Time for some fun

whydontu

I Tried, It Broke
Premium Member
I’ll try to be apolitical and only present a few examples of the bad old days

Paying $800 a month on your 19% mortgage and seeing the principal drop by $50 a month.

Drinking & driving was OK

Pot wasn’t, and a bit of weed could end you in jail unless you had really good connections

Nuns at the Catholic elementary school

Kids with polio in your Grade 3 class
 

Susquatch

Ultra Member
Administrator
Moderator
Premium Member
I’ll try to be apolitical and only present a few examples of the bad old days

I completely agree. The good old days were mostly not. Let me just name two huge factors that come to mind.

Death rate per capita was higher.
Crime rate per capita was higher.

I didn't ask for good things, just things that were different. I do wonder which way the future will go. Depending on your perspective, we may be living in the best of times.
 

jorogi

Well-Known Member
Depending on your perspective, we may be living in the best of times.
Mr. Monz, my PE and history teacher in junior high always used to say "Forget the good old days, you're living them. We never had it better". Don't remember much else from school.

Funnily I think we (of all people) forgot the most pertinent thing from the time before computers and interweb. Real machines ! The dividing head I just picked up is a great example, a quality tool built to last and no stinkin plastic keyboard. No plastic at all in fact.
 

Doggggboy

Ultra Member
I’ll try to be apolitical and only present a few examples of the bad old days

Paying $800 a month on your 19% mortgage and seeing the principal drop by $50 a month.

Drinking & driving was OK

Pot wasn’t, and a bit of weed could end you in jail unless you had really good connections

Nuns at the Catholic elementary school

Kids with polio in your Grade 3 class
My Mom not being able to have her own bank account even though she had a job.
She also got to watch the First Nations kids get the hell beat out of them by the nuns on the other side of schoolyard fence.
My Grandma not being able to vote.
My friend in grade school getting a weekly beating because he had dyslexia and couldn't spell for sith.
My parents being told I wouldn't make it to 50 because I was a type 1 diabetic.
Girls in school only being allowed to take home economics (cooking and cleaning and sewing) and not shop class.
Yes, gas was cheap but it was also full of lead and nobody was getting 40 mpg.
I don't think most of us would last long if we suddenly woke up in 1950 tomorrow.
I wouldn't go back for a second.
It was probably a great time to be a healthy white male of modest means.
It has ALWAYS sucked to be anything else.
 
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wmetfab

Well-Known Member
Shining the bronze hardware on the front door of my fathers grocery store.

With Brasso.

The national manual cash regisister.
That did not go over $100 total

5 for a penny candies.
10 cent chocolate bars.
10 cents for a pop.
15 cents for a comic book.

When gasoline went to a dollar a gallon because of the A-rabs
and my father sold the 55 Mercury Monterey.. for $500
And bought something called a Toyota Corolla.
I never forgave him for selling the Mercury. I used to wash and polish the car
 

RobinHood

Ultra Member
Premium Member
- using carbon paper to make duplicate copies
- Gestetner Cyclograph machine for duplicating
- cap guns and home made bows & arrows to play Cowboys and Indians
- original pezz dispensers
- going to the cigarette dispensing machine with $1 to buy an 80 cent pack for my dad (got to keep the 20 cents as an allowance)
 

Tomc938

Ultra Member
Premium Member
I’m not quite as old as some of you, but a few things I remember:

1) Getting your fine stemware from Texaco.
2) Super Slider Snow Skates.
3) When a .22 was considered a good present for a 10 year old boy.
4) Prince Albert tobacco in those flask-shaped cans. (Cf .22 above)
5) Seatbelts in cars. For the Mom and Dad.
6) Cinnamon toothpicks.
7) Watching “Laugh In” and wondering why my parents were laughing.
 

Chicken lights

Forum Pony Express Driver
I can clearly remember road trips to NS and PEI with no seat belts, no car seats, just a mattress in the back if kids needed a nap

Waving to strangers was normal

There's still a bunch of us old school Canadians left here....I personally have reserved parking at @historicalarms and @Susquatch farms. With many more spots across this country I'm welcome in

We need to bring back being Canadian, as I've been blessed to see first hand

no politics
 

GaryE

Active Member
(I grew up in a small town in Southern Quebec)

-karate chop Big Jim.
-riding in the open trailer behind the car when the car was too full of adults.
-being in total fear of being called to the principal's office due to the very real threat of getting the strap.
-being taught to properly use power tools and to cut grass on a riding mower at 7 years old.
-getting our first colour TV. Only got about 6 stations and you had to get up and adjust the antenna rotor every time you switched channels.
-6 kids fighting over the TV for Saturday morning cartoons.
-Sunday evening TV as a family - Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom, The Wonderful World of Disney (always hoping for a cartoon) & Sonny & Cher
-getting a hand me down Pong video game.
-getting my first pocket knife at age 7, and no problems at all bringing it to school.
-once annual trip in August to a very small city to shop for school clothes, and to have lunch at A&W or KFC (no fast food restaurants for the rest of the year! o_O ).
-fall school field trips to a local orchard to help pick apples for $0.10 per bushel basket.
-hour long bus ride to school twice a day as it was a milk run to pick up all the rural kids and kids like me in small towns. Progressing from having to sit in the front of the bus when in Grade 1 to being able to sit in the back of the bus in Grade 6. (Quebec high school starts at Grade 7).
-the ONLY BBQ was a charcoal BBQ.
 

wmetfab

Well-Known Member
Watching a 14" black and white TV with one channel.
CBC
In the grocery store... sitting beside a wood burning stove. The warmest place in the store

Wayne and Schuster holiday specials on sunday nights....and those Velveetta commercials.
 

Tom O

Ultra Member
And the Dr made house call's.

First car was. 58 Chev I bought for $200. I almost got a Edsel.

The sporting goods store had all the surplus military rifles in the isle in front of the counter.

We walked to school if we didn’t have a bike.

I don’t remember ever being driven that was reserved for any hospital run from playing outside.

I was the guy usually getting a late slip at the office,
One day the Vice Principal said to me “ My morning isn’t complete without seeing you here “
I was purposely late at lunch I told him “ I Decided to make your afternoon too “ Apparently he didn’t have a sense of humour he gave me a detention
 

Tomc938

Ultra Member
Premium Member
- using carbon paper to make duplicate copies
- Gestetner Cyclograph machine for duplicating
- cap guns and home made bows & arrows to play Cowboys and Indians
- original pezz dispensers
- going to the cigarette dispensing machine with $1 to buy an 80 cent pack for my dad (got to keep the 20 cents as an allowance)
I used a Gestetner machine until the year 1999. 100 copies per minute was way faster than any photocopier I had access to at the time.
 

Mcgyver

Ultra Member
Before unbridled, policy fuelled, standard of living destroying population growth, you used to able to get anywhere in GTA in a 30 minutes. Now you have stop and go traffic on the highways on the weekends!

If you live here, every other change in the last 40 years pales in significance.
 
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