I remember having a speaker phone. If you called someone and it was busy, you could program the phone to keep calling back every 5 minutes until you got an answer.
I remember thinking it was so high-tech at the time.
I remember figuring out I would be 47 in the year 2000 when I was nine years old. That seemed impossibly old. And as for the When I’m 64 song, that ship has sailed too.
Any body else remember MS-DOS and the blinking cursor of death?
I remember the first versions when they came out, and I still remember the IBM version. Hell, I remember the first personal computer OS platforms that weren’t DOS. 
I even recall the first GUIs used and early demos of them…and people saying they would never be a thing.
(One anecdote I’ll share was when I was getting my degree in computer science one of my professors said, to paraphrase, that micro-computer networks would never be more than a toy. This was at a time I was already working with Banyan Vines and early Novell Netware networks)
McCartney is 76. Jagger is 75. Dylan is 77. Baez is 77. These are the only reminders I need that death is on the horizon.
I remember using card catalogs at the library, paper encyclopedias and (wonder of wonders) the Reader’s Guide to Periodic Literature when doing research papers.
I remember needing to get permission from my social studies teacher to turn in my papers type-written instead of in cursive. There was some doubt as to whether I did the typing myself. I had to prove I could type so they didn’t think my parents helped me. I learned on a manual typewriter. We typed carbon copies because there was no such thing as a photocopier…
I remember over half of my class in high-school being in the technical track - expected to get jobs right after graduating. Many were engaged and got married right out of high-school. It was the exception to be going to college. Then came Viet Nam and college deferments…
I remember typing term papers with an manual Smith-Corona typewriter. I remember watching TV when Alan Shepard was launched into space (it was all the 3 channels that were available were carrying). I remember when I heard the Kennedy was dead (coming out of school and seeing my mom crying).
I hope I can keep remembering stuff for the next 30 years or more (I intend to live forever or die trying).
The thing that I find most alarming is that at age 70, I can see the end of my life. Let’s say I live to be 95. (My mother died earlier this year at 93.) That’s only 25 years away. I can EASILY remember 25 years ago-- 1993. That was the day before yesterday.
When I was 30, I found a picture of a little old white-haired lady wearing a knitted shawl and a football helmet and holding a cat on her lap. I posted it on my office door and labeled it, “ThelmaLou in 2012.” In 2012 I would be 64 years old and that seemed impossibly far away. When 2012 came, needless to say, I WASN’T a little old white-haired lady. I’m still not. But I can’t deny that I’m old. I’m an elder. I’m elderly. I’m a senior citizen. I still can’t believe it.
My grandfather fought in the Boer War, my mother rode a horse to school (with a sibling on the same horse) and I had a slate. I remember when 30 seemed ancient.
Now my remaining friends have prostate issues, cancer and melanomas. I don’t know how I escaped. My parents lived to their mid 90’s and almost 90 but I don’t know if that is a blessing when all the people you know are having a dirt nap.
However, I am having a Heineken in Amsterdam and enjoying life. 70’s and 80’s music is still great and life is a lot easier than ever before. Apart from my knees hurting from fucking cobblestones. And I also get a discount at Museums here being over 62 (why 62?) And when I joined the Dope I was young thing… 
Happy birthday Annie! “When I’m 64” is one of my most favorite songs. I’m not quite there
yet but here are a few things:
Probably 98 percent of the people in my office have never used a rotary phone.
If you heard a song on the radio and wanted to buy it you had to go down to your local record store.
If you didn’t know the name of the song or the group you had to wait until they played it on the radio
again or ask a friend (What is that long song that starts out kind of quiet “Is this the real life…” then
changes to opera and after that really rocks out?).
To withdrawing money from the bank meant going into the bank when it was open and speaking
with a teller.
A couple years ago I was at an art festival where they had a band playing. The band very good and
was playing a lot of cool songs so I went over to take a look. I got there just in time to hear
the last song and was shocked. The audience rocking out to the music looked like a bunch of senior
citizens and the band members all had grey hair. The song they were playing? “Doctor My Eyes” by
Jackson Browne.
I haven’t quite reached the milestone of having a President who was younger than me. But it’s been real close; Barack Obama is less than three months older than me.
There was a bad moment this year going to the 50th anniversary re-release of Yellow Submarine and reflected that I saw it during its initial release.
Having watched Elizabeth II’s coronation, and Ike’s first inauguration on TV (a b/w Zenith with a 12" circular screen).
Being 3 months older than the oldest boomer.
Being already in college when JFK was shot.
Listening to “When I’m 64,” and looking back with nostalgia.
Everything in your body either dries up or leaks.
Hey, you’re still kicking. I am not sure I can ever forgive you for telling me about Cicero the pig however.
