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Signs of Getting Older

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  • Member since
    July 2014
  • From: Franklin Wi
Posted by Bakster on Thursday, August 19, 2021 5:46 PM

Wow! What a great thread! I have come to one inescapable conclusion. You ready for it? 

 

MAN! YOU GUYS ARE OLD!

 

LOL.. I jest. I can relate to most all of this.

 

20cents a gallon gas, 10 cent comic books, pop off soda caps, fixing a tv was a trip to the nearest drugstore with a sack full of tubes, three to 4 tv channels and mabe one came in clear, broadcast outages was the norm, parents do you knowwhere your children are, and yeah, we watched the commercials because we were too lazy to get up and change the channel.

 

Oh man, the good old days.

 

  • Member since
    March 2003
  • From: Towson MD
Posted by gregbale on Thursday, August 19, 2021 5:35 PM

fox

My brother used to ask my dad "Did you see many dinosaurs when you were a kid?" One day his son asked him the same question. He didn't think it was very funny.

Jim Captain

I know how it is with brothers.

Now convince me that Uncle Jim didn't secretly coach the kid to ask that question.... Whistling

Greg

George Lewis:

"Every time you correct me on my grammar I love you a little fewer."
 
fox
  • Member since
    January 2007
  • From: Narvon, Pa.
Posted by fox on Thursday, August 19, 2021 3:38 PM

My brother used to ask my dad "Did you see many dinosaurs when you were a kid?" One day his son asked him the same question. He didn't think it was very funny.

Jim Captain

Stay Safe.

 Main WIP: 

   On the Bench: Artesania Latina  (aka) Artists in the Latrine 1/75 Bluenose II

I keep hitting "escape", but I'm still here.

  • Member since
    March 2015
  • From: Close to Chicago
Posted by JohnnyK on Thursday, August 19, 2021 3:24 PM

If you remember these TV shows then you are older than dirt.

Your comments and questions are always welcome.

  • Member since
    April 2020
Posted by Eaglecash867 on Thursday, August 19, 2021 1:58 PM

gregbale
My first computer was a Sinclair ZX-80. The tablet-sized one that was basically just a circuit board in a vacuum-formed plastic shell, that you had to plug into your TV as a monitor...and whose cutting-edge data-storage system was your own plug-in cassette recorder. Taught me the basics of programming...though probably in a language that was only valid for about 15 seconds.

Yup.  I remember those little RF converters that you'd attach to the back of your TV with the little fork terminals.  Those casette tape drives definitely taught you patience, with some programs taking more than 30 minutes to load.  I learned to program in BASIC, and later dabbled in machine language a little bit, and haven't used any of it since.

"You can have my illegal fireworks when you pry them from my cold, dead fingers...which are...over there somewhere."

  • Member since
    September 2012
Posted by GMorrison on Thursday, August 19, 2021 1:29 PM

ikar01
Remember when Ricardo Mantoban did the Chrysler comercials with their "fine Corinthian leather"

Yep, a native Spanish speaker who pronounced the car model cor-DOH-bah even though the city is named COR-doh-bah.

 

Bill

 Modeling is an excuse to buy books.

 

  • Member since
    March 2003
  • From: Towson MD
Posted by gregbale on Thursday, August 19, 2021 1:22 PM

Eaglecash867
I ended up getting a C64 later on with the tape drive. Then I bought a 1541 knock-off...I think it was made by Blue Chip. Not a bad floppy drive when it worked. That was all when I was 15, I think, which is when I got my first job. Oh, and I bought the Blue Chip at LaBelle's. Remember that place? Oh...and how about the VicModem 1600? I was on the internet (Compuserve) before Al Gore invented it.

I'll go y'all one better.

My first computer was a Sinclair ZX-80. The tablet-sized one that was basically just a circuit board in a vacuum-formed plastic shell, that you had to plug into your TV as a monitor...and whose cutting-edge data-storage system was your own plug-in cassette recorder.

Taught me the basics of programming...though probably in a language that was only valid for about 15 seconds.

Greg

George Lewis:

"Every time you correct me on my grammar I love you a little fewer."
 
  • Member since
    March 2003
  • From: Western North Carolina
Posted by Tojo72 on Thursday, August 19, 2021 12:49 PM
Young adults with no recollection of 9/11 to me it seems like yesterday

  • Member since
    April 2020
Posted by Eaglecash867 on Thursday, August 19, 2021 12:31 PM

ikar01

It's strange when you can say back in the old days or back in the last century.

