Nope. Vietnam War. Cities burning. Assassinations. Nearly all of Latin America and many other countries under brutal right-wing dictatorships. The threat of nuclear holocaust.
Little kids are amazed when I tell them there were only 48 states when I was born.
I couldn’t agree with you more.
It’s all relative in my eyes.
So are coworkers.
That’s for sure singlequote backspace period
You’re old when people start referring to things you lived through as “a half-century ago.”
Same here! I feel like I’m on some sort of revisiting of those major events.
Also, once we get past the leap day next weekend, the days of the week will even line up across 50 years. March 1 was a Sunday in 1970, and it will be a Sunday this year too. And so forth for the next two years, until 1972’s leap day throws things out of sync again.
I remember my mom stepping on tin cans to flatten then for recycling, to help win WWII’ My first grade teacher was born in the Grant administration, when the school was built.
But here’s what makes me feel old: I don’t want to learn new technology any more. I don’t know how to “dial” a number on my wife’s phone.
I had a moment like this when I saw a theater marquee touting “Jethro Tull 50th Anniversary! Performing Aqualung in its Entirety!”
Now, I must naturally look on the bright side, because my second reaction (after “I can’t be THAT old”) was “Hey, I saved a lot of money!” When my teenage self went downtown all by myself and saw Tull, they surprised us with the next album they were working on: Aqualung. As opposed to the $50-80 the anniversary show cost, I paid $8 for box seats.
I still love the t-shirt I saw on an aging rocker:
I might be old…
. but I saw all
the cool bands!
I always regret not congratulating the guy and adding “And you saw 'em for ten bucks, too, I bet.”
Woodstock was $24 for three days. I still have my ticket somewhere, but I’m too old to remember where.
$24 sounds cheap but the Inflation Calculator says it’s the equivalent to $169.70 today. I was living in eastern Pennsylvania at the time and had heard about Woodstock beforehand. But as a poor nineteen-year old, I couldn’t afford the ticket and did not go.
Probably just as well; I likely would have wound up one of the ones milling around outside for my trouble.
Rotary phones. You could actually go somewhere without a phone and you survived!
Oh yes! How many calls I took as a teen babysitter using a rotary phone!
As a child, I was taught that listening to other people’s phone conversations was the height of rudeness.
Since cell phones became omnipresent, that is unavoidable. And listening to other people’s phone conversations is very, very, very boring to the point where I think it’s rude to inflect them on other people.
We had a party line until the mid 70’s, and I remember my siblings and I, listening in on neighbours catting on the phone. We used to giggle and snicker, even knowing we’d get a good spank on the bottom (from mom) if we got caught.
It was $18 if you bought tickets in advance. I know approximately where my tickets are (which of course were never collected).
A year earlier, I saw shows including bills of The Who/The Doors and Big Brother and the Holding Company/Jimi Hendrix at the Singer Bowl in New York for $2.50 each.
I’m sure there’s lots of stuff “under the hood” that makes Windows 10 a far more versatile operating system, but for 98% of what I do Windows 3.1 would work just as well, if anything ran on it.
My coworkers don’t believe me when I tell them that when I grew up, WHITE people bombed the PENTAGON. They survived for nearly a DECADE and most of them were either never caught or were charged with far, far less than they actually did.
Can you imagine what the political climate would be if there were such a group of people today? I mean, goodness, these people got all worked up about the freaking Unabomber & he was nothing compared to the Weathermen.
They used to have vending machines for cigarettes too when I was younger.