# Without saying your age, what's something from your childhood that a younger person wouldn't understand? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 25, 2021, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138 "2021-10-25T01:08:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 19
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2021, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/363 "2021-10-29T21:07:12Z")
As an adult I met the DC version - Count Gore de Vol [Count Gore de Vol - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Count_Gore_de_Vol) by the way, at an SF convention. ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2021, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/364 "2021-10-29T21:28:23Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > I’ve driven an old-style pre-fancy computer one before, they’re _hard_ . Me too. Somehow I found it intuitive to use. But a lot of work. ---
**Author:** ![SuntanLotion](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/suntanlotion/32/16165_2.png) [@SuntanLotion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SuntanLotion)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2021, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/365 "2021-10-30T00:14:45Z")
Pay toilets. ---
**Author:** ![TreacherousCretin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treacherouscretin/32/476_2.png) [@TreacherousCretin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TreacherousCretin)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2021, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/366 "2021-10-30T02:23:26Z")
> [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](#): > > Comic books went from 10¢ to 12¢. I wasn’t made of money! Yes! Amazingly, I (think I) remember the moment I became aware of the increase. I was getting ready to buy an Action Comic with Superman and inexplicably present father Jor-El on the cover. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2021, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/367 "2021-10-30T02:53:14Z")
> [@TreacherousCretin](#): > > and inexplicably present father Jor-El on the cover. Superhero comics were notorious for their Clickbaity misleading cover art. ---
**Author:** ![Bonum\_Legatum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bonum_legatum/32/6183_2.png) [@Bonum\_Legatum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bonum_Legatum)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2021, 11:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/368 "2021-10-30T11:26:10Z")
Horn and Hardart: > [@Tibby](#): > > The simple, but tasty and affordable entrees. The iconic “Nickle Throwers” and brass dolphin head coffee dispensers (with really good coffee). The original chocolate vending bar. What’s not to love about this place? And people who were down on their luck would buy one nickel item, make lemonade from the free lemons and sugar at the tea counter, and make (urgh) “tomato soup” from the free ketchup, hot water, and crackers. ---
**Author:** ![Mark\_Finn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/34f0e0/32.png) [@Mark\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mark_Finn)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2021, 11:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/369 "2021-10-30T11:37:23Z")
> [@SuntanLotion](#): > > Pay toilets. Still very common in Europe - although not like the North American type I remember where you put a dime in the stall handle, and turned it to open the door. In Europe - you usually pay/tip an attendant. ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2021, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/370 "2021-10-30T12:40:21Z")
> [@Mark\_Finn](#): > > Still very common in Europe - although not like the North American type I remember where you put a dime in the stall handle, and turned it to open the door. In Europe - you usually pay/tip an attendant. Yeah this surprised me when we went to Germany. Oddly the first bathroom I visited in the Frankfort airport was real bad, but free. All the others where clean as a whistle and very nice with individual toilet stalls with real doors and and nice vanity areas. ---
**Author:** ![Mark\_Finn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/34f0e0/32.png) [@Mark\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mark_Finn)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2021, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/371 "2021-10-30T12:50:34Z")
Y2K. That was a really big thing in the late 1990’s, but do any teens today know what it was? ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2021, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/372 "2021-10-30T12:59:35Z")
> [@cochrane](#): > > Does anyone recall getting the polio vaccine in a sugar cube? I’m probably too young (b.1963) to remember that, but weren’t sugar cubes more notable as a delivery device for an entirely different kind of drug in the ‘60s? ---
**Author:** ![Moriarty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moriarty/32/49_2.png) [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2021, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/373 "2021-10-30T13:03:08Z")
> [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#): > > I’m probably too young (b.1963) to remember that, but weren’t sugar cubes more notable as a delivery device for an entirely different kind of drug in the ‘60s? Ha! I wasn’t going to say it, but the only time I’ve encountered a sugar cube was one time when I dropped acid with a friend in college (this being about the year 2000). ETA: The LSD, from an eye dropper, was added to the cube, in case that’s not obvious. ---
