just curious

.....Old enough to remember when Gay ment happy, talk radio was "The Lone Ranger" and running water was a fast trip to the well.....Tom

Since my age ends in a zero, I don't know in which category to vote (I'm tempted by the 'lower' of the two, however). Maybe you should redo your poll categories?

I remember riding my bike to/from school w/o locking it for fear it would get ripped off, seeing the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show, cracking up at Red Skelton (when humor didn't depend on the "F" word), where I was when JFK was shot, Alan Shepard's first Mercury capsule ride, when you could buy a bottle of Nehi chocolate milk out of refer cooled with about 8" of circulating chilled water, Howdy Doody, Sen-Sen, when the L.A. Dodgers played in the L.A. Colosseum for two years, when '57 Chevy's weren't nearly as cool as they seem to be today (back then, they were just 'cars') and when Tops baseball cards were a nickel a package.

Back then "bad" meant bad, not (sometimes) good like it does today.

OK: I confess. I'm 10. :)

~DannyR~

Older than dirt. :)

I'm 64.

Can I say in dog years?

I am 44 for 4 more days then I turn 29 again. :D Yup, I love this new math.
DJ

:D @ DJ

43 (April 21, 1959)

My first big memory is of JFK being shot and how my family parked in front of the (black & white) TV for days...

My then teenage aunts had Beetles posters plastered on their walls, and played 45's on a little pink record player. :)

The first place I remember living was called Fruitdale Holler (or "hollow" to all you who don't speak bumpkin). :)

We didn't have indoor plumbing. We had a cistern, 2 pumps and an outhouse. The pump at the kitchen sink was just for washing. The drinking water came from a pump out in the yard. Living in the house were my grandparents (Mamaw & Papaw), my 2 youngest aunts, Mom, me and my sister. Saturday night was bath night. Mamaw would heat water on the stove and carry it to the basement where we had set up a galvanized tub. Baths were in order of age/importance, and Papaw always got to go first. I was next to last (my sis is younger!) :)

There, my secret is out - I am a true Hillbilly! :lol:

this december i will celebrate the 16th anniversary of my 39th and last birthday.

I remember ice boxes, ice delivery men who gave us free slices of ice in the summer heat, kneading the bag that oleomargarine came in to make the dye spread to color the oleo, our '39 Ford that we had until 1953, reciting the Pledge of Allegiance BEFORE they inserted the words "under God", Arizona as the "baby state" of all 48 states, Studebakers, DeSotos, Kaiser-Frasiers, and lil' Nash Ramblers (all together now, sing: Hey, buddy - how can I get this car out of 2nd gear? ), the 'day the music died', saddle oxfords... But I'm having trouble remembering this morning...

End of October I'll be 30... (hex :))

Going to watch the movie of Woodstock 3x to concentrate on each of the strips and then another 3x just for fun.

Miniskirts (the 1st time round)

'Saddle Oxfords' presumably some form of casting couch CJ ?

'Saddle Oxfords' presumably some form of casting couch? -- Chris

Shoes, Chris. Shoes for pre-pubescent girls. So, how far back do YOU remember -- you sounded like you knew an awful lot about Hadrian's Wall...perhaps Emperor Hadrian himself?

I have a couple of relatives - twin girls - that I played with as a child. They always wore Saddle Oxfords.

I was nearly 10 years old before I realized they weren't really called "Twin Shoes"

I remember when it was quite safe and normal to for kids to have the run of the neighborhood unattened and without fear. (well, except fear of our parent's occasional "discipline", which is now called "abuse".)

I remember when the Montreal Canadians hockey team was actually made up of Canadians, from Montreal.

I remember singing O Canabis, instead of O Canada during highschool morning anthem time .. and never getting caught.:lol:

I remember most of the things CJ talked about. I also remember the milkman, and when we got the bottles of milk, we shook it up to blend the cream in with the skim milk. Ah, the good old days. :) I also vaguely remember the end of World War 2.

Ed

CJ and Big Al,

Your comments have brought back many memories of the past. I just shared my 67th birthday on Aug. 16 with my wife and our two closest friends. It was definitely a time of both looking forward and back.

Big Al, my wife and I were half way to Woodstock when we decided that the weather was terrible and the traffic reports were not much better. Our two kids, when they were teen-agers, almost gave us cult status since we even made the attempt to go.

