Growing up Without a Cell Phone and other things we never would have dreamed of when WE were kids

My sister sent me this email recently called "Growing up without a Cell Phone."

I couldn't help rolling my eyes a little, as the previous week, our local Junior Achievement volunteer had just visited our 5th grade classroom to talk about technology and its advances in the last few years.  The kids seemed to have a little trouble grasping the concept, so I offered to try and help put things into perspective.

"When I was ten," I began (and could almost see the glazing over of eyes), "not every house had a microwave oven.  Cell phones didn't exist. When cell phones came into existence, they were these huge things with an antenna and were so expensive that most people couldn't afford them."  I remember watching an episode of "Charlies Angels" and seeing one of the Angels grab a cell phone from a car and thinking how cool that was.

When I was ten, I continued, not every house had a dishwasher.  Dishes were washed by hand. 

The fifth grade class looked horrified.

When I was ten, there were no computers  - at least, not at home.  I was in the 8th grade the first time I saw and used a computer at school, and they were far different from what is available in classrooms and homes, now. 

Caller ID didn't exist on telephones.  If you wanted to know who was calling, you picked up the phone and answered.  Many homes didn't have answering machines.  If you weren't home when someone called, they just called you again and again until you answered.

VCRs and DVDs and CDs didn't exist.  If we watched movies at home, it was because they were broadcast on one of the 4 channels you could get on your t.v. if you didn't have cable - CBS, NBC, ABC, and PBS.  If you had cable, you could get a few more channels.  HBO was brand new when I was ten, so likely there were a few more t.v. channels available by then, too.

Music was played on a disc called a "45" or a "33."  We played them on "record players."  We listened to cassette tapes on these things called "tape recorders."  Those had a fast-forward and rewind buttons, and if you were really hi-tech, a "pause" function.

The fifth grade class listened in astonishment.  And we hadn't even touched on remote-controlled tv's.  In a box of stuff we got from the in-laws one time, I came across an early television remote. I laughed because it came with a cord.  Having trouble picturing that?   The cord plugged into one end of the remote and the other end of the cord plugged into the television.  Here's a sample:

 

"And that," I closed, "Was techonology just about 30 years ago when I was your age."

And now, the abbreviated and edited email about Growing up Without a Cellphone:

• 
  
  We didn't have the Internet.  If we wanted to know something, we went to the library and looked it up in the card catalog and found the book we needed.  The card catalog was housed in a cabinet with small drawers that held 3x5 index cards arranged alphabetically by author, topic, or title.

• 
  
  Email didn't exist.  You wrote your letters by hand, or on a typewriter and then you put them in an envelope, got a stamp, and found a mailbox to deposit it for mailing.
• 
  
  Child Protective Services didn't care if your parents beat you.  Well, I'm sure that's not completely true - but spanking was a lot more acceptable "then" than it is "now," and furthermore, if a neighborhood parent hollered at you or threatened to spank you for something you did that wasn't right, you can bet your parents would know about it before you got home and they sure weren't going to call Child Protective Services on your behalf because chances were good that you deserved it if the neighborhood parent yelled at you.
• 
  
  If you wanted to "steal music," as the author of the email states, there was no Napster or MP3 - you walked to the store and shoplifted your own music.  Ok - I don't condone this, but still find it a bit amusing.  Good luck stealing 45s or an actual ALBUM.   
• 
  
  Or, you could wait all day for the DJ on the radio to play the song you wanted. Then, you held your tape recorder up to the speaker on the radio and pushed "RECORD" and hoped nobody walked into the room and made any noise because it would record right along with the song. High tech, we were!
• 
  
  Call waiting wasn't around, either. If someone called and you were on the phone, they just got a busy signal.  Oh - and regarding cell phones, if you were gone when a friend called, you were gone. They either tracked you down by getting on their bicycles and searching for you, or they didn't. No big deal.

• 
  
  Video games were just getting started.  We thought the graphics were incredible - like nothing we'd ever seen before.  The Pac Man graphic (left, below) is an example of what our video games looked like.

• 
  
  And it's true - if you wanted to change the channel on t.v., you GOT OUT OF YOUR CHAIR and WALKED OVER to the t.v. and you CHANGED THE CHANNEL by turning a dial that usually sounded like "click click click click click" until you got the channel you wanted.  Unless you had kids, in which case you could holler, "C'MERE! Go change the channel."
• 
  
  Cartoon Network wasn't around, either, nor was Nickelodeon or Disney channel.  Cartoons were on during weekday afternoons usually starting around 4pm and ending by 6pm at the latest, and they were on Saturday mornings and usually finished at noon. We knew when we watched "Schoolhouse Rock" at noon that cartoons were over for the day.
• 
  
   On days it didn't rain or storm in any other shape or form, we played outside.  We checked in periodically at home, rode bikes, made snow forts, roller skated (if you were current with the trends, you had skates like the ones on the lower left.  Ours resembled the pair in the upper left, with metal wheels).  We played ball in the street, jump rope, built forts out of the picnic table with old blankets and sheets, played hopscotch, walked to the corner 7-11 (which did exist then, youngsters) and had a slurpee, we played tag games like Bloody Murder, Statue, and Freeze, among others.  Sometimes we'd eat popcorn (that wasn't in a microwave bag because we didn't have a microwave and and if microwaves were around when I was ten, microwave popcorn didn't come along until a few years later.  We took bike rides and explored other neighborhoods.  We went to the . . . LIBRARY. . .and sometimes walked to the theatre and caught a summer time matinee.  Our parents didn't allow us to vegetate with video games on a beautiful summer day.  On days it rained or otherwise stormed, we didn't usually hang out with friends because when we played at a friend's house, we usually played outside.  Gotta use the bathroom? Better run home.  If you were too far away to run home, then it was ok to go in and use the bathroom - but you had to ask, first.
• 
  
  Nope, we didn't have car seats.  We piled into the back seat (remember riding on the "hump" on the floor?) and sat in the front seat, too.  Sometimes adults would insist on seatbelts, but more often than not, we piled in without any restraints.  We even rode in the backs of pick-up trucks, sitting on old sofa cushions.

No, life wasn't always as clean and simple as a Norman Rockwell painting - but it was pretty good.  

images from Yahoo Images search results