How old is old?

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brianhabby

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Sheesh!!

This is thought provoking and be sure to read to the end......YOU WON'T BELIEVE THE END!!! How Old is grandma?


Stay with this -- the answer is at the end

It will blow you away

One evening a grandson was talking to his grandmother about current events. The grandson asked his grandmother what she thought about the shootings at schools, the computer age, and just things in general.

The Grandmother replied, "Well, let me think a minute, I was born before television, penicillin, polio shots, frozen foods, Xerox, contact lenses, Frisbees and the pill. There were no credit cards, laser beams or ball-point pens. Man had not invented pantyhose, air conditioners, dishwashers, clothes dryers, and the clothes were hung out to dry in the fresh air and man hadn't yet walked on the moon.

Your Grandfather and I got married first .. .... ... And then lived together.. Every family had a father and a mother. Until I was 25, I called every man older than me, "Sir". And after I turned 25, I still called policemen and every man with a title, "Sir." We were before gay-rights, computer-dating, dual careers, daycare centers and group therapy. Our lives were governed by the Ten Commandments, good judgment, and common sense.

We were taught to know the difference between right and wrong and to stand up and take responsibility for our actions. Serving your country was a privilege; living in this country was a bigger privilege. We thought fast food was what people ate during Lent. Having a meaningful relationship meant getting along with your cousins. Draft dodgers were those who closed front doors as the evening breeze started.

Time-sharing meant time the family spent together in the evenings and weekends - not purchasing condominiums. We never heard of FM radios, tape decks, CDs, electric typewriters, yogurt, or guys wearing earrings. We listened to Big Bands, Jack Benny, and the President's speeches on our radios. And I don't ever remember any kid blowing his brains out listening to Tommy Dorsey. If you saw anything with 'Made in Japan' on it, it was junk.

The term 'making out' referred to how you did on your school exam.... Pizza Hut, McDonald's, and instant coffee were unheard of. We had 5 &10-cent stores where you could actually buy things for 5 and 10 cents. Ice-cream cones, phone calls, rides on a streetcar, and a Pepsi were all a nickel . And if you didn't want to splurge, you could spend your nickel on enough stamps to mail 1 letter and 2 postcards.

You could buy a new Chevy Coupe for $600 . .. . but who could afford one? Too bad, because gas was 11 cents a gallon. In my day, "grass" was mowed, "coke" was a cold drink, "pot" was something your mother cooked in and "rock music" was your grandmother's lullaby. "Aids" were helpers in the Principal's office, " chip" meant a piece of wood, "hardware" was found in a hardware store and "software" wasn't even a word.

And we were the last generation to actually believe that a lady needed a husband to have a baby. No wonder people call us "old and confused" and say there is a generation gap. How old do you think I am? I bet you have this old lady in mind....you are in for a shock! Read on to see -- pretty scary if you think about it and pretty sad at the same time.

Are you ready ?????
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This woman would be only 59 years old.
 
Good, but on a UK forum, it would be better with a little translating/editing. :wink:
 
monkeybiter":2oc5ru72 said:
Public TV broadcasting is 75 years old. BBC.
... and penicillin was used during latter part of WWII, so nearly 70 years old now.

"The first quick-frozen vegetables, fruits, seafoods, and meat were sold to the public for the first time in 1930 in Springfield, Massachusetts, under the tradename Birds Eye Frosted Foods®."

"the first ballpoint pens went on sale at Gimbels department store in New York City on 29 October 1945 for US$9.75 each"


... I'll stop now :)
 
By 'eck, of course, we 'ad it tough. There were twenty seven of us livin' in't shoe box in middle o' road (with apologies to Monty Python).

Mind you, I can remember when you could get 4 gallons of petrol for under £1; I could fill my motor bike for half a crown (that's 2s 6d or twelve and a half pence for you youngsters!!) and then do nearly 200 miles before the next refuelling stop.

Mike
 
By 'eck, of course, we 'ad it tough. There were twenty seven of us livin' in't shoe box in middle o' road (with apologies to Monty Python).

:lol:

Roy.
 
Shoe box? Shoe box? Bluddy luxury. There were 48 of us crammed in't matchbox. Oh to 'ave 'ad the luxury of a shoebox. The room. You don't know you were born.
 