CJ, I got a non-paying job as the iceman’s helper when I was five. It was great riding in his horse drawn wagon and I got to know all the merchants in the neighborhood-141st and Broadway in NYC. The best was getting free goods from the kosher deli.

Progress is great, but I miss the trolley cars and the old ball parks-Polo Grounds and Ebbetts Field. They were a joy to visit and NYC lost more than two teams when the Giants and Dodgers moved out west.

Not least of all, bring back the ten cent subway.

Alan

I also remember delivery from the milkman. Great chocolate milk! We also had Omar the Baker. He would deliver fresh bread and sweet rolls to our house a couple times a week.

Loved watching the Bears play in Wrigley Field. Not on tv!!

My wife and I were having a discusion just the other day about cures for being ill. Anyone ever had a mustard plaster? Or Boric Acid for eye infections. It made your eyelids stick together. And that miracle cure for just about anything, Vicks!

For jobs I set pins in a bowling alley and cadyed(sp) on weekends to make money for what I wanted.

I think every kid set pins back then. I started setting duck pins in Vermont when I was a kid. When I was 13, I moved back to Indiana, where most people didn't even know what duck pins were. It was big time! The balls even had holes to put your fingers in. :D I also sold newspapers on the street corner in Vermont. If I saw a kid around 18 or so, I'd say "Hey mister! Want to buy a paper?" Worked almost every time. :)

Ed

Just turned 30 last month and feel OLD now :bawling:

Then, last night, I was watching one of the 'battlestar galactica' movies and remebered watching the series as a kid..made me feel even older... then when I saw the credits, I noticed the movie was from 1976..I would have been 4 then... So I must have seen re-runs of the original series as a kid...now THAT really made me feel old :tongue:

Oh, since the choice for me would have been either 20-30 or 30-40 I decided to vote true to my 'mental' age and ticked the 20-30 box..after all, I'm not half-way into 30 yet :)

Just turned 30 last month and feel OLD now :bawling:


Poor baby! Let's see, when you were being born in 1972, I was facing my 29th birthday and thinking about the "horror of turning 30". Now, I look back on my 30's as one of the best decades in my life -- experienced enough to handle life much better than when I was a 20-something kid, and young enough to have the extra burst of energy to do things I wanted to do. I'll bet you'll find that your next 10 years are even better... And there's even better times to come! :D

A POEM FOR THOSE OVER 30

A computer was something on TV
From a science fiction show of note
A window was something you hated to clean
And ram was the cousin of a goat.

Meg was the name of my girlfriend
And gig was a job for the nights
Now they all mean different things
And that really mega bytes.

An application was for employment
A program was a TV show
A cursor used profanity
A keyboard was a piano.

Memory was something that you lost with age
A CD was a bank account
And if you had a 3-in. floppy
You hoped nobody found out.

Compress was something you did to the garbage
Not something you did to a file
And if you unzipped anything in public
You'd be in jail for a while.

Log on was adding wood to the fire
Hard drive was a long trip on the road
A mouse pad was where a mouse lived
And a backup happened to your commode.

Cut you did with a pocket knife
Paste you did with glue
A web was a spider's home
And a virus was the flu.

I guess I'll stick to my pad and paper
And the memory in my head
I hear nobody's been killed in a computer crash
But when it happens they wish they were dead.

A POEM FOR THOSE OVER 30

Good one, Keith! :lol:

Love it! :D

Ed

I've been thinking about all the reminiscing and doing some of my own. I started working with computers in about 1964. I was looking to change jobs and signed up for a key-punch operators course. That was in the days when the only way to imput data to a computer was via a card with holes punched in it.

I was advised not to waste my money by my older and wiser friends. I ignored their well-meaning advise and went ahead with the 6 week/$1,000 (that's about 5K in todays money :bawling:

I completed the course and went looking for a job where I could use my new-found skills.

I was living in Calgary at the time - Calgary has always prided itself on it's forward thinking. It was and is a happening place. It was the center of Canada's oil and gas industry. Some major players had their head offices in Calgary.

Well I called the personnel managers of all those major companies and was assured by all of them that I had wasted my money. I was told that there were no computers in Calgary, in fact there were none west of Toronto - furthermore, there never would be any west of Toronto!

