September 23, 2024 • 21 mins
Remember the days when answering the phone felt like a thrilling mystery, and our homes were tethered by six-foot phone cords? Join us as we reminisce about these and other unique childhood experiences that, in today's world, seem almost surreal. We take you on a nostalgic trip from navigating without GPS to the advent of MapQuest and the era when the Yellow Pages was a household staple. We'll share stories about how outdoor dogs roamed freely and kids biked unsupervised between towns, painting a vivid picture of how much our daily lives have transformed.
Do you recall a time when smoking regulations were lax enough to allow cigarettes in hospital lobbies and on airplanes? Our conversation dives into these dramatic cultural shifts, including the nearly extinct relic of the payphone, which once necessitated everyone carrying a quarter for emergencies. We also explore the responsibilities carried by 13-year-old babysitters, the bygone era of milk deliveries, and the impractical winter clothing for girls, showing how societal expectations and norms have evolved over time. These reflections provide a fascinating look at how our perceptions of safety and convenience have changed.
Finally, we wrap up with heartwarming memories of relaxed car safety standards—think kids sitting on the floor or riding in the back of station wagons without a second thought. We also touch on the cumbersome process of photography before the digital age, making us appreciate how far we've come. This episode isn't just about remembering the past; it's about cherishing these moments and sharing them with friends to spark delightful conversations and camaraderie. Join us, reflect on these nostalgic stories, and let’s celebrate how these experiences have shaped us.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
We've got a fun episode for everyone today, a
break from our typical businessand marketing and sort of social
media psychology stuff, andwe're going to have a little fun
.
Today's topic is things thatwere considered normal when I
was a kid, that are totallybizarre today.
Let's go down memory lanetogether and have some fun.
The show is about to start in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.
(00:28):
This is, don't Fear Grit, withRob Taormina Marketing
strategies and advertisingtechnologies to help you build a
better business.
So this is definitely a funtopic and something that I have
thought about and it'sdefinitely something that when
(00:50):
you're with your friends andfamily and whatnot, it comes up
and it's one of those sort ofroundtable discussions.
But it's things that you did asa kid that you don't do now, or
your kids don't do now or arecompletely bizarre now, but were
normal when you were a kid.
And that list is definitelygrowing and growing and growing
as we get older and older andolder and it's just really
(01:10):
interesting and I was recentlyhaving this conversation and we
were going down memory lane andI'm like, oh, what a great
episode for the next podcastshow.
Let's do it.
Let's take a little bit of abreak from our normal scheduled
programming and just have somefun.
And let's get a little creativehere so that we can all
reminisce together on some ofthe cool things and some of the
bizarre things that we did as akid.
(01:32):
So we'll start off with someeasy stuff and then along the
way, I got some things on thislist that is going to make you
go, huh, that's interesting.
Well, the first one is thatwhen I was a kid and you picked
up the phone, you had no ideawho was calling.
There was no such thing ascaller ID, which means if the
phone rang, you picked up thephone and it was always.
(01:52):
You have no idea who's going tobe on the other end.
Is it someone calling for yourparents?
Is it a neighbor?
Is it a boy or girl callingfrom school that you're going to
be nervous about?
You have no idea.
Is it a boy or girl callingfrom school that you're going to
be nervous about?
You have no idea.
So that sort of like excitementbuilt up until you heard the
person's name on the other sideof the line and you would say,
hey, hello, who is this?
So that's the first one is,again, there was no such thing
(02:16):
as caller ID when I was a kid,and so I just remember, as a kid
the phone rang and I was, if,if, if I like there was someone
I wanted to speak to, I wasalways anticipating like I would
say, like, oh, I hope it's thisperson calling, and always well
, not always, but more oftenthan not being disappointed
because the calls were often,more often than not, were not
(02:38):
for me actually Cause, of course, I'm a kid, right?
But on the topic of phones also,another big thing is if you are
on a phone call, ready for this, you had to stay within a six
foot radius of the phone becauseeverything was corded.
There were no wireless phones,right, like everyone has a cell
(02:58):
phone now you can make a phonecall from anywhere, right.
But back then it was onlylandlines and you're connected
with this cord that pretty muchstayed raveled up and all
disheveled and and and, uh andnodded.
Oh, my God, I don't know.
I don't know how many times Itried to unravel that cord
growing up.
But, yeah, the one big thing isis always having to stay within
(03:19):
a six foot radius of that phone.
So there were no privateconversations and unless you
like were able to get like toone of those long um cables and
you're able to like pullactually the whole phone with
you like in a closet or intoyour room and you had this long
cable going through your house.
Um, and then you know, gamechanger, when you had the
wireless landlines in the house.
Oh, that was.
That was a big deal as well.
(03:39):
But that was another big thingis remember the cords.
But the big thing about the,the cords I'm always for some
reason they never stayeduntangled.
I don't know about you guysWere your cords always tangled
Because even though they hadthat spiral thing, that spiral
thing would always get tangledup and it's because you had to
stay within that six foot radiusand you were just like walking
in circles walking in circleswith it.
