I guess the original discussion started here: https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=20168.msg2247861#msg2247861
We have a wide variety of age groups here on the forum. We were all raised differently...in different parts of the country (and world for some), and in different generations & eras. I guess I am from what they call "generation X."
Me for example: born 2 months before Richard Nixon resigned from the Oval Office. Pretty much a child of the 80s. I witnessed the end of the cold war. The Challenger disaster occurred on my 12th birthday. I rode bicycles all over my area. No such thing as a cell phone, so my mom put me on time limits to either get back home or check in just to make sure I wasn't kidnapped or dead in a ditch...even when she was at work! Born & raised in the house I currently reside in. Mom left us home alone while she worked 2 jobs (I am the oldest of 4). We were also left out in the car in all kinds of weather while she went in the store. (after all, who wants all of those heathen kids running around!) :-D :evilgrin:
Louisiana had a drinking age of 18 when I was growing up. Then the feds threatened to yank highway funds away if Louisiana didn't change their drinking age. So they did...you could still buy alcohol at 18, but you weren't allowed to drink it until you were 21. Well, that loophole didn't satisfy the feds. Eventually it was changed to 21 to both purchase & consume. I love my home state. :cheers:
I didn't get my first car until I started college...and I bought it with MY money. It may have been a Chevy Citation, but it was ALL MINE! My first car note didn't happen until I was married in 1998. :whip:
As I stated in the Video Game Console thread, I played on the Intellivision console...the great-great-great-great grandfather to the X-Box and other gaming systems. The arcade hall of my youth (the name was Extra Play) was bulldozed many years ago and now an oil-change place is there.
What about y'all? What was your upbringing like?
P.S.: a message to all of the youngens reading these stories :wave:...there is something to learn from our stories. Pay close attention to your own upbringing. You will be passing some of it off to your own kids. Be sure to pass off the best parts.
Similar stories for me being a fellow Gen-X generation kid. I really feel like I got to grow up at the end of an era where kids still had a lot of freedom to do what they wanted and were expected to be adults. My parents were pretty blue collar and had some traditional values that would typically be considered tropes of the Mid-West. My Dad wanted me to have a taste of the experiences of adulthood a little early like; driving, drinking, traveling alone, ect which really prepared me for life as an adult when I was 18.
I moved from Michigan to Arizona when I was 18 and I did so with money I saved up. I know its small in scale in comparison to some of the stuff that I've done in my adult life but for some reason that really sticks with me that I had the foresight at such a young age to know Michigan was on the decline...that there was something better out there. Really the thing that I think was different for my generation versus the Millennial is the focus we had on individual development versus being just one of the group. I suppose the advantage now that it is easier to grow up more slowly, you really could crash and burn of your own accord quickly when I was younger.
Some of the stuff that I tend to really remember was; beers/tailgates with my Dad in my early teens, driving and maintaining the lawn before I was ten, and really just working to with the end goal of leaving the Mid-West. I had pretty much everything from an Atari 2600 right up to a PS1, so I suppose I was right on that line with modern times with tech. Really the biggest story probably I remember growing up was the Berlin Wall falling and not having to worry about the Communists killing everyone.
Edit: None of what I said above is meant to make it sound like I grew up in a "better" time than any other generation. I'm just particularly fond of the era I grew up in and all it entailed
My mom and dad are actually from the baby boomer generation, and they adopted their values and philosophies from their parents/their childhoods/their lives (and in my case, other siblings) during their upbringing. So most of what you hear from me is effectively from an avant-garde baby boomer clashing with foreign culture (they grew up in the Philippines).
I was born exactly 34 years after the first Earth Day celebration in 1970 (thus, my birthdate is April 22nd, 2004), and I never got to see the Philippines, since we had moved in the US in 2003. My birthplace was in Lumberton, North Carolina (so yes, I am a Southerner), and I had moved up north to Pennsylvania in 2006, at the age of 2. I am the youngest of 3, with a sister who is almost 22, and a brother who is 18.
Due to my late birthdate, I was a child of the late 2000s and the 2010s. When I was growing up, I had learned how to use the landline, but I never got my first personal cell phone until April-May 2017 (yes, I was jealous of people having those cellular phone things). I'd learn how to use a computer, and used to play around with whatever electronics were in the house. So my parents clearly realized I was gifted in electronics. Since I ended up on this forum, I of course was gifted in geography and reading maps, and had guided my parents on road trips when I was 7 or 8. These were simple road trips to Washington DC and back - it was all interstates and weren't hard to remember or anything. Thus, my plans in the future is to try things like computer sciences, electrical engineering, and cartography. Just some future college degrees I could pursue.
Rules were pretty lax for me; whenever I went out, I told whoever was in charge (95% of the time my parents/my aunt - 5% of the time was my siblings) where I was going, and when I could be home (emphasis on could - sometimes I'd take longer and I could tell them why, sometimes I wouldn't take too long). I wasn't forced to bathe daily. I learned many things by myself. So on and so forth - however, my parents didn't teach me things like how to tie my shoes (and I still do not know how to this day). They had set pretty lax rules because of their parents - they had been either too strict or too forgiving.
I however, had something go wrong in my head whenever I hit middle school. It was later to be confirmed to be Asperger's or some other mental health disorder I'd never heard of. I was either all in or all out. I'd go from being tranquil and peaceful, to being loud and up-in-your-face. That required a therapist to help me learn how to talk to people, which I'm still refining. I was too smart for my own good - I'd used quite complex words other children never heard of before (which explains my terse responses on this forum - I should work on giving more detailed responses anyways). My mind was years ahead of my body. I thought like an adult - wondering how to pay taxes, setting up a credit or debit card, where should I live, which part time job should I pick, what car is the best bang for my buck, etc.
I never got an allowance, and thus I never was able to save money. I still had everything I needed anyways, and we lived much better than in the Philippines (which I ask my parents about). That's another story for later.
So that's my sob story done. I could probably go deeper, and there is a lot of omissions present.
I had a pretty good upbringing. My mom was a teacher who went to Woodstock and hung out with some famous musicians, including Jeff Baxter of Steely Dan and Doobie Brothers fame. My dad was one of 6 children from a somewhat well-to-do family, and helped run the family car dealership. Not much significant happened on the day that I was born, except that it was the date of the last NFL game not to be televised in any way, shape or form. I was actually due to be born on September 16th, but decided to hold out until November 1st. My mom spent 27 hours in labor with me, probably because she didn't want me to be a Halloween baby. I was born in New Britain, CT, and have lived within a 20 mile radius for all but one year of my life (9 months at school in Philadelphia). I'm an only child, so while I received a lot of attention, I still like to think that I'm down to Earth. My first exposure to any type of geography was a puzzle with the 50 states and capitals, so I learned them pretty much by the time that I was 4. When I was about 5 or 6, my dad used to bring home atlases from work, so I used to study them, along with state maps, and even started to draw my own crude maps when I was about 5 or 6. That was also about the time that my parents would go for a ride somewhere, and have me try to find our way home given just the surrounding and no maps. From it, I developed a keen sense of direction, and my own internal GPS that I call "JPS".
Other than roadgeekdom, I also developed interests in sports and music. I kind of switched off in phases between the two. When I was 6 or 7, I developed quite the 45 collection of hits from the early 80's. A couple of years later, I got into collecting baseball and other sports cards, and once cable arrived, I started watching a lot of sports on TV. Both my parents' families were Red Sox fans, so I was trained to be one. My first exposure to basketball was the Celtics/Lakers '84 Finals, so being a New Englander, you know who I rooted for. Football was a little more complex. The first two years I watched football, the Patriots made the Super Bowl (my parents even went), and the Giants won the Super Bowl. Seeing that they rarely played each other, I developed a liking of both, something that was never called into question until XLII. I used to go to 30-35 Hartford Whaler games a year as well, and saw many of the most famous games in Whaler history from '85-'92. I was sitting before a game when we bombed Baghdad in the Gulf War (a game against the LA Kings where I looked up and saw John Candy in a luxury box), and I watched on a TV on the concourse of the Hartford Civic Center when Christian Laettner hit the winning shot against Kentucky. As far as music, my cousin, who was a year older and also an only child, introduced me to many of my favorite bands. I attended many concerts in my teens and 20's. Saw The Grateful Dead 16 times, Rush 5 times, Rolling Stones twice. Also saw Pink Floyd, Tom Petty (with Lenny Kravitz opening), and Rod Stewart twice, as well as many others.
My life took a tough turn when I was 15. My dad suffered a heart attack behind the wheel and passed away. Then a few years later, my mom suffered a debilitating injury. While she's still with us, I've had to take care of her. I also helped many of my elderly relatives in their later years, as many of my great aunts and uncles never had children, so I stepped in to be sort of a surrogate grandchild to each of them. It was through one of my great aunt's landlord's that I met someone who got me into accounting and tax preparation, and I'm helping run a business.
