# The Things For Which Kids Today Have No Context (another list of how things have changed) **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 7, 2014, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-things-for-which-kids-today-have-no-context-another-list-of-how-things-have-changed/695035 "2014-08-07T14:43:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2014, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-things-for-which-kids-today-have-no-context-another-list-of-how-things-have-changed/695035/141 "2014-08-08T00:43:18Z")
Pay toilets! At the local dime store (where there was a lunch counter!) the bathroom had a pay stall. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2014, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-things-for-which-kids-today-have-no-context-another-list-of-how-things-have-changed/695035/142 "2014-08-08T00:43:46Z")
The old days you could go to the store and buy a bottle of aspirin, and then just pull off the cap and get an aspirin out. It wasn’t contained in a cardboard box sealed with epoxy, the bottle inside wasn’t wrapped in indestructable plastic, there wasn’t a child proof cap on the bottle that only a child can open, and there was no indestructable safety seal glued over the opening in the bottle. ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2014, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-things-for-which-kids-today-have-no-context-another-list-of-how-things-have-changed/695035/143 "2014-08-08T00:44:27Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > Unleaded? When were you born? It was Regular and Premium. > [@Sicks\_Ate](#): > > Oooh, I just had to explain this to my wife, who is 7 years younger than me. She had no idea that television stations used to go off the air. > > I must have just caught the end of that era. Television stations signing off for the night and gas being promoted as “Unleaded” actually continued into the 1990s. ---
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2014, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-things-for-which-kids-today-have-no-context-another-list-of-how-things-have-changed/695035/144 "2014-08-08T00:50:11Z")
The library collection was indexed in a “card catalog,” housed in one or more large pieces of furniture. Each contained rows upon rows of small drawers, each holding hundreds of 3-by-5 inch index cards. Each book in the collection would be indexed at least three times, once by author, once by subject, and once by title. If instead you wanted to look up an article in a magazine, you had to consult the \* Reader’s Guide to Periodical Literature\*. There was a new volume every six months or so, as I recall, so if you wanted to find articles from the previous ten years you’d have to consult 20 different volumes. Green stamps have been mentioned, but I’m afraid kids might not understand the point. To entice you to shop there, stores would give away stamps with every purchase. When you collected enough you would lick them (yes, children, stamps had to be licked in those days), and stick them in a book. When the book was full, you could redeem them for goodies (toys, nick-nacks, etc.). With Top Value gold stamps you could order the goodies by catalog if you included cash to cover shipping and handling (allow 6-12 weeks for shipping) or you could go to one of their showrooms and get the stuff without paying for shipping. But I seem to recall that you had to pay sales tax on the “free” stuff in New York. You still hear the phrase “keeping bankers’ hours” but bankers’ hours ain’t what they used to be. In the small town where I grew up, there was one bank. It was open from 10 AM to 3 PM five days a a week and from 10 AM to noon every other Saturday. I don’t recall if they closed for lunch, but it wouldn’t surprise me. That wouldn’t be so bad except that you needed cash to live, and there were no ATMs. Debit cards didn’t exist. Charge cards and credit cards existed but few of the adults I knew had American Express, Visa, or MasterCard, or Diner’s Club. Most places didn’t accept those cards anyway. Some places accepted checks, but often a store manager would have to be called over to authorize a check. Hours kept by other stores weren’t much more convenient than bankers’ hours. Most stores, including the drug store and hardware store were open only 9 AM to 5 PM, Monday through Saturday and closed Sunday. The grocery store was open 9 to 7 Monday to Saturday, noon to 5 PM on Sunday. Want to do your grocery shopping on a Sunday morning? Shame on you, you’re supposed to be in church. After 7 PM the only thing open was the gas station, and even that closed by 11 PM. We didn’t get an all-night gas/convenience store in my town until after I went off to college in the late 1980s. It wasn’t just small towns either. Business hours in the bigger towns and cities nearby were only slightly more convenient. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2014, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-things-for-which-kids-today-have-no-context-another-list-of-how-things-have-changed/695035/145 "2014-08-08T00:53:03Z")
> [@bibliophage](#): > > You still hear the phrase “keeping bankers’ hours” but bankers’ hours ain’t what they used to be. In the small town where I grew up, there was one bank. It was open from 10 AM to 3 PM five days a a week and from 10 AM to noon every other Saturday. I don’t recall if they closed for lunch, but it wouldn’t surprise me. That wouldn’t be so bad except that you needed cash to live, and there were no ATMs. Debit cards didn’t exist. Charge cards and credit cards existed but few of the adults I knew had American Express, Visa, or MasterCard, or Diner’s Club. Most places didn’t accept those cards anyway. Some places accepted checks, but often a store manager would have to be called over to authorize a check. Yes!! If you didn’t get cash for the weekend, you were stuck, although Mom could sometimes write a check at the grocer for $5 over and get cash back. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2014, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-things-for-which-kids-today-have-no-context-another-list-of-how-things-have-changed/695035/146 "2014-08-08T01:16:19Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > Rushing inside to watch \*I Love Lucy \*or _Ozzie and Harriet_ or, later, _The Twilight Zone"_. . . thinking that if we missed a show, it would never be aired again. When I was a kid, there was a _Planet of the Apes_ TV series. I was at an age when I thought it was a great show and never missed an episode. Except one week when there was a family trip and I missed that week’s episode. And then the series was cancelled and there were no summer reruns. I had to wait forty years for them to release the series on DVD before I saw that episode. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2014, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-things-for-which-kids-today-have-no-context-another-list-of-how-things-have-changed/695035/147 "2014-08-08T01:20:43Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > I watched Elizabeth II’s coronation on our 12" black-and-white TV. I imagine in the UK, one of the signs of being an old-timer is if you can remember having a king. ---
