Growing up as a kid (of a large family with modest means) in a big old (very old) house in the city, we had rooms that where in winter, the temperature never got above the 50s. And seemingly none of the house broke the very low 60s except for around Christmas when dad would succumb, and agree to put an OPEC kid through a week of college to get that hulking wood frame colonial beast nice and warm.

So blankets were the norm. And cheap-ass Army surplus green wool blankets were the rule. Adults called them "wool blankets". Kids call them "Army blankets".

I saw a post of a SF member looking to buy some, and it was then, at that very moment that I realized that they very well may be an inoculation to Millennial fever. Perhaps it is with this simple technology (vs. velvety soft polar fleece for example) that we can restore resiliency and grit to the next generation.

What other small hardships are foreign to modern youth through our short-sighted attempts to give them a better childhood than we had? I image the cold house, and bread bags over the socks inserted into thin rubber boots with metal buckles (pick the pair that sort-of fits you from the bin), that may have played a part as well.

It seems our fathers were cut from the same cloth
Our 40’s era built house had oil heat in old style iron radiators that made the particular corner of the room they were located in vaguely warmish, but the rest of the house was decidedly chilly. They were great for drying gloves, hats, and boots wet from hours spent playing in the snow.

Likewise, the inverse was true in the summer- no forced air meant that the house was always warm. You had to retreat to the basement to cool off.

My dad would have reminded us that spartan conditions build character, but I don’t recall any of us three boys complaining much about environmental inconveniences.

To this day, I love sleeping in a cold room with layers of blankets- powerful nostalgia.

Dinner for breakfast if you didn't eat it the night before. There were no special meals for me. I ate what the adults were eating and I finished my plate. Also vegetables were not optional.

Yup. frost on the inside of the windows, and in the summer I can remember reaching around to my back so as to tickle myself so as to get some goose bumps because it was so hot in "our" room.

No we didn't have our own room either.

Bob

No cell phones, no computers, no internet, no texts, no answering machines.

One phone in the house. As Henry Ford said, “Any color you want as long as....”

If you got a long distance call it was either good news or bad (birth, wedding, death).

No a/c in the car.

No remote controls for the tv. Likely no color tv. Ours was “portable”, which meant it was some kind of massive 30” x 30” and weighed 50+ lbs. That giant glass tube/screen made it so heavy. What made it portable was the suitcase handle on the top.

Treehouse and tent camping in the back yard.

BB gun shootouts in the front yard. They were my BB guns, so I always knew which was the best.

Dad using Kingston charcoal for that rare cookout on the grill. Seemed to take him forever to get that fire going.

Me getting a haircut from Dad, crewcut, also seemed to take forever.

Those were some good times.

Yep, Radon gas was not an issue, the house was far too leaky so we had plenty of fresh air. Frost on the inside of the windows., cast iron radiators. Old fashion button push light switches. In a dark room you could see the spark. Two prong outlets served on knob and tube. We had those ground lifting adaptors everywhere by the early 80s.

To this day, I score eBay so as to conduct another C7/C9 lit Christmas for my family. You can still get new strings, but if you want those pastel and metallic colors of days gone by, you've gotta use old bulbs.

i remember I actually had to get up off the couch and walk to the TV to change the channel

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Neither my parent's house, or my grandparent's house had any heat on the second floor. Frost on the windows was the norm. We had a wonderful childhood.

TV… what TV? I remember my dad taking me and my brother down to the local appliance store at night so we could watch wrestling. We’d stand on the sidewalk and watch it, in black and white, through the display window. Maybe wrap an Army blanket around our shoulders . Great memories!

quote:

Originally posted by Chris42:
No cell phones, no computers, no internet, no texts, no answering machines.

One phone in the house. As Henry Ford said, “Any color you want as long as....”

If you got a long distance call it was either good news or bad (birth, wedding, death).

No a/c in the car.

No remote controls for the tv. Likely no color tv. Ours was “portable”, which meant it was some kind of massive 30” x 30” and weighed 50+ lbs. That giant glass tube/screen made it so heavy. What made it portable was the suitcase handle on the top.

