# 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:** 44
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2022, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/863 "2022-03-15T23:17:12Z")
lol I owned all of that at one time… I remember playing “lemonade” on tape ---
**Author:** ![Pabitel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bbce88/32.png) [@Pabitel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pabitel)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2022, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/864 "2022-03-16T12:27:56Z")
When I was in college for my IT degree I programmed on a mainframe, the college didn’t have any PCs, and got to write 8 bit assembly using toggle switches as an interface, with eight red LEDs as the display to read the output, on stand alone computer. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2022, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/865 "2022-03-16T12:52:59Z")
Growing up, my parents splurged and we got ONTV. My parents were like that. We got an Intellivision system when it first came out. ---
**Author:** ![GaryM](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/garym/32/241_2.png) [@GaryM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GaryM)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2022, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/866 "2022-03-16T12:57:06Z")
Don’t remember if mine was the Kaypro II, but we did have a Kaypro to replace our Atari 800. Friend had an Osborne and a database program. The floppy drives were incompatible, so we transferred the program over a 30 baud modem. Took a while, but it worked. ---
**Author:** ![EnolaStraight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/41988e/32.png) [@EnolaStraight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EnolaStraight)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2022, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/867 "2022-03-19T02:17:00Z")
Seeing this: [1985 - CBS Special Presentation - YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTWzI66jGOE) Meant you were going to see Charlie Brown or some other bit of animation, like The Hobbit or Rikki Tikki Tavi or some such. ---
**Author:** ![pirviii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pirviii/32/3233_2.png) [@pirviii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pirviii)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2022, 6:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/868 "2022-03-19T06:07:13Z")
And it usually meant I had to go watch it on the small black and white TV in the den. ---
**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:** [March 19, 2022, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/869 "2022-03-19T16:34:28Z")
How about the NBC peacock? NBC would run this announcement to let you know the show you were about to watch was in color instead of black and white. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/Dc8tWbjBcAc/hqdefault.jpg "1960s - NBC - Living Color Peacock (HQ)") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dc8tWbjBcAc) ---
**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:** [March 19, 2022, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/870 "2022-03-19T16:54:29Z")
My younger self was very upset when they phased that logo out for a dull “N” > **[NBC](https://logos.fandom.com/wiki/NBC)** > > The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American television network owned by Comcast through its media subsidiary NBCUniversal (formerly by General Electric). Founded in 1926 as a radio network and in 1939 as a television network, it is the... ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2022, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/871 "2022-03-19T18:37:57Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > Touch the floor? No, an inch of fabric on the floor. Heh, this might be a good way to judge someone’s age! I’m with @panache45 – it was just touch the ground when I was in high school. I once got sent home. Yay, me. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2022, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/872 "2022-03-19T19:00:19Z")
i actually can’t remember whether it was one inch or two inches; but it was definitely more than just touching. When we went into town (it was a boarding school) we rolled our skirts up at the waistbands. And once we staged a protest: one of the girls had a batch of miniskirts, and lent them around, so a batch of us went in to dinner in minis. I can’t remember what happened; except that they didn’t change the rule, and there were enough of us that nothing awful happened to us – I think we got a lecture, and maybe a bit of study hall during what was supposed to be free time. Mid 1960’s. The times they were a-changing, but not everywhere at the same rate of speed. ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2022, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/873 "2022-03-19T19:02:56Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > When we went into town (it was a boarding school) we rolled our skirts up at the waistbands. We did that starting in elementary school – and I was at a Catholic school. The nuns used to do waistband checks. So silly. I graduated high school in 1969. 69! And on Friday the 13th! ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2022, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/874 "2022-03-19T19:07:41Z")
> [@carrps](#): > > I graduated high school in 1969. Me too. By the time I graduated I had just about figured out why people thought that was funny. – We took a bus into town, and were let loose once we got off the bus, as long as we stayed in pairs so as to, supposedly, chaperone each other. So the teachers didn’t see our rolled-up waistbands; unless we forgot to roll them back down in time. ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2022, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/875 "2022-03-19T19:09:32Z")
