Complete "Back in my day, we----------. Walked to school. spent the summer outside, etc. Can you

[debm55]

come up with your own Back in my day, we_______? Mine would be-Back in my day, we collected pop/soda bottles along the road to earn extra money. We got 2 cents per bottle when returned to store.

[sinkingfeeling]

1. Back in my day kids rode in the car's front seat without seat belts.

[debm55]

33. I remember that and little kids had no car seats. Thank you sinkingfeeling.

very dangerous.

[mymomwasright]

2. Could buy cigarettes at the filling station at 11 years old...

"for mom or dad". It's bad, but true!

[debm55]

34. Remember getting cigs for my mom at the corner grocery

Stupid thing for them to do.

[Siwsan]

3. Back in the day, we rode in station wagons with rear facing seats in the back end of the car

Thinking about that, now, I cringe!!!

[yorkster]

19. The wayback, right?

Sisters and I would be back there waving at car behind us - back in our kid days.
A new, red and white Ford 1957 beach wagon. What a joy when our smiling father pulled up in that. We took road trips all over New England and New York state and had enough seating for parents, 3 kids, grandma and great aunt. Of course, no seat belts at that time...

[debm55]

35. My aunt had one. I would always get car sick sitting that way.

[GreenWave]

4. Back in my day we drank Bosco without milk.

"Mom! Green Wave is drinking Bosco straight out of the can!"
Mom: You cannot drink Bosco like that in this house!

Next day!

"Mom! Green Wave is outside the house drinking Bosco straight out of the can!"
Mom: That's it Green Wave. You cannot take our Bosco from the fridge without permission!

Next week!

"Mom! Green Wave is returning soda bottles and getting refunds and buying his own supply of Bosco!"
Mom (Master in reverse psychology) with tears in her eyes: You defeated your mother Green Wave, just like the 8 countries defeated my Macedonia."
Green Wave: I will never drink Bosco again.

[debm55]

36. Never had bosco. Love your post, GreenWave.

Had tang

[ProfessorGAC]

63. Great Post!

Enjoyed reading that!

[Chainfire]

5. Back in the day we grew up in a cloud of cigarette smoke and no one thought anything of it.

[debm55]

38. So right--homes,dinners.stores. Back in the day, since I lived in a Steel Mill town, white cars had

a black dust on them.

[h2ebits]

6. Back in my day, we would have newspaper delivery routes to earn money

We would have newspaper delivery routes to deliver newspapers on foot or sometimes bicycle.

I used to help my brother sometimes when the weather was bad, such as snowstorms and the aftermath. He also collected the monthly fees and received pay for his services. Christmas bonuses by his customers were also grand.

[debm55]

39. I remember that. When you paid you got these stubs. Papers were wrapped in a plastic bag and put on

the porch.

[ProfessorGAC]

64. We Didn't Need The Plastic Bags

We (my cousin & i) had a great route.
About 6 blocks from our house was a huge apartment complex.
Each building was 3 floors, 6 apartments per floor, or 18 apartments.
There were 24 buildings! So we delivered about 375 papers a day, but 12 to 16 were just walking through halls dropping the paper by the door.
No bags, no rubber bands. Sundays were 2 or 3 trips though. Could only get so many papers on our bikes.
Collecting was a 2 day process.
But, we made tons of money for a couple kids in 8th grade (me) & 6th grade.

[debm55]

67. That sounds a great place to deliver papers. You made a killing on tips, I bet.

[ProfessorGAC]

73. For The Day, Yeah!

The even younger cousin helped on Sundays. Stuffing circulars, packing bags for our multiple trips.
The two of us probably made $40 a month, which was a lot in 1970. More in December.

[debm55]

79. Were you allowed to spend it?

[ProfessorGAC]

81. It Was Our Money

My parents strongly encouraged saving, though. We probably saved 60-70% each month.
That's why, at 16 (plus working as a janitor at a banquet hall) I had nearly $1,200 for a car.
Then, my dad talked me into giving him the money, added about $700 and got me a brand new Pinto.
I was off for college after my junior year of HS, but a commuter. He wanted to be sure I had a reliable car.
It was, except for that blowing up problem Pintos had!

[debm55]

84. I had a Pinto also. Was very scared everytime I got in.

[Upthevibe]

7. debm55.....

