Back in My Day...

[CaityJuju]

Back in my day we had to take music CDs with us if we wanted to listen to them on the go...in our Sony Walkman CD player. We didn't have the iPod or smartphones yet.

Feel old reading that? Wasn't that long ago either haha.

[DracoBug]

back in my day, you actually had to physically flip the light switch to make the power to a plug turn on.

[froglady]

Back in my day there were 3 TV stations and you had to go out in the rain or snow to turn the antenna mast to get the third one. They signed off at midnight (except NBC signed off at 1am after Johnny Carson's Tonight Show) and came back on at 5 or 6 for the Farm Report. PBS didn't exist yet and pay TV was 15 years in the future.

Thank goodness for whomever expanded cable and invented cable-only stations.

[DrDisore]

Back in my day, I could look out side and still see wild deer and turkey

[prettyiggy7]

Back in the day, there were rotary phones & TVs (3 stations like froglady noted above) that you needed to turn the dial to change, No remotes, never mind cable or cell phones: changes to TV & landlines were 10-15 years in the future & cells about 25 years. Microwaves for "cooking" were not prominent for 15-20 years.

[froglady]

My family still lives with deer and wild turkeys. My sister and her husband own 250 acres of virgin timberland and hay fields in WV. They don't even need a hunting license for deer, rabbit, squirrel, coon. Just restricted game like turkeys.

The rotary phone! The busy signal! No answering machine or caller ID. When you left home, you just never knew if someone had called while you were out unless they called back after you got home. You got FOMO from the TV, too. No VCR or recording. You just missed the show if you weren't home. And if you wanted to see a movie, you had to go to the theater. If you missed it, too bad.

I grew up in such a small community we still had the operator connect local calls. My grandparents' number was 397. When you gave someone your phone number, you said "Gibson6-5555" or "GI6-5555" instead of 446-5555. Long-distance calls were expensive. I remember we called my great-aunt 100 miles away to wish her "Happy Birthday" and set a timer for 2.5 minutes, because you paid a flat fee for the first 3 minutes. That three minute call was 5 hours' work at the minimum wage at the time.

Believe it or not, kiddos, I was 16 when my family got its first air conditioner. It sat in the kitchen window and we turned it on for about 2 hours while cooking dinner. The rest of the time we had all the windows and doors open to cool off the house (yes, even at night while we slept). We sat outside a lot and even slept on the wicker furniture out on the screen porch (it had screens and no window panes, but it kept MOST of the skeeters out). They call that a Florida room now. Not only did most people not have A/C in their homes, we didn't have it in the school, the college dorms, most non-food businesses, etc. Usually you had to go to the theater or the grocery store to cool off. No, there was no such thing as a "mall". There's a reason people spent only winters in Florida, you know...