Thanksgoating - Day fifteen. Disco time
14Today I’m thankful for being a child of the 70’s.
Back before the internet, social media, cell phones and digital everything… it was a good time to be a kid.
Don’t get me wrong. I love the internet. I’ve had a long career working with computers that I am also very thankful for. But I (and I’m using this phrase far too frequently) am happy that I got to see both sides of the coin. I know life with the internet and life without it. My daughter was born with high speed internet as a given. Stream anything and everything anywhere. I’m thankful that I know what it’s like to not know what the internet is.
We rode dirt bikes without helmets. We played in the creek all day until you could hear your mom yell across the neighborhood that it was time to come home. Seatbelt? Maybe? And we survived and thrived. Encyclopedia Britannica was our google. We learned cursive. We learned typing on actual typewriters. We saved our quarters for Space Invaders and our dimes for the ice cream truck. Look, I’m a geek and I love gadgets… I’ve got drones and VR and seven or eight computers in my house. And as much as I love all the tech, I’m happy that my childhood didn’t include them.
I’ve tried to raise my daughter in a similar fashion. But it’s tough in this modern world. Her first gaming console was an Atari 2600 (kind of ridiculous on a 55” flat screen… but it worked). I built an Arcade Machine so she could experience the 80’s coin-op games of my youth. Turns out she’s a Moon Patrol girl.
I’m thankful that I got to see the development of the internet from its infancy. I remember getting a 300 baud modem for my Apple IIe and dialing into bulletin boards for the joke of the day or whatever it was they had to offer. Occasionally you would find the sysop online and you could actually send message to someone…. ON A COMPUTER!!!
In summary, I’m old. But I’m good with that.
Hey ladies!
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“I’m old. But I’m good with that.” I am proud to say that I’m right there with you. So many of the little memories you posted struck a chord with me…Yes, yes, and yes! No insult to anyone else who’s taken up the mantle of GOAT this year, but you’ve consistently had some of my favorite posts & I look forward to spending a little time in your head (hope I didn’t do any damage!) each day.
@tohar1 Heh. As my wife always tells my daughter, you get what you get, and you like what you get. I’m glad you’re enjoying my posts, but yeah, I’m just throwing stuff at the wall every day I’m starting to realize that with all my surgeries, I think they also removed my verbal filter. If you ask me how I’m doing, you better block off some time on your calendar because I will unapologetically answer that question with everything on my mind.
@capnjb RE: “Block off some time”…I think I’d enjoy sitting back with a beer or whiskey & let you go! Thanks for what you’ve done so far, and continue on please!
@tohar1 If you’re ever in the DC area, I’d be happy to have you at my table. But you have to let me know what tohar1 means
I’m a (ahem) bit younger than you. Yes, I remember when:
Seatbelts were a new thing and they stressed them in the driver’s ed classes.
Helmets were something you wore if you rode a motorcycle on the street. Maybe.
Lawn darts had points on the end and stuck 4 inches into the ground when you tossed them.
Riding in the back of a station wagon meant being without a seat, never mind a seatbelt.
Weekends and summer days meant going out to play in the morning, maybe coming it to eat at lunch then coming back for supper before going out til dark.
Having a bike meant you could ride 15 miles to the other side of the Mississippi River and watch the boats lock thru at the Alton locks.
If you misbehaved your parents knew the neighbors would handle it for them, call and let them know what you had done and what they had done about it, and then they would re-apply justice once you got home.
+++++++++++++++++
My kids grew up having to go get the (insert letter here) encyclopedia whenever they asked a question at supper that was more complicated than I could answer easily on my own. Audubon field guides and map reading skills were something they were expected to master at a young age. TV was a treat they got when they went to see the grandparents. Chores were the price they paid for their “room and board”.
+++++++++++++++++
We were at the nascent beginnings of computers becoming ubiquitous. They inherited some $$ from a family friend and pooled it to get their first computer. We looked thru the Computer Shopper, picked out the company we wanted to use, then ordered it to spec. When it came time to upgrade, we did it ourselves after reading up on it. The next several computers were custom built by the 3 of us (2 kids and I), and we did all the software installation of the OS etc. Old computers became Linux boxes and projects to use at the private school my wife taught at, getting re-purposed with Mavis Beacon typing software to teach typing skills. Both can type faster than I can write.
