The old and decrepit fart thread. Post here only if you're over 30

[Isla]

Great thread, LOB

You're right, AmusedOne, I look back the days when I would ride my men's sapphire blue Schwinn Varsity 10 speed miles and miles from home... heck, I remember some guy asking my friend and I for 'directions' at a stop sign while he was, um, yanking. I was only 14 and really had no idea what was going on, but my friend was more street wise and started screaming!

and Tiger, Florida was a great place to be a kid. Snakes, frogs, woods to build forts in... go fishing and chances are good you would catch a gar... like a cross between a fish and an alligator. I spent most of my summers in my backyard pool, pretending I was a shark or a mermaid, depending on my mood.

How could I forget roller skates? I had a pair of speed skates with Nike boot, tornado trucks, and Precision Blue Duster wheels. I could skate forwards, backwards, sideways... and then these stupid in-line things came along and ruined everything!

 

[SupaDupaCheez]

Going to a concert with a REAL headlining band AND two GOOD opening bands, buying a T-shirt and a beer, paying for gas, paying for parking, and a late night trip to Burger King for UNDER $50. Now you can hardly get a TICKET in the nosebleeds for that price!

SDC

 

[4824guy]

<< I've still got the last Lynard Skynard album released before the crash. It's a bit of a collectors item in that it's got flames on the album cover. >>



Yes, I have 2 or 3 of those LP's in mint. There are a CP collectors unit for sure.

I am another one remembering having B&amp;W TV with only 3 channels.

 

[SirFshAlot]

ordering Schwinn Varsity 10 speeds so we could be the first in the neighborhood with those cool wrap under bars

it's sad now to think of the genuine, vintage Sting Ray going rusty behind the shed

 

[Spamela]

30 doesn't seem too old &amp; decrepit when you're 46. one of the major differences between my childhood and now is how we played for hours unsupervised without our parents worrying about us being kidnapped or worse. plus, we weren't afraid of being shot, even though we lived in a poor neighborhood.
it's also fun to try to explain what it's like to program a computer using a deck of cards that you punched yourself then submitted to the mainframe guardians. since you were lucky to get 2 jobs submitted in a day, you were really careful about syntax &amp; logic errors.

 

[PullMyFinger]

Here Here,
Wow, this thread brings back memories. Let me start off with the fact that I turned 35 last month (damn, I was just 28 last year) and have a 19 month old little girl. Like many in this thread, I can't believe how much society has seemed to have changed since when I was young. I grew up in a small town outside of Pittsburgh and here are some of my memories: no one gave a second thought to letting their kids run around in the neighborhood after dark, no one needed to lock their front door, programs meant for adults came on after 9 PM, the back window shelf in a car made a perfect lounge for a long trip, sled riding until you were completely soaked and would come inside and warm up by the fire, listening to bands on the radio who actually had a little talent, playgrounds actually had fun (and difficult) things to climb on, people seemed to have opinions and speak their minds without getting sued for &quot;offending&quot; someone else, most people had some sort of morals, you could buy real fireworks, and if you screwed up at school you got in trouble immediately and more so when you got home.

One of my greatest fears is that my daughter will pick up on my adventurous side: I ski, scuba dive, skydive (A17721), ride motorcycles, rollerblade, and post on AnandTech (gasp!). And like Cepak, I'm having the time of my life raising my daughter and playing with her toys, er, I mean buying toys for her. Right now all I can concentrate on is preparing for her future and how I'm not going to kill the first guy who lays a hand on her, I'm sure that cleaning my guns in front of him will help keep his &quot;spirit&quot; down.

In closing, most people fear that they will turn into their parents. Hell, I've gone right past that, I'm turning into my grandparents.

 

[Electric Amish]

I'll be here directly. 1.25 years and counting...

amish

 

[jdavis71]

I have just turned 30, is it all down hill from here?

 

[Total Refected Power]

We played for hours on-end completely unsupervised. Spent countless hours down by the creek skipping stones, fishing, and burning our platic models.


I rode my bike ENDLESSLY!!! First I had a ROSS 3-speed with a banana seat and then I graduated to a Schwinn Varsity 10-speed (gorgeous blue color). Summers felt endless and we were SO INNOCENT! No drugs or alcohol, not even smoking. Heck, I played with STAR WARS figures until I was 12-13!!!! Of course we had Atari and Intellivision and played full-contact FOOTBALL, Little League Baseball and Basketball. SOCCER DID NOT EXIST!!!!!

Kids today grow up too soon.

Perhaps our parents were better than us.

 

[Amused]

OOPS! I lied/my brain failed me. We had five channels in Los Angeles. NBC, ABC, CBS, KTLA (Ind local station known as channel 5) and KTTV (Ind local station known as channel 11)

KTTV is now owned by Fox. But I believe KTLA is still indepedant. KTLA had what was considered the best local news.

 

[StormRider]

37 years old here.

When I was a kid, we used to just hang out on the porch with the neighborhood kids and riding our bikes around.

