Thursday, December 12, 2019

Thursday Thirteen

I was thinking the other day about things that I've used in my lifetime that kids today would have no knowledge of. I wondered if I could come up with 13.

1. A car antenna. Not the built-in kind, but the one that stuck up out of the car fender and danced along with the wind as you breezed along.

2. Eight track tape player. These were actually on their way out when I was growing up; I used cassettes. But cassettes are also obsolete now, for the most part.

3. VHS tapes and players. One of my first major purchases as a married woman was a VHS player. We paid $300 for a brand new one, and it had a wired remote with it. It was made of solid steel, too. It was heavy.

4. A rotary phone.  I kind of miss that phtt phtt sound the phones made when you dialed them.

5. A transistor radio. I have never seen a young person use a transistor radio. They were the big deal back in the day. They had antennas, too, that you could pull up and push back down. That in and of itself was a big deal.

6. A party line phone. This was where you had more than one household on the same line, and you could pick it up and hear other people talking.

7. Beta tapes. Beta tapes didn't last because the VHS tapes became the standard, but I remember beta tapes and players.

8. A slide rule.

9. A compass (the little thing that draws circles).

10. A ruler to measure things with. I think nowadays if you need a measurement, you use your phone.

11. A flip phone (my husband still uses his).

12. CB radio. These were used mostly by truckers but there was a time when a lot of folks had them in their cars, too. Breaker breaker 1-9, this is Buttercup calling. Anybody out there?

13. A telephone book. I still don't know how you find people these days if all they have is a cellphone. We are so connected and yet totally disconnected, it creates a feeling of non-reality. I used to be able to look up my neighbors in the phone book to call them if their cows were out. Now if I don't have their cell number, I have no way to get in touch. It's kind of weird, really.

Bonus: A telephone booth.

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Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here if you want to read other Thursday Thirteens and/or play along. I've been playing for a while and this is my 634th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday. Or so sayth the Blogger counter, anyway.

4 comments:

  1. I have a (still working!) rotary phone on my desk. I still use it occasionally just for Old-Time's sake.

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  2. I relate to that paradox of being so connected and disconnected at the same time. And everyone gets the news they search for and music? Forget about it. You have to look for that too and it's like trying to find someone's phone # when all they have is a cell phone.

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  3. How about a purse-size address book? I still keep one, which means panic when I can't find it. We use a flip-top phone too. I like that sound of the rotary phone dial, too.

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