Growing Up Without Cellphones

(unknown author)

Growing up without a cell phone

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 I was going to lay a trip like that on my kids about how hard I had it and how easy they've got it!

But now that I'm less than 3 years away from 50, 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 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 library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalog!!

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 5 cents!

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 butts! 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 unravel rendering it useless. Cause, hey, that's how we rolled, Baby! Dig?

We didn't have fancy junk 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 freakin' 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". OMG !!! 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, your drug dealer, the collection agent...you just didn't know!!! You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!

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!

You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on! You were out of luck when it came to channel surfing! You had to get off your behind and walk over to the TV to change the channel!!! NO REMOTES!!! Oh, no, what's the world coming to?!?!

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 we didn't have microwaves. If we wanted to heat something up, we had to use the stove! Imagine that!

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 lucky, 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!

This thread needs a 'LIKE' button for us older folks.

Guilty/Forgiven wrote:

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!

Just like life!!! (nearly spit pepsi out my nose reading that one)

Guilty/Forgiven wrote:

And we didn't have microwaves. If we wanted to heat something up, we had to use the stove! Imagine that!

True story, my 13 year-old son is re-heating some left over pizza in the microwave (pizza he just watched us cook in the oven last night). He pulls it out and says "Dad this doesn't taste nearly as good as when you heat it up. What's wrong?" I casually reply, "It's because you used the microwave and now it's all soggy." he inquires "Well how do you heat it up?" I tell him that I reheat it in the oven (not the microwave), and he looks at me compeltely shocked......"I didn't know you could do that." he says.

Quote :

......"I didn't know you could do that."

Your boy needs to get out more.

The writer of the article is right. Between being a youth pastor and a substitute teacher, I see kids all the time who think they have it so hard yet walk around with the latest gadget and designer clothes like the ultra rich used to do. I feel so bad that you've just got the 1G iPhone instead of the latest 3G one. Poor kids.....

The OP's post has much win.

I love it. So true...

And in fact, I still like the older ways better.

I LIKED people not being able to get ahold of me. I turn my cell phone off lots of times just to achieve that.

And I LIKED people not being able to "beep in" on call waiting, especially at work. That is the stupidest phone "service" ever invented. Many times, I just ignore it. They can call back if it's important.

I LIKED going outside and playing. My kids are inside most of the time, even during the summer. My daughter has never even learned to ride a bike, even though we bought her one. How can you be a kid and not ride a bike?!

I LIKED video games that were all different, and I liked playing them in the arcade. Even that got you out of the house, because you had to walk/bike to get there. Nowadays if you can even find any standalone arcade games, they are all some version of fighting or racing. Boooooooooooring!


Wait... am I getting old?

Tall Tyrion wrote:

I love it. So true...

And I LIKED people not being able to "beep in" on call waiting, especially at work. That is the stupidest phone "service" ever invented. Many times, I just ignore it. They can call back if it's important.

Agreed. I think it is the rudest thing ever invented for the phone. I absolutely refuse to interupt my call with someone just to check a call from someone else. If someone decides to check their call waiting while they are talking to me I automatically hang up on them.

It's the same as interupting a conversation. Next time just click the other line and say "you're interupting", then go right back to your conversation

Quote :

I LIKED going outside and playing. My kids are inside most of the time, even during the summer. My daughter has never even learned to ride a bike, even though we bought her one. How can you be a kid and not ride a bike?!

Man, we spent a lot of time on bikes, shooting BB guns, going swimming at the local swimmin' hole, etc. Heck, even Hotwheels & Matchbox cars were cooler to actually get outside and play with in the dirt.

Maybe this is why I like geocaching so much. I had pretty much become an indoor person over the past few years. This sport got me outside again.

Yes, poor kids who really have no idea how much fun we had playing outsite.
We had a tree in our backyard and we climbed in the tree so often.
Or played with the other kids in the neighborhood "hide and seek" and other games.
The creek behind our house has given us many cool times.
In the winter we learned how to ice skate there in the summer we hunted for ducks.

Guilty/Forgiven wrote:

It's the same as interupting a conversation. Next time just click the other line and say "you're interupting", then go right back to your conversation

You have no idea how much I want to do that. I just might...

