"Back in the day"

[Rageaholic]

I'm sure we're all familiar with the stereotypical grandpa who's always talking about the "good old days". In my experience, this stereotype is pretty accurate. But what I don't get is how come the "good old days" always sound so miserable and harsh?

"back in the day we only had 3 channels"
"back in the day kids didn't have all dem gadgets, we had to do everything by hand"
"we had to walk to school in the snow barefoot!".
"you would have been whooped for even asking that question when I was growing up!"

Sounds like fun, happy times.

Now I've also seen people refer to their time in a positive light (easier to find a job, safer, better music, ect). I can completely understand looking back on your day positively in that case. But in the quoted examples above, how is any of the positive? Why would we want to go back to that? Are they masocists or are they just trying to sound better than us spoiled youngins?

[LexiaFira]

not to put you down but i had grandparents like that and after a while i learned to reply with.
really? no way tell me about it? in an honest "I really want to hear about it" tone as i thought hey they had it less convenient than we did and this is good history lessons so pay attention. and learned that its spoken with crankiness in possible envy because things are so easy now and us kids don't know anything dammit. damn you kids get off my lawn!

yes, i can honestly say sometimes i feel like my grandmother in how easy things are and i remember life before cell phones for example.

but yes, i also remember when such statements were annoying and gained an eyeroll and sure granpa whatever thought from me

[Kheldarson]

They're usually trying to show how we have it "easy" and they had it "rough". You have to carpool to get to school/mom and dad won't get you a car? Well, in my day, we had to walk!

There's nothing on TV? When you have 100's of channels? Well, in my day, we had 3 channels! In black and white!

It's kind of a reverse move on the "you can't complain about [insert here] because people elsewhere have it worse than you".

[HYHYBT]

There are advantages to only having three channels.

Fewer channels meant the audience wasn't divided up so much. Meaning it was profitable to have most of the air time be actual program. Pull up an episode of most anything from, say, the 60s on Netflix and check the running time. Now, they not only have more than twice as much actual commercial, but they also pop up ads during the credits and sometimes along the bottom of the screen during the show itself.

Fewer channels also means more competition in what makes it to air. Yes, there's always been a lot of crap on TV... but (aside from changes in taste) there was proportionally less. Combine that with people who are *used* to there only being three channels (and there never having been VCRs and such, so it was always a take what you can get situation) they'd either watch the best they could find of what was on (helping to keep interests from narrowing) or find something else to do.

[AdminAssistant]

It also meant that programming that wasn't marketable to basically all of America didn't get aired.

I grew up sans cable, and it basically sucked. It still sucks because Fiance talks about all these old Nick shows like Pete and Pete or Salute Your Shorts and I have no idea what he's talking about.

[protege]

I grew up sans cable, and it basically sucked. It still sucks because Fiance talks about all these old Nick shows like Pete and Pete or Salute Your Shorts and I have no idea what he's talking about.

I hear ya. My parents didn't get cable...until the late 1980s. Dad couldn't see spending "good money" for the service, since the old rabbit-ears on the TV worked "fine." Yeah, if you liked watching old movies from the 1950s or PBS and enjoyed a crapload of 'snow' (interference) with the broadcast When my brothers and I bugged them, we got a "you know, some people just watch TV all the time." Uh no, some people like watching movies without commercials every 5 minutes, and some of us enjoy things that *aren't* on basic TV

[Rageaholic]

They're usually trying to show how we have it "easy" and they had it "rough". You have to carpool to get to school/mom and dad won't get you a car? Well, in my day, we had to walk!

There's nothing on TV? When you have 100's of channels? Well, in my day, we had 3 channels! In black and white!

It's kind of a reverse move on the "you can't complain about [insert here] because people elsewhere have it worse than you".

That's where I always suspect they are going at when they mention they're day. I actually used to laugh when growns up did that, but now that I'm an adult, I realize I found it infuriating and condescending. It's a way to belittle someone's problems by bringing up worse possibilities, which I despise to the core. I've had relatives who pulled that shit when I was a teen. When ever I showed the slightest disaproval toward something, I would get a lecture about how I wouldn't have gotten away with that. That's funny because I remember my grandfather very well and he was the nicest guy. Aside from the lack of technology, I wonder how much exaggeration goes into their description of "the good old days".

[Kheldarson]

There's probably a bit. As we get older, our memories tend to get fuzzy and warp a little. So the past seems...nicer than what it probably was.

Took a course on race relations in the South and the professor showed us a study done during the Depression. Folks went out to interview the last living freed slaves. The folks who would've been children when they were freed and were now in their 90's and 100's. Surprisingly, most of them actually rated the system of slavery rather...favorably. Not that they'd want to go back, but that it wasn't as bad as we tend to think.

The question became why? And how much of it was nostalgia talking and how much was it just to whom they were talking?

