Foreign to you.

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Star_Chick

Star_Chick

Psalm 23
Neighbor
Joined
Aug 15, 2018
Messages
84
Location
Oklahoma
A recent post got me thinking what is foreign to you. As a millennial my parents, and even husband, have had to explain these things to me.
Typewriter
Pager
Phone book
Those phones that require money and are shared in public spaces
Rotary phone
Also, explain what live was like before the internet LOL
My entire adult life I’ve had some form of social media. Being without it would be fully foreign.
 
No Air conditioning
Only black and white TV
Only 3 channels and they signed off at 11pm
No computer 's
One car per household
No seatbelts required
Manual transmission 's in over one half of vehicles
The smell of non cat exhaust
Hearing your mom say "get outside and play and don't come back in till I call you!"
visiting relatives that lived on farmsteads that could be described as two beds and a path,and the well on the porch
Chamber pots
Two or three party line
Using the Alabama calculator( fingers and toes pencil and paper) the pen was for the adults
Sears and Roebuck Christmas toy catalog
No Wal-Mart
No Mexican restaurant
Now add that to your list and we will have almost the list I described to my grandson at age seven who's only comment after the discussion was"Were the dinosaurs alive then?? "
 
My ex is older than me by a couple of years and we had just adopted a sibling group from 3 to 7 years old, 2 boys and a girl. We were camping for the first time with them and I call them all over and told them, "go ask mom what dinosaurs taste like".

Well they did but were in such a hurry to be the first one it was from about 20 feet away in a crowded camp ground. The look on her face made me laugh so hard I could not catch my breath.
 
I've lived in two homes that had functioning phones that didn't have even rotary dials. Dialed "O" to get the operator to make a long distance call or to get a phone number. I still have a typewriter and our borough (like a county) just pulled out their old typewriters when a virus attacked the computer system.
 
Caribou said:
I've lived in two homes that had functioning phones that didn't have even rotary dials. Dialed "O" to get the operator to make a long distance call or to get a phone number. I still have a typewriter and our borough (like a county) just pulled out their old typewriters when a virus attacked the computer system.
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Was that in the area of The Funny Farm?:D. Did you catch any snakes while fishing?
We use to have party lines where you could listen in on your neighbors conversations.
Having 3 teenagers in the house in 1986 all the numbers were worn off the phone from them diving for it everytime it rang. :)
 
Meerkat said:
Was that in the area of The Funny Farm?:D. Did you catch any snakes while fishing?
We use to have party lines where you could listen in on your neighbors conversations.
Having 3 teenagers in the house in 1986 all the numbers were worn off the phone from them diving for it everytime it rang. :)
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No snakes in Alaska.
 
Foreign to me would be not having tv and only having radio for entertainment.
I remember not having a phone in the house. I was in elementary school when we got one.( couldn't lose the notes home anymore. they would call home then)
We didn't have air conditioning until I was junior high school age. Got by just fine with fans
I remember us not have a vehicle and having to take a bus down to baltimore to visit an older sister ( got sick from the exhaust lol). Didn't get a vehicle until the mid to late 60's.
Didn't get a McDonalds in our town until I was in high school (70's). Burger King wasn't long behind
No big department stores. Shopped at the local downtown stores.
NO MALLS what so ever lol

Had cousins that lived 30 mins away towards the mountains who lived on a farm. they had a hand pump at the kitchen sink, chamber pots if you didn't want to go out at night to the outhouse, used a big wood cookstove, had no tv , no bathroom ( took baths in a big tub in the kitchen), only half the house was wired for electricity ( they used oil lamps in the other parts). I thought it was a great adventure to go there. always had a happy and great time.
 