**Author:** ![Wallaby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/dc4da7/32.png) [@Wallaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wallaby)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2014, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-things-for-which-kids-today-have-no-context-another-list-of-how-things-have-changed/695035/148 "2014-08-08T01:38:57Z")
In primary school, there were always some kids who would go home for lunch. Inheriting the old broken-down radio and managing to take it to bits and resurrect it (so you could tape the songs off it). Trannies! (transistor radios - they were cool). The salt cellar in the kitchen. Salt was added to everything in cooking. Taking your own saucepans to the Chinese take-away. ---
**Author:** ![Lorene89095](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a8b319/32.png) [@Lorene89095](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lorene89095)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2014, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-things-for-which-kids-today-have-no-context-another-list-of-how-things-have-changed/695035/149 "2014-08-08T01:44:43Z")
Cursive writing Stores being closed on Sunday,then morphing to covering the beer with a sheet… Blue laws that were really strange… I think I remember Mama not being able to buy matches on Sunday,cause she might cook… or maybe I read that somewhere. ---
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2014, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-things-for-which-kids-today-have-no-context-another-list-of-how-things-have-changed/695035/150 "2014-08-08T01:46:03Z")
> [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](#): > > Oh my God. My father _lived_ to collect S&H Green Stamps. Then he’d call us into the kitchen to wet the stamps and paste them in the book. (Zzzzzzz . . .) Then he’d bitch because he didn’t like the cheap crap in the redemption catalog. Some supermarkets still do stamps. The Chicago-area Jewel supermarket chain does stamps periodically for stuff like Corningware (IIRC) or Rachael Ray-brand cookware, but they’re limited-duration promotions, maybe a few months at a time. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2014, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-things-for-which-kids-today-have-no-context-another-list-of-how-things-have-changed/695035/151 "2014-08-08T01:55:03Z")
I’m a camp counselor during the summer. In addition to two full counselors per group, most groups also have a high-school-aged volunteer to help out with the kids. A few weeks ago, the volunteer and I were watching the kids play a ball game outside, and I commented that the game appeared to have turned into Calvinball. The volunteer had no idea what I meant. So, thing for which kids today have no context: Calvin and Hobbes. ---
**Author:** ![Arrendajo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Arrendajo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arrendajo)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2014, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-things-for-which-kids-today-have-no-context-another-list-of-how-things-have-changed/695035/152 "2014-08-08T01:55:36Z")
My son, age 21, asked me the other day when we were gazing in a museum window at some old phones how, exactly, you dialed a number on a rotary phone. He had never handled one. He has also never cued up an LP on a turntable, though I’m sure he groks the concept from watching DJs scratch. Frankly, I am shocked myself at the changes wrought in personal communication and information technology in the last 20 years. The unwired/unconnected world of my youth seems like a foreign planet. But starting a standard transmission car by rolling down a slope or giving it a good hard push and popping the clutch… the old 1961 Mercury Comet I learned on was great for that. You could get it running without starter or battery if you could get it up to walking speed. Good times… ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2014, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-things-for-which-kids-today-have-no-context-another-list-of-how-things-have-changed/695035/153 "2014-08-08T02:15:50Z")
> [@Whatever4](#): > > Picking up the phone and hearing a real live operator asking “Number please.” Better than that: I was over at my friend’s house, went to call my mom to tell her why I was not home for lunch, picked up the phone and heard two complete strangers talking. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2014, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-things-for-which-kids-today-have-no-context-another-list-of-how-things-have-changed/695035/154 "2014-08-08T02:31:59Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I’m a camp counselor during the summer. In addition to two full counselors per group, most groups also have a high-school-aged volunteer to help out with the kids. A few weeks ago, the volunteer and I were watching the kids play a ball game outside, and I commented that the game appeared to have turned into Calvinball. The volunteer had no idea what I meant. > > So, thing for which kids today have no context: Calvin and Hobbes. And to get a little meta: in one strip, after Hobbes proves Calvin wrong, he says smugly, “I’ll get you a paper and carbons for your written apology.” ---
