O/T Joke Thinking Back lol

[Guest guest]

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 both ways

through year 'round blizards carrying their younger siblings on their

backs to their one-room schoolhouse where they maintained a straight-A

average despite their full-time after-school job at the local textile

mill where they worked for 35 cents an hour just to help keep their

family from starving to death!

 

And I remember promising myself that when I grew up there was no way in

hell I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on kids about how hard

I had it and how easy they've got it!

 

But....

 

Now that I've reached a ripe old age, 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 -- we wanted to

know something, we had to go to the damned library and look it up

ourselves!

 

And there was no email! We had to actually write somebody a letter

-- with a pen!

--and 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!

 

And there were no MP3s or Napsters!

 

You wanted to steal music, you had to go to the damned record store and

shoplift it yourself!

Or we had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio and the DJ'd

usually talk over the begining and screw it all up!

 

You want to hear about hardship? You couldn't just download naked pictures!

You had to bribe some homeless dude to buy you a copy of " Hustler " at

the 7-11!

 

Those were your options!

 

We didn't have fancy crap like Call Waiting!

If you were on the phone and somebody else called they got a busy signal!

 

And we didn't have fancy Caller ID Boxes either! When the the phone

rang, you had no idea who it was it could be your boss, your mom, a

collections agent, or your drug dealer, you didn't know!!!

You just had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!

 

And we didn't have any fancy Sony Playstation videogames with

high-resolution 3-D graphics!

 

We had the Atari 2600! With games like " Space Invaders " and " Asteroids "

and the graphics sucked!

 

Your guy was a little square! You 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 faster until

you died!

Just like LIFE!

 

When you went to the movie theater there no such thing as stadium

seating! All the seats were the same height! A tall guy sat in front of

you, you were screwed!

 

And sure, we had cable television, but back then that was only like 20

channels and there was no onscreen menu! You had to use a little book

called a TV Guide to find out what was on!

 

And there was no Cartoon Network! You could only get cartoons on

Saturday morning . . . D'ya hear what I'm saying!?! We had to wait

ALL WEEK, you spoiled little brats!

 

 

That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it too easy.

You're spoiled, I swear!! You guys wouldn't have lasted five minutes

back in 1984!

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

Very funny, but .......

 

That was my CHILDREN's childhood.

 

Thinking back to mine, we grew up without TV.

I vividly remember seeing TV for the first time

at age 10.

 

If I had been a North American child I would

have been a sickly blimp.

I love eating and watching TV!

 

Fortunately, we had to read books, chips were unknown, ice cream and French

fries a rare vacation treat, and coca cola something for a special birthday

party at the more affluent homes. Not mine.

 

Greengrocers, milk men and bakers came to the door,

daily. Not the butcher because meat was something you mostly ate on Sunday.

 

If you asked your Mom what was for dinner she

would reply with the name of the vegetable.

Potatoes went without saying.

 

Mothers stayed home, whether they liked it or not.

Mine would have happier working, but it was simply

not a real option. Nurses and teachers got the sack the moment they got married.

 

People who had emigrated to Canada reported

owning fridges and electric stoves after less than

a year. This was worth mentioning.

 

Cars were a rarity, most people got around by

bicycle, tram, bus and train.

 

When Fanny Blankers-Koen won 4 gold medals

in the 1948 Olympics the city of Amsterdam gave

her a shining new bicycle, for which she was quite

envied.

 

We were out of the cave and the dinosaurs were mostly extinct.

 

Ien in the Kootenays, born 1943 in the Netherlands

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Stop. Breathe. Smile!

~Padma ( my TV yoga teacher)

See my smiling face:

http://www.greatestnetworker.com/is/ien

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