Like Whatever
All things Gen-X. Take a stroll down memory lane, drink from a hose, and ride until the street lights come on. We discuss the past, present, and future of the forgotten generation. Come on slackers, fuck around and find out with us!
Like Whatever
Tales from a Tattered Flannel
Remember the joy of baking cookies with your family during the holidays, or the laughter shared watching "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation"? We sure do! On this heartwarming episode of "Like Whatever," Nicole and Heather invite you to stroll down memory lane with us. We kick things off by sharing some of our favorite Christmas traditions and the inevitable hilarity of being slightly embarrassing yet irresistible to our kids. There's also a sprinkle of holiday chaos from work as we talk about our experiences delivering holiday packages and the quirky idea of gifting spider plant babies at our work Christmas party. It's an episode overflowing with laughter, camaraderie, and a touch of festive magic.
But wait, there's more nostalgia to unwrap! We transport you back to the 90s with the story of a beloved flannel shirt that's been with us since our University of Delaware days in 1992. This isn't just any flannel; it's a symbol of our enduring friendship and all the priceless memories stitched into its fabric. From mixtapes to neon screens, this iconic shirt has seen it all and now proudly hangs in our podcast room as a testament to the good old days. We celebrate this cherished relic and the vibrant stories it holds, inviting you to join us in this celebration of friendship and timeless memories.
Two best friends. We're talking the past, from mixtapes to arcades. We're having a blast Teenage dreams, neon screens, it was all rad and no one knew me Like you know. It's like whatever. Together forever, we're never gonna sever Laughing and sharing our stories. Clever, we'll take you back. It's like whatever.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Like Whatever a podcast for by and about Gen X. I'm Nicole and this is my BFFF, heather. Hello, how was your week? It was good, good. How was yours? It was good. I did a little Christmassy stuff. I did cookie baking with the family and I actually had a really good time. Nice, yeah, yeah. And then I ate myself to death on cookies, of course, like I literally text my mom and sister at, I think, nine in the morning on Sunday and said I've already eaten half a dozen cookies. All the cookies, oh my gosh, they're so good. Um, and I did watch. Do my annual Christmas vacation watch National Lampoons? We watched.
Speaker 3:Gremlins the other night. Did you nice?
Speaker 2:my Christmas movie and your Christmas movie.
Speaker 3:I haven't watched Nightmare yet, though.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you got to get on that one I still need. I still have a lot to watch, but definitely Elf. Elf is another week so yeah, elf is a must watch for me too.
Speaker 3:I have actually now watched Elf for the first time.
Speaker 2:Do you like it?
Speaker 3:No, I did not. That's okay. I will never have to watch it again.
Speaker 2:I understand.
Speaker 3:I mean it's a fine movie. It is. It's fine. I think it's adorable. I don't never need to watch it again.
Speaker 2:Okay, fair enough. I found out that this podcast embarrasses my daughter.
Speaker 3:I love that. That makes me.
Speaker 2:I love that for you like I will do this podcast for the rest of my life as long as it continues to embarrass my kids. So I was uh with my oldest this week and I, um, she was like, started making fun of the podcast and I was like you listen? And she's like, yeah, like we're 10 episodes in and she hasn't even told me that she listens. My kids are brats, but anyway.
Speaker 3:Yes, I can confirm that her kids are brats.
Speaker 2:They did kind of make me proud, though. When we were doing cookies, they were sitting watching movies Well, basically, my mom and sister were doing all the work, because I don't really help either but I went into them and I was like you guys need to go in there and help, and they both looked at me and were like we do what we want.
Speaker 2:I was like uh, I did teach you that so I guess that's fair anyway, um, yeah, so my oldest daughter tells me that um, we're cringe, of course, and uh, but she listens. So you know we can't be that much cringe yes, and I don't know if I told you about lydia, did I? No? So kaylin um told lydia you've got to listen, and lydia said I can't, so we're just embarrassing her just by having a podcast podcast lid.
Speaker 3:I love um hi k, hi, yes, hi k thanks for listening.
Speaker 2:We love you um. What about what'd you do this week?
Speaker 3:uh, I worked seven days.
Speaker 2:Seven days I did because she does work for the post office, so she's getting all you bitches, your packages and your letters and your gift cards and your Christmas cards.
Speaker 3:I did seven days this week because I don't know why I'm stupid and fall for people's shenanigans and I can't let my work bestie one up me I was going to say didn't you work your way up to not have to work seven days a week? Yeah, and then he said he was going to work Sunday. So then that's when he throws down the gauntlet. Then I can't let him do it without me doing it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, that's fair. It's good to have people like that. Yeah, we're having a work Christmas party this week on Thursday, and for Thanksgiving we did a cover dish and we were going to do that again this time. But the office manager has graciously said she's going to buy us all Olive Garden. I'm pretty excited, very nice. I never go to Olive Garden, but when I eat it I'm like it's pretty good. And then she was like so if anybody wants to bring desserts? And of course everybody jumped in with desserts and I'm like we don't need any more desserts. So, being the dork that I am, I have a spider plant that has like 100 babies on it to give you one.
Speaker 2:So I went and I I went to the dollar store and I bought a pack of green cups and a pack of red cups, just like little short beverage cups, and I put like half a thing of dirt in them and I haven't done it yet because the thing is thursday, like the dirt's in but the plants aren't done. Yeah, um, I'm gonna pop all the baby. I put little gift tags on the side and wrote to everybody from nicole and'm going to give everybody a spider plant baby. Nice. Yeah, I know it's dorky, but it's nice. It's a nice idea. I think it'll be nice and, like my husband said, even if just one person makes that plant grow, right, you know it was worth it. So I have like 20 of them. I got to get together, but it's good.
Speaker 3:But yes, before, yeah, I didn't know you had a spider plant with babies. Oh yeah, I've been wanting a spider plant, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:And they're hard to find in the store? Yeah, because I didn't have any spider plants and I was looking for them. I don't remember where I got these from, but anyway, yeah, they're hard to find.
Speaker 3:They are hard to find, but yes, before you leave. Okay, I got you. I don't know what else did I do this week. Uh, we just watched tv. A little bit of this, a little bit of that. I did watch the, the jean benet, yeah, and I and I I I burst her bubble because I did know all of that anyway, yeah, well, you listen to podcasts. I literally listen to like seven different true crime podcasts and they have all done jean benet.
Speaker 2:I mean the only kind I listen to are murder and true crime, but I'm so limited Like Mr Baldwin, you've got to listen to the last podcast on the left. I know and I want to. It's just they are awesome. I don't know, I'm just. I love listening to music, so if I have an opportunity, to listen to anything Like.
Speaker 2:Today I had to take a ride down to Milford and I listened to Sugar Cubes Radio. Oh, that was fun, huh, yeah. So like let's see who was on there, a lot of Liz Phair, yeah, echo and the Bunnymen OMD, a bunch of other ones, I don't know. Oh yeah, lots of the Breeders. I forgot how much I like Breeders, man, they're so good.
Speaker 3:I have Sirius and they'll play Breeders on there and I'm like I forget how much like Last night we watched, we found it. I don't know Joe found it somehow or he said he had seen something about it, but it was the Violent Femmes. 40, 40th anniversary of their first album with the. Milwaukee Orchestra. Oh yeah, it was awesome.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, that sounds amazing.
Speaker 3:It was everything I could have wanted it to be. So we did that last night and that was yeah, it's on YouTube. It was for PBS, but we only found it on YouTube, I don't know where else, but it was very good, very good. I love the Fem YouTube. I don't know where else, but it was very good, very good. I love the Femmes.
Speaker 2:I do too, and I have the same memory that pops in my head with them every time. And it's so weird. I don't know why, but in my very early 20s I was in the car with my ex-husband and behind me was this girl, jessie, that I went to high school with. She was a little bit younger than me and it must have been warm, because we could hear her music and she was listening to M1, 1, 1 for me. So, and she's singing with it and we're watching her and cracking up, and just every time I hear the Femmes I think of her.
