She found postal stamps and wanted to use them as stickers to decorate things and old photos. She found screws that we’ll never use but have kept, just in case. And then somewhere deep down in the abyss of junk goodies she found a cassette tape.
“Mum!” she gasped with an air of uncertainty, “What is this?”
I laughed, hard, “It’s a tape. We used to…”
I started to ramble but she’d already started to pull the tape from it’s cassette and created a mess. I thought about telling her to stop but realised I no longer had somewhere to play it so it’s days were over already. Rest in peace cassette tape.
Of course I haven’t been able to stop thinking about the joys of my childhood that she’ll never get to know:
- Encyclopedias. Of course they still exist but not in homes like they used to. I used to love grabbing a random volume and learning something new. Mount Vesuvius anyone?
- Brick. Remember that computer game that seemed like so much fun? Hitting the ball so that it didn’t fall down the hole…
- Life without remote controls. Remember when people had children just so they could change the television channel for them? I remember our first ever remote had a cord attached to it that reached to the TV. We were so cool.
- Staying home alone. I remember that we were able to be left at home at a young age while Mum and Dad went to work. Those were the days. Seriously fun stuff. OK, I might have spent half the day reading encyclopedias, but that was fun!
I’m sure there are dozens more which will pop up as I’m going about my day. Do you remember any? And what do you keep in your junk drawer?
The excitement of waiting for the allotted time for children's TV to come on. That special half an hour a day rather than an endless stream.
Definitely!
I remember going to the corner store and getting 2 milk bottles or 2 red frongs for 5 cents.. and collecting tazos, although we werent allowed chips very often so my friends always had more than me!
Our junk draw is filled with old mobile phones, batteries, stickytape, cords that go to something – I have no idea what and a few old screws/nails/hooks 🙂
xx
Playing outside without parental supervision As long as we were withing hearing distance if she yelled for us, we were ok.
the tv shows! Noddy looks so weird these days, as does the beginning of Play School…
60 cent ice creams!! 80 cents if you wanted them dipped in chocolate!! And raspberry drops were 5 for one cent!!
For some reason all I can think of is lollies. LOL.
What about backyard sprinklers?
Most people nowadays have timed watering systems.
That is if you live in an area fortuate enough to be allowed to water your garden.
Red frogs after swimming training, getting to walk around town from school into town, walkman's and discman's, trampolines without nets (so you could stand them on one end and run at them til they fell over), Keen 4 (a computer game around 1996 ish)…
1 cent & 2 cent coins. I remember being able to buy lollies for a few cents at the local store 🙂
And being able to ride bikes about our neighbourhood ALL DAY without a care, and my parents being ok with it!
We had a remote for our TV….but it was connected to the TV with a cord….which was only a metre or so long, so you had to sit a metre from the TV is you wanted to use it haaaa!!!
And YES…we have a junk drawer….several actually. We've only been in this house for 3 months & they're already full…..full of paperwork, kid's art work, bills, hair ties, basically anything & everything we want hidden from sight to make the place look clutter free haaa!
x
I still have cassette tapes too. I used to record everything onto them and have slowly gotten everything on a cd, now it's ipods, so now cds are obsolete.
Blimey!
My junk drawers consist of random artifacts like glitter confetti from birthdays past, broken toys to be fixed one day and earrings that have lost their twins. It's an interesting mess, for sure.
I think our kids are missing out on much being so “connected” as they are today. Remember phone calls on a rotary phone where you had to remain fixed in one position and actually TALK to a friend? Ha!
And I had the remote box connected to a long cord as well. Yes, we were super cool. 😉
I don't even think we could play a cassette if we had one! lol though would really like to listen to some of my radio mixtapes. I'm not sure how many hours I spent listening and recording!
My husband has, in frustration, told our 12 year old son to just listen because he felt like a broken record. Hubs was greeted by a blank stare and the question, “What's a broken record?”
Hahaha! I have done that too, only to be looked at like I was losing it!! I keep telling my 7 year old daughter about how things were like when I was a child, I was born in 1975, and she just cannot believe it. I wonder what stories she will have to tell her child…..
Dial telephones, riding the bus to school, collecting the latest Beatles on 45. My grandmother actually still had a party line when I was in grammar school!
glen: we used to make prank phone calls, do you have prince albert in a can????? Let him out please.
Walking a kilometre to school with my brother. No parental guidance needed!
We used to walk to school and stop at the fish and chip shop to buy three potato scallops for five cents (yes, I am THAT old!) and then we'd tear off the top of the newspaper and eat them as we walked in the school gates. Can't ever imagine this happening today – deep-fried food before 9am?!
When I was in Primary School, on Fridays we would go to the fish n chip shop across the road and buy 5 cents of chips and 5 cents of potato cakes (10 cents)! It was such a treat!
