Those were the days, my friends

[Dr Awesomesauce]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

I miss flying with civility.

Flying use to be sooooo nice. It was something you looked forward to. No paying for basic baggage, a meal even on the shortest of trips as opposed to today where a micro bag of pretzels is considered an extravagence, actually having a pillow provided for the trip, and most of all none of these endless security checks.

For domestic flights you just got your ticket and walked on the plane arriving just 30 minutes before take-off and not 2 hours like crossing into the US was nothing more than a stop sign. Today even a short flight is one check-up line after another. A few years ago my 83 year old mom had to get out of her wheelchair, and get rid of all her personals to clear security for her trip from the terrorist hotbeds of Abbotsford & London Ontario.

You use to feel pampered when flying but it has become an excruciatingly painful experience.

Amen, brother.

I'd imagine it's what being checked into prison is like...EXCEPT YOU HAVE TO PAY FOR IT!!

[ssiguy]

Yes, when I was a kid you would have been soooooooo embarrassed if your parents picked you up at school.

Here in White Rock a lot of parents have the stickers on the back of their cars "proud parent of an honours student at XXXX high school." I would have shot my parents if they had ever done that to me.

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by rousseau

Crikey, you sure had a different adolescence from what I had! My friends in high school were all first and second generation immigrants with strict, socially conservative parents, so there wasn't any hardcore partying or bar-hopping going on for us. Now and then we had furtive house parties when someone's parents went back to the old country for a few weeks, but they were always a bit awkward because we were self-consciously aware of our lack of debauchery. We'd just sit around nursing the same can of beer all night while watching MuchMusic.

Good times? Yeah, kind of. I didn't have my first hangover until I went off to university.

Sounds very familiar - first drink at age 19 and first (and only!) hangover in second year university. Too much ugly alcoholism in my family to find boozing enticing, even when I was young and stupid.

[SignalHillHiker]

My mother taught at the same school I attended. I sometimes got a ride to school with her, . A particular boy beat me up once for it and Mom found out who had done it through work, not me telling. I happened to see her pull him into an office the next day. I've no idea what she did but that was Grade 7 or so and this boy was literally my bodyguard straight through Level III graduation. No one could look at me sideways or he was on them.

Beyond that it was mostly a benefit. Mom was easily one of most loved teachers so being her kid was mainly an advantage.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by vid

My mom is 50 and said that things were always locked up when she was a kid so ssiguy must be pretty old.

I am a few years younger than your mom and everything was also locked up when I was a kid. I lived in smallish cities and also bigger cities in my youth.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

I miss flying with civility.

Flying use to be sooooo nice. It was something you looked forward to. No paying for basic baggage, a meal even on the shortest of trips as opposed to today where a micro bag of pretzels is considered an extravagence, actually having a pillow provided for the trip, and most of all none of these endless security checks.

For domestic flights you just got your ticket and walked on the plane arriving just 30 minutes before take-off and not 2 hours like crossing into the US was nothing more than a stop sign. Today even a short flight is one check-up line after another. A few years ago my 83 year old mom had to get out of her wheelchair, and get rid of all her personals to clear security for her trip from the terrorist hotbeds of Abbotsford & London Ontario.

You use to feel pampered when flying but it has become an excruciatingly painful experience.

I totally get this. Business or first class I could likely afford but with a family it's a huge waste of money IMO and compromises further travel.

The cattle-drive experience in economy class air travel is a product of many things, many of which have already been noted. But it's also directly related to its democratization.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by rousseau

Crikey, you sure had a different adolescence from what I had! My friends in high school were all first and second generation immigrants with strict, socially conservative parents, so there wasn't any hardcore partying or bar-hopping going on for us. Now and then we had furtive house parties when someone's parents went back to the old country for a few weeks, but they were always a bit awkward because we were self-consciously aware of our lack of debauchery. We'd just sit around nursing the same can of beer all night while watching MuchMusic.

Good times? Yeah, kind of. I didn't have my first hangover until I went off to university.