Speaker 3:I don't know why that one's my favorite. Yeah, that one's my favorite, yeah, that one's my favorite song that and Good Feeling, oh, good Feeling. And then we watched something with Phil Collins a Phil Collins live thing. I don't know. Joe's favorite thing in the world is Miami Vice, so we had to watch the scene where In the Air plays. And I don't remember very much about Miami Vice, but now that I have seen every episode, of Miami Vice 36 times.
Speaker 2:You're such a good wife, oh my God. And he has such eclectic tastes. It's funny.
Speaker 3:That's what made him move to Florida. It's so random. Originally moved to Miami Vice because of Miami Vice tastes it's, it's. It's funny, like that's what made him move to florida. It's so random originally.
Speaker 2:Oh really, because of miami vice did he wear a white suit and a aquamarine t-shirt? Maybe he did, I don't know.
Speaker 3:I look at pictures of him when he was that age and I always tell him I was like you would have never dated me. He was like I know I was goth then too and I was like you were not prepared for my level of godh. So, no, all right.
Speaker 2:But in all fairness, you and I should have never been friends. That is very true. You are correct on that one.
Speaker 3:My level of goth was a little bit higher, elevated also as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my level of the gap, yeah, and express and express was off the chart and it's true, I don't know, that's because I had a job and I was making money and I could actually finally buy the designer stuff that I wanted. And that's what I wanted.
Speaker 3:And I lived in thrift stores and the men's section. We didn't have a Walmart then. So whatever Roses, I guess. Roses Goodwill yeah. Salvation Army, oh yeah. Oh the Salvation Army. I got a pair of Docs once at the Salvation Army in Rehoboth.
Speaker 2:I still have your flannel, do you? It's hanging right in my closet. I always wanted to tell you about it. I'll show you it. So we just actually, and I ran and got the shirt, because it's sitting right in front of us.
Speaker 3:It is, and I remember that one very well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So when we met, when we went to UD in 92, I stole that from you at some point and I have been through. I can't even tell you how many moves. A lot, a lot, yeah, but I always make sure that shirt is front and center because it's important.
Speaker 3:So it's going to hang now in the podcast room. I get to wear my flannel again.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:That is a 100% authentic 90s flannel, for sure. Yeah, that's nice.
Speaker 2:It's a lovely color too, it is. It's blue and green and white. It's blue and green. Yeah, that's nice.
Speaker 3:It's a lovely color too, it is, it's blue and green and white.
Speaker 2:It's blue and green. Yes, yeah, no button collar. None of that garbage on there. Yeah, southern classic. I'm sure you bought that at a thrift store.
Speaker 3:Maybe I have no idea, that's true. That's true 72 years ago.
Speaker 2:That's cute. Yeah, uh, oh, and then, um you, you saw a drone.
Speaker 3:This week too. Oh, I did. I saw the aliens guys. Uh, they were.
Speaker 2:They flew near my house um all right, all right, so back up. Yeah. For those of you that don't know who don't, well, it has made national news in the US now, but for our huge following in Australia.
Speaker 3:Actually hello whoever is listening in Australia.
Speaker 2:Yes, because we love that you guys follow us, so started out. We live in Delaware on the East Coast and Jersey is right above us. In Delaware on the East Coast and Jersey is right above us, and they started a few weeks ago having a handful of drones, just kind of oddly the size of like a car.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and they were just kind of showing up and people were like, hey, what is this? And nobody was really saying anything about it. And then mayors of towns and governors of states started reaching out and being like hey, federal government like what is this?
Speaker 3:What's?
Speaker 2:going on. Can we get some help and the government's like we don't know what they are.
Speaker 3:They just send back the I don't know emoji.
Speaker 2:And so now at this point, like I feel like there are more New phone who does? And they have spread and they are now in our area. So Jersey was close enough. So now we're not fans of it. We did notice. Well, you go into yours and then we'll talk about it.
Speaker 3:So it was the other night, I don't know. Here's my thing about it. The government will tell you every other time oh it's a weather balloon, oh it's. You know this. Oh's a weather balloon, oh it's. You know this? Oh, it's a shadow, oh it's. You don't know Nothing to see. These aren't the droids you're looking for, and all of this. But then suddenly, now they're just like. I don't know.
Speaker 2:I don't know it's the weirdest thing Like they lie to us all the time.
Speaker 3:And I'm not a big conspiracy theorist. But I mean, let's face it, everybody lies um, yeah, so why not just make a lot instead of just going? I'll be like, oh okay, radio silent and just being like I don't know, like because we don't believe that lot like that's the biggest lie I have involved.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like literally, it doesn't even sound like they're telling local government no, they're not.
Speaker 3:They're literally like looking the other way, like I don't know, it's like we don't see any drones what drones I just as they look west, I mean they absolutely have to be our drones, otherwise I I can't imagine that they'd let them be there without shooting them down.
Speaker 2:They just I'm surprised citizens haven't shot them down. I mean, you know how americans like to shoot stuff.
Speaker 3:They love to shoot things and they love to shoot directly into the sky. They do so.
Speaker 2:I don't know.
Speaker 3:I mean, is it aliens? Probably not. No, because I don't think they would be that blatant, but obviously they are something connected to the United States, otherwise they'd have shot them down. There has to be, there has to be. They obviously know where they are, even if not shot down.
Speaker 2:They'd be telling people like you need to get your damn drones out of the sky.
Speaker 3:Get your damn drones out of here.
Speaker 2:But we did notice too that they started off, I think, over Trump's golf course in Jersey and then where you saw it is close to where Biden lives here in Delaware, over where Biden's house is. So yeah, I mean, like Heather said, we're not really into conspiracy theories, but this is just weird, I mean don't get me wrong.
Speaker 3:I love a good conspiracy. I don't typically believe a conspiracy theory, but I love to go down the rabbit hole on a conspiracy. I will listen to your conspiracy theory all day long, but I just, I don't know, I don't think.
Speaker 2:And at this point I'm not going to believe anything that they say. I mean. So I did see one the other night.
Speaker 3:I don't know what it's at, I don't know any more than anybody else, but I did see it and I thought it was funny and I told everybody that I had seen aliens now. So I have now.
Speaker 2:They're now coming for me, me, I mean that's not out of the question, but I just don't think that's how they're gonna do it yeah honestly, it has to either be.
Speaker 3:They're mapping something and they just don't want us to know that they're mapping it or there's something off the east coast that they're trying to get a better look at, and they don't want us to panic about it like is there a? Is there a volcano about to blow? Is there a?
Speaker 2:and an earthquake. Is there a continental shelf that's about to?
Speaker 3:blow that they're like oh that would suck. I mean, I would think we would be getting some rumble this will be our last podcast we're gonna get blown away by whatever volcano we're gonna roll into the ocean, yeah, so goodbye delaware. It's been nice knowing you. We're too close to the coast right now so I don't know. I don't know, but I saw one. So yeah, it's a big deal. Now I have to be, you know, if I just disappear one day, that's.
Speaker 2:That's why the drone aliens got me the aliens, the aliens me the aliens, the aliens.
Speaker 3:they got me.
Speaker 2:All right. So this week's topic is kind of hard to.
Speaker 3:We're just going to be lighthearted because it's Christmas time. She's done with the Christmas. I was done with the Christmas, Like I don't know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I knew your feelings wouldn't be hurt. But I 30 years ago I kind of started looking at like what winters were like for us as kids and my husband and I talked about sledding and but me I mean, and it was cool back then, it was way better like I've never been sledding. I had a friend kim. How'd you not go sledding? You lived in a town.
Speaker 3:We have no hills, yeah, so you do what we did, my friend Kim, that's different.
Speaker 2:That's different. Sledding, her dad would tie a rope and a trash can lid, a sled, whatever, on the back of his pickup and whip our asses around that neighborhood.
Speaker 3:We did that, but I mean like for real, sledding down a hill.
Speaker 2:Well, there was that storm of.
Speaker 3:The storm of 62.
