If you are under the age of 30, some things you will just have to try to imagine.  Those of us in my generation have gotten to experience a lot of things that you young-uns really can’t even imagine.  Like living without remote controls.  Just think about that.  Our first TV when I was a kid did not have a remote control.  Of course considering there was only about 5 channels to watch, it wasn’t like we were doing a lot of channel surfing.  There was no cable, no satellite, no DVD’s, nope.  I remember in the 5th grade, a friend of mine would come to school every day and tell me about things he saw on cable, that was banned from network television.  Only the rich people had cable then, and many people said it would never last.  I remember the first video rental store in Waxahachie.  It was in the same strip mall as Pizza Inn (which is also not there anymore either).  Until that point, the only way you ever saw a movie is if you went to the movie theater, or they showed it on network TV.  In the rental store, you had an option of VHS or Beta, at least for a while.  I remember we had a red case with our name on it, and you would pick out a movie, sign a card, put the movie in your case and take it home.  You always kept your case to show that you were a member, and could only rent 1 movie at a time.  And we had some other rich friend that had a laser disc player (shown in the picture).  Anybody remember those?  It was like a giant DVD, about the size of a hubcap.

But back to the remote controls.  Can you imagine having to get up to go turn the TV channel.  Actually the old TV’s didn’t really have buttons at all.  They were more like knobs.  A big knob for the channel and a small knob that you pulled to turn it on and adjust the volume.  Mute wasn’t around then either.  My grandmother would come over and keep us, and she was the most wonderful person I’ve ever known, but she would really irritate me because when she would straighten up, she would always put the remote control on top of the TV.  So everytime I’d be sitting there on my butt and needed to change the channel, I’d have to go up to the TV to get the remote.  I remember always thinking, “What good is having a remote if I always have to walk over to the TV to get it?”  I guess she didn’t really understand the modern purpose of the remote.  Speaking of my grandmother, she also had one of these phones.  Anybody remember these.  It took forever to dial it.  Especially considering our local extension began with a 9, which took the longest to dial because you had to spin the whole thing around almost 360 degrees, and let it spin back before dialing the next #.  911 would not have worked very well with the rotary phones.  Somebody would be dead before getting the number dialed.

Back to remotes.  Can you imagine having to get out of your car and pull the garage door open every time you came home?  And then close it again behind you.  As for music, no remotes for your stereo’s.  Of course we did have the 8-track player though.  Those were cool.  They were a lot more hi-tech than those vinyl albums you played on a record player.  The biggest advantage of the 8-track player was that you could put it in a car radio.  Of course you could not fit a turn-table in your dashboard, but this was the first device that allowed you to listen to something besides the radio in your car.

Aren’t you young-uns glad you are growing up in the new millenium.  Can you imagine what it will be that your kids will look back and wonder how you lived without it?