80's child...

(I just read this my friend Holly's blog and thought it was pretty funny. She too stole it from a friend. This is so reminiscent and pretty fun to read! Here's to the 80's...I added some comments in italics below)

Cory-1986

Lisa-1984

If you are 30, or older, you might think this is hilarious!

When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were. When they were growing up; what with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning.... Uphill... Barefoot... BOTH ways yadda, yadda, yadda

And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way in heck I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on my kids about how hard I had it and how easy they've got it!

But now that I'm over the ripe old age of thirty, I can't help but look around and notice the youth of today. You've got it so easy! I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a stinkin’ Utopia! And I hate to say it, but you kids today, you don't know how good you've got it!

I mean, when I was a kid we didn't have the Internet. If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the dang library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalog!! [don't miss this!]

There was no email!! We had to actually write somebody a letter - with a pen! Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox, and it would take like a week to get there! Stamps were 10 cents! [Kindof miss those days. I'm trying to bring it back with pen-pals with my boys!]

Child Protective Services didn't care if our parents beat us. As a matter of fact, the parents of all my friends also had permission to kick our a**! Nowhere was safe!

There were no MP3's or Napsters or iTunes! If you wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the record store and shoplift it yourself!

Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio, and the DJ would usually talk over the beginning and mess it all up! There were no CD players! We had tape decks in our car. We'd play our favorite tape and "eject" it when finished, and then the tape would come undone rendering it useless. Cause, hey, that's how we rolled, Baby! Dig? [So true about recording music on the radio. I'm sure I had 15-20 mixed tapes with my favorite songs. I don't think I could find a player to play them these days!--I did that all the time!]

We didn't have fancy crap like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called, they got a busy signal, that's it!

There weren't any cell phones either. If you left the house, you just didn't make a call or receive one. You actually had to be out of touch with your "friends". OH MY WORD !!! Think of the horror... not being in touch with someone 24/7!!! And then there's TEXTING. Yeah, right. Please! You kids have no idea how annoying you are.

And we didn't have fancy Caller ID either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! It could be your school, your parents, your boss, your bookie, the collection agent... you just didn't know!!! You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister! [I actually remember having to deal with shared phone lines at my grandparents ranch. That was so 1960's wasn't it?!?!? They may have been behind the times so I got to experience that--kind of fun! Sometimes you picked it up and the neighbor was on the phone so you'd have to wait until she got off. Or sometimes the phone would ring and it wasn't for you but for the neighbor. Those were crazy times!]

We didn't have any fancy PlayStation or Xbox video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games like 'Space Invaders' and 'Asteroids'. Your screen guy was a little square! You actually had to use your imagination!!! And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen... Forever! And you could never win. The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died! Just like LIFE ! [Loved our atari, packman, and playing tetrus and digdug on our large and in-charge computer]

[There wasn't flat screen TV's like they have today. Our family got a BIG Screen back in the 80's and it was a beast! (They may or may not have that still in their basement?!?!?) It stood a whopping 5 1/2 feet tall, by at least that wide and 3 1/2 feet deep! And if you weren't sitting directly in front of it you couldn't see the picture. There was definitely no HD/flat-screen televisions back in the 1980's!]

You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on! You were screwed when it came to channel surfing! You had to get off your tush and walk over to the TV to change the channel!!! NO REMOTES!!! Oh, no, what's the world coming to?!?! [Cory remembers when they got their first remote control and he said it was an exciting day in their home!]

There was no Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons on Saturday Morning. Do you hear what I'm saying? We had to wait ALL WEEK for cartoons, you spoiled little rat-finks!
And our parents told us to stay outside and play... all day long. Oh, no… no electronics to soothe and comfort. And if you came back inside... you were doing chores!

And car seats - oh, please! Mom threw you in the back seat and you hung on. If you were luckily, you got the "safety arm" across the chest at the last moment if she had to stop suddenly, and if your head hit the dashboard, well that was your fault for calling "shot gun" in the first place!

See! That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it too easy. You're spoiled rotten! You guys wouldn't have lasted five minutes back in 1980 or any time before!