.

[mojogirl]

When I was in first grade, my family moved from Los Angeles to a much smaller city in California. Until I was in high school, you could call other houses in the city using just the last five digits of the phone number.

Also until I was in college, local calls from a payphone cost 10 cents. Kids always kept a dime in their shoe in case they had to call for a ride from their parents.

[Deleted]

I have never done a research paper using the internet as a tool to find information, I've only ever used books and journal articles. I used to have to read a ton of books for my papers and take lots of notes, and make sure I had all my citations straight and in the proper format.

And back when I was getting bullied, they basically had to do it to your face. I'm so glad the internet and social media weren't things when I was a kid, the in-person bullying was bad enough. Cyber-bullying would've scarred me even more deeply.