40 doesn’t feel old to me like I always thought it would. Except for a few things:
- This year’s bumper crop of gray hairs.
- The cracking joints – occurring during any and all movements, where they used to be limited to things like deep squats. I sound like bubble wrap. My husband calls me “Creaks.”
- The number of “when I was a kid” stories I find myself telling the young people.
You know the classic old-person line: ‘”I used to walk 3 miles uphill in the snow to get to our one-room schoolhouse” or “We didn’t buy toys, we whittled them.”
I now have endless variations on that, but from the 70s, 80s, and 90s.
When I talk to anyone under the age of 20, I find myself telling them old-timey tales of the following:
Candy bars.
They were 25 cents. Same with Archie comics.
Video games.
Used to be big machines that you stood at and had to put a quarter in to play. They were in places called “arcades”, where young folk, along with some older perverts and drug dealers, would gather.
You could also find video games in bars, record stores, restaurants like Beefsteak Charlie’s, and upstairs at Baronette Card Shop, around the corner from our house. A pervert-free zone, as far as I remember. Then again, perverts are the kind of thing you block out.
At Baronette’s, as we called it, I played Ms. Pac Man, Donkey Kong, and Tempest with money I stole from my mom’s wallet. Oh, I was a real ace in my day! You should’ve seen me jump my Mario guy over those flaming barrels.
I’d stay there all afternoon into evening, while the theme from “Arthur” piped through the speakers. I wouldn’t leave until Harvey, the owner, yelled from downstairs, “Laura Belgray, your mother’s on the phone and says the Chinese food is on the table.”
New York City.
At one time, the streets were paved with dog shit. It was the land of opportunity-to-step-in-caca. There was no pooper scooper law till the 80s. And when it was passed, people used an actual Pooper Scooper. It was a plastic stick that you fastened a sandwich baggie to on the end.
Kids as young as nine went everywhere by themselves. We took the bus and the subway, and walked around without any parents or nannies – even though the city was full of rapists and muggers (and dog shit). Boys got mugged more than girls. They would carry extra cash, called “mugging money,” in case someone with a knife wanted some.
There was no such thing as “raping money,” though.
And the subway? Let me tell you about the subway. It was the most dangerous place of all. Like a high-speed clubhouse for the muggers and rapists. And every inch of it was scrawled with graffiti. The outside, and the inside — a reminder that Bad People lurked nearby, and they were feeling creative.
There was no air conditioning, so in the summer everyone riding it stank, and ladies fainted from the heat.
Researching term papers.
You had to go to the library, where you’d look up your topic in the “card catalog.” At some point, there was a thing called the Dewey Decimal System, but I forget what it was for. If you could check the books out, you’d take them home. If not, you took notes there in the library, by hand, on index cards.
Writing term papers.
You’d write 5, 10, maybe 20 pages, all by hand. Just like the scriveners used to do before the printing press. A sloppy first draft, then a neat second draft, in script. There was stuff to cover your mess-ups called Whiteout, used also for typing mistakes. I preferred erasable pen.
The erased parts always left a blueish smudge, but it was better than the bumpy, slick texture of the Whiteout. Your ink was always darker where it went over the Whiteout, and if you tried to write over it before it was dry, that made a goopy mess of your paper and your ball point.
Sometimes, maybe your mother or someone would type the paper for you. The typed papers always got better grades, especially the ones with those clear plastic covers. They came in all different colors, and attracted lots of static-y dust.
Airplane tickets.
They were mailed to your house. Not emailed. Mailed. And printed on little booklets of stiff, thick paper. In fact, cleaning out my desk drawer, I just found a Delta ticket from 1996 with a post-it note on it from my mother:
“Dear Laura, want to call and see if they’ll let you use it at a later date since we didn’t go? Seems crazy to let them keep the money.”
Yes, it does. I’ll call them right away.
Pay phones.
Now, these are for foreign tourists whose cell phones don’t work here, and junkies. Mostly junkies. They use the pay phone to call their dope dealer, or just stand there jerking the change lever over and over, hoping some coins will come out.
