i got less than a quid an hour for my first job,
but that was in /hack-spit/ thatcher's britain. there was no minimum wage then. exploitation was rife. 

Yyz said:

Student Smoking Section in High School.
Drinking age raised to 21 in Georgia in '86. Had 3 years to go, then it went up.
You got your ass beat when you messed up and no one called 911 or family & children services on your parents.
My first real job making $3.05 an hour. I worked for BMW and Yugo on the radio/ AC line. They took out 30 cents an hour for meals, so for a 40 hour work week I cleared about $80 after taxes.

Yea we had a smoking section at school too. You had to have a permit signed by your parent to smoke though. The teachers smoked in the teachers lounge and the ones with personal offices smoked in there.
When I started college, there was an ashtray on the wall outside the door of each classroom. We would usually hang out and smoke with the professor before class.

I was caught in the raising-of-the-drinking-age debacle in Georgia too. They raised 1 year each year I think on September 1st. I turned 19 in June and got to legally drink until September when I would buy a trunk full of booze. Then the next year in June I could legally drink again. So for a couple of years I had a drinking season and a dry season. It was stupid. 

I got nailed by that 18-21 shit too -- they changed it when I was 17.
Luckily, the next state over featured a wide variety of drive-though liquor and daquiri stands and an non-existent ID-checking regime 

when I was 18, the drinking age was 19, and in the downtown music clubs it was pretty much nonexistent. I remember going to a club with my girlfriend, who was 18, but didn't even have a drivers license. She handed to doorman her social security card. He studied it intently as if he was making total sure she was old enough then handed it back and let us in.

When they raised the drinking age in Georgia, the music scene here died a horrible death. 

They fucking ruined the south, motherfuckers 

It'll rise again.

Wait for it... wait for it... 

Yyz said:

Damn, did you hang out with Jesus as a kid?

WTT beta tested dirt. 

fenris said:

I got nailed by that 18-21 shit too -- they changed it when I was 17.
Luckily, the next state over featured a wide variety of drive-though liquor and daquiri stands and an non-existent ID-checking regime

Man, 21 is such a stupid age for the drinking limit too. It's completely arbitrary and only a place like the Unites States would institute it.
Like I always say: If you can die for your country, you can drink for country. 

Isn't that the argument they used for lowering the voting age...shortly before they raised the drinking age? 

CosmicMonkey said:

Man, 21 is such a stupid age for the drinking limit too. It's completely arbitrary and only a place like the Unites States would institute it.
Like I always say: If you can die for your country, you can drink for country.

I know someone who went into the [Canadian] Army at 16, and that's what his mates said, so they got him a fake ID. 

i was grandfathered with the drinking age change. it turned 21 when i was 18.

but i was drinking in bars at 17. 

Back in my day there were real toys, plain lego and slotcars. 

Snorks

Tang

McGruff

Spyrograph

My Buddy

25 cent machine snot/goo

Roller rinks 

Taskforce jackets.

I wore an 8 ball jacket during high school.

Pelle jackets. 

You grew up in the hood didn't you? 

How about those snacks that were supposed to be just like what the Astronauts ate.
They were Peanut Butter and Chocolate flavored sticks.

And My first grade teacher used to dress like this:

http://i950.photobucket.com/albums/ad341/fazedpics/5804D_c.jpg 

Miss O'Brian was her name. 

Che1964 said:

How about those snacks that were supposed to be just like what the Astronauts ate.
They were Peanut Butter and Chocolate flavored sticks.

Hell yes...in little foil packs. I miss those things.

And My first grade teacher used to dress like this:

http://i950.photobucket.com/albums/ad341/fazedpics/5804D_c.jpg

LOL...you went to Laugh-In Elementary. 

Coke bottles that were glass and had the paper labels you could peel off.
Beer cans that you had to open with a church key.
Payphones(rotary) that took a nickel and no time limit.
Floor console TV's with the wooden sides(and no cable).
Sony Walkman cassette player.
Space Invaders arcade game.
Going to video arcades that gave you 40 tokens for a dollar (The one in our mall that just closed this year gave you 3 for $1 and almost all of the games in there took 2-3 tokens each play.) 

Church key! I though only my Mom called it that!! 