Smurf ice blocks
I grew up on a farm and use to love going to the diary with a 5L bucket and helping my parents fill it with milk and leaving $3 for the farmer. Well sadly OH&S put a stop to being able to visit farms behind the scenes etc and no more visits to the diary were allowed. As a kid we use to fight about who opened the new milk bottle first as there was a layer of cream on the top – what a treat for your morning cereal!
HA! I love this!
They'll also never know payphones — or not being able to text/get a hold of someone at any waking hour.
They'll never know taking pictures with film, and having to wait to see what it looks like.
They'll never know holding the house phone up and dangling it so that the cord can unwind…
Hours of fun listening to the radio, finger hovering eagerly over the record button, in preparation for when a fav song came on, then you hit that button down! …then playing it back hoping that you got it good that time…ah the memories =)
Haha! I'd forgotten about this! Brilliant!
Great post to get me reminiscing about the good old days!
LOVE THIS POST! I remember watching video tapes and having to fast forward then press play then fast forward again to find where I was up to – no chapters back then haha! And we used to cover up the holes on the video tape with sticky tape so we could record over it again.
We did that too!
You sound like my mum… LOL. x
I am seriously considering chucking my encyclopedia set still in great condition from 1980- who needs an encyclopedia when you have Wikipedia?
Don't throw those encyclopeodias! They are like time capsules from a different world. Your set of 1980 encyclopoedias will have countries that don't exist any more, planets that have been demoted, theories that have been exploded… the list goes on and on. And the photos are FANTASTIC!
Oh boy, my junk drawer!. The third drawer down in my kitchen is the junk drawer and in there you can find things like:
-scotch tape
-postage stamps
-random cords I have no idea what they belong to
-batteries
-hair ties/hair clips
-pens
I could go on and on but for some reason I just can't throw anything out!. Anything Hubs leaves lying around typically goes in that drawer so it's always the first place we check when we can't find something.
I thought I was totally hip when I upgraded from my World Book encyclopedias to Encarta (an encyclopedia in CD form). Whoa! I was totally cool from then on….
What's in my junk drawer? It's full of electrical cords. I blame my hubby for this; because he refuses to throw any of them away just in case he needs them.
We got Encarta 98 and I remember reading articles and using it for like every homework assignment just because I could!
Yep, Encarta just seemed like the coolest way of doing homework ever! We got another one with it, I don't remember the name, I think it was an underwater information CD…loved that too!
I'm 26 and by the time I have grand kids I think I'm going to have to explain to them what a letter is because everything will go via email whether we like it or not.
Does anyone remember Fat Cat?
He use to appear on the TV around 7ish every night & tell all the children it was bedtime.
I want him back! I need someone else to tell my kids they MUST go to bed, they don't listen to me 😉
Wasn't fat cat charged with pedophilia?
If you live in the country here in Victoria one of the regional TV stations still has a cat that appears at around 7.30 telling the kids to go to bed! He's scary looking in my opinion though haha
Same goes for rotary phones. Their days are gone too.
I remember being home alone as a kid – age 10 I think. I was even in charge of getting dinner ready! LOL.
Just had to comment. Our grandson found our old electric typewriter a couple of visits ago. Now that's his favorite new toy when he tires of his Kindle Fire. I may have to see if there are ribbon cartridges available somewhere. He's going to finish off the one we have.
Ha! Great memories! I WAS that kid who got to change the channel on the TV (so dad didn't have to get off the couch!) – luckily there were only 13 channels at the time! Later my mom and I had one of the first VCRs and the remove was attached with the cord. Good times … good times!
Great post! I am smiling whilst reading all the above posts…
~Wow, so many things our kids will miss out on.
~Playing in the street all day long, only to pop back home for food and a toilet stop.
~Muncheros (munch on muncheros!)
~Walking to the corner shop to buy milk and bread and a pack of 50 cent lollies (wgich was huge!) without parental supervision.
~Walking to school without parental supervision
There are so many things that are different for kids these days. It seems a shame they have to miss out on some great things so we can protect them from creepy people.
I also miss the trampolines without the nets. We have decided to take the net off ours. We did just fine without one when we were kids!
I remember sitting next to the radio waiting to press record too! One school holidays I waited 3 days to hear “Push it” by Salt n Pepa so I could record it.
Ah, to be a kid again…
Jay 🙂
Life without the constant attachment to technology…as my daughter pretends to text her friend…oh brother :/ LOL!!
~Deirdre
Lolling on the couch, listening to the stereo (loaded with a stack of LPs), and gazing at the album covers while the music played.
Going over to my friend's house to watch Batman because our house only got CBS and Batman was on ABC.
I think about this kind of stuff a lot. So much has changed just in my lifetime! Mixed tapes, VCRs, video rental stores, drive-in movie theatres… all are practically non-existant now but oh so important to my childhood!
Just like you, screws from I don't know where! for the 'just in case' moments too. Buttons that have come off clothes that I keep forgetting to re-sew on. Blu-tack for all the school stuff coming in. Keys from properties we no longer rent but the toddler likes to play with.
