How things have changed since I was a kid

I'm reading Bill Bryson’s The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, a memoir about growing up in 1950s America. Most of Bryson’s other titles are stories of his travels that will have you laughing uproariously (that sounds like an odd word). In fact, a number of times I had to catch myself from laughing out loud while reading on the bus .

Anyway, back to the Thunderbolt Kid. Bryson relates that at this time no country had ever known such prosperity. In 1951, 90 percent of American families had refrigerators, and three-quarters had washing machines, telephones, vacuum cleaners, and stoves. Today, of course we take much of these conveniences for granted.

This got me thinking about the changes that have happened in my lifetime. I was born in 1970. I try to associate with people older than I, so that I always seem young. I don't talk much to my twenty-something colleague who was born after Star Wars first came out. She doesn't know a world before email and cell phones and texting.

During most of my younger years, we only had one television in our house—it was black and white (in fact, we didn’t get a colour TV until 1986). There were 12 channels (one of them was in French) and if you wanted to change the channel, you had to walk up to the mammoth set and turn the large dial, which made a loud clicking sound. There was no such thing as 24-hour children’s programs. Cartoons were on Saturday mornings and after-school. And every Sunday at 6:00 PM, by government decree, all families would be forced to watch The Wonderful World of Disney. There were no VCRs or DVD players. Despite this, we led contented lives.

We listened to music on a record player. After some time, the automatic arm on the player would break, and we’d have to place the needle on the record by hand. Inevitably, the record would get scratched and the song would skip, or it would get stuck, and play over and over and over until the needle was lifted. When you finished listening to side A, you would turn the record over for side B. Sometimes you’d leave the record near the window and it would warp.

Then cassettes came along, and you’d sign up for the deal that gave you 100 cassettes for 99 cents. Then each month another crappy cassette would come that you would have to return before they charged you. It was such an annoyance, but you kept reminding yourself that you received 100 albums for a buck. Finally, you’d cancel your subscription. When CDs came along you’d fall for the same promotion, until you got annoyed and cancelled your subscription.

Most houses, ours included only had one bathroom. There were no such things as cell phones or portable phones. Or call waiting. There were no answering machines. If you called someone and the line was busy, you just called back later (I'm still not sure if my friend, Sean, has call waiting). People used pay phones back then. It cost 10 cents to make a call.

When I was in grade 2, I rode my bike to school by myself, and when I came home my parents would still be at work. I’d grab a fistful of Ritz crackers or a bowl of ice cream and watch the Banana Splits or some other program. Elementary school students served as crossing guards (in fact, I won the School Patrol of the year in Grade 7). And there weren’t elaborate graduation ceremonies when we left Kindergarten or Grade 7. We didn't have play dates when I was a kid. If we wanted to play with our friends they just came to our house or vice versa.

There were no superstores back then, nor super models for that matter. Stores were closed on Sundays (part of the Lord’s Day Act), and when they had a vote to see if people wanted Sunday shopping, my Dad voted against it. He didn’t see the need for stores to be open on Sundays. There were no such things as debit cards, or ATMs, so on holidays and New Year’s, lines would appear outside the banks, as people made sure they had enough cash to hold them over until the bank reopened in a few days. Once people finished at the bank, they would head over to the liquor store and stand in equally long lines to load up on drink over the holidays. The only beer available was Lucky and Old Style, or maybe I thought that, because that was the only beer my Dad ever bought. Probably because it was the cheapest.

There were no mini-vans when I was growing up. Cars were made of steel, had chrome bumpers, and were so large that growing families could easily fit. They had equally large trunks. Large families would put a few of their children in the trunks to make room. There were no seatbelts, and no car seats for babies and small children.

Most movie theatres only had one screen, and the lobbies were so small that moviegoers would line up outside and down the block before the show. It was a big thing when the Odeon Theatre expanded to two screens, and even bigger when the Capitol 6 opened. Today, its six screens would pale in comparison to the 20 screen theatres that exist.

No one had mountain bikes. The best and fastest bicycles were 10-speeds. I remember the excitement when I got my first 10-speed. It was baby blue, and it was used. It didn’t matter; it was better than the old bike I had been riding that had no gears. Although some fun could be had with those bikes, because you just pushed the pedals back to apply the brakes. Skidding the tires was easy. Of course, sometimes you would wear the tire down and it would pop. I lost track of the number of times my Dad had to repair my tires.

Come autumn, we would rake (no one had leaf blowers) the leaves in our yard into a big pile, and then we would burn them. Usually it was more smoke than fire. If you looked across the city you could see plumes of smoke rising from backyards all over. Recycling hadn’t been invented. We threw cans and plastics in the garbage and burned the paper garbage, although sometimes some plastic would end up in the fire as well, sending toxic smoke into the air.

Our Halloween costumes were made by hand. Christmas decorations didn’t appear in stores in July, and Christmas trees were still called Christmas trees.

No one ever imagined that one day we would all have a personal computer in our homes (okay, maybe a few tech geeks did). I remember our first computer. I was maybe 11 or 12. It was made by Texas Instruments, and thanks to modern technology I was able to do a Google search and discovered that the computer was a TI99/4A and apparently retailed for about $700. I used it to play games, but every once in a while I would follow the manual, and program the computer, so my name scroll across the screen. Most people used typewriters. If you wanted to make a duplicate copy, you slid a piece of carbon paper between two pages. In fact, I used a typewriter (the apostrophe key was missing) all the way through university (I graduated in 1993).

Coffee was just black or white. And Starbucks was just the name of a character in the Moby Dick story. I only wish I got to walk to school uphill (both ways) in the blinding snow, as the generation before did.