Signs Of Getting Old

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Signs Of Getting Old

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frick you and your thread

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rotary phone.

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Do most people even use landlines anymore?

Old is a state of mind

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You used a rotary phone.

Vcr tapes

Kids born in 2002 would be teenagers

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I remember when we got our first phone ... it was a party line. Our ring was a long ring, two short rings and another long ring.

I remember when we got our first TV, it was black and white. Until then we, as a family, would listen to WLAC 1510 AM outta Nashville every night. Sometimes we could picked-up big super stations outta Chicago, NY and Atlanta ... and Charlotte later in the 60s but by then we had a TV.

I remember the exact day we got our first color TV in 1967. It was a huge deal.

I remember when BetaMax came-out. Hell, I was a grown man already outta college and at Bragg.

My first child was born in 1982. I was in my 30s and was considered old to be having my first child ... to which I usually reminded friends here in SC of Strom Thurmond. I now have a total of four ... and I am a grandfather.

We had a party line in the country as well.

How about your first car only having an AM radio, because FM didn't exist when it was built

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Ours was an 8 party short short long short.
My used to get pissed when someone else would get a call at 2 am and wake him up

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Yeah, I remember that happening once or twice as well and my Dad and brothers would get pissed if it woke them up.

Of course the only phone we had in the house was in the kitchen.

I grew up with a RFD Rural Route address as well. We had no A/C until the 70s, actually after I had gone away to college. But we had this whole house attic fan that was in the hallway and when you turned that on, (Dad would always make sure to do it before he went to bed in the summer), it would suck the hair off your head if you were not careful.

So on those 110 degree humid days ... we slept with the windows open at night listening to the bullfrogs croaking down by the pond and the crickets singing and the whippoorwills singing ... it was a great life. You took a shower to cool off at night, were in bed at sunset or shortly thereafter, and up before dawn to take care of the animals before going to school. The school bus carried all of us, 1st grade to 12th grade, and it was always prompt ... it would come down our road provided it wasn't raining because if it was raining it could come down our hilly clay two mile long dirt/clay road because it would always slip into a ditch. So on raining days my Dad would load us up in his pickup, boys in the back, girls up front, and drive us up to the paved road to wait on the bus.

And Mom always had breakfast ready in the morning. Cathead biscuits or bacon and cheese biscuits ... on Sundays before church though, we always had huge breakfasts and your arse had better be sitting at that table ready to go when she started putting it on the table.

After the hog butchering we all couldn't wait for the liver puddin' ... everyone wanted the liver puddin' and the brains and eggs. We were in high cotton for about a month after butchering the pigs, early spring and fall/winter.

Good times.

Chuck Taylor Converse All Stars ... not the fake ones, but the ones with the diamond soles, that's how you knew the difference. Problem was I wore a size 13 when I was 13, a 14 when I was 14 and a 15, which I still wear now, by the time I was 16 and you could not find authentic Chuck Taylor's bigger than a 13 in most places. So my Mom, for my 17th birthday, special ordered a pair for me from the Sears and Roebuck catalog ... white ones, high tops, with the diamond soles. Man on man that was huge. First time I had ever had my own pair of shoes ... not hand-me-downs from my brothers.

Used to be, back then, you could walk into a store and buy a gun ... all you needed was a driver's license and you had to sign a log book. K-Mart sold them, Western Auto sold them, Sears sold them, JC Penny sold them, Montgomery Ward sold them ... the last three places had catalog sales and home delivery for us rural route people.

Anyways, sorry for the long-winded rant ... just reminiscing I guess.

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We had a party line in the country as well.

How about your first car only having an AM radio, because FM didn't exist when it was built

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Oh heck, I remember when an AM radio and AC were luxury add-ons in cars. You had to pay extra.

I absolutely remember when FM came around. And 8-track, then cassette ... sure I do. I remember my first cars with each of those beginning with a '56 F-100 that had AM that I bought for $200 from a farmer friend of my Dad's. Paid him $50 bucks a month for 4 months. No telling how much that thing would be worth if I still had it today. I put an underdash aftermarket 8-track in that truck probably around '67 or so ... it came with a free Country Music's Greatest Hits tape. I wore that thing slap out until that one tape stuck in the player and ruined it.

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Kids born in 2002 would be teenagers

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damn I'm old

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Corduroy pants

Ashtrays on airplanes

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Corduroy pants ... and jackets, with elbow patches.

Ashtrays on airplanes ... and everywhere else. I remember watching Walter Cronkite and he would have a cigarette going in an ashtray while reading the news.

Cigarette butts used to be everywhere ... but you mentioning ashtrays made me lol. We used to make fun of the greasers and smokers in school - they always gathered around the flag pole in-between classes and they had this two gallon milk bucket with sand in it they used for an ashtray. Freshmen, sophs, juniors, seniors .... there was no minimum age for smoking back then.

We had shotguns or rifles in the back windows of our trucks sitting in the school parking lot ... and we never had to lock our trucks back then. Because we were either playing ball after school or going hunting or fishing, or we had to get home and help get the hay in or the livestock fed, etc. There was very little time to get in trouble. We could buy beer at 16 .... it was technically against the law, but no one cared. 18 was legal age ... so, close enough.

If you had a job at 15-16 you could buy beer at any mom & pop country store. Any work shirt with a company name on it was as good as an ID. No go at the liquor store though