Yeah times sure have changed! Now days its all about being over protective! We sent one of our sons on a train a few years back to see his Grandparents. It was a five hour train trip…he wasnt even 12.
We gave him a mobile phone, and told him a “Code” word just in case, but he was grinning from ear to ear when he got on that train.
He was meant to be over 13 to be able to travel alone, so we just said to say “YEP” if he was asked.
Yet I can remember catching the trains in NSW to visit my Grandmaa from a very young age, and never thought twice about it 🙂
I reckon that “Playing” outside is something that most kids are missing out on – too many computer games!
I just love reading the comments on days gone by. I remember as a kid of 7 or 8, my buddies and I would play in a puddle catching tadpoles; play cowboys and red indians; going downhill seated on a piece of cardboard; or hiding in mand-made holes imagining the planes would drop bombs on us anytime. Most of the time I was the only girl in the group of boys or among the Brits; and there was never any fear of 'rape' or 'molest'. All we thought of was to have fun and pretend to be in various war zones. Too much stories from our Navy fathers. Hee…hee…We climbed hills, crawl under wires, play in puddles and/or climb trees. We only went home because we were hungry; and to meet again later in the evening. We were always playing outside – sometimes much to our parents' relief. I know I will be worried sick when my daughter rides her bicycle – even just outside the compound of our house. yes, my daughter miss out a lot. In fact, she is always envious of my freedom as a child.
I think it's strange that parents are so afraid of leaving their kids in their locked up, alarmed houses these days.
I have left you an award on my blog.
I found an IBM floppy disk in the utility room junk drawer and I sill have a few hard floppies lying aroud the home office. I plan on saving the IBM despite the fact that I will be called ancient. Kids had no idea…. Number Munchers, anyone?
P.S. Number Munchers is now available on your iPod/iPad. Whoo!
Ah yes floppy discs! I still have so many of those
Fun post! Found you through a.eye's shout out. I know my nephews never played a 33 record, never used an old manual typewriter (never seen any typewriter) and the list goes on and on..So funny.
We've had our laundry renovated, so I had to clear out all the old stuff that was stored in there, and I found not only all my old cassette tapes, but also my old walkman! I thought “this will never work now, it's 20 years old” but low and behold, after a fresh set of batteries were slotted in and taped down (I lost the lid so tape did the job) I put in one of my old favourite tapes, pushed down the play button, and it worked!!! I was so excited! I raced out to my 2 boys to show them how we used to listen to music. My 8 year old took a look and said “That is really boring mum” and continued on with his P.S game, but my 4 year old was amazed to see the tape. He listened through the headphones and was dancing about to my old home made mix tape from 20 years ago. Great times re-lived!!!
Love this story! I wish I still had my walkman! think my gameboy is in my dad's somewhere, might have to dig it out…!
we had the coolest encyclopaedias with transparent cross section anatomy pages. My parents spent a small fortune on our encyclopaedias so whenever we asked a questions they would tell us to look it up.
It cracks me up every time my kids say a word that didn't exist when I was little. Gigabyte. Wi-fi. Google. dot com. iphone. download. I don't know why, it just makes me giggle.
I enjoyed reading this – and everyone else's comments about their memories too! I remember walking to the newsagents to buy penny sweets, making 10p phone calls for no real reason from a phone box, calling at friend's house (actually on their doorstep – no prior texts or plans!) “Is so and so playing out?”, riding round on my bike, water fights with big bags of water balloons we'd just bought at the shop, taping things off the TV onto VCR, and of course my walkman and cassettes!
Oh how times have changed! You could've really thrown your daughter for a loop and taught her how to rewind the cassette with a pencil!
New follower – glad I found ya!
I remember when I could buy a bag a chips for 25c. I remember when the ice cream truck came around my block religiously everyday of the summer and you could afford EVERYTHING he's selling. I remember summer time camp and making new friends. I remember when we could afford family vacations without financial troubles or airport restrictions. I remember when the park was a safe place mothers love to take their kids without a mans supervision. I remember when walk-mans was in style before portable CD players. I remember the days I own a SEGA GENESIS. I remember Super Mario Bros. was the hottest game you can own. I remember Nickelodeon use to play All That, Cousin Skeeter and Kenen & Kell. I can keep going for hours. lol
My friends and I were all just discussing encyclopedias and which set we had and what color our books were. We all had them…they were pre-internet in book form. Our parents all still have them – I guess they spent so much money on them that they can't bear to part with them.
I remember when Big Boss's and Fag lollies had lit ends!
We recently got a typewriter for the kids, we play records, and we haven't had a telly for 5 years! So we are partly old skool like that! Although my 1 year old can navigate on the iPad…
Playing outside! My dad had to yell from the front door when it was time for dinner at least twice, and we always wanted to go back out and play afterward. Do kids today find their own games outdoors anymore?
I hope so. Thanks for writing!
Walkman! To go along with your tapes! And a VCR. And dial-up internet. I can still recognize that connection sound =) LOL