Childhood Nostalgia: What was normal as a kid that is totally Bizarre Now

Remember the days when answering the phone felt like a thrilling mystery, and our homes were tethered by six-foot phone cords? Join us as we reminisce about these and other unique childhood experiences that, in today's world, seem almost surreal. We take you on a nostalgic trip from navigating without GPS to the advent of MapQuest and the era when the Yellow Pages was a household staple. We'll share stories about how outdoor dogs roamed freely and kids biked unsupervised between towns, painting a vivid picture of how much our daily lives have transformed.

Do you recall a time when smoking regulations were lax enough to allow cigarettes in hospital lobbies and on airplanes? Our conversation dives into these dramatic cultural shifts, including the nearly extinct relic of the payphone, which once necessitated everyone carrying a quarter for emergencies. We also explore the responsibilities carried by 13-year-old babysitters, the bygone era of milk deliveries, and the impractical winter clothing for girls, showing how societal expectations and norms have evolved over time. These reflections provide a fascinating look at how our perceptions of safety and convenience have changed.

Finally, we wrap up with heartwarming memories of relaxed car safety standards—think kids sitting on the floor or riding in the back of station wagons without a second thought. We also touch on the cumbersome process of photography before the digital age, making us appreciate how far we've come. This episode isn't just about remembering the past; it's about cherishing these moments and sharing them with friends to spark delightful conversations and camaraderie. Join us, reflect on these nostalgic stories, and let’s celebrate how these experiences have shaped us.

Chapters

• 0:00 Remembering Childhood Normalities
• 6:51 Cultural Shifts in Childhood Norms
• 14:08 Remembering Childhood Nostalgia
• 20:35 Embracing Memories of the Past

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

We've got a fun episode for everyone today, a break from our typical business and marketing and sort of social media psychology stuff, and we're going to have a little fun. Today's topic is things that were considered normal when I was a kid, that are totally bizarre today. Let's go down memory lane together and have some fun. The show is about to start in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. This is, don't Fear Grit, with Rob Taormina Marketing strategies and advertising technologies to help you build a better business. So this is definitely a fun topic and something that I have thought about and it's definitely something that when you're with your friends and family and whatnot, it comes up and it's one of those sort of roundtable discussions. But it's things that you did as a kid that you don't do now, or your kids don't do now or are completely bizarre now, but were normal when you were a kid. And that list is definitely growing and growing and growing as we get older and older and older and it's just really interesting and I was recently having this conversation and we were going down memory lane and I'm like, oh, what a great episode for the next podcast show. Let's do it. Let's take a little bit of a break from our normal scheduled programming and just have some fun. And let's get a little creative here so that we can all reminisce together on some of the cool things and some of the bizarre things that we did as a kid. So we'll start off with some easy stuff and then along the way, I got some things on this list that is going to make you go, huh, that's interesting. Well, the first one is that when I was a kid and you picked up the phone, you had no idea who was calling. There was no such thing as caller ID, which means if the phone rang, you picked up the phone and it was always. You have no idea who's going to be on the other end. Is it someone calling for your parents? Is it a neighbor? Is it a boy or girl calling from school that you're going to be nervous about? You have no idea. Is it a boy or girl calling from school that you're going to be nervous about? You have no idea. So that sort of like excitement built up until you heard the person's name on the other side of the line and you would say, hey, hello, who is this? So that's the first one is, again, there was no such thing as caller ID when I was a kid, and so I just remember, as a kid the phone rang and I was, if, if, if I like there was someone I wanted to speak to, I was always anticipating like I would say, like, oh, I hope it's this person calling, and always well, not always, but more often than not being disappointed because the calls were often, more often than not, were not for me actually Cause, of course, I'm a kid, right?

Speaker 1: 2:42

But on the topic of phones also, another big thing is if you are on a phone call, ready for this, you had to stay within a six foot radius of the phone because everything was corded. There were no wireless phones, right, like everyone has a cell phone now you can make a phone call from anywhere, right. But back then it was only landlines and you're connected with this cord that pretty much stayed raveled up and all disheveled and and and, uh and nodded. Oh, my God, I don't know. I don't know how many times I tried to unravel that cord growing up. But, yeah, the one big thing is is always having to stay within a six foot radius of that phone. So there were no private conversations and unless you like were able to get like to one of those long um cables and you're able to like pull actually the whole phone with you like in a closet or into your room and you had this long cable going through your house. Um, and then you know, game changer, when you had the wireless landlines in the house. Oh, that was. That was a big deal as well. But that was another big thing is remember the cords. But the big thing about the, the cords I'm always for some reason they never stayed untangled. I don't know about you guys Were your cords always tangled Because even though they had that spiral thing, that spiral thing would always get tangled up and it's because you had to stay within that six foot radius and you were just like walking in circles walking in circles with it. You know pretty, pretty bizarre stuff.