I’m a couple years younger but ----------- damn these lazy kids I work with! We have some work ethic and all they want to do is stand around talking about video games and texting on their phones. Put that damn phone down already before I shake my cane at you again you runny-nosed crumb-crunching little snots!
Which come to think about it is about the same reaction my Gramma had to that transistor radio that was glued to my hand for ten years ------ 
Wow.
I remember pay phone booths and listening to “The Age of Aquarius” when I was 6 living in San Francisco. I remember my crossing guard giving me a ride in her brand new Volkswagen Beetle and how weird it looked and how the seats felt.
I remember a time in high school when “leaving for the summer” meant I would probably never hear about friends the whole time and have to ask them what they did all summer.
I remember those non cable days when TV went off at night and they might as well have had a card come up on the TV that said “go to bed.”
I remember using Vax computing systems in college to do school work, using a plotter to do my customer graphs when I started real work and saying stupid things like, “why would anyone ever want a color computer monitor?”
I remember pre microwave days when as a kid the kitchen was pretty much off limits on cooking (we had a gas stove). Also I recall how truly awful those early TV dinners were.
I remember a time when my parents were truly from another generation. (I am 52)
We didn’t share the same musical tastes, the same fashion nor did we even talk about the same things. (my Dad owned 1 pair of sneakers for over 10 years and I never remember him wearing bluejeans. He only wore work pants, slacks or a suit pants.
Oh and we always sat down together as a family to eat dinner. You ate what was served and if you didn’t like it you were excused… To go to bed! Lol.
No one wore seat belts and my Mom held each of us in her arms in the front seat of our car - no child seats. If any kid dared roller skate or bike ride with a helmet he/she would be laughed off of the planet.
We really weren’t poor or middle class but nothing and I mean nothing was wasted. (both my parents lived thru the Great Depression) Toothpaste was squeezed until it burst from all corners. If we ran out of milk before the month was over that sometimes meant canned carnation milk in our cereal before school. All shirts and pants with holes were patched and reworn.
God I miss them days sometimes.
I recall when:
Milk was delivered early in the morning by the back door.
Mail was delivered twice a day.
Walter Cronkite delivered Vietnam War casualty/fatality totals every night on TV.
Fortran cards had to be filled with a #2 pencil.
I read a story in the newspaper ca. early-1990s about one middle school girl telling another that Paul McCartney used to be in “this other band” in the ‘60s.
My car turned 50 years old this year (though I’ve only owned it since 1990).
When a new-ish co-worker mentioned that he was 25 years old, I responded with “when you were born I had already been working here 6 years”.
The look on his face was as if I’d just announced I had served in the Civil War.
mmm
I’m in my last days of being 64. Five of my coworkers are young enough to be my grandkids. All the rest, including my boss, are young enough to be my kids.
Do they respect the wisdom of my years?? Yeah, right. 
Our first home phone was a party line - rotary dial. The TV was a black-and-white portable on a rickety wheeled stand with a rabbit ears antenna - if we were lucky, we could get about 6 channels. No one we knew had central air, and very few had window air conditioners. Gas was around 25¢ a gallon. My allowance was 10¢ a week, but it went up to 25¢ as I took on more chores.
Good times, good times…
I just turned 50 a few months ago. I had a rough time with that birthday. It’s getting increasingly hard to deny that I’m middle-aged…because I don’t feel middle-aged. At least mentally, that is, because actually I’ve got random aches and pains all over, especially since I took up downhill skiing as a new hobby a couple of years ago.
Anyway, I’ve been on the SDMB since I was in my early 30s. Where did the time go? 
One of the biggest changes for me over the years was the rise of the internet and mobile access to it. I remember how difficult it was to research anything back in the '80s, from schoolwork assignments to reviews of 12-speed road bicycles.
Another is the rise of cell phones. I remember waiting for hours for my mom to pick me up after a swim meet or taekwondo tournament that ended early because there was absolutely no way to contact her. I remember going to a local fair with a cousin, losing her in the crowd, and spending hours trying to find her again (because she was my ride home). I remember my physician father not being able to leave the house because he was “on call” and that meant he had to be accessible by phone at all times (which meant he couldn’t even play catch with me outside of our apartment building). 
I remember calling into a radio station with a request so that I could then record the song on a cassette tape. I remember calling a radio station to find out what the name of that song was they just played (Led Zeppelin’s Kashmir, as it turns out).
I’m now older than three of my grandparents were when I was born…and I thought they were all ancient my whole life. :o
Finally, I remember when I first heard the Beatles song in question, and I thought that 64 was impossibly old. That was when I was 13 years old. I’m now considerably closer to 64 than I am to 13… :eek:
My earliest datable memory is that my school was used as a polling place for the '44 election (I was in second grade). I remember VE day, the day Roosevelt died, VJ day and, after that, my memories become more coherent.