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Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Ten Things Tuesday- I Remember When...

I do not feel old.
Not a bit.

But, I have seen my fair share of changes in this thing we call life.

Some good changes,
some bad changes,
some things- not good or bad- just different.

That's this week's ten things Tuesday.
Just stuff I remember.


1. Dialing a phone
    No pushing buttons for me. You stuck your finger in the number hole and dialed to the right. It was novel when the neighbors got a fancy new kind of phone with buttons. It still looked like my phone except with big ole buttons. I wanted one.

2. Popping popcorn on the stove
   These days I have an air popper. Once in a while I'd like to do it the old fashioned way.
Pour a little oil in a big pan, add some popcorn, put the lid on and shake it back and forth over the hot burner. But, I have a flat, ceramic top stove and I'd be afraid I'd scratch it.


3. Wringer washers
   When I was little, the new automatic washers were making their debut. However, my mom liked her wringer-washer. It took her all day to do laundry. Finally Maytag quit making them and she was forced into the modern era. She actually liked having her laundry all washed and hung up BEFORE noon. Who knew?

4. Heating up leftovers on the stove
   Yes, I remember life before microwaves. We got one for my mom when I was 13. She still has that same microwave. I can't even tell you how many microwaves I have gone through.
The glass plates make great platters FYI.

5. No FM radio
   It was AM or nothing. Oh we had FM, but hardly any stations were actually on it. But, when FM took off, all the good stations were FM while the lame stayed on AM.

6. There was no cable OR satellite
   But, now that it is available, I think most of the shows are junk. Does anyone remember when you could buy a satellite dish and than you could just watch without paying for it every month?
Sort of like buying an antenna.

7. Gas was under a dollar
  YES! Under $1 a gallon. It didn't even go much over a dollar until I was pregnant with Kiddo. It hit $1.36/gallon and that was so expensive. Now, look at it 16 years later.

8. Generics came on the scene
   All you could buy was national brands. No off brands or store brands. Then the no label products started popping up. I called them black and white brand because the label was black and white and just said what was in it. My mom used to buy black and white brand spaghetti sauce. She hated it that I called it black and white brand. I was supposed to call it generic. Hey! It was black and white.

9. The 8-Track
    They were a fat funky looking version of a cassette. You had to have an 8-track player, of course. I wonder if anyone that went out and got one got pissed when they turned out to be unpopular. But, if they kept it, they'd be able to sell it for a lot of money today.

10. The Laserdisc
      It was like a giant DVD. It came out about the same time as VHS and Beta max video cassettes. I think you know who won the war. I did see a movie on laserdisc once. It was pretty cool to see a movie that way. Now, the discs are so much smaller and it doesn't seem all that impressive.

What kinds of things do you remember from when you were younger?

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Have a great Tuesday!
   

29 comments:

  1. I have started making my popcorn the "old fashioned" way - - on the stove. My dad used to make THE best popcorn, and so I'm trying to recreate it! I have decided that good quality popcorn AND oil make all the difference! The only difference - - we had a gas stove growing up, and I have an electric stove, which makes it a little more tricky :)

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    1. Judy, That is great! I grew up on gas too. I guess electric would make things a bit trickier. But, I bet the results are worth it. And now I want some popcorn. :)

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  2. What a bloody great list, you know when I was around 14 I was at a friends house and her mother had a wringer washing machine and it was the first time I had ever seen one.......my parents were always quick to get any new gadget that came out so mum had an automatic washing machine for years in fact it was so old the repair man was often out at our place fixing it.......hell that is something you didn't mention repair men that came to the house to fix your stuff.......

    Our first generic products where black and yellow and they didn't taste all that great either not like the generic products you can get today......

    I love the old dial phones they were so cool and you know this list made me think about how old I am..........lol

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    1. Jo-Anne, the first automatic I ever saw was at a friend's house. My mom had a wringer washer, as did both my grandmothers.
      Old? Hardly. You are only as old as you feel.

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  3. I remember when MTV came on TV. We did not have cable, so we had to go to a friends house to watch and they actually played videos. Imagine!