Speaker 2:I don't know it was like in the 80s I think, and we did actually have like a little bit of hills, that was a big storm. But yeah, and you know, you would, oh my God, people would call the police in a second if people were dragging their kids around by a rope in a trash can lid behind their car now, even though it's like hella fun, extremely dangerous. Buy a rope and a trash can, lid behind their car now, even though it's like hella fun, yeah, but it's hella fun. There's no seatbelts, yeah, so, yeah. So I started looking at winter stuff. I didn't see anything really and I just kind of went down this like rabbit hole of and I was like, oh, I remember that, oh, I have memories of that, so're just going to kind of bring up stuff and I hope that it makes you think of fun stuff too. So we're going to fuck around and find out about shit Nicole wants to talk about.
Speaker 3:That's my favorite intro ever.
Speaker 2:So the first thing is stranger danger or lack thereof. And I'll also say I don't have any citations for this week because it really is just shit off the top of my head. Yeah, and if I did copy and paste your sentence or two, I apologize, but OK, so back then, back in the day. So this kind of goes with there was stranger danger, and then the unparalleled independence, these are two things that go together.
Speaker 2:So our parents had to work and they didn't have time to raise the children they gave birth to. Um so uh. Because of this, kids were guaranteed freedom and independence from a young age, allowing them to run freely with their friends in the afternoons and mornings.
Speaker 3:Everything in between, yeah.
Speaker 2:Parents of the kids of the 80s had to work, like I said, and so kids were basically unsupervised until they got out of school, until dinnertime, parents had no idea where their kids were, what they were doing and who they were with for hours on end. Now I have mentioned before that I didn't have that luxury of the after school like going wherever, because, right, I'd cook dinner and do chores and stuff. But when I was a freshman in high school, I was dating a senior, oh my God, and he was a rocker and I used to get to school early so I could stand in the hallway and hang on his arm oh good lord while everybody was coming into school. Um, he wouldn't take me to homecoming. My mom said no and I was devastated and I'm pretty sure he broke up with me after that but anyway um, he used to follow my school bus from home.
Speaker 2:Maybe I was in 10th or 11th grade I don't think I was a freshman, but I wasn't driving yet, must have been 10th grade. He would follow my bus home, and then we'd make out to white snake on the couch, of course. So I his one of his friends lived in the street from me and I was friends with him as well because he was in the band, and so he'd go park at his friend's house, walk to my house.
Speaker 2:Right, smart, make out and then, before my sister got home on the school bus, he would leave. So that was my recreation after school.
Speaker 3:Your sister would rat your ass out quick.
Speaker 2:Hell yes, she would. So what about you? What did you do after school?
Speaker 3:I watched a lot of TV after school.
Speaker 2:Because no kids in your neighborhood.
Speaker 3:No, we didn't have any, not in the wintertime. So there was nobody but my sister and myself. Well, there was two kids that lived across the street, but that was my sister's best friend, lived across the lake yeah yeah, um. So she had shit to do, but I didn't, and they annoyed me because they're I was much older than them and there was a kid.
Speaker 3:Well before we moved into the house that we ended up staying in, um, there was a kid that lived down the street. That was my best, my bestest friend, and we did well because I was a tomboy. I know big shocker there. I was a tomboy and, um, I didn't really play with girls too much. I was I played with. His name was jason and we, um, they had a pool. I know, at the beach it doesn't make much sense, um so, but after school in the winter obviously you can't go swimming, so I don't really. I think I just didn't do anything in the. I don't like being outside too much.
Speaker 3:I never did I guess, I did when I was a kid anyway, uh, we would throw rocks at each other and I don't know they were building so much shit when I was growing up, because that's when you know the area. Yeah, everybody found out that they could come to the beach here, so that's, it wasn't building everywhere, so they would have big dirt mounds and we'd like throw dirt balls at each other and stuff like that. But mostly I would watch. I'd watched a lot of the brady bunch in particular.
Speaker 2:Yep, yes, most of my play took place in the summer and we'll get to all that too. Yeah, the summer I did a lot more yeah yeah, um, so in the 70s kids would hop on their bikes. Here we go, like you had a bike, right, of course I had a bike. I mean you had to have a bike back then.
Speaker 3:Look, I had a bike, okay, I wanted. All my friends had dirt bikes or BMX bikes, okay, and they even had a ramp and I wanted one. I don't know why, because I'm the most non-athletic human being ever put on.
Speaker 2:That is true, yes, and I would have hurt myself. I have never seen her run in 35 years. No, and I will not run, I would rather get eaten by a bear than run from it.
Speaker 3:So that's never going to happen. I am not running for shit. So I wanted a bmx bike and we didn't have. I specifically a mongoose and I wanted one so bad and I asked for one for christmas. And christmas morning I woke up and there was a bmx bike there, but it was a huffy and not a mose and Mongoose. You can now get at Walmart, which makes me sad.
Speaker 2:Huffy was like the Bobo. Yeah yeah, it was like a Sears bike. You couldn't ride that in front of. I had no choice.
Speaker 3:But, yeah, everybody else had the Mongoose and all the like. You know, like the BMX gear Get out of here. And I didn't have any of that. I had, like you know, pillows strapped to my arms. Just don't fall. How about that? You don't need a helmet, you dumbass.
Speaker 2:I doubt your parents had health insurance. No, they did not.
Speaker 3:So you know, it was just like a don't fall off the bike. Stupid, that was it, but I wanted it. I wanted it and when I saw Mongoose at Walmart I was like I should just buy one just now. I would probably hurt myself severely if I got on a bike right now, but I did have a bike.
Speaker 2:My memory of bikes when I was like 14, 15, 16 even. I mean I rode bikes even after I could drive and I grew up out in the country and, uh, like these memories I have, they almost feel like they have to be fake, like I don't know if I dreamt them, but I've just the amount of riding that I did. Yeah, I mean we would set out for hours and I had friends who lived a half hour bike ride away. I'd ride to their house and then, once I got there, we'd take off riding places I did.
Speaker 3:I didn't go far. I might, because I was in fenwick, so we would. I was allowed. I was allowed to go to the beach as long as there was lifeguards. So after five we weren't allowed on the beach, we went anyway but, but my friends had the restaurant down the street, because we're all restaurant people, so we would go and they had a Nintendo and we did not have a Nintendo, so we would go into their office a lot too, and so I would ride down there and that's the length of Fenwick.
Speaker 1:So I don't even think it's a mile from my house to their restaurant.
Speaker 2:Yeah, seeing everybody was far away of their restaurant. Yeah, seeing everybody was far away. I swear I remember I lived probably 20 or more miles from my dad's house and I swear I used to ride my bike to his house. I believe it, but I don't know if I made that up, but I can see myself doing it. I remember the route and I remember riding it. It just seems so crazy now. Well, when I got, older.
Speaker 3:I stopped riding the bike um because they gave me, and this is even more irresponsible than giving a child a bike and letting them go free is they gave me an aluminum hunting boat. Yes, they gave me a boat. And what?
Speaker 2:yeah, I never knew you had a boat I had a boat. Look at me learning something new about you so they would.
Speaker 3:It was a uh like the pull start, just the evan rude engine on the back it was. I don't even know how big it was, but it was just a little tiny duck boat and the engine didn't work 98 of the time and I was only allowed in the bay right behind us. We weren't allowed to go. If you crossed, they call it the Fenwick Ditch over by Harpoon Hanna's and stuff.
Speaker 3:If you went, I was not allowed to go over there. Okay, we were not allowed to go, but the gas station was over there, so I'd have to go get gas there.
Speaker 2:I cannot even imagine you driving by a boat. Boat, well, it gets better, because we were then.
Speaker 3:so when my friend before she would come into to her restaurant or they would bring her, or if they didn't bring her, she lived across the bay and by car it's probably a good three or four miles by car, I mean straight across the bay, as the crow flies, it's less. So I would go pick her up. And there's all these little like I want to call them islands, but they're probably just sandbars with trees on them at this point.
Speaker 3:And then we would pack up picnic stuff and we would drive to the little picnic stuff and we would drive to the little islands and we would sit and have picnics on the islands and then I would drive her back to her restaurant or I would drive home. But the problem was is that the engine would break down all the time right, so I.