Back in my day, we would be outside on our bicycles all day with no one knowing where the Hell we were (including us sometimes). As long as we were home before it was really, really dark we were okay.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

10. Totally! (nt)

[h2ebits]

11. Yes, indeed we did!

[debm55]

40. I remember that too. Would check the position of the sun to tell me when it was noon(lunch) and 6:00

(dinner) then back out until street lights came on.

[debm55]

51. Yes, I remember that and have a bike with foot brakes instead of the hand brakes.

[yellowdogintexas]

8. stayed out until the street lights came on

usually we went home to eat supper then we were back out again until dark.

folks sat out on their porches, watching lightening bugs and enjoying the cooler air

[debm55]

42. We would catch lightning bugs, but them in our palms and watch them glow. Then we would let them go.

[yellowdogintexas]

87. we put them in jars with holes punched in the lid & made lanterns nt

[Hugh_Lebowski]

9. We came home from playing when the streetlights started coming on (nt)

[louslobbs]

12. Back in my day,

We never even heard of an “active shooter” let alone had drills to prepare for one.

[debm55]

43. You are so right. I do remember air raid drills, and sirens going off so everyone got off their

porches and sidewalk. Civil Air Patrol marching up the street. Cold War days.

[consider_this]

13. ...there was a smoking section in the back of all airplanes. EOM

[debm55]

44. Never went in a plane until I was 53. But I have seen movies of that happening.

Can't imagine the smell.

[rownesheck]

14. Back in my day

we didn't have social media, so we didn't know there were so many stupid people in the world!

[debm55]

45. LOL you are right. There was stupid people back then, just didn't know about them.

[consider_this]

15. I would also like to think this is STILL my day! ;-)

[debm55]

46. Good!

[wendyb-NC]

16. Ditto

We could wander in the woods that bordered the town, wander the neighborhood streets, or venture outside them on bikes, without

helmets until dark or 7:30 PM in the summer. We'd sled in the winter till our feet, fingers and faces were numb. We owned cats, dogs

and ducks, they were part of the family. We held and petted, them all and they hung out with us on our property. Hand washing was

optional. Unless we were going to eat a meal. Furthermore, no one ever reported my parents to social services.

[debm55]

47. Yep, never stayed in the house, unless a thunderstorm( I was afraid) but in the summer we still

stayed out in the rain.

[Jrose]

17. When my sister and I were about 9-10 years old ..

We lived in an apartment bldg in Bronx,, NY. When the Good Humor ice cream truck jingled to our street on summer afternoons, we'd shout up to Mom and she'd toss two coins from the front, 2nd floor window so we could get our Creamcicles and ice cream sandwiches.

[debm55]

48. We had the Ice Cream man. I just read the other day that Good Humor is calling it quits. I liked the

Fudge Bar. He would play this circus like tune.

[Raven123]

18. We ate dinner as a family at the kitchen table and talked to each other

No cell phones. Heck, no one even called on the landline.

[debm55]

69. Yes, You don't see that anymore. Even when we go out people don't talk to each other. They are using

phone to talk or play games. That's sad.

I am glad your family had that experience. We weren't allowed to talk at the table.

[hunter]

20. Back in my day we booted up computers by entering binary instructions on the front panel switches.

The next computer I built was an awesome improvement. I could enter the initial boot instructions on a hexadecimal keypad.

The next computer I build will use an RCA 1802 microprocessor just like some of the earliest computers I built as a teen. I've got all the parts.

[debm55]

49. hunter, did you go into the computer field when you got older?

You did alot of work with computers.

[hunter]

82. I changed my major from engineering to environmental/evolutionary biology after my second year.

Computers might have been the more lucrative choice.

I did briefly work for a major mainframe computer manufacturer that was slowly collapsing.

My boss let me take home electronic components that would have eventually ended up in the dumpsters anyways.

A few years after I left the entire place was torn down.

[Jrose]

21. Back in the 1970s, as a secretary...

I typed on an electric typewriter, took shorthand (handwritten Steno) notes dictated by executives, and kept contact info on a Rolodex.

[wnylib]

37. And created "master" documents for ones to be used repeatedly.

Kept folders of masters and ran off Xerox copies as needed.

Typed through multiple ply documents with carbon paper between them.

I learned typing in high school on a manual typewriter. Had to practice hitting the "a" and "s" hard enough to avoid making them look faded next to other letters because the finger muscles used for those two letters were not as strong as the other fingers.

[debm55]

53. I didn't know that about the "a" and "s" What I hated was pre White out you would have to use this

strip of white correction paper. I could never get it lined up correctly and had to type the whole thing over.