My exposure with computers started in 2nd grade with the Apple II. I got my first game system, the Atari 2600, for my 8th birthday. I got my first computer, the Compaq 8088 portable, for Christmas in '86. I lived in an area without cable until I was 8, and remember television before remote controls and rooftop antennas. I can remember when Totalphone with Call Waiting was all the rage, and we had to convert from rotary to push button phones, but only needed to dial 7 digits for local calls, and local payphone calls only cost a dime. I got my first car in '92, a 1983 Buick Lesabre, and I even remember the novelty of having a phone in my car once when a friend brought his parents Motorola Car Phone with us to a concert in Foxboro. I got my first cell phone in '98, and have had one ever since. My last gaming system I bought was the original NES.
That's pretty much my life in the nutshell. The adventure continues
I was born in 1970. First exposure to computers was an Apple II+ system we had at school. Loved watching the Lemonade Stand game on that, but I had no idea.
First gaming system was actually a Magnavox Oddessy system, second hand. Only had a cheesy tennis game, but I had it for a year and then got an Atari 2600 for Christmas when I turned 10. My first owned computer was a Commodor Vic-20 (had 3K usable RAM but I was in seventh heaven using it) for Christmas when I turned 12.
We lived in a very large townhouse community before I was a teenager. I would spend Saturdays and sometimes Sunday's walking the grounds everywhere, pretending I was on the roads to some distant place (yes, I was a roadgeek from the age of 5). All this technology is great, but imagination still reigns king. When we moved downtown, that went away (but our house was quite big; I thought I'd get lost sometimes in one of the rooms in the basement).
Unfortunately, a few years later, my mother went into end-stage renal failure from an autoimmune disease, so the summer after my first year of high school, I would take her twice a week to dialysis (my father took her on Saturdays) and went to a city pool with a good friend of mine, but I learned to cook and take care of things as a result of need, and that July, she got a kidney transplant.
My first camera was a Sears 110 camera...I think I still have it somewhere. So many memories. First digital camera was a Kodak 3125 Easyshare camera (now had a Canon EOS 80D, so that's a wide swing).
My first cell was in Decmeber 2000, for my thirtieth birthday. A Nokia phone. My father revealed the gift by calling the number and we heard it playing "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow" (it didn't have Happy Birthday) from the package. Had it for 3 years before it gave up the ghost.
My parents were easy listening fans, so that's what played at the house. Unfortunately, my classmates in junior high were in to hard rock and rap. I was afraid my parents wouldn't like me listening to it, but one fine Saturday, I walked out of Record Bar with Def Leppard's album, Pyromania (a funny story about that...we were in the store and I was looking for Slade's 1984 album, "Keep Your Hands off My Power Supply"...my dad, God rest his soul, didn't know that was the name so I got in trouble for asking if they had it...he thought I was asking them to keep their hands off my record...it's funny now, and we did have a few laughs talking about that story later). Still, we did like to listen to the Doobie Brothers and Fleetwood Mac, so we did have some common tastes.
First car was a used 1986 Acura Integra RS five-door. Great little car, and it got me all the way through college. Only thing was it didn't have a cassette player, and to put on in at the dealership would have cost more than I pay a month now on mortgage. Still, great sound.
Though my parents married early in life (my mother was just short of her 20th birthday when they married), I married late in life at the age of 43, but we're about to celebrate our third wedding anniversary next month.
Oh yes...the phone system of my youth. How could I forget the luxury of having one phone, attached to a cord, hanging from the wall in the kitchen. Mom tested the limits of that cord too, stretching it into the bathroom and having to lean against the closed door. All of the curl in the cord was almost gone. The elderly lady who lived next door still had a party line. If the call was for her, the phone rang once. If the call was for someone else, it rang twice. If I wanted to dial someone here in town, I only needed to dial the last 4 digits. Then it was changed to 5. Eventually it was changed again to having to dial all 7.
My grandfather worked for the phone company after he came home from WWII. He made it all the way up to the #2 position in the big AT&T office in Shreveport. My mom had to call him one day because we were constantly getting wrong numbers dialed to us. (keep in mind that my hometown and the next town over, Grambling, share the same 247- prefix) Mom had to turn the ringer off at night Because of it. We were basically the switchboard for the 247 prefix...and we couldn't switch anything. The glitch was finally found and fixed after 2 weeks!
My daughter saw an old rotary phone at an antique store one day & asked what it was. I felt so old...she was enthralled by it.
I'm the right age that I got to enjoy the freedom of the '70s before being hamstrung by the fascism of the '80s and '90s.
The place was Highland Heights, KY. I grew up in an ordinary working-class household. Some things back then were cooler than they are now.
Back then, you didn't wear uniforms in PUBLIC schools. EVER!!!
Records (vinyl) were the leading music medium. I buyed quite a few 45's in my day.
Radio was much, much better. We had an AM top 40 station until I was almost out of 8th grade, and they played records that skipped. That was cool!
The Ritalin racket hadn't completely taken over yet. (My social worker says I was probably one of the first kids anywhere to take Ritalin.)
Crooked teeth were considered normal. (Yay!)
Everyone chewed bubble gum constantly, and it blew bigger bubbles back then.
Newscasters did not use that miserable valspeak they use today.
'American Top 40' still used the real music chart.
We had LABOR UNIONS.
I used an Atari 800 to play video games.
The Texas Instruments Speak & Spell was one of the most popular toys.
We had compact cars, not hulking SUV's.
'Sesame Street' was great - not the poop pile it is today. And every kid watched it.
I'm not sure exactly when America went to hell, but I think it happened in stages.
I'll bite.
I was born in November of 1988 in Portland, Maine (Back when 495 still existed as a longer route in Maine, not the little connector they have now.) For the first two weeks of my life we lived in South Berwick. Both of my parents were in the USCG. My dad was stationed in Portsmouth, NH and my mom was stationed in Portland. I had many complications at birth including the cord wrapping around my neck.
After living in S. Berwick, my parents got out of the coast guard and we moved to Nantucket. Everything went fine and dandy until 2/15/1991. That's when my sister was born. We were living on Old South Road near the airport. My sister never left the hospital and on 4/27/1991 she died. I watched my parents go from being happy to two miserable people. My dad spent more and more time alone, away from us. THey divorced on 9/21/1993. That same day my mother and I moved into an apartment on Salros Road, on the other side of town.
I was diagnosed with autism on 10/7/1995, which was a Saturday and the same day Hurricane Opal struck the Florida panhandle. This was a time when just being dx'ed with autism was considered a death sentence. My mother didn't speak of it. She just called it "my problem." Mom and I moved to Saint Louis in June of 1996. I hated it there. Yet I lived there for sixteen years. I graduated high school in June of 2007 (the big question everyone asks in St. Louis is "where'd you go to high school?" I went to Francis Howell Central to answer the question of those of us from St. Louis or have lived there.
I moved back to Mass from STL on 6/21/2012. My heart never left New England. Some people say I'm brave because I can do so much with my autism.
Growing up I noticed things:
-I respected my mom, even though she was neglectful.
-You respected your elders because they just might know something useful to use in your life quest.
-Kids didn't dress like thugs/hookers when I was growing up.
-The way we treated special needs (I actually hate that term) children was a bit darker, we've come a long way, but we still have a ways to go. My great grandfather, Joseph Reed Burgess was instrumental in getting children with disabilities out of asylums/state schools and into public schools (at least in MA. He has an elementary school in Sturbridge named after him.)
-Musicians had actual talent.
I was born in 1995, so I was a Bill Clinton baby. That was the year Windows 95 revolutionized personal computing, and the time frame in which the Internet boom was getting started. I've lived in the same house all my life, and it's in a rural subdivision but close to the more suburban areas of my Maryland county. My parents were both pharmacy school graduates, with my mom being a pharmacist, and my dad an oncologist at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. My dad is registered as a Democrat and my mom as a Republican, although they've displayed viewpoints all across the political spectrum, so I've heard opinions from both sides.
Somehow I survived the Blizzard of '96 when I was less than eight months old. My toddler and preschool years were marked by such events as the death of Princess Diana, and Clinton's impeachment. I also recall two weather events in 1999, an ice storm in January which is the first power outage I remember, and Hurricane Floyd in September, from which we lost power as well. My parents made sure my triplet brothers and I witnessed the countdown to the year 2000, at which point we were four and a half. Shortly afterward, we "graduated" from preschool and were off to kindergarten. That November, I mock-voted for Al Gore in the week leading up to the 2000 presidential election, although in real life George W. Bush was ultimately declared the winner.