Speaker 3:The bay is not very deep back there most of it, except for the channel you can walk, so I had to keep a pair of um slip on uh, they were converse slip on, converse in because I'd have to get out and walk your boat home and pull it walk my boat home. Yeah, I would have to walk the boat home because we didn't have cell phones. I couldn't call anybody and be like hey, the boat broke down again.
Speaker 2:I love that.
Speaker 3:But yeah, we kept it right out back and then I would zoom out the lagoon into the bay and then I would either go up to the restaurant or her restaurant or go pick her up. Like wait she. I went and they didn't know where I was. I could have drowned any time. Yeah, because I had to literally get out and pull the. I mean they. I say that you know to my dad. Now I'm like you know I could any number of bad things could have happened. He's like you know how to swim. That's his answer. You know how to swim.
Speaker 2:And if you didn't call them, they just would have assumed you stayed somewhere.
Speaker 3:Exactly Every day. I would have just been stranded out in the middle of the bay.
Speaker 2:The police would be like why didn't you call us sooner?
Speaker 3:So behind Ocean City. It's the Little Assawamma Bay and the Big Assawamma Bay and they are obviously connected through the Fenwick Ditch but the Big Bay we were not there A hundred percent Because it was probably very that was extremely dangerous to be in the big bay Because that's where they have, I mean, a. You can get to the inlet that way and I would have gotten us killed in the inlet because I would have tried to get to Assateague. Because we would go to Assateague to my uncle's house on the pontoon boat we had. I didn't, but I mean I did. My dad would take us over, but I mean I did, my dad would take us over. We would drive the pontoon boat over to Uncle Bill's and then we would take Uncle Bill, aunt Vera and Michael out on the boat with the grill and all that and we would have like a whole day and then one time we were going like those crazy summer storms would come up out of nowhere.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and we were on our way either over or back, I don't remember and, um, one of those storms suddenly came up and we were out in the middle of the bay and it was thunder and lightning and my mom was losing her shit. So my dad I remember this so well too my dad ran the boat up underneath the route 90 bridge we had gotten that far, got underneath, up underneath the route 90 bridge, and made us get out. And then we got out and we went and we sat up underneath the bridge well, it's the, but then he didn't, he didn't pull it all the way up, he didn't drop the anchor, but it started floating back out and so he had to go running out. And I just remember my mom screaming at him because he's in the water holding the metal boat.
Speaker 3:Oh God, and we're tucked up under the that's crazy, see.
Speaker 2:I grew up with boats and I did not know that part about you.
Speaker 3:Probably when I was like 10, 11. That's crazy. I was like 10, 11. That's crazy. Yeah, I was not old enough to drive. I know that? Surely not. And I wasn't working yet, so I was under 12. Surely not old enough to drive a boat unattended.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Well, I mean, I have written here that bikes were the ultimate symbol of freedom, but maybe boats are, maybe boats.
Speaker 3:Just don't let your kids drive boats without a captain's license.
Speaker 2:So we would use them to explore neighborhoods, visit friends and go on adventures. Wake up in the morning, grab your cool bike with the banana seat and the reason that I put this in here is because the bike I learned to ride without training wheels was a blue and white banana seat with the flag and the motorcycle handlebars. Oh my god, I love that, that uh bike so much. So, um, yeah, so I don't.
Speaker 3:I. I had a bike with a banana seat and the basket, but that was before the bmx bike, because I was gonna be a b.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this was my first real bike. Yeah, was that bike? Yeah, um, so we never thought about helmets or If you went over the handlebars. It was tough and life happens. Yep, walk it off?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it did happen to me. I remember I was going with Helen. I mean, I felt like I was going 100 miles an hour and my friend cut me off and I went flying over those, literally ripped my big toenail off oh yeah, yeah, it was a good one. Ripped, literally ripped my big toenail off. Oh yeah, yeah, it was a good one. So, without constant supervision, we were independent to ride wherever we wanted. Today, bikes are still popular with kids, but it's done in a more like bubble parent bubble type.
Speaker 2:And I mean it's tough, Like I had the same thing with my kids and I wanted to set them free on their bikes. But cars drive a million miles an hour through neighborhoods and shit, so you can't do it. Um, back then a car came like once every 45 minutes I mean where I just pulled off.
Speaker 3:Yeah, in the winter time it was. It was a car like maybe once an hour yeah, I was way out in the country.
Speaker 2:There was nobody out there, unless you live there. 70s kids didn't shy away from getting dirty, and I put this in here for you because you were a tomboy and I was a girly girl. I was all about Barbies. Although I've always done like gardening, I did play outside. I remember when I was a little kid playing outside with kids, and when we're real small, girls would go outside with their shirts off like boys did I tried it once and I literally walked around with, like my hands in my armpits, like covering my little nippies.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because I was so mortified like so yeah, I could never do that. But so being outside and being a little crazy kid wasn't really my. I mean, I played outside a ton, but getting dirty was not my forte getting dirty was my forte and my mom got would get this.
Speaker 3:She still talks about this. My mom would get pissed off because I never checked my pockets before I just dumped my clothes for her to wash.
Speaker 2:Well, alright, I'm going to stop you right there. You were a kid, she was the mom, I know. She should have checked the pockets, correct.
Speaker 3:She did not and would always find dead minnows in the bottom of the washing machine, because we would go fishing and I would just grab minnows and then stick them in my pockets and then I would forget that they were in there. Poor minnows, yeah I killed a lot of minnows.
Speaker 2:I know my cousin, tommy, was a Jersey kid, city kid. So when he would come to our country house in the summers he would go out and catch all the little tiny frogs and he would put them in a bucket and inevitably we'd walk out the next day and find all the dead frogs and every time we'd be like dude, you can't leave them in there. You can catch them, but you can't leave them in there. Yeah, we we would.
Speaker 3:I don't know, we killed a lot of things. Yeah, I stuck them in my pocket, it was with the best intentions.
Speaker 2:I was going fishing Fireflies that lived in jars until they died.
Speaker 3:You know what? I did not see a firefly until I was 17 years old. There's no fireflies at the beach. No, there's no trees. Oh.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I've never had trees around me. I never saw a firefly.
Speaker 2:You're right, I've never seen a firefly at the beach.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, I was so excited my first time. I was with Christine and we were at her house in Milford and I was like was that a firefly? And she was like, yeah, you weirdo why. And I'm like like I've never seen a firefly. You should come to my backyard in the summer, well or when I moved inland. I did, but but at the beach. No, we don't have trees. So crazy I assume that's where they live. I don't know. We didn't have trees and we didn't have fireflies.
Speaker 2:That's me deducing those two things so we know you made mud pies.
Speaker 3:You talked I did because you would play restaurant.
Speaker 2:Creative.
Speaker 2:Slits Very creative the 1970s, playground was a war zone. You always saw at least one kid fly off the merry-go-round and break their arm. I'm missing half a tooth because of that. I have a chip out of my tooth. Do you remember the metal bars? That it was just one really tall metal bar and then a medium sized metal bar, yeah, and people pull themselves up on them and do flips. Well, I was very good at that because I was long and lean and so I was very good and I was up there on the top one doing.
Speaker 2:I probably had my knee around it, or my waist or something crazy, and I fell on my face. Yeah, first time I ever went to the dentist and he told me a story about the boy who cried wolf. That's what he talked about while he did my tooth.
Speaker 3:That's a weird thing.
Speaker 2:It was weird and I was like six I'm not crying wolf buddy yeah for real. I fell on my face.
Speaker 3:Mine was a seesaw incident with my sister seesaws.
Speaker 2:Seesaws were fun, but you were taking chances that somebody could be a dickhead. Oh yeah, you put your life in your own hands yeah, because people would jump off them all the time that's what happened.
Speaker 3:She jumped off, yeah.
Speaker 2:Everybody thought it was funny. It wasn't no. And then our metal monkey bars. Oh yeah, I bang my head all the time on those things I'm going to mess with that.
Speaker 3:How about the-? I would stay on the swings.
Speaker 2:How about the hottest hell slide?