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    1. MTV did not come with my town's cable. I had to go a few town's away to see it. But, there was always Friday Night Videos!

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    2. Heck, I remember when MTV played music videos.

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    3. Al, I do have some sort of vague recollection of that.

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  4. Oh, I remember all these things! I coveted the push button phones, too, but now I think it'd actually be fun to sit and dial a phone. Remember how it felt? I do.
    Thanks for the memories!

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    1. I remember Dawn. It would be fun to do that.

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  5. Def enjoyed your posting and walk down memory lane which was a look back to when life was so simple then. :) Great posting!

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    1. Thank you! Sometimes I wish we could go back to simpler times.

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  6. Years ago, I used to say, "Back in my day" as a joke.
    Nowadays, I say, "Back in my day" and mean it.

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    1. Al, I find myself saying that a lot anymore. Never say that one coming.

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  7. I remember everything you remember except for the wringer washing machine.

    I also remember a world without pocket calculators and digital clocks and let's not forget a world without personal computers.

    I kind of wish I was a teenager or adult in the '50's. That must have been a great time to be alive.

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    1. Gail, oh I know. And now my daughter needs a calculator for science and math classes. I remember having to do square roots with my brain. Now they get to use a calculator.

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  8. I remember every single one of those things and fondly, too. I remember the milkman and cold milk in real glass bottles. I'm so glad I was born when I was and grew up when I did. And, with any luck, I'll get off the planet before it all goes to crap. Thanks for the memories.

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    1. Jayne, I have one of my grandma's old glass milk bottles. It's a gallon.
      You better get a rocket ship, because we are well on our way.

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  9. I've actually gone back to life before the microwave. Took me several months, but don't miss it at all now.

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    1. Yvonne, I don't use mine hardly at all anymore.
      For a long time, I used the microwave all the time. These days, my daughter and husband use it to heat things up and that is about it.

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  10. I actually could related to everything you posted, except the laserdisc.....guess I was behind the times. For MANY years I dreamt about dialing the phone, it would just go round and round....recently my dreams have turned to cell phones.......sad....dialing was much more fun.

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    1. Linda, my library had a player and movies for checking out.
      They were only around for a few years.
      I wonder if you can still find dial phones anywhere. Maybe as a retro thing.
      I might have to look into that.

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  11. Gah! I feel so old. I felt even older when you mentioned the no cable or satellite tv, then I remembered, we didn't even have remote controls. I had to sit by the TV while my dad said, "Turn the dial...keep turning...nope, not that show...keep turning...not that either...keep turning...ok! Let's watch that!"...and that was probably Starsky and Hutch!

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    1. Sandra, I remember no remote control. Oh wait, we were the remote controls!
      I remember when you had a TV that you could use the remote with OR change the channels on. Now, there is no way to channels on a new TV without the remote. You lose it and you are just screwed.

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  12. I guess I'm not full vintage...I only remember some of this stuff. :-) I do remember when Halloween was safe and we didn't have to check for razor blades in the apples. :-(

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    1. Mare, I remember when they started saying on the news that you could take your candy to the hospital to have it xrayed. That was so weird to me.

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  13. Teeter Totters! That's what we called them, not "See-saws". Those things are GONE. The modern thing I hate the most, and this makes me sound like a weird old lady, even though I'm 40, are CELL PHONES. Hate the commercials for them. Hate that everyone has a mini computer in their hand so they never have to interact with the world anymore. Hate that we're forever connected to Facebook. Hate that people in Walmart are always on the stupid things. Hate that my DAD is FOREVER texting people while he's visiting me!!!!

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    1. Karen, we do think alike. I was just thinking about the teeter totters a couple days ago. I should have thought of it when I wrote this.
      I don't even have a cell phone. My sister has an iphone and she gets notifications from facebook and that thing is always making noises. That would drive me nuts. We get weird looks about not having one, but we manage to get through the day just fine. Bad Daddy! My nieces do the same thing and I wonder "Why are you here?"

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Thanks for commenting.