What's new
Fantasy Football - Footballguys Forums

Welcome to Our Forums. Once you've registered and logged in, you're primed to talk football, among other topics, with the sharpest and most experienced fantasy players on the internet.

Do you remember when.... (1 Viewer)

gianmarco

Footballguy
I was thinking about how we used to pay for long distance calls.  As kids, you weren't allowed to make them unless it was an 800 toll free number.  Or, you had to wait until a certain time and then it would cost less.  And, IIRC, that first minute was always more expensive than the others.

What are some other quirky things from growing up you remember that don't really exist anymore?

 
When I was a teenager cell phone minutes were precious, but the first incoming minute was free. So naturally I'd have a conversation in multiple calls under a minute. 

 
I was thinking about how we used to pay for long distance calls.  As kids, you weren't allowed to make them unless it was an 800 toll free number.  Or, you had to wait until a certain time and then it would cost less.  And, IIRC, that first minute was always more expensive than the others.

What are some other quirky things from growing up you remember that don't really exist anymore?
Sitting down and splitting up the phone bill with your roommates was always fun.

Me:  Hey Tom, did you call this number?
Tom:  Nope.

Me:  Dave?
Dave:  I don't think so.

Me:  Well lets call the number and see who it is. 

Repeat the above the next month for the same number(s).  It was always Dave.

 
I also remember those pop tops being slugs that one could use in parking meters. Not that I would actually do such a thing.
Pull tabs were bad ###.  And a little bit dangerous.  I don’t remember using them in parking meters.  But, they were the leading cause of parents knowing you had a party.  

 
Whoa city slicker, why you gotta flex so hard?

Us rural 'necks had 3/5/8. UHF was a nice shot in the arm when it came on board.
I remember when Fox was “the fourth network channel”.  I think we had ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox and PBS   May have been channel 26 as well    

 
I was thinking about how we used to pay for long distance calls.  As kids, you weren't allowed to make them unless it was an 800 toll free number.  Or, you had to wait until a certain time and then it would cost less.  And, IIRC, that first minute was always more expensive than the others.

What are some other quirky things from growing up you remember that don't really exist anymore?
Darn Whippersnappers and "the old days" of paying for long distance. How about when you couldn't dial long distance? You had to call the operator and have her place the call (of course, that was only after you made sure none of your neighbors was using the party line).

 
I was thinking about how we used to pay for long distance calls.  As kids, you weren't allowed to make them unless it was an 800 toll free number.  Or, you had to wait until a certain time and then it would cost less.  And, IIRC, that first minute was always more expensive than the others.

What are some other quirky things from growing up you remember that don't really exist anymore?
And before AT&T was de-regulated (that was funnier than hell - people standing in lines to return clunky company-issued, rotary phones on deadline day) - long-distance calls cost dramatically more and depended on where and time-of-day. Today's low-coverage US zones were much more than cities and overseas was ridiculous. The 1977 phone call which resulted in me quitting showbiz to join my HS sweetheart in a commune in NM was 6 hours long and, even though it was an all-nighter and calls were dramatically cheaper after 11pm, cost $113 dollars ($467 in today $)

 
Or use the VCR.
We were a Betamax family.

dialing '0' for the operator
Good one -- remember also dialling information @411? That may still be a thing, but pretty much obviated by availability of information and technology.

Making a collect call from a pay phone as a signal for you parents to come pick you up from somewhere.  They wouldn't accept the call, and you would just hang up.
I remember just having to use pay phones period. 

