Walking uphill both ways, Generation X-style

[fatrockstar]

When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were when they were growing up; what with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning...uphill BOTH ways yadda, yadda, yadda

And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way in hell I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on kids about how hard I had it and how easy they've got it! But now that I'm over the ripe old age of thirty, I can't help but look around and notice the youth of today.

You've got it so easy! I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a damn Utopia! And I hate to say it but you kids today you don't know how good you've got it!

I mean, when I was a kid we didn't have The Internet. If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the damn library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalog!!

There was no email!! We had to actually write somebody a letter with a pen! Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox and it would take like a week to get there!

There were no MP3's or Napsters! You wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the damn record store and shoplift it yourself! Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio and the DJ would usually talk over the beginning and @*% it all up!

We didn't have fancy crap like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called they got a busy signal, that's it!

And we didn't have fancy Caller ID Boxes either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! It could be your school, your mom, your boss, your bookie, your drug dealer, a collections agent, you just didn't know!!! You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!

We didn't have any fancy Sony Playstation video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games like 'Space Invaders' and 'asteroids'. Your guy was a little square! You actually had to use your imagination!! And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen forever! And you could never win. The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died! Just like LIFE!

When you went to the movie theater there no such thing as stadium seating! All the seats were the same height! If a tall guy or some old broad with a hat sat in front of you and you couldn't see, you were just screwed!

Sure, we had cable television, but back then that was only like 15 channels and there was no on screen menu and no remote control! You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on! You were screwed when it came to channel surfing! You had to get off your ass and walk over to the TV to change the channel and there was no Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons on Saturday Morning. Do you hear what I'm saying!?! We had to wait ALL WEEK for cartoons, you spoiled little rat-bastards!

And we didn't have microwaves, if we wanted to heat something up we had to use the stove or go build a frigging fire... imagine that! If we wanted popcorn, we had to use that stupid Jiffy Pop thing and shake it over the stove forever like an idiot.

That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it too easy. You're spoiled. You guys wouldn't have lasted five minutes back in 1980!

Comments

[victoriapringle.livejournal.com]

Did you ever have one of the cable channel boxes? The thing you hooked to your tv then pushed the button to pick which channel you wanted? It would never work now since we wouldn't have room for all the numbers but I remember loving that thing.

But yes, I agree, kids really do have it easy now days.

[twilight2000.livejournal.com]

Didn't we all have those bloody boxes? They made it harder to tape shows off the air as I remember :>

[victoriapringle.livejournal.com]

I loved it since then the kids didn't get sent to change the channel :) Remember when one button would stick?

[twilight2000.livejournal.com]

Hee hee -- I do remember that...

[winifred.livejournal.com]

Actually, I think our cable box had a slider... very primitive, and if one of the cats jumped on top of the TV the odds were good he'd be changing the channel.

[mistervimes.livejournal.com]

LOL. I love you. You are full of win.

[twilight2000.livejournal.com]

Heh heh heh -- You Young Whipper Snapper!

We constantly amaze our kid with tales of growing up IN THE 1960's! 3 channels, no video tape (Super 8 film), no digital anything (that's REAL film where you had to wait like a WEEK to get it developed and LP's -- Google it ;>) and no computers at all (unless you read a lot of SF).

Granted *my* mom remembers Fireside chats, iceboxes and milk on the counter ('cause it was delivered every morning so it *couldn't* spoil) -- but we, in that transitional Age of Aquarius, had to make do with only 3 or 4 recreational drugs for heaven's sake.

*snerk*

[dishapeaches.livejournal.com]

You must be around my age then - I remember the 60's also. I think we had 5 or 6 TV channels in the Chicago area though.

[twilight2000.livejournal.com]

Prolly close -- we had the 3 networks and PBS when I was little in the early 60's. I was San Fran. That expanded to UHF and like 10 channels by jr. high. It was an interesting phenomenon that for many years the whole country was on the same page. You could meet anyone at school or the water cooler and it was likely you watched the same show hte night before ;>.
(1959)

[dishapeaches.livejournal.com]

I was born in '64. I remember listening on the radio as the first man walked on the moon. You probably remember The Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show, lol!

[twilight2000.livejournal.com]

Ah. Same age as my kid brother ;>. And yea -- the Beatles, Elvis and the First Muppets (the "mna mna" routine).

I was *glued* to the tv for that first man on the moon :>.

[dishapeaches.livejournal.com]

Mnah mnah! A classic!

[crazy-talk23.livejournal.com]

i love this!

[springmeadow.livejournal.com]

Amen to that!

[jbluemoon.livejournal.com]

No Myspace bulletins- you had to go around hanging flyers for your shows wherever you could.
No Youtube- you had to rely on word of mouth or pure luck to get "noticed."
No full color flash webzines- you had to make paper 'zines by way of cut and paste and collated xerox copies all smudgy black and white.
No email(or Livejournal!)- you had to write to your friends and tell them what was going on with you, mail letters and wait for them to get to your friends etc.

yeah kids these days- little fuckers!

Preach it Sister!

[mischief-wa.livejournal.com]

No txt messages... you had to pass NOTES in class.

[niroc.livejournal.com]

*snigger* I remember those days all too well. Strange how fast things changed with the invention of the computer...