(04:01):
You know pretty, pretty bizarrestuff.
Another thing that I remember,even when I first started
driving and not that I'm thatold, but I'm a sort of unique
age where I'm like I experiencedanalog and digital right when
I'm old enough, where I had theanalog, young enough where
digital was part of thetransition as well.
But when I first starteddriving, paper maps were still
(04:24):
the way to travel.
There was no technology thatyou could plug in navigation,
there was no GPS like that, soit was all paper maps.
And I remember that's roughlywhen, like MapQuest, you can go
to MapQuestcom and you couldprint out even though you can go
digitally to get directions,you can still print it out.
Even though you can godigitally to get directions, you
(04:45):
can still print it out.
And but before I get to that, Iremember vividly when I was a
kid, having these big maps thatwould be folded perfectly into
like a brochure size, and Iremember like we would stop at
like rest stops and get thelocal paper map and this massive
thing that I'm talking about,huge like the size of the table
here, and you have this map andyou have to try to find.
(05:08):
Okay, we are here, we have togo there and just navigate
through this map.
You know, what's interesting isthat we all did it and everyone
knew how to do it.
Even as a kid, like it was justpart of of life, really was
like this assumed process.
Everyone knew how to read a mapand get from point A to point B
.
And then I remember when wetransitioned to MapQuest and
(05:28):
everyone would print out allthese directions is what you
initially had to do If you weregoing a long distance, you would
print out like six differentvariations.
You'd be from point A to point B, from point B back to point A.
Oh, what if you detoured, likeyou would have all of these
different variations just incase, because you weren't, maybe
you weren't gonna get to acomputer at the hotel.
(05:50):
You didn't have that, youdidn't have a printer, so you
would have this massive folder.
I remember of all thesedirections and, oh man, I
remember the car littered withjust directions if you were
going on a long trip.
But, yeah, paper maps.
I remember that vividly and Iloved that as a kid going to the
rest stops and getting thelocal paper map and just
unfolding this glorious thing,being like, oh my God, the world
(06:11):
is so big.
It was pretty cool.
Another thing is that I rememberas a kid now, depending on
where you are in the world, thisis still sort of commonplace,
but around here it's not now butwhen I was a kid there were a
lot of dogs and cats that simplyjust roamed the streets.
It was normal to have anoutdoor cat, normal to have an
(06:33):
outdoor dog, and they sort ofroamed, rampant.
I remember vividly seeing this.
In fact, I remember when I wasa kid I must've been in maybe
like third grade my teacherasked us, instructed us we have
to write our own creative story.
Come up with your own story,your own characters and write a
whole thing.
And there was someone that Iknew that had a dog.
(06:55):
That was an outdoor dog and itjust roamed right and I remember
oftentimes this person wouldlike babysit me and I would go
to their house and sometimes Iwould play the dog if it was
there and if it wasn't, theywould be like, oh no, the dog's
not here, it's roaming around.
And I remember thinking like,oh, what is the dog doing?
So as a kid I remember vividlyI wrote a story about where this
dog went.
I love this.
(07:16):
This meant so much to me that Istill remember it to this day.
But again, I wrote a storybecause it was commonplace back
then.
They were just dogs and catsthat just sort of roamed free
and did their thing.
Um, and I guess you know manylawsuits later of kids getting
hurt and bit by random dogs.
Um, that is definitely a thingof the past.
Locally you don't see randomdogs.
(07:37):
If you see a dog, you knowthere's something wrong.
Roaming randomly around, maybethere's a few, uh, stray cats
here and there, but not like itused to be.
I remember as a kid there beingdogs and cats everywhere.
It was just sort of commonplace.
Another big thing that Iremember that was very normal
(07:58):
when I was a kid.
That is definitely not normalnow.
Oh my gosh, absolutely not.
Is that how unsupervised wewere as kids?
And I've told this story many,many times and like it's like a
shocking thing to have thisdiscussion now.
But when I was a kid, when I wassix, seven, eight, nine years
(08:20):
old, I would regularly be bymyself.
I would take my bike.
I would bike to the next townover by myself to my friend's
house play with a ball in thestreets.
It would get dark and they'd belike oh you know, it's time to
go home, so I would take my bikeback home by myself, do my
thing and we're talking about asa six to nine year old taking
(08:43):
his bicycle between towns, mainroads, side streets.
It was commonplace and it's notlike people would see me and be
like, oh my gosh, let's helpthis kid out, he's lost.
No, because all of us kids didthat.
So it's not like the neighborsor adults would be weirded out
by seeing that and call thepolice.
Not at all, that wascommonplace back then.
(09:06):
Fast forward to now.
You see a child by himself.
You think parent, parentalneglect, call 911, I'm gonna
stay with the kid.
And you know what?
Rightfully so, becauseculturally it's changed.
It's not as safe maybe now, andthere's a lot of other
variables involved.
But I couldn't imagine evenallowing my kids now, who are 13
years old, taking their bike bythemselves to the next town
(09:28):
over to their friends.
I would never.
