You know you're getting old when...


 
Do you remember the shooting galleries that used real guns with real ammo? They used .22 cal. Short "crumble ball" ammo so no ricochets, and the rifles were (mostly) untethered. These kinds of things are unthinkable in this day and age...I'm so glad to have grown up when I did.
 
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RichPB (richlife) said:
A big double walled tub filled with water, ice and cold soda.
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We had a Richfield gas station (or maybe it was a Texaco...certainly not the Hancock gas station where we used to buy our cigarettes and reclaimed motor oil) nearby that had a large refrigerated soda machine inside the service bay, similar to this one. The one I remember was larger than this one, or maybe it's because I was a lot smaller back then

439a7cc0274a6d513541bc3270d419e8.jpg
 
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Ed P said:
Do you remember the shooting galleries that used real guns with real ammo? They used .22 cal. Short "crumble ball" ammo so no ricochets, and the rifles were (mostly) untethered. These kinds of things are unthinkable in this day and age...I'm so glad to have grown up when I did.
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Heck in our high school we had rifle club. I lettered in it. Not only that i your parents or you had a rifle of your own, we were allowed to bring it to school and simply put in our locker until club after school! No one ever caught so much as a sideways glance. No school shootings, no worries. Go figure
 
You know you're getting old when you can remember that Christmas tree icicles were made out of lead and you could wad them up into a heavy ball when it came time to take the tree down and then throw them at your big sister and then run like heII before she caught you...
 
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You know you're getting old if you can remember "calling time" (UL3-1212, or 856-1212, later 555-1212) on the telephone to get the correct time.

"At the tone, the time will be...nine..four...and 30 seconds...[beep]...at the tone, the time will be...nine..four...and 40 seconds...[beep]..."
 
Back in the day of landlines, Ma Bell had a "ringback" number that the phone installers could call and get a ring back, to ensure the phone was working properly. When you picked up the phone, all you got was a dial tone. As kids we passed around that number to prank our friends.

There were also phone numbers we called "open line" numbers...you dialed those numbers and you would randomly connect to other kids who called the same numbers...the very early days of "catfishing", roulette-style.
 
Ed P said:
You know you're getting old if you can remember "calling time" (UL3-1212, or 856-1212, later 555-1212) on the telephone to get the correct time.

"At the tone, the time will be...nine..four...and 30 seconds...[beep]...at the tone, the time will be...nine..four...and 40 seconds...[beep]..."
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In my hometown, time was 767-xxxx with any four numbers at the end...but we all remembered it as POP-CORN (767-2676).
 
Chris Allingham said:
In my hometown, time was 767-xxxx with any four numbers at the end...but we all remembered it as POP-CORN (767-2676).
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One Christmas morning, I was so excited I barely slept. I called the time just for something to help pass the time. It was always a woman's voice, and not very much like a recording. Ma Bell would hang up after a minute or so, and I would re-dial when she did.
 
I might have an old tan colored rotory phone in a box in the garage, but I don't remember if i tossed it or not.
 
Ed P said:
Do you still have a landline?? We do, but it's VOIP...if the internet goes down, so does the landline.
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Yeah..... if I drop the landline, my monthly bill goes UP. I did just replace the base set, though, with a spam filtering phone. It'll ring straight through if CallerID shows the number in the contact list. If CallerID works, but not in the contact list, the caller is prompted to record their name. No CallerID, "Press <n> to continue." The spam calls stopped ringing almost immediately but still were trying based on the call log. A few months in..... no entries in the call log now. The sound of silence, shows it's working.
 
No landline for us. VOIP or otherwise. What's the point? Anyone who calls calls either for me or my wife. Back in my old Realtor days we had 2 home lines. One for dialing into the MLS and other business calls, the other for our regular home line. A VERY long time ago, I decided perhaps VOIP was worth a try and at that time it was just when number portability came out. So I got some weird from Vonage (at the time exchange beginning with 986 when everything here in Cherry Valley was 332), and I had my then mobile phone provider, use my 2 home phone numbers and move them to our mobile lines. Gave up on VOIP stupid billing practices, everyone sounded like they were calling from Mars and so on. Just gave up about 15 (maybe more) years ago and went mobile only. I even disconnected all the phone jacks in the house. and the wiring. Works just fine, 911 works just fine (as we found out this past Christmas Eve) at my house when we had to call EMT's for my dad. (Oh what a night THAT was!).
 
The Enhanced 911 services are pretty slick and are getting better. My employer with WFH and Always On VPN combined with soft phone services for the office even has an application on my laptop to properly report my location if I call 911 through it (yes, it does take a little maintenance to configure locations.)

As far as land line usage goes.... no long distance services, so it's all local exchange traffic only. Handy for ordering pizza and the like.
 
Ed P said:
You know you're getting old when you can remember that Christmas tree icicles were made out of lead and you could wad them up into a heavy ball when it came time to take the tree down and then throw them at your big sister and then run like heII before she caught you...
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I remember dad setting up an electric train around the tree every year. If you dropped icicles on the tracks when the train was powered up, they'd spark and fry. Not a very safe thing, especially under a real tree but we never burned the house down.
 
Ed P said:
You know you're getting old if you can remember "calling time" (UL3-1212, or 856-1212, later 555-1212) on the telephone to get the correct time.

"At the tone, the time will be...nine..four...and 30 seconds...[beep]...at the tone, the time will be...nine..four...and 40 seconds...[beep]..."
Click to expand...
Where we lived you dialed P-O-P-C-O-R-N.
 
Ed P said:
Back in the day of landlines, Ma Bell had a "ringback" number that the phone installers could call and get a ring back, to ensure the phone was working properly. When you picked up the phone, all you got was a dial tone. As kids we passed around that number to prank our friends.

There were also phone numbers we called "open line" numbers...you dialed those numbers and you would randomly connect to other kids who called the same numbers...the very early days of "catfishing", roulette-style.
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9606 IIRC.
 
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