# How were things different when you were a kid? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 4, 2026, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-things-different-when-you-were-a-kid/1029032 "2026-04-04T22:45:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2026, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-things-different-when-you-were-a-kid/1029032/142 "2026-04-05T18:35:34Z")
> [@TokyoBayer](#): > > No one called long distance except for emergencies or special occasions and they were very short calls. When I was off at college, and would call my grandmother long-distance to wish her “happy birthday,” she got very antsy if the call lasted longer than a minute. “Don’t spend that kind of money!” ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2026, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-things-different-when-you-were-a-kid/1029032/143 "2026-04-05T18:59:10Z")
> [@Moriarty](#): > > two eras in America when cocaine was sort of looked at casually as a party drug. The first was the 1920s, and the second was the 1970s. Both ended due to some high profile cocaine overdoes, and other problems, but after the hippies of the 60s and early 70s there was a time when it was sort of chic to do blow Cocaine has never really gone away, but what really undermined its reputation was crack– converting it into smokable rocks that became popular with the poor. Nothing like having something be a vice of poor minorities instead of wealthy yuppies to suddenly make it a priority problem. If you don’t hear as much about crack these days it’s probably only because meth has overtaken it. ---
**Author:** ![Moriarty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moriarty/32/49_2.png) [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2026, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-things-different-when-you-were-a-kid/1029032/144 "2026-04-05T19:08:22Z")
> [@pkbites](#): > > Corporations would have company picnics with carnival rides, all you could eat and drink, live music, etc. My dad’s company picnic started in the morning on a Saturday in the summer and went until midnight. Must have cost them tens of thousands. Every employee and guests invited at no cost. Any employers still do such extravagant things? My law firm used to do something like what you describe but ended it just a few years ago. Prior to that, I worked for a big firm that would do a company picnic. That same firm took everybody on a cruise, as well. … When I was a kid, Old Spice aftershave (which I still use; it reminds me of my grandfather) came in a glass bottle. > [@Lumpy](#): > > Cocaine has never really gone away When I was a kid, marijuana could get you sent to prison for life, but you could legally buy ephedrine and androstenedione (a precursor to testosterone made popular by Mark McGwire) > **[McGwire's Andro Cover Was Very Profitable](https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2010/01/12/mcgwires-andro-cover-was-very-profitable.html)** > > In 1998, during the Mark McGwire-Sammy Sosa home run chase, Associated Press reporter Steve Wilstein noticed a brown bottle in McGwire’s locker labeled “ANDROSTENEDIONE.” After doing some research, Wilstein understood it to be a legal steroid that... Speaking of workout supplements… When I was a kid, steroids were used by professional bodybuilders, but not at the levels sometime seemed today. It was also not legal to just get a doctor to give them to you; now, it’s called “testosterone replacement therapy” and is widely advertised. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2026, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-things-different-when-you-were-a-kid/1029032/145 "2026-04-05T19:09:37Z")
> [@Moriarty](#): > > I took a class on the history of drug control In college, and it talked about two eras in America when cocaine was sort of looked at casually as a party drug. The first was the 1920s, and the second was the 1970s. Both ended due to some high profile cocaine overdoes, and other problems At least in my experience, the second era seemed to have lasted well into the '80s and early '90s. It still seemed to be a popular drug among yuppies of my acquaintance, and some of my co-workers at my first job, in that era. ---
**Author:** ![Dallas\_Jones](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dallas_jones/32/3277_2.png) [@Dallas\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dallas_Jones)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2026, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-things-different-when-you-were-a-kid/1029032/146 "2026-04-05T19:11:16Z")
There was a smoking area for students at the high school. The teacher’s lounge was the smokyest room in the building. They all chain smoked during breaks between classes and it reeked. Hell, everybody smoked everywhere, even pregnant women. We kept our hunting guns in our cars in the school parking lot, nobody cared, school shootings were not yet a thing. Went hunting or plinking after class. Still had a Drive-in-movie, a large parking lot with speakers you put in the car window. Movie would not start until the sun went down so if it was a triple showing you had a legitimate reason to bring your teenage girlfriend home at 2:30am. Calling someone long distance on the telephone cost serious money. And that is all the telephne did, make phone calls. Cars were not as well built. The engine tolerances were sloppy, and you always checked the oil because they would burn oil. If you got 40k miles out of one it was probably time for a rebuild. TVs were crap and rarely recieved a clear picture. Cable was in its infancy. I didn’t own a color TV until I grew up and bought my own, it was expensive too! Now you go to Costco and buy a 60 inch smart TV for very little. No 24hr news. The news came on 5pm or 6pm for about an hour and that was it. No more news until the next day. Few talking heads giving an opinion piece unless it was short. Unless it was what was known as a "special interest’ story you learned nothing much at all about what some celebrity was doing, there were magazines for that sort of thing. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2026, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-things-different-when-you-were-a-kid/1029032/147 "2026-04-05T19:27:17Z")
