The "When I was a kid...." Thread

[jegs2]

When I was a kid:

1. I remember when pay phones were a dime.
2. I remember seeing Air National Guard F-106's do a fly by.
3. I remember when the hostages came home from Iran.
4. I remember where I was when I heard the Space Shuttle blew up.
5. I remember when PG-13 was introduced.
6. I remember Carter as president even if very vaguely.

What do you remember ?

ps: I never had to walk to school in the snow, like everyone else older than me did. Even those people from Arizona.

Remember the dime payphones too. Was that really that long ago?
Remember buying a candy bar for 25 cents and a cold Coke for 30 cents.
Remember the hostages too.
Remember making nasty songs and jokes about Jimmy Carter when I was in school.
Remember when the home computer craze first hit in the early 80's.
Remember when the US Army still wore green fatigues instead of BDU's.
Remember computers witout internet, floppy drives, or hard drives.
Remember being in HS when the space shuttle blew up -- in FL we could see the pieces.
Remember when Bama football last won a national championship (92).

[TrailerParkJawa]

Remember buying a candy bar for 25 cents and a cold Coke for 30 cents.
- I remeber candy bars being 25 cents but not Coke. Didnt drink it then.

Remember when the US Army still wore green fatigues instead of BDU's.
- Hahaha! I remember that now. STRIPES the movie.

My computer had a tape drive. It was a regular tape recorder. [/quote]

[Joe]

Remember being a Georgia Tech fan. (*shiver*)
Remember when Scorched Earth was a marvel of computer gaming.
Remember when 25 cents would buy a can of soda from a vending machine.
Remember Ross Perot's first candidacy.
Remember when Happy Meals didn't suck ass.

[TrailerParkJawa]

Remember when Happy Meals didn't suck ass.
_________________

Does anyone remember when Quarter Pounders with cheese came in styrofoam clamshells?

How about the the Burger King guy?

[jegs2]

We were terrified of the Soviet Union

Isnt it interesting how things change? I remember the "Better Dead than Red" t-shirts and stuff like that. Red Dawn was such a cool movie.
Now I can say I view Russia with a pretty big shrug of indifference.

My friends and I would talk about what we'd do when the bomb came. Movies like Red Dawn and The Day After made us all think that armageddon was just around the corner and it was but a matter of time before the US was invaded by Soviet hoardes.

[Wicked Pilot]

I was the first kid on the block to get a hard drive.
I played the origional Mario when it first came out.
I remember when Voyager 2 passed Uranus, and later on Neptune.
I held one of the very first cell phones at a tech trade show.
I lived through hurrincane Andrew.
I watched the Gulf War on TV.
I didn't see the Challenger diaster, but I did watch Discovery's return.
I remember watching Jim Carrey on In Living Color.
And I remember how Nirvana changed everything.

[Sienthal]

S'all about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,

[Zaia]

Some of these are cultural, some global, and some personal. Just so you know....

I remember when:

~phone calls were 25 cents
~stamps were a hell of a lots cheaper than they are now
~my religion class was stopped in order to tell us that the Gulf War had just started
~I decided to become an ex-Catholic instead of a Catholic
~the Berlin Wall came down
~I used to go row-boating during my family vacation every summer and I would read the Chronicles of Narnia books to my younger brothers (while they rowed--child labour, bwahaha!)
~my younger brothers became old enough to read them to me
~Nintendo and Legend of Zelda were unsurpassable!
~I was dying to learn how to drive on my Dad's '84 Mitsu Tredia (standard, of course)
~my 1st grade teacher stopped class for a partial eclipse of the sun
~all my friends lived within a 10-minute drive of my house
~I had a HUUUUUGE crush on Harrison Ford for being both Han Solo and Indiana Jones.
~all the girls in my class were in love with NKOTB and I was not
~I didn't have to worry about taxes, bills, groceries, etc.
~when far away was not very far at all...

[Cal Wright]

Lots of shit, lots of shit.

I remember getting the Atari 5200
The NES
HeMan
Thundercats
Transformers

and the real stuff,
the falling of the wall
the tragic loss of the space shuttle
the launching of discovery a few years later

there's just so much shit. as much as I hate the 80s there was a lot going on in the fucking decade

[Sienthal]

Chronicles of Narnia were pretty good
I kinda lost interest when the Red Wall things came out, and then at about 12 I lost interest in those too,
I've been reading classic works lately...Antigone's quite good,

[The Dark]

I remember the Atari SuperPong
I remember Robotech
I remember ThunderCats
I remember Transformers
I remember Tyco blocks
I remember watching Challenger
I remember Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and Bush
I remember the Berlin wall coming down
I remember my grandfather dying the week before I started kindergarten
I remember being on the cover of Sears catalog for Father's Day 1985 (I was a cute kid, but haven't aged well)
I remember the NES, and have all four Mario games for it
I remember when the USSR was the enemy
I remember (and lived through the edge of) Hurricane Andrew)

[TrailerParkJawa]

I remember the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989.