Every week we would ride down to the 7-Eleven, buy the new comics and get a slurpee.

It's weird, but after my neighborhood friends moved away, I never really had &quot;close&quot; friends anymore.

 

[Tiger]

SupaDupaCheez has a point. When I was in highschool they didn't teach Calculus. Algebra 4, and Analytic Geometry were the top of the heap. I had to take Calc and DiffyQ in college along with all of the other stuff that kids these days get in H.S. We did have an archaic IBM mainframe installed in the math office in H.S. It was donated to the school by one of the local companies after an upgrade. The first non-mainframe computer I ever saw in school was a Comodore PET.

In college the computer filled a room over at the admin building. The disk drives were the size of dishwashers and they had row after row of tape drives. The only two buildings with terminals (IBM 3270's) were the admin building and the engineering building. If you had to do some coding you hoped and prayed that there was room at the admin building as that's where your &quot;output&quot; got printed on 16&quot; white and green fanfold paper. If you you had to use a terminal in the engineering building you had a quarter of a mile walk to go get you output. A pretty serious deal in the upper midwest in winter.

Like Spamela, you were real careful about syntax errors. Ahh, the days of Fortran. Format statements are our friends.

 

[Cyberian]

We actually had an 'ice box' when I was a kid and I remember having to empty the pan out the back door. We also had a phone with no dial - when you picked up the receiver an operator(real person!) would ask &quot;number please?&quot;

My Granddad (comfortable-not rich) had the first TV in our family. 9&quot;(?)B&amp;W screen in a huge wooden cabinet along with an AM/FM radio , a phonograph and storage for 78RPM LPs. I believe that sucker cost ~$500 around 1950. Can't say it was the WWF, but I remember Grandpa and his cronies sitting around that set on folding lawn chairs watching wrestling matches.

I also rode my bicycle all over the place and had to be called into the house at suppertime. The woods we built our treehouse in and the apple orchard we stole little green apples from were long ago replaced with a subdivision and a K-Mart shopping center.

 

[Brutuskend]

Two chan. on T.V.
Anyone remember &quot;Howdie Doodie Time&quot;
thats how old I am!
47
Our first TV was much much smaller than most of your alls computer monitors!! And it had a round screen! I was there for the invention of the Frizbie, hoola hoop, super ball, slinky, etc.. And I remember buying gas for my go cart for 12 cents a gal. those were the days!!!

 

[Donuts]

Anyone remember the Cecil and Beanie cartoons. Cecil was a some kind of sea dinosaur who dressed up like superman...

 

[Axman]

Cecil and Beanie !!!! yep that goofy Dino always made me laugh

 

[Locutus of Board]

wtf are beanie and cecil? B&amp;W cartoons?

 

[adams]

This is my last year of youth...

It turn 30 in October

lol...

 

[rmblam]

31 here.

I remember 8-track tapes of my dads. Groups like The Moody Blues, The Young Rascals, and Mott the Hoople.

I had an Atari, Commodore, and eventually an Amiga.

Cartoons of today are no where near like what we had. You just can't beat the original Bugs or Tom and Jerry cartoons.

 

[db]

Funny to think now that movies used to be double features



<< Thank god there was no WWF >>


Not sure I should admit to remembering Gorgeous George, and him throwing his &quot;gold&quot; hair pins to the audience before the fight. And my step-father's mom getting so incredibly mad at the bad man beating up the good guy in the ring.....:Q (Hey, if the gig works, don't change it!)

 

[Linflas]

<< wtf are beanie and cecil? B&amp;W cartoons? >>


Kid with a beanie with a propeller and his pet sea serpent.

Beany and Cecil

 

[kassy]

Another old fart pops up.
34 in 2 months.
In New Zealand when I was a kid there was only one channel, it was on air for 12 hours a day. Actually, there are only 3 public channels in New Zealand now IIRC.

 

[Fatdog]

Here, here.

So many memories.

Watching the Apollo missions on the big 19 inch b&amp;w.

Riding my Huffy single speed with a Cheeter Slick rear tire.

Running to get my Dad another Narraganset beer when we worked in the yard.

Watching Adam-12 and wanting to be a cop just like Pete and Jim.

Getting your hair cut meant going to a Barber shop.

BB gun battles with friends and trying to hide the red welts from Mom

<sigh>

 

[FireGal]

32 here.
Pretty scary reading all the posts and actually remembering some of what is being said.
Loved the good old days of running wild.

 

[Fiddy]

<< BB gun battles with friends and trying to hide the red welts from Mom >>



LOL, I STILL have a scare on my arm from being shot. We had agreed not to pump up our pellet guns more than two times but one guy decided to pump up ten times instead. Well, guess who got nailed by him when I jumped out from a tree? Had to dig the pellet out of my arm, didn't hurt though because it knocked the feeling out of it.
He got his though. His father had just bought a brand new riding lawn mower and we convinced him that it would be a great &quot;tank&quot;.
Of course, we trashed the hell out of it riding through trees and his pop wasn't to thrilled when he got it back home.

Ah yes, the good old days.