My first experiences with booze and bars were around 16. At one point I lived in a relatively small place where a lot of people knew each other and I looked the oldest so I dressed nice and bought booze for all of my friends. It was a challenge to go to the LCBO and not see people my parents knew, though. We'd then smuggle the booze into high school and community dances.

I first went to bars at that age on the infamous Hull bar strip. It was some distance away from where we lived so we often couldn't justify to our parents being out until the wee hours. So we'd leave at 11 or midnight just when the real action was starting.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

^street hockey?

Street/road hockey is still alive and kicking where I live.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by rousseau

I guess it depends on where you lived. We never locked our doors in our house either growing up, and yeah, we didn't lock our bikes at school. None of us even had locks. And the area set aside for our bikes was always full because the only kids getting a ride to school in a car had legs in casts. It would have been freakishly weird for there to have been a line-up of cars waiting on the street to take kids home.

When did that change? Sometime in the 1990s? Ironically, people nowadays are right on the money about having to pick their kids up in the car due to safety concerns, as with that many cars coming and going around the schoolyard it really is dangerous.

I think that's as much a product of school system segmentation and choices and parents' schedules as it is a security obsession.

In my neighbourhood probably 99% of the kids go to the local school right in the heart of the neighbourhood and all of them live within a km or less of the school. Of course many parents drop off their kids by car and there is some level of traffic around 8:15 in the morning but tons of kids still walk and bike there. All of the streets are filled with kids and crossing guards just before the bell.

[elly63]

Originally Posted by rousseau

The last time I saw him in Toronto he spent our dinner bragging about his crazy romantic exploits in between trying to chat up the waitress with the most excruciatingly cheesy pickup lines. I was embarrassed for him, and embarrassed to be in his company. He was an alright guy in his twenties, but after two decades of "chasing tail" (I think he actually used that term--cringe!) he'd coarsened into a creepy cad.

Yikes! That happened to me too.

[ssiguy]

Remember when all you had to do when you drove up to a gas station was say "filler her up"?
You actually got service when you paid for gas as opposed to having to pump your own. It was so nice having someone do it for you and being asked if you wanted to have your oil checked or window cleaned.

I remember when self service first came out you got a small discout on your gas but needless to say that's long since gone.

[Doug]

Originally Posted by Acajack

My first experiences with booze and bars were around 16. At one point I lived in a relatively small place where a lot of people knew each other and I looked the oldest so I dressed nice and bought booze for all of my friends. It was a challenge to go to the LCBO and not see people my parents knew, though. We'd then smuggle the booze into high school and community dances.

I first went to bars at that age on the infamous Hull bar strip. It was some distance away from where we lived so we often couldn't justify to our parents being out until the wee hours. So we'd leave at 11 or midnight just when the real action was starting.

Think I was about 14 the first time I went to a bar which is a joke because I looked about 10. Calgary had lots of places that welcomed underagers as long as you had money to spend which was typically the big challenge. Buying from government liquor stores was easy but also costly. There were elaborate bribery schemes like taking $60 from an ATM, giving it to a guy at the mall food court who would write a code on it. It you showed the receipt to the right cashier at the ALCB store they wouldnt ID. They kept the receipt so if they got caught, they had a paper trail back to the person who made the ATM withdrawal. My parents would have bought alcohol for me of I'd asked. They even offered to buy pot and cigarettes for me but I wasn't interested. Southwest Calgary in the 80s was out of a John Hughes movie. Lots of booze and house parties and driving parents' cars without permission. Pot and tobacco were seen as white trashy. Most of the parents were in their 30s, engineers, doctors, lawyers and business people.

My first strip bar was in some industrial area in Scarborough, ON when I was a few weeks short of 17. My roommate was turning 18. His older friends found a table in an inconspicuous location. One of them distracted the bouncer and another snuck us in. The scam worked for about 2 hours which was about when we quit spending money. Used to also go to some dance club at Queen's Quay called RPM. I hated the music but lots of people used to buy overpriced drinks for me.

I lost interest in the bar scene at around 19 and quit drinking around 20.

[ssiguy]

Originally Posted by vid

I

My mom is 50 and said that things were always locked up when she was a kid so ssiguy must be pretty old.

I heard that............GRRRRR!

