# 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:** 8
**Author:** ![InfraBlue](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/infrablue/32/6366_2.png) [@InfraBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/InfraBlue)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2021, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/142 "2021-10-25T20:13:42Z")
I’m doing this nowadays ever since I cut the cable, and still want to watch local broadcast stations with a digital antenna. The noise is annoying in a different way. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2021, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/143 "2021-10-25T20:23:25Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > When all had played, you would turn the stack over and play the flip sides… That’s why double albums would have Side 4 on the back of Side 1. And triple albums (like the $2 [Warner Brothers samplers](https://dustbury.com/music/wblist.html)) had Sides 1&6, 2&5, then 3&4. eta: Oops, didn’t see that **Railer13** had mentioned that. Well, I can add that I gave my wife a flat 12x12" present for our 33 1/3 anniversary, and she didn’t get it. ---
**Author:** ![Napier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Napier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Napier)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2021, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/144 "2021-10-25T20:27:05Z")
Drunk driving was OK, sort of. I mean, everybody agreed it was dangerous, but people didn’t criticize each other for it, because it could happen to anybody. “Don’t call somebody out for driving drunk, because next time, all the fingers could just as well be pointing at you!!” Somehow the idea that we can all opt not to do it just didn’t occur to people. The deaths and injuries and damages were a shame and all, but what could we do? Sometimes it happens! Thanks to MADD for this bit of horror getting changed. Some drunk driving certainly still happens, but we don’t normalize and excuse it, and that’s a big improvement. ---
**Author:** ![Keeve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f07891/32.png) [@Keeve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Keeve)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2021, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/145 "2021-10-25T20:33:41Z")
> [@Napier](#): > > Drunk driving was OK, sort of. I mean, everybody agreed it was dangerous, but … I must be older than you. I remember when “One for the road” was a common expression. (Never said it myself, as I was way too young, but it was common enough in movies.) > [@Napier](#): > > Thanks to MADD for this bit of horror getting changed. Amen ---
**Author:** ![purplehorseshoe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/purplehorseshoe/32/2996_2.png) [@purplehorseshoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/purplehorseshoe)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2021, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/146 "2021-10-25T20:34:39Z")
MAPSCO books - one of those giant fold-out maps sectioned off into a spiral bound book. You had to follow the letters/numbers at the edges, once your route wandered off a particular page. Were giant maps easy to use? No. (Especially not the re-folding part. I have vague childhood memories of my parents having EPIC roadside arguments about the damn map.) Were the MAPSCO books better? Not really. [https://images.app.goo.gl/m2KURDq7gu3JqRrJ8](https://images.app.goo.gl/m2KURDq7gu3JqRrJ8) ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2021, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/147 "2021-10-25T20:50:19Z")
> [@Bonum\_Legatum](#): > > Comic books that had advertisements for mail-order pets such as - MONKEYS! [![](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/be/ea/fa/beeafa41e43370f83a9711df6fff02c8.jpg) ](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/be/ea/fa/beeafa41e43370f83a9711df6fff02c8.jpg) And don’t forget Charles Atlas! [![](https://i.redd.it/dsleohvh84v21.jpg) ](https://i.redd.it/dsleohvh84v21.jpg) And then there was a company which would cover a page with a couple of dozen ads for various novelties like joy buzzers, x-ray spex, etx. > [@MrAtoz](#): > > If you were really fancy, after the gas station guy filled up your car, you might pay with your “gas card.” Which you would hand to the attendant, who would put it into a little mechanical gizmo, put some carbon paper on top of it, and slide a lever over it to make an imprint of the card. > [@phs3](#): > > Known in the industry as “knuckle busters” or “zip-zap machines”. And finally vanishing for realz as cards stop being embossed. We called it “the ka-chunk ka-chunk machine”. My schools used mimeographs and ditto machines. My dad’s office used a thermal copier. ---
**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 25, 2021, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/148 "2021-10-25T20:54:02Z")
I remember the sea monkey ads, but these were ads for actual MONKEYS. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2021, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/149 "2021-10-25T20:54:53Z")
> [@purplehorseshoe](#): > > MAPSCO books - one of those giant fold-out maps sectioned off into a spiral bound book. You had to follow the letters/numbers at the edges, once your route wandered off a particular page. One of my college girlfriends (this was in the mid '80s) was from suburban St. Paul, MN, and when I’d go up there to see her, we’d head out to visit places in the Twin Cities. Her family had one of those map books for the area, which I found incredibly useful. When I moved to Chicago in '89, I invested in a large fold-out Rand McNally map of the Chicago area, which again, was invaluable in the pre-Mapquest, pre-smartphone era. ---
**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 25, 2021, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/150 "2021-10-25T20:55:42Z")
There were still thermal printers around in my workplace’s offices when I started. Smoking was everywhere. High school students who were old enough to smoke legally kept pushing for an area in the school to be designated a students’ smoking lounge ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2021, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/151 "2021-10-25T21:01:45Z")
