How Old

[SteveA]

How Old ?  This is good - I'm not against technology at all but it was  a different mind set years ago.  A little before my time but not that much before !
SA

Stay with this -- the answer is at the end.


It may blow you away.

One evening a grandson was talking to his grandfather about current events.

The grandson asked his grandfather what he thought about the shootings at schools, the computer age, and just things in general.

The Grandfather replied, "Well, let me think a minute, I was born before:
' television
' penicillin
' polio shots
' frozen foods
' Xerox
' contact lenses
' Frisbees and
' the pill

There were no:
' credit cards
' laser beams or
' ball-point pens

Man had not invented :
' pantyhose
' air conditioners
' dishwashers
' clothes dryers
' and the clothes were hung out to dry in the fresh air and
' space travel was only in Flash Gordon books.




Your Grandmother and I got married first,... and then lived together..

Every family had a father and a mother. Until I was 25, I called every woman older than me, "mam". And after I turned 25, I still called policemen and every man with a title, "Sir".

We were before gay-rights, computer-dating, dual careers, daycare centers, and group therapy.

Our lives were governed by the Bible, good judgment, and common sense. We were taught to know the difference between right and wrong and to stand up and take responsibility for our actions.

Serving your country was a privilege; living in this country was a bigger privilege... We thought fast food was eating half a biscuit while running to catch the school bus.

Having a meaningful relationship meant getting along with your cousins.

Draft dodgers were those who closed front doors as the evening breeze started.

Time-sharing meant time the family spent together in the evenings and weekends-not purchasing condominiums.




We never heard of FM radios, tape decks, CDs, electric typewriters, yogurt, or guys wearing earrings.

We listened to Big Bands, Jack Benny, and the President's speeches on our radios. And I don't ever remember any kid blowing his brains out listening to Tommy Dorsey.

If you saw anything with 'Made in Japan ' on it, it was junk.

The term 'making out' referred to how you did on your school exam....

Pizza Hut, McDonald's, and instant coffee were unheard of.

We had 5 &10-cent stores where you could actually buy things for 5 and 10 cents. Ice-cream cones, phone calls, rides on a streetcar, and a Pepsi were all a nickel. And if you didn't want to splurge, you could spend your nickel on enough stamps to mail 1 letter and 2 postcards.

You could buy a new Ford Coupe for $600, ... but who could afford one? Too bad, because gas was 11 cents a gallon.

In my day:
' "grass" was mowed,
' "coke" was a cold drink,
' "pot" was something your mother cooked in and
' "rock music" was your grandmother's lullaby.
' "Aids" were helpers in the Principal's office,
' "chip" meant a piece of wood,
' "hardware" was found in a hardware store and
' "software" wasn't even a word.

And we were the last generation to actually believe that a lady needed a husband to have a baby.
How old do you think I am?

I bet you have this old man in mind...you are in for a shock!

Read on to see -- pretty scary if you think about it and pretty sad at the same time .

Are you ready ?????



This man would be 70 years old today.   70 years ago was 1947.


GIVES YOU SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT... PASS THIS ON TO THE OLD ONES, The younger generation would not understand.

[kodydog]

Interesting Steve. I will turn 60 next month. The interesting thing is the difference ten years make.

I do not recall a time with no TV. I do remember only black and white.

*When I was young my mom always wore pantyhose. She never wears them now.

*Home air conditioners in Michigan were rare and in the car unheard of. When dad moved the family to Florida (1968) he bought 3 through the wall AC's

*I remember our first dishwasher. It was on wheals and dad rigged it to quick connect to the kitchen faucet. When finished it would roll into a cubbyhole under the counter.

*We had a clothes dryer but mom preferred hanging them on the line to dry. She was always into saving money. That's what we did in the 70's. Mom and dads last house never had a line. She hasn't hung clothes to dry in over 30 years.

[Mojo]

Ed is much older then I am. I turn 60 in April. :)

But like he said, so much was different back then. No calculators, we were not allowed to use ball point pens till high school ( no idea if that was the Nun's idea or not ). I remember nuclear bomb ( civil defense ) drills at school, I had one pair of shoes for school and one for playing in. In Michigan you always owned a pair of goulashes that buckled up the front. The damn buckles would sometimes freeze and were hell getting unclasped. No microwaves, cable TV and our stereo was inside a huge 6 ft long nice wooden box with sliding doors on the top. It played 33 and 45 rpm records. 8 track tapes were amazing when they came out. My earliest days I remember listening to a transistor radio it was only AM. I went through batteries like crap through a tin horn because I would fall asleep with it.

My passion was playing football and basketball. I started all through high school and it was the dummies thing I ever did. I was a small quarterback and got the hell pounded out of me which is why I can predict the weather now. Bad hips and knees.

No one wore seat belts and back then they only had a lap belt. When I got my first car I remember doing a tune up. Set the timing and dwell, change the points, condenser and plugs and fuel filter and away you went.

Those are just a few things I remember.

Mojo

[sofadoc]

I guess I'm the senior member here. I turn 60 THIS month.

Anytime that we're "waxing nostalgic", the general consensus is that things were better back then. But were they always?

As a teenager, I flipped burgers at a Dairy Queen. We had a heat lamp over the counter that hung directly over the food. Customers would light their cigarettes on it. Employees routinely smoked while preparing food.

I worked at a plant that had a heated and air conditioned smoking area. If you didn't smoke, you had to go outside.
There was no soap or paper towels in the rest rooms. Didn't matter since we didn't wash our hands anyway.

In school, teachers and principals would paddle first and ask questions later. If you just happened to be in the general vicinity, you got paddled whether you actually did anything wrong or not.

Since car insurance wasn't required by law, nobody had it. If someone hit you, good luck getting them to pay for it.