[wnylib]

56. I prided myself on being an "expert" at

aligning a paper so well that corrections were not detectable. After all, I made enough mistakes to get practice at it.

[debm55]

50. One of my work study programs for Penn State was a secretary. Electric typewriter--I had a Royal

manual at home. and used the Rolodex too.Remember when you had to add the ink rolls to the typewriter and use White Out?

[Jrose]

60. Oh dear, I also remember the White-out and lift- off-typo tape.

Also, anyone remember those old Telex machines?
It was a great relief when computers, word processing and faxes arrived!

[Bobstandard]

22. We used to catch salmon in the San Lorenzo river. They're all gone

[debm55]

55. Did they drain the salmon out or add chemicals to the water? That's sad.

[cachukis]

23. Back in my day we flipped baseball cards closest to the curb

to fill in our collection. We played half ball with broom handles and pink balls cut in half. We played outs off curbs with still full pink balls.

[debm55]

57. At recess, we would flip cards against the school building. Yes, I am a girl, but I loved baseball,

cards, the Pirates and Forbes Field. When I was in 6th grade, a bunch of us would go on the 61 C bus--no adults with us-and watch a game.Distance was about 7 miles.

[cachukis]

58. Neato.

[moose65]

24. Back in the mid-1970s

when I was a kid in rural NC, I would go out bike riding with my friends after school. We would venture 7 or 8 miles away from home, and my parents had no idea where I was. There were a couple of little stores we would go to, usually. No major highways involved, just little two-lane country roads.

Also, in high school after football games on Friday nights, we would go out for pizza and to cruise the local town, and again my parents didn't know where I was - they just told me to be home by midnight.

We didn't have streetlights, but on weekends we would be out playing ball or wading in the creek. We just had to be back for supper! No cell phones, no internet, only 3 or 4 channels on TV. I guess we didn't realize how good we had it.

[debm55]

59. I remember those days. I hate to say this, but I liked Roller Derby. Wasn't carried on the 4 locals.

Used Rabbit Ears, to get from Steubenville, OH

[Effete Snob]

25. ...had a kid in the class crippled from polio

...and another with horrific scars from an automobile windshield glass.

I always think about them when someone does the "back in my day" routine.

[Ocelot II]

28. A college classmate had had polio as a kid, still walked with a brace on his leg,

and my mother was a nurse who took care of kids in iron lungs. She and my dad were both injured in a car accident before the days of seat belts - she got a nasty cut on her face and my dad had soft tissue injuries that bothered him for years afterwards. There are many things that are better and safer now than when we were kids, but the good part of the good ol' days was that kids were outside getting exercise, playing games and using their imaginations, mostly without hovering parents. Now they're sitting inside with their devices, exercising only their thumbs, and their parents are so fearful that the kids can't do anything on their own. There has to be a happy medium between that situation and our almost-feral and occasionally dangerous childhoods.

[debm55]

61. Effete, when I was young my cousin got polio in his legs, his dad, my uncle got in on his face. To

show you how things changed they had a quarantine sign on their front and back doors. I was always afraid of the iron lung. We had a story about that in our Weekly Reader. Somehow my cousin Jimmy, was a HS football player and got a full scholarship at Kansas State. But I do remember when the polio vaccine came out Sabin and Salk were considered heroes Salk worked out of the University of Pittsburgh. And NO parents questioned getting the vaccine. In fact, we stood in long lines to get it. Those were painful times with polio, my uncle"s face was messed up on the left hand side..

[yorkster]

26. We had over the shoe roller skates - key on a string around your neck.

You "braked" by skating /running from the sidewalk onto the nearest grassy surface hoping to avoid a tumble.

[debm55]

62. I had the white high top shoes with the skates attached. There was this ball like thing on the toe

each shoe. When you want to stop you would lift the foot to your back and drag the ball. Do you have a skating ring near you?

[yorkster]

77. This was sidewalk skating in my childhood. I did go to

an occasional roller rink or ice skating rink. I remember the skates you describe with the bumper for stopping.