Treehouse and tent camping in the back yard.

BB gun shootouts in the front yard. They were my BB guns, so I always knew which was the best.

Dad using Kingston charcoal for that rare cookout on the grill. Seemed to take him forever to get that fire going.

Me getting a haircut from Dad, crewcut, also seemed to take forever.

Those were some good times.

You would not be my long lost brother would you?

First time I saw an army blanket was when I went into the army. AIR, we got 2 of them. Worked pretty well spring-fall. Not worth much in the winter. But then they issued us those "down filled arctic sleeping bags" Down? Not hardly. Nothing but chicken feathers in them. Altho, they were better than the blankets.

we had AC....my da is from Philly and moved to FLa in early 60's...he hated the heat of Fla...we had a house so cold you could see your breath year-round....

No home A/C, just a window open covered by a screen. Very few cars had A/C. Again, an open window and air vents were all we had.
Hand washing dishes.
One channel, CBS for me, was all we could get because the others were too far away or terrain blocked the signal. We became a two channel home (ABC) years later with a taller antenna that could turn with the press of a button. A 25" TV was a luxury back then.
Water was squeezed out of washed clothes then hung outside on a clothesline until I was about nine and we got a dryer.

I grew up in Houston in the 70’s, cold wasn’t much of an issue although our ‘army’ blankets were still awesome for camping.
I remember attic fans and sleeping with the windows open and screens on because of the mosquitos.
Then the bug sprayers would drive by every so often which was fun. We would ride behind them I remember, no wonder I don’t have a third arm from that.

HK Ag

quote:

To this day, I score eBay so as to conduct another C7/C9 lit Christmas for my family. You can still get new strings, but if you want those pastel and metallic colors of days gone by, you've gotta use old bulbs.

My outdoor lights are those exactly. I refuse to put up LED's or use one of the LED "light shows" that are so popular.

Clear plastic on the windows, "Mortite", that sticky gray caulk strips on the window joints. Pipes freezing in the winter, had to leave them run slightly at night. We too had those Army blankets. Multiple blankets on the bed.

Gew up in Columbus, Oh in the 70s and 80s. We were poor until I was a teenager. I remember getting out of my well blanketed bed in the morning and sitting on the heat vent in my floor to get dressed because the bedroom was about 55 degrees. That heat vent only stayed on for a few minutes but those few were amazing.

And we had to walk to school, even when it snowed. I don't think I had a friend who's mom took them to school with any regularity. The kids that lived far away got a bus with no heat and no air. The kids that lived close, got to walk no matter the weather.

I inherited an Army blanket with an “Australia 1942” label. It is still going strong after all those years.

In the late 1950s we would visit now & then, the home of my great Uncle, who was resident outside the tiny frontier community of Crouch Idaho.

I awoke one morning, warm and comfy, in a small tunnel of blankets so heavy I literally could not move. His windows were certainly iced over, and the frigid air inside the upstairs room was little different than the reallyREALLY cold Outdoors temperature.

At 10 or 11, I was introduced to the advantages of country breakfasts & making the days fuel supply move from the barn to the porch to the inside front room.

In the so-called "good old days," things like A/C in houses and cars either didn't exist or were luxuries that weren't affordable to Joe Workingstiff. We wouldn't dream of a non-A/C car (so much so that it has been standard in even the cheapest shitboxes for years) or house today, would we? Just because our parents' cars didn't have seat belts doesn't mean (even without laws mandating it) doesn't mean we wouldn't put them on today, nor would we not strap our small children into car seats just because we rolled around in the back seat on every curve in the road. Yes, some adversity does "build character," but there's no sense in purposely subjecting ourselves to it.

Seat belts who the hell used those things?

Fresh air was for kids whose grand parents and parents either didn't smoke because they were not cool or were dead from lung cancer.

DUI, parents with drinking problems "having one more for the road" or driving with a roadie ie one in their lap, and their kids in the back seat.