Yep, I remember walking a mile on a Sunday to buy a mixing bowl of Ice cream as our Sunday treat that cost 1 shilling and I could buy a big bag of chips for thruppence. If I earned a ten bob note I was a rich man, 50 pence in todays money! How times have changed.........for the worse. :roll:
 
mailee":34pfy8ux said:
Yep, I remember walking a mile on a Sunday to buy a mixing bowl of Ice cream as our Sunday treat that cost 1 shilling and I could buy a big bag of chips for thruppence. If I earned a ten bob note I was a rich man, 50 pence in todays money! How times have changed.........for the worse. :roll:

Stuff cost much less a generation or two ago BUT, on average we earn much, much more - even in relative terms.

The basic average wage in the mid 1950's was about £6.50 for a 47 hour week.
 
Some years ago an American came up with a formula for comparing differing earnings in various localities and time periods.
How many hours do you have work to purchase an item here in the UK as against the US, for example.
How many hours do you have to work now to purchase essential items as against the 1950s or when ever you wish.
This is the only true measure.
I finished my apprenticeship in 1973 on about £18/45 hrweek, I could buy 3 gallons of petrol for a quid. How does that compare today?
Min wage £6.05/hr? 40hrs/wk? Petrol at £6/gallon in March this year.
Thus I could buy 54 gallons of fuel in 73
Min wage £6.05? 40hr week? = £242, thus I could only buy 40 gallons now.

Roy.
 
RogerP":2nyi9zbl said:
mailee":2nyi9zbl said:
Yep, I remember walking a mile on a Sunday to buy a mixing bowl of Ice cream as our Sunday treat that cost 1 shilling and I could buy a big bag of chips for thruppence. If I earned a ten bob note I was a rich man, 50 pence in todays money! How times have changed.........for the worse. :roll:

Stuff cost much less a generation or two ago BUT, on average we earn much, much more - even in relative terms.

The basic average wage in the mid 1950's was about £6.50 for a 47 hour week.

Yeah but you could buy a house for a tenner
 
Yeah it was so much better in the past... back when you died of polio because there was no vaccination, when gays (and other minorities) were persecuted, when women didn't have equal voting rights (a little before this story admittedly), when policemen had to be called sir because not doing so would put you under suspicion, when not being religious made you an outsider in the community, when women had to marry and were virtually forced to stay in bad relationships. Yeah it was so much better back then.

We haven't fixed all these problems and we probably never will fully but I'm fed up with hearing people bang on about how great it used to be. By all the measures I would use it's far better now that it has ever been in human history. My chance of living a long, healthy life is far greater now than it has ever been and during that lifetime I'll almost certainly never want for anything. I'll almost certainly never know hunger or have to worry about having a roof over my head or being warm and dry. If I or one of my family get ill we have a good chance of surviving and making a full recovery. I can take my pick of any religion I want or none at all and no body minds. If I want entertainment I can take my pick from literally thousands of different pieces (I'm currently listening to a New Zealand radio station in fact). I have had access to higher eduction that my parents didn't stand a chance of getting to.

I'm not saying everything is better now than it was. There has been a cost to getting these freedoms and opportunities but I believe it is a price worth paying.

Flame on... :D
 
I am a ripe old 35.

I'm lucky enough to still have a surviving grandfather and have talked to him (and my parents) at length about what it was like when they were young. There have clearly been a lot of changes over the last 80 years, some good and some bad, but over all I'm convinced we are far better off than we were.

We are certainly significantly better off than when my grandfather was a boy, his family were fairly poor and lived in conditions that today would be considered virtually third world. Even my mother remembers living in a house where the street shared a block of toilets at the end of the road.

I realize I sound very materialistic in the above but it's hard to get a measure for things like fear of crime which and other oft cited things that were better in the past.
 
we are far better off than we were.
In material terms, yes indeed, but having said that, I, who spend quite some time on computers, would miss very little of modern 'advances.'
My brother died of cancer in 1958, there is still no effective treatment for that which he had. My father died of heart disease, still the UK's biggest killer. My mother was killed in an RTA, I doubt they have gone down!
My cancer treatment was the same as in the fifties, 4 yrs ago.
Home office statistics show that that one, unnamed, London borough currently has more burglaries than the whole of England in the early fifties.
Cars had no ignition key and we had no door locks, or no keys to fit them at least.
I have no recollection of calling police officers anything other than which I still do, which is 'officer.'
Yes, the good old days weren't always so good, neither were they perhaps as 'bad' as you might think.

Roy.
 
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