I was six years old and newly in first grade on September 11, 2001. Hearing news of the terrorist attacks was scary for my brothers and I, and then on top of that our dad, who just left Johns Hopkins to start a new travel-based cancer research career, was stuck in Cleveland where he had been on business. President Bush's words that evening resonate in my mind. Our dad made it home and he put an American flag on display on our front porch for some time afterward.
Then I got redistricted to a new elementary school in '02 for second grade, in an even more rural setting than my neighborhood. February '03 we got an entire week off school from the Presidents Day Blizzard and that one was crazy. In March, President Bush sent us to Iraq. We had Hurricane Isabel in September. Our parents took us to Mexico twice, first to Cozumel in 2004, then Playa del Carmen at the same time in '05. Bush got re-elected in November 2004. Then I witnessed Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath in August '05, and Bush's involvement in the situation.
My parents got divorced in September 2006 just as I was starting middle school. My dad lived in a townhouse for a year in Bel Air, Maryland before moving into a "real house" up in Jarrettsville in '07. I witnessed the death of his mother in November '06, then his father in September 2008. My dad also changed jobs twice during 2007 and '08.
November 2008, Barack Obama was elected as our new President. My parents by then were both expressing displeasure with Bush and seemed eager for a new beginning. I started high school the following August. In December 2009 we got a blizzard, which was followed by two more in February 2010, and those two were more powerful. Once again, we got a whole week off school from the February ones.
In between the '09-'10 blizzards, we went down to the Tampa Bay area of Florida to meet our dad's female friend who he's known longer than my mom. She moved in with him in June 2010. We got hit by Hurricane Irene in 2011, then Hurricane Sandy in 2012. Obama was re-elected in November '12. By then, my mom had turned against Obama and chose to vote for Mitt Romney this time. My dad on the other hand stuck with Obama. This was during my senior year of high school.
I turned 18 years old in May 2013, and graduated high school in June. I got my first job that September and also started college. Turned 21 and became legal to drink alcohol in May 2016. That November, it was time for a new president. I voted for Hillary Clinton only because I didn't like Donald Trump, while my mom only voted for Trump because she didn't like Hillary. Donald Trump won it and moved into the White House this January. Working together with others and seeing positives in things, though, is helping me cope with having someone I didn't vote for.
My brothers and I, along with other neighborhood kids did spend plenty of time outside and going between each other's houses, even though we grew up as "2000s kids". We also had plenty of computer access and my first system was Windows 98. The system I've used the most is Windows XP. I got my first laptop in 2013 and it had Windows 7, which I upgraded in 2015 to Windows 10.
As far as road trips went, my brothers, parents and I almost always went to Myrtle Beach in the summer to see my grandmother (who turned 95 years old this year), and after my parents' divorce, we still went with just our mother, and even did a second annual trip for Thanksgiving in 2007, 2009 and 2011.
I too am mildly autistic and have struggled with things my entire life, but I excel in others. It was early 2014 before I was diagnosed.
I'm gravely disappointed at one of the major changes in American society since my youth. It used to be there was some admiration for the mischievous underachiever hero. People used to love it when I told them I was expelled from 3 schools. Starting in the mid-'90s, I'd get attacked for it.
You can tell 'The Simpsons' started before the mid-'90s. I don't think they could start a show like that later and have it shown on over-the-air TV.
Born in September 1955, I get both football and celebrating as part of my life in that month. Hooray since that never changed!
HIGHWAYS: US 101 north of the McCullough Bridge (by North Bend) was redone with a whole new alignment in 1953. It was always being called the "new highway" and what a wonder it was compared to the old one. 1961 saw the bypass section from where 101 and 42 join now to Bandon completed. 18 miles saved and more new highway! Curry County, which is south of Coos County, got the old Carpenterville section of 40 miles replaced with a modern alignment of 27 miles. Progress was being made in those days and it was very much appreciated as our area emerged from its 1st gen highway.
TELEVISION: Our area had CATV, Community Antenna Television, a predecessor to cable TV. Channels from Eugene (ABC), Corvallis (PBS), Coos Bay (NBC), Portland (CBS and an independent channel) was the lineup. A fancy TV had a tuning fork-based remote control. Since there was just the three main networks (Dumont died in 1955), they got all the sports, all the news, all the movies, all the music shows, all the game shows, all the cartoons, all everything! You took whatever was on at the time and either liked it or found something else to do. Seeing the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo launches broadcast live was a special treat to see as history was made before our eyes.
RADIO: Three local AM stations, one in the county seat and a 50Kw station in Eugene is all we could receive down here in the daytime. Local FM did not come along in broadcast form until the Eighties. The cable company did offer out of town FM stations though!
NEWSPAPERS: One local daily paper (no Sunday edition), two statewide daily/Sunday papers and two local weekly papers were present. That stayed constant through the Eighties. Today the local paper does 5 days of the week, no statewide paper gets delivered, the weeklies are gone as a free ads paper KO'ed them and some tries at various papers/sheets came and went.
FOOD: Our franchises used to be DQ and A&W. The first one is down to two outlets while the second one is gone. Now we have all the usual lousy stuff but we also got a lot of good local places opened that are right up there with any other city. Who saw that coming when I was young? No one!
CARS: Before the Appliancemobile Era, before the Malaise Era, there was a time when our highways, streets and parking lots were awash in beautiful powerful machines and they were affordable along with the gas. The #1 import wasn't Japanese as VW held that title. There were even English, French and Italian cars around, not many of which were actually close to being exotic other than a Jaguar. You could get a car that ran for less than $100 or even $50, pay $2 to transfer the title while keeping the plates, fill up cheap and away you went!
SAD STUFF: During the Vietnam War, the national news broadcasts always posted the daily body count. Day after day, week after week, year after year, it never seemed like the war would end. Desegregation in the South showed how brutal race relations could be. Riots and protests were regularly taking place. Assassinations left us stunned. The threat of nuclear war hung over the world during the Cold War decades and the arsenals were much larger than they are today. Cities were falling apart, looking like they had already been nuked. Yes, we had our gangs too.
"Take this letter that I give you, take it sonny, hold it high. You won't understand a word that's in it but you'll write it all again before you die." From Queen's song "Father To Son". I expect long after I am dead and those who are young today are the old folks, you'll know what that stanza from a Seventies rock song means right down to the depth of your soul.
Rick
Obamas first election is the first major event I remember.
Quote from: Roadgeekteen on August 05, 2017, 10:16:52 PM
Obamas first election is the first major event I remember.
I remember Ronald Reagan being elected when I was 7.
Quote from: bandit957 on August 05, 2017, 10:46:21 PM
Quote from: Roadgeekteen on August 05, 2017, 10:16:52 PM
Obamas first election is the first major event I remember.
I remember Ronald Reagan being elected when I was 7.
Do you remeber him getting shot?
Quote from: Roadgeekteen on August 05, 2017, 10:47:06 PM
Quote from: bandit957 on August 05, 2017, 10:46:21 PM
Quote from: Roadgeekteen on August 05, 2017, 10:16:52 PM
Obamas first election is the first major event I remember.
I remember Ronald Reagan being elected when I was 7.
Do you remeber him getting shot?
Yes. They interrupted my mom's soap operas for it.
Quote from: bandit957 on August 05, 2017, 10:49:01 PM
Quote from: Roadgeekteen on August 05, 2017, 10:47:06 PM
Quote from: bandit957 on August 05, 2017, 10:46:21 PM
Quote from: Roadgeekteen on August 05, 2017, 10:16:52 PM
Obamas first election is the first major event I remember.
I remember Ronald Reagan being elected when I was 7.
Do you remeber him getting shot?
Yes. They interrupted my mom's soap operas for it.
What were the adults reaction?
Quote from: Roadgeekteen on August 05, 2017, 11:01:12 PM
Quote from: bandit957 on August 05, 2017, 10:49:01 PM
Quote from: Roadgeekteen on August 05, 2017, 10:47:06 PM
Quote from: bandit957 on August 05, 2017, 10:46:21 PM
Quote from: Roadgeekteen on August 05, 2017, 10:16:52 PM
Obamas first election is the first major event I remember.
I remember Ronald Reagan being elected when I was 7.
Do you remeber him getting shot?
Yes. They interrupted my mom's soap operas for it.
What were the adults reaction?
I don't even remember.
Quote from: bandit957 on August 05, 2017, 10:46:21 PM
Quote from: Roadgeekteen on August 05, 2017, 10:16:52 PM
Obamas first election is the first major event I remember.
I remember Ronald Reagan being elected when I was 7.
Quote from: bandit957 on August 05, 2017, 11:02:41 PM
Quote from: Roadgeekteen on August 05, 2017, 11:01:12 PM
Quote from: bandit957 on August 05, 2017, 10:49:01 PM
Quote from: Roadgeekteen on August 05, 2017, 10:47:06 PM
Quote from: bandit957 on August 05, 2017, 10:46:21 PM
Quote from: Roadgeekteen on August 05, 2017, 10:16:52 PM
Obamas first election is the first major event I remember.
