boomers

If there's one truism we can all agree on, it's that times change, and as you get older, that truth becomes clearer and clearer. Things that were once commonplace have disappeared, norms and expectations have shifted, technology has fundamentally changed how we live and work, and time just keeps ticking on.

That's not a bad thing, necessarily. Progress is progress, change can be good, and we shouldn't expect an ever-evolving humanity in an ever-changing world to stay the same. At the same time, it's easy to have nostalgia for the good old days, and some part of those days are worth thinking of fondly.

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When someone asked Gen Xers and Boomers, "What's something that used to be normal, but would shock people today?" the responses were a mixed bag of awesome memories from the past, things that are probably best left behind, and those that fall in between somewhere depending on your perspective. Here are some of the most popular responses.

Unreachability

We are so used to carrying cell phones with us everywhere and being able to call or text anyone at any time that it's hard to imagine not being able to do that. But people used to simply fall off the map for a while, and nobody really worried about it. And if you called someone and they didn't answer, there was no leaving a message until answering machines came about.

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"People being completely unreachable, even children, for multiple days. Not in a they aren't answering work emails on purpose, but are posting on Instagram kind of way-- but truly, no one knows where the hell this person is or how to get in touch with them... oh well, ok. Carry on."

"I went to Europe for a year after high school, and my family got a letter maybe once a month and an occasional phone call - international calls were too expensive to stay in contact frequently."

"God, I soooooo miss this. Not just for myself, cause it's possible to still drop off the planet for a while, but what I miss is this being NORMAL for all people. Like in the before cell phone, before answering machine days. Call and leave a message with someone who answered. Or not. 'Where is Jake?' 'Oh, he went down south for a few days. Check back next week.'"

"Right Family vacation, camping, fishing. In a week, you might go in to town to the pay phone to call Gramma one time. No one thought twice about it."

"People tend to forget what a jaw-dropper answering machines were. They weren't cheap either. Most people didn't have one for a very long time."

Kids roaming free

Helicopter parenting was not a thing when Gen X and Boomers were kids. In fact, kids were often told to "go out and play," which meant wandering and exploring around—and often beyond—your neighborhood with your friends for most of the day, with your parents not really knowing where you were or what you were doing (a la The Goonies). You knew it was time to come home with the streetlights went on or when your stomach told you it was dinnertime.

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"Free range kids with no tracking. I left home on Saturdays after the last good cartoon, and my family didn't see me again until dinner. I was in the woods fighting imaginary Russians or having bottle rocket wars with kids on the block."

"I miss this so much. For all kids nowadays. Being constantly contactable (and more importantly it meaning 'something bad' if they are not) has warped everyone's brain. Everyone IMMEDIATELY goes to 'OMG where is ___ something bad must have happened' in mere minutes!."

"This! My mom kicked us outside when we got rowdy and told us to come back when she whistles! We knew not to pass the stop sign at one end of the road, and the mail box on the other. We had treehouses made from random shit we found in the woods and would battle each other 😂 Man my kids now could never."

"We were on our bikes riding around the whole neighborhood with other kids all day! Miles away, nobody worried about where we were, only vague ideas about who we were with."

Airport access

Those who remember life before 9/11 know how much airport security changed afterward, and it's hard now to imagine the way it used to be. On the one hand, limiting gate access to ticketed passengers only has made airports a little less crowded (believe it or not) but on the other, there was something so sweet about stepping off of a plane to someone greeting you immediately.

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"if you were picking someone up at the airport especially if it was your kid coming home from college or something big like that you would meet them at the gate."

"People who didn't have tickets could wait with you at the gate until you boarded or meet you when you got off."

"Walking to airline gates without a ticket or TSA. When I was a kid mom would take me to BWI airport and we would watch the planes from the pier."

"My parents’ favorite cheap date when they were young and poor was to go to the airport and people watch."

"I used to fly to my grandparents by myself every summer. My mom would walk me to the plane and get me settled in my seat. Once they accidentally closed the door and started pulling away from the gate while she was still on board and they had to pull back in to let her out."

Lax car rules

When some of us were kids, seatbelts weren't even standard in the backseats of cars—you had to pay extra to have them installed. And even then, they were just lap belts, no shoulder straps. Booster seats? Non-existent. Baby car seats? Eh, kind of, maybe, sometimes. (To be fair, the increased safety regulations on cars and seatbelts have saved many lives, so not complaining about these changes.)

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"The amount of kids who could fit in the back of a station wagon."

"We drove cross country on a family trip. Removed the seats and 7 kids just sat in the back on the floor."

"My sister and I rode in the back of a pickup truck on a six hour ride in Oklahoma when I was about 8 or 9 years old. We were both badly sunburned, and I ended up with ear infections. It was not a good time."

"1972 Towing a race car on the interstate with two moms and 5 kids in the back plus two canisters of gasoline towards the tailgate with the moms leaning against the back of the cab smoking. Oh, one of the moms was pregnant too. On our way to watch the dads participate in a demolition derby and stock car race, which my dad won. It's quite likely that the driver had an open can of beer between his knees."

"Dad had a full sized van with the passenger seats removed. We sat in bean bag chairs in the back from Missouri to South Carolina when moving cross country."

Smoking, smoking, and more smoking

I've tried to explain to my Gen Z kids how ubiquitous smoking used to be, but I don't think they fully believe it. People smoked everywhere. There were smoking sections and areas everywhere. Ashtrays everywhere. Cigarette butts all over the ground. Candy cigarettes. You get the picture.

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"Smoking on airplanes."

"The grocery store, hospital, school, movie theater…"

"I was in the hospital when I was 8. My roommate was 16 & she smoked."

"I used to be a cashier and light cigarettes at the register."

"Hell, I worked in a municipal office, and everyone had an ashtray at their desk and smoked all day at work. As someone allergic to smoke, it really sucked. I worked with a bunch of men, and the worst was when one of their wives would have a baby, because the guy would hand out cigars and the whole office would be smoking cigars that day. Brutal."

"Smoking everywhere. I worked at a bank that had the offices in the basement. No windows, one stairway down (fire would have killed everyone). Ashtrays everywhere. Zero ventilation."

"Or high school had a student smoking area. There wasn't an age requirement. Also restaurants did not have no smoking areas."

"Sending your child to the store for a pack of cigarettes. Like not even a teenager. Child."

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People shared some other things that were common like not wearing sunscreen (in fact, slathering yourself with baby oil to bake yourself in the sun), not being able to get cash whenever you needed it (and you always needed it—credit cards weren't as common and weren't accepted everywhere), layaway, sonic booms, corporal punishment in schools, and more. Times do change, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse, but it's always fun to look back and see how they have. Makes you wonder what a list like this will look like in another 40 or 50 years, doesn't it?