Quote :

Agreed. I think it is the rudest thing ever invented for the phone. I absolutely refuse to interupt my call with someone just to check a call from someone else. If someone decides to check their call waiting while they are talking to me I automatically hang up on them.

I check my call waiting to make sure its not my wife...I dont like to make her go to voice-mail or call back   not a good idea.. .....
............

Back then, some of us were too poor to even have cable TV. Or a LAND LINE.

Yes folks, if you wanted to know if your best friend was home, and you had no phone, you got on your bike and rode over to their house, knock on the door and ask "Is (insert name here) home? And sometimes, they weren't home. Which means, you guessed it:

You had to ride your bike all the way back home and find something else to do, 'cause cartoons were over with by noon on Saturdays.

Love the last 2 comments guys .... SO true

I could manage without a cellphone if everyone else could, but since everyone relies on them, I have one myself.

I hardly use the one I have.  I could exist just fine without one.

I recently read that alot of people are going back to home phones (vonage) ...I guess in the modern age with some of the new cars putting phones in them and a phone at home a guy could be connected without a cell phone...the thing with cell phones is do we really need smartphones or is a basic cell phone enough...

We still have a land line but probably because it is bundled with the cable and internet. We hardly use it unless family members or someone from church calls and lately it seems everyone from church sends text messages, including the church itself with reminders of special events, etc.

Dropped our landline about 5 years ago. Haven't missed it or needed it since. As for cellphones/smartphones, mine has become my right hand. Couldn't live without it. All my family and friends communicate with me via text, and having full unlimited internet anywhere I go is what I've always dreamed of. I have become super dependent on all the apps, maps, and stuff I can do while waiting for a dentist or whatever. Especially love having all my files handy for when I'm out at record stores I can check whether I already have an album or not.
Too many advantages to list here. My wife feels the same way -we are total smart phone junkies.

The OP forgot one:

Back then kids had holes in their jeans because their parents couldn't afford new ones. No-one wanted to look poor, but sometimes we didn't have a choice. These days jeans come from the store pre-faded and with holes, and they cost more than regular jeans; in other words, people are paying more to look like they have less!

Samson wrote:

Back then, some of us were too poor to even have cable TV. Or a LAND LINE.

Yes folks, if you wanted to know if your best friend was home, and you had no phone, you got on your bike and rode over to their house, knock on the door and ask "Is (insert name here) home? And sometimes, they weren't home. Which means, you guessed it:

You had to ride your bike all the way back home and find something else to do, 'cause cartoons were over with by noon on Saturdays.

From age 13 to 16 my dad was stationed overseas at a little radar station in Belgium, and I lived in a little village in the Belgian countryside. 

• My school was a 30 minute bus ride away in The Netherlands on a military base (AAFCENT),
  
• The closest English-speaking person my age was a 30-plus minute bike ride away. 
  
• Any phone calls to English-speaking friends were long distance.
  
• The voltage for Europe's electricity is 220; the only way to run a US-built product was on a transformer, and my dad refused to plug his big console TV into one.  He also refused to buy a 220 TV locally since there weren't any English-speaking channels to watch.  So I had no TV and no video games.
  
• The only English-speaking radio station was the Armed Forces Network; I had to listen to whatever they were playing.
  
• There was only one full bathroom in our apartment, and it only had a tub (no shower).
  
• There was no movie theater, even on the military base, although the folks stationed at the radar station did host a movie night every week where you either watched what was playing or you didn't; if the movie was an "R" we didn't.
  

The strange part: I would give anything to go back to those days. I didn't know that I didn't have a lot, but I did know that I liked what I did have. I spent a lot of time riding my bike through the Belgian countryside, building model cars and airplanes in my room, reading books, listening to the few tapes and records that I had. Those really were "the good old days."

I have an LG flip tracfone. That's all I need. I refuse to get an iphone, smartphone, droid, blackberry, or anything else like that. I don't care if I wind up being the only person in the world that doesn't ever get one. 

Savage Amusement wrote:

I recently read that alot of people are going back to home phones (vonage) ...I guess in the modern age with some of the new cars putting phones in them and a phone at home a guy could be connected without a cell phone...the thing with cell phones is do we really need smartphones or is a basic cell phone enough...

My smartphone is my computer. I do 99% of my computer stuff on it. I actually sat down at the desktop at home yesterday and I felt like a fish out of water.