> [@Bonum\_Legatum](#): > > I remember the sea monkey ads, but these were ads for actual MONKEYS. Weren’t there also ads for live baby alligators? _Leave It to Beaver_ had an episode where Beav and Wally bought one and ended up giving it to a zoo or someplace before it got too big. A very early (mid-1950s) issue of _Mad_ had a parody ad section with an entry, “Live alligators! Surprise your friends! And enemies”. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2021, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/152 "2021-10-25T21:04:00Z")
> [@Bonum\_Legatum](#): > > I remember the sea monkey ads, but these were ads for actual MONKEYS. Like this? [![](https://i.cbc.ca/1.4536332.1518670673!/fileImage/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/16x9_780/darling-pet-monkey.jpg) ](https://i.cbc.ca/1.4536332.1518670673!/fileImage/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/16x9_780/darling-pet-monkey.jpg) ---
**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 25, 2021, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/153 "2021-10-25T21:13:46Z")
YES, thank you. And I should have also mentioned the one for a “dog in a teacup”. It turns out the one I remembered was a scam: (Sorry for the clickbait on the second link, but it was the only image I could link to). > **[11 Shameless Comic Book Ads That Cost Us Our Allowance](https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/30420/11-shameless-comic-book-ads-cost-us-our-allowance-money)** > > If today's Generation Y and Z-ers accuse us Baby Boomers of being cynical and distrustful, well, I for one blame it all on comic books. How many of us who grew up in the 1960s and early '70s were lured by those enticing ads promising everything from... > **[20 Bonkers Classic Comics Adverts You Won't Believe](https://whatculture.com/comics/20-bonkers-classic-comics-adverts-you-wont-believe?page=19)** > > A real mobile tank for five bucks? Who could say no? > **[FREE Dog in the Mail for Handing Out 20 Coupons](https://terriermandotcom.blogspot.com/2011/05/free-dog-in-mail-for-handing-out-20.html)** > > Information on working terriers, dogs, natural history, hunting, and the environment. Now - back to the OP’s question… ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2021, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/154 "2021-10-25T21:33:19Z")
Sitting with siblings around the radio listening to a serial. (Dick Barton, Special Agent and Lost in Space were favourites) Listening to Radio Luxembourg’s top 20 in bed at midnight on a Saturday with headphones attached to a crystal set. ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2021, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/155 "2021-10-25T21:35:13Z")
> [@Biotop](#): > > Fill up your gas tank and the station would give you a free drinking glass.- My china dishes came from a gas station. ---
**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 25, 2021, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/156 "2021-10-25T21:43:47Z")
> [@Keeve](#): > > And I remember a setting for 16 2/3 !!! Can’t tell you from personal experience, but I’ve been told 16 2/3 RPM was for spoken language records(?). Like the Charles Berlitz (Yes, the guy that wrote the Bermuda Triangle books) foreign language records – required no high fidelity. > [@CalMeacham](#): > > For that matter, do they understand why an early Pixar short was entitled “Tin Toy”? Ugliest baby in the history of animation. ---
**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 25, 2021, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/157 "2021-10-25T21:59:48Z")
Monkeys? Hell, you could order war surplus rifles through the mail, at least until shortly after November 1963. Those full service gas stations were staffed with friendly young men in white caps and coveralls, who also wore rings with blades on the inside. “Clean your windshield and check under the hood mister?” They did brisk business in replacement fan belts and wiper blades. And if you stopped at one particular LA gas station, [they’d flush out your crank case too.](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/hollywood-ryan-murphy-scotty-bowers-gas-station-sex-ring-994838/amp/) ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2021, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/158 "2021-10-25T22:04:41Z")
Growing up in the (then) far suburbs, cars in the summer would get _loaded_ with bugs. As in bugs on the windshield and in the grill. As a nerdy kid, I used to actually check out the front grill of our cars for cool butterflies, dragonflies, wasps, beetles and whatnot. There was almost always something noteworthy in there. Cleaning the dead bugs off the windshield was a regular task. These days, with heavy modern pesticide use, I barely get a bug on the car. I commute an hour each way, every day through mostly exurban farmland, fields and towns and maybe once a week get an annoying splotch on my windshield where a bug smushed into it. Nothing like it used to be. ---
**Author:** ![jaycat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jaycat/32/3015_2.png) [@jaycat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jaycat)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2021, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/159 "2021-10-25T22:06:12Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Whites-only beaches and train carriages When I was 6, my brother went away to college in North Carolina. When we visited him, I saw ‘whites only’ water coolers. Had to ask my dad what that meant. I am going to nominate whiskey for sale in the pharmacy. I saw this as recently as the mid-70s in Boston. They had half-pint bottles high on the shelf. I think this was a way to get around the blue laws at the time, i.e. the package stores were closed on Sunday. “For medicinal purposes,” ha ha. ---
**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 25, 2021, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/160 "2021-10-25T22:07:36Z")
Japanese beetles and lightning bugs (Fireflies). ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2021, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/161 "2021-10-25T22:13:12Z")
When I was a kid, ladybugs were actually red and black! Not these stupid orange Asian things that invaded and displaced the good ones. [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=7) [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=9)