THE YEAR 1905

[cracker39]

Kerry,

You failed to mention one other "convenience" from the "good ole days". That is the little house behind the house. Until you have dropped your drawers on a frosty morning when the temperature is hovering around freezing, and exposed your rear end and other tender parts to the elements, you haven't lived. Believe me, tlhere was no loitering on the potty on those mornings.

Your schoolhouse comment brought back memories. I only walked one mile, not 2 (and actually, it was flat...no hills either way...and I wore shoes...to school and church anyway), and the school was a brick building with 4 classrooms, one for each grade 1 thru 4. We had to go outside and walk around to the back to enter a small lunch room where two classes at a time could sit at picnic style tables to eat. The meals were prepared right there, on cook stoves (no frozen food in the microwaves for us) and it always smelled terrific.

Of course, there was no Air Conditioning im the schools and the temps were high most of the year (this was in Florida). All 4 class rooms had 4 or 5 really large windows on two sides so air could flow through. Later, in Jr. High and Sr. High, in much larger brick buildings, you hoped to get a corner classroom so you could have that air flow. Students in the rooms with just one wall of windows had to suffice with fans that just stirred up the heat. Come to think of it, by the time I graduated high school in 1956, I never had a classroom or home with AC. My first AC was a window unit I bought for a house after I got married in '63.

[toypusher]

Dale,

Ya! I try not to think about the 'frosty mornings', you see, I grew up about 20 miles from the St Lawrence River in Upstate NY! I can remember at least twice when I was in grade school that school was closed because the heating would not keep up with temps being -50! Fortunately, we had indoor plumbing at that time, but the bathroom was in the cellar and was not very warm even then. My dad belonged to a hunting club and we went for a week every year to the mountains and deep woods. No plumbing there and mostly not even a seat! WooHoo! That will wake you up during a mid-night run!

I guess we could go on and on with these stories, but I have things to do now!

[Green Hornet]

Somebody say "Green Hornet"?

[Green Hornet]

My wife told me her grandfather was the inventor of the "Gilson" round slide rule. She was looking one up on EBay. It was had enough when I took chemistry to figure out the flat one

[Denny Unfried]

We didn't have snow in Florida, but it was uphill both to school and back home.

I just remembered that my very first PC was a Texas Instrument (TI)-80. It had all of 16kbytes of memory, and as I mentioned before used the TV as a monitor and a portable cassette tape player for storage. I did translate a BASIC text program of Startrek on it, and created my own BASIC program of Connect 4. That was cool and my kids loved to play it. It made sounds as the red and blue disks dropped down. I had a couple of other games, but don't remember what they were.

Now, slide rules. Yep, I had to have one in high school in '54 for geometry and trig. I don't remember what make it was and I have no idea what became of it.

Hey Cracker,

If your's are anything like mine the slide rules still work but my Sinclair and Osborn computers are just collecting dust over the garage. I must say that the Radio Shack machines are still in working order.

Denny

[asianflava]

My wife told me her grandfather was the inventor of the "Gilson" round slide rule. She was looking one up on EBay. It was had enough when I took chemistry to figure out the flat one

I have a Steven's Wheel somewhere in my closet. It's a circular slide rule used for Time-Speed-Distance rallys. My wife refuses to use it so we run seat of the pants.

[TomS]

Anybody remember the Vic 20? Pre Commodore.

I had a VIC-20. Taught myself BASIC on that machine.

My kids are 22 and 17. Neither one has ever owned a vynl record. Remember having to clean the dust them else you get to listen to Snap, Crackle and Pop.

My parents didn't have a color TV until I was well into my teens (Mid-70's).

The local paper had two categories for Help Wanted advertising: "Help wanted Male" and "Help wanted Female".

And in those days:

Associates were called Employees
Human Resources was called Personell
IT was called Data Processing
CEO's were called Presidents
CFO's were called Vice President of Finance

Anyway, that's all I can rembember for now. I'm sure there are more.

[Ira]

If any of you old farts want to feel REALLY depressed, consider this:

When I was 6, 43 years ago and in the first grade, it was NOTHING for me to disappear all afternoon on my bike to take a ride with my friends miles and miles away from home. And this was in BROOKLYN.

Nothing unusual about it at all. Just watch any episode of Leave it to Beaver, where it's after dark, the family is sitting down to dinner, and Ward asks June nonchalantly:

"Gee. I wonder where the Beaver is? He should have been home by now."

Nowadays, the Department of Children and Families would have thrown his a** in jail.

[s4son]

You failed to mention one other "convenience" from the "good ole days". That is the little house behind the house. Until you have dropped your drawers on a frosty morning when the temperature is hovering around freezing, and exposed your rear end and other tender parts to the elements, you haven't lived.

One of my most memorable moments, locking grandma in the outhouse. I was about 5 years old. Nice Missouri summer day, about 100 degrees out. Grandma was in there for about thirty minutes before anyone noticed. I didn't know granny could run that fast, makes my rear-end hurt just thinking about it.


Scott F.

[oklahomajewel]

Gosh, I don't think of myself as very old but can relate to what you are talking about with the calculators. Around sixth grade (I'm 42 now) a calculator to us was like a computer is to my teens.

And around 79-81 when me and the ex were dating, it was considered "exciting" to stand at the electronic dept at Sears with about a dozen other kids watching this black and white screen with two bars and a dot moving slowly across the screen....

wow! how far we've come.... ahhhh

[toypusher]

.............And around 79-81 when me and the ex were dating, it was considered "exciting" to stand at the electronic dept at Sears with about a dozen other kids watching this black and white screen with two bars and a dot moving slowly across the screen....

PONG! We used to go to a restruant that had tables with Pong built into them, so you could waste quarters and play while you waited for the food! The first calculator that I ever owned cost me over $20 and would not do half of what a $2 calculator will do now!

[cracker39]

My kids are 22 and 17. Neither one has ever owned a vynl record. Remember having to clean the dust them else you get to listen to Snap, Crackle and Pop.

And, 20 years from now, the kids will be asking "Grandpa, what's a CD?". I still have a big box of 33 1/3 LPs in the closet. A lot of them date back to '56. I have copies of the very first albums made by Elvis, Little Richard, and The Platters. I may have first albums by others...not sure. Most of the early ones were played so much that the quality is fair at best. I keep saying I'm going to get my direct drive turntable unpacked, get a new stylus, and record my LPs to tape (or directly to the PC) and make CDs. Somewhere, I have 8 hours of mono music from my 1950s 45s on reel tape. Where will I ever find a reel tape player to record these to CDs? I still have a lot of the 45 records too. My sister got half of mine and still has them.

If any of you old farts want to feel REALLY depressed, consider this:

When I was 6, 43 years ago and in the first grade, it was NOTHING for me to disappear all afternoon on my bike to take a ride with my friends miles and miles away from home. And this was in BROOKLYN.

I'm 17 years older than you, and lived in a small town compared to Brooklyn. We rode bikes or roller skated all over town during the day and played outside around the neighborhood or in the park across the street after dark most evenings. Kids today don't know about catching fireflies and rubbing the glow stuff on your t-shirt and seeing where each other were by the green spots in the dark. Our parents often had no idea where we were during the day...just out bike riding. Not that they didn't care, but, they didn't worry about our safety. We never heard of kids being picked up or abducted back then.
BTW, it's good to see you posting again.