# Back in my day... **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [July 11, 2002, 6:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/back-in-my-day/118383 "2002-07-11T06:57:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Kaotic\_Newtral](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/71e660/32.png) [@Kaotic\_Newtral](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kaotic_Newtral)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2002, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/back-in-my-day/118383/41 "2002-07-23T15:49:11Z")
Bah! Back in my day we lived in holes in trees! To get those we had to wait until the birds moved out! If we were really lucky, there’d still be some straw in there to eat. Every spring we’d have to find a rock to live under! And we were happy. ---
**Author:** ![El\_Elvis\_Rojo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@El\_Elvis\_Rojo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Elvis_Rojo)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2002, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/back-in-my-day/118383/42 "2002-07-23T15:54:23Z")
Rocks? Trees? BIRDS? And you think you had a tough life? There weren’t any of these fancy smancy inventions back in my day. We just had to hide in the darkness and wait for the darkness to leave before we could be safe. You ever try hiding from dark in dark? Uphill. BOTH WAYS!!! **IN FIFTEEN FEET OF SNOW** (only it was dark snow). It ain’t pretty. ---
**Author:** ![Zappo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b3f665/32.png) [@Zappo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zappo)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2002, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/back-in-my-day/118383/43 "2002-07-23T16:11:07Z")
SNOW??!? You had SNOW?? Pfft. Luxury. ---
**Author:** ![Kaotic\_Newtral](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/71e660/32.png) [@Kaotic\_Newtral](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kaotic_Newtral)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2002, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/back-in-my-day/118383/44 "2002-07-23T16:18:31Z")
No kidding! S-n-o-w! What we would have given to have a little bit of snow. We had to throw coconuts at each other in the wintertime to have a little fun(I lost 2 brothers that way). The best we could manage was to build little 2 foot high ‘coconutmen’ for entertainment. Bah! ---
**Author:** ![auRa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c4cdca/32.png) [@auRa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/auRa)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2002, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/back-in-my-day/118383/45 "2002-07-23T16:46:59Z")
Well, at least you had “men” by the time you rolled around… We didn’t have this gender thing. Back in my day, we made coconut _piles_. That’s all we could do. And we were grateful for it too, because in our parents’ day, you couldn’t even get the coconuts to pile up. Not that we even had parents, though. Or coconuts, for that matter. But we were grateful. Because back in my day, we also didn’t have this new-fangled “common sense” that people keep yapping on about. Gosh durn kids these days don’t know what’s [sub]grumble grumble mumble zzzzzzzz…[/sub] ---
**Author:** ![Kaotic\_Newtral](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/71e660/32.png) [@Kaotic\_Newtral](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kaotic_Newtral)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2002, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/back-in-my-day/118383/46 "2002-07-23T18:49:33Z")
Kids, you guys have kids! Geez, way back when, we had to adopt sticks! Sometimes we’d get lucky and get a whole branch…Ah! those were the days! ---
**Author:** ![Eats\_Crayons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/278dde/32.png) [@Eats\_Crayons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eats_Crayons)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2002, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/back-in-my-day/118383/47 "2002-07-23T19:44:26Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Kaotic Newtral \* > \*\*Kids, you guys have kids! Geez, way back when, we had to adopt sticks! Sometimes we’d get lucky and get a whole branch…Ah! those were the days! \*\* Sticks? Branches? Why you were privileged!! We didn’t have wood! If we needed a cooking fire we had to rub stones on our heads until our hair caught fire, to roast weenies we had to reach into the flames and hold the weenie over our burning hair with our bare hands! But we never complained, dammit, we liked it! ---
**Author:** ![Kaotic\_Newtral](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/71e660/32.png) [@Kaotic\_Newtral](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kaotic_Newtral)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2002, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/back-in-my-day/118383/48 "2002-07-23T19:52:53Z")
Stones! Hair! Weenies! Ya lucky bastids! We lived on toenails and bird droppings…What I would have given for a bowl of fresh stones and hair(not to mention weenies)! Pure bliss it woulda been! ---
