Community Forums

SyrenSkywolf · 07-07-2011, 12:56 PM

@Seajay

While a lot of the things you mentioned that are available can be good, look what phones, television, movies and the like have done to most people.

I would have no problem with no indoor plumbing, no central heat, having to split wood and draw water, and I haven't had AC in years. I grew up with all of this stuff at the family camp where we would spend weeks at a time. Growing up I loved just sitting and watching trains and ore carriers on the lakes, and still do (although I don't get to watch the ships any more). Most people nowadays would die within a few weeks if they had to deal with that way of living.

Yes, there have been many great advances in medicine. But how many of them have possible side-effects worse than the cure it offers?

If things turned South tomorrow, you and I would be able to manage just fine because of how we were raised. How many people wouldn't? How many people would curl up in the fetal position because they couldn't go buy pre-packaged food or be able to cook it on their electric stove or in their microwave, and have no one to sue as a result?

melvonnar · 07-07-2011, 01:26 PM

In the good old days---State parks had free camping.
In the good old days---National parks had free camping.
In the good old days---there was no entrance fees for national parks.
In the good old days---there was no fees in the forest service parks.
In the good old days---you could park your trailer (didn't have motorhomes yet) on the street and the HOA didn't complain ( back then there were no HOAs).

RVNeophytes2 · 07-07-2011, 01:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tom N

If you had $5 in 1962 US quarters, that's 20 silver quarters, today, July 4, 2011, you could buy 35 gallons of gas at $3.50 a gallon.

Thirty cent gas in 1920 is the same as $3.39 per gallon today, adjusting for the change in the value of a dollar.

Today's $3.70 diesel in 1980 would've been $1.35.

I love these things: HERE is the calulator. Enjoy!!

Afubar · 07-07-2011, 02:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SyrenSkywolf

@Seajay

If things turned South tomorrow, you and I would be able to manage just fine because of how we were raised. How many people wouldn't? How many people would curl up in the fetal position because they couldn't go buy pre-packaged food or be able to cook it on their electric stove or in their microwave, and have no one to sue as a result?

Yep, just like that song, I can skin a buck and run a trout line. Course I can also cut that deer up for the freezer, can meat and veggies, cut up a whole chicken for frying (kill it and pluck it as well), plant a garden, catch, skin and filet a catfish, and on and on. I can remember when we got in-door plumbing, don't recall it made life that much better. Grew up cooking for field hands and the only "cans" that got opened to fix Supper was what we put up from the garden. Do you remember those "party" lines? Now days every kid in the family has their own cell phone.

Heck, I'd be just as happy living in the moutains in a cabin with no neighbors, electricty optional. I would need the book-mobile to come around every week, got to have reading material. LOL

Seajay · 07-07-2011, 02:57 PM

I have always said that the dollar now is worth ten cents in real buying power when compared to the dollar back in 1950. Think about it. Coke use to be a nickel, now a bottle of Coke is a buck. Chewing gum, candy bars, sweet rolls, hot dogs and a thousand other things that use to be five or ten cents are now at least a dollar, usually more. The great problem is that ''MONEY AINT WORTH NOTHING ANY MORE'' It is just paper with nothing but a promise that it has value. Has the government ever broken a promise to you??????
the last time I looked gold was something over 1500 per ounce and an ounce of silver was around 35 dollars. The simple way to look at is you take the price of gas.... 3.50 per gallon......... Move the decimal point one space to the left and drop the zero...... .35 per gallon ... this means your dollar is worth a dime in buying power. It is all in the VALUE of the paper you have in your pocket. News Flash.
TAKE OFF ONE ZERO AND PUT A DECIMAL OVER ONE SPACE TO THE LEFT. That is what your money is worth in buying power. $100.00 will buy what $10.00 use to buy after the war in 1950. Of course, in the ''good old days'', 1.00 an hour was pretty good money and you paid no taxes till you hit $600.00 earned income.
All things considered, I will stay in these days. I got AC, Centeral heat, indoor plumbing with Jakuzi Tub, Satalite TV on a big screen, seven vehicles registered and all have a personalized tag, and life is good. Back in the good old days I would ''push mow'' your entire lawn front and back for .25 cents. NO THANKS GUYS.... I love it here and now....... Back then I camped in an Army '''pup'' tent that kept out some of the sunshine and little of the rain now I got a 33 foot Pace, self contained with most of the good ''stuff''. I remember the ''GOOD OLD DAYS'' but I dont want to go back there....

and just like Skywolf said....... I could live like that again and do well except for my heart meds I would get along fine cause I 'been there and done that' but a lot of the fun would go out of it real quick....
I will make any person this deal....... to show you how worthless your dollars are. I will pay fifteen times face value for any silver coin but they gotta be silver content. Not the ''washers'' they are issuing now ...ie.... ten cents is one DOLLAR fifty ,paper, a silver dollar is fifteen dollars, paper.NO HIGH LIMIT.

