Pickles by Brian Crane for April 30, 2020

And then in 1932, Dad finally saved up enough to buy the dial…

Old joke, but then consider the source.

times sure were simple (and tough) a century ago

Geeze. Earl is a piker. When I was a kid we didn’t have time to sit around, we were too busy walking 5 miles to and from school, uphill both ways… where we had to learn how to recognize all the game animals, kill and skin them to make pants, and invent speech.

The story seems more likely for a 95 year old than a 75 year old.

My first personally owned TV was somewhat like that. The remote control was a joy to use but I had no cable and Amelia, Louisiana had poor reception.

(April 1981, 13" diagonal, $350, each channel was just a knob you tuned by hand. Good times.)

…and then eventually someone started broadcasting, and the sky was the limit.

When cassettes came out in 1963 I was hooked…

The good old days were certainly old but not all that good.

And we had to walk to school in snow up to our waist, and it was uphill both ways

When an uncle got electricity on his farm, it was for a couple of low wattage lights in the barn. He still had oil lamps in the house.

My Dad was born in ‘33. He grew up with one of those big ol’ radios. The first TV he ever saw was in a bar after he got back from fighting in Korea.

Jr High School was 1 mile (We were called … The Walkers … Dahhh ) . Thank goodness it was all down hill coming home ;-) TV well we had 3 stations to watch if you got the antenna right :-)

And now we have AUDIBLE. . . .YES!!!! I LUV being read to. . .

And I bet Earl used to walk ten miles in the snow.

No phones, no lights, no motorcars, not a single luxury

I love the way Nelson sits on the arm of the chair. And he removed his shoes, too.

In 1960 a 19" b/w TV was $200. The average wage $2.25 hour so the average worker had to work 100 hours to purchase a TV. Based on the ages of Nathan and Sylvia, Earl should be about my age about 68 thus born in 1951/52 and been Nathan’s age about 1960. When this strip started 25 years ago he would have been born in the mid-20s and been Nathan’s age in the 30’s during the depression.

Glad I wasn’t drinking while reading this, the last panel would have made me spew it out my nose!

I actually did walk uphill both ways to kindergarten. But then, I walked downhill both ways, too. It only snowed about 4.5 of the 9 months – but I had a cast on my left leg for a lot of the winter.

The 1-3 & 4-8 buildings were in the valley in between, so it only up in the afternoon; down morning.

My dad, on the other hand, was born (I am completely serious here) in a log cabin, as were his 5 older brothers – one of whom got indoor plumbing when I was in high school. Well, not completely; he did have some plumbing; the kitchen sink had a hand pump from the well. Want to do the dishes? Fill a pot, heat it on the stove, dump it into the sink. Want a bath? Fill a number of pots, heat them on the stove, carry them upstairs, dump them in the tub, rinse & repeat.

Their dad didn’t get a tractor until the mid-’50s; until then his farming power was provided by 4 horses and 6 sons.

I wasn’t old enough to ever have used it myself, but I do remember Grandma going to the wooden box on the wall, picking up the ear piece, turning the crank, and talking into the mouthpiece (hard-mounted to the box) to ask Mable to connect her to her sister Lesty. (One of these bad boys: https://www.collectorsweekly.com/stories/4416-my-wooden-wall-phone).

Take my wife, PLEASE!

A current take on this. With schools shut down, the school district here has been loaning out laptops to the students who need them so they can take classes online… and neglecting to tell than that without WiFi they won’t work.

“Why, in MY day, we wasted just as much time sitting around the radio as today’s kids do with tons of electronics. We were much more efficient than you guys!”[]]]]]]

I had to walk miles, carrying my books and lunch in the rain, snow and sleet….chewing gum…..

It’s a slippery slope, Earl. First the radio, then the record player, then B&W TV – color TV – HiFi stereo -8 track – CDs – DVDs – big computers – little computers – cell phones – smart phones – and here we are. Geez, I wish my folks had NEVER bought that dang radio way back when. I’d be free and clear now…

When I was a kid we were making up calvinball in the vacant lot across the street… only we didn’t know that’s what it was going to be called eventually.

My grandparents had a radio but no electricity – they had to go to the local shop to swap a recharged accumulator and buy an HT battery. And they lived in town.

I wonder if today’s punchline was inspired by the ending of the 1955 Looney Tunes cartoon, Lumber Jerks, starring the Goofy Gophers. “Isn’t television wonderful?” “Oh, yes! And think how much better it will be when we get electricity!”

As a boy of the 50s I called my home phone from grandma’s house (no one home), left, returned a few hours later, and the phone still had the ringing tone. Making a long story short, this year I’m celebrating my 20th anniversary as a retired AT&T mid-manager.

Earl isn’t old enough to be part of the electricity/radio revolution. He and Opal are in their 60’s or 70’s (the former more likely based on their daughter’s apparent age). In order to be a kid when before radios became popular, he would now be around 110.

BTW when is the last time anyone had an electrical device with tubes?

And, you could look at the little red light in the center.

A friend back in high school (early 1970’s) collected antique radios. Those from the teens and twenties ran off batteries (with vacuum tubes!) so broadcast radio really was around before electricity got to most houses.

Grandpa liked listening to the radio. There was no electricity to the farms yet, so it got some downtime while the battery was in town getting recharged.

Loved some of the comments.I did walk to school in all weather condidtions and it actually, was uphill both ways. You walked down a fairly steep hill halfway and then up to school.I always thought that it was at least a mile plus to school. Turns out on the last visit, I drove it, and was sorely disappointed – it was only .7 mile to school. Oh, well it still is a good story. The fact that waking to school was not considered dangerous or anything out of the ordinary is foreign to so many these days. How sad.

I remember when my grandma got a colored TV and wow were the colors horrible. Got much better in later years.

I loved to tell my son how hard it was when I was young. I did have to walk 3 miles to high school because I wanted to be an architect and the closer school didn’t teach mechanical drawing. It wasn’t so bad in the fall and spring, but winter was bad. I did that for 2 years. A teacher offered me a ride to school but when I came over to catch the ride, her husband was a louse and called me all sorts of names. I was too proud to take it, so I walked to school my last year there. It rained and snowed, but my pride wouldn’t let me be humble. Anyway, my last year at the school, my mechanical teacher told me I didn’t have what it takes to be an architect… what a waste. Anyway, we only had a black and white TV with only 2 stations, both of which only showed what my father wanted to watch… at least that’s what he told me. One Sunday, I told my parents I was too sick to go to church, so I stayed home and watched Ed Sullivan and the Beatles!!!!! Wow! What a ride.