Lots of playing outside, lots of outdoor activities, lots of playing with stuff in imaginative ways. We made stuff, had hobbies, and watched stuff on all three channels.

I was born in 1967, and in 1973 my folks bought a set of encyclopedias. They got used well into the 80's for homework. It might not seem like much, but having a set of books like that at your house was a big deal. We could do homework at home, even research for term papers and such. I recently took a look at them. The bit on lasers, for example, is hilarious. But back then if they printed it in the encyclopedia, it was taken as truth.

Speaking of which, I wonder about people not questioning the veracity of their information. They see it online, it must be true, right? We had no need for snopes.com back then.

People knew how to spell. You typed (literally; that or wrote) the word "you" when using the first person singular. The first person possessive was "your", not "ur". All this text-speak bullshiat is fingernails on a blackboard to people who had to either learn how to spell or look things up in a dictionary constantly. But you don't know what a blackboard is, do you? Or why nails on it might not sound good. All your classroom time has been in front of projectors and dry-erase boards. You don't even know what having to stay back and dust erasers or clean blackboards meant, do you?

Cooking was a chore, and involved making things from discrete ingredients. Popcorn at home was from a little deal used in the fire or a hot air thing that made it taste like packing foam. We bought one of the first microwave ovens in our city in the early 70's. You wanted hot water? All you had to do was put the cup in there and turn the dial to 2 minutes. Never mind grandma thought it would irradiate her thyroid, this was the oven of the future! Making thanksgiving dinner in it was not such a hot idea, though. No pun intended.

We used white-out. The backspace key was meant for over-striking, or using that new-fangled white-out tape on the IBM Selectric.

TV had all your news. Well, aside from the morning paper. Your parents would spend like 45 minutes each morning reading about what happened weeks ago in the dead tree edition of the news. While pops was reading the financials, you sat there and ate your King Vitamin or Quisp and moped that you didn't get that BMX bike or GI Joe for Christmas.

TV had all your entertainment. That or the movie theater/playhouse. Buzz about new movies or shows happened at work, around the water cooler.

People used the phone when they had an issue with something. If you needed info about a product or service, you opened the yellow pages and dialed someone. They answered your questions, and if you felt squingy about their replies, you let your fingers do more walking and called someone else.

The fax machine was made from magic.

We had to be kind and rewind, not download. I once paid $65 for a Betamax copy of the first Indiana Jones movie. But, you know what? I felt like I owned it.

Seeing a movie was an event, not a crime.

Everyone wanted to hear the b-side to a record, not download cover art from iTunes. You owned a record, and played its songs in series, like it was meant to be played. Record players had no "shuffle" setting.

The world was a big place. A person in your town who was from Australia or India (or even New Jersey) was from a Far Away Land full of weird strangers. You communicated with people in your community, back when that word had actual meaning. People that could help you, people that knew you. You didn't need ID to cash a check, which was good because you only had Diners Club (that or Master Charge) and the store didn't take that card. But he knew your neighbor and so your check was good.

When you got your bank statement, you read it. And you actually looked through the stack of canceled checks. Once or twice a month, you had to sit down and balance everything out, and then pay all your bills. Everyone had a roll of stamps for mailing out checks for the utilities and such.

Book stores existed. Like, real ones, which had chairs and friendly people working in them. They wanted you to come in, sit down and peruse the selections. They wanted regular customers and the people working there knew what you liked and could suggest other authors or books you might like -- often with uncanny precision. They were the only place to special order books not in stock. Because nobody knows the phone number of the local book distributor.

Sometimes you'd be able to get a hold of the European version of a record you owned -- and it was all different! Sometimes there's be different songs, different ordering, all sorts of changes. You'd buy "an album" and then if you were a real fan, you bought "an import" of it. All your friends wanted to hear it when it came in the mail.

People were nice. You had to be; there was no chance to be an internet tough guy.

Roook: Since you're a TFette there's no real need to go into how you try to get a look at boobs in your early teens.

But let me tell you, you'd have sold your soul.

Forgot this one. Cable came to my area as sort of a test in 1980. It had HBO and one other movie channel I can't recall. I do remember seeing MTV's first video. We saw the announcements for MTV and were really wanting to check it out.

Anyway, back then the cable box was a faux-wood thing that sat on your TV andhad a million push buttons on top. Your TV had two dials: One for VHF and one for UHF. You turned the VHF (which clicked between channels) to channel 1 and then tuned the UHF dial (which moved more smoothly, like a radio dial) in order to pick up the cable box's channels. You had to correlate the set-top box's channel button with the UHF dial.

So when HBO is showing a movie that's got nekkid in it, your older brother comes along and shows you what his buddy at school told him about: you very very carefully get the UHF dial in between "channels" until you can see the restricted HBO or cinemax channel with like a fuzzy bar in the lower portion -- but the rest is fine as long as you like your movies kinda wobbly and in black and white.

You'd watch "porn" that way. I saw Porky's that way, for example. Kim Cattrall is still hot, too.