WVDragonlady said:
Foreign to me would be not having tv and only having radio for entertainment.
I remember not having a phone in the house. I was in elementary school when we got one.( couldn't lose the notes home anymore. they would call home then)
We didn't have air conditioning until I was junior high school age. Got by just fine with fans
I remember us not have a vehicle and having to take a bus down to baltimore to visit an older sister ( got sick from the exhaust lol). Didn't get a vehicle until the mid to late 60's.
Didn't get a McDonalds in our town until I was in high school (70's). Burger King wasn't long behind
No big department stores. Shopped at the local downtown stores.
NO MALLS what so ever lol

Had cousins that lived 30 mins away towards the mountains who lived on a farm. they had a hand pump at the kitchen sink, chamber pots if you didn't want to go out at night to the outhouse, used a big wood cookstove, had no tv , no bathroom ( took baths in a big tub in the kitchen), only half the house was wired for electricity ( they used oil lamps in the other parts). I thought it was a great adventure to go there. always had a happy and great time.
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I remember no TV too, I was about 6. And I had my 3nd child before we ever had AC in 1971.
We also had an outhouse'a 3 seater' complete with Sears and Roebuck catalog if out of tissue' after house burned down in 1956. Used it also when power went off once we did get indoor plumbing.
We had pot bellied stove in rock cabin on the lake that never did get electricity. We took bathes in the spillway that the lake emptied our of or the creek that filed the lake or out by the well.
I agree it was a wonderful life but we also had the city life too so the best of both worlds.
 
We had no running water in the tub cuz daddy hadn't gotten that far with the plumbing. They'd heat up the water in the kitchen and carry it to the tub in buckets and pans.
No AC until 1980 in a different home.

I read, wrote, drew, walked in the woods, rode my bike, played board games, baked goodies, did laundry with a WRINGER WASHER, hung it on the outside clothesline or in the basement. Had a little encounter with that washer. :eek:
 
Patchouli said:
We had no running water in the tub cuz daddy hadn't gotten that far with the plumbing. They'd heat up the water in the kitchen and carry it to the tub in buckets and pans.
No AC until 1980 in a different home.

I read, wrote, drew, walked in the woods, rode my bike, played board games, baked goodies, did laundry with a WRINGER WASHER, hung it on the outside clothesline or in the basement. Had a little encounter with that washer. :eek:
Click to expand...

My cousin had an encounter with a ringer washer too. It broke his arm when it pulled him up,he was like 4 years old. Up till about 10 years ao I still hung clothes on the line outside. Line broke and we just haven't got it back to yet, but do have the lien and the pulley packed away.
 
ssonb said:
No Air conditioning
Only black and white TV
Only 3 channels and they signed off at 11pm
No computer 's
One car per household
No seatbelts required
Manual transmission 's in over one half of vehicles
The smell of non cat exhaust
Hearing your mom say "get outside and play and don't come back in till I call you!"
visiting relatives that lived on farmsteads that could be described as two beds and a path,and the well on the porch
Chamber pots
Two or three party line
Using the Alabama calculator( fingers and toes pencil and paper) the pen was for the adults
Sears and Roebuck Christmas toy catalog
No Wal-Mart
No Mexican restaurant
Now add that to your list and we will have almost the list I described to my grandson at age seven who's only comment after the discussion was"Were the dinosaurs alive then?? "
Click to expand...

Pretty much the same for me. Parents got a window AC unit in 1976, got so hot that summer mother made daddy get one. LOL Our tv staions (4) went off at midnight and played the national anthem to close out the evening. Drinkin from the waterhose, or the faucet was well worth it when you were thirsty. Papaws hose was awesome after a load of hay, came straight out of the well about 5' away and boy was it cold.
 
My mom would go grocery shopping on a monthly basis because dad got paid monthly. We lived about 15 miles from the town and store. If we ran out of stuff there was the little general store nearby. She froze a lot of stuff like meat and bread, but had not learned how to can until I was older.
Do you remember the refrigerators with the icebox in the top of the fridge in the middle? The metal box-like thing? The stupid little aluminum ice trays that your fingers would stick to, you had to grab the lever and pull up to release the ice. The fridge door handle that was like a latchet, you had to pull on it to release the mechanism to get it open.
Totally cracks me up to go into an "antique store" and see things that my mom used in daily kitchen use. The lemon juicer made of glass. The awesome sifter, one with a turn handle, or a squeeze lever action to make the thick wire loop grate across the screen. You know what I'm talking about!
 
I miss those ice cube trays. Would like to get more.
I still hang my clothes. Bummer is I hang them before work, and 3 times this week it's rained before I get home. Husband can't bring them in. There's a sopping wet line of them out right now. I still use that sifter and that orange juicer.
 
