Waiting for that song you liked to get played on the radio so you could record it on your cassette. (Bonus: hoping the DJ would not talk too much over the intro).
The Yellow Pages.
Dropping your vacation pictures off at the local drug store to be developed. (Bonus: keeping the negatives in case you wanted to reprint some good ones).
What else?
Ugh, yes to #1!
Looking stuff up. Not even getting references for a paper for school, but plain old random crap you aren’t sure about, like what actor was in that one movie.
Paper maps available at gas stations.
Pump jockeys checking your oil and the air in your tires. Hell, free air at gas stations (those stupid pumps you put quarters in piss me right off).
Tuning up your own car. Tune ups that need to be done on a regular basis.
I had a slightly frustrating conversation once with co-workers a few years younger than me who couldn’t conceive how people met to hang out pre-cellphone. My explanation that you made plans the night before to meet a particular place at a particular time and then you waited even if you had to wait 20 minutes was met with blank stares and “No way people did that.”
Having to be home (and inside the house) to receive a phone call. Having no idea who was calling before you picked up the phone.
That describes half of my teenage years, especially the part about the stupid DJs, who would never shut up when you wanted them to.
In addition, the idea that you can’t just click to start at the beginning of whatever song you want. Remember the days of fast-forwarding and rewinding cassettes, trying to find the exact right spot on the tape for the song that you wanted to hear?
What about expensive “long-distance” phone calls? I’m not sure if it worked exactly the same here in the US, but when i was a kid in Australia, calling someone in another town or city could rack up the charges very quickly. Now, a call is just a call, for the most part. Doesn’t matter if you’re calling around the corner, or to the other side of the country.
Not being able to leave a message when no one answers the phone.
Not being able to check the TV schedule ON THE TV SCREEN.
Phone booth.
Oh, absolutely. In fact, just the knowledge that someone was on the phone “Long distance,” was enough to get everyone to quiet down.
Having time described as “fifteen to nine.” They only know 8:45.
Not being able to make photo copies of (or scan) a document. Typing carbons; typing a “certified copy.” Having to proofread without a spell checker - that is, using a dictionary or one of those “commonly misspelled word books” to check spelling.
TV Guides as a magazine or newspaper listing.
Which you needed because you had one chance to watch what you wanted to watch and would have to decide if you were going to watch Program A, Program B or go out that evening 'cause you sure weren’t doing more than one.
Also having to be home to watch a TV show. If it came on at 8:00 on Thursday (on one of the 3 channels you received), you better be home if you want to see it. VCRs helped later on but it was hard for a house to share one and of course you had to make sure a tape was in there that had sufficient space.
And, since stuff was so difficult to look up, most stuff didn’t get looked up. You’d just argue with your friends and disagree, each thinking the other was stupid. By the time you could get to a library or bookstore you’d forgotten about it.
For sports fans: watching the 10 o’clock news to get sports scores. If you missed it, you had to wait until the newspaper the next morning. If the game ended late, you had to wait for the newspaper the morning after that. (“Let’s see, the Sox are either three or four games out, depending on what the Twins did on the West Coast last night . . . shit, maybe the announcer tonight will mention how far out they are.”
Saturday morning was your one real chance to watch cartoons. Maybe an hour after school on weekdays on the UHF channels before sitcom reruns came on.
Oh, also: “UHF” and television dials you would set to “Channel U”
The concept of multiple channels all running children’s programming 24/7 was unheard of.
“Play” used to mean, “Go outside, ride a bike or motorcycle, hang out with friends, socialize, get into minor mischief, walk your dog, exercise, throw a football/baseball/basketball…GET OFF YOUR ASS AND DO SOMETHING!”
Now, its “twiddle your two thumbs on a little piece of plastic shit”.
You don’t know how much I love our current generation. (No sarcasm intended)
Telephone pranks, as there was no caller ID. Sadly, I suspect Prince Albert remains trapped in his can these days.
Although they’ve disappeared in general,
1.) You can still get paper maps at a LOT of gas stations. I know. I’ve done it recently, and looked at some in others. I don’t think this one’s even rare yet.
2.) It’s really rare to get anyone to voluntarily look at your oil and air, I agree, but free air was still available at a couple of places I know until just a couple of years ago. Now, I don’t know of any such places, and have to use quarters.
And the refrigerator is far over the horizon.
My daughter was bitching about writing a paper one time and having to look stuff up.
When I told her how I had to do it;
[ul]
[li]Ride bike to library[/li][li]hope they have a book on the subject[/li][li]pray it’s not hopelessly out of date[/li][li]sit down at a table and copy the info by hand (unless you could get Dad to give you dimes for the copy machine -JOY!)[/li][li]get back on bike and ride home with your pages of info[/li][li]write report by hand - decide the paragraphs would be better in a different order? - start over[/li][/ul]
She looked at me like I had 3 eyes