Speaker 1: 4:04

Another thing that I remember, even when I first started driving and not that I'm that old, but I'm a sort of unique age where I'm like I experienced analog and digital right when I'm old enough, where I had the analog, young enough where digital was part of the transition as well. But when I first started driving, paper maps were still the way to travel. There was no technology that you could plug in navigation, there was no GPS like that, so it was all paper maps. And I remember that's roughly when, like MapQuest, you can go to MapQuestcom and you could print out even though you can go digitally to get directions, you can still print it out. Even though you can go digitally to get directions, you can still print it out.

Speaker 1: 4:45

And but before I get to that, I remember vividly when I was a kid, having these big maps that would be folded perfectly into like a brochure size, and I remember like we would stop at like rest stops and get the local paper map and this massive thing that I'm talking about, huge like the size of the table here, and you have this map and you have to try to find. Okay, we are here, we have to go there and just navigate through this map. You know, what's interesting is that we all did it and everyone knew how to do it. Even as a kid, like it was just part of of life, really was like this assumed process. Everyone knew how to read a map and get from point A to point B. And then I remember when we transitioned to MapQuest and everyone would print out all these directions is what you initially had to do If you were going a long distance, you would print out like six different variations.

Speaker 1: 5:38

You'd be from point A to point B, from point B back to point A. Oh, what if you detoured, like you would have all of these different variations just in case, because you weren't, maybe you weren't gonna get to a computer at the hotel. You didn't have that, you didn't have a printer, so you would have this massive folder. I remember of all these directions and, oh man, I remember the car littered with just directions if you were going on a long trip. But, yeah, paper maps. I remember that vividly and I loved that as a kid going to the rest stops and getting the local paper map and just unfolding this glorious thing, being like, oh my God, the world is so big. It was pretty cool.

Speaker 1: 6:14

Another thing is that I remember as a kid now, depending on where you are in the world, this is still sort of commonplace, but around here it's not now but when I was a kid there were a lot of dogs and cats that simply just roamed the streets. It was normal to have an outdoor cat, normal to have an outdoor dog, and they sort of roamed, rampant. I remember vividly seeing this. In fact, I remember when I was a kid I must've been in maybe like third grade my teacher asked us, instructed us we have to write our own creative story. Come up with your own story, your own characters and write a whole thing.

Speaker 1: 6:51

And there was someone that I knew that had a dog. That was an outdoor dog and it just roamed right and I remember oftentimes this person would like babysit me and I would go to their house and sometimes I would play the dog if it was there and if it wasn't, they would be like, oh no, the dog's not here, it's roaming around. And I remember thinking like, oh, what is the dog doing? So as a kid I remember vividly I wrote a story about where this dog went. I love this. This meant so much to me that I still remember it to this day. But again, I wrote a story because it was commonplace back then. They were just dogs and cats that just sort of roamed free and did their thing. Um, and I guess you know many lawsuits later of kids getting hurt and bit by random dogs. Um, that is definitely a thing of the past. Locally you don't see random dogs. If you see a dog, you know there's something wrong. Roaming randomly around, maybe there's a few, uh, stray cats here and there, but not like it used to be. I remember as a kid there being dogs and cats everywhere. It was just sort of commonplace.

Speaker 1: 7:55

Another big thing that I remember that was very normal when I was a kid. That is definitely not normal now. Oh my gosh, absolutely not. Is that how unsupervised we were as kids? And I've told this story many, many times and like it's like a shocking thing to have this discussion now.

Speaker 1: 8:15

But when I was a kid, when I was six, seven, eight, nine years old, I would regularly be by myself. I would take my bike. I would bike to the next town over by myself to my friend's house play with a ball in the streets. It would get dark and they'd be like oh you know, it's time to go home, so I would take my bike back home by myself, do my thing and we're talking about as a six to nine year old taking his bicycle between towns, main roads, side streets. It was commonplace and it's not like people would see me and be like, oh my gosh, let's help this kid out, he's lost. No, because all of us kids did that. So it's not like the neighbors or adults would be weirded out by seeing that and call the police. Not at all, that was commonplace back then.

Speaker 1: 9:06

Fast forward to now. You see a child by himself. You think parent, parental neglect, call 911, I'm gonna stay with the kid. And you know what? Rightfully so, because culturally it's changed. It's not as safe maybe now, and there's a lot of other variables involved. But I couldn't imagine even allowing my kids now, who are 13 years old, taking their bike by themselves to the next town over to their friends. I would never. They'd be grounded my gosh for the next 40 years if they ever did that and nor would they ever even think to do that. You don't see kids by themselves anymore, really unsupervised Now. If you see it, you definitely put it that in that category of there's something wrong. Either it's suspicious on their part, like oh, what are these kids up to, or you know these kids are by themselves and they're being unsupervised Again. We're not that far off as far as when I was a kid versus now but that's been a huge cultural shift is back then kids were not supervised. Now they absolutely are supervised a whole lot more.