I remember the Berkely hills fire.

[Sokar]

I remember -
~When everything at McDonalds came in a styrofoam clamshell, and Happy Meals came in the cool cardboard little box and you could get real toys like Legos and Matchbox cars in them.....

~Watching the Challenger Disaster on live TV in the gym of my middleschool....remember it like it happened yesterday...and I remember the ten or fifteen seconds of stunned silence as we watched the debris cloud expand before one of the teachers regained enough composure to go and shut off the TV's

~Iran-Contra, and much of the Regan Presidency

~Col. Ollie North, with out wrinkles

~The Amiga from Commodore, my first PC

~Transformers, G.I. Joe, Thundercats, He-Man(I still have my Castle Greyskull playset in storage, I know Im a geek so sue me)

~When VHS movies cost 70 or 80 dollars for a new release movie, and renting video players and movies because a simple VHS player was over 800 dollars a pop.....now "I can buy one with the change I find in my couch

~the first VHS player I ever saw , I swear the thing was the size of a Coleman picnic cooler and it only played movies....and it was a top loader!! I dont think I've seen a top loader VCR in a decade

~ when the Cold War was a real threat, even I as a child was aware that nuclear death lurked around the corner, at least that was the media portrayal of it. Oddly, now that I'm almost finished with a history/poli-sci major, if I had to choose between the Cold War and our current state of world disorder, I'd take the Sov's back in a heartbeat.

~the movie WarGames....

Ahhh....so much nostalgia, 1975 seemes like such a long time ago , hav e I really lived that long............

[jegs2]

I was a Coast Guard petty officer when the Gulf War kicked off. Some of my buddies and I were in a Baltimore mall one night, in one of those restaurant bars, when CNN interrupted and broke the news. I ran around the mall shouting, "We're at war! We're bombing Baghdad!"

[Dalton]

*Oregon Trail and Carmen SanDiego on the Apple ][e
*Back to the Future in theaters
*Reading The Hobbit...and memorizing the names of all the dwarves (Dwalin, Balin, Fili, Kili, Dori, Nori, Ori, Oin, Gloin, Bifur, Bofur, Bombur, Thorin)

[haas mark]

I am only 18. I remember cokes being a quarter, the cheange of Pepsi cans, and the bottles, phones were $.25, not $50, and I remember them being $.35 in between, bottled cokes were $.75 not $1, the introduction of Sobe, Red Bull, and various other drinks like that.

Oregon Trail.

Various Carmen Sandiego games (in fact, my mom still has one for the PC), Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego for NES

[Zaia]

*Oregon Trail and Carmen SanDiego on the Apple ][e
*Back to the Future in theaters
*Reading The Hobbit...and memorizing the names of all the dwarves (Dwalin, Balin, Fili, Kili, Dori, Nori, Ori, Oin, Gloin, Bifur, Bofur, Bombur, Thorin)

Carmen SanDiego!! How could I have forgotten Carmen?!?!!!!!

Thanks, Dalton!

Oh yeah, and add My Little Pony, Strawberry Shortcake, and Cabbage Patch Kids to my list...

[Spanky The Dolphin]

When I was a kid (1984-1995, ages 2.5-13)...

I lived out in the boonies, so I never went anywhere or had many friends.

Kinda pathetic, eh?

[Dalton]

Carmen SanDiego!! How could I have forgotten Carmen?!?!!!!!

Thanks, Dalton!

*bows theatrically to the lady*

Oh yeah, and add My Little Pony, Strawberry Shortcake, and Cabbage Patch Kids to my list...

Ooooh, that reminds me...my sister has a Garbage Pail Kid card in the living room! Those things bring back memories something fierce.

[Zaia]

*bows theatrically to the lady*

Ahh, Dalton, you are such a gentleman. If you had kissed my hand, I'd be a puddle of romantic goop on the floor in front of you.

Ooooh, that reminds me...my sister has a Garbage Pail Kid card in the living room! Those things bring back memories something fierce.

My brothers collected those. Nasty little collectors' card with cute little Cabbage Patch Kid-looking-things being pecked to death by birds, eaten by worms, along with other disgusting sorts of demises, correct?

[Drewcifer]

Ooooh, that reminds me...my sister has a Garbage Pail Kid card in the living room! Those things bring back memories something fierce.

