You know you are getting old when:

[BobHufford]

When your twin son and daughter (your youngest kids) are the same age you were when they were born. Happy 28th kids!

 

[GHT]

Happy birthday to your twins Bob, my own father was 28 years older than me. Dad lived until he was 92. The only time that growing old freaked him was when I turned 60.
Growing old is not a problem for me because my memory's not as sharp as it used to be.
Also, my memory's not as sharp as it used to be. But it does get scary when you start making the same noises as your coffee maker.

 

[2jakes]

If you remember these things....

Snow

Transparent sheet to make it appear that you are viewing in color.

Vertical & horizontal problems which were adjusted with the rabbit ear antennae.

Playing the national anthem at the end of programing & off the air (midnight)

 

[LizzieMaine]

Bothering the TV repairman until he gave you a couple of dud tubes to play with.

 

[tonyb]

Ken Griffey Jr. is in the Hall of Fame. He was a rookie about three weeks ago.

 

[LizzieMaine]

That boggles the mind.

Broadcaster Joe Castiglione, who I still think of as "that new guy" on the Red Sox games, has been doing that job for thirty-three years.

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^
Thirty-three years ago was 1983, which seems not very long ago. Certainly not 33 years!

But I got through the second grade at Herbert Schenk Elementary School, more than half a century ago, and unless my basic arithmetic skills have slipped considerably since then, my calculations say it is indeed true -- 33 years since 1983. I haven't changed all that much since then, but I am taken aback by how much everybody else has aged.

 

[Fading Fast]

Bothering the TV repairman until he gave you a couple of dud tubes to play with.

And, as a kid, the anxiety of wondering when the TV would come back when it went to the repair shop? We had the same TV for over 25 years - it got fixed not replace when something happened to it. In the interim, we lived without it.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I had a crush on our TV repairman. He was a guy named Russell Shoals, and I used to call him "Muscle" Shoals, and he didn't get the joke. "No, it's Russell," he'd say.

Our old Philco lasted nearly twenty years before my brother attacked it with a machete and destroyed it one day because he was bored. Ah, happy days.

 

[Fading Fast]

I had a crush on our TV repairman. He was a guy named Russell Shoals, and I used to call him "Muscle" Shoals, and he didn't get the joke. "No, it's Russell," he'd say.

Our old Philco lasted nearly twenty years before my brother attacked it with a machete and destroyed it one day because he was bored. Ah, happy days.

You've had a full and, well, colorful life.

It was years before I understood the line in the song "Sweet Home Alabama:" "Now Muscle Shoals has got the swampers."

 

[2jakes]

“Bernice could never figure out how to use
the new microwave.”

 

[LizzieMaine]

The funny thing is, I once had exactly that TV set. It's a 1968 RCA Victor "New Vista," one of the last large-screen black-and-white consoles produced, with a revolutionary "solid state tuner." And it did a lousy job heating up my leftovers.

 

[2jakes]

^^^^^
Y’all probably had it set on low!

 

[Stearmen]

Extra high setting, was the aluminum foil flags! Or me holding the end of the rabbit ear!

 

[2jakes]

Before......

I was the designated official television channel changer.
Luckily there were only several stations available at the time.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Invented in 1956 -- a *sonic* remote control, on which tapping each button sounded a tiny chime which caused motors to engage on the television set and operate the controls.

Or if you really want to feel old --

The Philco Mystery Control, the very first wireless remote, introduced in 1939. A tiny radio transmitter inside the casing operates the controls on equipped models of Philco console radios.

 

[ChiTownScion]

^^ I remember those!

 

[LizzieMaine]

The fatal flaw of the Zenith Space Command was that certain other sounds produced the same frequency required to activate the motors. Rattling of keys or a handful of coins could cause the channels to change at random moments, a flaw quickly discovered and exploited by vengeful children.

We never had any such thing at our house, of course. Half the time there wasn't even a channel knob -- a pair of pliers was kept handy for turning the bare tuner shaft.

 

[HudsonHawk]

Ken Griffey Jr. is in the Hall of Fame. He was a rookie about three weeks ago.

I used to think.."wow, there are big leaguers younger than me." Now there are Hall of Famers younger than me. That one stings, as every once in a while, I still think about getting my shot in the Big Leagues.

 

[LizzieMaine]

On the other hand, William Francis Lee III will turn 70 soon and still goes a hundred innings or so a year for the Burlington Cardinals. When he isn't running for office, that is.