Young people have no idea …

Among my duties in my college job driving wrecker at Happy Jack's Natco Service in the late 70s and early 80s, we had to unlock people's cars.

Our station manager, Keith, was an expert at this crap, his dad had been a corporate franchise supervisor for 20 years and Keith was fixing cars from age 6. He had cut custom "slim jim" tools out of sheet metal with grooves and notches to trip the door mechanism from inside once you slipped the slim-jim inside the window weatherstripping.

Anyway we'd have races with cars inside the service bays. One guy would be on one side of the garage with the keys, the other would be on the other side with the slim-jim. A third party would yell, "go" and we'd race to see whether we could get in faster jimmying the door locks or using the keys.
I got so it was about a draw; I could get in most American cars as fast or faster with the slim-jim as I could with the keys.

My expertise as a master car burglar went a-glimmering in the early-mid 80s when power door locks advanced from occasional luxury options to fairly common to pretty much ubiquitous by the mid-90s. Power locks were much harder to jimmy open and remote power locks well nigh impossible.

 

Far as I know, most cars still have a physical key in the fob and a hidden key hole somewhere in the door handle. There is even a way to use it to start the car if you need to.
At least mine does, and it's a 2021 model.

 

If you missed a game, it took some effort to find the score. The local all news radio stations ran sports at 15/45 and 20/50, respectively, so you could catch it there or you would have to wait for the 11 pm news. There were no notifications or scrolls on TV.
And if you missed a highlight, you we’re unlikely to ever see it.

 

My car is a 2010 so the key is still needed to start the engine but I can use a FOB to open the automatic locks. My wife’s has the hidden key.

I’m just remembering back to my 89 Blazer (my first hand-me-down car) where I needed two keys.

 

Lining up for concert tickets or mashing the phone to try and get through to charge by card.

 

NOT paying ticket fees when you went to the box office in an effort to bypass Ticketmaster.

 

On that note, standing in line at midnight for an album release. I remember doing this at the local record shop in Blacksburg when Pearl Jam's Vs. came out.

 

Happened at a couple of music stores near my campus. Pearl Jam and REM caused people to gladly line up Tuesdays at midnight.

 

Well, they have their iPhone releases and Chik-fil-A grand openings to stand in line for.

 

I did that for a show - still had to pay ticket fees 15 years ago.

Have we mentioned watching a show when it was on? I mean, pre VCR, pre DVR if you wanted to find out Who Shot JR - you had to watch the show when it was on.

 

At least you didn't have Twitter and the web leaking out spoilers.