Speaker 3:Oh, the slide that was so tall so tall, yeah like, and we were climbing like 30 feet up in the air with no sort of barrier, and they were made of like stainless steel or something and they reflected hot as fire. Yeah, they were yeah, they would burn the shit out of your leg. Third degree burns on the yeah no one cared.
Speaker 2:And then you get to the end and fly off. Oh yeah, into the outer space kids also went wherever they wanted without thinking about asking for permission or informing their parents, because we didn't even know where our parents were no 10 o'clock.
Speaker 3:Do you know where your children are?
Speaker 2:yeah, kids would. Just, you know, we were told, come home when the street lights come on. So yeah, and I remember another big one was always call me when you get there and I know I used to always forget to call but nobody.
Speaker 3:nobody cared.
Speaker 2:I didn't check up, no but you know what, as a mom, I would do the same thing, like before my kids had cell phones. I'd be like if they were going somewhere with a friend or something, spend the night, call me. They didn't, I didn't follow up.
Speaker 3:Um, whatever, I'm sure they're fine they're still alive now, so so they're fine, I'll find out.
Speaker 2:Tomorrow someone will let me know. Yeah, for now I'm gonna go to sleep. I'm tired, um I got rid of them bitches, for a reason yep, so some other um safety concerns, besides our all metal playgrounds, which they were still so badass Like playgrounds. Look so lame now, yeah, like all that stupid plastic crap, yeah, anyway. So let's see, we didn't use seatbelts, we didn't use helmets, we didn't use car seats.
Speaker 3:No, I got a good no seatbelt.
Speaker 2:All right, go for it.
Speaker 3:I still tell everyone that I was put in a cage and I was put in a cage and my mom, if you say this is the best, okay. So we were going to Florida. We didn't have the van. I was a baby baby so we didn't have the van. So was a baby baby, so we didn't have the van. So I was like under one, maybe two, maybe under two, somewhere in the neighborhood of one to two.
Speaker 3:So what they decided to do was flip my playpen over in the back of the Vega station wagon, put me in the upside down A a thank you, a cage. And when you say, mom, you put me in a cage, both of them to this day will say, well, you loved it. Oh, well, did I? I'm sure I did, because nobody wants to be trapped in a seat I still. Then, this is why I don't wear seat belts now, because I hate them, because I was thrown into cages. So I said they said it was great because we could just, you know, you had your butt. Not only did they just throw me in a cage with like a hamster bottle on the side, they threw food at me. Yeah, they put me in. You don't want to know what's wrong with me? That's what we would. We went to florida. That is a 15 16 hour car ride from here to florida I can totally see your mom denying all of that oh, she won't.
Speaker 3:She'll say it wasn't heather, it wasn't a cage, it was a playpen that we flipped upside down. A cage A cage? No, the sides lifted up a little so we can give you food, slide bread and water under it. Exactly Yep, and that's exactly what happened.
Speaker 2:Yep, yeah, yeah. So this talks about the memory that I saw online was about riding in the back of a station wagon, which I did not have a station wagon, but we did have the pickup with the cap and that's where we rode. It was my mom's second husband. Mom came into the marriage with two kids and he had two kids and the four of us rode back there and I was the oldest, so I got the wheel.
Speaker 3:Well, See, we had beach chairs. He put beach chairs in the back, but it didn't matter, because every time and we didn't have a cap. So maybe that's why we had to have an actual seat. So when he would turn a corner, your whole self would slide in the chair Yep, yep, yep.
Speaker 2:That is true.
Speaker 3:Let's see, you're not even allowed to put a dog in the back of a pickup truck anymore.
Speaker 2:Yeah, which I'm good with. I hate being behind pickup trucks with a dog. I know me too.
Speaker 3:Kids whatever. They can jump out all they want. Exactly Not the dog?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, because I mean dogs. They exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, because kids, I mean dogs. They're still an animal, like you think that they are not going to jump out, but you never know. Um, so would there be no seat belts? Uh, there was a company called my parking sign and they specialized in the sound production of parking signs and other relevant items. Uh, that were of public concern and road safety. So seatbelts were introduced in the 60s. It wasn't until 65 that they started being implemented as a law, although in the 70s there was still no real legal consequence if you got caught without wearing one. So that reminded me of when we were kids. So my dad married my Janet. They've been married for 40 some years now. Anyway, I love them. Shout out to dad and Janet Hi, dad and Janet. They will never listen to this, but I'll shout them out anyway, um no never if I told them.
Speaker 2:I when I went and visited them last month, I didn't even tell them I had a podcast, because I knew they wouldn't even know what that was, um, but anyway, um, my dad had a huge cadillac. It was the same color as your Lincoln, actually.
Speaker 2:That burgundy maroon color and he had the burgundy leather seats. So you literally just like slid around. And my grandma lived in Jersey. It was a three and a half hour trip up the Jersey Turnpike on the weekends when we would go up there and me and my sister and my stepbrother would literally spread out in the backseat of that car and not touch each other, windows down, music my dad's blaring his Frankie Valli and we are stretched out snoozing in the backseat and it was just the best.
Speaker 3:So yeah, when we got after we had my sister, after we got her. That's what I always say after we got her after she came along and ruined all of our fun ruined it all yeah, um, we didn't. We didn't go in the van anymore like my dad. We got rid of the van and they had a station wagon for a while. Until she was like, what year is that van? He got a minivan. It's an 80, it's either 85 or an 86. So he got this minivan.
Speaker 2:Does he still have that van?
Speaker 3:Yes, damn, it's at my sister's house. That's insane. He has another one too. Okay, yeah, that doesn't run. He just got a new van. Okay, he just got a new van, that does run. Oh, okay, yeah. So you remember that right. Oh yeah, oh hell yeah.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, it was lowered in the front, yeah, anyway, it had no windows in the back. He does not like windows, so it had no windows in the back. So we had to draw pictures and tape them to the side of the van because we'd been on long trips, and then the side closest to the side, because back then kids' vans did not have doors on either side in the back it was one side and they didn't close by themselves either.
Speaker 2:No, you had to shove them.
Speaker 3:Slam them like five times as their parents are screaming at you she was too little to open the door, so I had to sit on the side of the door. But the seat that was on the side of the door, the seat belts, were broken. So not only did they put me in a cage because they didn't give a fuck about me, but then I had to take the seat without the seat belt because, as my father, the princess needed I am the child that they did.
Speaker 3:They had me to babysit the child that they actually wanted, and I am just spare parts, so you know, that thank goodness you survived your childhood, because you'd probably be in a freezer somewhere. I would be Just waiting for your sister to need parts. She's going to need a kidney sometime. I'm sure that's what she has kids for, though.
Speaker 2:Oh God, not his grandchildren, no, no.
Speaker 3:No, no, no. It's a shame your dad didn't love you nearly as much as he loves his grandchildren, breeder and his grandchildren, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, not bride or daughter, no, were you going to say bride or daughter? No, you are definitely way smarter than Jess. Oh, 100%. I mean, I love her very much and she is the cutest thing I've ever seen. She knows it.
Speaker 3:She doesn't listen to this anyway, but yeah, okay, good she, she doesn't listen to this anyway, but yeah, Okay good, she is definitely the favorite child. Yeah, that's all right, her kids are cute.
Speaker 2:They are yeah.
Speaker 3:They are. Yeah, my mom had children to be a grandmother. That's it. Yes, yeah, she's a. Yes, yeah, she's a very good grandmom she is.
Speaker 2:I have no doubt about that, because she was an, or is an, excellent second mother to me.
Speaker 3:Yes, but my nephew once told my sister I don't know she was he was in trouble for something and he said that he was going to go to live with my mom Patty. And my sister turned around and she was like yeah, I'd like to live with my mom Patty too, but that lady isn't who you live with.
Speaker 2:I want to be the grandma that my grandkids want to run away from their mother too. Oh yeah, they do they go over.
Speaker 3:Her son is 19 years old now and he still goes and visits his mom. Nobody is going to be more upset when my mother dies than that boy. Yes he is definitely my mom's pride and joy.