But until the late nineties, pay phones were the only way you could contact people to say “I’m on my way,” or “Can you come get me? My car has a flat” or “I swear, Mom, I’m not out on the street. I’m at Beth’s house and we’re in our pajamas.”
Yes, I know, cell phones were around before the late nineties. But the only person I knew who had one was Trevor, AKA Uncle Porkchop, on All My Children. He was a cop, so he had to have a cell. It was as long as a banana.
I didn’t really *know* him, but that’s how it is with your favorite soap. They’re all your friends. Or your children.
Answering machines.
Nope. Not till some time in the 80s. So you could say, “Oh, I didn’t know you called,” and it might be true.
Mixtapes.
These were literally tapes. Cassettes. You’ve probably seen photos of them. If you made someone a mixtape, it meant you really loved them — because a mixtape took all night, maybe days, to make. You had to press “record” just at the right time, or else you’d cut off the beginning of the song, or miss the end of the song. Sometimes you’d accidentally record a chunk of a song you didn’t want, and not discover this till later when it was already sandwiched in there. Then, you’d have to go back and record everything all over again.
The Walkman.
A tape player that fits in your hand? Unbelievable! We’d surely seen everything there was to be invented. What was left?
If you wanted to look really exclusive and chummy with a friend, and make other people feel left out, you’d use your Y-jack to plug in a set of dual headphones and listen to the new Depeche Mode or Squeeze tape together. Most effective if you bobbed your heads to the beat in sync.
Letters.
Things you wrote on paper during the summer, maybe sitting in your bunk at camp, and mailed to your friends. But not to your mother, until the counselor made you. I mean me. Sorry Mom. If we’d had email I would have written, for sure.
Computers.
Our school got computers in 1980. It was very exciting. There were two of them, with dark, greenish screens and light green font. Though it wasn’t called “font,” it was just “letters.” We lined up and took turns programming the computers to say “Hello” 100 times in a column. I remember the last command was: “RUN”.
TV remotes.
TV whats? I used to fantasize about having a special superpower that would let me change the channel from across the room. We had to get up from the couch to do it — by turning a dial right on the TV. The dial had 13 numbers on it. One for each channel. But there was no channel 6, 8, or 10. Rip off.
Test patterns.
A circle or color bars on the screen, coupled with one long, high-pitched, continuous ringing sound. That’s all there was to sit and watch till Little Rascals came on at 6am.
VCRs.
My family got one in 1982. Before this, if we missed something on TV, then we missed it for good. Or had to wait a year, as in the case of Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer. I cried for days the year I realized I’d missed that.
The VCR was a godsend, because I was able to tape Facts Of Life Go To Paris the time it conflicted with Thanksgiving dinner.
Milkmen.
We didn’t used to get our milk in cartons from the supermarket. It came in bottles, and a milkman delivered it to our door.
OK, that’s not true. I’m not that ancient. But my parents are.
OK, now I feel old. CREAK.
It will be great to watch Depeche Mode, i have bought tickets from
http://ticketfront.com/event/Depeche_Mode-tickets looking forward to it.
I just had to explain to my cousin what the “computer lab” was when I was in college…she was like “why did you go there? didn’t you have a computer in your dorm?”….I was like…DAMN I AM NOW OFFICIALLY OLD
I use to love Choco-Lite candy bars, putting air into chocolate seemed so new then!! And tasty too!!
I also remember days before the ATM machine! I would go to the bank with my mother on Fridays and she would need silence (from me) while she guessed how much money to take out for the weekend (being banks were closed from early Sat. till Monday morning) Once she calculated the amount, I was free to start talking in tangents again….and I did!!
Life before the ATM seems unbearable to me now. Could you imagine today’s world with no ATM’s? Scary!! I still don’t know how my parents survived those days of inconvenience.
I do wish we could go back to the days of the telephone BEFORE the answering machine. I don’t like being so accessible and accountable for every call made to me!! If they ever allow cells on the subway, I’m doomed!! It’s the only excuse left that makes sense for not picking up a call.
I really enjoyed reading this blog, you did a great job listing everything! A great trip down memory lane with lots of laughs. Thank you!!
