Memories

When I was a kid, I remember my parents taking pictures.  The cameras at the time had no built in flash - rather, the flash was a lightbulb that you plugged in at the top.  When you took the picture, the bulb was finished and it popped out.  Not too much longer after that, they graduated to a camera that used a larger row of bulbs, so it was changed out less frequently.  After ten or so pictures.  When I was a bit older, I had a disc camera.

I remember playing with a Rubik's cube that had nine squares on each side.  I tried for a while to get it back to the way it was at the beginning, but I finally gave up and changed the stickers around.  I saw a Rubik's cube today that had, I think, 16 squares on each side.

I was watching a tv show last week, and the phone rang.  It wasn't the digital sound that we hear now, but it was the old fashioned ring.  My daughter didn't believe me that it was a phone.  Ring, ring, ring.  Remember that sound?

What, exactly, do you remember from when you were a kid, that either doesn't exist or is hard to replicate?

Comments

[Janet]

I still miss Afterschool specials and music that had a good beat and you could dance to it. I'm only 28 though so I don't know if I should feel so many "back in my day" memories just yet.:)

[Fiona]

I had one of those disc cameras!

LPs.

8-track tapes. ("Baby I'm a Want You...", circa 1972.)

TV before VCRs and DVDs. My kids are amazed that I had to wait a year (or longer) to see a movie a second time.

"Music video" on the tv station that became Ted Turner's superstation, waaaay before MTV.

No infant/child car seats. When I was a kid, I could lie down on the back seat and sleep during long car trips. There was barely any expectation that anyone would wear a seat belt.

Being gone all day long in the summer, playing outside and at neighbors' houses.

My friend's mom going grocery shopping and leaving the two kids (age 6 or so) in the car while she shopped. (Now, DFACS would be called!)

Smoking being allowed in all public places; no such thing as a designated smoking area. (I certainly don't miss that!)

I could go on and on!

[Fiona]

"Dittos" at school, before photocopies. All the kids sniffing them when they were hot off the press.

Belted "sanitary napkins." I didn't use them ("Stayfree" pads had come along by the time I hit puberty), but I remember when my sisters did.

My parents having to go to the bank to get checks cashed--no ATMs.

Cigarette ads on tv.

[AmyH]

8 tracks, no microwave popcorn (we had a popper that had a big dome top-very entertaining), Tab, Halloween candy that didn't come in wrappers, feathered hair (oh wait, have you seen Madonna lately?), metal kid scissors without the cushy handles (I still have mine!) and pop top cans! We'd put the tops in the hole and shake them around when the can was empty. Plus everything everyone else has mentioned. Those were the days. Have you heard that song, "1970 Something" by Mark Wills? A great snapshot of my childhood.

[Gretchen]

To the comment about Madonna, I just saw a commercial with her in it, and I thought What The? When did the Farrah Fawcett look come back in??? Seriously, I swear someone photo edited Farrah's hair right on Madonna's body.

[carolb]

Bell-bottom pants, ponchos -- oh wait -- that was last week!

My kids can't believe we don't have our wedding on video!
VCR's weren't invented yet, or microwaves. Bought our first VCR and Microwave when they first came out - at about $1000 each!!
And these are just 2 things since I've been MARRIED -- let alone my childhood!
A bike was JUST a bike -- no 5 speeds or 10 speeds. All guys wore speedo's, but I was too young to realize that was ugly! A phone had a rotary dial, not buttons. My kids don't know how to work those!
I'll quit. There's way too much!

[alana]

Life before hand held digital games. I remember getting the very first nintendo hand held games with liquid quarz screen in about 1980. We had one with Mickey Mouse catching eggs, and a Donkey Kong.

Walking to school by myself/with my brother, but no parents in first grade!!!!!!

Running around all over town on public transportation at the age of eleven (yes, but that was Switzerland...).

The grunge look a decade before grunge came to America (I landed in the USA fully grunge in 1982, at the height of the preppy era...I'm still recovering).

Rotary dials on telephones.

No internet. (How did we LIVE????)

Spending hours playing with MacPaint on our new Macintosh computer during the 1980's.

Kids in high school carrying around punch cards from their computer classes.

Going through college with an electric typewriter and never darkening the door of a computer lab. (Got my first PC for Seminary).

Typing papers for other people for pay.

Small black and white TV.

Airlines before they had movie screens on them.

Airlines when they still served food on shorter flights. (Nasty! A wadded up pbj sandwich from the bottom of your carry on is still better than airplane food was.)

No cell phones.

When pagers were new and cool and innovative.

[Genuine]

Season premeires of Gilligan's Island.

[Chris]

When we moved, my boys and one of their friends found an old rotary phone I had kept. They all asked what it was. I explained to them it was a phone. They said they knew that, but how in the heck did you work it?

Once they realized you actually had to stick your finger in the hole and dial, they were completely amazed.

[judy]

I remember 'calling' my neighborhood friends. This did not involve a phone. You stood at your friends back door, and 'called' her name in a sing-songy voice.

I also remember that a mom, older sibling. grandma or aunt was present in EVERYONE'S home at all times.

I miss play ground equipment that you could actually get hurt on. And what was with the brightly painted sewer tiles? Where did THEY go?

[Fiona]

Does anyone else remember Pong?

I was one of those people paying other people to type my term papers in college.

Portable phones that weighed about 10 pounds!

"Almost Anything Goes," a cross between a game show and a reality show. It came on in the mid-70s.

Paul Lynde in the center on Hollywood Sqaures.

[Fiona]

Squares

[Stephanie C.]

I remember having to get up to turn the channel on the TV. And most of the others mentioned above; forgot about the sanitary napkins w/belt, but I used that. Ugh.

[Lisa C]

Typing and retyping my reports over and over on the typewriter because they looked so messy when I had to make corrections.
Turquoise appliances.
Plaid pants.
Penny candy.
Staying outdoors in the summer because it was cooler there than in the house.