Speaker 2:Well, that's a hell of a legacy for her to leave behind. Oh, yeah, yeah, I love that. So the next thing I want to talk about was something that I really loved, and it was having pen pals, which was an introvert's dream, because you got to have friends but you didn't actually have to do things with them.
Speaker 2:I had many pen pals. But it was such a cool thing back then because even like you could go back in like Teen Beat magazine or any of those, and there would just be a little thing like send in your name and address and we'll connect you with a pen pal and then you have a pen pal, I forget who I was telling this talking to about this the other day.
Speaker 3:Was it you and I that were talking about it? I don't think so. Talking to somebody about it that you could just and then I was like I don't even know where these pen pals came from.
Speaker 2:But then I started remembering yeah, you could write into like a service and they would yeah, from all over the world, and it was so much fun and I actually ended up having a really good friend, um, shelly, um.
Speaker 2:This was crazy to me because my mom was like so overprotective like I've mentioned before, I could not spend the night at my catholic friend's house because she was afraid I'd go to catholic church. So, like I was very, very, very sheltered and I ended up connecting with this. I think I was 15 and she was 13. Her name was Shelly and she was from Orange County, california. So like wow, she had bleach, blonde hair and big blue eyes and she wore all the famous brands and she had makeup.
Speaker 2:I still have, like makeup brushes that she gave me because like yeah, just I love to keep like random little trinkets like I'd make a perfect serial killer because I'm really good with the souvenirs.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like I love them um, so, but um, and she opened me up to music, like she bought me an orchestral maneuvers in the dark tapes when she was here and that was the first time I'd ever heard them and I like, mind blown, like because at that part time I'm only listening to pop-tart music like I had no experience anywhere else. Um, but she lived with her aunt and through writing letters back and forth so this is not fast we planned for her to come from california to come spend a week with me. That's crazy. It was nuts, nuts, nuts. She's like 13, 14 years old, yeah, that's nuts.
Speaker 2:And she came for a week and of course all my guy friends like loved her because she was so different from anything around here and we stayed friends for a while. You know, we wrote back and forth and you know, just I don't even know what happened, but just, it was just such a crazy thing.
Speaker 3:It was just so much different it really was, because you literally would write a letter to some random stranger. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And they'd write you back.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And you were friends and I even think there were international pen pals.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I had an international pen pal.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think so too. I think I did too. I don't remember their names or any, literally anything about them, or even where they were from, but I did have an international I feel like that was very much so about our generation. Like did our parents have pen pals?
Speaker 3:I don't think so yeah, it doesn't.
Speaker 2:I don't think so either. And my kids, like I, looked into that because, yeah, I wanted them to have that and the closest thing really was the flat stanley. Like we, we had a flat stanley and we'd mail him to somebody and they'd take pictures and write a letter and send him back.
Speaker 3:But I mean I guess kind of they have pen pals now because of I mean really they're all friends with zero in person friends on social media.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, that's the same a lot of them. They just have no interaction personally with them that blew my mind too, when my kids were teenagers. Uh, they're still in their early 20s, so you know it's not been that long. But they'd be like, oh, my friend blah blah blah. And I'd be like, what do you mean, your friend blah blah blah? Because, like I know all their friends, they come to my house and they go over there and I see them and they're like, oh, on instagram or on snapchat, they're my friend and I'm like huh so I guess that's.
Speaker 3:I mean, that's kind of the same thing as pen pals they just don't call where they didn't actually physically write like a letter with a with a stamp and yeah I guess it is. That's when that's why people younger than us could give two shits about the mail. But people like our age and up like hover by the mail, by like yeah you can see them peeking out the window at me.
Speaker 3:I say that we're the um the ice cream truck of adults? Yeah, because they hear you coming and they're coming. You can see them just coming running.
Speaker 2:And I get the email and I almost wish I didn't get it Because it kind of ruins the fun. It tells me it's coming. I hate this, although I really literally get no mail anymore. I like shit from my insurance company. I don't get any mail Junk mail. That's really Catalogs. Get any mail, junk mail? Yeah, that's really catalog. I think my daughter, who doesn't even live here anymore, gets more mail than I do.
Speaker 3:I definitely get more mail at my mom's house.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my youngest. Her packages started showing up and I told her last weekend I was like you got a couple packages at the house. She's like oh yeah, I spent way too much money on my boyfriend. She's like like they're just gonna keep coming in. She was like I hope he got me as much stuff as I got him, because it's gonna be embarrassing. I love that kid. Yeah, me too.
Speaker 2:She's pretty cool um all right, so so yeah, so pen pals. We now live in a world of convenience, which we talked about. Everything we want to or need to do, including some messages or talk to people, is possible at our fingertips. But back in the day you'd have no other way to connect with someone far away than writing letters or using the phone. So pen pals were popular back then and even though these people were usually strangers, they were still connected to one another through exchanging letters. Talking to strangers still happens today, but people don't normally turn to letters. Instead they use online formats. We should really bring back letter writing. You know what, like whatever, could do that we absolutely should get pen pals.
Speaker 3:We should get pen pals and buy yourself a book of stamps. Yes, that's how you keep the post office in business, by the way everybody is. The post office is an independent entity. The government does not give the post office any money at all. We run on, we are self-sufficient and we run off of stamps and that. So go buy, go buy yourself some stamps.
Speaker 2:We are going to start a pen pal campaign. We should, and we can read letters. I would love that I would too, and we can write back, oh my God, I'm so excited you should get a post off.
Speaker 3:We have to get a post office box. I looked into it but it's very expensive. It depends on. I found this out.
Speaker 2:You work at the post office, can't you just like sneak it in?
Speaker 3:No, so it depends on where you live as to how much your post office box costs. So here would be much cheaper than where I am.
Speaker 2:Maybe we can even use K and get like the Felton, like real small town, yeah, yeah. Anyway, if you're interested in handwritten letters, keep your eyes out for that.
Speaker 3:We're going to get us a post office box.
Speaker 2:That's right, and if we could get our Australia people to write, that would be even better. Yeah, or our Bangladesh or our UK or anywhere else that's listening, that would be awesome, and if you want to send us little gifts, that would be even better.
Speaker 3:Anyway, Doc Martin, I would love to be your pen pal. I have a lot of things that we could talk about.
Speaker 2:Yellow stitching is my favorite, yes, yes. So I added this little tidbit here because I'm still bitter. So the start of the sentence is we all had to take typing class, and that's not true. I did that's because you weren't a super geek like me. You were smart.
Speaker 2:You weren't super geek, I was in all the clubs I was in band I was in. I was the first class to graduate my high school with Spanish 5. I read El Cid Cover to cover in Spanish. I don't know any French. I don't know any more Spanish. It's embarrassing, Like shame on me.
Speaker 3:I can hear French, I can understand French, I can read French, but I cannot speak it. I hate French, me and a lady at work. We speak half French and half English to each other all the time.
Speaker 2:I took a lot of Spanish. I took eight years of Spanish in school, four years, and then four years in high school and then, no wait, six years. And then I took two years in college. But I took a year of French once, just because I was like, let's try it, and half the letters are silent. The thing I love about Spanish is that every letter makes one sound. That's the only sound it makes.
Speaker 2:It makes it every single time. It's not dumb like English English is horrible. It's not silent like French. Once you can get that down, the verb conversion is the hard thing for me, but once you get that down it's easy. So I took French and I drove my poor professor crazy because I would just read it with a Spanish accent and she hated me and I didn't mean to be a dick, but it just made no sense in my brain and I hated it.
Speaker 3:I took two years of Latin and then four years of French and I was on one of the Gen X pages the other day and somebody posted did any of you take Latin?
Speaker 3:And a couple people were like, yeah, we took Latin. And they said can you still conjugate the verb to be? And yes, I can still get, because it's a. And they did it too and like they wrote it out and as they I was reading it, I could hear it the same way. So it must be like, across the universe, latin must be, the verb to be must be conjugated exactly if you didn't learn anything, you learn ss, sumus ss. Oh shit, sumus ss, sumus ss. Aroa risa rit remus ridis a run.
