What's Changed During Your Lifetime?

In My Humble Opinion
21

Consider the telephone.

When I was a kid (late 60s-early 70s) you had one or maybe two phones in your house. You didn’t own it, Ma Bell did. You rented it from her. It had a slinky-like cord, a rotary dial, and when a call came in a real bell rang. You could not unplug it from the wall without a screwdriver, and moving it from one room to another required a visit from a Bell technician, and a charge.
NOBODY* had a touch tone phone, an answering machine, call waiting, a pager, or a cordless phone. Doctors had answering services, but they consisted of real people who took messages. The only people who had car phones were villains in James Bond movies. Cell phones, as we know them, were for Star Trek and Dick Tracy.
*(I know some of these things existed back then, but they really weren’t in widespread use. The first answering machine I ever saw was on the beginning of the Rockford Files).

22

I still have a rotary phone! :smiley: I like it, although I do use the cordless that’s right next to it sometimes. I thought the Touch-Tone phone in The Courtship of Eddie’s Father series was neato-mosquito.

23

I remember skates that were attached to your shoes. You had to use a skate key to tighten them.

No more radio mysteries and comedies

No live drama on television (or rarely)

No cartoons before the feature movie

Movies don’t cost 12 cents anymore and popcorn is not 10 cents.

Smoke alarms

Drive-in theaters have come and gone.

Telephone calls were a nickle. Now it is hard to find a phone booth.

I could see jillions of stars in a dark, dark sky at night.

Hairspray was invented and hair gel and hot rollers.

“Pin curls”

Women aren’t locked in all-female dorms at eight o’clock

Women and girls are allowed to wear pants to school or on campus.

No more girl’s half court basketball

No more automatic woodshop for boys and home ec. for girls

No seams in my stockings – pantyhose invented

Don’t have to mix your own “oleo margarine” or churn butter.

Don’t have to learn to kill chickens in home ec. classes

Fathers are allowed to see the birth of their children.

No checking under hens for eggs

telephones with party lines and local operators

Women couldn’t go to Harvard then. Now the Dean is a woman.

No women at service academies

Women back on their feet much quicker after childbirth

No bikinies

Women earn the same as men now.

OOOPS! Sorry! Cancel that last one!

24

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by kniz *
[ul][li]… No UPS, FedEx, etc. just U.S. Mail.[/li][/QUOTE]
Aren’t you forgetting about REA, the Railway Express Agency? I’m pretty sure they were in operation during the early part of your life. Plus Greyhound had their “next bus out” deliveries as well.[/ul]

25

In my life time the eradication of small pox and of course now the furor because it’s a threat again.

Since my son’s were born there is now a chicken pox vaccine… Wonder if it would have saved my child’s life if it had come out 6 months or a year sooner.

26

Which catchphrases have come and gone? Remember the term “information superhighway”?

27

“Shock and awe”?

:smiley:

[sub]Sorry.[/sub]

28

The Internet, the Internet, the Internet…

I’ve been working on cleaning up my cubicle the last couple of weeks, in anticipation of my retirement. I’ve been throwing away tons of paper that I’ve amassed over the years. Until now, my power has been based on having these pieces of paper at my disposal; now my power is based on the ability to make information available to people electronically.

29

My kids were some of the last born when you didn’t know the sex of your kid months early.

When I was a kid, no one talked about sex (openly). it was soemthing you learned about by looking at your friend’s father’s Playboy collection.

My first job after grad school was for the Bell System - where we all expected to work for life. Bell Bonds were listed in the financial pages as just slightly less safe than government bonds.

My first programs were in machine language, and everyone had to be an expert in punching cards on an IBM 029 card punch.

Most movies ran continuously, and you could stay for as long as you wanted. When I was little I actually went to one with a stage show before it. When the movie was gone, it was gone, to return on TV with lots of commercials interrupting it. No one imagined that people would have libraries of tape and DVDs.

Books were 35 cents.

30

The Person In Front Of You at a shop…

In Olden Tymes…
[ul]

  • clerk reads price off tag, punches a few keys on cash register
  • PIFOY gives clerk money
  • clerk give PIFOY change, puts purchase in a bag.
  • PIFOY leaves
    [/ul]
    Now
    [ul]
  • clerk searches purchase for a tag, finds several but none of them seem to be the correct one.
  • clerk vainly scans tags several times, while occasionally punching some keys on the computer.
  • clerk calls over associate and they have a conference
  • clerk enters codes “manually” on the computer. This process takes about 10 minutes and consists of keying, frowning, backspacing, looking at tag, looking at screen, etc.
  • eventually the purchase (thank God there was only one) is entered. Clerk asks PIFOY if they belong to the store’s “Loyalty Program”. PIFOY decides to join
  • clerk enters PIFOY personal details into computer. More keying, frowning, etc.
  • clerk finally finishes transaction after another 10 minutes
  • The PIFOY now searches in purse for a credit card. Dozens are pulled out before the correct one is found
  • clerk runs credit card through another machine, frowns, keys a few buttons…
  • credit card machines, whirs, spits, buzzes. Silence… BEEP!
  • clerk tells PIFOY that card is no good.
  • repeat above with another card
  • PIFOY now decides that they need a gift enclosure for this purchase
  • clerk keys, frowns, etc
  • clerk calls over associate for conference
  • you put down your purchase and check into asylum
    [/ul]
31

They stopped making cars with fins.