I remember Ronald Reagan being elected when I was 7.
Do you remeber him getting shot?
Yes. They interrupted my mom's soap operas for it.
What were the adults reaction?
I don't even remember.
Quote from: bandit957 on August 05, 2017, 11:02:41 PM
Quote from: Roadgeekteen on August 05, 2017, 11:01:12 PM
Quote from: bandit957 on August 05, 2017, 10:49:01 PM
Quote from: Roadgeekteen on August 05, 2017, 10:47:06 PM
Quote from: bandit957 on August 05, 2017, 10:46:21 PM
Quote from: Roadgeekteen on August 05, 2017, 10:16:52 PM
Obamas first election is the first major event I remember.
I remember Ronald Reagan being elected when I was 7.
Do you remeber him getting shot?
Yes. They interrupted my mom's soap operas for it.
What were the adults reaction?
I don't even remember.
I was in 1st grade when he was shot. My teacher told us it happened while we were in class. I came home to constant news coverage instead of my after-school cartoons.
I remember hearing about Reagan being shot later, but I was 5 and in Pre-K so I don't remember the full details. The Challenger Disaster and 9/11 have one thing in common for me: I was out of work/school those days. I stayed home sick on the day of the Challenger. My parents had just got back from Super Bowl XX in New Orleans, and I didn't feel well. It was my dad's birthday, and I called him at work to wish him a happy. He called back a couple minutes later to tell my mother and I to put on television that the space shuttle had just exploded. We watched the events in horror after the fact.
When 9/11 happened, my regular day off from work was Wednesday, but because of a managers' meeting, I had to take Tuesday off instead. As I went to bed the night before, my mother and I kind of made tentative plans to go to Long Island the next day. When I woke up, it was between the two planes hitting but I didn't know what was happening yet until she called me to tell me to put on television. I took one look, was aghast, and said "I guess we're not going to Long Island today, are we?" After watching the rest of the events unfold (and being in tears as I watched WNBC and the 2nd tower falling), we did end up venturing to Rhode Island and Wrentham, MA that day instead. We were turned away from an outlet center by MA State Police, and went back to RI, then drove back to CT, stopping for dinner in Manchester. I just remember being in the restaurant and thinking how surreal the day had been, and how it felt like a week rolled into a single day, kind of like the day my father passed away. I was just drained of energy like I had been hit by a train.
For Obama's election, I was in a TGI Friday's in Bel Air, MD. I had driven down from CT that day after voting, and remember sitting at the bar as others clapped. However, being what I am, I just finished my dinner, and headed out to stop for some gas and to get a couple of things for my motel room, and didn't watch the inaugural address.
I was at lunch in 7th grade when the Challenger exploded.
During 9/11, I was in bed recovering from a knee injury after being run off the road.
I was at class watching the Challenger launch when it crashed. I was asleep through most of 9/11 before work and for whatever reason had the gumption to turn on CNN just to see what was going on in the world when I got up around noon Arizona time.
Earliest news story for me is Three Mile Island.
9/11 was a horrible day. I was 27, married and a dad with a 2 year old son. I just came off a graveyard shift at the mill and had babysitting duty. My wife at that time had gone to work & we were home watching Sponge Bob.
About an hour or so later, she called me asking if I was watching the news. I told her what was on & she said I needed to tune in to see what was happening. Our TV was on CBS for the next 3-4 days straight watching the events take place. Surreal indeed.
Fast forward to late November. My son & I are headed north to Columbia, MO to spend Thanksgiving with my mom (wife had to stay & work). We were coming into Little Rock, AR from US 65/167. As you go past exit 3 (Dixon Rd), you are climbing a mountain. When you crest the hill, you have a great view of the LR skyline, and you can clearly see the airport on the right. In the sky I could see a Southwest jet flying over. My son (age 3 at this time) turned to me and asked if that plane was going to fly into that building. I answered him as straightforward and calm as possible that it was not. I was numb for a little while after that.
Earliest news story for me was the Afghanistan invasion back in 2005 (okay, there was the death of Ronald Reagan in November 2004, but I don't consider that a notable event).
Quote from: noelbotevera on August 06, 2017, 10:08:04 AM
Earliest news story for me was the Afghanistan invasion back in 2005 (okay, there was the death of Ronald Reagan in November 2004, but I don't consider that a notable event).
That's because of when you grew up. To some of us, it was a much bigger deal.
According to my mom, I was supposed to be born on the day the Challenger blew up. I was actually born about 10 days later. I don't remember much news-wise before Desert Storm and the 1992 election, but we still had a lot of freedom growing up in the 90s. I remember going around neighborhoods to play without parental supervision. Trick-or-treating was usually done with my parents when I was really young, but that was mainly due to my brother being even younger. By the mid-90s I'd do it on my own. The main difference in trick-or-treating between then and now, that I've noticed, is that back then the parents would walk with their kids, but now, at least in my neighborhood, they follow them around in cars. Or even worse, they drive the kids around in the cars.
Quote from: Takumi on August 06, 2017, 10:38:57 AM
According to my mom, I was supposed to be born on the day the Challenger blew up. I was actually born about 10 days later. I don't remember much news-wise before Desert Storm and the 1992 election, but we still had a lot of freedom growing up in the 90s. I remember going around neighborhoods to play without parental supervision. Trick-or-treating was usually done with my parents when I was really young, but that was mainly due to my brother being even younger. By the mid-90s I'd do it on my own. The main difference in trick-or-treating between then and now, that I've noticed, is that back then the parents would walk with their kids, but now, at least in my neighborhood, they follow them around in cars. Or even worse, they drive the kids around in the cars.
Also, trick-or-treating is now confined to a little window of 90 minutes to 2 hours. In my day, it lasted ALL DAY.
Quote from: cjk374 on August 05, 2017, 12:27:22 AM
Me for example: born 2 months before Richard Nixon resigned from the Oval Office. Pretty much a child of the 80s. I witnessed the end of the cold war. The Challenger disaster occurred on my 12th birthday.
We're close in age; the thing about the Challenger Disaster is that I lived in Florida at the time, though 150 miles south of Cape Canaveral. So you could see a little bit of a shuttle launch south of it; not much, usually 20-30 seconds...then it disappears out of the atmosphere. We were outside on recess, and my friends and I couldn't really tell what had happened, because it was partly cloudy (maybe 30% cloud cover). Our middle school had a few TV sets, but shuttle launches were commonplace, so we didn't make an "event" out of it like the first few.
It was only about 90 minutes later when some kids got back from a field trip that they heard what happened. You couldn't really filter the information from the garbage and the bad-taste jokes...it was middle school, after all...
nothing's changed in that respect (that's right, this current generation is not the first to meme the shit out of a tragedy) until you got home from school and turned on the TV. Now, you could have more instant access to something like that.
QuoteI rode bicycles all over my area.
Yup, felt confident on a bike around the age of 8. While I didn't quite map out every little road, I did try to explore everything in a one-square-mile area and mostly stayed on the sidewalks (score one for suburban platting), since your schoolmates could be from all over that "zone". I didn't feel confident crossing roads with multiple lanes until I was 12. Be home by dinner, and unless you're going next door or across the street, never when dark...I's always had a watch by then, too.
I don't think I'd let my 10-year-old do that now. Maybe later on in age.
When we moved to Florida, my brother and I took a one-way flight to visit our grandparents as unaccompanied minors. Eastern Airlines made us wear these bright orange buttons on our way to Fort Lauderdale. I wouldn't let my kids so that now, except for the gravest of circumstances. As I recall from the various contracts of carriage, many airlines won't let a 6 and an 8-year-old fly alone. But they did let us see the cockpit during flight (there's one thing you absolutely cannot do today in America).
QuoteMom left us home alone while she worked 2 jobs (I am the oldest of 4). We were also left out in the car in all kinds of weather while she went in the store.
I'm trying to recall when we were allowed to stay in the car. Maybe 9 or 10? No keys in the ignition, crack the windows a smidge. No more than 10-15 minutes. The car was our imaginary spaceship.
When I was 13, my mother and father trusted me with the keys if they left us behind, so we could keep it running for A/C and listen to the radio. They knew I at least knew how to pump gas, what the ranges did, and how to start a car. I knew it wasn't a spaceship any longer, but I also feared wrecking the car before I had a license, so I knew damn well to keep it in Park.
I wouldn't dare let my kids do that now, laws or no laws.
QuoteLouisiana had a drinking age of 18 when I was growing up. Then the feds threatened to yank highway funds away if Louisiana didn't change their drinking age.