This is just my opinion and I respect your for sure ....

Thank a vet for your freedom.....

Afubar · 07-07-2011, 03:04 PM

Course when talking about the "Good, Old, Days" you must keep in mind - we weren't good, old, and we aren't necessarily talking about the "days". LOL

ralper · 07-07-2011, 03:23 PM

Bazooka bubble gum $.01 Gas: $.125 Hamburger, fries and a soda: $.30
Decent wages: $100.00 per week which would support a family of four nicely.

mick · 07-07-2011, 03:45 PM

LOL Ill take my a/c truck , a/c fiver, cable tv, soft bed, gas fired cooking stove, mirco , nice soft seat on my toilet, batteries to use, and thank goodness, my SS check.

Charge what you want, just keep the young uns working and paying into ss, so I can keep on keeping on.

SyrenSkywolf · 07-08-2011, 01:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Afubar

Heck, I'd be just as happy living in the moutains in a cabin with no neighbors, electricty optional. I would need the book-mobile to come around every week, got to have reading material. LOL

Same here. Heck, after school, my wife and I are planning on heading up to Alaska to spend as much time as possible in the bush studying wildlife. No cabin, but same concept.

SRT · 07-08-2011, 07:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mahon1993

No cell phones, no pagers, no i-pads, no seat belts, no computers, no bike helmets, no microwaves, no security cameras everywhere, no airport searches, my God how did we survive?
Greg

Yes, we survived. We used either the God given common sense or the common sense our parents pounded into our heads. It is becoming a "nanny state"....

SRT · 07-08-2011, 07:14 AM

Also remember taking the girl friend (wife for almost 50 years now) to McDonald's. Got a hamburger, fries, and a shake for a buck. For a buck got 3+ gallons of gasoline.

Coleman 6 · 07-08-2011, 10:36 AM

I'm in my 40's. My kids think I'm ancient.

I tell them about odd/even gas days, no cd's, mp3's, cable (or color tv for that matter!) vinyl records, events that will live on in infamy-the killing of the Israeli Olympic team, the Space shuttle falling out of the sky, and the Iran hostages. Know the thing they find most interesting?

My smallpox vaccine site on my arm.

I remember my daddy meeting me at the school yard after school and giving me a quarter and letting me spend the whole thing on candy. I miss that simple time.

I started camping with my children so they'd appreciate simple things like cooking outdoors, splitting wood for a fire, and just telling scary stories around a campfire. I think they are humoring me.

Paul R. Haller · 07-08-2011, 11:30 AM

I'm old enough to remember 30 cent a gallon gas but I'm also old enough to remember reheating a quick meal took 20 minutes. When an emergency occured you had to send a friend or neighbor to the nearest pay phone and I also remember a tune up every 7500 miles. I like these days.

That said, there are really disturbing things going on now I never recall. Like genetically modified food. Corn kernals that make their own pesticide and seeds genetically modified to die after one season requiring farmers to buy new seed each year. Our gulf despoiled by a oil giant from another country and our own government giving them a tax break because of the clean up costs. The super rich paying far less in taxes then the working man and health care that will deprive you of your lifes work if you don't have government mandated insurance. Banking execs who get a tax payer bailout and then taking houses away from a worker because of a bad economy that they perpetrated and getting rich doing it.The big three American car manufacturers flying in corporate jets to beg for bail out $. Economic collapse of the housing market and blaming public workers for it and taking away their pensions. This is not the country I grew up in where family values are forced down our throats by our past president whos moral compass is so scewed up he couldn't find his way in locked closet or read a single sentence without a microphone in his ear and the tea party pounding the bible and calling police and firefighters our worst enemy.

When you see indigent people dumped on the street from a hospital because they have no ability to pay and our own governments lowering taxes to the rich and asking teachers to take a furlough. Is greed all that drives us anymore? What happened to honor, a work ethic, and a fair wage for fair days work? Allowing corporations to build out of the country and not pay workers in Singapore a living wage while putting an American worker out of a job. Sorry folks, These definantely are NOT the good old days!!
-Paul R. Haller-

Alan_Hepburn · 07-08-2011, 02:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Coleman 6

I'm in my 40's. My kids think I'm ancient.

I tell them about odd/even gas days, no cd's, mp3's, cable (or color tv for that matter!)...

If you're in your 40s then cable TV had been around for at least 10 years when you were born; color TVs had been around commercially for at least 5 years. My Dad got his first job in the cable TV business in 1953, building the cable system in our home town of Trail, British Columbia. We had a color TV in our house in 1958 - back then we anxiously awaited Sunday evenings so we could use that TV to watch Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color...

As for nostalgia - my grandparents went from horse and buggy days to landing a man on the moon in their lifetime; THAT'S amazing!