Speaker 1: 10:11

Another big thing that I remember, even when I became a teenager, the yellow pages was like your ticket to understanding what was in the community. If you didn't have the yellow pages, you were lost. You didn't know that there was a world that existed outside of the media of you know your little neighborhood and you relied on it for everything. You relied on it not just adults, for, like the plumber, the electrician, you relied on it for the local pizzeria. I remember the local yellow pages would put out a special. There was a pizzeria, mama Teresa's. They would put out a special and it was for 5.99,. You can get a whole pie and my friends and I would like rip this out. We would call Mama Teresa's, get our 5.99 pie. But we relied on the phone book and we all knew how to use a phone book. We all, every household, had a phone book. Like, if you didn't have a phone book, you were lost. The yellow pages that was huge. The yellow pages were huge. It was the yellow pages and the white pages and if you didn't have those, my gosh, you were lost. Kids these days they don't even know what that is, but that was basically the Google of the day. Again, you didn't have your yellow pages. You definitely were absolutely lost.

Speaker 1: 11:20

Another thing that I remember as a kid. I remember if, like going to the hospital and like I could close my eyes and I could see the lobby in the waiting room and people smoking, which is bizarre. We're talking about a hospital here, so that's a bizarre thing to think about. But I do have memories of going to the hospital and people in there just commonplace smoking. It was a very common thing, just like you know, there was smoking on airplanes. Now, oh my god, it's like a federal offense to do that stuff. So that's another big thing. That's a big difference between then and now.

Speaker 1: 11:57

Um, let's see, here I got some things written down. Oh, my gosh, the payphone I. I think I just recently read that there's like one um active, live working payphone left in new york state or something like that. Some some like crazy stat um, but because they're obviously there's no cell phones, everyone always would leave with at least a quarter, and then you date yourself back even earlier than me. I think it was a dime, but for me growing up it was a quarter you always have.

Speaker 1: 12:28

If you left, you always have to have a quarter in your pocket. This way you can always call home, you can call your mom or dad or whatever. And there are pay phones everywhere. There was literally pay phones everywhere. There were pay phones in street corners, there were pay phones in street corners, there were pay phones in buildings. There were just pay phones everywhere to allow you to connect with your family that way. There was pay phones in schools. I remember actually, there was a pay phone right outside the administrative office of my school. There was one and that thing got a whole lot of use.

Speaker 1: 12:59

That's how you called home for various things and then later on, when collect call became, you know, was introduced, then we figured out a workaround because they asked you to record like your name and so what you would do is, like you would put like your message in the name and this way you don't you didn't need a quarter necessarily and then they can hear the message or, if they be calling, the other side accepted it. Then the person who was on the other side had to then pay the charges for that. Uh, but yeah, I remember pay phones were a huge part of being a teenager because that was the one thing like I had to check in with my parents, be like, you know you're going, whatever, like make sure you call, here's your quarter, whatever. So pay phones were definitely a big part of it. Um, let's see here I'm just going through my list. Oh, another big thing I remember um, not me, but I remember, like all the the girls like in my class or in the neighborhood, like it was like a rite of passage, once you turned like 12 or 13, you got a babysitting job, like if you were 13 and you were a girl, uh, you, you got a job and you were a babysitter and they thought that immediately you were prepared to go from, like, elementary school child you turned 13.

Speaker 1: 14:08

Well, now you could babysit six children, six children, one infant still in diapers and do homework, like it was just a common thing, like, like you matured very quickly if you were 13 and a girl because, boom, you had that responsibility and you know what you got paid for it. You know, but it's amazing to think that you know they thought that 13 year olds had the maturity level to be able to handle that. But you know, honestly, they did in many cases. So it's interesting how we've gotten away from that. You know, like, how many 13 year old girls now are babysitting as a job? You could probably count them, maybe on one hand of everyone that you know. Back then, if you were 13, it was like a done deal. A hundred percent of you were, uh, babysitters, like that was your job.

Speaker 1: 14:52

You know, I remember that vividly. I remember being a little bit jealous because they were like having all this cash, I'm like I want cash. You know this wasn't me, but I remember my grandparents, though, telling me this is that they had their milk delivered in these glass bottles and then there was a milkman who would come and you would leave the empties out and he would just sort of like recycle it and give you the new ones in this like this little metal sort of basket with these glass bottles, and that's how you would get your fresh milk delivery. Another thing that I saw online also is that and this is true, like if I see like pictures of like my mom and and my aunts when they were little kids in like playing in the snow, girls were in skirts with high knee socks and boys weren't pants, and I'm that's not right. Like it's freezing out and you're making girls wear these little skirts with high knee socks. It's crazy. Um, oh, oh. My gosh, this is a big one. I think I'm gonna end end the episode on this one is that I remember a photography.

