September 3, 2012
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KIDS HAVE IT FREAKIN EASY!!
If you are close to 40, or even a little older, you might think this is hilarious! When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were when they were growing up; what with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning….up hill!.….barefoot…BOTH ways? yadda, yadda, yadda. And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way in hell I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on my kids about how hard I had it and how easy they’ve got it! Well…that’s bullshit! Now that I’m older than cave cheese, I can’t help but look around and notice the youth of today. YOU‘VE GOT IT FRIGGIN EASY!! I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a damn Utopia! And I hate to say it, but you kids today, you don’t know how good you’ve got it!
I mean, when I was a kid we didn’t have the Internet. If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the damn library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalog!! Plus, there was no email!! We had to actually write somebody a freakin letter – with a freakin pen! Then you had to walk all the way to the street and put it in the mailbox, and it would take like a week to get there! Stamps were 10 cents!
Back then, Child Protective Services didn’t care if our parents beat us. As a matter of fact, the parents of all my friends, also had permission to kick our ass if we stepped out of line, because Child Protective Services only looked into cases of child cannibalism.
There were no MP3′s or Napsters or iTunes! If you wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the record store and shop lift it yourself! Phones?? I’ll tell you about damn phones! We didn’t have fancy crap like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called, they got a busy signal, and tough shit! There weren’t any freakin’ cell phones either. If you left the house, you were on your own. You actually had to be out of touch with your “friends”. OMG !!! Think of the horror… not being in touch with your BFF 24/7!!! And then there’s TEXTING. Yeah, right. Please! You kids have no idea how annoying you are while your totally engrossed in butchering the English language in order to let someone know where you are every moment of the freakin day!!!
And we didn’t have fancy Caller ID either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! It could be your school, your parents, your boss, your bookie, your drug dealer, the collection agent… you just didn’t know!!! You had to pick it up and take your freakin chances, dude!
We didn’t have any fancy PlayStation or Xbox video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had ”Pong”. Your screen guy was a little square! You actually had to use your imagination!!! And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen… FOREVER!! And you could never win. The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died! Just like LIFE!
You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on your 22” TV! You were screwed when it came to channel surfing! You had to get off your ass and walk over to the TV to change the damn channel!!! NO REMOTES!!! The closest thing to a remote we had was my little brother who had to sit in front of the TV and change one of the three stations when needed. There was no Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons on Saturday Morning. Do you hear what I’m saying? We had to wait ALL WEEK for cartoons, you spoiled little rat-farts!!
And we didn’t have microwaves. If we wanted to heat something up , we had to use the stove! Holy Betty Crocker!! Imagine that! The dish washer was whomever’s turn it was to stand on the stool in front of the sink. And our parents told us to stay outside and play….all day long. There were no electronics to soothe and comfort our mushy minds. And if you came back inside….you were doing chores!
And car seats – oh, please! Mom threw you in the back seat and you hung on. If you were lucky, you got her arm across your chest at the last moment if she had to stop suddenly, and if your head hit the dashboard, well that was your fault for calling “shot-gun” in the first place!
You snot sleeves have got it too easy today. You’re spoiled rotten! You guys wouldn’t have lasted five minutes back in 1970 or any time before because the first time any of you said you never heard of “American Bandstand”….they would have arrested you as a Russian spy!
Regards,
Grand Pappy Charlie
Comments (34)
Nicely done!
PONG? Ha! In MY day, we had pinball, and that was all.
LOL I’m 37, but my dad never wanted to jump into the 80s and get cable, so we only had 3 channels. And I remember when caller ID first came out, along with call waiting and three way. And cell phones and all the nifty things we have today. By the way, your reference up there to VBF, I think they say BFF (Best Friend Forever) not VBF. And I do say all that to my kids!
@RighteousBruin - Pinball still rules!!!!
@mtngirlsouth - VBF………see, I can’t even use it right!!
I’m only 25 (almost 26) but I remember when my family first got a computer, cell phones, and email. I grew up writing letters to my cousins and friends, my parents had records and a record player, and we even had a phone with a cord attached to it. It was a rotary phone, lol.
