I can’t take credit for this – saw it on Twitter and thought it would be fun to play here.
Without revealing your actual age, what’s something you remember that if you told a younger person they wouldn’t understand?
I’ll start.
Getting my hands horribly stained with ink trying to change a typewriter ribbon.
You’re next.
EOSRedux 
I can play this game in reverse. My 15 year old granddaughter shared with me who won Grammy nominations. I’d never heard of one other than JayZ.
Ha ha. I saw the list and felt very old all of a sudden. Frank Sinatra wasn’t on it. 😂
Asking the gas station attendant for ‘unleaded’ or ‘hi-test’ and to check the oil and water.
Defrosting a refrigerator.
Attendant? Only in NJ and on turnpikes!!
Changing the points and setting tac and dwell on my car.
Great one. I’ll add “downshifting on a hill”. Kids are clueless about stick shift v
Watching my mother mix the dye packet into the margarine during the war. Bibi
I don’t know that one Bibi. Was it yellow dye? Explain.
Thanks to the dairy interests it was illegal for manufacturers to artificially color margarine, which was naturally colored white, to resemble butter. Margarine makers got around the unappetizing appearance by including a yellow dye with the product.
Learned something new today. Thanks Bibi.
Thanks for the explanation, Anonymous. I didn’t know that. Bibi
Telling my niece I wanted to be like Peggy Fleming.
In my opinion, she was the last of the great classic skaters who had grace. The new ones are all about muscle and technique. Fleming was so fluid. And gorgeous. And feminine. Good choice to want to be her.
354, please.
What’s that one Mr. EOS? Party line?
Not really. It was that to call anyone in the town he grew up in, he picked up the phone for a town operator who would connect him to his grandmother at 354.
In my hometown, we only had to dial the last four digits, and when we lived in the log cabin on the beach we had a party line that was shared with a minister. Fun times as a teenager! No privacy!
We had a wall phone with air vents on its side. I can remember clambering onto a chair to try peek through those tiny openings to see who (or what) was always inside saying “Number, please” whenever I picked up the receiver. Of course I never answered and just replaced the receiver – a bit spooked. I must have driven those operators crazy. Too young to call my grandmother whose number was 394.
Harry Truman was president at the time, I remember because Harry was my father’s name, and that made me feel proud.
What a terrific story. I can almost see you reaching up to the phone. Did it look like this?
Always make sure you have change to make a phone call.
My mother always made sure I had a dime (or later quarter) to call home if my date was unable to drive.
Getting to Blockbuster by 8pm and being sure the tapes were rewound.
Ha ha. So true. I think we got hit with a couple of late fees and not rewound fees. Blockbuster was where everyone met up on Friday afternoon.
Did you hear the new _________ record??
….in Woolworth’s listening booths!!!
going to the hardware store to try to figure out which tube(s) needed replacing to get the Heathkit amplifier working again
I think I’ve shared this here before but when I was in about 7th or 8th grade, my dad built a Heathkit computer. We were not allowed anywhere near the table he used to work on it. It was cool. Does Heathkit even exist today??? I remember all those tubes for the TV as well as other things.
It was easy to lose or misplace the various resistors, capacitors, screws, etc.
As late as 2015, what was left of Heathkit moved to Santa Cruz, but, I don’t know how that worked out. I guess everyone goes to Adafruit now:
https://www.adafruit.com
Telling the operator that you want to make a long distance phone call.
Or person to person call. I don’t think any of that exists anymore.
I remember living in Paris in the early 80s, having to dial the operator to call the USA, then hanging up and waiting for the operator to call back and tell me the call was ready to go through.
My family sent us TELEGRAMS when our two oldest were born in Switzerland. Western Union telegrams. I still have, in MY baby book, a telegram my uncle sent to my parents in 1948 congratulating them on my arrival.
Being a “Polio Pioneer”
Oooh, good one. That must go back to the 50s?
Early 50’s, yes. Here’s another – using Glasswax & stencils to decorate the windows.
Remember it WELL.
78’s, 45’s, 33’s (or LP’s).
Did anyone ever have a 16?
A 16? Don’t know that. You must really be old. 🙂
Little Black Sambo.
Or any Golden Book for that matter but you are right, Little Black Sambo was a classic.
Why does a hot water bottle need all that extra stuff?
We had one of those. Pardon the question, but was the extra stuff used to make the hot water bottle for another use?? 😬
Like watering plants or something?
ROTFL!
Douche
Who ya calling a douche? 🙂 🙂
8 track tapes
And before that being the cool kid who had FM on the car radio. Also loved my transistor radio to see if I could get the signal for WCBS in NYC for the rocking tunes.
How about carbon paper! 🙂 I remember working for Door Oliver in Stamford back in the late 70s and had to type multiple copies of the same document. Oy. Made a goof? Good Old White Out!