I was fortunate enough to "buy" alcohol after hours because I worked in a grocery store. Not much, though. I'd had a few drinks during monthly extended family get-togethers since I was 9, but never more than one drink. My kids have no interest after trying a sip or two, but they're quite young.
I don't drink very much, anyhow...neither does my wife.
QuoteP.S.: a message to all of the youngens reading these stories :wave:...there is something to learn from our stories. Pay close attention to your own upbringing. You will be passing some of it off to your own kids. Be sure to pass off the best parts.
And like life today, and as it likely was in the past, life is what you make of it. There are plenty of things my kids get that we did not (availability and technology), and there's lots of moments they won't get to experience (old tech, safety, and the present social times). And lots of mundane moments in between. It all evens out.
Quote from: Roadgeekteen on August 05, 2017, 10:47:06 PM
Quote from: bandit957 on August 05, 2017, 10:46:21 PM
Quote from: Roadgeekteen on August 05, 2017, 10:16:52 PM
Obamas first election is the first major event I remember.
I remember Ronald Reagan being elected when I was 7.
Do you remeber him getting shot?
I remember our 1st grade class doing a mock election, but I didn't really understand much of it. I recall we'd split pretty closely into thirds, which was kind of ironic...I had no idea who or what they stood for. And we'd watch the poll numbers which made sense. The next day, there were a few homemade banners for Reagan on the overpasses in Nashville. Kids called him "Ronald Raisin". And the outgoing one was "Farter". After all we were six year-olds.
I recall hearing he got shot, and recovered but I couldn't tell you where I was. Maybe the dinner table, because we started watching the news on our little black and white TV after eating. around that time. But afterwards, a few days later, we heard that he'd survived.
So I think the Challenger Disaster was the first I recall happening to me in a public place, where you sensed something wasn't right based on reactions. Fast forward to 9/11, and reactions were very different because it essentially occurred on live TV...a six-year-old probably couldn't understand that, either.
Quote from: Takumi on August 06, 2017, 10:38:57 AMThe main difference in trick-or-treating between then and now, that I've noticed, is that back then the parents would walk with their kids, but now, at least in my neighborhood, they follow them around in cars. Or even worse, they drive the kids around in the cars.
This bugs the crap out of me, honestly. It makes trick-or-treating much more dangerous than any amount of urban legend "razor blade apples" ever did.
I get that there's kids in rural areas and there's going to be poor folks where few people participate. For the former, it isn't safe to walk alongside the roads, and the latter isn't safe/productive for other reasons. They're kids after all, and after their own birthday and Christmas, this is the one holiday they look forward to with great enthusiasm.
But for a neighborhood with ample sidewalks, there's no reason to park and walk...the adults can get some exercise. Hell, we even have unused parking spaces in the center of the neighborhood. It's lazy and it needs to stop; it clogs the roads, adds fumes, and the mixture of headlights and darkness and overzealous kids (and errant teenagers) isn't a good mix with moving vehicles.
Why walk along the road? When I was young, we just cut across the yards.
Quote from: vdeane on August 06, 2017, 06:01:07 PM
Why walk along the road? When I was young, we just cut across the yards.
Some dick neigbor might yell at you.
Quote from: cjk374 on August 06, 2017, 10:16:01 AM
Quote from: noelbotevera on August 06, 2017, 10:08:04 AM
Earliest news story for me was the Afghanistan invasion back in 2005 (okay, there was the death of Ronald Reagan in November 2004, but I don't consider that a notable event).
That's because of when you grew up. To some of us, it was a much bigger deal.
Eh...I don't consider it notable myself, but to each their own.
Quote from: vdeane on August 06, 2017, 06:01:07 PM
Why walk along the road? When I was young, we just cut across the yards.
I did that too, till I got yelled at. My parents tell me not to do so, but I do cut across a yard on the way home from school. Saves some time.
There's actually a space behind the fences of people's houses that I use on the way home sometimes just to have moments to myself. Just to think about things, relax, and just be by myself for a bit.
Quote from: noelbotevera on August 06, 2017, 09:58:40 PM
There's actually a space behind the fences of people's houses that I use on the way home sometimes just to have moments to myself. Just to think about things, relax, and just be by myself for a bit.
That might be a paper street, or a paper alley in this case.
Quote from: vdeane on August 06, 2017, 06:01:07 PM
Why walk along the road? When I was young, we just cut across the yards.
There's neighborhoods with zero lot lines and/or fences.
Quote from: Roadgeekteen on August 06, 2017, 09:35:48 PM
Quote from: vdeane on August 06, 2017, 06:01:07 PM
Why walk along the road? When I was young, we just cut across the yards.
Some dick neigbor might yell at you.
Ah, how times have changed. Guess you don't know your neighbors all that well, which is a shame.
My best friend lived about 3 houses down on the street behind us. To get to his place, I hopped over my fence along the rear of the property line and walked along the neighbors fence at the rear of the property line. Hopped over the next fence. Then hopped over the fences cattycorner to his property to get to his yard.
If we hit baseballs or golf balls into the neighbors yard, we just jumped the fence to get them. All the time.
Never thought anything about it. Neighbor outside? We said hi to each other.
If I wanted to go the other way to the nearby golf course, where the 10th hole backed up to our neighborhood, I walked thru the backyard of my neighbor without a fence, then got to a pathway in the woods where a house wasn't at the time to get to the golf course. Then I walked along the golf course trails. In the marshy area along the 11th fairway, we'd go down and look for golf balls.
We also rode our bikes around without much thought. There were railroad tracks nearby down a small hill, and we would always ride our bikes down there along the tracks. Conrail trains used those rails, and if we were lucky enough to see the train (well, we pretty much knew the schedule they'll be by anyway) we would wave at the conductor. He would wave back. I could get to the little league fields without crossing any major streets because of those tracks.
Growing up, I would see beer bottles in the brush along the side of the road. Never gave it a second thought that I could be riding my bike on the same road as drivers drinking. I didn't realize it at the time, but it was when the drinking age was 18 too.
Quote from: jeffandnicole on August 07, 2017, 08:38:17 AM
Quote from: Roadgeekteen on August 06, 2017, 09:35:48 PM
Quote from: vdeane on August 06, 2017, 06:01:07 PM
Why walk along the road? When I was young, we just cut across the yards.
Some dick neigbor might yell at you.
Ah, how times have changed. Guess you don't know your neighbors all that well, which is a shame.
My best friend lived about 3 houses down on the street behind us. To get to his place, I hopped over my fence along the rear of the property line and walked along the neighbors fence at the rear of the property line. Hopped over the next fence. Then hopped over the fences cattycorner to his property to get to his yard.
If we hit baseballs or golf balls into the neighbors yard, we just jumped the fence to get them. All the time.
Never thought anything about it. Neighbor outside? We said hi to each other.
If I wanted to go the other way to the nearby golf course, where the 10th hole backed up to our neighborhood, I walked thru the backyard of my neighbor without a fence, then got to a pathway in the woods where a house wasn't at the time to get to the golf course. Then I walked along the golf course trails. In the marshy area along the 11th fairway, we'd go down and look for golf balls.
We also rode our bikes around without much thought. There were railroad tracks nearby down a small hill, and we would always ride our bikes down there along the tracks. Conrail trains used those rails, and if we were lucky enough to see the train (well, we pretty much knew the schedule they'll be by anyway) we would wave at the conductor. He would wave back. I could get to the little league fields without crossing any major streets because of those tracks.
Growing up, I would see beer bottles in the brush along the side of the road. Never gave it a second thought that I could be riding my bike on the same road as drivers drinking. I didn't realize it at the time, but it was when the drinking age was 18 too.
My neigbors are pretty nice.
Speaking of trains....anyone remember waving to the conductor riding on the caboose on the rear of the train?
Neighbors: all of the people I had as neighbors growing up here are all dead & gone....and so are some of their houses. I hardly know anyone living here in my hometown compared to when I was growing up.
Trick-or-treating: we usually waited til right at dark (here in October would be about 6) then hit the next door neighbors' houses first. Then mom would drive us to a few of her friends' houses. We wouldn't stay out late because school was usually the next day.
Quote from: cjk374 on August 07, 2017, 04:45:10 PM
Speaking of trains....anyone remember waving to the conductor riding on the caboose on the rear of the train?
Neighbors: all of the people I had as neighbors growing up here are all dead & gone....and so are some of their houses. I hardly know anyone living here in my hometown compared to when I was growing up.
Trick-or-treating: we usually waited til right at dark (here in October would be about 6) then hit the next door neighbors' houses first. Then mom would drive us to a few of her friends' houses. We wouldn't stay out late because school was usually the next day.
You drove for trick or treating?
