Posted on 03/15/2025 12:11:33 PM PDT by DallasBiff
I was 17 when I started at UCSD in 1974. The following year I dutifully signed up for the draft and got a 1H card initially in 1974 after my 18th birthday. Early in 1975 the card was replaced with a 1H. My 19th birthday happened in August followed by the lottery announcement. My birthday pulled #319. I went on to graduate from UCSD in June 1976 at age 19. I had little concern about the draft at that point and took my GRE exam. In the Fall, I started grad school in the Microbiology department at SDSU.
A Black Belt...
Hammer Time.
.
I had a Right Cross...
Always fighting.
My dad was married 6 times, my mother was his first wife, the original.
10/13/2005: Are There Too Many Safety Rules For Kids?
8/14/2010: Dangerous things you did as a child
6/16/2015: The Last Rebels: 25 Things We Did as Kids That Would Get Someone Arrested Today
8/9/2017: 23 Dangerous Things You Should Let Your Kids Do
-PJ
Exactly.
My parents bought their first color TV just before Christmas in 1966. We had just moved into our new house in Springfield, VA. The TV station my parents preferred was based in Washington, DC. The station was proud of having just upgraded to broadcasting in color. Most amusing was the station ad for "Full color 5" featuring a couple black members of the station staff. About a year after I got married in 1978, that first TV lost "sync". The estimate to repair it was more than my dad was willing to pay ($400). He "gifted" it to me. I hauled it to my condo, diagnosed the problem and pulled the "sync" board. It had 9 transistors. I checked each one with an "ohm meter" and spotted a suspect. I was working for Marine Electric Company as a field service engineer at the time, so we had books of replacement parts. I paid my boss $1.58 for the ECG substitution part and swapped it out after work. Success. The "sync" worked again. That TV lived in my living room until 1983 when we moved.
Anyway, I agree with you on the Baby Boomer era, it ran from 1946 on up to about 1965. Some might put the end of the era at 1964, others as late as 1967, but I don't consider them wrong.
What is indisputable however is that it began in 1946 when all the GI's came home from the war and well, started procreating in a major way.
I was born in 1962 which puts me squarely in the tail end of that Boomer generation.
Even so, I did not grow up with a microwave. Or a dishwasher. Or even a color TV until I was at least 10 years old or so. And it wasn't because we were poor, it just wasn't common to have those items through most of the 1970s. I didn't have a microwave or dishwasher until I had my own place when I was in my 20s.
I think the article is describing a later generation than the Boomers.
bttt
Riches beyond belief, a true boy heaven, you had everything.
My parents had sold a smaller house in a nice area and bought a duplex in “the projects” because of me being born. By the time I was 8 years old, my father was gone.
I never knew anything different, so I made the most of life.
Actually we did. When I was 5 years old in Hawaii..1961, my parents purchased a TV from Sears. It was black and white. The remote used metal rods that were struck by a hammer inside the remote. The TV had an ultrasonic receiver that decoded the tones into control for on/off, volume up/down, channel up/down.
Dad upgraded his old Fisher monophonic FM tuner with a "demultiplexer" to decode the new stereo signals being broadcast on FM radio. He added a Sherwood stereo amplifier and speakers he purchased in Japan on has last cruise. The tape drive was still reel-to-reel and I handled that just fine at age 5.
Yes, Boomers... very common to come home and take care of oneself. Snack, chores, homework or in my case toss in swimteam and weight workouts as well.
I am still confounded by the generation of hypervigilant parents and kids came from or how it started.
Just had a chat with the nephew his son turned 17 and has no interest in learning how to drive. We talked about how when we were both that age getting that drivers license was what we wanted so badly. It meant ‘freedom’ as he put it. He talked with another parent about it and same thing with their kids too.
The first night we had the new microwave oven, mom decided to try it out by "defrosting" a 1 pound "chub" of ground beef. She placed the "chub" on a Corelle plate and set the timer for 20 minutes. It was smoking well before the timer elapsed. A hard cylinder of "meat" in a pool of hot fat wrapped in melting plastic. What a mess. We learned that microwaves work very differently from other types of ovens.
The one below if similar to what my father had when I was growing up. I remember having to point it a certain way at the TV for it to work and the channel switching was mechanical. That is to say, the channel knob would actually turn as you were changing channels. I think some kind of soleniod was activated to make that happen.
I’m a late boomer/generation jones and no one I knew had a microwave. They were SUPER EXPENSIVE when they first came out... like over $500 then which isn’t like $500 now.
I got my first microwave in 1982 and it was $300. A LOT of money back then. Now you can get a decent one new for $50.
“Idiotic Boomers trying to remake themselves as Gen X. Boomers had a concert in the woods where they had a drug-fueled orgy in the mud and founded a religion about it named Woodstock.”
a religion named woodstock???
The main question is, are you stupid enough to believe what you just posted, or just hate yourself and the world?
I had to wait until the Summer after graduating from high school to engage a judo class at Southwestern College. I had a blast and worked my way up to the highest brown belt before testing for black belt. Trained all week long and competed in tournaments on weekends. Fun stuff at age 17. I had to stop when I started at UCSD in Jan 1974. 18 units at UCSD and 40 miles from my dojo at Southwestern.
Um. It’s GenXers who want to declare that they are the MOST Special Generation in history lol.
I think it’s fun to compare the experiences of people of different generations. I’m late boomer/generation jones. My sister, who is early GenX is very adamant about how she is GX and I am a “boomer”. Who cares (apparently Genx does). LOL
I was a first gen latch key kid. No S@H mom. Vietnam was over when I came of age. Missed the 60’s and bra burning and “revolution”.
You can’t help when you are born. But you can take from what you have experienced and try to use that help make the world a better place, with God’s help.
Yes. I understand. They’ve changed it. Thank you.
I still have the sock with some of the change I earned mowing lawns and raking leaves in Springfield. If I mowed 3 lawns, I had enough money to walk 1 1/2 miles to the 7-Eleven to buy a Slurpee. That was 1967 for this 1956 vintage boomer.
As an aside, my dad took an advance on his Navy salary to purchase the house in Springfield. Breakfast was cream of wheat and orange juice. A PB&J sandwich for lunch. Hot dogs and beans for dinner. Every day until late 1967 to pay back the advance. Life was a litter "different" then.
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