37

Conversations with Dad

April 6th, 2011 - Uncategorized - 37 Comments »

This is a post I wrote with my friend (and financial advisor) Jut Flowers.
___

Sometimes I think about conversations that I’ll have with my kids about my childhood. Sadly, I just don’t think their 21st century minds will be able to grasp what I’ve been through.

Here are three exchanges that will almost certainly occur:

Video Store
Kid: So Dad, if  you wanted a movie you had to drive to a store like 10 miles away?
Dad: That’s right. We had to plan ahead if we wanted to watch a movie.
Kid: What if you got there and it was already checked out?
Dad: We sprinted to the front of the store to the stocking cart to see if someone had just returned it.
Kid: What’s a stocking cart? So, if it wasn’t there, then what?
Dad: We would settle on another movie.
Kid: But you didn’t want another movie, you wanted the new release.
Dad: [real depressed] I know son…I know.

Fold-Out Map
Kid: Wait…how did you know where to go?
Dad: We would pull the car over at a rest area and look at a giant map of Georgia that we kept in the glove box.
Kid: But you didn’t need to know about the roads in Columbus. You were just trying to get to the park.
Dad: I know but we only had giants maps then, and we would have to look over the map to get the roads right.
Kid: Did you ever get lost?
Dad: No, never…never.

World Book Encyclopedias
Kid: What’s that big row of maroon books for? They take up a whole shelf!
Dad: Those are our encyclopedias.
Kid: En-cycle-what?
Dad: Kind of like, my generation’s Google.
Kid: Ohhh. So if I wanted to find lyrics to a song I’d just go look in one of them?
Dad: Not exactly.
Kid: What if you needed to find the name of a certain actor or instructions on how to fix a toilet?
Dad: Um, that kind of stuff isn’t in there.
Kid: What kind of stuff is in there?
Dad: Well, there’s info about presidents…and whales…and historic battles. Stuff like that.
Kid: [pause] Sorry you didn’t have Google, Dad.
Dad: Me too son.

What are some other topics they won’t be able to comprehend?

  • http://www.joerob.com Joseph

    Saturday morning cartoons. Except they'll be the ones who are disappointed.

  • Darooda

    Phones without google, apps, cameras, texting, and batteries that lasted more than 10 minutes
    Phones with cords, attached to the wall

    Gas for less than $1/gallon

    Arcades

    • http://www.joerob.com Joseph

      Amen on the gas… The only time I've ever seen my youth group entirely speechless was when I told them that I remember buying gas for $.59/gallon the first summer I was driving.

  • …adam

    Son: what’s this?

    Dad: a cd book.

    Son: what?

    Dad: well if you wanted to take your music with you, you didn’t want to carry all those cases so you would take the CDs out and put them in the sleeves.

    Son: so you had to carry that giant binder if you wanted to listen to music? Could you find a song easy?

    Dad: not at all

    Son: that book is huge. I can’t believe you carried it.

    Dad: usually I just gave up son. Usually I just gave up.

  • Brook

    As a soon-to-be first-time dad, this raises a lot of questions for me… How will I respond?

    As to other conversations:

    1.) Video Games – I used to have to blow into a NES cartridge for 45 minutes just to play 20 minutes of 8-bit Mike Tyson's Punch-Out

    2.) Checks – as a missionary currently serving in Thailand, we haven't used a check in years. Thailand is a cash culture… And the US is increasingly a "plastic"/online culture. "Yes son, we used to have to go to a bank to deposit/get money.. They did give out free lollipops though…"

    3.) "We used to have to break up with out girlfriends face-to-face…"

    etc…

    • http://www.thecjadams.com CJ Adams

      Haha so true about #3. Along those same lines, asking a girl out in person, as opposed to texting, Facebook, etc.

    • http://www.overdivulgent.blogspot.com Lauren

      Did anyone else try to lick their NES and SNES cartridges to clean them? Because I'm looking back now, and kinda getting grossed out.

      • Brook

        Yeah, I never licked the cartridges! Maybe I was afraid of electrical shock? … But thinking of licking them kind of grosses me out… And I didn't do it!

  • Joel

    Portable CD players with anti-skip. That is going to be impossible to explain.

    • Brook

      Ah, so many fond memories of my WalkMan/DiscMan will have to be learned via VH1's "I love the 90's"… If VH1 is still around then…

    • http://www.joerob.com Joseph

      You can add CD's and music stores to that list, probably.

  • http://guidetowomen.wordpress.com/ Sharideth Smith

    typewriters. whiteout. Dewey Decimal System. Mr. Yuck.

  • http://www.adaupdates.blogspot.com Scott

    This post made me realize that my 14mo old son will never be able to truly appreciate AJ Jacob's The Know-it All. Sucks for him.

  • http://www.thecjadams.com CJ Adams

    The days when taking a date to the movies and buying popcorn, drinks, and candy didn't cost $100.

  • Megan

    Cursive writing – "Yeah sweetie, I can actually write exactly like what the script fonts look like."

    Manual windows – "Mom, why are you feeling towards the bottom of the door when you just need to press the button to roll down the window?"

    Actual wood in the fireplace.

    No concern for the fat content in a box of cereal – "Son, why aren't you looking for the cereal that has a toy in it instead of the one with the least amount of sugar?"