They'd be grounded my gosh forthe next 40 years if they ever
did that and nor would they evereven think to do that.
You don't see kids bythemselves anymore, really
unsupervised Now.
If you see it, you definitelyput it that in that category of
there's something wrong.
Either it's suspicious on theirpart, like oh, what are these
(09:51):
kids up to, or you know thesekids are by themselves and
they're being unsupervised Again.
We're not that far off as faras when I was a kid versus now
but that's been a huge culturalshift is back then kids were not
supervised.
Now they absolutely aresupervised a whole lot more.
(10:11):
Another big thing that Iremember, even when I became a
teenager, the yellow pages waslike your ticket to
understanding what was in thecommunity.
If you didn't have the yellowpages, you were lost.
You didn't know that there wasa world that existed outside of
the media of you know yourlittle neighborhood and you
relied on it for everything.
You relied on it not justadults, for, like the plumber,
the electrician, you relied onit for the local pizzeria.
(10:35):
I remember the local yellowpages would put out a special.
There was a pizzeria, mamaTeresa's.
They would put out a specialand it was for 5.99,.
You can get a whole pie and myfriends and I would like rip
this out.
We would call Mama Teresa's,get our 5.99 pie.
But we relied on the phone bookand we all knew how to use a
(10:55):
phone book.
We all, every household, had aphone book.
Like, if you didn't have aphone book, you were lost.
The yellow pages that was huge.
The yellow pages were huge.
It was the yellow pages and thewhite pages and if you didn't
have those, my gosh, you werelost.
Kids these days they don't evenknow what that is, but that was
basically the Google of the day.
Again, you didn't have youryellow pages.
(11:17):
You definitely were absolutelylost.
Another thing that I remember asa kid.
I remember if, like going tothe hospital and like I could
close my eyes and I could seethe lobby in the waiting room
and people smoking, which isbizarre.
We're talking about a hospitalhere, so that's a bizarre thing
(11:39):
to think about.
But I do have memories of goingto the hospital and people in
there just commonplace smoking.
It was a very common thing,just like you know, there was
smoking on airplanes.
Now, oh my god, it's like afederal offense to do that stuff
.
So that's another big thing.
That's a big difference betweenthen and now.
Um, let's see, here I got somethings written down.
(11:59):
Oh, my gosh, the payphone I.
I think I just recently readthat there's like one um active,
live working payphone left innew york state or something like
that.
Some some like crazy stat um,but because they're obviously
there's no cell phones, everyonealways would leave with at
least a quarter, and then youdate yourself back even earlier
(12:23):
than me.
I think it was a dime, but forme growing up it was a quarter
you always have.
If you left, you always have tohave a quarter in your pocket.
This way you can always callhome, you can call your mom or
dad or whatever.
And there are pay phoneseverywhere.
There was literally pay phoneseverywhere.
There were pay phones in streetcorners, there were pay phones
in street corners, there werepay phones in buildings.
(12:44):
There were just pay phoneseverywhere to allow you to
connect with your family thatway.
There was pay phones in schools.
I remember actually, there wasa pay phone right outside the
administrative office of myschool.
There was one and that thinggot a whole lot of use.
That's how you called home forvarious things and then later on
, when collect call became, youknow, was introduced, then we
(13:06):
figured out a workaround becausethey asked you to record like
your name and so what you woulddo is, like you would put like
your message in the name andthis way you don't you didn't
need a quarter necessarily andthen they can hear the message
or, if they be calling, theother side accepted it.
Then the person who was on theother side had to then pay the
charges for that.
Uh, but yeah, I remember payphones were a huge part of being
(13:27):
a teenager because that was theone thing like I had to check
in with my parents, be like, youknow you're going, whatever,
like make sure you call, here'syour quarter, whatever.
So pay phones were definitely abig part of it.
Um, let's see here I'm justgoing through my list.
Oh, another big thing Iremember um, not me, but I
remember, like all the the girlslike in my class or in the
(13:49):
neighborhood, like it was like arite of passage, once you
turned like 12 or 13, you got ababysitting job, like if you
were 13 and you were a girl, uh,you, you got a job and you were
a babysitter and they thoughtthat immediately you were
prepared to go from, like,elementary school child you
turned 13.
Well, now you could babysit sixchildren, six children, one
(14:12):
infant still in diapers and dohomework, like it was just a
common thing, like, like youmatured very quickly if you were
13 and a girl because, boom,you had that responsibility and
you know what you got paid forit.
You know, but it's amazing tothink that you know they thought
that 13 year olds had thematurity level to be able to
handle that.
But you know, honestly, theydid in many cases.
So it's interesting how we'vegotten away from that.
(14:34):
You know, like, how many 13year old girls now are
babysitting as a job?
You could probably count them,maybe on one hand of everyone
that you know.
Back then, if you were 13, itwas like a done deal.
A hundred percent of you were,uh, babysitters, like that was
your job.
You know, I remember thatvividly.
I remember being a little bitjealous because they were like
(14:56):
having all this cash, I'm like Iwant cash.
