WHEN THE ONLY WEB WE KNEW HAD SPIDERS.

Lower expectations. Fewer choices.

If I wanted to read or do research, I physicslly went to either the school or public library. If I was having problems, I asked the librarian for help.

One phone. Friends weren’t allowed to call after 7 PM. Long distance calls were expensive. They were short and for special occasions. You didn’t know who was calling until you picked up. I made it easier for pervs to make obscene phone calls.

Caller ID and answering machines were a BIG deal.

One television. Dad was in charge of evening programming. But that that was OK because we (the kids) usually did homework until bedtime. No recording. If you missed a show, you hoped you could catch it during summer reruns. Most primetime shows filmed 39 episodes.

Cartoons on Saturday morning. I was lucky. My folks bought us kids (3 of us) a small, portable black and white television set. That was good for me because my dad liked to watch a lot of sports on the weekends and I’m not a sports fan.

Four channels (maybe. ) The three network channels and sometimes a local one-mostly religious. They all depended on antenna reception.

Radio or records. Two to three local FM radio stations with different formats depending on the audience, popular, oldies (30’s through 50’s), sometimes classical.

Eight tracks were another BIG deal.

A couple of AM stations with either local news and high school sports or a lot of religious programming.

One maybe 2 movie theaters. Unless the movie was super popular, the movie was changed out every friday. The popular ones were held over for another week. I think one movie (and I can’t remember which one) was held over for 6 weeks. The first multiplex had two theaters. Wow.

There were one or 2 drive in theaters. They got the movies that had already run in the main theater. They had the reputation of being “passion pits” but it was great if you wanted to take your whole family and you had small kids. They could cry or fall asleep without disturbing your neighbors.

Mail. We wrote letters, sent fancy cards for special occasions, kept a physical address book.

Also kept a physical, paper datebook for appointments, birthdays, anniversaries and appointments.

Every fall we got four new outfits and a new winter coat for school complements of Sears catalog, Christmas-toys, again, from Sears, all put on layaway. Spring, one Easter outfit with shoes.

Sometimes, you got dressed up and went downtown to go shopping. There were a couple of department stores. These were the best. They were several stories high and were like palaces. Sometimes, they had lunch counters or you could walk over to the Woolworths lunch counter. Later we had small, enclosed malls. These were great as well. Food, clothes, shoes, jewelry, sports equipment, it was fun just walking around, looking.

Small, local bookstores. Used paperbacks could be had for twenty five cents. Magazines with bright, shiny covers a dollar.

Fewer choices, less instant gratification. That was reality and you just dealt with reality.