  • http://edhyndman.com Elizabeth

    Non-Digital cameras. Having to take the film down to Walmart, wait three days, and then go pick it up before you could see your pictures. They may understand this if disposable cameras stay around, but the fact that the old cameras weren't throw-aways will be surprising, I'm sure.

    • Jodie

      We just found an old film in a drawer in our garage…110 speed. We had a terrible time finding someone to develop it! Finally Walgreens sent it out ….how cool to get pics from 1980.

      • Tyler Stanton

        Amazing__________tyler stantonSent from my new Palm Pilot.

  • Bryan

    Printers, modems, Heavy TVs, going to the lake with no cable, NFL games not on TV, the ability to have fun outdoors, calling girlfriends house and actually having to talk to their parents, formal writing, word finds, save as.

  • http://allisonlh.wordpress.com Allison

    Smudgy, curled-up fax paper (or perhaps fax machines altogether); cassette tapes; vinyl records; dial-up internet; rotary phones; TVs with knobs; shoulder pads (but nobody comprehends those); and those "get 10 tapes for 1 cent a piece" clubs, though I can't remember what they are called.

  • clintm

    Twitter. It most likely won't exist or will be replaced within the next few years. Try explaining THAT one.

  • http://www.twitter.com/Auntymelly007 Melanie E

    Camping out for concert tickets.

    I'm with you on never getting lost when using a map ;) How did we ever live without GPS?

  • LaceyKeigley

    Is your friend's name actually "Jut"?

  • http://www.andreabrown.ca Andrea

    Books with pages and ink that actually take up space. Newspapers and magazines on paper…

  • http://www.sarahbethhunt.tumblr.com Sarah Hunt

    VHS Tapes. Original Nintendo. (Duck Hunt.) Game controllers that had cords you had to attach to the console. Getting your drinking water from the faucet. Having to leave the house to go shopping.

  • Melcro

    Live Tv (with commercials): if you wanted to catch the season finale of Hey Dude, better be home at 4 pm. Or, prepare to track down a VHS.

  • http://mleetaft.tumblr.com M. Lee Taft

    Showing my age but…
    Televisions without remote controls
    Why aluminum foil on TV antennas worked
    What a TV antenna was
    Stratomatic Baseball
    Baseball card gum
    The video store being split into VHS and Betamax (and getting mad when the Betamax version was in the store but not the VHS)

  • http://www.robertandshelly.com Robert Conn

    At a recent visit to my parent's house I showed my kids one of my old Teddy Bears (I'm not ashamed). Anyway they grabbed it and then proceeded to squeeze the tummy, apparently expecting it to say something cute or perform some cuddly action. After nothing happened, they looked at me very disappointingly and asked, "What does it do?" I said, "It doesn't do anything… it's just a teddy bear. I actually had to use my imagination." They weren't impressed and moved on.

    Kids

  • http://twitter.com/thealitybites @thealitybites

    That's quite depressing Robert. I recall going through a local fair with my mother once, and looking at some teddy bears, idly commenting that I never had one. I had lots of other toys and gizmo's mind, just not a bear. She immediately bought me one, and it still sits on a shelf in my room.

    Oh yeah, I was twenty at the time. Happiest dude in town that day.

    What will I look forward to explaining to my kids? That once you had to leave a message for your friend at their house, because mobile phones only existed built into cars (or earlier).

  • Rick

    My kids couldn't comprehend it when I told them that I used to have to take 45 minutes to load a game with terrible, blocky black & white graphics into a computer via audiocassette.

  • http://Www.faithbasedtherapy.com Debbie vinall

    Party lines (telephone)

  • http://Www.thesparrowsneststl.org Carissa

    Kids My brother and I had to ride for hours in a car with nothing to watch or listen to except Grandpas talk radio.
    What about DVDs? Nope. Movies were on huge plastic tapes.
    What about your DSi? Nope. Wasn’t invented yet.
    Man! What did you do? Fantasized wrapping the CB cord around my little brothers mouth.
    What’s a CB? *crickets chirping
    What about your iPod? Nope. No such thing.

  • Mom

    Microwave, everything had to be heated inthe oven. Cassette tapes, talk about being hard to find the beginning of a song!

  • Brian Volk

    When reading “The Mouse and The Motorcycle” to my son, I had to stop and explain what a telephone cord was. He still doesn’t understand the cord part.

  • Pingback: Reads of the week – 2011 – 14 « Hope In Love

  • Jamie

    Kid: Dad, why are you sipping your soda so slowly?
    Dad: Well, son, when I was a kid we didn't have unlimited sodas when we went out to eat.
    Kid: What? You mean you had to pay for every cup of soda you drank?
    Dad: No, son. We paid for one 12 oz. cup of soda. And we'd look at it sitting there on the table, taunting us with it's fizzy bubbles and sugary goodness, while we waited for our pizza to come. And we'd think "I'll just take a small sip." The next thing we knew, we were washing down our sausage and pepperoni pizza slice with water from the bathroom sink.
    Kid: Dad, why didn't you just wait until your food came?
    Dad: Drink up, son. It's a long walk home.

  • http://www.and2became5.blogspot.com davis

    call waiting. dial up internet.
    but it really blows my mind that my dad can remember when the television was invented & his grandparents saw the beginning of electricity!