sarbar
Trail Wise!
After being here since 2001...I couldn't say goodbye yet!
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Post by sarbar on Jul 11, 2019 21:40:01 GMT -8
Nothing like explaining to a group of 6 to 12 yo's today what analog was.
I had the boys in a make a rocket summer camp, taught by a retired science teacher who was born around the same time as my Mom had been - so a War Baby, meaning mid 70's or so. His hearing isn't the best, and I was there to help my youngest (who was a year younger than the cut off, but allowed if I came), so I jumped in to help the kids as needed.
Well, out comes the ancient (I'm going to guess made long before I was born) launch box. It's about as low tech as it can be, and so durable it'll probably never break. And the kids had no idea what gauges did. And that it was literally just a key and switch operation. It was like seeing my childhood in front of me when machines were simple.
I don't think those kids or even their parents got the real meaning of the class - low tech camps slow you down, and force you to think. There was zero instant gratification. No sounds, no lights, no screens.*
My kids know what analog is. None of the other kids did. Then again.....this year over half my first grade son's class had mobile phones. Freaking first grade.
Nothing like being an old mom. I'll be in my rocking chair feeling old tonight.
*However every kid in that class had so much fun. Running around, all in the moment of watching their rocket take off. We also made balsa wood planes and every kid was sling shotting the planes till they broke, glued them up and ran back out there. But you know...those kids were back with nose in screens within a few hours :(
**I am also so old I don't know how to use our TV. I can't just turn on the TV and watch it. You have to go through layers, turn on the X Box and then enter Amazon, Netflix or YouTube, log in, etc (We haven't had cable in nearly 10 years). I don't watch TV very often but if I do, I have to ask my kids to do it. I am officially the modern version of the 80's kid fixing the VCR for their parents. Lol.
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Post by georgeofthej on Jul 11, 2019 23:22:28 GMT -8
I just hooked my smart phone up with a carrier. I've had it for 3 years, but just used it as a camera and a little bit on wifi. But I still don't carry it around. I need to force myself to carry it around and keep it charged, and to stick my face in it when I'm in a waiting room, like a normal person.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jul 12, 2019 4:31:51 GMT -8
I'll be in my rocking chair feeling old tonight. Don't feel too bad, the first computer I ever saw had vacuum tubes. My great grandmother was born when there were no cars on the road and watched a man walk on the moon on live TV. Who knows what wonders your children will see in their lifetimes?
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whistlepunk
Trail Wise!
I was an award winning honor student once. I have no idea what happened...
Posts: 1,446
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Post by whistlepunk on Jul 12, 2019 8:04:06 GMT -8
I remember when my daughter was first learning to tell time. I had to go buy an analog clock because we did not have one in the house.
I showed my granddaughter my old slide rule. Had no idea what it was.
When the power went out in town I was at the grocery store. The young girl behind the register did not know how much change to give. Couldn't figure out how much money to return to the customer from a $20 bill when the purchase was $19.37. The register did all that.
Saw on the internet: A manual transmission is the best car anti-theft device. Kids can't drive one. When learning to drive I made sure my daughters had an additional three skills -- drive a manual tranny, change a tire, and install tire chains. I made them do it again and again until they were mad at me. But they learned how to do it
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walkswithblackflies
Trail Wise!
Resident terrorist-supporting eco-freak bootlicker
Posts: 6,901
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Post by walkswithblackflies on Jul 12, 2019 8:37:26 GMT -8
Just last week, the ice cream truck company said it was stopping service. Why? Kids aren't outside anymore. Sad.
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walkswithblackflies
Trail Wise!
Resident terrorist-supporting eco-freak bootlicker
Posts: 6,901
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Post by walkswithblackflies on Jul 12, 2019 8:43:05 GMT -8
When I was in Jr High (?), I was watching Willard Scott on the Today Show, and he was giving a birthday wish to some lady who was over 100 years old. He said she remembered crossing the country in a covered wagon as a child!!! Wow... the changes she lived through. From covered wagon, to jet travel, to a man on the moon. When I go, I wonder what kids will think of the changes I witnessed... like growing up without a computer.
My kids and their friends love hearing stories of my childhood... exploring in woods, overnight excursions where we caught our dinner and slept under spruce trees, etc. To them, it's as fantastic as Lord of the Rings.