You can talk in that old guy squeeky voice and laugh and have to stop because you don't want to have it become a permanent voice.

Remember when Ricardo Mantoban did the Chrysler comercials with their "fine Corinthian leather".or him doing Fantasy Island.

 

My favorite "Back in my day..." story to tell all the guys in my shop is that when I started working at Centennial Airport here in Colorado, Arapahoe Road, with its sprawling shopping complexes and luxury homes and apartments...was a dirt road, surrounded by nothing but empty grassland as far as the eye could see in every direction but west.

"You can have my illegal fireworks when you pry them from my cold, dead fingers...which are...over there somewhere."

  • Member since
    April 2020
Posted by Eaglecash867 on Thursday, August 19, 2021 12:27 PM

Gamera
Same, though my parents did buy me the 1541 floppy disk drive with my C-64. It was slow but it got there!

I ended up getting a C64 later on with the tape drive.  Then I bought a 1541 knock-off...I think it was made by Blue Chip.  Not a bad floppy drive when it worked.  That was all when I was 15, I think, which is when I got my first job.  Oh, and I bought the Blue Chip at LaBelle's.  Remember that place?

Oh...and how about the VicModem 1600?  I was on the internet (Compuserve) before Al Gore invented it.  Propeller

"You can have my illegal fireworks when you pry them from my cold, dead fingers...which are...over there somewhere."

  • Member since
    October 2004
  • From: Orlando, Florida
Posted by ikar01 on Thursday, August 19, 2021 12:23 PM

It's strange when you can say back in the old days or back in the last century.

You can talk in that old guy squeeky voice and laugh and have to stop because you don't want to have it become a permanent voice.

Remember when Ricardo Mantoban did the Chrysler comercials with their "fine Corinthian leather".or him doing Fantasy Island.

  • Member since
    July 2015
Posted by MR TOM SCHRY on Thursday, August 19, 2021 12:19 PM

Keavdog, In the day, I got my protein powder from GNC and it tasted like powdered chalk.  My buddy and I ,trying to gain weight for lifting weights, drank a gallon of milk a day, one dozen eggs a day, and countless cans of tuna fish.  Life was so simpler back then.

TJS

TJS

  • Member since
    September 2006
  • From: Bethlehem PA
Posted by the Baron on Thursday, August 19, 2021 11:41 AM

A sign of getting older?  I've started calling younger men, "son", when talking to them.

The bigger the government, the smaller the citizen.

 

 

  • Member since
    November 2009
  • From: SW Virginia
Posted by Gamera on Thursday, August 19, 2021 11:23 AM

At fifty I can still do anything I could do at twenty...

 

But at twenty I could jump outta bed tomorrow and do it all again.

At fifty it may not kill me- I'll just feel like a walking corpse tomorrow.

"I dream in fire but work in clay." -Arthur Machen

 

  • Member since
    November 2009
  • From: SW Virginia
Posted by Gamera on Thursday, August 19, 2021 11:21 AM

wpwar11

I work with a few guys in their early twenties.  I mentioned the other day how I use to bartend (in the eighties and early nineties) and a customer always tipped me with $2 bills.  I still have several.  They were absolutely convinced no such bill ever existed.  

 

They're still being printed and you can get them from the bank. But they need to special order them and they come in a stack of fifty (aka hundred bucks a stack).

Last ones I got took about a week and half to get here. I ordered two stacks (100 $2 bills for an exchange of $200 from my account).

"I dream in fire but work in clay." -Arthur Machen

 

  • Member since
    November 2009
  • From: SW Virginia
Posted by Gamera on Thursday, August 19, 2021 11:18 AM

keavdog

 

 
Eaglecash867

 

My first computer was a Commodore VIC20 with a 5K memory.  Still remember the TV commercials for it, with William Shatner as the spokesman.

 

 

 

My first computer was the Commodore 64 but I didn't have the persistant/tape storage so I would tinker for hours, get something working and shut it off...lol

 

Same, though my parents did buy me the 1541 floppy disk drive with my C-64. It was slow but it got there!

"I dream in fire but work in clay." -Arthur Machen

 

  • Member since
    April 2003
  • From: USA
Posted by keavdog on Thursday, August 19, 2021 11:12 AM

Eaglecash867

 

My first computer was a Commodore VIC20 with a 5K memory.  Still remember the TV commercials for it, with William Shatner as the spokesman.