Speaker 2:Arama rasarat aramis radis a rot oh shit, that is all the tenses of the verb to be in Latin, because that is useful.
Speaker 3:If you learn nothing else on this podcast, you know what is so much more useful than I don't know math simple addition that I am incapable of doing? Yeah, but I can conjugate the verb to be in Latin, in a dead language, yeah.
Speaker 2:So I've always been a little bitter that I was not. I didn't get any electives in high school. My electives were Spanish and band, and it wasn't just that I was in band, I was in marching band and I was in concert band and I was in jazz band, and so I literally didn't have time to take typing. And after 25 years of restaurant work I didn't think it was that big a deal. But now I have an office job and it fucking sucks having to hunt and peck with uh, people make fun of me, um, people can hear the way I type, like I mean, if it makes you feel any better.
Speaker 2:I did take typing and I can't do it yeah, I was gonna try to learn but I was like fuck it.
Speaker 3:But you know what, as I look at this keyboard here right here, it's not the same, because it used to have like a little thing on the D, but now it's on the F, or maybe it is no, I don't know. I think it's on the wrong ones now.
Speaker 2:Like I literally, maybe 10 years ago, knew what QWERTY meant. 10 years ago I knew what QWERTY meant. People would be like a QWERTY keyboard and I'd be like what the fuck is that? But yeah, but I do pretty good. My funny thing with typing is I can't look at the screen, which sucks, because I love to watch people type and the words come up. It fascinates me, I don't know why. So I can't look. When I type at the words come up like it fascinates me, I don't know why. But um, so I can't look when I type at the screen. I have to look at the keys. But I have gotten very good at knowing when I hit the wrong thing. So I instantly know if I have spelled a word wrong and sometimes I fix it right away and sometimes I wait till the end.
Speaker 3:But you know, yeah, I never know when I spell a word wrong, because I see oh, I know all of the words.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's why I run the social media. I drive her nuts with my text If you ever see anything misspelled, having to do with like whatever it's?
Speaker 3:because Heather did it. I am not a good speller, which shocks me because you are so smart, I know, and you're bad at math.
Speaker 2:You're supposed to be good at spelling.
Speaker 3:Spelling and math. I can't do that doesn't make any sense. Well, I don't make sense You're not right or left brain.
Speaker 2:I am not. I'm like all over the place, I'm right in the middle brain. Oh God, middle brain. I am the.
Speaker 3:you know, the empty section in there that's me. That's where I live in the slit in the brain.
Speaker 2:Oh, you're too much, all right. So the last thing that I wanted to talk about today and this really the photo mat. I mean, of course, the instant gratification of having pictures right away is fun now, but Jesus Christ, when you would, especially if you took a fucking field trip with school and you used one of those little cartridges and you took how many pictures was it Nine?
Speaker 3:No, it was more than nine. Mine was nine, maybe 20. Are you talking about like the one?
Speaker 2:The long skinny one.
Speaker 3:Yeah, with the cube flash.
Speaker 2:The cube flash.
Speaker 3:That spun.
Speaker 2:No, yes, we will talk about that, but what I'm talking about is the long, flat one that had the flash built into it. It was like a long rectangle and it took. What was that? It was a long cartridge with the roundings on the end. I don't remember. I don't remember either.
Speaker 3:But 110 or 116? Yeah, 110. That was it.
Speaker 2:And you would, oh my God. And there was no like practicing and trying to get the good shot. You took one shot and that was it. And then one shot, one opportunity. So there was always that one final errand you needed to run after a vacation. It was taking your film from your camera to be developed at the photo mat which was typically a little kiosk in the middle of a parking lot of a strip mall, a little hut. Yes, I think there might have been photo huts or Kodiak huts.
Speaker 3:I think they were called like photo huts.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you would drive up or you'd park and you'd walk up to it and you would give them your cartridge or you see, we didn't have them there.
Speaker 3:We didn't have that. We didn't see. You had to mail them in, we had to mail them in right, so you would get where'd you? Even get the envelopes to mail them the grocery, not the grocery store. Yeah, the grocery store, you remember they'd have like a little um, they would have, you didn't have to pay for them, right?
Speaker 2:No, you did oh.
Speaker 3:But I don't remember how. I don't know how you got paper.
Speaker 2:No, the envelope that you mailed in. No, no, no.
Speaker 3:The envelope was free.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:But I don't know how you paid for the film. I guess it may be oh, because if you wanted doubles, doubles, it was like one amount, and then like you, because, but I think you mailed them in and you put a check in the I would think, yeah, or a credit card on or something. But they had them in the grocery store and they had that sticky glue on them that glued together. But yeah, you went. We didn't because we didn't have a photo.
Speaker 2:Salisbury did, I think, but I remember the photo mat when I was young, real young yeah but I remember is like, because I was always into taking pictures and I still am, um, so I would stick them in the envelope and you'd seal the envelope you must have put a check in it and you'd mail it off and then you'd wait a couple weeks and then your pictures would show.
Speaker 3:And then your pictures would show you had to keep the little pat.
Speaker 2:You detached the little tag at the bottom of the envelope your proof of it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you had to keep that thing because, god forbid, if you lost that, you were going to lose the pictures of your hand that you took.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then you were talking about the little flash cube, yeah, and those things would get hot as fire man, and then they turned because they had like the little flash on each side. Yeah, there were like four flashes in a cube.
Speaker 3:And then you were done with flash, yeah, or they had the ones that were tall, yeah, they had the four flashes. And once you were done using four flashes, that's it. That was it. You only took four night pictures, that's it. That's all you got.
Speaker 2:How were those cameras charged? Was it batteries?
Speaker 3:Like double all you got. How are those cameras chart? Was it batteries like double a's, I would think?
Speaker 2:they were. I mean, they didn't plug in anywhere, so it would have to be batteries.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I don't, unless they didn't need to be charged, unless they didn't need power. I mean, why would they need power?
Speaker 2:how'd the flash go?
Speaker 3:it just turned. Oh, I don't know, it would have lit up.
Speaker 2:I don't know that part, I don't know it was probably a little flint in there something that would catch fire or something set asbestos on fire and that's how we got flashes.
Speaker 3:I don't know.
Speaker 2:I guess it would have been battery, and then you had your photo album you had to put all of them in, and then, after a while, they would stick to it, you'd be able to get them out?
Speaker 3:Yeah, and then I had. Do you remember when they came out with the discs Kodak had it. It was a disc and it was like a like, almost like a view find the little view things and you took a picture and it would spin the disc and the negatives were right on the disc. So when you took the disc out you could look at it and you could see, oh, get out, I'll have to Google it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I do remember being terrified of my camera popping open. Or if your film got jammed up and you were like, well, I don't want to open it, but it won't do anything and you didn't know if you were at the end or not. Right, oh, and you'd had that little switch that, yeah, it was definitely not electrical at all Because you had that little button that you would spin. Oh, I think my all right. So Heather's showing me the Kodak Disc 4000 camera.
Speaker 3:That's the one I had. I think my mom had that one. Let me see if I can find the film. Yeah, it came on like a little disc.
Speaker 2:Oh don't do that. Wow, yeah, but sometimes you had to pop the film out and just lose your pictures and it sucked Because your camera would jam up. No, I definitely have never seen that. I had one of those. I think my mom had that camera, but I never saw the film. It must have been one of those things I wasn't allowed to touch. But but, um, yeah and yeah. So, kids, when you're looking back at photos that were taken, your parents age and before, we went through a lot to get those pictures oh yeah yeah, it wasn't just pulling up your phone and being like look at this you had to.
Speaker 2:You had to make sure that the picture that you were going to take was something you really wanted to take a picture of yes, there was no fooling around but can I tell you how much it hurts my heart that there will be generations that will not have paper pictures to look at yeah, um, because you know, our family are aging parents, things like that, and things are starting to get handed down and I came across like some photos recently of like me at like four and my dad and his polyester and looking all fly.
