I'm so old I Remember when:

[Debbie292d]

I worked at a PhotoMat!

My dad worked for Pako Photo and went around the world installing color photofinishing machines as some countries like Russia didn't even have film developing capabilities, much less color.

 

[The Moonshiner]

You all ever have like a call in swap n shop on the radio?
You could call in and explain what you had for sell and it broadcasted on the radio. Then if you heard something you wanted you could call in and they'd give you the person's contact phone number.
It was on on Saturday mornings so me and my friends would call in as pranks. Usually one would advertise something made up which was often a slang word for something dirty that our group had made up then others would call in acting interested and wanting more details. The radio people never knew what we were talking about and even being clueless they'd try their best to help sell the item.
Maybe you just had to be there or maybe we were slightly touched in the head but man that was fun times.

 

[Evadig]

Do y’all mind if I add my two cents even though I don’t really belong here? I always feel like I’m being rude if I comment on other people’s threads that I wasn’t invited to.

 

[chrissynemetz]

You all ever have like a call in swap n shop on the radio?
You could call in and explain what you had for sell and it broadcasted on the radio. Then if you heard something you wanted you could call in and they'd give you the person's contact phone number.
It was on on Saturday mornings so me and my friends would call in as pranks. Usually one would advertise something made up which was often a slang word for something dirty that our group had made up then others would call in acting interested and wanting more details. The radio people never knew what we were talking about and even being clueless they'd try their best to help sell the item.
Maybe you just had to be there or maybe we were slightly touched in the head but man that was fun times.

We did have something like that when I was a kid, but for the life of me I can't remember what it was called.

 

[chrissynemetz]

Do y’all mind if I add my two cents even though I don’t really belong here? I always feel like I’m being rude if I comment on other people’s threads that I wasn’t invited to.

Go right ahead!

 

[Nomadicus]

I remember when every little boy from first grade forward had a pocket knife they carried everywhere. Including school.

And a lot of girls had them in purses in my school. Those of us in FFA had one to take for class work. Cutting rope, cabbage, broccoli, etc. Just a useful tool. Oh and pickups had guns in the gun racks during hunting season.

 

[fuzzi]

Think I'll take this opportunity for some reminiscing, if you don't mind:

I grew up mostly on a farm in western Kansas in the 1960's and 70's. House was built in 1888 on the Kansas prairie. My great-grandparents arrived in a covered wagon and built an adobe hut to live in while they built the barn, and then the house. I remember those 10' tall ceilings, and drafty single-pane windows that went almost all the way up! Staircase to the 2nd floor was really just a glorified ladder, steep as hell and only about 24" wide between walls.

At some point, someone dug a hole below the house to install an oil-burning floor furnace. That 'cellar' still had dirt walls when I was a kid, and would sometimes fill up with water during rainy weather. I remember going down there to get canned jars off the shelf, and wading through the water, always watching for snakes and chasing frogs. The floor grate for heat from the cellar was in the dining room - and you had to be careful not to step on it with bare feet in the winter! HOT! There was a similar grate in the ceiling above, allowing heat to rise to the 2nd story bedrooms. I'd lay on the floor after bedtime and peer down through the grate to listen to the grownups below.

My bedroom was tucked into the eaves at one end, walls sloped on both sides so that you could stand up straight only in the center between walls. Closet was a hole in the wall with a crawlspace into the attic space, big enough to stuff boxes into but that's all. I had a twin-sized bed and a small chest of drawers, and barely room to turn around.

At least we had electricity, running water, and a party-line telephone by the time I was born. But the water was from a well pump, with wooden rods extending about 400-feet down to the water table. It was a horribly noisy contraption. Every so often, one of those rods would break and my Dad and brothers would work for days to fish out the broken end in that shaft, however far down, so they could repair it. (We lived near Greensburg KS, home of the "world's deepest hand-dug well" - fascinating story, look it up!)

They had abandoned the outhouse before I was born and added a septic tank so we had an indoor toilet and claw-foot bathtub. One end of the tub was tucked underneath the landing on the stairs, so when you sat in the tub your feet were under the stairs. Water was precious (due to that rickety well pump), and we had no water heater, so we heated water on the stove to pour into the tub. Adults would bathe first, then the kids - all in the same water, usually only 3-4" deep. By the time my turn came, the water was always a grayish-brown. We took laundry to the laundromat in town; I don't remember ever washing it at home, although there was a wringer washer on the back porch.

Air-conditioning was just opening windows and using box fans, or covering windows with dark blankets to block light. We could have added window units, but I don't remember ever having one. I think the windows might have been too narrow. Summers were sweltering, often over 100-deg-F. I spent a LOT of time playing in the horse water trough or in the barn loft (breezy up there).

One winter, the snow drift in the farmyard was so deep it nearly reached the light at the top of our light pole. My brother climbed up there and marked it on the pole. I still have that photograph. We made tunnels through the drift. Fun at the time, but looking back.... OMG how dangerous!

Prairie-dogs were rampant in the pasture, and their burrows were a danger to the horses and cattle. My dad and brothers would pour kerosene down a few holes, and light them up. Then when smoke came out other holes, they'd plug them up with oily shop towels. The animals are now an endangered and protected species.

The old farm is now gone, burned down and plowed under. In its place is a wheat field with wind turbines thrum-thrum-thrumming through what was the pasture. I can still find the spot on that lonely dirt road where the driveway started due to the slightly different gravel in the ditchline.

My grandparents house in Connecticut had a big register/grate on the floor in the corner of the dining room, where the heat from the coal furnace would rise to warm the house, and there was NO heat in the upstairs. There were little metal grates in the ceiling to allow the heat to reach the bedrooms. You could lie on the upstairs bedroom floor and look down into the kitchen or dining room. My mother slept above the kitchen, yet was so cold that she bought herself a down comforter with her first paycheck.

We would roll marbles down the grate just to hear them going down into the furnace!

 

[Nomadicus]

You all ever have like a call in swap n shop on the radio?
You could call in and explain what you had for sell and it broadcasted on the radio. Then if you heard something you wanted you could call in and they'd give you the person's contact phone number.
It was on on Saturday mornings so me and my friends would call in as pranks. Usually one would advertise something made up which was often a slang word for something dirty that our group had made up then others would call in acting interested and wanting more details. The radio people never knew what we were talking about and even being clueless they'd try their best to help sell the item.
Maybe you just had to be there or maybe we were slightly touched in the head but man that was fun times.

We have one now.

 

[fuzzi]

Mood rings

Pet rocks

 

[The Moonshiner]

We have on now.

I'm gonna need to know on what station and at what time.