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driftwoody
Trail Wise!
Take the path closer to the edge, especially if less traveled
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Post by driftwoody on Jul 12, 2019 8:58:32 GMT -8
My mother was born in 1919, and her father in 1877. I was born a month before Sputnik and I watched the televised moon landing just shy of my 12th birthday.
Telephones had cords and a circular dial for numbers. I remember when UHF first became available for additional TV channels beyond the 3 networks and a couple local stations.
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desert dweller
Trail Wise!
Power to the Peaceful...Hate does not create.
Posts: 6,291
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Post by desert dweller on Jul 12, 2019 9:12:04 GMT -8
When I got my appendix out in 1965 and still in the hospital my folks bought me two gifts. The first was one of them new transistor radios from Sony. It had a headphone jack, was the size of a cigarette pack and received only AM signals. The other was the first edition of the Avengers comic book. (I'm pretty sure it was the Avengers. I'll have to check when I get home. It's in fair to poor shape so probably not worth much.)
The radio is long gone. But, I still have the comic, somewhere.
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desert dweller
Trail Wise!
Power to the Peaceful...Hate does not create.
Posts: 6,291
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Post by desert dweller on Jul 12, 2019 9:13:35 GMT -8
Telephones had cords and a circular dial for numbers. Not only did they have cords but they couldn't be unplugged from the wall.
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Post by JRinGeorgia on Jul 12, 2019 9:41:40 GMT -8
Sarah, is that a wifi-enabled rocking chair?
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Post by autumnmist on Jul 12, 2019 9:45:23 GMT -8
Telephones: remember the old party line system? You were lucky if there were only 2 parties on your phone system.
I still remember getting milk delivered to the house. In fact, my house still has a milk chute. And a laundry chute.
What I sometimes wonder in addition to what youngsters today will remember is whether they'll form attachments to them, like we remember listening for the number of rings for our phone, or listening to the music of the ice cream truck, rushing out, getting treats, then relaxing on the lawn and enjoying the refreshing coolness.
My parents remembered how cold it was in their house when they didn't have enough coal during the Depression. I do remember the coal truck coming, opening the chute in the basement, and pouring coal down. And I remember all that coal dust. Yuck.
When I was going through my father's basement with a proposed junk hauling contractor, he observed that an old frig was exactly that, an old frig. Thinking back, I think that was our frig when we moved in 1954. It's about half the size of the whopping stainless steel side by sides.
We had some brief but interesting surprises when the junk hauling contractor's crew and I went through an old gardening shed. We found an old metal ice cube trays, the kind with the handle that pulled up and loosened the cubes. I had forgotten that frigs today have automatic ice makers, and probably the old ice cube trays are unheard of to youngsters today. We found what I think was an old cookie jar. (and I felt positively well informed b/c I knew what that and other old devices were!)
I wonder if Ball canning jars will become antiques in the future; they're something that probably any woman who canned used.
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Post by Lamebeaver on Jul 12, 2019 9:54:48 GMT -8
We just got a new TV....our house was hit by lightning a few weeks ago. We also lost our phone, internet router, sprinkler controller, PS/2, blew several breakers, fuses light bulbs...a bolt of lightning shot our the heat duct in the mud room and blew a hole in the tile where it went to ground. Anyhow....we got a new 4K HD TV. Here's the remote for it. It's pretty simple to operate.
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Post by autumnmist on Jul 12, 2019 11:22:17 GMT -8
Lamebeaver, that's kind of scary. Were you at home with the lightning hit?
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Post by Lamebeaver on Jul 12, 2019 18:31:23 GMT -8
Yup. We didn't see the cat afterwords for about an hour.
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sarbar
Trail Wise!
After being here since 2001...I couldn't say goodbye yet!
Posts: 908
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Post by sarbar on Jul 12, 2019 19:16:37 GMT -8
Telephones: remember the old party line system? You were lucky if there were only 2 parties on your phone system. Hilariously, yes I do. We lived in a rural economically depressed area and had party lines. My Mom had friends who lived up in a valley. Power was still 20 or more miles away. They truly homesteaded up there. I remember visiting them when I was little, maybe 1979 or 1980. That area looks nothing like that now!
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