8 Things Our Grandkids Won’t Recognize… I Still Use #5 All The Time!

Thanks to the advancement of technology, a lot of every-day items we grew up with are now becoming obsolete. Smart phones give us the ability to carry out tasks that would’ve required several different items just twenty years ago. And while we’re all for making life easier, we still find ourselves reminiscing about some of the things from our past (some of which we still use). Maybe you’ve already experienced it, but there will come a time when a child or grandchild will point to something like a typewriter and ask, “what is that?” When that happens, all you can do is laugh; that, and remember what it was like in the Good Old Days!

8) The Rotary Phone

Phones these days don’t even have buttons, let alone cords or rotary dials! Can you imagine describing to a young person nowadays that in order to call a number, they have to turn that dial all the way to the corresponding digits, at least seven times? Their reaction would probably be quite amusing!

7) The Phone Book

Not only did we have to actually dial our numbers, but if we wanted to look up a number, we had to find them in the phone book! Before we could just Google the business we were looking to contact, we’d go to the Yellow Pages and search alphabetically. Instead of clicking on the name of your friend on your phone, you either had to remember their number or go to the White Pages or your own personal address book!

6) The VCR

Some of you might remember the excitement surrounding the VCR when it first came out. For the very first time, you had the ability to record something off of live TV that you could then watch at your leisure… talk about On Demand! Sure, you had to wait your desired program to air, and maybe the quality wasn’t the best, but this kind of viewing power was unheard of at the time.

5) VHS/Cassette Taps

Soon there will be a generation that has never lived without the Cloud. Imagine the difficulty explaining what a VHS or cassette tape was for to said generation. Yes, this large, cumbersome tape was necessary for us to watch movies or record our favorite shows. And cassette tapes? How many of you remember listening to the radio station, waiting for your favorite song to come on so you could record it? Nothing was worse than when the DJ would talk over the intro of the song.

4) Slides/Projectors

We’ve all probably experience the slide projector in one way or another. Every now and then in school, the teacher would wheel the slide projector in and we’d watch some sort of educational video. With that distinct sound and the picture quality, the slide projector will be forever etched in our memories.

3) Phone Booth

Once upon a time the streets of America contained phone booths on nearly every corner. If you were out and about and needed to get a hold of someone, you had to find the nearest pay phone and make sure you had change. As kids, we would check the change return slot to see if someone forgot a nickel. It’s sad to think our grandkids won’t know the joy of actually finding unclaimed coins in there.

2) Library Card Catalog

How many of you can remember the smell of an old library card catalog? When computers came around, card catalogs slowly but surely became inefficient. To us, finding the right book or magazine was like a mini treasure hunt! Oh well, at least we still have the Dewey Decimal System.

1) Film

The idea of waiting to get film developed would probably boggle the minds of those who are only familiar with the instant gratification of a digital camera. Having to take your film cartridge out of your camera, drive to a specific store, pay to get it developed, and then pick it up later when it was ready might seem insane; that said, we loved the excitement of getting our photos back and seeing them for the first time.

That concludes our (somewhat somber) list of the items we used all the time growing up that this generation will no longer use (or even recognize for that matter). What would you add to the list? Let us know in the comments section below!