I have a gray Members Only jacket with fringes on the back and down the sleeves. I was the damn coolest long haired hipster out there with that jacket. I wouldn't be caught dead in it today, but I hate to part with it too. Maybe one day someone might want to buy it as a relic from another time. 

Jedi Clampett said:

I have a gray Members Only jacket with fringes on the back and down the sleeves. I was the damn coolest long haired hipster out there with that jacket. I wouldn't be caught dead in it today, but I hate to part with it too. Maybe one day someone might want to buy it as a relic from another time.

Pics, Please. 

LOL...you went to Laugh-In Elementary.

Yeah, I wish. That was probably the only time in my education that my dad would go out of his way to attend Parent-Teacher meetings. 

gray Members Only jacket

With the stupid fake epaulettes on the shoulder and a jillion pockets you only used once to hide Jolly Ranchers and forgot about them 

fenris said:

With the stupid fake epaulettes on the shoulder and a jillion pockets you only used once to hide Jolly Ranchers and forgot about them

um... actually I wore it in my late 20s. :(

I might post a pic of the jacket, but not with me in it. 

You can still hide candy in your pockets in your 20s 

True, but I was hiding joints, cigarettes and flasks of whiskey by then:) 

I think he was hoping you still had some candy on you, for him... 

watermelon, if you have that 

well if y'all would rather have jolly ranchers than a hit of ths, then alrighty then. :) 

... I remember when This Guy used to be funny. 

Back in my day
my virtual reality had only one color, red!
(virtual boy)

Back in my day video games were a quarter, not $.50 or$1 

CosmicMonkey said:

... I remember when This Guy used to be funny.

I was funny once? 

FNK DR SPOK said:

You grew up in the hood didn't you?

Maybe I did. LOL Well, it wasn't oo bad. But I grew up in the city. And that was city life. 

I know that because it was the same stuff we wore in our day. 

I also remember those HUGE boom boxes that the boys could hardly carry because they were do damn heavy. But they carried them all over the damn city, blasting the coolest rap song. I called Yo, Yo, little brother, whatcha out there trying to discover? 

Fat laces arranged in yo sneakers to make a checkerboard or arrows. 

Parachute Pants
Gargoyle (Terminator) Sunglasses
Break-dancing competitions at the local skate rink on Fridays nights 

I called Yo, Yo, little brother, whatcha out there trying to discover?

LMAO!!

Where did you grow up? 

Philly. 

Ah, not too far from you. Baltimore here.

How old are you if you don't mind me asking? (for Back in my day research...uh...yeah, let's go with that) 

OMG I have family in Baltimore. Baltimore was always way more hood than Philly. I went back there about 3 years ago and was terrified by people knocking on my car window and asking if we wanted to buy a boy or a girl. I had to ask my cousin what they meant. And when I say people coming up to my car......... I'm talking about 30-40 people blocking my car at the stop sign, to see if I wanted to buy drugs.

Baltimore and Camden might just be one in the same. LOL

The houses and Baltimore are absolutely beautiful there though. What a shame.

I'm 35. 

OH back in my day............. graffiti everywhere! 

Ah, you grew up with my sister, she's your age.

Yeah, bmore is pretty rowdy in some areas, I just moved from there but I lived downtown on a nicer street which is not saying much when every other street is the hood. 

Back in my day...

...I remember sitting in front of the idiot box watching soldiers carry their brother's flag draped metal coffins home from Viet Nam.

I had my bags packed, I was classified 033, 1A.

Then Nixon abolished the draft. 

I miss arcades.
There was one in PA I used to go to all the time.
It was dark, they crammed as many games as possible in there, and it was cheap. 

I remember arcades. You couldn't go to them unless you wanted to get beat up. And what I mean by that is 15 people pouncing on one person. Also, going to the movies in Center City was a no no as well, because there were riots sometimes as the movies were letting out.

I also remember watching MOVE unfolding on TV. I think I even remember the day May 13, 1985? If you don't know what MOVE was look it up. LOL I even remember the name Romona Africa. 

Back in my day...
it was perfectly acceptable for the entire school to get together, tie messages to balloons, and release them all into the air to drift off to who knows where.

now it's "littering" 

Really? 

back in my day everyone chucked their beer bottles and french fry packages right out the car window until they say the Indian chief with the tear drop, then they started pitching in.