My brothers collected those. Nasty little collectors' card with cute little Cabbage Patch Kid-looking-things being pecked to death by birds, eaten by worms, along with other disgusting sorts of demises, correct?

hehe I still have one - Drew Blood

and in no particular chronological order (random mix of late 70's and early 80's)

- Challenger
- Sigmund and the Sea Monsters / Kroft Superstars
- the first time Kiss wore makeup (and Phantom in the Park)
- buying records and 8-tracks
- collecting bottlecaps
- Shazam! and Electra Woman & Dyna Girl
- the first time banana seats on bikes were cool
- skinny skateboards
- being excited about the next Clash album coming out
- Friday the 13th #1
- the last episode of M*A*S*H
- who shot JR?
- when a 9600 baud modem was FAST FAST FAST
(that's 9,600 bits per second.)
- that Farrah Fawcett poster
- when Target was a discount store you didn't admit wearing clothes from
- that cool JCPenny robot that tried to wear out jeans
- lawn darts
- when my Dad brought home a terminal and you had to actually pick up the phone and dial the server yourself and when the tones started, you shoved the handset into the rubber coupler thingies on the back of it
- Adventure!
- platform skates
- top loader VCRs
- the Sears Wish Book
- when Iron Maiden was HEAVY metal
- the movie Heavy Metal
- when TV stations went off the air at night
- when Close Encounters was a scary movie
- when Tron was the coolest thing ever
- the pinball machines Black Knight & Xeon
- pop rocks
- Bazooka Joe
- the Star Wars disco song
- when the BeeGees were cool
- having a crush on Martha Quinn
- when Bono climbed the stage at Red Rocks
- when calculator watches first came out, man those were cool
- handheld electronic football and basketball games
- Superfriends

- and the first time I ever saw the words "a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away..."

[RedImperator]

I remember when Discovery was launched (I don't remember Challenger)

I remember when the Berlin Wall came down

I remember walking into the family room and seeng my dad watch the Gulf War on TV

I remember the San Francisco earthquake in '89

I remember Mitch Williams blowing the world series

I remember when Vanilla Ica was popular. I remember thinking he sucked.

Turns out I was right.

I remember when Clinton was elected. I was in 6th grade. I thought he was a jerk then.

Turns out I was right again.

I remember when Curt Cobain blew his head off.

I remember the coup in Moscow in August of 1991. I think I remember seeing Yeltsin standing on the tank on TV.

I remember when, for some idiotic reason, New Jersey tried to ban Super Soakers (I think some idiot kid had loaded his with Clorox and blinded someone)

I remember when cigarettes cost less than $3.00 a pack and gas cost $.80 a gallon. Oh, wait a minute...that was four years ago.

[Thunderfire]

I remember the first consoles(atari 2600 in 1978)
I remember the first afganistan war
I remember the boycott of the 1980 and 1984 olympic
games
I remember the fear of a nuclear war
I remember the time when the c64 and amiga were state
of the art machines
I remember "war against terror"in the late seventies.
I remember food beeing much cheaper. e.g. a can of
pepsi for 15 cent.

[Slartibartfast]

I recall the first thing ever that made it into my long term memory: watching Knight Rider in my parents' bedroom. That and that local Formula 1 program.

It's funny, I suppose the brain takes at least half a decade to power up.

I remember traveling to Disney in the US for a week, then envying everyone there because they had cool shows like the Transformers and the Thundercats which were only a few weeks old. Then I remember that the same day I got back we started getting the same shows

I remember the japanese cartoons that came out "before Anime became cool". They were great, like Jet Mars or Candy or Captain Future (who ownz basically every single show that came afterwars) which BTW was based on a very old sci-fi book.

I remember hating playing football in school. I remember hating doing exercise at all In fact I still don't know how I managed to ignore all my physical education classes without any problem.

I remember that bully in school who always tried to get me but for some odd reason it seemed that Murphy's Law was always against him.

I remember never owning a bike.

I remember taunting my dad every time he spanked me on my invulnerable bullet-proof butt, then wishing him a nice day and going back to play.

I remember our first comp, the Vic-20. I remember that when we got our C64 it was a dream come true, the best gaming computer ever (for many years). I remember playing Jumpman a LOT (maybe because for a year or two it was our only game - you see, to actually buy a game you had to take a plane to the United States and go to a store there).

I remember when piracy made it possible for me to get games at all. I'll always have a soft spot in my heart for computer game pirates.

[starfury]

I remember my first video recorded viewing of Transformers
I remember when Tiannaman square was crushed by goverment forces.
I remember the USSR
I remember those early nintendo games like Mega-man and swapping them.
I remember the Gulf war and and the election of clinton.