 

My first computer was the Commodore 64 but I didn't have the persistant/tape storage so I would tinker for hours, get something working and shut it off...lol

Thanks,

John

  • Member since
    December 2002
  • From: Fort Knox
Posted by Rob Gronovius on Thursday, August 19, 2021 10:35 AM

ikar01

Later buying a adapter for the 8 track when this new thing called a cassette tape arrived so they could be played in teh 8 track slot.

My first car was a rust covered Olds Cutlass. It probably lost a pound of rust everytime you slammed the door shut. My parents paid $250 for the car. It had an 8-track and I got the car in the winter of 1983.

The first thing I did was get the cassette adapter for the 8-track tape player.

The car's driver window had some issue with it and would not roll up if you rolled it down. My mom neglected to tell me this because it was winter and I wouldn't need to roll the window down.

Well, I was returning to college from Vermont to Long Island in February. I-95 is a toll road with 35¢ tolls through Connecticut and upstate New York with my last toll being the Throgs Neck Bridge.

So I pay the first toll and can't get the window back up. I drive the remainer of the trip (about 200 miles) in a slushy February with my window about halfway down. I eventually went to a junk yard and got the part I needed for my window.

  • Member since
    August 2021
Posted by goldhammer88 on Thursday, August 19, 2021 9:04 AM

You can remember who Mr Goodwrench was and a laughable Malibu commercial.

  • Member since
    April 2020
Posted by Eaglecash867 on Thursday, August 19, 2021 8:51 AM

tempestjohnny

Surviving no seatbelts, no child seats, climbing trees and falling out, Pulling a wheelie in your street car and getting pulled over and just being told go home by the cop. Actually being able to work on your own car. 

 

Hey my first computer was the Coleco ADAM.

Going to any store with my allowance to buy models

 

We all also survived riding our bikes without helmets.  I remember every time I did something stupid, it hurt, and I didn't do it again...at least not the same way, anyway.  LOL  Cowboy

My first computer was a Commodore VIC20 with a 5K memory.  Still remember the TV commercials for it, with William Shatner as the spokesman.

"You can have my illegal fireworks when you pry them from my cold, dead fingers...which are...over there somewhere."

  • Member since
    June 2021
Posted by rocketman2000 on Thursday, August 19, 2021 8:50 AM

8-track?  I remember when cars did not come standard with radio and heaters- these were optional accessories.  My phonograph records were 78 rpm.  When I went away to college 45s were becoming a craze and I bought a player and a friend helped me add a phono input.

I started modeling before plastic models.  Flying models were balsa and tissue, static scale models (we called them solid models) were balsa, basswood or pine.  The wings and tail were sawn to planform, we carved and sanded airfoil into them  Fuselage was sawn to profile, and better kits were sawn both to profile and planform.  We had to carve to section, but the kit provided cardboard templates.

I remember listening to the Pearl Harbor attack announcements on our floor model console radio.  It remember family driving downtown in Detroit to celebrate VJ day.

I remember my first control line plane, a Goldberg Nifty with a Forester 29.

My first plastic model was a P-80, second was a Lindberg GeeBee.

Built my first scratch built model, a Curtis P-6E.  Later built a scratch built !/2A freeflight.

When I moved to Minnesota, weather not conducive to flying models, switched to static scale full time (well, I occasionally build a rubber model just to prove I can).

Landmark technologies- internal cockpit detail, full interiors, resin aftermarket, flat model paints, photo-etch, DIY resin casting.

I can remember all that stuff, but not where I laid the X-acto knife 30 seconds ago!

 

Don Stauffer in Minnesota

  • Member since
    October 2004
  • From: Orlando, Florida
Posted by ikar01 on Thursday, August 19, 2021 7:59 AM

Don't forget, that was uphill in the snow, both ways.

Not having seat belts in your car.

Bring told that seat belts were mandatory for everybody.  The solution was to drill holes in the floor of your car, go to Sears, who just happened to have a supply, bolt them to the floor and run them through the space between the seat and back rest.

Bolting the mount for your new 8 track player to the metal dashboard of your car and splicing it into your AM radio.  If you were lucky you might find one of the slightly more expensive units with a AM/FM radio installed.  Only expensive cars like Lincolns, Caddys, and Chryslers had AM/FM built in.

Later buying a adapter for the 8 track when this new thing called a cassette tape arrived so they could be played in teh 8 track slot.