Quote from: Roadgeekteen on August 07, 2017, 08:07:36 PM
Quote from: cjk374 on August 07, 2017, 04:45:10 PM
Speaking of trains....anyone remember waving to the conductor riding on the caboose on the rear of the train?
Neighbors: all of the people I had as neighbors growing up here are all dead & gone....and so are some of their houses. I hardly know anyone living here in my hometown compared to when I was growing up.
Trick-or-treating: we usually waited til right at dark (here in October would be about 6) then hit the next door neighbors' houses first. Then mom would drive us to a few of her friends' houses. We wouldn't stay out late because school was usually the next day.
You drove for trick or treating?
Had to...there is some distance between houses here. If we wanted any decent amount of candy, we had to cover some territory quick.
They always handed out bubble gum when we went trick-or-treating.
I fall into the millennial generation, though I wouldn't say it's a neat fit.
The first big news story I remember was the death of Princess Diana, though I didn't know why she was important.
Like a lot of 90s kids, we grew up playing outside without supervision and I walked to school through 2nd grade but by the early 2000s we were firmly immersed in gaming consoles and PCs, which has become a habit I somewhat regret picking up to the extent I did.
The first major news story I can remember is the Oklahoma City bombing. I was five. We lived close enough at the time that the blast was audible inside the house. We had no idea what it was, and there was a few minutes of speculation–prevailing theory was a sonic boom from something Tinker AFB was testing–until the local news came on.
My mom and her friend took me downtown a few days later and we saw the ruined building firsthand (from a safe distance, of course). It was a strange atmosphere; an unusual number of people were out and about for downtown OKC in those days, presumably to show some sort of solidarity as a city. This was before the days of Bricktown, after all. My mom bought a handmade flag pin from a street vendor, which even now isn't something you find in Oklahoma City much. I remember my dad being really upset that my mom had brought me down there, because he thought we shouldn't be treating it as something to go look at and get in the way of the people that needed to be there.
Quote from: bandit957 on August 07, 2017, 08:48:27 PM
They always handed out bubble gum when we went trick-or-treating.
And candy cigarettes.
We rode bikes without helmets.
We rode in cars without seat belts or infant seats.
Playpens (called "pens" and not "yards") and cribs had slats that were more than 2 fingers apart.
We walked to school, sometimes more than a mile, without a parent along.
Quote from: GaryV on August 08, 2017, 06:21:23 PM
Quote from: bandit957 on August 07, 2017, 08:48:27 PM
They always handed out bubble gum when we went trick-or-treating.
And candy cigarettes.
The candy ciggs & baseball card gum was the worst taste to ever put in your mouth! You might as well be trying to eat pencil erasers.
Dubble Bubble used to taste like root beer.
Quote from: bandit957 on August 08, 2017, 09:00:04 PM
Dubble Bubble used to taste like root beer.
I don't remember that
Quote from: GaryV on August 08, 2017, 06:23:51 PM
We rode bikes without helmets.
We rode in cars without seat belts or infant seats.
Playpens (called "pens" and not "yards") and cribs had slats that were more than 2 fingers apart.
We walked to school, sometimes more than a mile, without a parent along.
How many kids died?
Quote from: Roadgeekteen on August 08, 2017, 09:16:50 PM
Quote from: GaryV on August 08, 2017, 06:23:51 PM
We rode bikes without helmets.
We rode in cars without seat belts or infant seats.
Playpens (called "pens" and not "yards") and cribs had slats that were more than 2 fingers apart.
We walked to school, sometimes more than a mile, without a parent along.
How many kids died?
You wouldn't believe the carnage!
LGMS428
Quote from: jwolfer on August 08, 2017, 09:37:24 PM
Quote from: Roadgeekteen on August 08, 2017, 09:16:50 PM
Quote from: GaryV on August 08, 2017, 06:23:51 PM
We rode bikes without helmets.
We rode in cars without seat belts or infant seats.
Playpens (called "pens" and not "yards") and cribs had slats that were more than 2 fingers apart.
We walked to school, sometimes more than a mile, without a parent along.
How many kids died?
You wouldn't believe the carnage!
LGMS428
What was the carnage like?
Quote from: GaryV on August 08, 2017, 06:23:51 PM
We rode bikes without helmets.
We rode in cars without seat belts or infant seats.
Playpens (called "pens" and not "yards") and cribs had slats that were more than 2 fingers apart.
I'm sure the kids that died from head trauma, were thrown from automobiles, and were choked by crib slats can't vouch for how great the old days were.
Quote from: Roadgeekteen on August 08, 2017, 09:39:25 PM
Quote from: jwolfer on August 08, 2017, 09:37:24 PM
Quote from: Roadgeekteen on August 08, 2017, 09:16:50 PM
Quote from: GaryV on August 08, 2017, 06:23:51 PM
We rode bikes without helmets.
We rode in cars without seat belts or infant seats.
Playpens (called "pens" and not "yards") and cribs had slats that were more than 2 fingers apart.
We walked to school, sometimes more than a mile, without a parent along.
How many kids died?
You wouldn't believe the carnage!
LGMS428
What was the carnage like?
Unimaginable. Cracked open skulls everywhere
LGMS428
Quote from: jwolfer on August 08, 2017, 10:16:02 PM
Quote from: Roadgeekteen on August 08, 2017, 09:39:25 PM
Quote from: jwolfer on August 08, 2017, 09:37:24 PM
Quote from: Roadgeekteen on August 08, 2017, 09:16:50 PM
Quote from: GaryV on August 08, 2017, 06:23:51 PM
We rode bikes without helmets.
We rode in cars without seat belts or infant seats.
Playpens (called "pens" and not "yards") and cribs had slats that were more than 2 fingers apart.
We walked to school, sometimes more than a mile, without a parent along.
How many kids died?
You wouldn't believe the carnage!
LGMS428
What was the carnage like?
Unimaginable. Cracked open skulls everywhere
LGMS428
The carnage of the 70s! Did you live in Vietnam or something?
I guess I'll bite.
I was born in April 1996.
I didn't get myself killed because I did a lot of stupid shit as a kid.
High school was awful (in Southeastern Missouri you get fake country boys, and the 'trend followers', and girls who dress, erm, to keep it PG 13 I'm gonna say '70% exposed').
Well, that's my upbringing (I had a very boring and stupid upbringing).
When I was growing up, people were largely resentful of the stock market (even in this area). I went to a Reds game when I was about 14, and some fans were complaining because the scoreboard showed the latest Dow Jones numbers.
American society had something that some observers called the "great disruption" from the mid-'60s to mid-'90s. This "disruption" was actually a good thing. It really wasn't a "disruption." It was actually the natural order of things.
Quote from: Roadgeekteen on August 08, 2017, 09:16:50 PM
Quote from: GaryV on August 08, 2017, 06:23:51 PM
We rode bikes without helmets.
We rode in cars without seat belts or infant seats.
Playpens (called "pens" and not "yards") and cribs had slats that were more than 2 fingers apart.
We walked to school, sometimes more than a mile, without a parent along.
How many kids died?
No more than today. Imagine that, kids can actually do things on their own without a helicopter..er..parent always hovering around.
Quote from: Brandon on August 09, 2017, 12:25:22 PM
Quote from: Roadgeekteen on August 08, 2017, 09:16:50 PM
Quote from: GaryV on August 08, 2017, 06:23:51 PM
We rode bikes without helmets.
We rode in cars without seat belts or infant seats.
Playpens (called "pens" and not "yards") and cribs had slats that were more than 2 fingers apart.
We walked to school, sometimes more than a mile, without a parent along.
How many kids died?
No more than today. Imagine that, kids can actually do things on their own without a helicopter..er..parent always hovering around.
Are you sure about that?
https://ourworldindata.org/child-mortality/
The child mortality rate has fallen drastically in the past 50 years.
In elementary school, my bus stop was about 1/4 mile away. About 8 of us or so gathered there at a 'T' intersection. The bus would come just past the T intersection where we were standing and we'd get on. Then the bus would back up into the T, trying to avoid the telephone pole on the right side and the ditch on the left, then swing out left and exit.
Things that wouldn't be done today: Walking a 1/4 mile to the bus stop. A bus with kids backing up on public streets.
For high school, my bus stop was a half-mile away. I'd walk on a shoulder probably less than the width of your body for the final 500 feet or so. I'd cross over to a side street. When the bus came, we crossed back over the street to get on the bus.
We also had an unusually quiet bunch of kids on the bus, especially in high school. I still remember a substitute bus driver (who was also the school librarian) commenting that she swore something had to be going on because of how quiet everyone was. Nope...we're just sitting there looking out the window or listening to our Walkmans (someone please explain to the 14 year old what a Walkman was).
Also in High School, our bus company was Walt's bus service. Sometimes Walt himself would drive the bus. The depot for the buses (which was somewhere off of NJ I-295's Exit 7) once got damaged in a tornado. Our main bus driver (who's name escapes me right now) had an accident on the trial run just before the school year one year.
