In My Day.....

Not long ago my beloved CJ and I sat down with our parents for supper. As we ate, our oh-so-wise elders started to dispense little pearls of wisdom and share with us some childhood stories. Inevitably, we heard “When I was young I had to walk to school!” CJ and I added "Up hill! Both ways! With holes in our shoes! If we had shoes. If not, we had holes in our feet! If we could afford feet.” We giggled. Our parents rolled their eyes and frowned.

I thought I would never sit around and say such things. On our trip back to the big city however, we started to talk about the way things used to be for ‘our generation’. God, how old do I feel? Here are just a few of what we came up with.

When I was a kid we didn't have the internet. If I wanted to know something, I had to go to the damned library (walking, uphill, both ways of course) and look it up – using that dewy decimal system in the card catalogue! Speaking of the internet, there was no free porn! If I wanted that, I had to sneak into my sister’s room and steal her Chippendale calendar. What good times that was. Another draw back of “the net” – as this generation calls it – is that while people like my parents (very proud of you mom and Auntie Karen) have purchased computers and ‘surf’, their phone capabilities are still equivalent to two tin cans with a piece of twine in between. I call home and I get a busy signal. Who still does that? Even if you don’t get call waiting (even I hate that) ditch the machine and get call answer.

There was also no email - we had to actually write somebody a letter...with a pen and paper! Then when you were done (several drafts later with splotches of liquid paper all about) you had to walk all the way to the street corner and put it in the postbox. It would then take a week to get there! Things did not go so smoothly if you didn’t have stamps in the house. I must say though, I have not succumbed to e-cards, e-invites and the like. My Christmas cards still go the traditional method as do notes of thanks. Everyone gets bills in the mail but getting an actual letter is like finding a chocolate truffle in a plate full of Brussel sprouts.

To this day, I LOVE going to the theatre and watching a flick. I do however miss the joy of $2 Tuesday. Yes, that’s right, a movie was $2. Not $14. Sure you had a rusty spring digging into your back (or up your butt if you were lucky – ha!) and there was no carpet in the theatre. It was just row upon row of sticky concrete floors with no stadium seating. If the person in front of you was taller and blocked your view, you talked, kicked the back of their seat and farted in an effort to make them move.

Believe it or not, there was also a time when Saturday mornings were when you got your cartoon fix. That was IT. No weekdays or Sunday’s. You slept in – no Scooby for you one week!!!! It was big news when the Flintstones started playing at lunch. I lived close enough to school that I went home for lunch (up hill naturally) and reveled at the antics of Barney and Fred. It was Yabba Dabba good times.