When I Was a Kid…

Here is one of those e-mails most of us wouldn’t read and just mark as SPAM. However, Lucy read it and shared this with everyone on her Blog. I loved it so much, I had to post it too (and re-share some cute pics of me from when I was a kid).

Read it and then check out my comments on these from when I was a kid (and while I am not 30 or older, I am kinda close so I can really relate to a lot of this)…


If you are 30, or older, you might 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… Barefoot…or Through Blizzards… BOTH ways. yadda, yadda, yadda.

And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on my 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 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! Stamps were 10 cents!

Child Protective Services didn’t care if our parents beat us. As a matter of fact, the parents of all my friends also had permission to kick our ass! Nowhere was safe!

There were no MP3’s or Napsters or iTunes! If you wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the 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! There were no CD players! We had tape decks in our car.. We’d play our favorite tape and “eject” it when finished, and then the tape would come undone, rendering it useless. Cause, hey, that’s how we rolled, Baby! Dig?

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!

There weren’t any freakin’ cell phones either. If you left the house, you just didn’t make a damn call or receive one. You actually had to be out of touch with your “friends.” OH MY GOD!!! Think of the horror… not being in touch with someone 24/7!!! And then there’s TEXTING. Yeah, right. Please! You kids have no idea how annoying you are.

And we didn’t have fancy Caller ID either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! It could be your school, your parents, your boss, your bookie, your drug dealer, the collection agent… you just didn’t know!!! You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!

We didn’t have any fancy PlayStation or Xbox video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! If we had anything, it was the Atari 2600! With games like ‘Space Invaders’ and ‘Asteroids’. Your screen 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!

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!!! NO REMOTES!!! Oh, no, what’s the world coming to?!?!

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 rat-finks!

And we didn’t have microwaves. If we wanted to heat something up, we had to use the stove! Imagine that!

And our parents told us to stay outside and play… all day long. Oh, no, no electronics to soothe and comfort. And if you came back inside… you were doing chores!

And car seats – oh, please! Mom threw you in the back seat and you hung on…just a lap belt “held” you in. If you were lucky, you got the “safety arm” across the chest at the last moment if she had to stop suddenly, and if your head hit the dashboard, well that was your fault for calling “shot gun” in the first place!

See! That’s exactly what I’m talking about! You kids today have got it too easy. You’re spoiled rotten! You guys wouldn’t have lasted five minutes back in the 1980’s or any time before!
Regards,
The Over 30 Crowd
(Send this to someone you’d like to make smile)

So, did you enjoy that too?

I remember sitting at the table with adults who were going on and on about how bad they had it when they were a kid – using outhouses, walking to school in the snow, having no tv or no color tv, etc. I just thought “Wow! Snow! I live in Florida, I want to play in SNOW!” Now that I live in Alabama, I complain when it doesn’t snow in the winter – guess some things don’t change huh?

The internet was just going mainstream when I was in Jr. High – but it was the “AOL Days.” If you had AOL in the beginning, you know what I’m talking about that “ehhhrrrrrr rrrrr” noise and then “Sorry the number you’re trying to reach is busy, please try again.” Oh, and we were charged PER MINUTE/HOUR – so getting on there was RARE and we had severe time limits.

I remember going to the library quite often for papers and reading books. Having to use the dewy decimal system and navigate through the library. I don’t think kids today even go visit their local ones do they?

Maybe I’m old school in the fact that I’d MUCH rather receive a REAL letter than an e-mail. Someone who takes the time to write by hand and include something cool in a real letter is 1000 times better than getting a short e-mail (or text). Speaking of texting, I don’t text. OMG! I had that turned off b/c it annoys me. LOL so true!

Cell phones weren’t even very big when I started to drive. People had beepers though. Not just drug dealers had them, everyone did (well pretty much) – think of it as the pre-cell phone. I remember walking in the mall one weekend though and seeing a little girl (maybe 8) with one walking around with her friend in hoochy clothes (with no adult supervision) and I thought the world was going downhill.

We had caller-ID from when it was available – to get away from those pesky telemarketers. I however remember the pre-caller-ID days – boy was that annoying!

I also remember taping (with a cassette) off the radio - and those annoying DJs really would (@*! up the song by talking over it! Oh, and I'd also have to call in to request a song! Shoot, I remember when MTV actually played music videos!

When I was really little we had an Atarai – and I loved Pac Man. Fun stuff. I did get a Nintendo and Super Nintendo though later on – but I never played it until it was after dark. Before dark, I had to go outside and play with the neighborhood kids. It was kinda a rule.

Using a TV Guide was a necessity – there was no special channel even that said what was on when and the guide at the bottom of every screen wasn’t there. We just had to remember what was on when most of the time – or we’d miss it. No precious TiVo or DVR either (oh how I love those now though!)


So, can you relate to this at all? I’d love to hear how bad you had it too!