Speaker 2:And you know you're never going to get that. I mean they'll have what we have, but it it just you won't have pictures of your parents. No, so much like that, like eventually it'll phase out, and it's such a special thing to open up like a box of pictures and just start looking through them.
Speaker 3:I ended up getting rid of all of my paper pictures when I downsized.
Speaker 2:You got rid of all your paper pictures.
Speaker 3:Yeah, here's why. Number one I never looked at them. Number two nobody cares about I don't have kids, so I just highly doubt that your children or my sister's children are going to be like wow, let's look at Aunt Heather's pictures of her trip to France. So anything that I had, I got rid of all of it. I just threw it all away because that hurts my feelings.
Speaker 3:I mean, somebody's going to throw it away at some point, and why leave it up to them where they have to feel guilty about it or whatever? But I mean, yeah, I don't have kids, so there's nobody gonna, nobody, nobody's gonna give a shit about my life after I die, so I will cease to exist anywhere. Well, Well, thanks.
Speaker 2:Debbie Downer.
Speaker 3:That was fun.
Speaker 2:I did.
Speaker 3:Well, there's no point in like carrying it around with me. I never looked at pictures of France from like 10th grade. I just didn't. I didn't look at half the pictures I hated. I hate pictures of myself.
Speaker 2:That's fair. I mean whatever makes you happy. You know what? I'm sitting here looking at you like you're crazy, but whatever floats your boat. I mean if it makes you happy to throw them out.
Speaker 3:I mean, I like looking at pictures like of me as a kid when my mom is. But beyond that I don't. I have not. It's been oh I don't know 15 years since I got rid of them and I have not one time been like damn, I wish I had kept all right.
Speaker 2:Well, you did the right thing.
Speaker 3:I don't want to I don't want to go back I don't want to look back.
Speaker 2:I don't want to remember it, so um yeah, so I have like a hundred other things I want talk about, but I'm going to save it for another episode because I'm sure y'all are sick of hearing from us today and there was something else that I was going to add here. Give me a second. Oh, so we ran the contest and, mind you, we're still trying to figure all this out but we did do like a like share, mention kind of thing, and no one did that. Fuck you all. No, that's not true. Get your damn shirt from myself Stop it Just stop.
Speaker 2:So yeah, so we didn't necessarily pick anybody yet, but it doesn't mean that no one's getting it. We just like we said, I'm getting it.
Speaker 3:I like and shared it. Thank you very much. I did too.
Speaker 2:But that's beside the point we love you all, and that's fine you do your booboos. We did get a lot of likes off of it, though, so probably just pick one of you, but anyway, we still appreciate everybody that listens, and this is our 10th episode and I'm so excited and I'm having so much fun with this.
Speaker 3:Like you should have seen the the talk and I had to do to get her to even consider doing this.
Speaker 2:All right. Firstly, talking I had to do to get her to even consider doing this? All right, firstly, she introduces this to me while it's firstly summer and it was summer, yes, and I have pool and I'm busy in the summer excuse me, you're excused, um so, but I was also planning a trip to brazil um, I had a couple of other things going on. Anyway, she was like we're going to do a podcast and I'm like, yeah, sure, whatever. She's like, no, seriously, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, yeah, okay, whatever, when I get back from vacation I'll maybe think about it. So in the meantime, she's sending me 10 million things. I just need to send it to you so that I don't forget.
Speaker 3:Everything. I had made the song, I had made the logo.
Speaker 2:She literally did all the work I show up.
Speaker 3:Seriously, that's what I do. I had gotten the equipment.
Speaker 2:I was like we are fucking doing this. You did, you did.
Speaker 3:And now we're 10 episodes in.
Speaker 2:We're 10 episodes in 10 episodes in 233 downloads. Uh, not including youtube.
Speaker 3:I don't know why youtube doesn't show up on that. I don't know, but it's somebody's.
Speaker 2:Somebody's being a little pissy pants about it, I'm sure, but I just wanted to take a chance or a moment to thank you all for listening. We hope you enjoy it. We hope that brings up some memories for you. That's what we really want to do here is help us reminisce about the greatest generation to ever live. Yeah, you know, we always we said it was the world war, two guys for a long time, but they're all about gone, so we're going to take over, we're taking over.
Speaker 3:We got the best music, we had the best clothes, we had the best childhood.
Speaker 2:It's just so crazy to me that everybody in our age group had the same basic experience. Like you know, same yeah same. We had different parents, we grew up in different areas, economical everything different rules but it was all the same. Yeah, and we all like bonded over it. Yeah, like I really I don't see my, the people I went to school with very much Thank God for social media.
Speaker 2:Like I love social media I'm not so much into like I have really fine tuned my social media so that I really am only seeing the things that I want to see from the people that I want to see. Um, and it's so great to just watch like our classmates grow up and have kids and have grandkids and have careers, and it's just I don't know and I still feel so close and connected to them.
Speaker 3:It's just a weird thing and whenever you say something to somebody about, like when I first mentioned that we were doing this podcast, when I was at work and they were like, oh, what are you doing on it?
Speaker 3:And I was like, oh, gen X. It was like, oh, you're Gen X. And then, well, do you remember this and do you remember this and do you remember that and do you remember this? And now you have, hey, do you remember when? And it's just, it's like I don't feel like you get that, I don't. I feel certain I mean the boomers kind of do with their some stuff like, but I don't feel like it's, and maybe it's just because it's social media and but I feel like the thing with the boomers is they were doing what they were supposed to be doing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, as to where our generation was doing whatever the fuck we wanted to do um, and we? I feel like we're really the only only generation who got to do that, because I feel like I need to do a deeper dive into being gen x and raising millennials like how did being gen x affect my parenting?
Speaker 3:because my parents were absent yeah, and well, that's how come helicoptering helicopter parents happen because, of yeah, yeah, and I was not a helicopter parent, but no, you are not.
Speaker 2:No, because I wanted them to. I tried my best to have them experience the childhood I experienced, while keeping them safe, because it's just different now, so I wasn't like you have to wear your helmet when you ride your bike, like whatever.
Speaker 3:I know she would let like weird people take them on trips to the mall and let them dye their hair and yeah, and I'd let them spend the night at their friend's house and you know, whatever like and heather would come and feed them cookies for dinner. And then that middle one, kaylin, would just rat my ass out every time. Yeah, yeah, I'd give them soda as soon as nicole walked in the door.
Speaker 2:Mommy and heather, let us have soda shut up man and heather took us to dairy queen and let us eat blizzards for dinner shut up and the thing of it is like it's not like I kept that stuff from them, no, it wasn't.
Speaker 3:That's you know why? Because I made a big idea. I was like don't tell your mom that we're having cookies for dinner. I like having that, being the cool aunt. So, if I played it up like we were doing stuff we weren't supposed to be doing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they easily forget the free-for-all dinner nights where I don't care what you eat as long as I don't have to fix it.
Speaker 3:That was definitely a. Thing that we did.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I didn't have that in my house, but my kids and of course I only did it on nights that I knew there were leftovers or frozen waffles or things, that cereal things they could easily prepare themselves if they needed to. But breakfast for dinner, yeah, whatever you want, I don't care what you eat as long as I don't have to fix it. Yeah, I still do that to my husband, um anyway, we'll wrap this this, this up so we have rambled long enough.
Speaker 3:So thank you for listening. I didn't say it last week but, like share rate review, that helps us out on the platforms if you rate and review it and give us the five stars if you're not going to just rate review.
Speaker 2:And if you don't feel like it's five stars, send us a message and let us know why. Send us a letter.
Speaker 3:Yes, write us right. Buy some stamps um. You can find us anywhere you listen to podcasts. We actually just added pandora, so we are on pandora also if you, if you enjoy listening to your podcast through pandora. Um, you can follow us on all the socials at likewhateverpod, and you can send us an email to I mean likewhateverpod, at gmailcom. I feel like no one sends us emails.
Speaker 2:We're never going to get a letter in the mail. No one, no.
Speaker 3:So prove us wrong, yeah, or don't Like, whatever.
Speaker 2:Whatever?
Speaker 3:Bye. Bye, bye.
