Things that Kids These Days don't 'get'
Everything used to be brown. To hide the nicotine stains. Orā¦ because of the nicotine stains
The number of house fires caused by deep fat fryers. People would fancy some chips, heat the oil up, put the potato in, go sit down for a beer or cigarette or to watch TV while they waited, and fall asleep.
How cold everything used to be. Seriously. Even I remember having to warm clothes up in front of the gas fire of a morning.
The constant battle to prevent your fountain pen leaking, while keeping a stash of ink cartridges handy. I just found out you can buy a pack of pre-filled disposable fountain pens in 6 colours. Younger me would have committed several crimes for that. Younger me would have committed several more to be allowed to type 2,000 word essays, v.s. writing them with a leaky bloody pen, and have incredibly painful hand cramp.
The constant smell of old cigarettes. Even McDonalds had ashtrays. You could go to a restaurant and pick Smoking or Non-Smoking, and then you'd sit next to a table of smokers. This also happened on planes. The sheer angst from people, and ultimate denial of parents who were told second hand smoke was wrecking their kids lungs was astonishing.
The backlash of people who were offended they were told to wear seatbelts, and how much they protested having to make their kids wear seatbelts. Nothing says 'Buy a car seat' better than hearing an EMT talk about what happens when someone uses a baby's skull as an airbag when the car crashes.
How little anyone knew. We genuinely all heard rumours that there was a fourth star-wars movie, and some kid would always claim their brother or cousin had seen it. There was practically no accessible way to look stuff up without undertaking some sort of Quest. Magazines might help, but they had about a 6 week lead time on whatever was happening, and newspapers might come twice a day, but they mostly were a day or two out of date at least on most things.