We all know how wrong those "forward thinking" managers were. It took a couple of years, but my next computer job was at a telephone utility company in Regina where I was responsible for assembling the thousands of punch cards that fed information into the banks of computers that took care of the company's billing. I saw the rapid demise of punch cards and the move to personal computers. It's been an exciting ride and I'm glad I'm 58 - any younger and I would have missed all that.

:D :D

Margaret

I was 44 in March. At this point I am still trying to forget Disco and the 70's, but it seems the new millenium just won't let me do that!! :bawling: But perhaps I can tweak a few brains with the following; I remember getting really happy in Catholic School, thinking I was really buying pagan babies. Thought I was saving the world!! Believing in Santa and the tooth fairy for a looong time. There were no psychologists around to convince my parents they were harming me!! Having the nuns tell you that your face would freeze that way when you stuck out your tongue. "Owing a Coke" with "no backsies, touch blacksies". These are just a few random and fond memories. How about you?

I remember the days when MTV played videos. 24 hours. Martha Quinn.....

I can remember when MTV didn't even exist. I can remember (just barely mind you) when commercials came only at the beginning and end of an uninterupted show and then only a couple. Now we have shows dispersed among the beginning and end of uninterupted commercials. :D
DJ

I remember BETA vs. VHS! :D

Yeah, but do you remember cassettes vs 8 Track tapes? :D Heck, how about real to real?
DJ

My first job was at a place that still used reel to reel computer storage. Does that count? That was way back in 92. I can remember the debut of MTV and CNN, 9600 baud modems, Programming on an Apple II, Transformers, Kit the talking car, Max Headroom, The A-Team, Really ugly cabbage patch dolls, Vinyl Records, then there were a few years that I can't remember at all.

I'm 26 now I think.

Emmett

I remember using a reel-to-reel audio tape recorder to tape a movie on TV that I really liked and rarely had a chance to see -- at that time, the idea of having a VIDEO recorder seemed like a science fiction dream!

I heard that the FCC was going to make it illegal to sell devices made to record (i think it was HDTV) broadcasts.

actually I remember when mtv was just a show on tv, instead of a channel...


Who remembers the first video ever played on MTV? no cheating!!

"Video killed the radio star" ...and I have no clue who sung it!

The Buggles

right and right! loved that song - and mexican radio of course.

This is what I have always liked about this forum, the wide range in ages. I don't feel like an impostor trying to impersonate a "geek" :grin: :blush:

My first exposure to computers was with the famous "ping pong" that green phosphorous little ball bouncing from one place to another. I was completely taken by "Invaders" and when I managed to buy a computer, it was a Sinclair --bought it as a birthday present for my eldest daughter really-- but since it was bought one month in advance, I had time to practice with it. Was so proud when I managed to "program" a Xms tree with on and off lights and even "Jingle bells" accompanying it ! Then remember how we suffered when uploading a game from a cassette and listening the scratching noise and watching the coloured lines on the TV monitor crossing our fingers that after all that the game would run OK (my Daughter was 16 and I was 45! :blush: :lol:)

Then we got a Commodore 64, after that I bought an Epson with 8Mb RAM and a 40Mb HD ! Was I rich !! :grin:

So yes, I am 66 since December 22nd. Remember the day WWII ended and seeing the newspapers headlines with the largest type reading Armistice ! I was 5 years old then.

I used to go to the movies with my Mom (she would take me really) and many times when at home used to think how nice it would be to have a small screen where we could watch at home the ones I liked most. hehe ;)

OK time to wake up people and congrats to those who managed to read it all :bow:

Great idea Chiquitita !! Regards - Martha :wavey:

Old enough that my first computer was one from Radio Shack, was DOS, my first printer was a daisy wheel, my first scanner cost I think $600 and only scanned in B &W and we used floppy disks. :glasses:

My first computer was an Atari 600XL, 16 KILObytes of RAM baby! And it came with a datasette (translation for youngsters: tape-drive to store data on 90minute audio-tapes)

And to stay on the retouching-topic: The first digital image I saw was a portrait of a girl with an incredible maximum-resolution of 320x200 black and white! Just for info, if you wanted 8 colors you got 160x200 pixels on your screen :)

Physical age : 25
Mental age : Not to be too certain, but id say 30-35

I think im lucky. Theres so much rubbish in life, its nice to try not let it get you down. But at that I struggle. Such is life :square:

I'm not gonna be real specific here.

Dirt is old right? Well, I'm older then that.

But age is not about years, its about attitude. By that measure I'm 16.