Some others:

  • When you actually needed a newspaper or calling a service like Movifone to get movie times at theaters near you
  • Those cookies shaped like the characters you could get with a Happy Meal at McDOnalds
  • physical photo albums
  • the art of making the perfect mixed tape (and the need to time it *just right* so you could record a song off the radio and avoid the DJ talking)
  • riding in the trunk seat of the family station wagon which had zero seat belts
  • the satisfying churn of a rotary phone (and the pain of dialing numbers with a lot of 7, 8, 9, and 0s in them)
  • the sound of a fax modem coming online

 
taking people to the airport and walking them to their gate to see them off..
I worked for Continental back in 1998-9.  They were one of a couple big companies that installed Windows 2000 on all of their computers prior to it being released.  That way MS could say "It's now available and these companies have been using it for a year with no complaints!"  So I was one of many teams that went all over the US installing new PC's throughout the airports.  One day, while in a back room, I found where they kept all the tags that could be put on bags.  One roll had bright orange stickers and said something like "FIREARM IN BAG".  I took one and put it on my bosses laptop bag right before we went out to do some work.  After about 20 minutes, a cop came up to him and asked if he really had a gun in his bag, because he shouldn't be taking that on as carrry-on.  He freaked out then saw my and my buddy laughing.  I told the cop it was a joke and we all laughed about it.  The cop said, "Just do me a favor and take that sticker off your bag."  Then left.  This was in the middle of the C Terminal at Newark.  

 
I remember having only 3 channels (ABC, NBC, CBS).  And your dad made you get up and go turn the channel knob.  Cable and the remote control were a huge break through.  

Also remember the tv being out and the repair man came to get behind the big cabinet and try to fix it.  Could be 3 days without the tube unless you heard the dreaded:  "Gotta send off fer a part." 

 
Forget renting a movie from the store, how about renting the VCR too? And sometimes video games.

I remember going with my dad to pick out what movie we wanted to rent for the weekend. We got to the store, which had boxes on the walls and shelves in the middle of the store... but we could only rent from the left-side wall because that's where the Beta tapes were. All those other movies on VHS we couldn't watch.
Yeah, and that video rental store had about 15 movies to choose from.

 
How about getting disconnected from the internet because you used up your monthly minutes already and needed an adult to OK the additional per-minute charges for dialing in to prodigy or compuserve?
Had a guy in our office back in the early 90s or whenever Compuserve came out.  He had a disk and put it in and logged onto the "Internet."  We were all, wow.  Couple of the older guys said "It'll never take off.  Waste of money and time."  

 
Funny, the first remote control we had in the house had a cable. It was literally wired to the VCR. It was not infra-red or any of this other newfangled nonsense. 25 foot rubber cord from the device to the couch, six buttons, pretty dope.
Awesome.  We thought we were high tech when my sister bought a long telephone cord to go with our only telephone on the kitchen wall.  She would be on there and sitting way over in the living room.  Cord all in everyone's way.  Rotary dial phone as well.  I still remember our first phone number.  Crazy.

 
All the cassette tapes you finally got caught up. Then someone brings in a CD.  What's that?  Meh, cassettes aren't going away.

 
Funny, the first remote control we had in the house had a cable. It was literally wired to the VCR. It was not infra-red or any of this other newfangled nonsense. 25 foot rubber cord from the device to the couch, six buttons, pretty dope.
I remember this. I remember when 2400 baud was a huge modem upgrade. 

 
Back when we were teens and there was a white pages, we'd skim the listings until we came to a listing that had the main number and then the "kids phone." It was almost always the teenage daughter's phone.

We'd dial that number trolling for chicks. It was glorious.

 
  • riding in the trunk seat of the family station wagon which had zero seat belts
I remember driving to a cross country practice (maybe a meet) in high school where two of us rode in the trunk of one of the cars.

How about the old cars (and as teenagers, we definitely had old cars) where the butterfly valve would often stick on top of the carburetor?  Or when rust would eat away some of the metal frame, so you'd patch it up with bondo?

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Getting a busy signal.

Wanting to hang out with a friend, so telling my mom "I'm going out on my bike," and that's it. Then I'd ride all the way to his house just to see if he was home and could hang out. And then only telling my parents where I was if it got to 5 o'clock. In between those times, my parents had no way to get a hold of me. At all.
I remember when call waiting came out. It was revolutionary.

 

Users who are viewing this thread

Top