On the 'down' side:
My father was in Vietnam, so I grew up hearing some of the horrors when he'd get together with buddies who'd survived and chat with them. He never knew I listened.
I remember being at home (my parents let me stay home just for the launch) and watching live as the Shuttle blew up.
I lived in constant fear of being 'nuked'. I even wrote a short story about it once to try to deal with my fear of dying like that - or worse, surviving such a holocaust.
I grew up with stories of WWII from my Grandad and stories about the Great Depression, but it didn't seem as real to me as Vietnam and the Cold War.
I, too, remember when Reagan was shot, so I can 'feel' a bit of what my Mom talked about when Kennedy was shot, but it still isn't the same.
On the 'up' side:
I remember when the ice cream truck would come down the street with loads of kids running to meet it.
I remember when you could go to the movies for $1.50. I saw Jaws and Star Wars opening weekends!
I remember when you had to mow lawns and do housework to earn your allowance, where now most of my friends just 'give' their children an allowance each week for 'free'! [img]redface.gif[/img]
I had to earn my first car (a 1973 Chevy C10 Stepside with wood bed and a 350 V8 engine) and had to walk to work for three months to earn the money to insure it so I could drive. !!!
I remember M*A*S*H and Family Ties and Growing Pains. I remember when the Olsen twins were babies on Full House. [img]redface.gif[/img]
OMG! I am getting on in years! Somebody get me my walker! [img]tongue.gif[/img]
P.S. - I just remembered, too, that my first computer was an Adam with dual tape drives (used a freaky Chrome tape) and I taught myself BASIC on it. Two years later, we had apples and Macintrashes at school to learn on.
P.P.S. - BTW: My dad still has an 8-track player AND 8-track tapes too! And they all work! He rigged up something at home to copy them to a reel-to-reel and then on to tapes and is now working on getting them to CD on his computer.
HEY! Anyone remember Jello Puddin' Pops! And YOUNG Bill Cosby? How about Fat Albert???
Edited for typos.
[ 10-14-2002, 10:35 AM: Message edited by: DragonMage ]