[debm55]

80. I used my outside--wonder why my wheels always woobled

[Ocelot II]

27. We played outside in the summer until suppertime, went back out until sundown.

Rode a bike all over and occasionally fell off it, took the bus downtown, played in the woods for hours, walked to school regardless of the weather, roller skated with skates that clamped on your shoes with keys, ate potato salad that had been sitting outside, rode in the back of our station wagon, ice skated on lakes, looked at our foot bones on the x-ray machine at the shoe store, dissected golf balls carefully so as not to touch the poisonous liquid inside that would kill you if you touched it, lit strings of firecrackers, tried to fly with cardboard wings (this was actually my brother's project and it didn't end well), distilled alcohol on the kitchen stove when the parents were out, caught snakes and toads by hand, raked leaves into big piles and burned them on the curb, built snow forts, went to the drugstore and read their comic books until they threw us out. Lots of stuff that was dangerous and is now probably illegal.

[debm55]

65. Very similiar to my stories. Tell you a secret--we used to put small rocks in our hand and shake

them around. Then we would stand at the comic book display, rattle the rocks(pretending they were money) and read the comic book. Finally she caught on to us. We got thrown out too. Thus lead to looking for bottles--2 cents for the small,and 5 cents for the big bottles. Comic books were 12 cents. Ocelot II you did lead a very interesting childhood. PS did anyone throw caps in the grill??? I remember kids doing that.

[Ocelot II]

71. We didn't have a grill to throw caps in, but we'd kneel on the driveway

and hit rolls of caps with a hammer. I loved the smell of gunpowder.

[debm55]

75. I used to use a rock to hit them, until a spark hit me in the eye. That ended that.

[SWBTATTReg]

29. Back in the day, we would go along the city streets, and gather up the glass coke bottles and

return them for the 5 cents deposit back, to make a little money.

[debm55]

66. Hey we only got 2 cents for the coke and 5 cents for the bigger bottles like Dad's root beer and

Ginger Ale. No fair!!!!

[Golden Raisin]

30. Never wore a helmet when bicycling.

[debm55]

70. Or knee pads or elbow pads. I remember getting my bike at Sears--$25

[jmowreader]

31. Walked uphill both ways to get to school

I know this is a common "we had it SO tough when I was a kid" grandpa thing, but in my case it is completely accurate.

St. Maries, ID, is in a valley. The high school is about 150 feet up the side of a mountain on the north side of the valley. The town is on the side of a mountain on the south side. At the start of the day you rode the school bus to school and walked uphill from the bus parking spot, and at the end of the day you rode it back to town and walked uphill to get home.

[debm55]

72. What a great post! At first I thought you were pulling my leg.

[Mr.Bill]

32. We wanted to get sick

so we could take a few days off from school.

[wnylib]

41. Our parents wanted us to get sick

with measles, mumps, and chicken pox by the time we were 6 years old to give us immunity for later in life. This was especially true for girls because rubella during pregnancy could cause birth defects.

[debm55]

52. But chicken pox increases your chance of getting Shingles. Yep, no vaccines at the time.

[wnylib]

54. True about the shingles, but everyone

back then understood the connection between chicken pox and shingles. There was a belief that if you had a "full blown" case of chicken pox and not "just" a mild case, you would be protected.

[debm55]

74. Agree. But because it was a neighborhood school, the teacher would get someone to bring your

homework home.

[Mr.Bill]

76. Now that's just evil, right there.

[Jrose]

68. I remember the 'Seltzer Man'

who personally delivered bottles of the fizzy stuff to people's homes. Those were glass bottles with the spritzer tops that were essential for delicious egg creams.
Seltzer was very popular in predominantly Jewish neighborhoods such as the one I grew up in.
My dad often added Seltzer to his glasses of kosher wine.

[debm55]

78. Didn't Seltzer have a bland taste. We had Mogan David wine--very bitter.

[Scottie Mom]

83. Back in my day...

...we have one black phone with a rotary dial sitting on a stand in the entry hall with a phone book in a shelf underneath, we had a refrigerator that had to have its tiny freezer (might fit two ice trays and a few popsicles in it) that had to be defrosted in a kitchen with no dishwasher other than me, we had one black and white TV in a carved wooden "altar" with a turn table to play vinyls also enclosed in the altar.

Need I say that I was a youngster in the 1950s????

[debm55]

86. HAHA--We had a telephone desk that you put the rotary phone on. There was a shelf for the regular

phone book and the yellow pages book. Ma Bell later merged them into one book. We had a console with a TV on one side and a stereo on the other. There was a drawer under that for my mother's album of the month collection. And back in my day, you could buy this plastic sheet, which my mother did, with three horizontal colors. and it made your black and white TV into a colored TV.

[sakabatou]

85. Back in my day, 56k internet was considered "fast."