My mother never got behind the wheel of a car without first fixing her self a bourbon and Coke. The whole car reeked of  booze that spilled every time she hit the brakes. They may have had "open container" laws back then, but they were seldom enforced. Any time I was coming home after 5, I either walked or hitched a ride. I didn't dare call her to come pick me up. My step-dad once faked being drunk so the policeman would excuse him for speeding.

It was quite common for house fires to occur because someone fell asleep with a cigarette.

A lot of things WERE better back then. But then again, a lot of things WERE'NT.

[65Buick]

I'm 37. I grew up as the furious pace of tech brought computers from dial-up to what we have today. My father was a pioneer of this movement.

As with everything people become obsessed. I think that is what we have today. It is untold how valuable computer communication is now, but no doubt has consequences.

One consequence is people's ability to interact face-to-face. When I was growing up, this wasn't much of a problem. It sure is now.

most of what was listed I am thankful for.

Things have changed exponentially in the last few generations.

[MinUph]

Well, we have quite a few youngsters around and some of us old timers. At 66 I should be thinking about retiring but that isn't in the cards. I remember a few things that have changed dramatically.  Dennis mentioned the drinking. I was 17 and we all had hot cars. Mine was a 69 ss396 cevelle. We closed a place called Mums a friend cleaned there and were racing. We were all pretty drunk
A cop pulled us over and I took off at 120 mph, wrapped it around 2 poles. No did they didn't exist yet.

[SteveA]

Pushing 63 - Many things do change for the better but : a few we could do without

Kneeling at Football games
Presidents who never served
Two parents working
Doctors forgetting their oath
School bullying
Big insurance companies
Big box stores
Big banks
Uncompromising political parties
Many Imported goods
Many taxes
Undocumented
Lack of Respect for this Country + authority
Some lawyers


SA

[65Buick]

I am too old to be called a 'millenial' by most accounts.

But for the record: I respect all of you here, my friends, my elders, and those who dedicate their lives to public service.

[sofadoc]

One thing I never understood when watching old TV footage.

Why did men wear a suit and tie to attend a baseball game or board a plane?

Even in a furniture factory?

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Krxq0rO5MEbuqNq8CZOOiEriDdSexNzM/view?usp=sharing

[MinUph]

Men dressed for success back in the day. Sometimes I miss that. It was nice getting dressed up sometimes.
Smoking everywhere was common. Hospitals, buses, on the plane, anywhere you wanted unless there was oxygen in the room.  My first radio was a crystal you moved this needle across the crystal until you found a station. It was like a stone and the needle was like a record player needle. TV wasn't out yet I dont think. The transistor was really a breakthrough. My first cell phone was in a big bag with a battery the size of a carton of smokes almost. It was cool as hell to be able to talk on the phone from anyplace. I remember having an insurance sales person over our apartment and my wife and I talking to him. He pulled out this little thing and started figuring our rates on it. I asked him what it was he said it was a calculator. Had never heard of one prior to that night LOL. Amazing shit that stuff.

[65Buick]

I can appreciate people dressed for success, all the time, no matter what. Now, people go to the grocery store in their pjs. Kind of irks me.

I was watching one of the storage wars and someone found an adding machine. It was like a cylinder that you moved and were able to calculate. Pretty fascinating. It's amazing how far people have come in just the last 100 years.

[kodydog]

When I was a teen I got ahold of an adding machine. It was huge, it was old, it was electric, it was mechanical and it worked. Now I'm wondering what happened to that thing.

[byhammerandhand]

FRA (Full Retirement Age, according to SSA)  (66)

My first (summer) job out of HS was with the state highway dept. -- new construction on probably the last stretch if I-80 across the state.   Headed off to college, the first 10% of the trip back roads to catch where that interstate was done. and took about 1/3 of the time.   Anyway, we had a large "Marchant calculator"     All mechanical, (i.e. "cordless" :-) ) with about 100 buttons.   To do multiplication, you ran the crank one way until it dinged, then you flipped the carriage over to the next digit and repeated.  (essentially repeated additions).     To do divides, you ran the crank the other way until it dinged.  Then you reversed one turn, then flipped the carriage.  (repeated subtraction until underflow, then back off the last subtract and continue.).     Lots of digits*.   In college that fall, I bought a good slide rule because I thought I'd probably use it for a long time.   One in the project trailer was electric and did all the turning and flipping automatically https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marchant_calculator

By the time I graduated 4 years later,  a lot of the engineering students had HP calculators that used reverse Polish notation.  For example, you would do 12*(3+8) by entering    1 2 enter 3 enter 8 + *    I dreaded to think of using one of those in my 8 term chemistry problems.  And it cost twice what a university tuition was for a term.   At that time, my to-be wife was a teacher and bought a simple 4 function calculator that cost 1% of her annual salary. 

* the reverse of "measure with a micrometer, mark with chalk, cut with an axe."

[sofadoc]

Think of all the advancements that we've seen in our lifetimes.

THEN, think of how little the upholstery profession has advanced during that same span.

Sure, most of us are just old enough to remember spitting tacks. And most of us cut our teeth on some old Singer that didn't have reverse. Cotton and horsehair has largely been replaced by foam and dacron.
We hand sewed everything instead of pli-grip. No vacuum cushion stuffers.

But I'm still using the same button machine and dies that my grandmother used more that 50 years ago.
Also a lot of the same hand tools (needles,tack hammer, webbing stretcher, etc.).

By and large, the upholstery trade hasn't evolved that much compared to the rest of the world.

[65Buick]

The pneumatic stapler was invented awhile ago.
I'm waiting for the cordless electric stapler. I think there's enough interest (and profit) but so far nothing. I know they can do it. It's just when. In fact I think they already have, but for narrow crown construction staplers.