Going to the 1964 World's Fair as well as Shae Stadium.  You could see the globe from the upper layers of the stadium.

Seeing the N.J. State Police running around in unmarked Corvette Stingrays.

Counting the cars that caught fire with the mew mandatory catalytic converters when they parked on the grass and the converters set the grass on fire.

  • Member since
    March 2003
  • From: Towson MD
Posted by gregbale on Thursday, August 19, 2021 3:41 AM

tempestjohnny
Surviving no seatbelts, no child seats, climbing trees and falling out,

It still seems odd to me (at first glance) seeing a commercial with the parent driving and the single child seated alone in the back seat.

Having been raised as one of four siblings, the eternal jousting for who got the 'prime pick' front seat position was one of the Darwinian facts of everyday life! ("Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger." My older brother favored the elbow cross-check...while I usually found simple tripping much more elegant and effective.... Big Smile)

Greg

George Lewis:

"Every time you correct me on my grammar I love you a little fewer."
 
  • Member since
    November 2003
  • From: Naples, FL
Posted by tempestjohnny on Thursday, August 19, 2021 3:12 AM

Surviving no seatbelts, no child seats, climbing trees and falling out, Pulling a wheelie in your street car and getting pulled over and just being told go home by the cop. Actually being able to work on your own car. 

 

Hey my first computer was the Coleco ADAM.

Going to any store with my allowance to buy models

 

  • Member since
    May 2011
  • From: Honolulu, Hawaii
Posted by Real G on Thursday, August 19, 2021 1:30 AM

Those K-Tel commercials for compilation albums, available in cassette or 8-track tapes.  Operators are standing by.

Watching the vacuum tubes warm up before watching TV.  My dad bought our first color TV set in 1969 to watch the moon landing.

Bicycling through the neighborhood with no helmet or adult supervision.

When digital wristwatches were cool.

Those magazine ads where doctors are quoted saying they always have a smoke to smooth their nerves.  Yeah doc, that's because you are experiencing substance withdrawl.

X-rated flcks in the movie ad section of the paper.

X-rated movie theaters in neighborhoods.  That the grade school kids rode by on their bicycles, while not wearing helmets.

When full service gas stations were the norm.  Cue "Mr Sandman" and run the segment from Back to the Future when Marty goes into town in 1955.

I can't handle greasy fried foods anymore.

 

 

“Ya ya ya, unicorn papoi!”

  • Member since
    December 2002
  • From: Fort Knox
Posted by Rob Gronovius on Thursday, August 19, 2021 1:10 AM

Funny to read this today. I've been working with a young engineer at work. I commented that today is the 39th anniversary of my first day of college. He said, "I didn't think you were 40." He's around 25.

I had to pick up a prescription for my wife at CVS today. The pharmacist said she's been flagged for a shingles vaccine (she's 55). I had to give her DOB to pick up her prescription.

I said, "I need one too." (I'm 57)

The pharmacist curtly says, "Sir...you have to be over 50 to get the vaccine."

I respond, "I'm pushing 60."

She says, "Oh, you don't look it."

Apology accepted.

My fitbit says I average 12,000 steps over the last 28 days. I know I hit 10,000 a day every day.

I have teenagers and workers in their 60s working for me. I think I can out pace them all.

  • Member since
    April 2003
  • From: USA
Posted by keavdog on Wednesday, August 18, 2021 11:58 PM

Crawling around on the floor looking for dropped parts becomes a challenge, especially the standing back up part accompanied by the strage gutteral noise.

I remeber drinking protien powder every day in high school and trying my darndest to put weight on Indifferent

Thanks,

John

  • Member since
    September 2012
Posted by GMorrison on Wednesday, August 18, 2021 11:25 PM

My business partner and i were reminiscent about 'Click and Clack', the tappet brothers.

Employee walks by.

"Yeah I know who they are. My parents used to listen to them".

 

Bill

 Modeling is an excuse to buy books.

 

GAF
  • Member since
    June 2012
  • From: Anniston, AL
Posted by GAF on Wednesday, August 18, 2021 10:03 PM

"Gee, grandpa!  Tell us again how you used to fight off the dinosaurs while you walked to school in the snow!"

Big Smile

  • Member since
    March 2015
  • From: Close to Chicago
Posted by JohnnyK on Wednesday, August 18, 2021 8:52 PM

GAS! Lots of GAS! Whistling

Your comments and questions are always welcome.

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