showing your age...

[Randi]

OK, when I was a child, I could make a local phonecall for 0,018 USD - that is if there was a telephone at all!

And when I was an au-pair in England, I could get a chocolade bar from a machine for 6 pence.

[Willow Oak]

OK, when I was a child, I could make a local phonecall for 0,018 USD - that is if there was a telephone at all!

And when I was an au-pair in England, I could get a chocolade bar from a machine for 6 pence.

We used to have something called a telephone. Now everyone uses a cell phone. I don't even have a land line.

Also, I have noticed that phone booths seemed to have disappeared.

And ..., phones used to ring. You know: Rrrriiiiiiinnnnnggggg!

Oh yeah -- we had party lines. I used to sit and listen to the old ladies gossip about their neighbors.

Okay. I'm done.

[kokopup]

Randi I remember a phone call at a public booth costing 10 cent. You would be hard pressed to find a phone booth today. The Hersey chocolate bar cost 5 cents when I was young.

For those discussing Gas stations, do you remember that they used to pump your gas ,clean the windshield, and checked you oil as a part of the service? Then they went to full service at a premium ,or self service if you wanted the best price. I don't recall seeing a full/self in years. They are all self only now.

[Edwina's Secretary]

When I went to university -- tuition for a semester (in state students) was $145.00. Out of state tuition was $675.00.

And the dorm did not have phones in the rooms. Communal phones in the hallway and a switchboard in the lobby. Phone calls and visitors were announced by a buzzer system.

[Willow Oak]

Randi I remember a phone call at a public booth costing 10 cent. You would be hard pressed to find a phone booth today. The Hersey chocolate bar cost 5 cents when I was young.

For those discussing Gas stations, do you remember that they used to pump your gas ,clean the windshield, and checked you oil as a part of the service? Then they went to full service at a premium ,or self service if you wanted the best price. I don't recall seeing a full/self in years. They are all self only now.

I helped out at a service station when I was about 12 or 13. My job was to sweep the driveway, fix flats, wash cars, etc. One day I decided to try my hand at pumping gas. On my very first customer I placed the nozzle into what I thought was the proper place located just behind the license plate.

Need I tell you?

Well, let's put it this way: I was never allowed to pump gas again.

Anyway, that little red rag hanging out of the back pocket was a real source of pride.

[pomtzu]

For those discussing Gas stations, do you remember that they used to pump your gas ,clean the windshield, and checked you oil as a part of the service? Then they went to full service at a premium ,or self service if you wanted the best price. I don't recall seeing a full/self in years. They are all self only now.

It's illegal to pump your own gas in NJ and OR. I believe they are the only 2 states that haven't caught up with the rest of the country.


And I remember the party line phones too. You were considered somewhat well off if you had a private line. I remember thinking we were really something when we went from a 2 party to a private line.
This is scary - but I remember the old phone number. That's when you had to talk to an operator - there were no dials or dial tones. Bayview1225W. Guess I must have spent more time on the phone than I remember, if I can remember the number after all these years.

[Willow Oak]

It's illegal to pump your own gas in NJ and OR. I believe they are the only 2 states that haven't caught up with the rest of the country.


And I remember the party line phones too. You were considered somewhat well off if you had a private line. I remember thinking we were really something when we went from a 2 party to a private line.
This is scary - but I remember the old phone number. That's when you had to talk to an operator - there were no dials or dial tones. Bayview1225W. Guess I must have spent more time on the phone than I remember, if I can remember the number after all these years.

775-4810. I was around five, I guess, when we got that number.

[Edwina's Secretary]

775-4810. I was around five, I guess, when we got that number.

EXport9-6482 (399-6482)....and then when we got a princess phone with a light up dial - yee ha!

[Randi]

Four well-dressed men sitting together at a vacation resort. "Farewell to Thee" being played in the background on Hawaiian guitar.