I still have a rotary dial phone mounted in my hallway, it belonged to my grandfather and it still works. I remember getting our first tv. 2 ladies from down the road came to watch. They kept fidgeting around until they were sitting sideways to the tv. After they left my sister asked what they were doing... My mom said they were afraid the man on the tv could see up their dresses...

I remember my sister and I howling with laughter....
 
Laura Ingalls Wilder was born in 1867 when horse drawn wagons were the way to get around long distance. By the time she died, in 1957, it wasn't unusual for cars to be the method of travel. When she was born we did not have cars, motorcycles, rubber tires, airplanes, radio, computers, electric generation dams, and indoor plumbing was unusual. By the time she died all of these things were a reality. Just imagine living through 90 years and seeing all these changes occur.
 
tiffanysgallery said:
Laura Ingalls Wilder was born in 1867 when horse drawn wagons were the way to get around long distance. By the time she died, in 1957, it wasn't unusual for cars to be the method of travel. When she was born we did not have cars, motorcycles, rubber tires, airplanes, radio, computers, electric generation dams, and indoor plumbing was unusual. By the time she died all of these things were a reality. Just imagine living through 90 years and seeing all these changes occur.
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I thought about that when my grandfather passed away. I was amazed at all of the changes that happened in his lifetime. It’s incredible how far we have come!
 
My dad served in the Army air corp in WWII. He never talked about what he did. He was a mechanical engineer with aero-space major. After the war he worked for Boeing. I was born in 1950 and remember listening to radio broadcasts by Eisenhower and nightly news. I seem to remember that Eisenhower threatened N.Korea with atom bombs to stop the war. Remember that I was three when the truce was called. I have a lot of memories from that time both at home and "news" stories. When I was three we moved to a new house in Seattle from the post war housing. I even have vivid memories from when I was one year old in Spokane. I remember the train ride on one trip and returning on a plane - I remember thinking that the clouds looked like cotton balls. I was seven when we got our first TV but we used to listen to the radio as a family. I remember having conversations with my dad about the news on the radio. I remember the McCarthy hearings in front of congress and the people in Hollywood that were blacklisted.
I grew up in a large family with chores to do and ideas and concepts to grasp. We learned a lot from the discussions with dad and his friends. We kept lots of "groceries" on hand all the time and dad built a fallout shelter in the basement and back yard. TV was never a big deal and radio got lost except on ball nights. We went camping and back-packing before we could carry a pack.
Presently my wife and I live in a home that is paid for. We have radios that we rarely listen to, no TV, very high speed internet (over 100 Mb/s), a large garden that keeps growing, her "sewing and craft" room and my shop. We both are gun people and I spend at least one day a week at the range. I make inventions in my shop and repair parts for the home and cars as well as building cabinets and benches as needed.
I spend time helping and visiting with the neighbors because they are good folks and they have helped us too.
It would be foreign to me to be unable to learn and do the things I do, but I am unsure how that would happen short of me being paralyzed from the neck down - even then If I could communicate and learn I would still be OK. Shutting me up in an old folks home would cause problems for the home and the patrons who just wanted to sit and die. There is too much to do to just sit and wait...
 
Amish Heart said:
I miss those ice cube trays. Would like to get more.
I still hang my clothes. Bummer is I hang them before work, and 3 times this week it's rained before I get home. Husband can't bring them in. There's a sopping wet line of them out right now. I still use that sifter and that orange juicer.
Click to expand...

Before that we had stainless steel ice trays, now one of those will cost you $35. :ghostly:

images



https://www.vermontcountrystore.com/stainless-steel-ice-cube-tray/product/70462
 
I have seen those in the thrift store but not priced high. I liked them too, but now I feel they might be aluminum and I don't use that.
 
My BIL was feuding with a neighbor over his lawn.
The neighbor had nothing better to do than keep his lawn perfect.
My BIL would mow his yard regularly but that wasn't good enough.
It got so bad the police got involved and told them to stay away from each other.
The neighbor wouldn't let it rest.
My BIL filled one of those ice trays with weed killer, the type where stuff never grows back.
He would toss a frozen cube of weed killer in the guys yard every few days.
Drove the guy nuts because of the big round patches of dead grass.
I think he kept doing it even after he moved.
 
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