> [@Dallas\_Jones](#): > > No 24hr news. The news came on 5pm or 6pm for about an hour and that was it. No more news until the next day. Which reminded me: the prevalence of daily newspapers. In the '60s and '70s, even smaller cities typically still had two or more newspapers; often one was a “broadsheet” and the other a “tabloid.” Frequently, one of the papers had a more conservative editorial stance, and the other had a more liberal/labor stance. And it wasn’t uncommon for a city to have both morning and afternoon papers. We always had a newspaper subscription, and it was the norm for families, at least in our socio-economic stratum, to get at least one newspaper, either by subscription, or buy buying the daily paper at a newsstand. It was also common to be able to get copies of big out-of-town papers at newsstands or even at the grocery store: in Green Bay, you could easily get copies of the Chicago Tribune, the New York Times, the Milwaukee Journal, the Wisconsin State Journal (Madison), as well as the Wall Street Journal. ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2026, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-things-different-when-you-were-a-kid/1029032/148 "2026-04-05T20:43:01Z")
Wow, thanks for the memory jog: back in the day, The (Baltimore) Sun had a 6AM edition, a noon-time version and then The Evening Sun around 5PM. I might be slightly wrong on the times. ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2026, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-things-different-when-you-were-a-kid/1029032/149 "2026-04-05T20:50:10Z")
> [@Dallas\_Jones](#): > > No 24hr news. The news came on 5pm or 6pm for about an hour and that was it When something happened at other times, they would break into regular programming for a “special report.” Do they still do that? ---
**Author:** ![OttoDaFe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ottodafe/32/356_2.png) [@OttoDaFe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OttoDaFe)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2026, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-things-different-when-you-were-a-kid/1029032/150 "2026-04-05T21:37:56Z")
> [@Dallas\_Jones](#): > > … Still had a Drive-in-movie, a large parking lot with speakers you put in the car window. … For some reason I was just thinking of drive-in movies, and specifically the intermissions (prit’ near every drive-in did at least double features). When I was very young it was fairly common for cars to have a spotlight on the driver’s door — presumably to check addresses — so the theater would put a moving light on the screen that you were supposed to follow. The rest of the intermission was taken up with exhortations to visit the snack bar, interspersed with ads from local businesses and not-so-subtle hints that it would be a good idea to go to church on Sunday (never Saturday, that was for heathens). As for a/c, we never had it in the house that my father bought before my older brother was born and from which he made his last trip to hospital. I still don’t have central air, but then it’s only been the last few years that even a portable unit has been helpful here in western Washington. ---
**Author:** ![Railer13](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/railer13/32/9742_2.png) [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2026, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-things-different-when-you-were-a-kid/1029032/151 "2026-04-05T22:21:55Z")
> [@P-man](#): > > The first car I remember was an early sixties Rambler station wagon. My uncle had one of those. IIRC, the gear ‘shifter’ was a series of big-ass buttons that you pushed in to shift gears. Something like this, I think: > **[What is old is new again - Smart Car Forums | Learning to drive, Cool cars,...](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/547257792201006743/)** > > 1960 push button gear stick | The Following User Says Thank You to orngandblack For This Useful Post ... ---
**Author:** ![XOldiesJock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/ec9cab/32.png) [@XOldiesJock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XOldiesJock)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2026, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-things-different-when-you-were-a-kid/1029032/152 "2026-04-05T23:01:41Z")
Only 3 network TV stations. AM radio ruled. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2026, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-things-different-when-you-were-a-kid/1029032/153 "2026-04-05T23:17:24Z")
> [@FlikTheBlue](#): > > When I was a kid, 20 somethings seemed like mature, responsible people who knew what they were doing and had it all together. These days 20 somethings seem like they’re still kids in a lot of ways that the 20 somethings of the 1980s didn’t. I don’t think this is all perspective. Compared to even thirty years ago it seems like there’s been a general infantilization of society. A century ago you’d have looked like an imbecile if you called 17-year olds “children”. > [@engineer\_comp\_geek](#): > > If you bought an entire set from a door to door encyclopedia salesman (those were a thing), that could be a bit pricy. Heck, in the late sixties/ early seventies our family, by no means wealthy but highly valuing literacy, had four different sets of encyclopedias: Encyclopedia Britannica for adult reading level, World Book for when we were teens, and two different sets of children’s grade encyclopedias. ---
**Author:** ![Moriarty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moriarty/32/49_2.png) [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2026, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-things-different-when-you-were-a-kid/1029032/154 "2026-04-05T23:24:56Z")
> [@Procrustus](#): > > When something happened at other times, they would break into regular programming for a “special report.” Do they still do that? Of course, but we’re going to get a push notification on our phones as our first notice. Here’s a particularly notable example of a breaking news report, from November of 1963 [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/32sGmHLUg0w/maxresdefault.jpg "First report of JFK assassination from WFAA") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32sGmHLUg0w) ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2026, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-things-different-when-you-were-a-kid/1029032/155 "2026-04-05T23:35:31Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > A century ago you’d have looked like an imbecile if you called 17-year olds “children”. And a decade or so before that, you’d have looked that way if you called them “teenagers.” ---