The interstate highway system was created.

Polio is not at present the threat it was.

Manual stick shifts on the steering column have disappeared.

The Girl Scouts no longer sell VanCho cookies.

They’ve stopped selling American flags with 48 stars on them.

The Atomic Energy Commission no longer talks about “Sunshine Units”

Girls used to wear tight, flare legged “Hip hugger” jeans and mini skirts. :wink:

Only former sailors, bikers, and concentration camp inmates had tattoos.

32

Some things good, some things bad, some things neither:

Beer came in three brands, all of them the same.
There were no infomercials. TV stations ran old movies.
You did NOT go to “The Circle” in Indianapolis after sunset.
A high school diploma was a ticket to a good job.
Only the rich or old men went to tobacconists.
Putting a roof over a shopping plaza was new (at least in my hometown).
Computers lived in their own buildings.
TV remotes went “ping”.
Everybody got a smallpox vaccination.
Wood trays were expensive, sheet-metal trays were cheap.
Home security systems were what rich people had (and they were called “burglar alarms”).
Everybody who smoked cigars just bit off the ends.
If you had constant heartburn, you slept with your upper body propped up (no acid blockers).
“Goulash” (strips of chuck boiled to leather in tomato sauce) was a foreign novelty.
Hamburger boiled too long in bland tomato sauce was considered “Italian”.
“Chinese” food meant chop suey or stuff out of “La Choy” cans.
Nobody ever asked why well-off Blacks didn’t move to the suburbs.
“Foreign car” meant a VW Beetle.
Schools felt no need to have “zero tolerance” policies.
“Drugs” were what one got at a pharmacy.
Asians had “slant eyes” (which I never understood, given my Asian relatives had no slant in their eyes).
There were no “health clubs”–there were “gyms”.
Eight-track tapes were considered a good idea.
Drugstores had “tube testers”.
It was considered a good idea to cover beautiful hardwood floors with chintzy polyester carpeting.
If you had air conditioning, it was a single-room window unit, and the whole family slept in that room during the summer. If not, you had lots of fans.
Cameras used film.
You could still find “Polaroids” that had to be coated with lacquer.
Music was sold on twelve-inch vinyl discs that were very fragile and played on devices that gradually destroyed those disks.
Popcorn was ALWAYS “oil popped”.
Soda always came in returnable 16-ounce bottles except for Fanta.
Coca Cola was made with cane sugar (ah, but I can still get the Mexican version)!
Cooking vegetables consisted of “boil until tasteless mush”.
“There are starving children in China who would love to have that.” (My response was “Then give it to them–they need it more than I do.”–fortunately, my grandfather thought it was funny.)
“Hell” and “Damn” were shocking things to say.
Your grandmother tried to “fix” your left-handedness.
The only “religious” schools in town were Catholic.
“Homeschooling” didn’t exist or was so rare as to be unknown.
Men could be legally forced into the military and be sent off to die even though they had no say in choosing the leaders who did the sending (draft age was 18, voting age was 21).
Slightly before my time, but in Indiana, my father had to get permission to marry from his mother but my mother (who was two years younger than he) did not.
“S-E-X” was not to be mentioned on TV, except possibly in the news.
National Geographic was mildly scandalous, but families had decades worth of issues.
Your father insisted that you learn to use a slide rule because you wanted to go to college.
Four-function (add/subtract/divide/multiply) calculators required nine-volt batteries.
You were expected got a BB gun as soon as you were “old enough”.
Lasers only existed in Popular Mechanics.
Everybody was going to live in some kind of “dome house” in 20 years.
Cars that could be converted into airplanes were a good idea.
Gangs were dangerous because they might have knives.
All kitchens were white, harvest gold, or avacado.
Blue Nun was a fine wine.
Cheese was Swiss, Cheddar, or American (or cans of grated “Mozarella”)
There was only one kind of mushroom.
Coffee only came pre-ground, in a can (or it was instant).
Your family had one bottle of tabasco sauce that lasted six years.
You had a motorized TV aerial on your house, and used the motor to rotate it for better reception.
Rabbit Ears on TVs.
The Veg-o-Matic could still be bought.
It was routine to get a “boy’s bike” or a “girl’s bike”.
Restaurants without “no smoking” sections.
Stores waited until after Thanksgiving before putting up Christmas decorations and trimmings.
Your grandmother said “War between the States” and wasn’t a crackpot.
It was presumed that people got senile when they aged.
Nobody actually knew how soccer was played.
“Kickball” was called “kick-soccer”.
T-shirts were always worn under button-down shirts, whatever the weather.
Plugs were always two-prong. When you got that lone three-prong item, you got an adaptor but never bothered to ground it.