[Lace Neil Singer]

I hear ya. My parents didn't get cable...until the late 1980s. Dad couldn't see spending "good money" for the service, since the old rabbit-ears on the TV worked "fine." Yeah, if you liked watching old movies from the 1950s or PBS and enjoyed a crapload of 'snow' (interference) with the broadcast When my brothers and I bugged them, we got a "you know, some people just watch TV all the time." Uh no, some people like watching movies without commercials every 5 minutes, and some of us enjoy things that *aren't* on basic TV

My parents didn't get satelite TV for a very good reason; they couldn't afford it. However, they told us plain that this was the reason, so there wasn't really any arguing with it. XD

I didn't really mind so much, cuz I babysat fairly regularly for a family with two kids who went to sleep on time and that family had satelite TV so I got to sit on the sofa and have at least three hours watching nonstop TV. XD

[Andara Bledin]

The folks who would've been children when they were freed and were now in their 90's and 100's. Surprisingly, most of them actually rated the system of slavery rather...favorably. Not that they'd want to go back, but that it wasn't as bad as we tend to think.

The question became why? And how much of it was nostalgia talking and how much was it just to whom they were talking?

One thing to consider is that the ones that would have survived the longest would also have been among the best treated, so it's not surprising that of those that lived out long lives, they had a more favorable impression; the ones with the least favorable were much more likely to have dies early.

Otherwise, our memories are changing and treacherous. We will remember things that never happened or remember them imperfectly, depending on how our feelings have changed in the interim.

^-.-^

[telecom_goddess]

wow I hate to sound like an old fart but damn back in my day I had only 3 channels in black and white

I also had to walk to school and back and didn't have cell phones or computers and so on and so forth

I wouldn't want to go back though I like today's technology too much.

[senor boogie woogie]

I was born in 1967. I am an older member of the Generation after the Baby Boomers. I hate the name of my generation with a passion, and refuse to use it. I hate that name because the asshole who coined it thought people of my age were lazy and were destined not to do anything and be forgotten. Well, my generation has fought in several wars, developed innovations in many fields and technology and having to bear the awful debts that the Baby Boomer generation dropped on us like a bale of shit. Oh well.

This makes me almost 45 and old enough to be a young grandfather (there is a TV series called Raising Hope where a couple around my age are grandparents to a tot, named Hope), so I can go down memory lane a bit.

I remember seeing my first VHS player around 1975 or so. A neighbor friend of my parents had it. It was a big metal box, very mechanical and it actually had dials....yes dials on it. In my childhood, there were four TV stations in Memphis. Ch. 3 (CBS), Ch. 5 (NBC), Ch. 13 (ABC then, now FOX) and Ch. 10 which was PBS. We did not get cable, or cable wasn't that common where I lived until the early 1980's and MTV. I remember when MTV was good and actually showed videos! The original concept was a merging of radio and television, with actual VJ's. Most of the cable channels back then more or less ran reruns of older TV programming.

Even though there were only three channels, TV was pretty good then, and there were a lot of classic series from that era and many media historians think of the 60's-70's to be a "Golden Age" of broadcasting. My local CBS affiliate used to have an abundance of 1930's films that they would show on Saturday afternoons (like the Johnny Weismueller Tarzan films, Laurel and Hardy, Three Stooges, Andy Hardy, Ma and Pa Kettle, stuff like that.) The CBS affilaite would also show Leave it to Beaver and the Munsters in the afternoon after school (I would get pissed off when CBS would preempt them for their Afterschool Special shit which took off my shows).

My NBC affiliate gave the weatherman at the time his own Tv show called Magicland. Personally, I thought his tricks kind of sucked, and I waited for the awesome WB cartoons like Bugs Bunny and Wiley Coyote. On Saturday, the same station would have live in studio Saturday Morning Wrestling with Jerry Lawler, Lance Russell and all those crazy idiots (if you have ever seen "Man on the Moon" with Jim Carrey, then you know them).

The wrestling show died out in the 00's because the main players were too old to do it anymore. The old TV shows and those wonderful old movies/films on the CBS channel is gone, replaced by wall to wall local news coverage 'NEWS CHANNEL THREE, SOMETHING YOU ARE DOING WILL KILL YOU NOW, FIND OUT AT 10!" type of shit.

A movie in the 1970's would come out in the theater, and if it was a hit, might be shown on broadcast television, edited for content in about three to five years if at all. This was before video stores, Netflix, internet and all that jazz. Movie theaters did well then because it was something to do when there was nothing on the three channels of TV we had at home. I haven't been to the movies since 2000 and probably never will again. Now a film goes from the theater to DVD and on the internet, pay channels within three months. So why go to the theater?

I remember pay phones were a dime until I was in high school in the early 1980's (my parents generation, it was a nickel). In '81, the pay phone was still a dime, but around '83 was raised to 25 cents with us students groaning. Now, all the kids have mobile phones. Speaking of dimes, they still had those old mechanical coca-cola machines with the small glass bottles you pulled from the machine for a dime.

I remember the first CD player in a car and us thinking that it was the coolest thing. Hell, we thought CDs were kickass. Now it is more or less obsolete crap.
Video arcades is something that is probably on the wane and I feel bad about that. I also think now about how much 1975-1985 quarters I stuck in video game machines that I can now play for free online. I love pinball machines and am sad that no one really makes those anymore and the existing ones are difficult to find.

