i think i beat off to that every day before going to school in 7th grade
I MEAN 

7-11 and Stop & Go Gas stations used to be hangouts. Loitering was encouraged. I'd leave that place with candy, comic books, and MAD magazines. 

I remember my grandfather telling me tales about WWI,
he talked about the first time he saw an airplane,
he was walking down a road in France he was so amazed
just stood there looking at it.
everyone else was jumping in the ditches cause the plane was shooting at them. 

kind of like Godzilla. Stand in Awe, or run for your life? 

Luke E Pierre said:

I'm turning 37 today.

well happy birthday
and I thought you we're born in 1971 aswell 

If I could show my son the awesomeness of the commodore C64 I had
I think he would really laugh out loud 

I remember the dust storms of the late 50's, giant black waves of dirt rolling in off the prairie. It would get dark at 3 or 4 in the afternoon and the streetlights came on. When they were over, there was a coating of dust and dirt on everything.

The mosquito fogger would come down the street, spraying clouds of vaporized diesel fuel as it went. We would ride our bikes in and out of the cloud.

Polio vaccine- the whole town lined up to receive their sugar cube with the vaccine on it... what a terror polio was every summer, and what a miracle of science the vaccine was. At that time, every kid got measles, mumps and chickpox because there wasn't any vaccinations for them. 

I remember a modified B-17 would fly down the coast spraying the mosquitos, and us. Scary. 

I remember growing up in Brooklyn and being told not to stay out too late or Son of Sam would shoot me in the head. 

7-11 was something you had in the suburbs along with cable TV. Friends had On TV which would interrupt one of the local UHF channels for a few hours every night.

I think I cried once when Adam 12 had an episode without a single "Code 3".

Emergency 51 was almost as good.

It was a good night when I got to stay up late and watch MASH with my parents.

First bike that I got for Christmas when I was 5 was a Stingray. Rode it until high school.

Carried a Swiss Army knife all through school. Loaned it to a teacher to cut open a box and actually got it back.

You knew of one kid that could solve a Rubik's Cube.

Tackle on the grass and 2-hand touch in the street.

It's called slam dancing, damnit!

You "saved" the Basic program you copied out a magazine onto a cassette tape.

Watching Charlie's Angels made you feel "funny".

There was always a game of something going on at the park that you could hop in. 

We could go out as kids to play all fucking day long and not have to worry about getting kidnapped.

My mom used to say "come home when the street lights come on."

They had no clue where I was or what I was doing.... 

Back in my day we smashed other kids' pumpkins and laughed.

I remember my brother's nintendo 64 too :D and him getting a playstation, playstation 2, playstation 3.

I remember before zero tolerance and security guards in schools.
And when we played Oregon trail. I swear there was a punchcard computer too.
and you weren't supposed to touch the keys when the light was on? Or blinking? Anyway we didn't have a computer at home till I was 13.

The first cellphone I ever saw was my mentor's in first grade. She only had one because she was in the military. It was about as big as a cordless phone and she explained that it was only for emergencies because every minute cost a ton of money. 

I remember my brother's nintendo 64 too pong.

the original.

at the roller skating rink, 10 cents to play, with a line a mile long. 

jesus fuck y'all are old. 

Bottles of Coke out of a vending machine. 

We had a milkbox on the front porch. That's where the milkman (the guy who delivered milk) put the glass milk bottles, and where we left the empties for him to pick up.

Sounds like a scene from another planet now, dunnit? 

And imagine this: "TV Repairman" was an actual career choice. This was a guy who'd actually come to your house and fix your TV! 

Actual actually even. 

We never called him, too expensive. We just changed the channel with needle-nose pliers. 

We were the last family on the planet to get an Atari 2600. I loved that thing.
Shortly after I got a C64 and thought that computers were neat but didn't really seem to serve any purpose other than making my name scroll across the screen diagonally in 3 colors. Granted, that was cool, but not really useful. To think that just the RAM from a modern computer is many times more powerful than the entire computer was is kinda of amazing. 

wiltsey said:

We had a milkbox on the front porch. That's where the milkman (the guy who delivered milk) put the glass milk bottles, and where we left the empties for him to pick up.

Sounds like a scene from another planet now, dunnit?

Remember on cold days the cream would push the cardboard top up and there was this frozen pillar of creme sticking out of the top of the bottle ?

We used to take the disk out of the milk bottle cap and turn it over, draw a star or something on it. Then we would put the rest of the bottle cap inside our shirt and push the disk back into it on the outside of our shirt. Instant badge FTW ! It went really well with cards in your bike wheel spokes. 

http://cjhahn.com/pictures/my_stuff/french-style_rotary_phone_front.jpg
Literally had this model growing up, changed it to a touch tone in the nineties.
My grandparents still have it, as a matter of fact.

http://bmxmuseum.com/bikes/gt_bicycles/10685
Got one of these from my older friend, he put a gyro and pegs on that puppy.
It was a sweet bike, all red too.

