Things about your childhood that would baffle younger people of today

[jo-jo]

LOL. I remember always looking for a little plastic adapter insert for the 45's so that I could play mine on a regular record player.

yes, worth it's weight in gold for playing records. I wouldn't even know how to google a name to find a picture.

 

[Hisgirl]

Wearing bedroom shoes made out of a washcloth.

Putting orange iodine on all scrapes.

Breaking open a thermometer and playing with those cool little silver droplets.

Having a pair of school shoes, church shoes and tennis shoes. Period.

Driving on vacation and it was perfectly fine to stop the car and have Dad go pee by the edge of the woods in clear site of the highway.

Driving around town in the back of a pickup truck.

Tang.

Digging out roots from the back yard and making sassafras tea.

Rolling cigarettes for Papa.

Made in Japan was on the bottom of ALL electronics.

 

[starry_solo]

I still order physical AAA Tour Books and paper maps when going on a road trip. I like having a low tech backup and I have always loved maps.

Us too!

 

[tcufrog]

Also, every winter, on Saturday mornings, my mom would drop my sisters and I off at the ice rink at our civic center. We would skate for a couple hours and then go to the library to choose books. There were 3 of us. We would call our mom on a pay phone when we were ready to leave. I remember doing this when I was 8. My older sister was 10, younger was 6. I don't think this would even be LEGAL nowadays. This was in the mid/late 80s.

I was a competitive figure skater in elementary and junior high. When I was in junior high my mom would drop me off with my skates and lunch money at the mall before it opened for my figure skating class. I'd roam though the mall with my friends and I'd wait for my mom at the mall entrance at the time my mom told me to.

Remember when pagers were all the rage?!

The summer after my freshman year of college I had what I consider my worst job ever. I opened up returned pagers in a warehouse all day and processed them. The pager company had lots of unhappy customers who would leave nasty notes in the return boxes. Once, someone put a dead rat in one. I got hives twice while working at that job and I had never had hives before.

Not my kids, but students...

When I was a college freshman (97-98) we could either register for classes at the College Registrar's desk or over the phone at a designated time, entering codes for each class. These days you register on the computer.

At my alma mater, the hardest classes to register for were the upper-level nursing classes. You had to take them in a specific order and there weren't enough slots each semester so the sophomore and junior nursing students would camp out overnight in front of the registrar's office in an attempt to get the classes they needed.

 

[Deb & Bill]

We lived in a small country town when I was a kid, so we had lots of country roads around. When it snowed, my dad would tie the sleds behind the car and drive us around the country.

 

[Kitty 34]

I have not read all 10 pages but people would be baffled that I made it thru childhood with situations I'm sure have been mentioned already in this thread!!

 

[pahoben]

As others have posted we had a black and white TV with aluminum foil wrapped around rabbit ears. I remember watching an NHL hockey match a couple times and couldn’t really understand it because the puck was never ever visible in the snow (remember snow-the video static) on the screen. I don’t know how old I was when I first saw a hockey puck.

I remember the first time I ate pizza. We were visiting relatives and I took a bite of pizza and suddenly had a mouth full of very strong and completely unfamiliar flavors attacking my taste buds. Way too intense for me at that young age.

We had the whole marble trading thing with clearies and cats eyes.

When someone was knocked down it was always said they got knocked on their baseball cards.

When older and M80’s and cherry bombs and black cats and railroad trestles and construction sites and BB guns and 22’s (as Kitty 34 mentions) incredibly lucky to live through it. At that time that kids had tons of luck to survive childhood.

As others have noted during the summer I would leave the house in the morning, come home briefly for lunch, disappear again, come home briefly for supper, disappear again, and come home we’ll after dark. After dark amusement including catching fireflies and tormenting bats by throwing small stones in the air and watching them dive after the stones. Stupid bats.

 

[pahoben]

The sage advice I remember from my parents was not to crawl into an abandoned refrigerator and shut the door because I could suffocate. Thank goodness for that advice.

 

[DawnM]

OH YEAH-you were cool if they were in your school lunch.

do you remember shakeapuddin? you had to work for your pudding cup with those.

i really miss jello 1,2,3.

I don't remember those, just watched a video commercial for it. and HA! I still do that with Instant pudding!

 

[DawnM]

The sage advice I remember from my parents was not to crawl into an abandoned refrigerator and shut the door because I could suffocate. Thank goodness for that advice.

Well, you are still here, so......good job!

 

[DawnM]

Actually lived this the other day...my middle schooler got on the bus and there was a 20 year old substitute driver. He was new to the route so DS sat behind him to help him out. The driver held up a paper and said "they wrote directions on this piece of paper for me. Seriously? It's 2019"

I just went with a couple hundred 8th graders on a 3 day trip to Washington, D.C. (gah, I almost died, but that is for another post!) and the drivers had their phones on the dash with the maps on. They kept touching them and honestly, it made me really nervous.

 

[DawnM]

I remember once, about 2 years ago, when I was working at a high school, a 10th grader said, "Mrs. M, when you were our age, did you use My Space?" That was truly the oldest thing they could think of. I responded with, "When I was your age, there was no My Space, in fact, there was no internet at all!" He looked at me, completely dumbfounded and responded with, "How did you communicate?"

I have clearly survived a dark time in history!

 

[PollyannaMom]

I remember once, about 2 years ago, when I was working at a high school, a 10th grader said, "Mrs. M, when you were our age, did you use My Space?" That was truly the oldest thing they could think of. I responded with, "When I was your age, there was no My Space, in fact, there was no internet at all!" He looked at me, completely dumbfounded and responded with, "How did you communicate?"

I have clearly survived a dark time in history!

 

[Hisgirl]

All the free stuff!

A jelly jar after the last grape jelly was used.

A toaster after opening a savings account at the bank.

A classic book to read after filling up with gas.

Free toys and gadgets with enough blue horse stamps from our notebook paper.

Free stuff with green stamps from the grocery store.

 

[barkley]

At my alma mater, the hardest classes to register for were the upper-level nursing classes. You had to take them in a specific order and there weren't enough slots each semester so the sophomore and junior nursing students would camp out overnight in front of the registrar's office in an attempt to get the classes they needed.

one of the colleges i attended had a lottery system for nursing students. they only let so many into the program and preregistered the selected students into classes. since the nursing program led to a 4 year degree people would take their first 2 years of general ed/pre-reqs while hoping their name got pulled in the lottery. if it didn't some went on to other schools w/more traditional enrollment while others went on to work in other fields while waiting for their name to be pulled.

A toaster after opening a savings account at the bank.

i had'nt seen this IN YEARS but a local credit union is doing one of these promotions right now.

A classic book to read after filling up with gas.

or noah' arc/animals from arco, presidential 'coins' from shell. i also remember promotions w/glassware (each week it was a different style so you did multiple minimum amount fills during the week to get the max number then did the same subsequent weeks to fill out your collection).



anyone remember detergent that came w/towels inside the box as a promotion-dish towels and washrags that never lost the smell of being stuffed in those boxes of detergent.

 

[Deb & Bill]

...anyone remember detergent that came w/towels inside the box as a promotion-dish towels and washrags that never lost the smell of being stuffed in those boxes of detergent.

You mean boxes of Breeze as advertised by Dolly Parton?

 

[Skippy918]

Paper maps and having to ask the hotel front desk for directions to nearby attractions.

 

[L&Lfan]

I think Duz detergent used to have things in the boxes.