I was over 30 years old the first time I used the internet. I remember that night, around 1996 using my friend's phone modem 486 crap computer absolutely amazed at it and deciding right then that I want a computer and now!

I do not remember people having cell phones until after 2000. Yes, there have been phones before then, but the cost of having one was very expensive and prohibitive to most people. Ironically the first person I saw with a modern, put in your pocket mobile phone was my father around 1999. NO ONE in the 1990's had mobile phones.

I remember when gas was 50 cents a gallon. I also remember one night on the news when John Chancellor was warning that gasoline was going to be over one dollar a gallon in the near future and the dread that would bring. Once, around 1978 or so, I found a $20 dollar bill under a soda machine, with me thinking that was a fortune, well it was a small one since 20 bucks was worth about what a 100 bucks was worth today.

My father was an airline pilot so I spent a lot of my time at the airport. I remember as a child that I, my mother, or anyone could enter the terminal without a ticket. I was even allowed on the tarmac of the airport with my father, no problems. People back then could smoke in the airplanes. Back when I was a kid, people got to smoke inside, anywhere and everywhere except for some churches. There were big ashtrays inside buildings for peoples use. Smoking in the mall? No problem!

My father was very anti-drug including pot and he gave me lectures and whatnot. He said that he went to a party with other airline workers in his company and someone (maybe a pilot) broke out the weed, with my father telling them that before he did that, he wanted to leave because he wanted no part of that. I dunno when this occured, probably in the late 1960's. No piss tests then. A pilot can be stoned out of his gord, no problem. I will say with some authority that very, very few pilots smoked marijuana because most of these guys were disciplined people, and a lot back in the day came from the armed services.

I like middle age. Except for peeing every 15 minutes. I got to pee, goodbye.

[Gravekeeper]

This is actually biological, which is why it hasn't gone away nor ever will. The brain is constantly housekeeping your memories and will, over time, delete the shitty ones because they're harmful and unhealthy for you. Leaving only the good ones that give you happiness and enjoyment. So when you look back at the "good ol' days" all you see is good, because your brain has deleted most of the bad, giving the false impression that those days were awesome compared to modern day. Even when, to someone else, they may sound absolutely horrible -.-

After we invent immortality, you're going to see people ranting about how fucking awesome World War 3 was 200 years ago compared to this shitty technological utopia today where you can teleport a reploid space hooker with 3 breasts and a vibrating labia into your kitchen with a voice command.

[AdminAssistant]

On Saturday, the same station would have live in studio Saturday Morning Wrestling with Jerry Lawler, Lance Russell and all those crazy idiots (if you have ever seen "Man on the Moon" with Jim Carrey, then you know them).

The wrestling show died out in the 00's because the main players were too old to do it anymore. The old TV shows and those wonderful old movies/films on the CBS channel is gone, replaced by wall to wall local news coverage 'NEWS CHANNEL THREE, SOMETHING YOU ARE DOING WILL KILL YOU NOW, FIND OUT AT 10!" type of shit.

LOL, Memphis had the closest CBS and NBC affiliates to where I grew up. I'm a bit young for the heyday of Memphis wrestling, but I remember it being on.

[Racket_Man]

I was born in 1967. I am an older member of the Generation after the Baby Boomers. I hate the name of my generation with a passion, and refuse to use it. I hate that name because the asshole who coined it thought people of my age were lazy and were destined not to do anything and be forgotten. Well, my generation has fought in several wars, developed innovations in many fields and technology and having to bear the awful debts that the Baby Boomer generation dropped on us like a bale of shit. Oh well.

I am 7 years older than you senor. I am what you would call the "very end" of the Baby Boomers. still considered part of that generation but not really.

I do not remember the Kenedy assasination a little too young at the time

Sputnik went up a year or two before my birth but I do remember a good part of the beginning of the US space program and the US vs Russia thing. Each and every milestone of the program brought a wonderment to my world. My brother (USN) being assigned to some communications station at Peral Habor in the late 60's also helped. he was there during the Apollo 8 mission. at the time he got me LOADS of NASA public information publications (really wish I had kept those). seeing the moon landing live on TV was fantasitc. now space travel is about as exciting as a plane trip to Chicago.

I also remember the "big iron" computers. I saw one of those at the University me and my siblings all attended. the PC I am writing this out on far outstrips that machine in both power, memory and sheer processing abilty

I remember gas being 16 cent per gallon, a loaf of bread at 5 cents, a pay phone call 5 cents

I remember the "duck and cover" warning films they showed us in grade school. I also remember fully stocked air raid/bomb/fallout shelters in most public buildings. that was a remarkable period considering we were only 30 minutes away from nuclear war. a LOT to take in for a pre-teen person in the US.

I am old enough to remember the "Hippy " generation, the tail end of the BeatNik generation, the rise of Lenny Bruce and all who came after him

drugs are definately part of my generation both illegal and legal. the US saw "speed" and Valium perscribed in tonnage quanity to housewives. illegal substances were there but exploded onto the general population.