My son was active on several IRC and BB groups for martial arts, establishing contacts across the world that he eventually had a chance to meet in person (including one guy in Australia he “knew” for 20 yrs. before they actually met in person when he travelled there in his early 30’s).
We traveled by car to all 48 states, listening to books on tape, playing ‘auto-bingo’, looking for license plates and using AAA ‘trip-ticket’ maps and guide books as well as a copy of the Rand McNally atlas from Sam’s.
Both my kids wrote for the local newspaper, one travelled to Germany to work as an au pair at 16. We sent my son from AL to PA alone via Greyhound Bus when he was 15 for a summer program at Carnegie Mellon University.
TL:DR You’re right, and I wouldn’t trade my (and my kid’s) experiences and opportunities for the world.
@chienfou Heh… next time I’m just going outsource my daily goat post to you. You did that way better than I did
@capnjb @chienfou Both of you have excellent story telling skills!
@chienfou oh Mavis Beacon, I spent a lot of time with her!! She was a good teacher. I was stalled at under 20 wpm in typing class and lets just say I am now close to 100 wpm.
And I still have a Rand McNally atlas in my car. You never know when you will lose satellite signal and need to know how to get somewhere!!!
@capnjb
As Jordan Peele would say…Nope!
I did my bit a while back, and I am thoroughly enjoying your take on goathood. I don’t want to steal your thunder, but your head is in about the same place as mine evidently (and I don’t just mean squarely on your shoulders…) and your posts resonate with my attitudes/life so I can’t help kibbitzing a bit.
@callow @capnjb
Thanks! I am pleased to be in such excellent company!
@tinamarie1974
yep, she rocks! and having an atlas along is a great idea.
Seatbelts?
The earliest car I remember riding in not only didn’t have seatbelts, it especially didn’t have seatbelts in the rear window area, which had a deck or porch-like scetion above the top of the seats. I liked climbing up into that nook and riding there, though my father often made me get down. That wasn’t so much for my safety but so that he had a better view when driving on the highway.
Speaking of safety, that was an era when everybody (at least the boys – I had no knowledge of girls at that point) had at least one pocket knife for “every day carry” to grade school and no adult gasped and considered them terrorists. It was common to see knives out and being thrown around as part of the recess games. (Teachers surely had witnessed this.)
I saw a few fights at recess, but I never saw a knife out for one, always just fists or kids rolling around on the ground. In fact, the first knife fight I saw was on TV with Sal Mineo or some such. And in high school we as a class watched “West Side Story” (as a parallel to Romeo and Juliet which we covered in Lit class) and most of us were generally shocked when Bernardo stabbed Riff and then Tony stabbed Bernardo.
Different era. Now kids taking scissors or nail files to school causes a scene. I liked it better before. Technological progress but cultural regress.
@phendrick Heh… my dad was a senior director for HUD for 25 years. He used to have occasional goose hunting trips with his buddies on the Eastern Shore and he would take his shotgun to the office so he could leave with them at the end of the day. Not only did he ride the metro with it, he walked into a federal building with it and no one batted an eye. The 70’s were a different time
@phendrick My wife tells tales of her family of 8 going to church in their VW bug. Parents in the front seats, two oldest kids sitting in the back seat, each (non-driver) passenger with a kid on their lap, youngest child lying on the rear window shelf. I wish she had photos! I guess one time they accidentally left the youngest (brother) behind. Her parents insisted it was a mistake - I guess it might be hard to keep track.
@capnjb @phendrick I was in high school in the 70’s. During hunting season, it was not unusual to see rifles in pickup gun racks in the school parking lot. Never an incident.
@macromeh @phendrick I did high school in the 80’s. Same.
@capnjb @macromeh @phendrick
…and none of the trucks were locked either!
@capnjb @chienfou @phendrick Possibly, I don’t know. I did usually lock my own car, mostly because it usually had some, um, contraband stashed in it.
@capnjb @chienfou @macromeh
“contraband” = ?
{weed, alcohol, cherry bombs / M-80s, underage girls, opponents’ mascots, …}?
C’mon, give, I’m sure the statute of limitations has run out, and anyway all the undercover cops are still resting after the elections.
/giphy statue of eliminations
@capnjb @chienfou @macromeh
Giphy, that just ain’t right.
@capnjb @macromeh @phendrick
here this is better:
in Brussels
@chienfou @macromeh @phendrick Please stop peeing in my posts.
@capnjb
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