Were They Really the Good Old Days?

[oldballs]

Speaking of TV, as a kid we got a couple of channels. Today with the switch to digital (even with the right TV) I can't get any channel. That is a step backwards.

Now there's another one. In the good old days the whole family could watch TV without worrying about some nasty content or advertising. And now that I have a converter on my old TV set, the reception is lousy for the most part. Previously it was pretty good with the same antenna.....But what the heck, most of the stuff I wouldn't watch anyway.

As to sexual predators, they were probably around my neighborhood. But they must have been few and far between. If there was a queer around, he/she kept it to themselves. I never saw any of the above in college or in the military. They are "in your face" all the time now.

 

[2LaneCruzer]

Ok, I've avoided getting in here, but I have perhaps an odd perspective. First I am 31 years old (1982) but grew up in the Back woods of WVa, no power or running water till I was 8 years old. We had a wood stove in a one room tin building about 20 ft X 40 ft, with a concrete floor. We walked the 1.5 mile mud clay driveway to the bus stop, and road the bus for at least 45 minutes to a hour to get to school. I still remember when I started 5th grade (1st year in the brand new middle school) the school had AC... All the old ones (about 4 schools each with a single class of each garde) where heated, with plumbing and all but no AC. The church I went to got indoor bathrooms in 1993.

Where the times good? My best friend lost both feet to frost bit cause the old school bus he and his dad lived in had no heat, and he very nearly starved to death before the school system tracked him down. My dad raised sheep, gardened, and cut lumber till he was crushed in a tractor roll over, and we moved off the farm. I think it made us tougher, yes, would I volunteer to do it again, Heck no.

We had it rough, but we didn't sleep in an unheated school bus. It was a cabin built out of RR ties, and it got cold enough to freeze ice on top of the water bucket, but we had heat and always had plenty to eat...even if it was jack rabbits, quail and Channel Cat. We had clothes, maybe some what ratty, and we had shoes most of the time, but some kids there in Missouri came to school with nothing on but a pair of striped Round House Over'hauls.

 

[Looking4new]

I really miss Bonanza!

And Rawhide!

 

[PMA]

And Rawhide!

Gunsmoke?

Sent from my iPhone using TractorByNet

 

[Lou66]

We still have Americans in this country with very little or nothing,, and nothing to look forward too.. But we can help other countries.. billions and billions of dollars over sea every year.. Lets fatten them up and then have a war with them so we give them more..sorry.. Lou

 

[Cat_Driver]

Good old days of driving around with no seat belts in the back of a station wagon with a gang of kids to watch a drive in picture. Going trick or treating and not having to worry about perverts, razor blades, drugs being put in my bag. Christmas was Christmas with millions telling me what I can say and not say and everyone said MERRY CHRISTMAS. A time when gas was under .30 cents a gallon and I could drive all week on $3.00. When I was driving and that was MY TIME no one ever called me on the phone to ask me questions. The 60's where music was actually music, and not rap, and you could pull up to an intersection and see dozens of great looking muscle cars on every corner. If I needed to research something I went to the library. If I wanted to do somewhere I looked at a map. No one told me what food I should eat or not eat.

When I went to sport events they didn't look like front line Military bases with hundreds on forces in battle gear with sniffing dogs keeping me safe.

Ya, sadly this is all gone never to return again, and in my opinion we are a lot less free today then we were then.

 

[2LaneCruzer]

Gunsmoke?

Sent from my iPhone using TractorByNet

Hah. Funny you should mention that. There are a lot of OLD reruns in the morning and afternoons, and I used to watch Bonanza and Gunsmoke (and Rawhide) when they were new...and they were all spellbinding. Today, when I try to watch them, I find that Gunsmoke is still interesting and relevant; Bonanza, on the other hand, is almost childish in comparison.

 

[thirdroc17]

There weren't 2 cars in our driveway and Mom sold Avon


Because the balance became severely out of wack with 2 wars and Bush lowering taxes at the same time.

