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Letting the receiver hang and spin to untwist the Very Long cord that allowed you to (just barely) go into your room and close the door. If you were very lucky you got a line in your room for your birthday in your early teens.

Having 2 separate keys for a car, a round one for the doors and a square one for the ignition

My mother blew a bosun's pipe. If I couldn't hear it, I was in BIG trouble.

My grandparents and several aunts and uncles who were farmers had this system. And of course people listened in!

Phone numbers with letters at the beginning

Upside: Sitting in a restaurant, people would actually talk to each other. Conversations and study weren't constantly interrupted. On a drive we would look out the window at the scenery, or sing songs. And it was easier to *not* talk to someone if you didn't want to. End/

We were on vacation when grandma died, & I still don't understand how the hell my uncle managed to find us at a random hotel in Kentucky or Tennessee.

Talking to each other at mealtime.

My grandmother skewered relatives for using this. We run pasty white, and she was ahead of her time. 💜

Baby oil.

My parents still call it sun-tan cream, which my children find hilarious.

ManTan. It was supposed to make you look tanned.

Baby oil or Bain de Soleil 4 SPF orange gelee (for the St Tropez tan)

I do that too, when I'm not thinking, and the kids find it very funny.

Three words: Saturday Morning Cartoons.

In a phone booth!

Collect call from "wehaddababy itsaboy" lives rent free in my head

Or in my case, getting a home landline!

A party line where you had to wait for your neighbor down the road to get off the phone before you could call your friends.

Walking somewhere was major entertainment everywhere

Party line phones?

Being left home at age 5 w my 3 yo sister because neither parent had bothered going grocery shopping and my dads brilliant decision was to leave us while he went (maybe less old timey and just bad parents). Add to that there is numerous photo and video of me as a baby to newly 2yo being given pepsi

Formal segregation -- "colored" schools and restrooms.

Having too many tabs of your 20 volume encyclopedia opened on the floor.

I think that's the biggest one for me As a high schooler with no credit card, I remember several dashes to the bank at 4:55 pm Friday desperate to get $20 for the weekend

Actually having cash. Context: www.riksbank.se/en-gb/paymen...

Or the grocery store to cash a check.

Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature! Libraries w/ large reserves of of physical, bound, old magazines-like that weapons room in The Matrix. You'd find a 30 year old article in situ (w/ ads from that time period) & I spent hundreds of hours w/ microfiche of local newspaper tracing local history

Want chicken tonite? Call Chicken De-lite!

For that matter hot food being delivered! You either cooked or went out to eat

All of those store bought Halloween costumes had a plastic smock with a graphic of the character you were supposed to be dressed up as

In 1962 my sister and I went as JFK and Jackie with that kind of plastic mask. My toddler brother wore a dress and bonnet and went as Caroline.

Putting all the CDs you want to listen to into a CD changer mounted in the trunk of your car

An hour or two in blockbuster. Figuring out what to watch. Sitting on the floor with 5 good options in front of you.

At night you could turn on FM radio and hear a cool DJ playing rock, funk, R&B, and even countryish stuff all on one station.

Being the remote control and having to adjust the antenna

Bip bip beeeeeeeep

We had a telly that used an ultrasonic remote. We very quickly learned that you could change channels by clapping. Much hilarity ensued.

Or … turn the dial! The first TV I remember had 2-13, plus U I think. Just a clunky rotary dial that went all the way around

People dropping in being a wonderful surprise and they’d be welcome to stay for dinner. Now someone knocks at the door and it’s an invasion. Maybe cell phones changed this or maybe people in general changed, but I miss having friends randomly appear at our door.

Checking pay phones for abandoned dimes.

Ha! I remember doing something similar. Good times. 😊

Guilty!🤣

Some neighbor kids' houses I'd just walk right in and go looking for them.

My first mobile phone displayed text on a single row like a calculator

People would synchronize watches when timing of events in disparate places was critical.

Saying, "The rabbit died," meant someone was pregnant.

For my parents, no, they never knew where we were. And they didn't care, and they didn't need to care, because we'd be home at some point.

We usually had to go home when the streetlights came on.

Pfft.. I don't know which country you grew up in but ...

And free beer and a decent meal.

Lawn darts that had 3-inch points on them.

Wow. Really? Impressive.

At least they let me sit next to the window 😄

On a plane in Spain, one side of the aisle was smoking and the other was non-smoking.

After listening to my brother read him a nonfiction book about sharks, my 5-year-old nephew exclaimed “This is like a CD-ROM, only better!”

That's cute.

The first time my daughter saw a record, she was about 5, she gasped and said," that's a HUGE cd!!!".

Camping out overnight on a sidewalk to buy concert tickets… that cost less than $10.

You need to dial *70 first before the number to turn off Call Waiting (in the USA).

Worse, the download protocols did not support restarting…. That two hour download that got interrupted at 100 minutes is still another two hour download..

Be kind, rewind.

CHARCOAL IS WHY!

Roy Rogers, Zorro, Sky King, The Cisco Kid, The Lone Ranger, and baseball with Dizzy Dean and Peewee Reese. And those horribly racist WWII cartoons.

I remember seeing the twin towers in the New York City skyline. It's crazy to me that some of my coworkers weren't even alive back then.

Prank phone calls

My dad kept a CB radio in the car and if there was a backup on the highway he would turn it on to find out what the truckers were saying about it. That was our Waze

And if it was a local trip, you had a trusty copy of The Thomas Guide in your car.

I remember thinking TripTiks were so cool, like a personalized Thomas Guide. But you always needed a map as a backup just to be safe.

And getting travelers checks while at AAA to use on your trip.

that one family vacation driving 1300 miles to Florida circa 1980 was, indeed, quite the paper-driven adventure. on the return North, it included a stop at the Edgar Allan Poe house in Richmond, VA, picked directly from the Rand-McNally Atlas.

I learned to read maps fast when, while driving through San Francisco, my mom tossed me a map and said, "get me there."

Ha! We were forced into a lot more consultations of the elders back then.

But you can't find out any of the interesting stops along the way! You have no idea what is flying by. I enjoy a point of interest or the name of a town coming up from time to time. Google has helpful tools but it flattens everything.

Playing cards as a family on Sunday afternoons to win 5p👍

When the doorbell rang, we were happy to answer the door.

Having to ask phone operator to put you through to number & they would tell you to put your money in public phone boxes & "press button A"

Playing solitaire with a real deck of cards.

Maybe over the summer if they play the episodes over again, leading to the next season's premiere .

I recently found an episode of General Hospital that I missed in June 1982 when I was in high school. I was so upset that I cried at the time and I never forgot how bitter I felt. I felt like a tiny piece of me healed when I found it online this year. (It's an upload of a bad VHS copy, too, lol )

UHF antennas

You had to BUY albums and songs before you could even LISTEN to them

And party lines. You had a distinct ring, and sometimes when you picked up to make a call there was someone talking on it already.

One further Our phone was connected to an operator 😂 1976, isolated Australia. Pick up reciever Turn handle once Ask the operator to connect you