Old people these days are defective

[james_davis_nicoll]

None of the ones on my bus ever talk about normal old people stuff - the Depression, WWII, Prohibition, stuff like that. They talk about 1960s. They're doing old wrong!

Comments

[lostwanderfound.livejournal.com]

When I want to clarify the generation gap with my students (occasionally necessary because I'm frequently assumed to be about a decade younger than is actually the case), I generally say something to the effect of "when I was born, Elvis was alive, the Vietnam war was still going, and Richard Nixon was the American president".

Those may all seem like recent things to most of the folks here, but from the POV of a born-in-the-1990's undergrad it's all ancient history.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

The divide between recent and ancient is very sharp, too, and may not be strictly chronological. I think of Vietnam as old history even though it was still going on when I was a kid, because I wasn't paying attention -- but I do remember hearing things about Watergate. It took me a long time to realize how current Vietnam -- or, for that matter, the civil rights movement -- still was in adult minds when Reagan entered office, because that was on the other side of the line for me.

[mr-mediocre.livejournal.com]

Yes! Something to keep in mind when engaging with younger folks, though I have trouble imagining how to implement the concept.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

...The fall of the Soviet Union is now further in the past than the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Civil Rights Act were when Reagan was elected. And the time since what we still call "September 11th" is more than twice as long as the Civil War.

[fabricdragon.livejournal.com]

oh you want to see my felow students look boggled?

"i dont have text messaging"
"we didnt use computers when i was in High School"


"there used to be groups called "alt" it was what we had instead of facebook.... that was in the early days of the internet kids"

of course when i want to scare my teachers....
"oh, yes, my mom interpreted when Ford came to the bicentennial in Philadelphia... i was in the audience."

old or old?

[crotchetyoldfan.livejournal.com]

how about:

we had DIAL phones and party lines; only rich folks had color tv, there was no such thing as a remote, you really did have to 'change that dial', all of the stations turned off around midnight, there was no such thing as communication satellites and I don't think the color chartreuse had been invented yet

Re: old or old?

[fabricdragon.livejournal.com]

i still remember those days.
in fact i still remember that it wasnt until i was in my 20s that the phone company stopped offering "pulse or tone" lines at two different rates.