Oh Come On, Grandpa, You Are Making That Up! | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Young people are not old people. If we tell them about long ago, we bore them. If we tell them about a short time ago we not only bore them but we shock ourselves that they are completely unknowing about what we consider recent history.

    I am going to list some of these, Oh Come On, Grandpa, You Are Making That Ups for you to ponder. I am willing to bet that any "old" person reading this Foolishness...Or Is It? (if there is anyone reading this Foolishness...Or Is It?) will be able to expand this list quite easily...

    • Telephones handsets used to have cords on them that prevented a talker from straying too far away from the telephone box.
    • When a long distance call was received absolute panic set it. The phone company had a set price for the first three minutes. There was a charge for going over three minutes and what that charge actually was was one of the great unknowns because no one ever went over three minutes. The person who answered the phone would shout, "Long Distance!" and also shout out the name of whomever the call was for. The family member whose name had been shouted out would come running, grabbed the phone and talked very fast while keeping an eye on the clock. Keeping an eye on the clock was not necessary because the caller (the person paying for the three minutes) was certainly keeping an eye on the clock on his end. The caller also had his finger on the hang-up button and there was no way that call was going to go one second over the "free" three minutes.
    • There used to be telephone booths everywhere where phone calls could be made from a pay phone (what's a pay phone?), homeless people used the phone booths as rest rooms and Superman changed into his flying costume in these handy changing rooms.
    • Cell phones did not exist.
    • Before cell phones, people used to drive with both hands on the steering wheel.
    • Postage stamps had glue on the back and we used to lick the back with our wet tongues.
    • Before GPS, we got cross country using paper road maps that we got from gas stations for free.
    • When we bought gas we were given gifts for buying the gas which was 17 cents a gallon.
    • Every time we wanted to change a TV channel we had to get up out of our chair and twist the knob by hand.
    • If a knee, heart, hip, eye, rotator cuff, kidney or any such thing went bad we did not get another one. We just had to bear (suffer and/or die) with the old non-functioning part in place.
    • Dogs and cats were free and we got them from our neighbors.
    • We had to open the garage door by hand (if we had a garage). This included when we returned home. This included when we returned home in the rain.
    • Each family had one and only one car.
    • Car side windows, sliding side doors and tailgates had to be opened by hand.
    • Post Office clerks smiled at us.
    • Birthdays meant ice cream, cake, a single present and your aunts, uncles and cousins came over to celebrate. They did not walk in asking, "How come we did not go to Chuck E. Cheese this year?"
    • In church on Sunday, when it came time for the collection, the sound of jingling coins filled the church. Everyone was getting prepared to drop in their nickels and dimes. Today we drop in paper bills and paper checks. They do not jingle. I miss that sound.

    Would I kid u?
    Smartfella