BS: Kids these days eh?

Subject: BS: Kids these days eh?
From: gnu
Date: 16 Apr 11 - 02:34 PM

She's about late 20s, bubbly, smiling, always in a good mood.

"Thanks for your help."

"That's what I am here for. Until 3 oclock."

"You'll be able to get home and watch the women's final in the Grand Slam curing." (Joke.)

"We haven't had cable in years so we can't watch our TV."

"It's on CBC."

"We don't have cable or satellite."

"But, it's on CBC... the national network... Canada's national TV network... you don't need cable or satellite... just rabbit ears."

"Rabbit ears? (quizzical look). We don't have any rabbit ears."

"Oh. Okay. Have a nice day."

Yes, I could have explained but I felt it better to just move on.

I've posted before about my buddy's lad not knowing what to do with my rotary dial phone about ten years ago. Youse got any?

Subject: RE: BS: Kids these days eh?
From: frogprince
Date: 16 Apr 11 - 02:57 PM

It doesn't have to be kids. We've got a woman friend, a bit over 60, whom we were talking to at Tims a couple of mornings back. This lady is an avid reader and clearly has both IQ and common sense to spare; I would definitely consider her an intellectual, though I don't think she gives a moment's thought to whether she is one or not. So I mention that I just read one of the Laurie King books featuring Sherlock Holmes and Mary Russell. Our woman friend then asked whether Mary Russell was a fictional character, or a real person like Sherlock Holmes. Then I had to explain to her why I couldn't stop laughing. For all her reading, it just happened that she had never read any Holmes.

Subject: RE: BS: Kids these days eh?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 16 Apr 11 - 03:13 PM

It goes both ways. The kids don't know how to use the old stuff. The old folks don't know how to use the new stuff. That's life.

Subject: RE: BS: Kids these days eh?
From: gnu
Date: 16 Apr 11 - 04:25 PM

Good one LH.

Subject: RE: BS: Kids these days eh?
From: ragdall
Date: 16 Apr 11 - 05:17 PM

gnu,
Where can I buy some rabbit ears? They forgot to put them on my flat screen.

Thanks,
rags

Subject: RE: BS: Kids these days eh?
From: ragdall
Date: 16 Apr 11 - 05:24 PM

We used to look after a young grandchild one day a week. One day my husband was about to play a record for him. When he took it from the album cover, Kody's eyes widened with surprise, "Giant CD!" he exclaimed.

rags

Subject: RE: BS: Kids these days eh?
From: LadyJean
Date: 16 Apr 11 - 06:52 PM

I was having a chat with a woman who was working on her master's degree. I mentioned that there were a number of lawyers in our family. That the law was kind of like hemophilia with us. Then I hadt to explain what hemophilia was.

Subject: RE: BS: Kids these days eh?
From: gnu
Date: 16 Apr 11 - 07:31 PM

rags... hehehehehe

Subject: RE: BS: Kids these days eh?
From: Lox
Date: 16 Apr 11 - 07:43 PM

CD?

My 7 year old knows what they are ...

Subject: RE: BS: Kids these days eh?
From: Joe_F
Date: 16 Apr 11 - 07:45 PM

A few years ago I was chatting, on a train, about US politics with someone who was not a kid except by comparison. He was unaware that there had been a time when the South had voted solidly Democratic.

Subject: RE: BS: Kids these days eh?
From: LadyJean
Date: 16 Apr 11 - 09:53 PM

During the Bush administration, I wore a button that said, "I never thought I'd miss Nixon." It got a laugh from a 17 year old clerk at Target. (She was in an AP history class, she explained.) and the OHara Township Police. (OHara is an upscale suburban community. John Kerry lives there when he's in town.) I also got plenty of blank looks and the comment, "Who's Nixon."

Subject: RE: BS: Kids these days eh?
From: BrooklynJay
Date: 16 Apr 11 - 10:44 PM

I teach part-time at a college in New York City. Last fall, I mentioned to my students that I do not own a cell phone or hand-held palm whatever-it-is of any kind. There was dead silence until one of my students looked at me in horror and asked, wide-eyed, "But, how do you communicate???

I explained that I still have my land-phone and my trusty old ComputerSaurus; people know where and how to find me if they want to. But I was a bit stunned by her reply, as I felt Dinosauria creeping up upon me.

Jay

Subject: RE: BS: Kids these days eh?
From: Gurney
Date: 17 Apr 11 - 02:53 AM

Jay, your obvious answer was "Not often!"

I live next to a school, and teenagers stroll down the street texting friends, some of whom they will be seeing in 5mins. Particularly the girls.

The old/new joke about mum texting the kids to come down for dinner, because she knows then that they will get to the table, it's true!