**Author:** ![f.coli](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/eada6e/32.png) [@f.coli](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/f.coli)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2026, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-things-different-when-you-were-a-kid/1029032/156 "2026-04-05T23:36:56Z")
> [@XOldiesJock](#): > > Only 3 network TV stations. > > AM radio ruled. We had five, three VHF, and two UHF, including the “educational” channel, but we needed a special, more expensive set with a hoop antenna to watch them. Also, my father could repair the TV by replacing vacuum tubes. A local drug store had this enormous console into which someone could plug a vacuum tube into the proper slot, push a button, and a needle would point to “good” or “bad”, and then a replacement could be bought. The AM radio stations that played rock and roll limited themselves to the top 25, although they would introduce new songs from established musicians. The DJ would announce each song before and after playing it, unless they were using a new gimmick called by one station the “Twin-Spin” - two songs in a row! Our record player had four speeds - 16, 33, 45, and 78. I never saw a 16 rpm record anywhere, or ever heard of anyone owning one or a store selling one. But it was fun sometimes playing records at different speeds. ---
**Author:** ![Moriarty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moriarty/32/49_2.png) [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2026, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-things-different-when-you-were-a-kid/1029032/157 "2026-04-05T23:44:44Z")
When i was a kid, the only allergy medicine you could buy made you drowsy. So you had to choose between sneezing and sniffling all day in school, or being barely awake. My mom used to tell me to “take a half” when she heard me sneezing in the morning. Non drowsy allergy medicine was a game changer. I take a pill and a mist up my nose most mornings. It lets me function during hay fever season. ---
**Author:** ![Moriarty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moriarty/32/49_2.png) [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2026, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-things-different-when-you-were-a-kid/1029032/158 "2026-04-06T00:11:55Z")
> [@OttoDaFe](#): > > I came across one theory that peanut allergies only started manifesting themselves when dry roasting became the norm, the idea being that the process changed the nut’s makeup somehow. Superficially plausible, but I have no idea whether it was ever researched Apparently so. Here’s stuff from some place called Oxford. > **[Dry roasting could help trigger peanut allergy | University of Oxford](https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2014-09-21-dry-roasting-could-help-trigger-peanut-allergy)** > > 21 September 2014 > [@VanillaHazelnut](#): > > I was a teenager in the early 2000s. > [@VanillaHazelnut](#): > > We went to malls and shopping centers. Sometimes we were at the mall just to “hang out”. The movie Mall Rats is about this phenomenon. Kids today wouldn’t relate. > **[Mallrats](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mallrats)** > > Mallrats is a 1995 American buddy comedy film written and directed by Kevin Smith. The film stars Shannen Doherty, Jeremy London, Jason Lee, Claire Forlani, Priscilla Barnes, and Michael Rooker. It is the second film in the View Askewniverse. The film follows two best friends as they retreat to a local mall after being dumped by their girlfriends on the same day. > Mallrats had its premiere at the Cineplex Odeon Universal City Cinemas in Universal City, California on October 19, 1995, and was r... ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2026, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-things-different-when-you-were-a-kid/1029032/159 "2026-04-06T00:51:06Z")
Another I aspect of life in Southern England in the eighties was the existence France. Which all English teenagers knew existed purely to provide English teenagers with items that are restricted in the UK during school trips to France. Specifically bangers (firecrackers in the US), porn (actually just playing cards with naked women on the back), and for the especially cool\* kids switchblades. I have no evidence these same items are not routinely procured with impunity by English school kids in France, but I don’t think so. ‘\*’ as in destined to a life of petty crime and menial jobs without leaving the nearest small town ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2026, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-things-different-when-you-were-a-kid/1029032/160 "2026-04-06T01:03:06Z")
> [@XOldiesJock](#): > > Only 3 network TV stations. Until I was 10, we lived in suburban Chicago, where we were spoiled by having stations for the three major networks, a PBS station, and three or four independent stations. Three of those four were on UHF, and could be harder to pull in, but between WGN (channel 9) and WFLD (channel 32), there was lots of programming for kids in the morning, and afternoon. We then moved to Green Bay, where there was just ABC, NBC, CBS, and PBS stations. It wasn’t until I was in high school (around 1981) when the area got an independent (low wattage UHF) station. > [@f.coli](#): > > I never saw a 16 rpm record anywhere, or ever heard of anyone owning one or a store selling one. My understanding is, to the extent that 16 RPM records were made, it was mostly for spoken-word recordings. The slow speed meant the fidelity wasn’t great for music, but it was used for audiobooks for the hearing impaired, religious recordings, recordings of political speeches, etc., 16 RPM was also sometimes used for background music (for offices, restaurants, etc.) – a lot of the Seeburg background-music “jukeboxes” played special 16 RPM records. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2026, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-things-different-when-you-were-a-kid/1029032/161 "2026-04-06T01:33:01Z")
Back when comedy albums were a thing, what speed did they typically play at? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-things-different-when-you-were-a-kid/1029032.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-things-different-when-you-were-a-kid/1029032.md?page=9)