Please deposit your nickel , sir!

Hello Operator, I would like to make a person to person call to 213-277-9291, and talk to Mr. Elliot Singer please. ......
"You can call me back at TUxedo 5-4544.

Yes sir will do as soon as I get them on the line.
Thank you
"You're welcome"

A person to person call?
Whats that?
What's an Operator?
What's a dial phone?
When is the last time you heard a telephone bell ring?
Or if you were really hip you had a telephone company calling card....
In your wallet next to your Bank of America Visa Card, or your Master Charge Card
in the same wallet as your Standard Oil Card, that you could use at Standard Gas Stations, that were across the street from the Signal Oil stations or the Atlantic Richfield Station down the street from the Philips 66 or the Mohawk station.....
That is were the phone booth was usually located where you could make your phone calls when you were out and about.
Before Cellphones.......ages ago.
Not really....

Could Kids survive nowadays?

I keep hearing how tough life is, it's not fair that someone has to sacrifice something like not going to the movies 3 time a week, down to twice or limiting the cell phone use because the last bill was $200 dollars....
Kids......
They think they have it tough.

They should have grown up when if you wanted to communicate with someone, you sat down , got a piece of paper or if you were lucky enough stuck it into a typewriter and spend some time writing down your letter, then folded it up and stuck it in an envelope.
Then you put a 10 cent stamp on it, and you walked down to the post office, or if you were lucky your parents or neighbor would give you are ride to the post office and you would mail it.
It took a week or so for the person to get it.
Now they have the Internet , and they complain when the page takes too long to load.

Some one would call you on the phone and if you were on the phone or your parents were using it, the caller would get a busy signal. They would have to hang up, return to the phone later and dial the number again.
No call waiting,
No last number dialed,
No Caller ID, so you would have to answer the phone, each time, even if it was your school or boss, ......maybe you called in sick, so you better sound sick.....

And they complain when they have to leave a voice mail message.....

If you were lucky your television set had 3 channels on it.
ABC, NBC and CBS.
Later PBS came into play, but that was it.
If you missed the TV show, your neighbors told you about it,
Now you TIVO it, or 20 years ago you could set your VCR to record it.
Now if there are 4 things that conflict with what you want to record,
They complain...........

You fill up the gas in your car, and every other time you either had to put in a quart of oil, and walk around the car adding air to the tires......
Now the new cars hardly ever use oil, you never have to pump up your tires and all the cars have air conditioning.
But still they complain......


They also complain that homework is to tough. Tough? We had no Internet so any research we had to walk down to the library, look up the reference material , get the books, and if you had a library card you could take the books home to study......
But they complain...


If you liked a song on the radio, you could do one of two things. Listen to it again and hope that you will hear it when you have your tape recorder handy or go down to the record store and buy the record.
Now they complain if they can pirate the song or the album, or steal it of the Internet to play on their MP3 player.
The real hip people had a Muntz 8 track installed under that dashboard. You bought the 8 track tape and every 4 or 5 times you would play the cassette, it would eat your tape.
But they complain when they can load their MP3 player fast enough.

Kids complain too much, or I am too old.....take your pick!

What? Savings........what's that?????

I figured out the reasons and causes of the financial crisis all by myself!
It is something that kids nowadays have never ever heard of, something that the last couple of generations have not heard of or forgotten.......

Savings accounts.

When I was in grammar school, in the Haight Ashbury in the 50's the school was named after Dudley Stone, who ever that was, I had Ms. Brown as my first teacher.

School was neat, we lived about 5 blocks from school and my mother walked me to school every day, and the days I liked the most is when it rained.

We would get out early.......why I haven't the slightest idea.
Anyway every two Fridays there would be a person that would come around and collect your nickels, dimes and quarters.

You were something big if you had a quarter. Those usually only appeared after your birthday or Christmas or special days.

If you had a quarter, you would pass it around, the kids would look at it, and say that they would have one next time. 'They usually didn't.

Anyway, the person that came around was a Bank of America representative. They would allow you to bring a card home which your parents would sign, and there was a space on the card for you signature.

My Signature?

How about my printing?

It was a savings account that Bank of America sponsored that was available for every child going to school. Some kids had a dollar or two in there, some had 20 or 30 dollars in there.

The ones with 20 or 30 dollars where the rich kids.......I think I had about 3 bucks in mine. My brother had about 7 in his.

Now a days that wouldn't be allowed because it may make the child feel inadequate for not having the same money as the next kid.........One of the problems facing society nowadays......

So, we would give the person our dimes, nickels ( remember nickles, both buffalo head and Jefferson?) you don't see nickles nowadays, for some reason, must be the metal is too valuable....

So after the school year ended, we looked at our savings accounts and got some kind of prize for the one that had the most saved during the year........what a concept.

The other thing was neat was Christmas Clubs.......you would save money throughout the year so that you would have enough to buy your family some gifts........what a capitalistic motivation....

I see that lay-a-way programs are coming back. Another novel idea from the past. Imaging the concept of paying for something or better yet , waiting to get something until it is all paid for!

You would value the item so much more since it took you a long time to get it. The only thing you would borrow money for, after you had saved up a 30 % down payment was to buy a car....
or if you were really in the chips, a house........
But why would you buy a house? That was for rich folks......We lived in a flat, a half a block away from Golden Gate park, on the second floor. The flat had 5 rooms. Rent was $60 dollars a month.

There were no credit cards.........there was no financial collapse or at least the credit problems we face nowadays.

What a concept.

Remember piggy banks?