**Author:** ![Tibby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tibby/32/17030_2.png) [@Tibby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tibby)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2021, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/374 "2021-10-30T13:14:18Z")
They did administer polio vaccine in sugar cubes. I liked it. I didn’t like being singled out in elementary school every year for a chest x-ray due to tuberculosis (TB) exposure. Only 2 other kids in school had to do so. It was embarrassing. ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2021, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/375 "2021-10-30T13:24:46Z")
> [@Gorsnak](#): > > In this vein, kids these days will never experience the giggling fun of putting on an LP and switching the turntable to 45rpm (or even better, 78, though ours was too new and inexpensive to have a 78 setting). Selecting the 2x speed setting on Youtube just isn’t the same. Much less the joy of spinning the record backward with your finger and hearing “turn me on dead man” ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2021, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/376 "2021-10-30T15:09:16Z")
ELO record says: The music is reversible! ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2021, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/377 "2021-10-30T15:29:58Z")
> [@carrps](#): > > Yes. I had both the Salk and Sabin vaccines. Polio was absolutely terrifying to parents when I was small. Ditto. I don’t really remember getting the Salk vaccines but I remember waiting in line for the Sabin and getting handed a cube in one of those paper minicups by a white-uniformed nurse. I don’t know if there was a fee my parents paid or not. With the pushback on Covid vaccines I’ve thought of that memory; a more innocent time. I also remember PSAs about hanging around public swimming pools can lead to polio so, just to keep it with the intent of the OP, the warnings about doing such. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2021, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/378 "2021-10-30T15:40:56Z")
> [@Ulfreida](#): > > > [@Gorsnak](#): > > > > In this vein, kids these days will never experience the giggling fun of putting on an LP and switching the turntable to 45rpm (or even better, 78, though ours was too new and inexpensive to have a 78 setting). Selecting the 2x speed setting on Youtube just isn’t the same. > > Much less the joy of spinning the record backward with your finger and hearing “turn me on dead man” _Here’s to my sweet Satan_ _The one whose little path would make me sad, whose power is Satan_ _He will give those with him 666_ _There was a little toolshed where he made us suffer, sad Satan._ - _Stairway To Heaven_ Once you’ve heard it, you can’t unhear it. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2021, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/379 "2021-10-30T16:05:19Z")
LSD on sugar cubes must have been something from the days of Timothy Leary. I did acid approx 5 times between 1976-1981, and was a habitué of the demimonde, to put it politely. All LSD of that era was in poppyseed-size microdot, or sheets of blotter paper with grid perforations. Images printed in the grid could be quite imaginative, and by rights should be in the collection of MOMA or the Smithsonian. At age 4 I did enjoy my polio vaccine sugar cube, and in fact asked the doctor for another. I also have a smallpox scab on my arm. Brad Pitt’s smallpox scab was left un-spackled as a historical anachronism in _Troy,_ and Tod Armstrong’s scab is prominent in the scene in _Jason and the Argonauts_ where Nancy Kovack heals a cut on his arm. As a veteran, I stood in line and was vaccinated with the the same vaccination gun as dozens of other horny young men at the height of the AIDS epidemic, some of us bearing the virus acquired in San Diego, Tijuana or the fleshpots of the East. I’m unaware of any HIV transmissions this way, but the more robust Hep-C virus was later proven to have been passed. ---
**Author:** ![Superdude](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/superdude/32/13450_2.png) [@Superdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superdude)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2021, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/380 "2021-10-30T16:25:11Z")
The TV had to be on channel 3 to play video games. If the president was making a speech or holding a press conference, your night was shot. ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2021, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/381 "2021-10-30T17:37:58Z")
> [@Slithy\_Tove](#): > > Tod Armstrong’s scab is prominent in the scene in _Jason and the Argonauts_ where Nancy Kovack heals a cut on his arm. Dwane Johnson was showing not one but two smallpox scars as the Scorpion King in _The Mummy Returns_. ---
**Author:** ![Tibby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tibby/32/17030_2.png) [@Tibby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tibby)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2021, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/382 "2021-10-30T19:15:49Z")
Back in the day, having a mobile phone meant that your kitchen wall phone had an extra long cord, so you could talk in the living room. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138.md?page=18) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138.md?page=20)