Since we’re basically the same age, I’m assuming your rules were stricter based on your school and location. I was at a public high school in SoCal. ---
**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:** [March 19, 2022, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/876 "2022-03-19T19:10:38Z")
> [@Andy\_L](#): > > My younger self was very upset when they phased that logo out for a dull “N” > > [NBC | Logopedia | Fandom](https://logos.fandom.com/wiki/NBC) In the same vein, I remember when CBS showed _The Wizard of Oz_, they announced "The portions of this movie set in Oz were filmed in color. The framing scenes in Kansas are in black and white and are an artistic choice by the producers of this movie. If you are watching on a color set, please do not adjust your set. They’re is nothing wrong with it. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2022, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/877 "2022-03-19T19:21:29Z")
> [@carrps](#): > > Since we’re basically the same age, I’m assuming your rules were stricter based on your school and location. > > I was at a public high school in SoCal It was a rather old-fashioned private school in Maine. My parents thought I wasn’t getting a good education, and would get a better one there; I thought that if I changed schools I wouldn’t start off with everybody already knowing that I was the Kid Who Didn’t Fit and maybe things would go better. We were both wrong. (well, it’s possible I would have gotten an even worse academic education if I’d stayed in the local public school; but I wasn’t getting anywhere near as good a one as they expected.) The particular school was chosen in large part because it had horses. That part, at least, worked. For my last couple of years I switched to a different boarding school, in Massachusetts. That one was more up to date in a lot of ways; but we still went into town in pairs, and we weren’t allowed to wear jeans except for the stint of cleaning duty we had to do on Saturdays. Including in 1969. ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2022, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/878 "2022-03-19T19:35:04Z")
I think I was a senior before we could wear pants to school. But we still couldn’t wear jeans. We got around it by wearing non-blue denim ones. I still don’t know how that made a difference. ---
**Author:** ![dolphinboy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dolphinboy/32/330_2.png) [@dolphinboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dolphinboy)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2022, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/879 "2022-03-19T20:21:38Z")
It’s Friday night at 11 pm and you were supposed to be home by 10. You’re driving around frantically looking for an open gas station and praying you have some change so you can call home and tell your parents where you are. ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2022, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/880 "2022-03-19T23:46:48Z")
> [@cochrane](#): > > In the same vein, I remember when CBS showed _The Wizard of Oz_ , they announced "The portions of this movie set in Oz were filmed in color. The framing scenes in Kansas are in black and white and are an artistic choice by the producers of this movie. If you are watching on a color set, please do not adjust your set. They’re is nothing wrong with it. When they first developed colorization technology for B&W movies, my sister said, “Great! Now we can see all of _The Wizard of Oz_ in color!” (She was joking.) ---
**Author:** ![Esprise\_Me](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/esprise_me/32/2947_2.png) [@Esprise\_Me](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Esprise_Me)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2022, 6:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/881 "2022-03-20T06:33:55Z")
I just saw the new Pixar movie _Turning Red,_ which is set in 2002. Overall it was great, but the tiny anachronisms bugged me. The kid still plays with a Tamagotchi? Not in 2002; those things were gone by about 1998, maybe earlier. Certainly before girls started wearing those butterfly clips all over their heads like that one character. And those clips, too, were out of style by 2002. But those cell phones with the big screens and apparently an affordable text messaging plan? Not yet in 2002, certainly not for 13-year-olds. The fact that I even remember what was popular when, and think that 1998 and 2002 are like, totally different historical epochs, should give you a pretty good idea of how old I was then. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2022, 11:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/882 "2022-03-20T11:16:55Z")
> [@Esprise\_Me](#): > > I just saw the new Pixar movie _Turning Red,_ which is set in 2002. Overall it was great, but the tiny anachronisms bugged me. The kid still plays with a Tamagotchi? Not in 2002; those things were gone by about 1998, maybe earlier. Certainly before girls started wearing those butterfly clips all over their heads like that one character. And those clips, too, were out of style by 2002. [HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER] “This is the ‘90s. Why does it look like 1986?” “The ‘80s didn’t come to Canada ‘til like ‘93.” [/HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER] [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=43) [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=45)