**Author:** ![mobo85](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b19c9b/32.png) [@mobo85](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mobo85)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2002, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/back-in-my-day/118383/49 "2002-07-24T04:26:06Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Rixter1 \* > \*\*Now, my story begins in 19-dickety-two. We had to say “dickety” 'cause that Kaiser had stolen our word “twenty”. I chased that rascal to get it back, but gave up after dickety-six miles… \*\* Back in my day, we didn’t have _Simpsons_ references! We didn’t have _The Simpsons_, either. The only show on those days was something called _Ug the Caveman_, so we made reference to Ug every chance we got. Twern’t easy, let me tell you, seeing as all he said was “Ug.” Then came his son, Milton something-or-other, who was a little bit more talkative, but not much. And the Sullivan guy with the four insects and the hip-gyrating Southerner. It was at that point I knew that Tele-Vision was gone to hell. 'Cept we didn’t have hell in those days. You were lucky to die back then. ---
**Author:** ![ResIpsaLoquitor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b3f665/32.png) [@ResIpsaLoquitor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ResIpsaLoquitor)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2002, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/back-in-my-day/118383/50 "2002-07-24T04:40:01Z")
Bah! Back in my day, we didn’t even have parody yet! We were still inventing new stuff! The only person who could say “back in my day” was the kid who was born 2 days before you were! ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2002, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/back-in-my-day/118383/51 "2002-07-24T12:56:29Z")
Here’s a comic addressing this topic… [Heart Of The City](http://www.ucomics.com/heartofthecity/) ---
**Author:** ![Zappo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b3f665/32.png) [@Zappo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zappo)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2002, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/back-in-my-day/118383/52 "2002-07-24T13:45:01Z")
Comics? Bah! We were so busy chewing the newspaper for nourishment we didn’t have time to read the comics! And there weren’t any comics anyway. The newspaper feature section was full of tips for torturing your children. And we liked it! ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2002, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/back-in-my-day/118383/53 "2002-07-24T14:17:53Z")
Newspapers! Back in my day, newspapers – or paper of any kind hadn’t been invented. We relied on an oral tradition, which was damn difficult because language hadn’t been invented yet, either! In fact, the only way to communicate an idea to someone was to act it out in pantomime. That was no easy trick because we hadn’t evolved arms or legs. For that matter, we hadn’t evolved brains either. We were just blobs with rudimentary stimulus-response reactions. ---
**Author:** ![Kaotic\_Newtral](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/71e660/32.png) [@Kaotic\_Newtral](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kaotic_Newtral)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2002, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/back-in-my-day/118383/54 "2002-07-24T16:57:07Z")
Rudimentary stimulus-response reactions! Lordy what we would have given for those! We were carried by the wind and dropped on our gelatinous asses, we had no choice in the matter! We’d just lie around waiting for something to eat us. When we were finally chewed up and swallowed, it was like a vacation! ---
**Author:** ![Kaotic\_Newtral](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/71e660/32.png) [@Kaotic\_Newtral](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kaotic_Newtral)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2002, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/back-in-my-day/118383/55 "2002-07-24T17:02:02Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Charmian \* > \*\*Sticks? Branches? Why you were privileged!! We didn’t have wood! If we needed a cooking fire we had to rub stones on our heads until our hair caught fire, to roast weenies we had to reach into the flames and hold the weenie over our burning hair with our bare hands! But we never complained, dammit, we liked it! \*\* Weenies! Damn you guys had it made! Back in my day we didn’t have no hi-falootin’ processing machinery…we just ate the lips and assholes plain! And we loved 'em! ---
**Author:** ![Zappo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b3f665/32.png) [@Zappo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zappo)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2002, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/back-in-my-day/118383/56 "2002-07-24T18:15:17Z")
Lips and assholes? We would have killed for lips and assholes! We had to make do with entrails and viscera! And ya know what? **WE LIKED IT!** [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/back-in-my-day/118383.md?page=2)