From Scoop to Gen-X: here's how much harder we had it in our day. Sure it was hard then, but we loved it. It was a simpler time, when a simple "consarn it" or "dagnabbit" or even "Oh, my stars and garters" took the place of today's "oh, fuck". There wasn't any violence like today. The world was filled with the peaceful tranquility inspired by leaders like Stalin and Hitler. The streets were safe ... well, at least the ones that weren't destroyed by Panzers.

(Much of the this material swiped from a contest held by the Washington Post)

  1. Why, in our day we didn't have MTV or in-line skates, or any of that stuff. No, it was 45s and regular old metal-wheeled roller skates, and the 45s always skipped, so to get them to play right you'd weigh the needle down with a penny, which we never afford because our allowances were too small, so we'd use our skate keys instead and end up forgetting they were taped to the record player arm so that we couldn't adjust our skates, which didn't really matter because those crummy metal wheels would kill you if you hit a pebble anyway, and in those days roads had real pebbles on them, not like today.
  2. In our day, we couldn't afford shoes, so we went barefoot. In the winter we had to wrap our feet with barbed wire for traction
  3. In our day, we didn't have no rocks. We had to go down to the creek and wash our clothes by beating them with our heads
  4. In our day, we didn't have dogs or cats. All I had was Silver Beauty, my beloved paper clip.
  5. In our day, we didn't have leisure. There was only time for work, time for prayer and time for sleep. The sheriff would go around and tell everyone when to change from one to another.
  6. In our day we didn't have Strom Thurmond. No, wait a minute, .....never mind.
  7. In our day, we didn't have hand-held calculators. We had to do addition on our fingers. To subtract, we had to have some fingers amputated.
  8. In our day, we didn't get that computer voice saying "Doors closing". We got on the train, the doors closed, and, if your hand was sticking out, it scraped along the tunnel all the way to the next station, and it was a bloody stump at the end. Of course, it only cost a dime, but that was six week's wages for my dad. And he was a neurosurgeon. Street sweepers and cardiologists had to save for years to ride the train, and when they got on it, they'd ride it for days just to get their money's worth.
  9. In our day, we didn't have water. We had to smash together our own hydrogen and oxygen atoms.
  10. In our day we din't have some young whippersnapper president who tried to sleep with every woman he met. We had John F. Kennedy instead ... Well, maybe that was a bad example, but I'm sure there are better ones.