You know this wasn't me, but Iremember my grandparents, though
, telling me this is that theyhad their milk delivered in
these glass bottles and thenthere was a milkman who would
come and you would leave theempties out and he would just
sort of like recycle it and giveyou the new ones in this like
(15:18):
this little metal sort of basketwith these glass bottles, and
that's how you would get yourfresh milk delivery.
Another thing that I saw onlinealso is that and this is true,
like if I see like pictures oflike my mom and and my aunts
when they were little kids inlike playing in the snow, girls
were in skirts with high kneesocks and boys weren't pants,
(15:41):
and I'm that's not right.
Like it's freezing out andyou're making girls wear these
little skirts with high kneesocks.
It's crazy.
Um, oh, oh.
My gosh, this is a big one.
I think I'm gonna end end theepisode on this one is that I
remember a photography.
If you were gonna take a picture, you made sure you were taking
(16:05):
the picture that you actuallywanted, because it was expensive
.
You know, you had theseexpensive cameras.
You had to put in rolls of filmevery single time, and I think
it was 24, 24 or 36.
And then you had to take it toa place, give them that roll of
film.
They would develop it.
It would take like a week andthen you just cross your fingers
(16:27):
that you got a good picturebecause you were paying for it
regardless and it was not cheap.
So it was time consuming, itwas expensive, so you know.
That's why, like, if againpeople weren't taking thousands
of pictures like you do nowbecause, you listen, you got
your cell phone, you could takea zillion of them, right, and
there's no expense to you fordoing that.
(16:48):
Back then there was a hugeexpense.
So you really thought long andhard.
If you were gonna in fact takethat picture which is why you
know you don't have, you know,events as your, as of a kid and
thousands of pictures, you'llhave like two or three pictures
of your birthday because, again,it was expensive to do that.
(17:08):
Back.
Then it was Like, could youimagine dropping off a roll of
film, not knowing if youactually did it right, paying
all this money to go back a weeklater at the event, and then
you find, oh my gosh, they'reall white.
Oh my gosh, it's blurry.
Oh my God, my finger was infront of it, like that happened
and um, but yeah, I.
Then I remember the disposablecameras.
(17:29):
That helped a little bit,helped with the cost, but still
you would get a disposablecamera where you had 24 pictures
.
I remember going on my classtrip and I had my disposable
camera that my parents gave meand those 24 pictures had to
last the entire trip.
So in moments I'd be, I wouldlike you would wind it up.
You have to crank it up rightand then you have to charge the
(17:50):
flash.
You hold this little button,you charge the flash and then
you would sit there and be likeit's just worth it.
Should I take the picture?
You know like you reallythought about like, do I want to
waste one of my 24 pictures onthis?
But yeah, I remember, I doremember that vividly, and
having rolls and rolls of film,and you know, and I I have no
doubt that if I go through, likemy junk bags that I have in my
storage, whatever, I canprobably still find one or two
(18:13):
rolls of film that are still notdeveloped.
And because, here's the thing,you didn't develop a roll of
film until you finished everypicture.
So it's not like you had a rollof film of 24 and you only took
like 18 and you developed that.
No way, you're not wasting that.
So what would we do?
You would just save it untilthe next event you would have,
and so sometimes it could takemonths, months to actually
(18:36):
develop a roll of film becauseyou waited until it was finished
.
That's why I have no doubt Iprobably have a roll or two
somewhere from when I was a kid.
It's not developing someprobably gold, gold, mine of a
great moment that I'm uh, youknow that maybe I should, maybe
I should try to do that.
I don't even know where todevelop film, though these days
I'm sure you can, you couldprobably do that, but oh, you
(18:56):
know what actually I want to endon one more thing is I remember
as a kid now the cars were madea little bit differently, in
the sense that now you havethese rules and regulations that
govern, you know where a childcan sit, how they they can sit
in, what they can sit seatbeltson that stuff.
They didn't have that when I wasa kid.
(19:17):
So if you were the older kid,you'd be on the floor if there
wasn't available seat and sothat the youngest could be.
Like you know, I'm secureproperly, so I would sit on the
floor as the oldest kid and Iremember there were actually
cars, station wagons where youhad the last row, actually faced
the opposite way.
I loved that seat.
So if I can grab that seat andlike one of my friends' parents
(19:39):
had that, I remember I'd be like, oh, can I please sit in the
back?
And like people would fightover it because that was a cool
seat you get to see the back, noseatbelts, though you know it
was like a free for all.
It was like a jungle gym in away.
Um, but yeah, I remember thecars were just different as far
as the rules for kids, um, andseatbelts and roaming around and
(20:00):
having those seats at facebackwards, like it was just
bizarre, um and uh, so, yeah, solisten, this list goes on and
on and on.
I've had so many of these reallygreat conversations with
friends and family, and I wantto encourage you to do that one
day is get down with somefriends maybe a couple of
cocktails, whatever and justhaving a fun night of thinking
what was something that wasnormal when you were a kid.
(20:20):
That's totally bizarre now, andI bet you guys are going to
come up with some really, reallycool answers.
