This Is How Old I Am

I got this one from Charlotte (very appropriate since I'll be celebrating my birthday in exactly one month).

We had two (black) telephones in my house when I was growing up, and they had dials on them. You had to sit where they were plugged into the wall when you talked on them. Oh, and if you wanted to know who was calling, you had to walk over to a phone and pick it up when it rang.

Speaking of walking, if you didn't like what was on TV, you had to get up, walk across the room, and turn a dial to change the channel.

I wore bell bottoms and paisley the first go-round. (Oh, and I used to care about wearing the latest fads instead of what would last.)

I remember when Sesame Street debuted (big event. I was allowed to watch more than my normally-allotted half hour of TV that day).

I remember when MTV debuted (by then, my mother had lost all control over my TV-viewing habits). In those days, it was (a very cool) channel that showed videos 24/7.

"Clackers" were banned from school, because kids were hitting themselves (and others) on the head with them (never figured out if they were doing that accidentally or on purpose. I'm sure there were a few in my class I would have hit on purpose, if they'd been allowed).

The whole country, for some inexplicable reason, went ga-ga over CB radios, and said things like "ten-four, good buddy."

There was a summer nobody wanted to go to the beach, because they were afraid they were going to be eaten by a great, white shark.

There was another summer when it suddenly became all the rage to say to others, "May the Force be with you."

We had these things called roller skates (not blades) that had two wheels across the toes and two wheels across the heels, and you weren't cool unless your parents rented out the skating rink for your birthday party. You also weren't cool if you never got invited to birthday parties at the skating rink.

If you were a girl, you and your friends fought over who was cooler: Vinnie Barbarino or The Fonz (The Fonz, of course). Then you fought over who was better-looking: Starsky or Hutch (Starsky, of course).

I wished so badly my parents would get rid of the ugly old oriental carpets they had and lay down wall-to-wall, green shag carpet all over the house, like the carpet in my best friend's play room.

I knew all the words to every song in Grease by heart, and, at slumber parties, my friends and I made up dances incorporating as many moves from the movie as possible.

People actually listened to AM radio.

I was doing my math homework when the (FM by then) radio station I was listening to interrupted a song to tell us that John Lennon had been shot.

When I was in college, there was this place called the computer lab, because nobody had his or her own computer, and I shied away from taking any computer courses, because I heard nightmare stories about the lab always being full and people only being able to get on a computer to do their homework at 3:00 a.m.

I was afraid to use an Apple computer, because that whole mouse thing seemed so foreign and awkward.

The drinking age in most states was eighteen.

When I first went to work at a public library, one of the big arguments in the library profession was whether or not to keep old (print) card catalogs once all their data had been transferred onto online public access catalogs.

When I first started playing around on the Internet, it was ruled by Archie and Veronica, and if you found something today, it very well might not be there tomorrow. We argued in the library world over whether or not to let patrons have access to it.

When I first joined the wonderful world of book publishing, we did not have Internet access or email. When we finally got email, only one computer had it, and the entire department had to share. Same when we finally got the Internet.

The World Trade Center: It wasn't there when I was born. I'm very glad I can say I went to the top of it. It's no longer there.