Flashback Friday: Over 30 Crowd

It's Friday, so you know what that means...



Flashback: In honor of my birthday earlier this week, here's a photo of my Mom me and that I found in my baby book. I was 3 days old.

The world as it was when I was born (also from my baby book, as written by my Mom):

Headlines - Middle East peace talks and the economy {hmmm...}
Political Figures - Jimmy Carter, Anwar Sadat, Menachem Begin
Popular Songs - Music from Saturday Night Fever and Grease
Latest Dance - Disco
Big Names in Sports - Ron Guidry
Best Movies of the Year - Saturday Night Fever, Grease and Foul Play
Best-Selling Books - Thornbirds
Popular TV Shows - Happy Days, Laverne & Shirley, 8 is Enough and Welcome Back Kotter
Fashions & Fads - Cellophane pants

The year was 1978. That was thirty-one years ago. A lot has changed since then...

"Dear The Spoiled Under 30 Crowd:

When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were. When they were growing up; what with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning.... Uphill... barefoot... BOTH ways. Yadda, yadda, yadda. And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way I was going to say how hard I had it and how easy they've got it!

But now that I'm over the ripe old age of thirty, I can't help but look around and notice the youth of today. You've got it so easy! I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a Utopia! And I hate to say it, but you kids today, you don't know how good you've got it!

I mean, when I was a kid we didn't have the Internet. If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the library and look it up ourselves - in the card catalogue!

There was no email! We had to actually write somebody a letter - with a pen! Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox and it would take, like, a week to get there! Stamps were 10 cents!

Child Protective Services didn't care if our parents beat us. As a matter of fact, the parents of all my friends also had permission to kick our butts! Nowhere was safe!

There were no MP3' s or Napsters! If you wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the record store and shoplift it yourself! Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio and the DJ would usually talk over the beginning and mess it all up!

There were no CD players! We had tape decks in our cars. When we played our favorite song, there was no "repeat" button - you actually had to "rewind" it and try to stop in just the right spot...and the tape would come all undone.

We didn't have fancy features like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called they got a busy signal, that's it! Tough luck!

And we didn't have fancy Caller ID either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! It could be your school, your mom, your boss, a collections agent, you just didn't know! You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!

We didn't have any fancy Sony Playstation video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games like 'Space Invaders' and 'Asteroids'. Your guy was a little square! You actually had to use your imagination!! And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen... forever! And you could never win. The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died! Just like LIFE!

You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on! And, you were screwed when it came to channel surfing! You had to get up and walk over to the TV to change the channel! No remotes! There wasn't DVR. You couldn't pause live TV. And, you had to actually watch the commercials.

There was no Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons on Saturday Morning. Do you hear what I'm saying!?! We had to wait ALL WEEK for cartoons!

Imagine that! That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it too easy.

You're spoiled. You guys wouldn't have lasted five minutes before 1980!

Regards,

The Over 30 Crowd"

("Over 30 Crowd" letter taken from an email forward)