I'd love to hear them messageme.
I love, actually, thisparticular topic.
It really gets me to reminisce.
It's funny.
I'm getting to the age whereit's like, oh, the good old days
.
But no, no, it's true and Ilove this.
So this is a fun conversation.
(20:41):
I hope you guys enjoyed thisparticular topic as much as I
did.
Definitely, take a listen, goback and share this with some
friends that'd be like, hey,remember this Because.
And share this with somefriends that'd be like, hey,
remember this because.
I guarantee you they're gonnaenjoy reminiscing and bringing
back all those fond memories aswell.
All right, guys, until nexttime.
Remember, don't fear theprocess and don't fear grit.
We'll see you next time, takecare.
We've got a fun episode for everyone today, a
break from our typical businessand marketing and sort of social
media psychology stuff, andwe're going to have a little fun
.
Today's topic is things thatwere considered normal when I
was a kid, that are totallybizarre today.
Let's go down memory lanetogether and have some fun.
The show is about to start in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.
(00:28):
This is, don't Fear Grit, withRob Taormina Marketing
strategies and advertisingtechnologies to help you build a
better business.
So this is definitely a funtopic and something that I have
thought about and it'sdefinitely something that when
(00:50):
you're with your friends andfamily and whatnot, it comes up
and it's one of those sort ofroundtable discussions.
But it's things that you did asa kid that you don't do now, or
your kids don't do now or arecompletely bizarre now, but were
normal when you were a kid.
And that list is definitelygrowing and growing and growing
as we get older and older andolder and it's just really
(01:10):
interesting and I was recentlyhaving this conversation and we
were going down memory lane andI'm like, oh, what a great
episode for the next podcastshow.
Let's do it.
Let's take a little bit of abreak from our normal scheduled
programming and just have somefun.
And let's get a little creativehere so that we can all
reminisce together on some ofthe cool things and some of the
bizarre things that we did as akid.
(01:32):
So we'll start off with someeasy stuff and then along the
way, I got some things on thislist that is going to make you
go, huh, that's interesting.
Well, the first one is thatwhen I was a kid and you picked
up the phone, you had no ideawho was calling.
There was no such thing ascaller ID, which means if the
phone rang, you picked up thephone and it was always.
(01:52):
You have no idea who's going tobe on the other end.
Is it someone calling for yourparents?
Is it a neighbor?
Is it a boy or girl callingfrom school that you're going to
be nervous about?
You have no idea.
Is it a boy or girl callingfrom school that you're going to
be nervous about?
You have no idea.
So that sort of like excitementbuilt up until you heard the
person's name on the other sideof the line and you would say,
hey, hello, who is this?
So that's the first one is,again, there was no such thing
(02:16):
as caller ID when I was a kid,and so I just remember, as a kid
the phone rang and I was, if,if, if I like there was someone
I wanted to speak to, I wasalways anticipating like I would
say, like, oh, I hope it's thisperson calling, and always well
, not always, but more oftenthan not being disappointed
because the calls were often,more often than not, were not
(02:38):
for me actually Cause, of course, I'm a kid, right?
But on the topic of phones also,another big thing is if you are
on a phone call, ready for this, you had to stay within a six
foot radius of the phone becauseeverything was corded.
There were no wireless phones,right, like everyone has a cell
(02:58):
phone now you can make a phonecall from anywhere, right.
But back then it was onlylandlines and you're connected
with this cord that pretty muchstayed raveled up and all
disheveled and and and, uh andnodded.
Oh, my God, I don't know.
I don't know how many times Itried to unravel that cord
growing up.
But, yeah, the one big thing isis always having to stay within
(03:19):
a six foot radius of that phone.
So there were no privateconversations and unless you
like were able to get like toone of those long um cables and
you're able to like pullactually the whole phone with
you like in a closet or intoyour room and you had this long
cable going through your house.
Um, and then you know, gamechanger, when you had the
wireless landlines in the house.
Oh, that was.
That was a big deal as well.
(03:39):
But that was another big thingis remember the cords.
But the big thing about the,the cords I'm always for some
reason they never stayeduntangled.
I don't know about you guysWere your cords always tangled
Because even though they hadthat spiral thing, that spiral
thing would always get tangledup and it's because you had to
stay within that six foot radiusand you were just like walking
in circles walking in circleswith it.
(04:01):
You know pretty, pretty bizarrestuff.
Another thing that I remember,even when I first started
driving and not that I'm thatold, but I'm a sort of unique
age where I'm like I experiencedanalog and digital right when
I'm old enough, where I had theanalog, young enough where
digital was part of thetransition as well.
But when I first starteddriving, paper maps were still
(04:24):
the way to travel.
There was no technology thatyou could plug in navigation,
there was no GPS like that, soit was all paper maps.
And I remember that's roughlywhen, like MapQuest, you can go
to MapQuestcom and you couldprint out even though you can go
digitally to get directions,you can still print it out.
Even though you can godigitally to get directions, you
(04:45):
can still print it out.
