You Know You Are Old When

[Sigarms]

Now they're called a wife beater shirt.

Only if it's white

 

[Sigarms]

I'd guess my father had well over 100 neckties. They were required at his jobs. I probably have 30-40. The only time I wear them now is to weddings and funerals. Got some really nice ones with great patterns. Dad had a lot from pre-WWII through the 70's. Some were pretty wild.

A friend of my wifes makes these from ties. The idea is a Christmas ornament that you can hang to let you remember that family member. The ones in the pic are my father in laws ties, one for her, her mom, her sister and aunt. I took the pic a while ago, but when my wife picked them up, I thought they were cool enough to take a pic of.

 

[Jstpssng]

I forget exactly how people communicated with each other before cell phones LOL

It's been a while since I was active in church but we always got church bulletins.
Also, at the end of the service, the pastor would make announcements.

For work... Sunday night I would call the contractors if I needed to talk to them. There's no way I could catch up to them during the week except by driving into thr woods.

I miss those days.

 

[WinterDeere]

Lots of tools today are way less expensive than they used to be.

Ever since the mid-1990's, thank you China!

I'm a vintage tool and machinery collector, as much by circumstance of my family living in the same place for 300 years with lots of hand-me-downs, as anything else. It varies by type, but generally my best tools are all post-WW2 into the early 1960's, as WW2 is about when American manufacturing got past bad metallurgy and crude hand operations, and the 1960's is when large corporations started buying up most of independent tool companies and leveraging on cost-cutting.

What's amusing is that, aside from the uber-expensive early-20th century machinists tools (Starrett, Brown & Sharpe, Athol Machinery, etc.) the stuff we get from China today is very similar to a lot of my pre-WW2 tools. It's nowhere near as good as American manufacturing post-WW2, but due to available tech it's at least as good as common stuff from the early 20th... and mostly getting better each decade.

I just bought a new 4" lathe chuck for under $100. Insane. That would've been $400+ a few years ago, from any American brand. It's not exactly Bridgeport quality, but it'll work for my needs.

 

[Oaktree]

Now they're called a wife beater shirt.

Does anyone still call them that? Haven't heard that term in decades.
There used to be a Mass/N.H. chain of overstock/surplus stores called Building 19, they had some rather humorous flyers that'd come in the mail, or as inserts in the paper. One time they had a load of those shirts they were selling, they referred to them as "wife beaters" in the ad. Quite a backlash as I recall.

I still call them thongs and kangaroo jackets if you know what they are.

By thongs do you mean those cheapo sandals that are held on by your toes? I still call them that. I remember when thong bathing suits were just coming on the scene a friend of mine who lived in another part of the country commenting on how everyone was getting all worked up about teenage girls wearing thongs at the beach. I had no idea at the time what he was talking about.
Never heard the term kangaroo jacket.

 

[Oaktree]

Start getting crankier with technology...

New church group has a group text. It's like dealing with people who get an email at work and they hit "respond all" and some guy in another state is telling you something you don't need or particularly want to read but he sends it to all the employees, be it 5 guys or 5,000 guys.

For myself, if I get a group text, I'm only replying to the originator of the group text because I most likely have their contact info in my phone.

These group texts get ridiculous IMO and I ask to be removed from the texts.

The pastor asks everyone if we'd be ok dealing with a App. I'm fine with that as this way my wife can deal with it and let me know what we're doing because I'm going to ask her anyways so I DON'T download the app.

Apparently unbeknownst to me, if you don't download the app, you will STILL get texts. My phone is "blowing up" with texts all day yesterday on a bunch of people trying to figure out when people can volunteer time, this while I'm had 2 meetings and a lunch meeting yesterday.

I explained to my wife that my phone is generally for family and work. I live off my phone for work and last thing I want is 20 yahoos on a group text talking to the originator of the group text telling them things I have absolutely no interests in and basically what I figure is stupid trivial stuff.

So, I ask to be removed from this "chat group" again yesterday. Wife is mad because I sent it to EVERYONE in the group chat. I honestly don't care. Wife asks me how the pastor is to communicate with everyone. I just tell her that you tell people the time and day you need them and if they can make it, they make it and if they can't, they can't.

I forget exactly how people communicated with each other before cell phones LOL

Our snowmobile club does something similar to alert members to group activities, work parties, etc. Since I neither have nor want a smartphone my wife offered to sign up for it and just pass the info along, figuring there'd be minimal traffic. Uhhh, yeah. Like everything else cellphone-chat related she was inundated with "funny" pictures followed by a bunch of replies "cool", "attaboy Mike", etc. Didn't take long before she asked to be removed from it (while she knows many of the people, she doesn't ride herself). I figure (and felt that way all along) that if they really needed my help that badly, someone could give me a call.

It seems like today everyone assumes that everyone else's preferred method of contact is via text message. NOT!!!

 

[scootr]

You know you are old when you get irritated when an app tries to become your friend.

 

[Oaktree]

What's amusing is that, aside from the uber-expensive early-20th century machinists tools (Starrett, Brown & Sharpe, Athol Machinery, etc.) the stuff we get from China today is very similar to a lot of my pre-WW2 tools. It's nowhere near as good as American manufacturing post-WW2, but due to available tech it's at least as good as common stuff from the early 20th... and mostly getting better each decade.

I just bought a new 4" lathe chuck for under $100. Insane. That would've been $400+ a few years ago, from any American brand. It's not exactly Bridgeport quality, but it'll work for my needs.

I do more woodworking than metalwork, but I've found today's Chinese tools are plenty good enough for anything I need to do. I have no interest in paying a premium for a tool that can be passed down to future generations...never had any kids (that I know of), and used tools aren't in very high demand. I'll generally avoid the store brand stuff, or at least the low end (Chicago Electric, etc.), the hobbyist/homeowner brands at the box stores stand up pretty well, at least in my experience. Biggest issue is cordless tools where replacement batteries become unobtainium.

 

[Oaktree]

You know you are old when you get irritated when an app tries to become your friend.

Not sure what you mean by that, but it annoys me that every business seems to require you to have their aap in order to get in on promotions, special offers, etc. Guess that makes me old...

 

[WinterDeere]

I do more woodworking than metalwork...

Same, actually. You'd probably like some of my very early-20th woodworking machinery. My shop used to be filled with all pre-WW1 machines, but now is mostly stuff from the late-1940's. I mostly traded 2000 lb. machines with better styling, for 800 lb. machines with better functionality.