Millennials, baby boomers or Gen Z
I'm a boomer, not the submarine though. I was born in 1951.
Back then life was a hell of a lot different than it is now. My dad worked on farms and I helped him very frequently whether I wanted to or not.
We had a party line phone, our ring was 3 short burps. I think there were 3 other families on that line, each with their own distinctive ring.
For tv we had two channels, 11 and 13 out of Lubbock. For me back then that was wonderful. Wait on your favorite show to come on once a week, it was a tantalizing period.
Which one are you guys? Tell us some tales from your past.
Z'er from Lubbock. I grew up here . Moved away many times and always came back home . I grew up riding outside until I found girls . I started riding inside after that...
ReplyDeleteI was born in 1956. We had three channels, until one moved their tower, which led to a long period of time with just two channels.
ReplyDeleteFriday was the day my mother would make hamburgers, the Wild Wild West would come on, and we watched after supper. After that, if it was Summer, we'd go out until the street lights came on.
I'm a tail-end Boomer, born in '61 on Long Island. We didn't have a party line, but our phone numbers were prefaced by the name of the central office our phone was homed to (Sunset 5-1212, etc), and were rotary dial. The TV was a black and white, picked up seven channels, and had to warm up. 'Same went for the radio. We didn't get a color TV until '65, and that one spent more time in the shop than in our house. 'Didn't matter though, as Neil Armstrong stepping onto the moon was B&W anyway.
ReplyDeleteWe were about 20 miles from NYC. Dad worked there. As kids we were about a ten minute bike ride from the bay, and spent A LOT of time fishing, crabbing, and "falling in the water." The rest of the time was spent doing what almost every kid did "before cable;" baseball, football, hockey, blowing stuff up with fireworks, and just "sittin' on the fence" with my friends.
I had a pretty good time growing up...
None of the above here. Born in 1942 I'm a member of the Silent Generation.
ReplyDeleteSame here. Radio, playing outside everyday, party lines, Aunt & Uncle with me snuggled up to radio and crying when We voted for Israel state. We were not Jewish but religious.
DeleteBorn 1940. Army brat. Waited for favorite radio programs at specific times - "Sergeant Preston of the Yukon", "The FBI in Peace and War", "The Green Hornet", "Fibber McGee and Molly", "Jack Benny Program". Television came along, so had to go over to a friend's house to watch "Red Buttons", "Mickey Mouse Club", "Edgar Bergen & Charley McCarthy". Different times.
ReplyDeleteOnce again, Gen X gets overlooked and left out. . .
ReplyDeleteAlso born in '51 and still on the farm where I was raised. 10 families on the party line, didn't have a TV until 1964 and got rid of the TV in 2019 and haven't missed it. Also got fiber optic in 2018. Retired from farming still rent sharing the land and doing welding and other repair work. Wife and I both hate towns of any size so I guess we'll stay here until we can't.
ReplyDelete1949, Long Island, N.Y. so we had three or four TV channels black and white until I was a teen. I do remember when I was small picking up the phone and the operator saying “number please”. We watched Micky Mouse Club before my dad got home, if sports were on when he was home it trumped anything else. Lots of beach time in summer
ReplyDeleteBorn in '56 in Tombstone AZ behind the OK Corral...really.
ReplyDeleteMy old man hated the shows they put on and the faux gunfire following. Moved to small town OK in '60, then to RGV TX in '69. What a nightmare. Off to CO for 10 years, now in TX Hill country.
Two TV channels in RGV if one did not have cable. They finally got an NBC affiliate in 1979, giving three channels without cable.
HBO was known as Casa Cinema 3. We could steal free HBO by climbing the pole and removing the little scrambler box they put in the coax.
TV went off at midnight, with Star Spangled Banner.
Morning TV began with a test pattern.
We waited patiently for Wednesdays in the mid sixties for "Lost in Space".
Early 1964 birth. Sorry, my life was that of a Gen X, NOT a boomer. I do not agree with the arbitrary lines one bit. And my mom 2as from the Silent generation, not the "greatest generation" as most boomers were. Just WAY TOO MANY YEARS included in the boomer range.
ReplyDeleteHowdy! Old GenXer, cohort of '64. I read Strauss & Howe's "Generations" when it came out and I've used it in my classroom as a lens for viewing the more personal side of history. I taught college a bit after military service, then secondary for the last 25 years. I taught the Millennials and are now teaching the oldest of the Homelanders (as called by S&H, more colloquially known as Zoomers). "Generations" and the follow-up book "The Fourth Turning" makes it very clear that generations are reproductive units of 17 to 23 years in length, so I don't like or follow media claims of new or micro-generations. Then again, being a contrarian is very GenX, no? Have a spiffy one, kids.
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