Young people have no idea …

I loved this article about how we used to spend our time after work.

Nuggets like …

“You’d have bar arguments about what was true or not, and you couldn’t resolve it immediately, because no one could check the internet! It would go on forever. For days.”

“Sally: You had to plan more ahead and hope it worked out. People didn’t flake as much. There’s no option to text someone 10 minutes before, because you knew they were waiting for you.

Dan: Even if you didn’t feel like it, you just showed up. If you didn’t show up, people would stop inviting you out. And then you would have fun! Or maybe it would suck, but next time would be fun.”

https://slate.com/human-interest/2023/06/life-before-cell-phones-internet-after-work.html

So what else don’t young people understand about life in the early 2000s or 1990s or 80s?

 

How to live without crippling debt.

 

If you wanted to figure out how to go somewhere, you had to know how to read a map (no turn-by-turn GPS directions).

Having to eyeball how much gas was left on the gauge vs. how far that would take you, lest you run out 20 miles from the nearest exit and have to walk (or hitchhike) for help.

That $5 worth of gas would fill half the tank, and was a common denomination to buy gas in.

 

The osmosis of being in the same office and the invaluable benefit of having improptu meetings.

Wondering what was going on in another continent, let alone a different region in the US.

 

I remember discussing a Beatles lyric one time at work because a writer wanted it in the piece. We weren't sure if the context was correct. I called my girlfriend who was a Beatles fan. She had to call her dad back in New York. He had to find the info, call her back, then she had to pass along the info to me and I had to tell the writer. Took at least 20 minutes and probably cost her $5 in long-distance charges. Note: This (1998) happened well after the Stone Ages ended but before Wikipedia made everything easy.

 

Having car trouble and having to walk a mile to knock on a door at 10:30 at night hoping 1) someone will open the door and 2) not shoot you and 3) will let you use the phone.

This was the night of the O.J. Bronco chase for me, by the way.

 

The first Friday with football after 9/11: Driving through PA countryside heading back from game. I just had my car worked on earlier in the week. All of a sudden my car battery died. I didn’t understand why. I got a jump. I’d go for a bit. It’d die. I’d get another jump. I thought that maybe I could get back to the office. Nope. End up breaking down on a dark two-lane road. Walked a bit down the road and knocked on some rando’s door at 10:30. He doesn’t shoot me. He lets me call the office to dictate, and then I call for a tow. I’d been stubborn and pushing back against getting a cell phone for a while. That changed.

Always meant to drive to that house and slip a $20 in the mailbox. I didn’t head that way too often, so it never happened.

 

Going to a concert and trying to describe it to your friends, rather than showing them a video on your phone.

Heck, actually watching a concert through your own eyes rather than through the camera app on your phone.

 

Why a dime was so vital to have in your ashtray...

What a calling card represents....

What its like to go on vacation and truly have no connection to work or parents unless you call them. (I went to Club Med in Cancun once for 10 days and there was one pay phone for about 800 of us on the resort, no newspapers, and one TV, truly untethered from life and it was awesome.)

 

Nobody would shoot you for that back then, though.* That's why today is the problem.

* RUSSIA NOT INCLUDED. ... NOR IS CHICAGO.

 

They'd shoot you, but nobody but the local paper's readers would know about it.

 

The excitement/mystery/dread/anticipation of what the blinking light on your answering machine held when you got home.