It will be great to watch Depeche Mode, i have bought tickets from
http://ticketfront.com/event/Depeche_Mode-tickets looking forward to it.
Oh my god (not OMG ’cause that acronym is way too modern for this post)… this brought back a ton of memories.
I can still hear which song is “next” on my mixtape when I hear a particular 80s tune “purple rain… purple rain…”). You had to sit by the stereo for hours or- yes- DAYS to make those freakin’ things! And let’s not even get started on the 8-track. You’d be halfway through a song and have to “hold that thought” until you flipped the tape to the other side.
I grew up in Chicago, and my sister and brother and I used to play near the train tracks, which in our neighborhood ran alongside the Prairie Path, a miles-long trail that winds through Chicago and its suburbs and is rife with danger. One day, we found a machete lying on the side of the path and, after running home to report it to our parents, went about playing cops and robbers and other innocuous games for the remainder of the afternoon.
My siblings and I used to walk into “town” (the bustling metropolis of Wheaton, IL) to take in the $1.50 movie or visit the penny candy shop and spend 3.5 hours determining the best sugar-laden exchange for the $1.32 in our wallets.
I was 9 when I took my first solo excursion to Walt’s Groceries (across the train tracks of course) to purchase a critical 5 or 6 items. My son is 8 and I can’t imagine sending him “across the train tracks” to pick up groceries anytime soon. But then, my parents didn’t really love me.
Just kidding.
This was a great post, anyway. I wonder, has the world changed that much… or have we?
Growing as a child on the other side of the iron curtain, i can’t remember any milkmen existed at all in our Baltic area (i hated milk anyway). But i do remember one quite unique equipment for serving refreshments – water or lemonade with gas for 3 cents (“kopeiki”). Those grey man-tall boxes used to stand in the main city streets, and the most peculiar thing was the use of a single real glass (made from glass). There was a possibility to “wash” its edges holding top-down with cold water (i wonder if this might have contributed to strengthening the soviet people immune system?:). Strangely enough, last summer i’ve seen again (after 20 years!) the same equipment actively used in Bishkek. It seems in Central Asia it stood the test of time.
Yeah, the threat loses some of its punch when you flub it like that.
I always laugh at my dad because he calls those rain covers you wear over your shoes his “rubbers.” That’s way worse than saying “walkmans.”
I cant believe they even make those anymore. Sounds like he needs to pop into Burberry.
Just passed by one of countless video stores going out of biz in my ‘hood. What’s more depressing than someone trying to sell used VHS tapes?
Someone buying them, I guess.
It’s crazy how many of these things have come and gone in our lifetime.
When I was 12 (you were 16), Halla and I went to Video Hut to rent Hot Dog…The Movie. When we were ready to check out, the lady at the register looked at our account (probably on an index card) and called Mom at work. She asked her if it was ok if her daughter rented the R-rated movie (this was pre-PG-13). Then the lady looked at me and said “she wants to know which daughter?” so I said “Laura.” Score! We raced home and watched naughty twenty-somethings get laid on the ski slopes all afternoon. Had to pop it out when Mom came home from work.
Good times.
Oooh, and I never caught on. If I had found the tape, I would probably have thought Dad rented it.
I can’t remember when LPs and 45s were replaced by tapes and CDs. Did you have a turntable? (We still have one).
Oh, and yes, we did have a turntable. For my 14th birthday, friends gave me 45s of “Safety Dance” and “Puttin’ on the Ritz.”
At one of my birthday parties, we played musical chairs to your LP of “pass the dutchie.”
Musical Youth! My favorite!
Dis generation. Rules de nation. With — what did they rule it with? Never caught that word.
I’ve commented to my wife before that our grandkids are going to be amazed when we tell them that we remember what it was like when there was no internet. That I remember my dad getting AOL and “dial up”.
of course, I also remember playing snake on my dad’s big bad new Tandy computer.
and “Sarah” playing on MTV constantly.
and the station wagon with the wide faux wood stripe down the side.
and Mouse Trap.
.-= Carlos Velez´s last blog ..4 Ways To NOT Fail at Anything Ever, A Definition of Archetypes (The Saboteur, Prostitute, Child, & Victim) =-.