I think most would agree that there is a big difference between a bombing at the Boston Marathon (for example) and Hiroshima happening in every major city.


Planned obsolescence. Planned obsolescence - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Why do you even NEED a computer? Much less a laptop?

If you take the average condition the average person in the US lives in it seems far better than it did 50 years ago.

There weren't "two cars in every driveway", sometimes there was three, sometimes mom worked, the point is, THE NORM was one check was sufficient. Today, one income and 2 children very often means qualification for government support because it's poverty level income. Management didn't take near as large a chunk then though. In the 50's, the CEO got something like 30 times his average worker, now it's 300 times.

The budget went out of balance, AFTER adding income tax, long before Bush senior ran for office, much less Junior, your point is?

How about 9-11? Oh that's right, don't use an example where thousands died. Or did we forget that already? There is still a threat of nuclear war, maybe it's lessened, but the real possibly of terrorism happening on our soil has increased. It HAS happened. It's no longer just a threat.

I don't NEED a computer, but I have one, just like you. A cheap piece of crap, because I actually am average.

The "average" person. Is that counting the 2% that hold over 50% of the wealth in the average? Of course. What if you just counted the working man? Just take that 2% out, and the average income is cut in half. Take the real average, and the standard of living gets far lower. Just like once someone runs out of unemployment insurance, they are no longer unemployed. Count EVERYONE and you have close to 25% unemployment, but we don't want those kinds of numbers now do we? So they are "doctored" to look better. As is the "average" income.

Maybe your standard of living is better, but for many, many, MANY American's, it went downhill.

 

[IgroRockwell]

I find this thread to be very fascinating. So many people are sharing about the past and their perspectives on the world that it is like reading folklore. I am learning about so many walks of life that I was unaware of before now. I would like it to continue, but already we are seeing some people try to "respond" to everything everyone shares and correct their thinking. I would like to respectfully ask that we refrain from trying to argue about it and just let the stories roll. Thank you.

 

[Larro Darro]

I'm glad someone has mentioned music. I grew up a with an older sister, and listened to all her albums when I was young. The late 60's and early 70's were an unbelievable time for rock and roll. The best musicians in the world were forming bands, recording a couple of albums, then breaking up to form different bands. Every few months there was a new super group. Many of those guys are still on the road today. And mostly in their 60's and 70's.

I grew up a deadhead, that is a fan of the Grateful Dead. Back then they released very few albums, but played over 300 shows a year. Well as a poor farm boy in Altha Florida there wasn't much chance to see them play live. {I did see them twice when I was in the Navy} I would buy and trade cassette tapes of their shows when I could find them. As you all know, cassette tapes were better than 8 tracks, but they didn't last very long. Over the years I had collected a few albums, and ten or so taped shows. But albums get warped or scratched, and tapes get ate. So my collection got smaller, not larger, as time went on.

Then came the CD. And after it the DVD and MP3. Now I have a SXM Grateful Dead Channel on my Dish package. {there are also Elvis, Sinatra, Springsteen, Guns 'n Roses, est... channels} They play three shows a day in their entirety. Before I realized I would never listen to them all, I had recorded over a thousand concerts to DVD's. Not to mention I have bought almost all their albums at pawn shops and thrift stores, many of them for a buck. And by using Spotify to steam music, I could listen to the ones I don't have. If I wanted to, I could pick out any concert and sync it to my MP3 player and listen to it on the tractor.

It is true you can spend a lot of money on things these days. And many folks are in debt. But no one has to have the newest gadget, or ATV, or truck, or whatever. It still amazes me how cheap technology is. If you can wait a little while for the newest gadget, the price will be half as much, and all the glitches will be worked out of it. I bought a MP3 player for my truck for $7.99, and one for the tractor for $20. I can enjoy all that good music from when I was a kid, with the cheap, but amazing toys of today. I call that the best of both worlds.

Larro