And but before I get to that, Iremember vividly when I was a
kid, having these big maps thatwould be folded perfectly into
like a brochure size, and Iremember like we would stop at
like rest stops and get thelocal paper map and this massive
thing that I'm talking about,huge like the size of the table
here, and you have this map andyou have to try to find.
(05:08):
Okay, we are here, we have togo there and just navigate
through this map.
You know, what's interesting isthat we all did it and everyone
knew how to do it.
Even as a kid, like it was justpart of of life, really was
like this assumed process.
Everyone knew how to read a mapand get from point A to point B
.
And then I remember when wetransitioned to MapQuest and
(05:28):
everyone would print out allthese directions is what you
initially had to do If you weregoing a long distance, you would
print out like six differentvariations.
You'd be from point A to point B, from point B back to point A.
Oh, what if you detoured, likeyou would have all of these
different variations just incase, because you weren't, maybe
you weren't gonna get to acomputer at the hotel.
(05:50):
You didn't have that, youdidn't have a printer, so you
would have this massive folder.
I remember of all thesedirections and, oh man, I
remember the car littered withjust directions if you were
going on a long trip.
But, yeah, paper maps.
I remember that vividly and Iloved that as a kid going to the
rest stops and getting thelocal paper map and just
unfolding this glorious thing,being like, oh my God, the world
(06:11):
is so big.
It was pretty cool.
Another thing is that I rememberas a kid now, depending on
where you are in the world, thisis still sort of commonplace,
but around here it's not now butwhen I was a kid there were a
lot of dogs and cats that simplyjust roamed the streets.
It was normal to have anoutdoor cat, normal to have an
(06:33):
outdoor dog, and they sort ofroamed, rampant.
I remember vividly seeing this.
In fact, I remember when I wasa kid I must've been in maybe
like third grade my teacherasked us, instructed us we have
to write our own creative story.
Come up with your own story,your own characters and write a
whole thing.
And there was someone that Iknew that had a dog.
(06:55):
That was an outdoor dog and itjust roamed right and I remember
oftentimes this person wouldlike babysit me and I would go
to their house and sometimes Iwould play the dog if it was
there and if it wasn't, theywould be like, oh no, the dog's
not here, it's roaming around.
And I remember thinking like,oh, what is the dog doing?
So as a kid I remember vividlyI wrote a story about where this
dog went.
I love this.
(07:16):
This meant so much to me that Istill remember it to this day.
But again, I wrote a storybecause it was commonplace back
then.
They were just dogs and catsthat just sort of roamed free
and did their thing.
Um, and I guess you know manylawsuits later of kids getting
hurt and bit by random dogs.
Um, that is definitely a thingof the past.
Locally you don't see randomdogs.
(07:37):
If you see a dog, you knowthere's something wrong.
Roaming randomly around, maybethere's a few, uh, stray cats
here and there, but not like itused to be.
I remember as a kid there beingdogs and cats everywhere.
It was just sort of commonplace.
Another big thing that Iremember that was very normal
(07:58):
when I was a kid.
That is definitely not normalnow.
Oh my gosh, absolutely not.
Is that how unsupervised wewere as kids?
And I've told this story many,many times and like it's like a
shocking thing to have thisdiscussion now.
But when I was a kid, when I wassix, seven, eight, nine years
(08:20):
old, I would regularly be bymyself.
I would take my bike.
I would bike to the next townover by myself to my friend's
house play with a ball in thestreets.
It would get dark and they'd belike oh you know, it's time to
go home, so I would take my bikeback home by myself, do my
thing and we're talking about asa six to nine year old taking
(08:43):
his bicycle between towns, mainroads, side streets.
It was commonplace and it's notlike people would see me and be
like, oh my gosh, let's helpthis kid out, he's lost.
No, because all of us kids didthat.
So it's not like the neighborsor adults would be weirded out
by seeing that and call thepolice.
Not at all, that wascommonplace back then.
(09:06):
Fast forward to now.
You see a child by himself.
You think parent, parentalneglect, call 911, I'm gonna
stay with the kid.
And you know what?
Rightfully so, becauseculturally it's changed.
It's not as safe maybe now, andthere's a lot of other
variables involved.
But I couldn't imagine evenallowing my kids now, who are 13
years old, taking their bike bythemselves to the next town
(09:28):
over to their friends.
I would never.
They'd be grounded my gosh forthe next 40 years if they ever
did that and nor would they evereven think to do that.
You don't see kids bythemselves anymore, really
unsupervised Now.
If you see it, you definitelyput it that in that category of
there's something wrong.
Either it's suspicious on theirpart, like oh, what are these
(09:51):
kids up to, or you know thesekids are by themselves and
they're being unsupervised Again.
We're not that far off as faras when I was a kid versus now
but that's been a huge culturalshift is back then kids were not
supervised.
Now they absolutely aresupervised a whole lot more.
(10:11):
Another big thing that Iremember, even when I became a
teenager, the yellow pages waslike your ticket to
understanding what was in thecommunity.
If you didn't have the yellowpages, you were lost.