Amazing some of this stuff that I remember...I haven't thought about it for a few decades!!
On the topic of school experiences/infant stuff...
Yes, I did use an infant seat. I was too small to use the seats in my family's Grand Caravan. Of course I wear a seatbelt - even though you can go decades without an accident, it's better to wear it if there's no accident than to not wear it if there is one.
My bus stop was maybe 500 feet away. About 10 people just gathered there, waiting for the bus to come at 7 AM (which also meant having to wait in 30 or 40 degree weather/while it was raining/during light snow).
When I was in elementary school, I had the option to walk the 3/4 mile to school, but my parents were home when I had to go to school (school started at 9 AM, parents arrived home at 7, maybe 8 AM if they were unlucky). I decided to just simply ask my parents for a ride to school (took the bus home). Oh yeah, I also had to cross a road with cars traveling at 50-55 MPH (PA 995) in order to get to school. No kid would dare do that today. Did I mention I'd do all of this alone?
I never biked, partially because I never knew how to in the first place, and mostly because I could just walk everywhere I needed to go (school and a friend's house), unless there was some strange circumstance where I had to ask for my dad to drive me somewhere.
My bus rides have always had loud kids, so I'd just tune out the noise, up until I got a phone and could play music over some headphones I had. One of these days, I'll probably dig out my mom's Walkman, find cassettes of bands I like, and listen to music that way. It's really just because Walkman's are way more compact than cellphones.
Quote from: iBallasticwolf2 on August 09, 2017, 03:10:58 PM
Quote from: Brandon on August 09, 2017, 12:25:22 PM
Quote from: Roadgeekteen on August 08, 2017, 09:16:50 PM
Quote from: GaryV on August 08, 2017, 06:23:51 PM
We rode bikes without helmets.
We rode in cars without seat belts or infant seats.
Playpens (called "pens" and not "yards") and cribs had slats that were more than 2 fingers apart.
We walked to school, sometimes more than a mile, without a parent along.
How many kids died?
No more than today. Imagine that, kids can actually do things on their own without a helicopter..er..parent always hovering around.
Are you sure about that?
https://ourworldindata.org/child-mortality/
The child mortality rate has fallen drastically in the past 50 years.
Due to far fewer deaths from disease, not from accidents.
Quote from: GaryV on August 09, 2017, 04:45:26 PM
Quote from: iBallasticwolf2 on August 09, 2017, 03:10:58 PM
Quote from: Brandon on August 09, 2017, 12:25:22 PM
Quote from: Roadgeekteen on August 08, 2017, 09:16:50 PM
Quote from: GaryV on August 08, 2017, 06:23:51 PM
We rode bikes without helmets.
We rode in cars without seat belts or infant seats.
Playpens (called "pens" and not "yards") and cribs had slats that were more than 2 fingers apart.
We walked to school, sometimes more than a mile, without a parent along.
How many kids died?
No more than today. Imagine that, kids can actually do things on their own without a helicopter..er..parent always hovering around.
Are you sure about that?
https://ourworldindata.org/child-mortality/
The child mortality rate has fallen drastically in the past 50 years.
Due to far fewer deaths from disease, not from accidents.
You may be right, but the safety regulations that have been created in the past 50 years have saved many lives, like not letting companies dump toxic waste in the water or banning lead paint.
While we're on the topic of children in car seats, I've noticed a lot of differences between when I was a kid and now. When I was a kid, you would ride in a car seat until you were 3 or 4, then graduate to a regular seat. Mandatory seat belt laws didn't exist until I was 10, but I'd usually be forced to wear mine anyway. And most back seat seatbelts were just the lap belt, not the shoulder belt. I've noticed nowadays that kids tend to ride in the back seat until they are almost a teenager, despite the front passenger seat being empty. I started "riding shotgun" when it was just me and the driver when I was 5. I also used to ride in the back of trucks as well. Never got hurt at all.
Quote from: noelbotevera on August 09, 2017, 04:45:07 PM
On the topic of school experiences/infant stuff...
Yes, I did use an infant seat. I was too small to use the seats in my family's Grand Caravan. Of course I wear a seatbelt - even though you can go decades without an accident, it's better to wear it if there's no accident than to not wear it if there is one.
Seat belts are also good for keeping one in one's seat while performing maneuvers with a vehicle. No different than on an amusement park ride.
Quote from: jp the roadgeek on August 09, 2017, 05:35:26 PM
While we're on the topic of children in car seats, I've noticed a lot of differences between when I was a kid and now. When I was a kid, you would ride in a car seat until you were 3 or 4, then graduate to a regular seat. Mandatory seat belt laws didn't exist until I was 10, but I'd usually be forced to wear mine anyway. And most back seat seatbelts were just the lap belt, not the shoulder belt. I've noticed nowadays that kids tend to ride in the back seat until they are almost a teenager, despite the front passenger seat being empty. I started "riding shotgun" when it was just me and the driver when I was 5. I also used to ride in the back of trucks as well. Never got hurt at all.
Blame mandatory air bags for that. I remember riding in the front seat when I was young. That stopped when my parents bought a car with air bags. I'm just the right age where the car where I couldn't ride in the front for years was also the first car I owned (the 1997 Honda Accord I only traded in three years ago).
Quote from: vdeane on August 09, 2017, 09:28:51 PM
Quote from: jp the roadgeek on August 09, 2017, 05:35:26 PM
While we're on the topic of children in car seats, I've noticed a lot of differences between when I was a kid and now. When I was a kid, you would ride in a car seat until you were 3 or 4, then graduate to a regular seat. Mandatory seat belt laws didn't exist until I was 10, but I'd usually be forced to wear mine anyway. And most back seat seatbelts were just the lap belt, not the shoulder belt. I've noticed nowadays that kids tend to ride in the back seat until they are almost a teenager, despite the front passenger seat being empty. I started "riding shotgun" when it was just me and the driver when I was 5. I also used to ride in the back of trucks as well. Never got hurt at all.
Blame mandatory air bags for that. I remember riding in the front seat when I was young. That stopped when my parents bought a car with air bags. I'm just the right age where the car where I couldn't ride in the front for years was also the first car I owned (the 1997 Honda Accord I only traded in three years ago).
That, and small children (under the ages of 8 or under 50 pounds) have slipped underneath or over buckled seat belts (even in the rear) in some accidents. My children still use booster seats because it's safest until they're 4'6". I don't claim to be the world's best driver and neither can most anyone else.
I know...some of us survived car accidents as children, myself included (aged 5). We were travelling at 10 miles an hour and hit by someone going about 30. I was glad I was wearing a seatbelt in that accident, but they didn't make car seats for passengers of my size in 1979.
Many recent cars have Passive Occupant Detection Systems in the front seat that will automatically turn off the passenger front airbag if there's less than 40-50 pounds resting on the seat cushion. I've placed a few heavy items on the front passenger seat before, and sometimes the seatbelt warning chime/air bag ON light lights up.
I used to go to alot of places when I was very young, and is the only way I've been to Ontario, the Carolinas, and Nova Scotia.
A bit later, I really got into the GameCube, before I got my Wii in 2009, and in a video game sense, that was my whole life until 2011. Then I started using PC, and my 3DS, and I joined here in 2013.
One of few bad things about growing up before the mid-'80s was that VCR's were very rare. So if you had to miss you favorite show, you were out of luck.
I'll never forget the time my mom scheduled a family portrait to be taken at 8 PM on a Friday - the exact same time as 'The Dukes Of Hazzard'. I was sore about that for years. And it was a bad portrait too.
Quote from: jeffandnicole on August 09, 2017, 03:32:32 PM
In elementary school, my bus stop was about 1/4 mile away. About 8 of us or so gathered there at a 'T' intersection. The bus would come just past the T intersection where we were standing and we'd get on. Then the bus would back up into the T, trying to avoid the telephone pole on the right side and the ditch on the left, then swing out left and exit.
Our bus backed out of a driveway once and got us stuck in a bar ditch. Some of the seniors had to get out and push.
Our bus driver's name was Marlene, who liked to do 65 mph on 45-mph county roads, and her catchphrase was "Sit down and shut up!" Sometimes she drove the bus barefoot.
I was born March 17, 1953 at Westover AFB near Chicopee, MA. Dad married mom & enlisted in the Air Force in 1952 and so we began life as an Air Force family for the next 20 yrs.
Before I started 1st grade I had lived in Chicopee MA, Anchorville MI, Charleston SC, Rantoul IL, & Agana Guam. I entered the 1st grade at an all Air Force brats school in Dover AFB, DE. It was 1959 & life was great! We lived in air base housing & it was super safe, everyone kept an eye on the kids & if you did something wrong a neighbor likely called your mom to tell her already. We walked 4 blocks to school; & I went to 1st-6th grade with many of the same kids.
