A little help, please?
July 15th, 2010 by Mike Redding
I need you all to help me make a list. I was having this conversation in the newsroom with some interns (God love them) and they were stupefied when I said the word “galoshes.”
Let’s make a list of all the things you and I used as kids that our kids and grandkids will never even see.
#1. Galoshes. Remember the “rubbers” you slipped over your shoes when it was raining? A brilliant invention.
#2. Typewriters. Too easy.
#3. Matches… maybe?
What else? Free associate. Remember, there are no stupid ideas, just stupid people. Wait. That’s not right. What’s the saying? Forget it. Moving on…
Okay, have at it, class… MR
rotary dial phones, when the “remote” was the youngest child, non electric pencil sharpeners, 8 tracks, tape recorders with reels of tape.
Home heat source was wood fired furnace.. I was ten years old when I found out my name was not GET WOOD
A big, round, black disc that layed flat on a spinning table. A special “needle” would be placed on it….and you could magically hear music.
Flashcube camera
Carbon paper, playing outside, rabbit ears, getting up to change the channel, party lines, using the “good ole’ days” or “I had to walk 5 miles in the snow” card…
Mimeograph machines, and the smelly purple ink on mimeographed paper. The MovieFone guy/voice that you called to get movie listings. Pay Phones. ;)
Free hotwheel cars and tracks when the service attendant pumped your gas and washed your windshield.
Longjohns that we had to wear in the Winter up under our clothes.
The box on tv that you had to get up and turn the dial to make the antenna on house turn to pick up another channel.
Driving a car so old that there were no seat belts in it and the way to flash beams (headlights) was a button on the floor.
Lastly my Partridge Family (Metal) lunchbox.
GameBoys, Atari, Pong, MS-DOS, 45’s, PF Flyers, Photos in albums, newspapers in print, Tretorn tennis shoes, transistor radios, canvas bound binders (used the blank surface for classmates’ autographs and doodles), sack lunches, Princess telephone, rotary dials on telephones, ice cube trays…the list goes on.
grass trimmers that worked like scissors, tube radios and TVs that had to “WARM UP” before they worked, roads without streetlights, garage doors without remotes, houses without AC (here in the south) and I could add more.
1) Betamax and 2) Pull tabs from soda cans… the type that actually came off
waiting days to see what your pictures looked like.