Speaker 1: 15:59

If you were gonna take a picture, you made sure you were taking the picture that you actually wanted, because it was expensive. You know, you had these expensive cameras. You had to put in rolls of film every single time, and I think it was 24, 24 or 36. And then you had to take it to a place, give them that roll of film. They would develop it. It would take like a week and then you just cross your fingers that you got a good picture because you were paying for it regardless and it was not cheap. So it was time consuming, it was expensive, so you know. That's why, like, if again people weren't taking thousands of pictures like you do now because, you listen, you got your cell phone, you could take a zillion of them, right, and there's no expense to you for doing that. Back then there was a huge expense. So you really thought long and hard.

Speaker 1: 16:53

If you were gonna in fact take that picture which is why you know you don't have, you know, events as your, as of a kid and thousands of pictures, you'll have like two or three pictures of your birthday because, again, it was expensive to do that. Back. Then it was Like, could you imagine dropping off a roll of film, not knowing if you actually did it right, paying all this money to go back a week later at the event, and then you find, oh my gosh, they're all white. Oh my gosh, it's blurry. Oh my God, my finger was in front of it, like that happened and um, but yeah, I.

Speaker 1: 17:27

Then I remember the disposable cameras. That helped a little bit, helped with the cost, but still you would get a disposable camera where you had 24 pictures. I remember going on my class trip and I had my disposable camera that my parents gave me and those 24 pictures had to last the entire trip. So in moments I'd be, I would like you would wind it up. You have to crank it up right and then you have to charge the flash. You hold this little button, you charge the flash and then you would sit there and be like it's just worth it. Should I take the picture? You know like you really thought about like, do I want to waste one of my 24 pictures on this? But yeah, I remember, I do remember that vividly, and having rolls and rolls of film, and you know, and I I have no doubt that if I go through, like my junk bags that I have in my storage, whatever, I can probably still find one or two rolls of film that are still not developed.

Speaker 1: 18:16

And because, here's the thing, you didn't develop a roll of film until you finished every picture. So it's not like you had a roll of film of 24 and you only took like 18 and you developed that. No way, you're not wasting that. So what would we do? You would just save it until the next event you would have, and so sometimes it could take months, months to actually develop a roll of film because you waited until it was finished. That's why I have no doubt I probably have a roll or two somewhere from when I was a kid. It's not developing some probably gold, gold, mine of a great moment that I'm uh, you know that maybe I should, maybe I should try to do that. I don't even know where to develop film, though these days I'm sure you can, you could probably do that, but oh, you know what actually I want to end on one more thing is I remember as a kid now the cars were made a little bit differently, in the sense that now you have these rules and regulations that govern, you know where a child can sit, how they they can sit in, what they can sit seatbelts on that stuff.

Speaker 1: 19:16

They didn't have that when I was a kid. So if you were the older kid, you'd be on the floor if there wasn't available seat and so that the youngest could be. Like you know, I'm secure properly, so I would sit on the floor as the oldest kid and I remember there were actually cars, station wagons where you had the last row, actually faced the opposite way. I loved that seat. So if I can grab that seat and like one of my friends' parents had that, I remember I'd be like, oh, can I please sit in the back? And like people would fight over it because that was a cool seat you get to see the back, no seatbelts, though you know it was like a free for all. It was like a jungle gym in a way. Um, but yeah, I remember the cars were just different as far as the rules for kids, um, and seatbelts and roaming around and having those seats at face backwards, like it was just bizarre, um and uh, so, yeah, so listen, this list goes on and on and on.

Speaker 1: 20:07

I've had so many of these really great conversations with friends and family, and I want to encourage you to do that one day is get down with some friends maybe a couple of cocktails, whatever and just having a fun night of thinking what was something that was normal when you were a kid. That's totally bizarre now, and I bet you guys are going to come up with some really, really cool answers. I'd love to hear them message me. I love, actually, this particular topic. It really gets me to reminisce. It's funny.

Speaker 1: 20:35

I'm getting to the age where it's like, oh, the good old days. But no, no, it's true and I love this. So this is a fun conversation. I hope you guys enjoyed this particular topic as much as I did. Definitely, take a listen, go back and share this with some friends that'd be like, hey, remember this Because. And share this with some friends that'd be like, hey, remember this because. I guarantee you they're gonna enjoy reminiscing and bringing back all those fond memories as well. All right, guys, until next time. Remember, don't fear the process and don't fear grit. We'll see you next time, take care.