Ah, the sound of dial up. They’ll never hear it. Hisssss…hsssss…bong bong…success!
That is the most awesome story ever. I had no idea I’d been a victim of identity theft. Harder to catch on when it was done in analog.
I’m dreading the day he comes for a visit and it rains and he wants to contact a distant relative. “Marian, I need to borrow your phone book and some rubbers.”
You mean dreading the day he does it AGAIN!
The early 80’s were exciting, untamed years in Gotham. I came to visit friends in Brooklyn Heights and they gave me a stun gun to carry in my pocket for protection. I was actually more worried I’d accidentally touch the button and fry my own thigh than a would-be assailant’s.
Brooklyn was surprisingly safe back then– the Mob kept the streets clean.
Love the bubble wrap quip! I make it my daily mission to avoid emitting what I call “old man noises.” You know– grunts, groans or anything that suggests you may need more fiber in your diet.
I know, I’m so sorry that I can’t go back and relive the 80s here as an adult. And the 70s, so I can buy a big classic-8 apartment for 40 thousand dollars.
Actually, 35 thousand dollars. I remember back in 1984 when my friend’s parents were selling a classic 8 on West End Ave on I think 83rd St. for 20 times what they paid for it ten years before. Of course, if they waited another 20 years they’d be asking 100 times what they paid for it in 1974.
Tell me more, grandmother! lol. My husband is 8 years older than me and I marvel at how different growing up was for him. And you’re 8 years older than HIM. I feel like the only thing I could tell someone 8 years younger than me is “cell phones and ipods were separate things when I was your age.” Hopefully by the time I’m really old, we will have colonized space. Then we can really blow kids’ minds with how old we are.
.-= Samantha´s last blog ..Yummy Homemade Natural Deodorant =-.
And remember way back before ATMs? When you had to actually go IN the bank, and wait on line for a TELLER to take money out of your account? Come to think of it, I can’t even remember the last time I went to an actual bank! – Now I just use my debit card and get cash at the supermarket…
I don’t see the plus side of using a debit card versus a credit card. With a debit card you’re at risk of having your checking account wiped out by a thief and it can be long process with the bank to recover the stolen money. Also, you don’t get frequent flyer points with a debit card. Why not use a credit card and pay your bill in full each month?
The point is, to pay for your groceries and get a wad of cash back instead of going to an ATM. That’s the reason to use your debit card.
Laura you really captured it! Whenever I get flustered and pissed off at my kids (which is often), I scream; “That’s it! I’m taking away your walkmans!” They give me a nonplussed expession followed by a “huh?” Of course I mean Ipods but one tends to revert back a child when reprimanding children.
Furthermore, I remember that as late as the mid to late 1980s, re-runs of classic TV shows on local stations looked wretched; washed out, dust speckled 16mm prints. Of course, inferior image quality was less noticeable on those crappy, curved screen TV sets, some of which, from the early ’70s, had tubes rather than solid state circuitry and had to warm up for a couple of minutes before the picture came on.
And what about the pre-Netflix, pre-video on demand, pre-Internet video age when you had the pressure of returning VHS rentals before late fees accrued and only hoped that the video store had slot to return movies after hours?
And what about catlogues that you would depend upon for shopping for certain items before such catalogues were available online?
What about one’s dependence upon revival houses showing a film you need to see before the era of home video?
one of my favorite things in the world are your perfect mix tapes. it’s not quite the same level of gift when someone creates an i-pod list for you — it’s really nice and all but it lacks the DIY obsessive energy of all the best presents.
It’s true. A lot of time and love went into those mixtapes. I do still make birthday cards by hand, though. This year, you’ll get one.
Yeah. Netflix only tricks you into thinking there are no late fees. But when you keep a movie for three months without watching it, you’re paying around 36 dollars or something for that movie. Now there’s a late fee.
A few more things:
Caller I.D. only started on a massive scale in this past decade. While the positive side is avoiding telemarketers, I think it has made people more passive agressive.
One Hour Photo shops have been replaced by digital cameras for the snapshot taker. And even though digital cameras can allow people to take an infinite number of pictures until they are satisfied with getting the right one (without fear about the exhorbitant cost of film and developing), most people’s snapshots still suck.
