I grew up without cell phones or Internet until my teen years. Remember watching the OJ trial whenever I was home sick from school.
We were really worried about Y2K, which would have been a disaster if not fixed ahead of time.
Had to work on 9/11, and remember what airports were like before all the added security.
Also had to work - pushing groceries to people's cars while the VA sniper was rolling around the area shooting people in parking lots.
I remember people smoking cigarettes fucking everywhere. There were cigarette vending machines.
Our 2 and 3 liter bottles had an extra plastic piece to make the bottom flat. I don't think they were making them with feet like they do today. The bottoms were round, requiring a plastic shoe to create a flat bottom. Sometimes the bottles had a metal cap.
Hardly anybody wore seatbelts. Gas was under $1/gallon when I started driving.
Parents are baby boomers but had me really late. I used to watch Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in my Super Mario themed tightey whitey underwear when I was like 4 years old…
I remember in my small town leaving the house on my bike when I was 5 years old at sun up, and being gone playing with friends until the street lights came on, because that was when dinner was ready. I could easily have killed myself or been kidnapped, my parents didn’t see me for 12+ hours at a time.
I’m from Oklahoma and I remember the walls of my schools Gym shaking from the Murrah Federal Building bombing.
I was in Middle School and remember lots of high schoolers having gun racks, with hunting rifles, in their trucks parked in the student parking lot. And it was normal.
I was in A+ classes at a community college while in high school and watched a live stream of the TODAY show as the second plane hit the WTC tower…
I’ve watched the world go to shit, I have a kid that just turned 18 and I’m angry that they won’t get to live in a world that even resembles the one I grew up in.