The Spoiled Under-30 Crowd!!!

Lol! I can relate.

The Atari 2600 ahhh yesss... the memories: like staying up late with friends in some fierce competitions of Enduro and Donkey Kong. Then the NES came out and kids all over America went gaga gaga over that drab grey box of wonder with its 8 bit graphics. To be the first kid on the block to have a new NES was to be crowned king of England... at least to some other kids grandma bought him one for his birthday.

 

One could add:

We didn´t have these multiple tracks on ipods that can be shuffled around automatically and repeat songs that we like. No we had to fast forward the tape to the song we liked and then try to time rewinding it if we wanted to listen again. And don´t even get me started with the side A side B thingy!!

 

I'm just a bit older and lived in the country. My grandparents did not have an indoor bath until the early 70's. I remember having going up the hill in Northern Georgia during the month of December when we visited them on Christmas. We actually bathed in a wash tub. The water had to be heated on the stove and it was shared (the water). Fortunately I was the oldest and always had clean water. My sisters were not so lucky. Being the only boy I had it to myself, they had to share. :tongue3:

Did not have the Atari until I was 20. I had to do things like making my own sling shot out of an old inner tube (I don't think that there are any more of those around either).

So all you under 50 are the ones that are spoiled rotten brats.:tongue3: :tongue3:

 

WOW
I had to go to the arcade in town and put quarters in the machines.

Maybe if I hadn't spent so many quarters I could have afforded the fancy toys.

 

Is it a violation to use the word "cr*p" on the BB?:tongue3:

 

Ha Ha, You guys can talk!. I never saw a Tv untill I was 12 years old. Then you could only get one station, barely at that.

Let alone any Mp3 players, computers, and all the other stuff, that no one had even thought of yet. We had to actually go out in the yard! and entertain ourselves.

Can you imagine kids doing that now-a-days.

 

My wife's great nephew was at our house and saw the plastic ice trays. He thought those were the neatest things. At his house, the ice comes our of the door. He ask his mom if they could get some of those fancy ice trays.

I wonder what he would say about the aluminum ones with the handle that you pull to break the ice out.

PS: You notice it's my wife's great nephew. She's a great aunt. I'm a pretty good uncle .

 

Ha! We had those too! I hated them.

When I was a kid, we were required to play outside all day. No playing in the house unless it was raining or too cold. And if you got thirsty, you drank from the water hose. Bedtime was never an issue because I was too tired to argue! :laugh:

 

Ha! you are all spoiled. None of ya have mentioned having to make their own toys like I had to make a sling shot. :smilewinkgrin: :tongue3:

 

How about the hard rubber ice trays, with the rubber dividers. You just twisted them, and the ice flew where it may. :laugh: They were about a decade older, than the ones with the neat metal handles.

Or the first canned biscuits, the ones that said "strike smartly on a hard surface". "Yeah" just you do that!, and watch the biscuits fly up and stick on the ceiling.

 

Yep, been there done that. Along with the tin can and string walkie-talkies. Didn't have transistors in those days, you know?.

Ever make a spit-wad gun out of a piece of river cane?.

 

Yes, and speaking of such, we had a bamboo bush in our yard and 2 camphor trees that produced camphor berries every spring. We would cut a hollow reed from the bamboo and put one berry in one end and another berry in the other then plunge a stick into the reed. The pressure of the stick pushing the berry would send it a good 20 feet. That was our paint ball war games we had as children. :laugh: :laugh:

Now that was fun and it did not cost a dime. :thumbsup:

 

Speaking of the camphor berries. When we got just a little older, and much less wiser. We would take a piece of pipe maybe 6 - 8 inches long, and put a pipe cap on one end.

In the other end we would light a firecracker, and push an acorn in on top of it. You did not! really, want to be on the receiving end of that.


Later we graduated to longer pieces of pipe, and gun-powder. Fashioning a stock of wood to fasten it to, kind of like a flint lock, except we used match heads to ignite the powder.

It makes you appreciate Gods watchful mercy, had it not been for that. I doubt I would be alive today.

 

Make your own toys? We had no toys unless we did! Well actually, I had a toy dog when I was 3 and I bought myself a doll when I was about 9 maybe? But she was bad and got stoned to death and then buried. I was a very religious child...

I made my own bow and my own arrows to play with. I didn't make the string though. LOL

I'd also make my own fishing pole out of wood and go catch sunfish. Got the hooks by scanning around the edges of fishing spots and finding washed up ones and scraping the rust off.

Friend of mine on the reservation got an Atari. We never played it, but her brothers did and that was enough...we watched in awe!

But I'm not old like you. I was just poor. :tongue3:

 

Or PONG...........................

 

Rotary dial phones.

Record changers (you could stack more than one.)

 

How many of you guys still hear the donkey kong or frogger themes?

Once when I was about 4 we rented a shack for a few months from an man who bought and sold junk cars. No bathroom, baths were in a wash tub. Potty-time was outside. It was a cold winter. My older sister (6) and I love to play in the gully behind the shack. Years of old cans and other metal trash was down there. We thought it was great.
Dad was working all the time and Mom was on the edge of a nervous breakdown. Things got better but the funny thing is we didn't know times were bad. I will be 45 in Feb. It wasn't that long ago. Our first TV when I was 6, 1 snowy channel.

 

SAy that to my face, young lady!!:laugh: