Happy B-day Geez. You too, OldBroad. I’m glad to see that there are still a few codgers around here older than I am. Compared to you two, at 56, (in two weeks), I’m still a pup!
I’m sticking around this thread. Heck, I’ve still got 5 years til I get my AARP card, I’m just a baby!
Big Happy Birthday to you, geezer and wishes for many more successful years of geezerhood ahead of you!
Well since you are wise (well old anyway mwuahahaha) aren’t you going to impart some wisdom to us younguns? I’d really like to hear how things are different now than when you were growing up from attitudes to technology.
Happy birthday!
In my opinion, one isn’t truly a geezer until one spends a day sitting on the porch and yelling at the neighborhood kids to get out of the yard.
When I was growing up:
The house was never locked, because burglars only victimized rich people, and your neighbors would never dream of opening your door without knocking. (Neither was true, but we thought it was. I’m still not rich, but now my doors are locked even when I’m in the house.)
Politicians groped for answers, not any females within reach.
You never saw a pregnant girl in school…or anywhere. A girl who “got in trouble” was said to be “staying with a sick relative in another state.” And she didn’t graduate with her class. That attitude has certainly changed.
Electric typewriters were the latest thing. Computer? What’s that?
Television was new. The average family didn’t have one, and shows like Our Miss Brooks and Father Knows Best were still on the radio. (Only fellow geezerly types will remember those shows from either radio or TV.) All programing was family programing.
When our family first had a TV set, the Los Angeles area only had one station (KTLA), and programming was only from about 6 to 10 p.m. My sister and I used to watch the test pattern and wait for the Paramount logo to come on with the TV tower shooting little lightning bolts.
Cars had no seat belts or bucket seats, and bench seats made it possible for your girl to sit so close to you that she was a much greater hazzard to your driving than a cell phone is today.
Nobody ever heard of wireless phones of any kind, and not everybody who had a phone at home had a private line. They had what was called a “party line” where your number would be shared by at least one other customer, and you knew whether a call was for you by the distinctive ring pattern. If you wanted to call out, and somebody else was using the phone, you had to wait to place your call until they were finished, or if you had an emergency, ask them to hang up so you could call out. It was like waiting outside a phone booth in your own living room. Eavesdropping could be a problem, too.
Schools had dress codes. The ACLU hadn’t yet fought for the “right” of thirteen-year-old girls to bare their navels in class or boys to come to school with spiked hair and tattoos.
The family always sat down together in the dining room for dinner with the radio off. TV existed, but we didn’t have one until I was about seven. We actually talked to each other.
I wasn’t five years old yet when Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in baseball, (spring, 1947), but I was almost out of high school before integrated sports teams were the rule. I can’t help wondering how some great major league hitters’ records might have been different if they’d had to face Satchel Paige.
When I was five my parents bought a home in San Gabriel, California, where they had to sign a “restrictive covenant” in order to close the deal. That meant they had to state under contract that they would not re-sell the house to any non-white person. They objected to the covenant, but signed it anyway, because nothing was available without one. Thankfully, such contracts are illegal now.
The first indoor shopping mall I ever saw was in Tokyo in 1972. They started proliferating in the US not long after that. When I was a kid we went to department stores, gift shops, book stores and movie theaters, but they were all in different buildings.
Movie theaters had only one screen, but showed double features, with previews on Wednesday nights.
I’m sure there are dozens more, but it’s after 2:30 a.m. and I gotta get some sleep.
Geez Geezer, you ARE old aren’t you. 
Desert Geezer does that here all the time. sitting in his comfy chair and yelling at all the kids in the SDMB ‘yard’. So he’s a dinkum Geezer alright!!
Heh. Big cuddles and kisses for the Birthday Boy. 
Oh, and many, many happy returns.
Happy DesertGeezer Day!
Happy birthday from a 52 year old kid.
Happy birthday from a 52 year old kid.
Always glad to wish a Happy Birthday to someone older than me!
Thanks DG. I love hearing about those types of things. I am not quite 30 yet but my neice and nephew have never seen an LP in real life among many other things. I wonder what it will be like in the next 30 years?
It was very late last night (early this morning) when I wrote what I did. I completely forgot about LP’s, never mind 78 RPM platters and 45 RPM vinyl disks with the big hole in the middle. Also in the “not seen in many years” column would go 8-track tapes and quadra-phonic sound.
Does anyone remember the TRS-80 computer that had a whopping 64K of memory and operated with a cassette tape that took minutes to load? That was the cutting edge when I first got interested in computers.
When I was young there was no political correctness. Innocent remarks weren’t criticized because most people knew they were innocent. For example, nobody would have been fired for correctly using the word “niggardly” just because a few ignorant people thought it meant something else. That’s only one of many egregious examples of the current trend toward an excessive sensitivity.
I wouldn’t say that qualifies as “wisdom.” It’s just one geezer’s opinion.
Happy Birthday, Sonny.
Sorry to be so late to the thread, but my wishes are just as heartfelt as they would have been had I seen this sooner:
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DESERTGEEZER!!!
Approximate Phonetic Chinese Version of “Happy Birthday”: (thanks, Nathan!)
“Guung juuk nay fook sow yuen teen tsai, hing hong nay sun sun fie lok. Leen leen doe yao gum yut, suuy doe yao gum jzew, guung hay nay! Guung hay nay!!!”
Approximate English Translation of Above:
“Congrats on this good day of fortune, where we can all gather together. Wishing you a very happy birthday. Every year, this wondrous day arrives; Always, this wondrous time comes. Congratulations! Congratulations!”
Hope you have a great year ahead of you!
Note to self: Copy and paste birthday translation to blog… that way, I can easily search for it.
F_X
I am so sorry to have missed wishing you well on your actual birthday, DesertGeezer, but I too wish you the best! I appreciate reading your posts und Ich wünsche Dir alles Gute zum Geburtstag, lieber DesertGeezer.
(I wish you all the best for your birthday)
Yeah, our bones may be a little more brittle these days, but by God our minds are still as sharp as a teenager’s.
Uh… was that F_X that was just in here? Is she hot or what, DG? I noticed you haven’t answered her, so I’m goin’ fer it. Just let me put my teefs in…
Hey HONEY! C’mere and let me, uh…
Q
Sheh sheh F_X, und danke schön, Quasi (if I can be so familiar with either of you.
I’m afraid Chinese for “thank you” is about the sum of my knowledge of that language. I have a little more Deutsch, but I studied it so long ago (geezer, ya know) that I’ve forgotten most of it.
Well Desert Geezer, Happy Birthday, I turned 49 and the doctor told me to act like a 49 year old man. I said I only know how to act like a 26 year old kid. I still have my TRS-80 computer with expandable 64k ram. I hope when i’m your age I have the clap…Wishing you many, many more…
DG. Thank you so much, and you can be as familiar as you like with me! Ich bin ein Kraut, after all.
Q
Well, I’m sorry not to chime in on your actual birthday, young man, but better late than never. I remember all of the things you mentioned from your youth. My favorite radio program was Sky King, but I couldn’t stand the TV version—those people on TV didn’t look like the people on radio. Anyway, Happy Birthday to a (young) Geezer and many happy returns.!!
Mich auch, aber Ich bin ein Mensch. Verstehen Sie?
Actually my Krauthood (Germanity? 
) goes back more than seven generations. The earliest American ancestor I know of was born in the colony of Maryland in 1720. I have no idea who his father was, but the German connection probably lies with him. My last name is Gott, and I’m an agnostic. How’s that for irony?