Summertime was big time fun. We lived 2 blocks from the pool & also had a river a few blocks away for swimming, tubeing, homemade boat races, stone skipping & building dirt dams & many other adventures. I guess kids today stay in the house playing video games :no: I never see kids playing in a playground, baseball diamonds or even an open field. Our summer days were eat breakfast go out & play, if you wanted lunch go home eat then back outside then home for dinner then back outside. Near dark we had to be very near home but we could stay out & catch fireflys for awhile. sigh, good times
In July 1965 dad was reassigned to Elemendorf AFB near Anchorage, AK. Dad bought a new Mercury Comet & we began the roadtrip of a lifetime Dover, DE to Anchorage via Detroit, MI & Rockford, IL to visit family. I wish I was a roadgeek then so I could have documented the trip with photos & a journal, we had photos but they were lost in a housefire. The Alcan Hwy was gravel then & we didnt have ac in the car so every time a vehicle passed us going the opposite we had to roll up the windows til the dust settled. After a day driving the Alcan dust completely cover the back of the car, you couldnt see our taillights, license plate or anything. It was a great trip thru the Canadian wilderness, we saw moose, caribou, bears, wolves, deer, eagles & more.
We left AK in 1968 & were assigned to bases in OH, NC, FL, & back to my always home Dover, DE.
The earliest major event I recall is the assassination of JFK :-(. They sent us home from school after telling us what happened I was 10 yrs old. Then came the assassination of RFK & MLK :-(.
I remember 911 vividly, I was driving a truck & unloading in Houston, TX. I was in the bunk catching a few :sleep: FYI When they unload your trailer it rocks the entire truck, I hadnt felt the truck move so I thought they were done unloading me. I went to the receiving office for my paperwork & everyone in the warehouse was there watching 911 unfold. I got my paperwork & parked on the street to watch on my tv in the truck not knowing if this was the 1st of multiple attacks :-(
My dad was a drunk, cirrhosis killed him in 1980 at 50 yrs old. He was never there for me :banghead never threw a baseball, fished or told me about the birds & bees or spent any 1 on 1 time with me yep I'm bitter! John Lennons assassination hit me harder than dads death tho dad was sick for awhile & John Lennons was sudden & unexpected.
Mom was a housewife taking care of home & family. She was/is extremely over protective but very loving. I was the 1st born then she had 4 miscarriages :-( so that explains her over protectiveness. In my childhood I never broke an arm or leg, how many kids can say that?
She's 93 yo now & I care for her in my home. We get along great, its always been me & her.
On a lighter note the 1st cell phone I got was a big ole bag phone.
My 1st connection to the internet was WebTV. I used WebTV for about 6 yrs before I bought an old HP laptop from a friend.
I drove a truck otr for 20 yrs driving to/thru 48 states & Ontario, Canada. I mostly enjoyed the job but after 20 yrs it gets old so I retired in 2009 to care for mom.
Quote from: Scott5114 on August 10, 2017, 12:08:20 AM
Quote from: jeffandnicole on August 09, 2017, 03:32:32 PM
In elementary school, my bus stop was about 1/4 mile away. About 8 of us or so gathered there at a 'T' intersection. The bus would come just past the T intersection where we were standing and we'd get on. Then the bus would back up into the T, trying to avoid the telephone pole on the right side and the ditch on the left, then swing out left and exit.
Our bus backed out of a driveway once and got us stuck in a bar ditch. Some of the seniors had to get out and push.
Our bus driver's name was Marlene, who liked to do 65 mph on 45-mph county roads, and her catchphrase was "Sit down and shut up!" Sometimes she drove the bus barefoot.
Miss Crabtree lives!
Born in the early 1960s in Oakland, California. Early memories include Vietnam, Bobby Kennedy's assassination and the 1968 election, not so much the earliest moon landings due to not have TV but the later ones. The panic scene in 1975 of the helicopters evacuating the American embassy in Saigon, thinking about all the young men drafted who died for nothing. The Watergate crisis when in Berkeley practically every stop sign had NIXON spraypainted with a stencil below STOP. Teargas from overactive National Guard troops sent by Saint Governor Reagan stopping a peaceful demonstration at UC.
Opening day at BART.
Trick or treating was great. We went house to house. Nowadays we have trick or treating at businesses starting about noon! Just another advertising gimmick. Where's the scary factor in that? We didn't start until it was dark.
1st space probe landing, Viking 1, on Mars. By this time we had TV and could watch live as agonizingly slow a single scan line was drawn across the screen and over 30 minutes or so (?) painted a complete color picture.
(https://pics.onsizzle.com/the-1970s-nohelmets-no-kneepads-no-brakes-no-over-cautious-6300178.png)
Quote from: 1995hoo on August 10, 2017, 09:55:55 PM
(https://pics.onsizzle.com/the-1970s-nohelmets-no-kneepads-no-brakes-no-over-cautious-6300178.png)
We call them tricycles today...I didn't know how to use a bike until I was 8, now I'm obsessed with riding a bike.
Quote from: JJBers on August 10, 2017, 11:22:38 PM
Quote from: 1995hoo on August 10, 2017, 09:55:55 PM
(https://pics.onsizzle.com/the-1970s-nohelmets-no-kneepads-no-brakes-no-over-cautious-6300178.png)
We call them tricycles today...I didn't know how to use a bike until I was 8, now I'm obsessed with riding a bike.
That is more than a tricycle....that is a Big Wheel! You could more stunt-type riding on a good concrete driveway with those than a regular tricycle.
Quote from: JJBers on August 10, 2017, 11:22:38 PM
Quote from: 1995hoo on August 10, 2017, 09:55:55 PM
(https://pics.onsizzle.com/the-1970s-nohelmets-no-kneepads-no-brakes-no-over-cautious-6300178.png)
We call them tricycles today...I didn't know how to use a bike until I was 8, now I'm obsessed with riding a bike.
:rofl:
Further underscoring the generation gap! A tricycle is smaller and much more upright than a Big Wheel. You "graduated," so to speak, from a tricycle to a Big Wheel to training wheels to a bike. My parents have a picture of me on a tricycle when I was 3. I seem to recall being one of the first kids on our block to learn to ride a bike when I was maybe 5 or 6.
I think the association of the word "tricycle" with little kids is probably one reason why three-wheeled recumbents for adults are referred to as "recumbent trikes," simply for marketing reasons. I tried out one of those at a bike shop a few years back. Super-comfortable and easy to ride, although they didn't have any big hills nearby. The riding position is much closer to a Big Wheel than to a kid's tricycle. I didn't buy one–too expensive and I wasn't sure how I'd store it in the garage–but if I were to start commuting by bike, that's what I'd get to supplement the folding bike I have now (which is good to keep for rainy days since folding bikes are allowed on the subway here during rush hour, whereas regular bikes aren't).
Quote from: jp the roadgeek on August 09, 2017, 05:35:26 PM
While we're on the topic of children in car seats, I've noticed a lot of differences between when I was a kid and now. When I was a kid, you would ride in a car seat until you were 3 or 4, then graduate to a regular seat. Mandatory seat belt laws didn't exist until I was 10, but I'd usually be forced to wear mine anyway. And most back seat seatbelts were just the lap belt, not the shoulder belt. I've noticed nowadays that kids tend to ride in the back seat until they are almost a teenager, despite the front passenger seat being empty. I started "riding shotgun" when it was just me and the driver when I was 5. I also used to ride in the back of trucks as well. Never got hurt at all.
My mom has told the story of when I was a kid - they used Consumer Reports to find the best carseat for me at the time. After they got it, it was eventually recalled. Apparently they way kids would sit in them allowed them to kick out certain parts of the carseat (including me)...which Consumer Reports' testers were unable to duplicate.
Big Wheels had a lower center of gravity than tricycles. It was harder to tip, but you were less visible to cars.
Quote from: 1995hoo on August 10, 2017, 09:55:55 PM
(https://pics.onsizzle.com/the-1970s-nohelmets-no-kneepads-no-brakes-no-over-cautious-6300178.png)
And it lasted into the 1980s as well. Ride that big wheel!
The radio station I listened to the most growing up was Q-102 (WKRQ in Cincinnati). There were usually other stations that I liked much better such as WCLU, but those kept coming and going.
Even in a county with 90,000, I don't think we had a community center when I was a teenager, because it was considered eeeeeeeeeevil. So there was really nothing positive for teenagers here to do. Recreation at the time consisted largely of staying home and listening to the radio.
Also, my high school gave out so much homework that we didn't have time for recreation anyway. You hit the books when you got home, and you didn't stop until bedtime, except for supper.
I'm glad I got expelled.