Stop and Smell the People

Keep the GREAT suggestions coming!

I asked and you delivered!

I wanted to compile and extensive list of all the things we grew up with that kids today will never see… and VOILA! Some of you left comments here… some e-mailed. This list makes me laugh and groan in amazement.

But it feels incomplete still. Read through it and add your 2 cents. And I’ll keep building this list.  (Remember when a penny could get you a piece of gum?)

Rotary dial phones

Getting spanked or paddled by teachers in school

Black & White TV

Powdered dishwashing detergent

Kitchens with NO automatic dishwasher

Clothes lines

Painting a house with a paint brush

Sandwiches wrapped in wax paper

Non-electric pencil sharpeners

8 tracks

Tape recorders with actual cassette tapes, not digital chips

Home heat source was wood fired furnace

A big, round, black, vinyl disc you lay on a spinning table and a special “needle” would be placed on it… VOILA! Music!

Mix tapes (we spent hours, even days making these. Now kids assemble “playlists” with mouse clicks on a computer in minutes)

Flashcube cameras (The four-sided kind you popped on and off)

Wax fingers and lips

Balsa wood airplanes (some had rubber band powered propellers)

Waiting days to see what your pictures looked like

Carbon paper

Rabbit ears (that’s a TV antenna for the kids reading this)

Getting up to change the channel

Party lines

Tang

Betamax tapes (This format lost out to VHS tapes)

Pull tabs from soda cans… the type that actually came off

Grass trimmers that worked like giant scissors you actually squeezed by hand

Lawnmowers that required no gas or electricity… just you pushing

Tube radios and TVs that had to “WARM UP” before they worked right

Garage doors without remotes

Houses without AC

GameBoys, Atari, Pong,

MS-DOS

45’s,

PF Flyers

Photos in physical albums

Newspapers in print

Transistor radios

Sack lunches

Princess telephones

Ice cube trays

The small box on your TV that you had to get up and turn the dial to make the antenna on house turn to pick up another channel.

Cars without seat belts

Seat Belts that were lap only

Cars with the high-beam button on the floor you pushed with your left foot

My Partridge Family (Metal) lunchbox

Free Hotwheel cars and tracks when the service attendant pumped your gas and washed your windshield.

Mimeograph machines and the smelly purple ink on mimeographed paper

The MovieFone guy/voice that you called to get movie listings

Pay Phones

Okay, if you want to add something, make a comment (remember when you had to sit down and write a letter with a pen on paper and send it by ground mail to comment on anything? It’s amazing, all that has changed just in our generation… MR

A little help, please?

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

The dark vans are gone…

The dark vans are gone and my Internet is working again. If you haven’t read the previous couple posts, you have some catching up to do.

Obviously, calling them out left the Russians and Americans no choice. I hope BOTH governments learned a thing or two about the pen being my t-shirt than the, um, uh, er… what would George Bush say here? The pen is a might tighter than the, hmmm… we won’t get fooled again.

In this case, the blog is mightier than the international incident. And if you think I’ve made all this up, you’re wrong. Mostly. Somewhat.

Parts of the story are true. I had to tell the story in code. (Whispering now.) They’re listening.

And for those of you who don’t believe Anna is THAT disconnected from all sports, I’ll have her write you about it. She doesn’t feel it’s a down side. And she’s right! I’m just a junkie. To quit the NFL NOW would send me into shock and possibly cause a personality fracture so deep even Mel Gibson would seem sane in comparison. And that dude is flat our whacked in the head. Talk about Mad Max.

Okay, I’m off to the bank to exchange some rubles for dollars… MR