[Doug]

Originally Posted by Acajack

I think that's as much a product of school system segmentation and choices and parents' schedules as it is a security obsession.

In my neighbourhood probably 99% of the kids go to the local school right in the heart of the neighbourhood and all of them live within a km or less of the school. Of course many parents drop off their kids by car and there is some level of traffic around 8:15 in the morning but tons of kids still walk and bike there. All of the streets are filled with kids and crossing guards just before the bell.

I don't remember many parents driving kids to school except under exceptional circumstances or to after school activities. That seemed to change in the 90s. When my kids were in school in Seattle, busing was mandatory because the neighborhood NIMBYS wouldn't tolerate the traffic and kids getting to school on their own was considered a liability risk. One of the things I miss least about the USA.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Doug

I don't remember many parents driving kids to school except under exceptional circumstances or to after school activities. That seemed to change in the 90s. When my kids were in school in Seattle, busing was mandatory because the neighborhood NIMBYS wouldn't tolerate the traffic and kids getting to school on their own was considered a liability risk. One of the things I miss least about the USA.

This has been a growing trend in Quebec for years now, and has slowly and modestly spread to other parts of the country.

http://www.trottibus.ca/en/schools/

[vid]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

Remember when all you had to do when you drove up to a gas station was say "filler her up"?

Yeah, it's terrible having to do things for ourselves now. We should totally go back to a time when gas stations coddled us. Pumping gas is hard! And now we can only get gas 24/7. Was much better when that wasn't so!

Originally Posted by Doug

My parents would have bought alcohol for me of I'd asked. They even offered to buy pot and cigarettes for me but I wasn't interested. Southwest Calgary in the 80s was out of a John Hughes movie. Lots of booze and house parties and driving parents' cars without permission. Pot and tobacco were seen as white trashy. Most of the parents were in their 30s, engineers, doctors, lawyers and business people.

Kids these days. Millennials are killing underage drinking!

Originally Posted by Doug

When my kids were in school in Seattle, busing was mandatory because the neighborhood NIMBYS wouldn't tolerate the traffic and kids getting to school on their own was considered a liability risk. One of the things I miss least about the USA.

Freedom.

[rousseau]

We always keep the front door of our house locked because we so rarely use it, but when we're at home the "side door," which is actually front facing and not all that far from the street, and the back door are rarely locked, save for at night when we go to bed.

But we'll both leave the house without locking the side or back doors. If we leave for several hours at a time, like to Kitchener or London, we'll lock the side door but not the back door. And I've never locked our shed. Other than my precious bicycles it just contains the standard gardening stuff.

We feel comfortable doing this because there are more Jane Jacobs-style eyes on the street around here, what with the B&Bs, the tourists and just generally being closer to downtown. The petty drug-fueled crime and asshole-ish behaviour of the underclass mostly happens in the bleak apartment blocks on the outskirts of town, and not so much in the gentrified districts of stately Victorian homes closer to the centre.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Doug

Southwest Calgary in the 80s was out of a John Hughes movie. Lots of booze and house parties and driving parents' cars without permission. Pot and tobacco were seen as white trashy. Most of the parents were in their 30s, engineers, doctors, lawyers and business people.

.

It wasn't in SW Calgary but it fits my youth in the 80s to a T. (That reference to pot and cigarettes is spot on.) Like a John Hughes movie or the (then) present-day town in Back to the Future. A bit of Fast Times at Ridgemont High as well.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

Remember when all you had to do when you drove up to a gas station was say "filler her up"?
You actually got service when you paid for gas as opposed to having to pump your own. It was so nice having someone do it for you and being asked if you wanted to have your oil checked or window cleaned.

Lots of smaller gas stations are still like that in Sherbrooke. Several of them are big banners (Shell, Ultramar, etc.) but not gigantic new stations, and probably still family-owned.

(I never ever say "fill her up" though, I always say "put $5 in her so I can manage to reach my habitual Irving station in New Hampshire". And I'm not ashamed of being a cheapskate.)

[vid]

God forbid you contribute to the financial resources of your country. Too bad all Canadians don't buy gas in the US so that we can really show the government who's boss!