Well Okay. Maybe mid-twenties. Or thirties. Depends upon the moment.

When my girlfriend arches her finger with 'come hither' I am certainly twenty something. Aren't You? :dizzy:

I´m almost 49

But I look younger. Still not gray yet.... thanks be to the Irish side.

what a great thread. I am surprised it took this long for me to find it.

old enough to remember....

Crew Cuts,
good tennis shoes were PF Flyers,
Dimes and quarters were made out of silver,
Three cent postage stamps,
wearing "beetle boots"
Seeing Elvis movies at the movie theater,
The milkman,
John Glenn orbiting the earth,
7 cent sodas, and nickel ice creams.

I remember when good things were groovy or far out and bad things were a bad trip or a bummer.

I actually had to do chores in order to earn an allowance

What would be interesting would be to make the above 60 category a bit more specific.

Sometimes I wonder if I am the only guy, 75+, working in Photoshop.

hehe, nice cardmnal. sounds familiar.

i remember when a hershey's bar was a nickel, the original flash gordon was in the movie theatres and i won an official flash gordon flash light with my ticket stub.

i remember when gasoline was 18 cents a gallon and a pack of cigarettes was about 20 cents. i remember seeing a Hudsons automobile driving on our road, the milk man and the bread man coming to our door. i remember a truck having an accident near our house and he spilled his ice that was refrigerating whatever it was he was carrying.

i remember collecting empty bottles and returning them for 2 cents at the store. i remember visiting a friend of the family and having to use an outhouse. i remember visiting the south and seeing the various 'colored' and 'white' signs on bathrooms and drinking fountains. i remember lincoln logs and erector sets and that cardboard boxes were often more fun than the toys that came in them.

i remember soda fountains and that that was something that came 'after church' on sundays. and, i remember that johnny weismuller will always be 'tarzan'. and i remember the original lone ranger, especially the hour long one on the 'origin of the lone ranger'. i remember phil silvers as seargeant bilko and groucho marks on 'you bet your life' and 'pluck your magic twanger, froggy' on the buster brown show. i remember 'queen for a day' and 'howdy doody' and 'kukla, fran and ollie'. and i remember jimmie durante saying 'goodnight mrs. mc gillacuddy, wherever you are' and 'sky king', the original 'lassie', and jack benny telling rochester, his manservant/friend, 'now, cut that out!'.

i remember when detroit still had trolleys and seeing an airplane was quite rare. i remember penny candy and visiting a carpenter who had a bellows for stoking a fire. i remember one room schoolhouses. and i remember listening to 78 rpm records and 33 rpm and listening to fess parker's rendition of 'davy crocket' on that record player.

hehe, boy, what a walk down nostalia lane. :)

For a British selection of reminiscences.

I can remember my brother still had a wartime ration card.

The gaslighter, still came and lit the streetlamps (and snuffed them out in the morning).

We had an outdoor toilet which we shared with nextdoor.

We walked everywhere.

Supermarkets were unheard of, and my mum had a "divvy" card with the local Co-op, and she was on first name terms with ALL the local shopowners.

I knew the names of everyone in our street.

We went weekly to the "matinee" at the local cinema.

I was 10 years old before we got our first TV.

Well I'm not that old (33), but I do remember 10p back on empty pop bottles.
Being in the middle of the miners strike riots, as we lived next to a coal mine.
Rag and bone man coming down the street on a horse and cart.
Street parties, where everybody joined in and had fun.
Being scared to death of the police (unlike it is now).
Getting my first Raleigh Chopper bike with gears :pleased:
Getting my first computer http://oldcomputers.net/aquarius.html )and I still have it)
And best of all a 10p mix from the sweet shop :pleased: :pleased:

I love you guys, always make me feel young ;)

Well some traditions still hold I was given £5 Syrian back on a pop bottle in Damascus in April!

I was slightly surprised to see that many "seniors" =), like my self.
Im 50.( aggghhh those numbers are freakin my out ).

I'm 23.

And I remembeeer...what what...aww nevermind ;)

Shucks, I remember a lot of things ya'll have mentioned; but most of all I remember being THIN. :nod: :nod: :nod:

Janet

"Will you still need me, will you still feed me,
When I'm sixty four?"

Oops, I already am 64!

Jim

"Life begins at 40." So my life hasn't begun yet.

Surprised to see the range of age here.