@AngelAsh_86 - Then you are a most welcomed addition to the “Old Folks” club.
@TheSutraDude - Good memories
hahahahaha! a heat wave? there was no such thing as air conditioning. or there was. we called it a lawn sprinkler or paid to swim in the public pool. when we got a little older we hitchhiked to the beach. if you loved football you played football. got cut and bruised, sometimes broken. there was no Madden 20XX. my two cents
and how could i forget but this was a plus. we watched great boxing matches like those in which Mohammed Ali was taking or defending a title on TV without having to pay a pay per view channel. pay per view didn’t exist.
Oh lordy we grew up in the same time. I remember being so amazed when they put the first pay phone in by the service station and it only cost 5 cents to make a call, Only problem was no one else had a phone except the corner drug store.Aww the good old days and my grandkids feel sorry for me and think I was so underprivilidged.
Wow… recognized the up hill (both ways) story (did you mentione barefooted) from my dad who I think stole it from a Bill Cosby comedy album (remember albums) so long ago. I think many parents hope their children’s lives are easier then theirs, the hard part comes by making sure they work for it and learn early that a good work ethic and an education will help them for miles and miles (a good kick in the arse now and then didn’t kill him either). I look forward to going back and reading more of your blog entries (as I am new here). Thanks for sharing… must say I enjoyed your post!
@Grannys_Place - Yeap….I remember all the Indian attacks that they don’t have today……
@GoneRetired - Those Cosby albums were a true treasure. Loved everyone of them.
@slmret - Thanks love.
My elders added 6+ feet of snow to the story. I was born in the 80′s, so I can identify with at least some of these things. I now feel like searching my parents house for the old atari.
I grew up with my grandparents so I learned some of the harder ways lol But yes I do agree. Kids have it so easy now. That is why they are all getting fat and lazy! It seems that each generation gets worse and worse .. even though I’m only 25. Kids now have it different than I even had it now. It’s crazy lol
I love this post! Maybe it’s my age, but the whole cell phone thing drives me insane. People just can’t seem to live without them. Kinda scary.
You tell ‘em Brother Charlie! Here’s one that cracks me up completely: I live out in the sticks, but I was a city kid growing up. As you say, we had to walk to school on our feet, there and back – GASP! These days I see Moms who go out in the cold, warm up the mini-van, bundle the little muffins into their seats and drive them to the end of the driveway so the bus can pick them up. Unreal!
Well said.
I’m turning 40 in less than two weeks and everything you mentioned was spot on! Btw, here are some clips that kind of touches what you’re saying. Pretty funny.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6wOt2iXdc4&feature=relatedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIXlwYoOV9k
LOL. That is for sure! Ugh! and the “butchering of the English language” is a very apt description of texting. I can’t help it. I don’t text, but when someone comments to me in text speak online, I tend to think of them as very unedcated and in need of being spoken to in very simple language. I think that having things too easy does make the mind lazy, therefore not as sharp as it otherwise would be. I suppose that’s a very unPeeCee thing to say though. PeeCeeism is something else we didn’t have.
I feel so lucky to have lived long enough to see all of these changes. The world is an amazing place. I hope the young people will some day appreciate all they have. Very nice post!
Brilliant! Now I’m feeling my age.
LOL! Very true. There was the emergency break-through where you could call the Operator and then have them break into the line if the line was busy. We had to use friggin Maps to get around!!! Not the GPS system they have today to direct you too wherever you wanted to go. + You have to buy a newspaper to see what movies were playing!
LMAO!! I remember my Grandma getting the first microwave in our family. And when the first remote controls were these boxes with wires. haha Oh, the good old days when you had UHF and VHF on the tv.
@tendollar4ways - haha I totally forgot that we used to have to get a newspaper to see what was playing and where. And then at some point the theaters started getting answering machines or whatever to read it to you over the phone.
@Aloysius_son - Ya-hoo!
@BootLady - You’re lucky….we had to deal with wolves on the way to school!!
This is so funny!!!!!
I agree. Being a stepparent, I always had “boundaries” that I couldn’t cross. I respected those boundaries, but after the 7th car the kid destroyed I just wanted to take both parents and child and smash their melons together.
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