**Author:** ![actualliberalnotoneofthose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e79b87/32.png) [@actualliberalnotoneofthose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/actualliberalnotoneofthose)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2014, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-things-for-which-kids-today-have-no-context-another-list-of-how-things-have-changed/695035/155 "2014-08-08T02:34:29Z")
The Yellow Pages seem to be dropped in my driveway weekly. My kids might not know what they are, though. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2014, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-things-for-which-kids-today-have-no-context-another-list-of-how-things-have-changed/695035/156 "2014-08-08T02:38:10Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > True. > > Now to dig deep into my childhood- the old way of “going to the movies”. > > You didn’t care about times. You _went_. Once there (laden down with your own popcorn, candy etc, but never enough, never enough) You watched: The Main feature. A secondary B film. A serial. A newsreel. A cartoon. Played Bingo or checked your ticket for a door-prize. A sing-along maybe. Standing for The National Anthem. It took half a day. If you arrived in the middle of a film, you just sat and watched until the film played again, no biggie. Sometimes one can think that a related expression is lost forever: “This is where we came in!” > **[SmartData Collective - News on Big Data, Analytics, AI and The Cloud](https://www.smartdatacollective.com/?q=Home%2F25233)** > > The world's best thinkers on big data, the cloud, analytics, business intelligence, artificial intelligence, blockchain and such other innovative ideas. > [@](#): > > If you are old enough, you will recall this phrase when you went to the movies in the 1950s. That was when during the double-feature era before 1960, movie theatres did not list show times in newspapers. If they did, few paid attention to them. You just showed up and entered the dark theatre while one of the movies was playing. You would wait a few seconds for your eyes to adjust to the dark and then shuffle to empty seats. A few hours later came that memorable moment when you or one of your companions would nudge the others and say, “This is where we came in.” Then you’d shuffle out. However, in the Youtube era, I found a use for that. One day my brother noticed that I was looking at a long clip of the old German version of Baron Münchhausen, we were curious if a movie that old was available in Youtube or other video stream places, it was. So we watched the feature. Interesting to notice how such a quality production was made by the Germans and Italians in the middle of WWII. Anyhow, as soon as the almost naked ladies 😉 in the palace fountain appeared in the computer screen I noted: “Ah, this is where we came in!.” 🆒😃 ---
**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:** [August 8, 2014, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-things-for-which-kids-today-have-no-context-another-list-of-how-things-have-changed/695035/157 "2014-08-08T02:38:50Z")
“Snow” (the visual equivalent of static) on a blank television channel. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2014, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-things-for-which-kids-today-have-no-context-another-list-of-how-things-have-changed/695035/158 "2014-08-08T02:43:08Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > “Snow” (the visual equivalent of static) on a blank television channel. How does the opening line from Neuromancer go? ‘The sky above the port was the color of television tuned to a dead channel’ That line needs a footnote now. ---
**Author:** ![Hermione](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/cdc98d/32.png) [@Hermione](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hermione)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2014, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-things-for-which-kids-today-have-no-context-another-list-of-how-things-have-changed/695035/159 "2014-08-08T02:43:46Z")
One thing “kids today” (good Lord, am I actually using that phrase?) have little conception of: the “specialness” of having certain movies and specials broadcast only once a year. **Little Nemo** got it right upthread about what movie-viewing was like in that pre-home video/On Demand era. This is a by-product of that. Take The Wizard of Oz, for example. It only came on CBS once a year, usually in the spring around Eastertime. It had its [special bumpers](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3eIxtTjyBQ) and its sponsors. You got your bath early and got into your pajamas so you wouldn’t miss it. And hearing Dorothy say “oh, Auntie Em, there’s no place like home!” and hearing those final notes of the score were a little sad…because that was it for another year! Then there was the [Rankin-Bass vanity plate.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlOiv8S-mnI) There was something bittersweet about it: it was nice because it was part and parcel of all those Christmas specials I loved, but when you saw it, again, you knew that this was IT and you wouldn’t see Rudolph/Frosty/Santa Claus Is Coming To Town/Twas The Night Before Christmas again for another year! And no young hearts will leap at the sight and sound of [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4_d_6A8nE0) these days, expecting to hear Vince Guaraldi’s jazz piano immediately afterward… Now, there are advantages to being able to see what you like (movies, holiday specials, etc.) anytime you want, as often as you want. But there was always that specialness of knowing that it only came on once a year, even if it felt a little bittersweet when it ended. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2014, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-things-for-which-kids-today-have-no-context-another-list-of-how-things-have-changed/695035/160 "2014-08-08T02:45:04Z")
Adding machines, the kind with that tape that comes out of it. Not too long ago I saw one on display in a museum. Black-and-white TV sets. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-things-for-which-kids-today-have-no-context-another-list-of-how-things-have-changed/695035.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-things-for-which-kids-today-have-no-context-another-list-of-how-things-have-changed/695035.md?page=9)