Growing up in the 80's

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.

I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on my kids about 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 Utopia. 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 catalog.

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 butt. Nowhere was safe.

There were no MP3's or Napsters or iTunes. 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 car. We'd play our favorite tape and "eject" it when finished, and then the tape would come undone rendering it useless.

We didn't have fancy crap like "call waiting." If you were on the phone and somebody else called, they got a busy signal, that's it.

There weren't any cell phones either. If you left the house, you just didn't make a phone call or receive one. You actually had to be out of touch with your "friends."

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 parents, your boss, your bookie, the collection agent; you just didn't know. You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister.

We didn't have any fancy PlayStation or Xbox video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics. We had the Atari 2600. With games like "Space Invaders" and "Asteroids." Your screen 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.

You were screwed when it came to channel surfing. You had to get off your butt and walk over to the TV to change the channel. No remotes.

There was no Cartoon Network either. You could only get cartoons on Saturday morning. We had to wait all week for cartoons.

We didn't have microwaves. If we wanted to heat something up, we had to use the stove.

Our parents told us to stay outside and play, all day long; and if you came back inside you were doing chores.

Car seats, weren't used. Mom threw you in the back seat and you hung on. If you were lucky, you got the "safety arm" across the chest at the last moment if she had to stop suddenly. If your head hit the dashboard, well that was your fault for calling "shot gun" in the first place.