Michael Palin: Ahh.. Very passable, this, very passable.
Graham Chapman: Nothing like a good glass of Chateau de Chassilier wine, ay Gessiah?
Terry Gilliam: You're right there Obediah.
Eric Idle: Who'd a thought thirty years ago we'd all be sittin'
here drinking Chateau de Chassilier wine?
MP: Aye. In them days, we'd a' been glad to have the price of a cup o' tea.
GC: A cup ' COLD tea.
EI: Without milk or sugar.
TG: OR tea!
MP: In a filthy, cracked cup.
EI: We never used to have a cup. We used to have to drink out of a rolled up newspaper.
GC: The best WE could manage was to suck on a piece of damp cloth.
TG: But you know, we were happy in those days, though we were poor.
MP: Aye. BECAUSE we were poor. My old Dad used to say to me, "Money doesn't buy you happiness."
EI: 'E was right. I was happier then and I had NOTHIN'. We used to live in this tiiiny old house, with greaaaaat big holes in the roof.
GC: House? You were lucky to have a HOUSE! We used to live in one room, all hundred and twenty-six of us, no furniture. Half the
floor was missing; we were all huddled together in one corner for fear of FALLING!
TG: You were lucky to have a ROOM! *We* used to have to live in a corridor!
MP: Ohhhh we used to DREAM of livin' in a corridor! Woulda' been a palace to us. We used to live in an old water tank on a rubbish tip. We got woken up every morning by having a load of rotting fish dumped all over us! House!? Hmph.
EI: Well when I say "house" it was only a hole in the ground covered by a piece of tarpolin, but it was a house to US.
GC: We were evicted from *our* hole in the ground; we had to go and live in a lake!
TG: You were lucky to have a LAKE! There were a hundred and sixty of us living in a small shoebox in the middle of the road.
MP: Cardboard box?
TG: Aye.
MP: You were lucky. We lived for three months in a brown paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six o'clock in the morning, clean the bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down mill for fourteen hours a day week in-week out. When we got home, out Dad would thrash us to sleep with his belt!
GC: Luxury. We used to have to get out of the lake at three o'clock in the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of hot gravel, go to work at the mill every day for tuppence a month, come home, and Dad would beat us around the head and neck with a broken bottle, if we were LUCKY!
TG: Well we had it tough. We used to have to get up out of the shoebox at twelve o'clock at night, and LICK the road clean with our tongues.
We had half a handful of freezing cold gravel, worked twenty-four
hours a day at the mill for fourpence every six years, and when we got home, our Dad would slice us in two with a bread knife.
EI: Right. I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night,
half an hour before I went to bed, (pause for laughter), eat a lump of cold poison, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad would kill us, and dance about on our graves
singing "Hallelujah."
MP: But you try and tell the young people today that... and they won't believe ya'.
ALL: Nope, nope.. __________________

[Medusa]

It's illegal to pump your own gas in NJ and OR. I believe they are the only 2 states that haven't caught up with the rest of the country.


And I remember the party line phones too. You were considered somewhat well off if you had a private line. I remember thinking we were really something when we went from a 2 party to a private line.
This is scary - but I remember the old phone number. That's when you had to talk to an operator - there were no dials or dial tones. Bayview1225W. Guess I must have spent more time on the phone than I remember, if I can remember the number after all these years.

Our prefix was ORCHARD, so you dialed OR and then the number. When we first got our phone, I told my friend to call me and I ran home, picked up the receiver and waited. Finally I said to my mother "Nothing is happening. I can't hear anything except this sound". I wasn't even blonde then.

[Willow Oak]

Our prefix was ORCHARD, so you dialed OR and then the number. When we first got our phone, I told my friend to call me and I ran home, picked up the receiver and waited. Finally I said to my mother "Nothing is happening. I can't hear anything except this sound". I wasn't even blonde then.

Okay. I laughed.

[blue]

I think a pack was $1.50 at Denny's, in the late 80s before they removed the machines.

[Daisy and Delilah]

I used to pay 35 cents for a pack. That was the price of my high school lunch and milk and I sometimes bought cigarettes instead of lunch. ~Is my Mom reading this??~~ Yikes!!

I remember buying gas for 26 cents a gallon in 1974, on our way to move to Utah. That was when the gas rationing was, I think.

The house we grew up in was in Ormond Beach and pretty close to the beach. It cost my parents $17,000. That was in 1957.

This thread is taking me back.

[Catlady711]

Ok so it's not cigarettes, gas, or movie prices, but when my mom delivered me in the 70's it cost her $3,000 to be in the hospital for 3 days and she had 3 different doctors checking in on her.

Fast forward the the mid 1980's when I had my tonsills out, 3 hours outpatient basis = $3,000

I can't imagine what either of those would cost today.

[Willow Oak]

Ok so it's not cigarettes, gas, or movie prices, but when my mom delivered me in the 70's it cost her $3,000 to be in the hospital for 3 days and she had 3 different doctors checking in on her.

Fast forward the the mid 1980's when I had my tonsills out, 3 hours outpatient basis = $3,000

I can't imagine what either of those would cost today.

Okay you just opened up a whole 'nother can o' worms (as we say in Missippi) now.

One June 23 of last year I went for a Thallium stress test at a hospital in Memphis. I had been complaining of back pains -- pretty severe back pains -- and the doc lined me up for the test as a precautionary measure.

I arrived for the test on Monday morning, and ...

..., I was not released from the hospital until Wednesday evening.

The whole time I was there (mostly in ICU) I kept trying to get them to let me go home. The had performed a procedure on me, and after all was said and done I could not see what all the hullabalo was about.

A few weeks later the EOB's started to arrive. Good thing I have insurance: the total hospital and doctor bill went well over six figures. Turns out I had a 99% occlusion of the LAD, the dreaded "widow maker." I survived the exact same condition that killed Tim Russert. It just so happens I was on the treadmill -- already nuclear (or is it nucular?) -- when BAM!

Anyways, that's the whole can o' worms.