Now & Then

[feliciakw]

From the back of my cereal box . . .

Comments

[izhilzha]

I think debit cards are great. They're not limitless, and quite a few banks these days won't cover if you accidentally overdraw, so it's an easier way of carrying around your bank account WITH the responsibility of making sure you know what you are spending and when...with a bite, like a $30 fee, if you forget to keep track!

Credit is the big problem.

Hey, it's kind of surprising how many of those items up there I remember (I think my dad still uses his manual lawn mower, actually). Aw.

[kerravonsen]

Totally agreed about debit cards. However, I suspect that the point Felicia was trying to make is that cash is better than both credit cards and debit cards, because it's easier to keep track of what you're spending.

[izhilzha]

Perhaps. It's also easier to lose a lot of money if, for instance, your purse gets snatched. I dunno. I used to always carry cash, for the reason you state, and frankly it just became much easier to keep track with my debit card, because the money was always in one place and I could check it online against my records, etc.

[feliciakw]

Don't get me wrong; I love the convenience of my debit card. But I also carry cash with me so I don't nickel-and-dime my bank account out of existence.

In a society that thrives on instant gratification, I think having access to one's entire savings all at once can be dangerous when it's nothing more than a swipe of a card and numbers on a page. And that goes doubly for overextended credit.

It sounds like the way you use your card works for you, though. :-)

[leelust]

OMG! For a different country and different culture i saw or had/have a lot of listed things :) Vynil records! Phone booths! Rotary phones! (i still have one). Milk in glass bottles! Man, i feel all nostalgic now :)

[feliciakw]

Ah, rotary phones. In a way, I kind of miss them, for nostalgia's sake. They still work with our current phone systems, but good luck finding one. :-)

[leelust]

Yep, mine is working too (sit there in case of power failure). They don't sell them anymore (just fancy costly fake-old-times stuff ).
Oh, and i still have cassettes :)

[kerravonsen]

Different country, but a number of those things were the same for me.
Vinyl Records: yep, I still have a bunch of them that I bought when I was a teenager. I must see if I can rip them to CD.
Rotary phones: yep.
Aerial Signal Television . . . (Not actually going anywhere soon. That's what we've got right now because satellite wasn't worth the money.) Agreed on both counts

[feliciakw]

yes, the days when "Channel 2" actually meant channel 2. And the two knobs, one for VHF and the other for UHF.

YES! Exactly! Now I have to ask my parents, "Okay, so channel 2 is actually what channel on the cable system?"

Video games? Video games? Bah! When I were a lass, we played real games, with real people and actually had social interaction

Oh, indeed. We got our Atari 2600 when I was in high school. Growing up it was board games and card games and Barbies and reading (yes, I had a cousin who liked me to read to her) and pretend! *nods*

[scionofgrace]

Y'know, we had computer games from my earliest childhood (Commodore 64 with 5 1/2" floppies!), but playing make-believe, reading, and building with Legos were just as important. Though it probably helped that the Commodore had a tendency to overheat.

We still play card games and Dominoes when we get together.

(Though I gotta say, watching my mom wail on my dad in Wii Boxing was the single funniest part of last Christmas. And she was giggling the whole time.)

[saberivojo]

I remember them all except gas at 65 cents, business hats, Arial signal television and I beg to differ about the Sunscreen. It was not sunscreen it was tanning lotion. It was OIL. And when we did not have that we put on baby oil. And then laid in the sun and FRIED.

[feliciakw]

You didn't have aerial TV signals? Rabbit ears and antennae? When I was growing up the only people who had cable lived in the city.

Sunscreen didn't read the SPFs that we have today, but I remember using Tropical Blend tanning butter with an SPF of 2. :-)

But, yeah, you used the oil if you wanted a TAN. Do you remember the silver tanning blankets?

[saberivojo]

I remember the tanning blankets and I do remember the arial thingys I just always called them rabbit ears! I didn't know what it was! I remember when we had a state of the art antennae on the roof. There was a dial on the tv and your could turn it n/s/e/w and it would (in some magical fashion) move the antennae on the roof instead of just pulling the rabbit ears right or left or covering them aluminum foil.

Hee, hee

[scionofgrace]

Ah, my family was so odd. We owned such things as a camcorder and a personal computer at the same time as a record player and a transistor radio. (Dad loves electronics of any vintage.) We also had an encyclopedia (1967 ed.). My roomie and I still rely on over-the-air TV 'cause, y'know, the cable stuff is almost all online. For free.

I truly enjoy having internet, an MP3 player, and a debit card. Cell phones are "meh", I've never used inline skates, and there are no toll roads here.

I think we need to go back to wearing hats to work. Hats are awesome.

[feliciakw]

Eh, not so odd. Geo is the same way. He's interested in technology of any era.

Oh, I enjoy the internet (obviously) and MP3s and debit cards. I just don't have the "oh, I wish we'd had that when I was young" thing going.

Simply wearing hats to work . . . is that what they mean by "business hats"? 'Cause, yes, hats used to be the fashion, and you didn't really go out in public without a hat.

[izhilzha]

I'm with you on the hats. I am taking my boyfriend hat shopping because he and I both agree that he needs an actual fedora. :)