33

Neither of my grandmothers learned to drive… there was no need.

In talking with Grandma the other day she told me her first job was making 25 cents a day at Bristol-Myers packing boxes.

Pennies weren’t always nusiances.

My curfew was when the street lights came on when I was a kid.

You went to the school that was closest to your house. You weren’t bussed around the city to try and achieve some kind of racial balance.

I remember sitting through double mass as a kid in French and Latin. Woe for the child who only speaks English!

34

In addition to all of the above, consider the advances in medicine since my childhood in the 1960s. I’d say medical progress since then is comparable to progress in the technical fields.

Just one example: How long has it been since a friend or relative lost an infant? If you are like me, I can’t recall a case. Yet in August, 1963, Jackie Kennedy gave birth to her third child, Patrick Bouvier Kennedy. He suffered from a serious lung ailment, and died two days later. Presumably, the medical care given to the President’s infant son would have been state of the art for 1963. Without knowing the specifics in this case, I would guess that in 2003, Patrick Kennedy would survive as a healthy, normal boy.

The progress that has been made in oncology, neonatology, immunology, et complex cetera, is truly remarkable.

35

I’m 42 now. One of the things that’s changed drastically is how rarely people dress formally any more.

When I was a kid, in the late 60s and early 1970s, all sorts of things were treated as serious, important events for which you were supposed to dress formally. This includes things that almost everybody treats casually today.

Examples? Baseball and football games, for one. When my dad or my grandfather took me to a ballgame, he wore a suit and a tie with a hat. Next time you see a documentary about the 1969 World Series or “the Big Shootout” between Texas and Arkansas, look at the crow. Everybody is wearing suits and ties! Going to a ball game USED to be a Very Big Deal!

Another example? When I was a kid, going on an airplane was also a Very Big Deal. Any time we flew anywhere, my Mom made a point of dressing me and my brothers up in little suits and ties, because it was essential that we look presentable on an airplane.

Today, it’s becoming rare for people to dress formally at work or at church- but it seems absolutely laughable that we dressed so formally to go to Shea Stadium or on a plane.

36

computers, without a doubt. (i mean, I started off with a commodore 64, for Pete’s sake…)

mobile phones (or cell phones in US), especially sms’s (anyone living in Ireland will agree with me on that one)

I didn’t get on to a plane until i was 18 (since then I’ve flown on avarage 4-5 times a year).

TV. Started off with a 2nd hand black and white that could barely receive 2 channels. Now everyone has a big screen TV with all the bells and whistles attached. And they’re cheap…

VCR: my parents used to have BEtamax! It was way cool, you could turn the tape and stick it back in, just like a audio tape, and presto! you had another 4 hours to record. Pity it went out of business…Now everything is VHS…

37

computers, without a doubt. (i mean, I started off with a commodore 64, for Pete’s sake…)

mobile phones (or cell phones in US), especially sms’s (anyone living in Ireland will agree with me on that one)

I didn’t get on to a plane until i was 18 (since then I’ve flown on avarage 4-5 times a year).

TV. Started off with a 2nd hand black and white that could barely receive 2 channels. Now everyone has a big screen TV with all the bells and whistles attached. And they’re cheap…

VCR: my parents used to have BEtamax! It was way cool, you could turn the tape and stick it back in, just like a audio tape, and presto! you had another 4 hours to record. Pity it went out of business…Now everything is VHS…

seatbelts…when I was a kid, nobody wore them (well my mom always did), but the 3 of us in the back never had to. Luckily we were never involved in a car accident…could’ve been messy…

38

computers, without a doubt. (i mean, I started off with a commodore 64, for Pete’s sake…)

mobile phones (or cell phones in US), especially sms’s (anyone living in Ireland will agree with me on that one)

I didn’t get on to a plane until i was 18 (since then I’ve flown on avarage 4-5 times a year).

TV. Started off with a 2nd hand black and white that could barely receive 2 channels. Now everyone has a big screen TV with all the bells and whistles attached. And they’re cheap…

VCR: my parents used to have BEtamax! It was way cool, you could turn the tape and stick it back in, just like a audio tape, and presto! you had another 4 hours to record. Pity it went out of business…Now everything is VHS…

seatbelts…when I was a kid, nobody wore them (well my mom always did), but the 3 of us in the back never had to. Luckily we were never involved in a car accident…could’ve been messy…

39

Technology…blah blah blah…

And Halloween! It used to be a community-wide fun thing…kids and parents, door-to-door, meet neighbors, scare the hell out of young 'uns, spooky-spooky fun.

Now they put the kids in their P.C. and/or church-approved costumes and drive them miles from home to a mall or a party and partake in santized, officially-sanctioned, not-too-scary lameness.

40

Dogface, sorry to be the one to tell you this but nowadays the Mexican sodas are all made with high fructose corn sweetener too.

Look for Coca Cola during Lent as it is made with cane sugar for dietary restriction reasons around that time. If you have a British specialty food shop near you, they might have sodas made with sugar as well.