The good old days?

[Skids]

So..... we so often hear the term " The good old days".

Well we used to!

In my younger years;

We got to school - by foot or by bike, no matter the weather, it's called a raincoat.

Got the cane if you furged up at school.

Got belted if you got the cane at school and if you furged up any other time.

We contacted a mate - by riding to his house or, if he had a phone, by goung to the nearest phone box and calling them.

Watched TV - for maybe, 30 minutes a day, Kimba the white lion after school... a sneak peak at Number 96 from the crack in ya bedroom door if you were lucky.

Had to be home for dinner before the street lights came on - had many arvos after school riding home full pelt ftom the mud tracks on the bmx and not quite making it - a pretty lame hiding before putting your clothes in the basket and lighting the braemar.

Mowed the lawn (1/4 acre block) and chopped the wood on the weekends before you went anywhere.

Sat down with the family for dinner every night.

Sunday roast with extended family EVERY Sunday.

Cool drink was only at parties or a special treat.

Same for fast food - there was Hungry Jacks, Kentucky Fried chicken ir fish n chips.

Surfed all day, playing pinnys for a break.... then taking it in turns, calling parents to pick us and our 6 surfboatds up. (Sunday mornings)

Out of 400 3rd years at my school, about 40 went on to 4th year, the rest of us got jobs.

Sitting gobsmacked... watching people play the new, awesome video game called Space Invaders!
We would line up to play!

Going to the Sunday session on a Sundy night.

Looking for a roster station.


Turning 20 and getting your 1st mobile phone.

People used to talk to each other on public transport, cops didn't carry guns, we didn't lock our house or car.

There was no such thing as a king hit.

There was 3 or 4 diffetent beers available at the bottle shop.

Everybody seemed happy.

[KenH]

Skids, you must be about my age (I think that I'm am older though)! All the things you mentioned was like my childhood bar the surfing (I'm from the bush inland).
But I really enjoy these days as well, I do believe though I would struggle growing up in these times and feel sorry for the kids growing up now as there is no privacy anywhere or anytime!
I have 2 grown up boys in there mid 20's and have lots of nieces and nephews at all ages and they have all turned out to be really good kids who also have great friends. I get along and like most young adults and believe that the majority of them are better people than what I was at their age.

[think positive]

gees Skids what about the old farts from the 50's??
-not me im another 60's!!

its quite unnerving though, picking the date on online forms and you have to scroll so far down!!

[think positive]

[David]

I'm sure we can (and probably will at some point) get into another debate about whether or not things were better in the olden days, but I'd prefer to look at this "the way things were back in my day" from another angle.

I was born in 1988, which means that the bulk of my childhood was spent in the '90s and the early part of the 2000s. But I do not feel in any sense that I was a "90s kid" because my upbringing � a pretty much cloistered life, home-schooled by an outr� religious family in suburban Canberra � was largely disconnected from the popular entertainment and cultural norms of the time. Perhaps I'm an extreme case, but I think it's worth remembering that a lot of people have fundamentally different upbringings. An Aboriginal kid in a remote rural community born at the same time as you might have virtually no shared cultural memory in common. Similarly, growing up in the city or a small country town might be radically different experiences at any point in history; perhaps a childhood in Oakleigh in the '60s might have more in common with a childhood in Broken Hill in the early '80s than city/country childhoods from the same period. And what of immigrant families? Elite private school kids vs working-class public-school drop-outs? What about someone who was deep into hippie culture in the late '60s versus the straight-laced teenager who barely came into contact with it?

Shared cultural memory is a real thing, of course; but I wonder if, in our desire to categorise and put people in boxes, we sometimes exaggerate the similarities and overlook the differences that individuals experience in various times and places. A reason I've always been sceptical about talk of 'baby boomers', 'Gen Y' and the like, too. Perhaps my own unusual upbringing makes me too quick to dismiss all that, but I thought it was an interesting point to raise nonetheless.

[think positive]

Good point. I was actually quite shocked at just how small Canberra and the surrounding suburbs is!

[Culprit]

Growing up in Broady (Broadmeadows) in the 60's/70's was a tough road. If you could not fight you had to stay home. It was Aussie V Wogs, Asians owned the Chinese shop and that was it. I was driving my own car at 16 and got dragged in by the Principle about it. The outcome was to stop parking in his spot. It was full on and being in a band that young it was about sex, drugs and rick n roll. I am still here, many friends are not. Is today better, I just say the current generation are just a bunch of soft pussies, same goes with the footballers of today. Other than that, we had less cars on the road and the population of Melbourne would have been lucky to be 2 million. Now it's 5 million so everything is on the up. Crime, Petrol, housing and just the cost of living. Same Same but Different.

[luvdids]

I think there's always good & bad when you look back.

Was it a good thing that we got by without mobile phones? Hard to answer because we survived of course, but do they make life better? Being always contactable? I'm not so sure. But it is better to be able to contact someone without waiting for the one line into the house to be free (I once drove to my Mum's place after trying to call for 30 mins & by the time I got there the phone was STILL engaged!!)

Sunday shopping didn't exist. Is it good that it does now? Probably, since people seem to work longer, but there's no more butchers selling off their leftover meat really cheap on a Saturday afternoon.

I don't however know how we survived having to get up & walk to the tv to change the channel!!!

Yes, there were fewer cars but there was also a much higher road toll.

I can't complain about either (the old days or the current days). But this generation of instant everything are going to struggle IMHO.

[stui magpie]

Growing up in the 60's and 70's NSW bush, I can relate to most of Skids post except the surf. We had the river.

1 black and white TV, got a colour one in 74. It had 3 channels, Albury, Shepparton and the ABC. To change between channels you had to not only get up, walk to the TV and change channels you had to flick a switch on the back to change which arial was connected.

Manual telephone exchange. You wanted to call someone, you cranked the handle on the phone and told the operator which number you wanted or, if you couldn't remember the number, tell them who you wanted and they'd put you through.

All shops shut at midday Saturday until 9am Monday except the milbars. Our milkbar had stocks of canned food for sale for people who missed the supermarket or butcher.

As a kid, you filled in time using your imagination, reading a book or working . We also had a pool room at the milk bar and some days I couldn't be arsed opening it up so I'd leave it locked, crank up the juke box and play pool or pinnies until people outside started banging on the door for me to open.

it was good at the time, I'd probably go insane if I had to live like that now.

[Tannin]

When do we get a poll for normal people instead of just the young ones?

[watt price tully]

[Tannin]

^ What are you talking about? I am the past!

[HAL]

[David]

Disappointed that no wag has thought to tick 2010s yet.

[watt price tully]