My friend grew up in Old Greenwich in the 60s and their phone number was NEptune7-XXXX.
And how about The Marx Brothers? No one under 30 has a clue who they were or what they are missing!
I remember the days before NEptune. My parents old number was 7-0516
Our phone number on the cape was 0005. Fifth phone in town. Bibi
Carbon paper was the pits. Getting several sheets of paper and carbon rolled EVENLY into a typewriter was no easy feat. One edge would tug and you’d have to start over. Awful.
My growing up phone number was OLympia7-. Funny what we can remember.
Just saw a short in TCM about Marx Brothers. Their shtick was brilliantly unique.
Here’s another: seeing in the basement a big Norton crock full of eggs in isinglass. Perhaps the first step in my lifelong disdain for eggs.
Ok dear. Explain that. What’s a Norton crock. What’s isinglass? I imagine the crock is still in the basement?????
Think “Oklahoma” and the surry with the fringe on top for isinglass. We knew it as mica. No idea what a Norton crock is but I know eggs were stored for quite a while in liquid filled crocks. Mr S remembers throwing them out when WWll ended. He also remembers blackout curtains.
Norton is a big name in antique crocks. Said crock is still in the basement of the family home. Dare I look inside?? NO WAY! Isinglass as a preservative is a concoction made from certain fish bladders and was used during WW2.
That may be the liquid in the egg crock Mr. S remembered from WWll days.
I learn something new here every day. Isinglass is a concoction of fish bladders. I’m sure it was used in my little town with its history as a fishing port but I’ve not heard the term used that way before.
Were the eggs preserved hard boiled or uncooked? If uncooked, were they edible later? And the purpose was to have a ration of food if the enemy struck and you were unable to get to your chickens?
Even I, an egg lover, might pass on those in the Norton crock!!
> Writing a check
> Balancing a checkbook
> 15% interest rate
All true OB. I used to have three readers named Betty. Glad to have both of you.
Home in Greenwich about an hour ago. Easy flight from LAX but not sure what time zone I’m in. I have enough energy to add a couple of things to this game:
Trading Aggie marbles
Jump rope
Pledge of allegiance
Duck and cover
White bread baloney sandwiches
Welcome home! And wow, thanks for playing the game even though you must be tired.
I collected and traded marbles with a cousin. I think he gypped me and gave me all the non valuable ones.
When’s the last time you were in an elevator that had an operator?
Oooh. That’s a ten point addition. I’d say at Saks Fifth Avenue a decade ago. Lingerie….Ladies Shoes…housewares… those were the days.
I cheated and found this one online under the tweet from the guy who started this yesterday. Hope it still counts because it’s good.
Related:
I can’t decide if those kids are cute as all get out or a bunch of snarky wiseasses. The girls were far cuter than the boys. I loved the little girl with the necklace on. She got it right away.
Since this is a series of “Kids React to”, my guess is that their overly cute responses are encouraged for viewability, but, I agree, maybe a little more wonderment and curiosity and a lot less smart-assery.
Long gone are the days of real reactions on Kids Say The Darndest Things, Original Version, not Cosby remake.
10 bucks for a lid of primo Colombian.
shot and a beer….50 cents
if she got pregnant, you got married
till death do us part, meant something
dunkin donuts, coffee and a donut 27 cents
buttered roll 5 cents
30 cents a gallon for gas
the draft
made in USA
John Wayne
.22 rifle target shooting was an actual sport in public high schools
loose change could buy you a meal
tv programs were free
chicks went bat shit crazy over the beatles
a high school diploma was a big deal and after graduation you were expected to get a fulltime job to support yourself, if you didn’t already have one, and think about starting a family.
you were an adult at 18 and expected to act like one
greasers
All true. Very true. Excellent list Hank. Impressive recollection of Ye Olde Days. Thanks for playing.
Punch cards for a computer.
And DOS commands!!
The excitement of going to Palisades Park, the silver airplanes that sailed out over the Hudson, and ending up in the Fun House with your boyfriend!
Fun House with your boyfriend! 🙂
To answer Kel’s question above, elevator operators at Tiffanys in NYC when I was there in 2014.
This is from awhile ago:
In he spirit of Christmas, I remember putting lead tensile on ten tree.
Pointy bras. Anklet socks. Capizios. Being called to principal’s office for wearing knee-length coulottes instead of skirt.
Two others:
Microfiche – I remember having to look up old newspaper articles on microfiche. Is it still around?
I think libraries still do microfiche.
Green Stamps!
Green stamps!!!! I can so remember the delight of putting them in books and redeeming something fun. Good one. Thanks.
How about the mimeographed quizzes in school that you could hardly read and the paper had a
unique aroma.
We’re obviously the same age. I remember being thrilled when the teacher in elementary school would ask one of us to go to the office for the mimeographed papers. Bluish purple and the smell. Right on.