You didn't know that there wasa world that existed outside of
the media of you know yourlittle neighborhood and you
relied on it for everything.
You relied on it not justadults, for, like the plumber,
the electrician, you relied onit for the local pizzeria.
(10:35):
I remember the local yellowpages would put out a special.
There was a pizzeria, mamaTeresa's.
They would put out a specialand it was for 5.99,.
You can get a whole pie and myfriends and I would like rip
this out.
We would call Mama Teresa's,get our 5.99 pie.
But we relied on the phone bookand we all knew how to use a
(10:55):
phone book.
We all, every household, had aphone book.
Like, if you didn't have aphone book, you were lost.
The yellow pages that was huge.
The yellow pages were huge.
It was the yellow pages and thewhite pages and if you didn't
have those, my gosh, you werelost.
Kids these days they don't evenknow what that is, but that was
basically the Google of the day.
Again, you didn't have youryellow pages.
(11:17):
You definitely were absolutelylost.
Another thing that I remember asa kid.
I remember if, like going tothe hospital and like I could
close my eyes and I could seethe lobby in the waiting room
and people smoking, which isbizarre.
We're talking about a hospitalhere, so that's a bizarre thing
(11:39):
to think about.
But I do have memories of goingto the hospital and people in
there just commonplace smoking.
It was a very common thing,just like you know, there was
smoking on airplanes.
Now, oh my god, it's like afederal offense to do that stuff
.
So that's another big thing.
That's a big difference betweenthen and now.
Um, let's see, here I got somethings written down.
(11:59):
Oh, my gosh, the payphone I.
I think I just recently readthat there's like one um active,
live working payphone left innew york state or something like
that.
Some some like crazy stat um,but because they're obviously
there's no cell phones, everyonealways would leave with at
least a quarter, and then youdate yourself back even earlier
(12:23):
than me.
I think it was a dime, but forme growing up it was a quarter
you always have.
If you left, you always have tohave a quarter in your pocket.
This way you can always callhome, you can call your mom or
dad or whatever.
And there are pay phoneseverywhere.
There was literally pay phoneseverywhere.
There were pay phones in streetcorners, there were pay phones
in street corners, there werepay phones in buildings.
(12:44):
There were just pay phoneseverywhere to allow you to
connect with your family thatway.
There was pay phones in schools.
I remember actually, there wasa pay phone right outside the
administrative office of myschool.
There was one and that thinggot a whole lot of use.
That's how you called home forvarious things and then later on
, when collect call became, youknow, was introduced, then we
(13:06):
figured out a workaround becausethey asked you to record like
your name and so what you woulddo is, like you would put like
your message in the name andthis way you don't you didn't
need a quarter necessarily andthen they can hear the message
or, if they be calling, theother side accepted it.
Then the person who was on theother side had to then pay the
charges for that.
Uh, but yeah, I remember payphones were a huge part of being
(13:27):
a teenager because that was theone thing like I had to check
in with my parents, be like, youknow you're going, whatever,
like make sure you call, here'syour quarter, whatever.
So pay phones were definitely abig part of it.
Um, let's see here I'm justgoing through my list.
Oh, another big thing Iremember um, not me, but I
remember, like all the the girlslike in my class or in the
(13:49):
neighborhood, like it was like arite of passage, once you
turned like 12 or 13, you got ababysitting job, like if you
were 13 and you were a girl, uh,you, you got a job and you were
a babysitter and they thoughtthat immediately you were
prepared to go from, like,elementary school child you
turned 13.
Well, now you could babysit sixchildren, six children, one
(14:12):
infant still in diapers and dohomework, like it was just a
common thing, like, like youmatured very quickly if you were
13 and a girl because, boom,you had that responsibility and
you know what you got paid forit.
You know, but it's amazing tothink that you know they thought
that 13 year olds had thematurity level to be able to
handle that.
But you know, honestly, theydid in many cases.
So it's interesting how we'vegotten away from that.
(14:34):
You know, like, how many 13year old girls now are
babysitting as a job?
You could probably count them,maybe on one hand of everyone
that you know.
Back then, if you were 13, itwas like a done deal.
A hundred percent of you were,uh, babysitters, like that was
your job.
You know, I remember thatvividly.
I remember being a little bitjealous because they were like
(14:56):
having all this cash, I'm like Iwant cash.
You know this wasn't me, but Iremember my grandparents, though
, telling me this is that theyhad their milk delivered in
these glass bottles and thenthere was a milkman who would
come and you would leave theempties out and he would just
sort of like recycle it and giveyou the new ones in this like
(15:18):
this little metal sort of basketwith these glass bottles, and
that's how you would get yourfresh milk delivery.
Another thing that I saw onlinealso is that and this is true,
like if I see like pictures oflike my mom and and my aunts
when they were little kids inlike playing in the snow, girls
were in skirts with high kneesocks and boys weren't pants,
(15:41):
and I'm that's not right.
Like it's freezing out andyou're making girls wear these
little skirts with high kneesocks.
It's crazy.
Um, oh, oh.