Busy signals are also mostly a thing of the past.
When we discovered star-69, it was the greatest revelation. Especially before everyone knew about it, and you could call them back after they hung up on you and freak them out.
Cassette tapes that was huge they would wear out and the music would sound all warbily like the band was singing with a mouth full of marbles.
Bookstores if Waldens didn’t have it you had to order it and wait 2 weeks for it to come in.
Phone etiquette you never answer the home phone was never answered during dinner. It didn’t matter that Shelly was calling to confess her undying love for you. Also the phone had a cord and hung on the wall in the kitchen. It also had a dial and you hated it if your friends had a zero in their phone number. It took forever to call your best friend and let him know that Shelly had just called to tell you that she was hopelessly in love with you.
This site makes me feel really old I was raised in a rural area and remember taking off with a .22 across the handlebars of my bike, be gone all day and no one worried, cokes were a nickle, double feature movie 25cents with cartoon. There were no junkies that anyone knew of. Pop bottles were worth 2 cents and we collected them for the payoff in candy at the store.Girls wore skirts to school and boys tucked their shirts in, time to quit this I’m getting nostalgic.
Just the fact that there were double features means you’ve been around a while.
I’m thankful I missed the time when girls wore skirts to school. I couldn’t have survived the winter.
Oh god, the rotary! Dialing a number was almost as frustrating as making a mixtape. Getting to that 7th digit and messing it up? That sucked.
Remember having to look up phone numbers in a phone book? I don’t remember the last time I did that.
.-= Rafael Marquez´s last blog ..79.9% interest rate on a credit card =-.
Laura, your blog (or more specifically, my responses) remind me of that scene in Annie Hall where Diane Keaton marvels about the screening room in Paul Simon’s house and how you don’t have to go out of your house to go to the movies — you can stay inside your home and watch them all day. To which Woody Allen replies “and eventually grow old and die.” He then comments that sometimes it’s important to have to make an effort to get something. While I personally try to avoid all effort in my daily life, I can’t help wonder if all this instantaneous access so much media product and information is having a huge dulling effect, particularly on the younger generation that never knew any differently. Everything becomes equalized in importance because it will always (presumably) be available without making any effort. We are living in a world where more and more people by the day are unimpressed.
Oh for sure, it has a dulling effect. I think I’m getting more dull in the head every day, but I can’t quit my internet.
Just glad I grew up in a time that was totally different, so i could get some reading in.
Our building still gets phone books, but they got wise enough to stop putting them in front of every door, and just leave them in the basement for old people. My dad loves the phone book.
I can’t believe you didn’t also, at some point, have a Seltzer Man deliver to your door, and, of course, later pick up the empties.
And it wasn’t that long ago, as recently as the late ’70s, when most cars were only equipped with AM radios as a standard feature — no FM, cassette, 8 track and certainly not CD, MP3 or satellite radio.
Ugh. The bad old days.
You had me all the way up to the milk man. I’m older than you, and those guys were gone right about as young as I remember.
Now I know how my grandparents felt.
.-= Dave Doolin´s last blog ..Your Next Killer Technique for Telling Compelling Stories (It’s easier than you think) =-.
See, I don’t look at those as the bad old days. I consider it a point of pride that we had all that primitive technology. If I were a kid now, with the internet and like, 10 children’s networks on TV, I’d never touch a book.
I remember that limited radio. Our car trips had a soundtrack of nothing but yankee games and 1010 WINS.
So sad that I remember every one of those things… and a few more since I am just a smidge older! I grew up in a more rural town but in the summer we would leave the house right after breakfast and not come home until the “sun went down” My mom never sent the search squad.
And everyone “these days” has conveniently forgotten the short shorts and tube tops! Maybe not conveniently… maybe on PURPOSE!
.-= Marguerite´s last blog ..Do Great Agents REALLY Do Well In Any Market? =-.
Were you asleep in like, 2006? Tube tops completely came raging back. And short shorts and heels, for the last couple of years. It would have been more conveniet for all of us if they’d forgotten.
I say this because I can wear neither.