Lets Hear One of Your "Back in my Day" Stories

[brookdalebill]

Getting to High School Story.

At 14 y.o., I had to walk a little less than a mile to school (no bus service for < 1 mile). I screwed around one day and was going to be late, so I took my Dad’s old 3-on-a-tree truck. I didn’t know how to shift and I drove to school in 2nd gear. I figured out how to shift, and started driving to school regularly. My Dad finally caught me when I didn’t get the tires back in the dead-spot depressions in the grass. Good times.

My first car was a two tone blue and white 56 Chevy.
It had a 3 speed manual transmission.
As a 16 year old, in 1973, I taught myself how to drive it.
I was less than smooth at the start.
My Dad was a less than patient instructor.
My 3 sisters and I still have a family in-joke.
It’s “LET OFF THE CLUTCH!!! “
I learned to shift smoothly (bucking and limping all the way) by driving the car to my high school football stadium (Nelson Field).
I drove around it (after school) till I got the rhythm.
Almost 50 years ago.
Yikes!

 

[Gnometowner]

At age 13 I started working as an oilfield roustabout. Installing cattle guards, fences, setting up new pump and tank battery on wells. Dug my way to China and back with a shovel and post hole diggers. Carried on my shoulders a thousand miles of 2 3/8" steel tubing for flow lines, made $3/hr and in summer long days worked over 60hrs every week, had a few 80hr weeks.
When I wasnt doing that I drove tractor and plowed or disced wheat fields and planted mung beans. In fall I worked after football practice sacking mung beans at the feed mill.

 

[zimbo]

I remember when the TV channels shut off at night and there was just a blank screen with some strange design on them.If you see my avatar script from Hendrix "when the clowns have all gone to bed" that supposedly was what he was referring to.

 

[Preacher]

I am not as old as most of you but I have a couple of good "in my day" stories.

So if you saw the pic of me in the old pictures thread, that house did not have indoor plumbing. All if had was a big sink with a faucet for cold water. If you wanted hot water you had to heat it up in a pot on the stove. And if you had to go to the bathroom, it was out the back door toward the oak tree, take a left at the chicken coop and find the outhouse. Because of the location of our house and the fact it was abandoned for a year before we got it there were snakes everywhere. So you were really careful where you stepped. So my brother was out in the outhouse and all of the sudden we hear him scream and he comes running out of the outhouse with his pants around his legs. He soon lost the pants on the way to the house and he burst into the back door claiming he had been bit on the bum by a snake. My mom and dad were pretty excited and threw my brother up onto the kitchen table to take a look at his backside. Being the curious child I was I came in to check it out and see if he would die...
Anyway my mom and dad check him out and declare he would live, he had gotten two large splinters into his backside from the seat. My mom then chastised my dad about not fixing the "hole in the outhouse" as she apparently had experienced some roughness as well.

I also remember telling a story to some people at work, reciting the out house story and said "back in the old days" a couple of times while telling this story. After the third time of saying, "back in the old days" one of our secretaries who was twenty or thirty years older than my said, "you are too young to know of the old days, let me tell you about them you young pup".

 

[StoneH]

(bucking and limping all the way)

That's starting off in 2nd . . . then that awful sound of hitting 30 (still in 2nd).

 

[flathd]

Back in my day...I had to get off the couch to change the TV channels!

Back in the day... we wired up a toggle switch to the TV speaker to mute the sound during commercials. We did have to get off the couch to change the channels though.

 

[Foxximan84]

When I was little I used to play with my friends in the yard till night.

 

[brookdalebill]

I got a job selling stereo equipment in 1977, when I was almost 20.
I actually learned a fair bit about how it works, what sounds good, and how various components worked together.
I learned to balance tone arms, what impedance matching is, how power amps work, and where to place components.
I learned how various magnetic tape formats work, what a good frequency response is, and the value of a great, light tracking cartridge and stylus.
It was fun, and because popular music was such a cultural force, and young people liked quality, good sounding equipment, I stayed busy.
Perhaps ironically, I have no stereo equipment, and I only listen to music on YouTube.
I own no vinyl, and never listen to a huge drawer full of CDs
Anyways, in “the day” home stereo components were a big deal.