My gosh, this is a big one.
I think I'm gonna end end theepisode on this one is that I
remember a photography.
If you were gonna take a picture, you made sure you were taking
(16:05):
the picture that you actuallywanted, because it was expensive
.
You know, you had theseexpensive cameras.
You had to put in rolls of filmevery single time, and I think
it was 24, 24 or 36.
And then you had to take it toa place, give them that roll of
film.
They would develop it.
It would take like a week andthen you just cross your fingers
(16:27):
that you got a good picturebecause you were paying for it
regardless and it was not cheap.
So it was time consuming, itwas expensive, so you know.
That's why, like, if againpeople weren't taking thousands
of pictures like you do nowbecause, you listen, you got
your cell phone, you could takea zillion of them, right, and
there's no expense to you fordoing that.
(16:48):
Back then there was a hugeexpense.
So you really thought long andhard.
If you were gonna in fact takethat picture which is why you
know you don't have, you know,events as your, as of a kid and
thousands of pictures, you'llhave like two or three pictures
of your birthday because, again,it was expensive to do that.
(17:08):
Back.
Then it was Like, could youimagine dropping off a roll of
film, not knowing if youactually did it right, paying
all this money to go back a weeklater at the event, and then
you find, oh my gosh, they'reall white.
Oh my gosh, it's blurry.
Oh my God, my finger was infront of it, like that happened
and um, but yeah, I.
Then I remember the disposablecameras.
(17:29):
That helped a little bit,helped with the cost, but still
you would get a disposablecamera where you had 24 pictures
.
I remember going on my classtrip and I had my disposable
camera that my parents gave meand those 24 pictures had to
last the entire trip.
So in moments I'd be, I wouldlike you would wind it up.
You have to crank it up rightand then you have to charge the
(17:50):
flash.
You hold this little button,you charge the flash and then
you would sit there and be likeit's just worth it.
Should I take the picture?
You know like you reallythought about like, do I want to
waste one of my 24 pictures onthis?
But yeah, I remember, I doremember that vividly, and
having rolls and rolls of film,and you know, and I I have no
doubt that if I go through, likemy junk bags that I have in my
storage, whatever, I canprobably still find one or two
(18:13):
rolls of film that are still notdeveloped.
And because, here's the thing,you didn't develop a roll of
film until you finished everypicture.
So it's not like you had a rollof film of 24 and you only took
like 18 and you developed that.
No way, you're not wasting that.
So what would we do?
You would just save it untilthe next event you would have,
and so sometimes it could takemonths, months to actually
(18:36):
develop a roll of film becauseyou waited until it was finished
.
That's why I have no doubt Iprobably have a roll or two
somewhere from when I was a kid.
It's not developing someprobably gold, gold, mine of a
great moment that I'm uh, youknow that maybe I should, maybe
I should try to do that.
I don't even know where todevelop film, though these days
I'm sure you can, you couldprobably do that, but oh, you
(18:56):
know what actually I want to endon one more thing is I remember
as a kid now the cars were madea little bit differently, in
the sense that now you havethese rules and regulations that
govern, you know where a childcan sit, how they they can sit
in, what they can sit seatbeltson that stuff.
They didn't have that when I wasa kid.
(19:17):
So if you were the older kid,you'd be on the floor if there
wasn't available seat and sothat the youngest could be.
Like you know, I'm secureproperly, so I would sit on the
floor as the oldest kid and Iremember there were actually
cars, station wagons where youhad the last row, actually faced
the opposite way.
I loved that seat.
So if I can grab that seat andlike one of my friends' parents
(19:39):
had that, I remember I'd be like, oh, can I please sit in the
back?
And like people would fightover it because that was a cool
seat you get to see the back, noseatbelts, though you know it
was like a free for all.
It was like a jungle gym in away.
Um, but yeah, I remember thecars were just different as far
as the rules for kids, um, andseatbelts and roaming around and
(20:00):
having those seats at facebackwards, like it was just
bizarre, um and uh, so, yeah, solisten, this list goes on and
on and on.
I've had so many of these reallygreat conversations with
friends and family, and I wantto encourage you to do that one
day is get down with somefriends maybe a couple of
cocktails, whatever and justhaving a fun night of thinking
what was something that wasnormal when you were a kid.
(20:20):
That's totally bizarre now, andI bet you guys are going to
come up with some really, reallycool answers.
I'd love to hear them messageme.
I love, actually, thisparticular topic.
It really gets me to reminisce.
It's funny.
I'm getting to the age whereit's like, oh, the good old days
.
But no, no, it's true and Ilove this.
So this is a fun conversation.
(20:41):
I hope you guys enjoyed thisparticular topic as much as I
did.
Definitely, take a listen, goback and share this with some
friends that'd be like, hey,remember this Because.
And share this with somefriends that'd be like, hey,
remember this because.
I guarantee you they're gonnaenjoy reminiscing and bringing
back all those fond memories aswell.
All right, guys, until nexttime.
Remember, don't fear theprocess and don't fear grit.
We'll see you next time, takecare.
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