Television was huge in my house, beast I say... something like 5ft by 5 ft.
Somewhat like this one
[ur]http://farm1.static.flickr.com/49/147325509_bf67c83721.jpg[/url]

We would lose the knobs all the time, end up using pliers to change the channel.
The 80s television line-up was epic win.
http://www.crazyabouttv.com/decades/1980s.html

Getting my first video game console (Atari 2600 with the E.T game).
It was like getting fed crack, you couldn't get me off the machine.

The mid 80s and early 90s were so awesome. 

zedsded said:

We never called him, too expensive. We just changed the channel with needle-nose pliers.

My dad could fix anything with a pair of vice-grips. 

Back in the early 80's we had to rent the VHS player along with the movie. It was a big event when we got to watch a movie at home. It was an even bigger event when that movie was Transformers. 

The standard penalty for throwing rocks during recess in grade school:

The principal had a shoe box full of rocks. He would take the guilty kid out to the basket ball court, walk out about 50 yards from there and draw a line in the dirt with his paddle and walk back to the kid- tell him to start throwing the rocks from the box. Every one that landed short of the line earned the kid a swat with the paddle. Every classroom on the playground side of the school got to see it as it happened.

We didn't have but 1 or 2 rock throwing incidents per year. 

We could sit with our legs crossed "indian style" and it wasn't considered politcally incorrect.

We said the pledge of allegiance in elelmentary school.

We could play with real looking toy guns outside AND at school and not get tazed. 

crToonZ said:

We said the pledge of allegiance in elelmentary school.

They still do. At least in our district. 

Really?

I thought it was banned because of "one nation undr God" 

Not here, my oldest and his cousins still do it every morning. Public school. 

i remember the two JW's sitting down thru it. 

my bad...in our state, students have the option 

I thought it was banned because of "one nation undr God"

Nope.

People still sit indian style, they just have a more appropriate name for it. 

my bad...in our state, students have the option

Option means banned?

I remember back in the day when people did things a little different than they do things now. 

crisscrossapplesauce! 

Dodgeball

Red Rover

Smear the queer

Red light, green light.

Team sports where you actually kept score and had winners and losers (2-4-6-8-Who do we appreciate!) 

Option means banned?

hence why I said "my bad" 

Even as a child the pledge cracked me up. I remember looking around the room, seeing everyone go thru the motions, reciting in the same bored monotone. All evidently thinking the same thing. "here's another thing we do for no reason other than because adults force us to". I always figure the lesson to be learned was that "they" could force us to jump through whatever silly hoops they wanted us to and you'd better not forget it, sonny... At least this was what *I* got from it as a child.

That thought took on a special resonance later, once I'd read 1984. 

And now you lead the underground resistance via your cover job at the bowling alley? 

I remember my dad having to get a UHF converter so we could watch Willie Whistle on the "new" channel 56, and he could watch "Hogans Heroes" on channel 38.

Free hot wheels cars with a gas purchase at Shell. (the original red line hot wheels)

Driving to Canada for vacation as a 5 year old, and I would be able to fall asleep in the wayback of the station wagon, and not have to be in a car seat/booster seat. Just lay down between the suit cases 

IT porfessional at a major defence contractor.
I know, a life wasted... 

I am sad I am going to miss out on all the amazing technology of the future. 

the pledge got everyone to shut the fuck up and stand near their desk so that class could begin immediately after. 

I remember years ago, when I was DJ'ing a wedding once. (before mp3's, GASP) I had two cd players and one turntable. A little kid came up on the stage and looked at the turntable and asked what it was, so I said "a turntable". He then looked at some old 45's I had with me and said "what are these things?" I said, "you put that on the turntable, put this arm down on it, and it plays music."

He said "yeah, right. I don't think so." 

I used to make mix tapes from my dad's vinyl collection on his hi-fi. 

My dad bought me thriller on vinyl the day it came out. 

thriller on vinyl

I have the Thriller "picture" vinyl with MJ's face on it...

hmmmm, I wonder if it's worth anything. 

zedsded said:

Dodgeball

Smear the queer

we used to have epic smear-the-queer games... 40+ boys all running apeshit around with one football. Man, you did not want to get tackled because the ensuing 40-boy pile-on was brutal.

Sounds gay... but the carnage just plain barbaric. 

back in my day....
-parents would yell from the front porch or whistle when it was time to come home....

-any parent could discipline any kid if the kid was being an asshole....without fear of being
accused of child abuse.

-25 kids playing street hockey/stick ball was common on any given day...all of which would politely and gladly move for cars when they approached.

-parents were always addressed as Mr. or Mrs., out of respect.

-hats came off when entering a home.

/I'm only 37, it freaks me out that those things sound so "passe" these days.... 

Agreed on all counts, Jughead...

Well, with the exception of the being 37 part :) 

sprouty's like, 50 or something

full on coug