Old School

As kids we've all heard our parents, grandparents and every other grownup go on with their rants and raves of how easy modern life is for us. In a sense, we did actually have it easy unlike them who supposedly traveled to school each day by walking through a snowy blizzard, rainy monsoon, or whatever catastrophic weather conditions they endured. Now that I'm reaching thirty, I'm now realizing that these kids today are really living the good life and to tell you the truth I wish I could be a kid again. Essentially, with every generation there is one phrase that gets metaphorically passed down from adult to child and solidifies you as a grown up which is back in my day.

Let me tell you something, back in my day there weren't any emotional teen angst television shows like the O.C. that the younger generation is crazy about now. Growing up, it was about actions shows like the A-Team where you had endless amounts of bullets flying everywhere and yet nobody got hit or hurt. We had 6 Million Dollar Man, Battlestar Galactica, Buck Rogers, and Knight Rider, in which a guy drove a pimped out black trans am which talked and made wisecracks. But most of all we had Miami Vice where two cool looking guys wearing expensive trendy looking clothes and drove fast cars. This was the show that gave guys the idea that wearing pastel colors and wearing shoes with no socks was a cool fashion statement.

Back in my day, we didn't have cell phones to carry around and different ring tones to figure out who was calling you. Initially, you had to be at home if you were expecting an important phone call or kept calling that person to get in touch with him or her. Half the time, it was a complete surprise who called you and also as a kid, thee were no buttons to push due to the fact you had to physically dial the numbers yourself. For it was a prehistoric device called a rotary phone that you had to dial with your finger in either a clockwise or counter-clockwise motion. For its hard to fathom for the kids of today how we were able to manage and to be perfectly honest, we managed just fine.

Game systems such as PSP, PS2, XBox, Gamecube, SNES, NES were nothing if you first didn't have an Atari system. You weren't a real gamer unless you were holding a black plastic joystick with only one button that made your whole hand cramp up unlike today's controllers that have so many buttons to figure out and only made your thumbs hurt. When it came to beating games there were no cheat codes or strategy guides, we just used patience and our own instincts to beat the game. Speaking of games, PACMAN was THE game to have and to tell you the truth I was the master at it. Who knew that a little yellow face who chased ghost and was being chased by ghosts around a maze would be hours of fun for a kid like me.

Looking back, there was no internet and the way to look up the information you needed were in actual books. When it came to watching television there were no remote controls and what you actually had to do was get up and physically change the channel yourself. When it came to burning CD's, we simply had a double cassette player that would record our favorite songs on cassettes and play such classics as Jessie's Girl by Rick Springfield, Celebration by Kool and the Gang, 867-5309 by Tommy Tutone, and Billy Jean by Michael Jackson. In the end, if you remembered certain shows, a time without cell phones, and had calluses because of the Atari controller then my friend you are most definitely old school.