You know you're getting old when:

[Bill Dufour]

My first portable battery powered radio was a very expensive AM all transistor radio. I had the money to buy the radio because I delivered newspapers, remember the big newsboys bicycles with the huge metal baskets Although the radio was "all transistor" the signal would often be lost when changing direction.

About the same time I got a present from my parents that was a kit to build a short wave radio. I remember staying up late at night to listen to a radio station in New York City that played rock and roll music which was illegal in most states at the time. I couldn't receive the signal during the day, don't know why but I assumed there was less air wave traffic once all of the Television stations stopped transmitting at midnight.

The distance has to do with thermal effects bouncing the radio signal off the top of the atmosphere. These effects are much reduced in the daytime. Ionosphere I think.
Some of the big AM stations are allowed to crank up the wattage at night. The west coast has three? radio stations that cover the coast. One in LA, San Francisco and Seattle? KCBS in San Francisco is the oldest commercial radio station. 1909. 50,000 watts. they have to switch to a more directional antenna at night so as not to interfere with the radio station in Toronto!.
Their meteorologist I grew up with is the only radio meteorologist who was banned from the airwaves during WW2 because he was so good it was helping the axis navy and airforce.
Bill D

[Tom Stenzel]

If you count up to make change.

You can whip out your slide rule and use it. And remember when the first calculators came out.

Someone points to a radio and calls it an antique. You look at it and say no way, it's got miniature tubes in it.

Tapping on the tubes with a wooden spoon until the TV set came back on.

9R or 9T if you were on a party line.

My first job other than working at the folk's store was with Pacific Telephone & Telegraph. In the first few years of working there two small cities in the area changed over to dial phones.

jtk

Tip and ring party lines were only true for TWO party party lines.

I had a tip party line until 1994. But then I lived in that rural outpost known as Detroit then.

-Tom

[Jon Grider]

You remember when election year debates had a modicum of civility between candidates.

[Rick Potter]

When you have some great examples, but are not sure you have enough time left to post them.

Oops, gotta go. 'Petticoat Junction' is on.

[James Pickering]

You know you are getting REAL old when:

Your children are receiving Social Security checks

You have great-grandchildren

You remember the announcement of the start of WWII on the radio

You remember Salvation Army bands and soup kitchens during the Great Depression

You wonder if you will survive the expiration date on the milk you bought

You need slip-jaw pliers to remove the lids on food jars and milk bottles

You need scissors to open plastic wrapped food

Your prescription pills outnumber the food items on your plate

[michael langman]

You know you are getting old when, every other word out of your mouth is, "what".

[Jim Koepke]

You know you are getting old when, every other word out of your mouth is, "what".

Or when people ask, "why do you have the TV so loud?"

jtk

[lowell holmes]

It sure beats the alternative.

[Bert Kemp]

You know you are getting old when, every other word out of your mouth is, "what".

Every other word out of my mouth is HUH! what d you say HUH

[Barry McFadden]

Kind of looking at the opposite..... You know you're young when you don't know how to do anything without asking Google or Alexa!!

[John K Jordan]

Kind of looking at the opposite..... You know you're young when you don't know how to do anything without asking Google or Alexa!!

"Young...": Or magically knowing everything without instruction, research, or experience. I've met a few teens with this super power.

Oops, I'd better check Google to see if that's common...

[Dick Adair]

Or when you see a mature tree and realize you planted it........

[Bruce Wrenn]

When you have a large bruise, or scrape, and don't remember getting it.

[Miles Evans]

When you realize that the first Evanescence`s album, Fallen, which I listened to when I was a kid, was released 17 years ago...

[John K Jordan]

When you realize that the first Evanescence`s album, Fallen, which I listened to when I was a kid, was released 17 years ago...

I never thought of it until now but the first Beatles album I bought in 1968 was released in '67, over a 1/2 century ago. I still have a bunch of vinyl and a turntable.

A related note, I bought my very 1st CD player and first CD in Atlanta in 1967, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. The first song on the album begins with "It was 20 years ago today,...." and the CD was released 20 years after the vinyl album. Beatlemania was everywhere.

When I was a kid (in the 50's) we often listened to 45 rpm records. You have to be getting along in age to remember buying new 7" 45s!

JKJ