Subject: RE: BS: Kids these days eh?
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 17 Apr 11 - 05:00 AM

I grew up with no TV, phone, fridge, central heating, computer, mobile phone, etc etc. When I used to explain this to my pupils they were at first incredulous, then horrified. They honestly believed I must have suffered terribly from the deprivation. But I still firmly maintain WE WERE MUCH MUCH HAPPIER!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Kids these days eh?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 17 Apr 11 - 05:55 AM

One of saddest examples of what Eliza says here, related also to Jay's "How do you communicate?", was my late wife once remarking to some young pupils in a school where she was supply-teaching that she had grown up during & after WWii without a tv. They looked at her in amazement, and one asked, in genuine puzzlement, "But what did you do at Christmas?"

~Michael~

Subject: RE: BS: Kids these days eh?
From: artbrooks
Date: 17 Apr 11 - 08:46 AM

My trusty one-volume desk reference is getting a bit out of date, and it hasn't come out in a revised edition, so I asked my-daughter-the-library-manager for a recommendation for a replacement. Her response? "You have a computer - just Google it." From a librarian!

Subject: RE: BS: Kids these days eh?
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 17 Apr 11 - 08:57 AM

Nowadays they're called "cybrarians."

When books, shows, tunes, 'n' political rants go straight to your brain through ultrachips, they'll *all* be out of work.

Subject: RE: BS: Kids these days eh?
From: Will Fly
Date: 17 Apr 11 - 09:21 AM

Oh, I think the oldies can give the kids a run for their gizmo money.

I was playing with the ceilidh band last night, on a wide stage. We don't actually know what set numbers we're going to play until the dancers actually get on the floor. When our caller gets a suitable number, she decides on the dance and our melodeon/sax player - the band's musical guru - decides on the appropriate tunes set. He, the fiddle player and the mandolin player are stage left. The bass player and me (guitar) are stage right, separated by the drummer and caller. Julian (the melodeon/sax player) then calls out the set at the very last minute - and the time gets tighter and tighter.

So, last night, Alan (the bass player) got out his mobile phone and called Julian's mobile - just to find out what the set was going to be! How we laughed...

Subject: RE: BS: Kids these days eh?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 17 Apr 11 - 05:42 PM

This thread has made me feel old because it suddenly revived a very vivid memory:

I am about 6 or 7 years old and am sitting solemnly in front of my parents' radio, which is housed in a large, wooden cabinet. There is a sheet of glass on the front of the cabinet covering the tuning dial. I am staring at this sheet of glass on the off chance that a picture might appear. You see I have just learned of the existence of something called 'television' and am aware that it involves a wooden cabinet with a sheet of glass on the front on which moving pictures appear ...

Subject: RE: BS: Kids these days eh?
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 17 Apr 11 - 06:29 PM

Shimrod, our radio had valves and had to 'heat up' a bit before you could hear anything. Also, when you turned it off, it kept going until it 'cooled down' again.
I remember when the BBC ran an experiment on the black and white picture, with wavy lines and patterns, and asked if anyone could see 'colour'. My sister and I swore we saw red and pink, but it was all a hum. My first view of colour TV was in a shop in Canada, and I gazed and gazed, it seemed magical. I suppose all our memories are living history now!

Subject: RE: BS: Kids these days eh?
From: Smokey.
Date: 17 Apr 11 - 06:30 PM

You were lucky - they told us that the posh folk up the road had a haunted fishtank.

Subject: RE: BS: Kids these days eh?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 18 Apr 11 - 02:07 PM

Eliza,

The first programme that I ever saw on colour telly was about hip operations (!) It's a wonder I wasn't traumatised for life!

Subject: RE: BS: Kids these days eh?
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 18 Apr 11 - 02:47 PM

Hip operations? How gruesome, Shimrod! I think the programme in Canada was a fashion show, as I remember ladies in little two-pieces with pillbox hats. Funnily enough, I now find old black and white films artistic and atmospheric. The film The Elephant Man was shot in monochrome, and it certainly added to the feeling of being in the past. Do you remember 'Your Life in Their Hands'? I always enjoyed that!

Subject: RE: BS: Kids these days eh?
From: Bill D
Date: 18 Apr 11 - 05:17 PM

Alvin Toffler needs to write a sequel to "Future Shock".

Things are not only changing, but the rate of change is accelerating. I used to at least keep up with what was developed, even if I didn't own examples.....now stuff is invented, developed, and obsolete without my even being aware of it.

I have TVs, computers, flash drives, cell phones...etc... but being mostly at home, I don't NEED remote access to everyone & everything. Neither do I imagine that anyone cares whether I just trimmed my fingernails.
When technology moves from a tool to a habit to an obsession, we need to examine out priorities.

   There is a BIG sign now when one enters Maryland on certain routes reminding folks that "hand held phones and texting while driving is illegal"...... I still see it done every few minutes.