Have you ever...

[bestcee]

Have you ever said oh yeah, we had that! And had the other person give you a look like "You are too young!" or "Are you older than I thought?"

I grew up really rural sometimes, so I often surprise people when I mention we had a party line as a kid, or I went to a 2 room schoolhouse. Sometimes the bookmobile, but our current town has one so that's not as strange here. Before Typewriters became a thing again, I used to surprise people with that too. My dad bought us random things at the auction to play with. One was an old fashioned typewriter - the kind where if you hit the keys too fast, they got stuck on each other. We also had one of those older cash registers. We taught ourselves lots of math on that thing!

What about you? Do you ever talk about something and people are surprised that someone your age knows about it?

 

[cfile]

A rotary phone and my favorite was a transistor radio

 

[HavaDrPepper]

As to your question, no because I'm old!

Everything you mentioned was a big part of my childhood so normal for me. I learned to type on one of those typewriters, manual it was. Even the electric typewriter I used in college had a carriage that moved as you typed instead of staying in place like the "Selectric" models. The "Selectric II" typewriters had only been around for a few years and only 2 of them were in the typing classroom. That would have been in 1975 or 1976.

We were also on a party line and had a rotary phone. When we moved to the house I'm in now, we were able to get a "private" line. Big deal at the time!

The only remote for the tv was me. We only got a few stations with an antenna and reception wasn't always that great. The tuner was a knob that only went from 2 to 13 along with "U". And, the tv's were heavy so they didn't get moved very often!

Roller skates that attached to your shoes with a key to tighten them. Just metal, nothing real fancy.

 

[tanteva]

Our first remote had a cord. LOL

I love machines, and hubby thinks I have too many. But when people are going to throw them away, I have to save them. They're cute!

Happens to me all the time that I feel old. My friends are all much younger than me. One joke at the job (hubby and me work at the same place) is that our relationship is the same age as one of our coworker. LOL

One thing here in Sweden is that everyone knows where they were when they found out our prime minister Olof Palme were murdered. Was having "fika" with my two best friends, and I mentioned that. Then Anna said: "I don't know, I was only 3" and Julia added "It was years before I was born!" Gee, I felt old! LOL

 

[umyesh]

I can’t think of any, but that’s cool your dad would buy you random things to play with.

 

[bcgal00]

Nothing comes to mind except for old music that my grandma would play so I was familiar with some of the oldies. One of her faves was El Paso which came out a few years after I was born.

 

[bestcee]

Our first remote had a cord. LOL

That's cool! I didn't know that was a thing.

 

[bestcee]

Nothing comes to mind except for old music that my grandma would play so I was familiar with some of the oldies.

Totally a cool thing! I laugh when my kid comes home and tries to "rick roll" us. I bet there's a ton of music you can sing along to that people are surprised about!

 

[Lynnette]

Music for me too! I grew up listening to a lot of "older" music. I was an 80s and 90s kid but my Dad was born in 1938 so he listened to stuff from the 50s, all pre rock n roll stuff.

 

[dawnmarch]

Our first remote had a cord. LOL

This made me literally LOL.

My parents were big antique fans and dIY’ers so my friends were always amused when they’d swing by to find us pressing apples for cider or churning butter. Mostly, these were just for fun (we didn’t churn all our butter ) but we had all these old gadgets and gizmos around. A collection of vintage glass eyes was one thing that sticks in my memory, not surprisingly. Those were always good for a prank.

 

[KimJ]

I have one of those original non-electric typewriters around here somewhere. It was my mom's that she used for all kinds of paperwork and such when I was growing up. I got an electric typewriter as a high school graduation gift. It was super fancy compared to my mom's. It weighed less than half of what hers did, the ribbon was a cartridge instead of a spool, and it even had a correction tape ribbon so I didn't have to use the gooey white-out! LOL

We didn't have a corded TV remote, but my aunt did. She was very cutting edge! LOL

Our first video game involved a wired tube-shaped controller that you just turned a knob on the top to slide the cursor thingy (a white rectangle) up and down on the TV screen to play a tennis type game with a square white ball. Sort of a predecessor to Pong.

I am old enough to be the mom of almost all of my co-workers at the coffee shop. I don't think I ever felt older than the day they were talking about doing a Charlie's Angels pose for a photo and someone didn't know what Charlie's Angels was, so another explained that it was "you know, those movies". The one other more "senior" co-worker and I had to explain that there was actually a very popular TV series long before those movies.

 

[mrs2a50]

My boss and I were talking about music around my much younger co-worker. We got into an 80s discussion and mentioned Joan Jett. Poor Sarah was clueless until I said “I Love Rock and Roll” and she got all excited and said I know that one - Britney Spears sings that! It was a total face-palm moment for my boss and me

 

[sharonb]

Our first cable box was the size of a 11.5 x 8 piece of paper that was about 3 in thick. It had push buttons (you pushed down on them). Our phone numbers started with 2 letters and we never used the area code. Rotary phone, Of course a transister radio and my dad had the old Remington heavy black typewriter. He brought it with him from home (1941 model he had)

 

[G.J.]

So cool that you dad bought you an old cash register to play. We used to had typewriters, actually my dad collected old typewriters, and we didn't be allowed to play with them. During summer he used to clean them with petrol and a brush, and let to dry in our yard, and then we used to play with them, when he didn't be there, lol.
I know more about music, same like Lynnette I was child on 80's and 90's, but my dad born in 1934, so we grew up listening a lot of music from 50's and 60's -especially my mom, she was Beatles fan-

 

[tinkerbell1112]

When I was in the 4th grade we moved for one year to a very small town in ND. The school in town was K-12 in one building. 1 & 2 shared a classroom/teacher. 3 & 4 shared. 5 & 6 shared. I think 7th-12th was more traditional with rotating classes but I really don't know. We were only there for the 4th grade for me. I thought it was odd, but a very unique experience. There were two chalkboards in the classroom - we faced one and the 3rd graders faced another! LOL

After that we moved back to a town that was a bit larger, but 5 & 6 grade was bussed around to other small rural towns that didn't have enough students. So my school for 5th grade was ONLY 5th graders. 6th, only 6th graders!

 

[bestcee]

she got all excited and said I know that one - Britney Spears sings that! It was a total face-palm moment for my boss and me

That always cracks me up!
I'll say something about a certain person singing a song, and Nick will correct me that I know the remix or new version, but XYZ actually sang it first. He's the music nerd in my family. I did surprise him with Sweet Dreams since I knew the original, not the Marilyn Manson cover.

 

[bestcee]

The school in town was K-12 in one building. 1 & 2 shared a classroom/teacher. 3 & 4 shared. 5 & 6 shared.

That is small too! Sharing a classroom is a unique experience. I looked up my old 2 room schoolhouse, and it was sold. All the kids there are bussed outside of town now.

 

[zakirahzakaria]

My boss and I were talking about music around my much younger co-worker. We got into an 80s discussion and mentioned Joan Jett. Poor Sarah was clueless until I said “I Love Rock and Roll” and she got all excited and said I know that one - Britney Spears sings that! It was a total face-palm moment for my boss and me

Haha! I would've said the same thing if I were there. I grew up listening to that song when Britney sang it on one of her earliest albums. I was such a huge fan!

 

[tanteva]

Went to a pub quiz with work this week: theme 90s music. I was too old for that LOL

 

[HavaDrPepper]

Went to a pub quiz with work this week: theme 90s music. I was too old for that LOL

Don't feel bad... that would have been me as well. Unless it was 90's country music.