re: Old people, what did you used to do to get stuff before Amazon?

Lmao gramps it’s 5 o’clock that’s redds apple ale time

Under 30 here, still don’t use amazon much

Sears catalog, you stupid mutha fuk’r

Is this just a troll for downvotes?
We went to the mall, we visited stand-alone stores and we actually put actual thought into gifts. We knew our friends and family, we knew what they might like and might not actually have and we tried to buy gifts based upon that knowledge.

Before having access or being old enough to drive cars, we rode our bicycles around the neighborhood and when we saw all the bikes in one place, we knew where our friends were. Later on in life, we made plans and we stuck to them meeting wherever we said we would meet. If no one showed up, we'd fight about it then get over it.

Catalogs were great. Starting in November most households would receive dozens of different catalogs in the mail and actually enjoyed looking through them circling items or dog-earing the pages that had items we liked or wanted.

Amazon and online shopping with the algorithms that bring up thousands of items that often only have a word or two in the descriptions that match make shopping more difficult in some ways.

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But don't let that fool you, I walked to school through six feet of snow just like my parents did.

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Don’t forget that was uphill, both ways.

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Don’t forget that was uphill, both ways.

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No, that was my parents. By my generation we'd learned how to walk downhill too.

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to get stuff


chopped down a tree and made it in my shop


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find your friends


church or light a fire, sometimes both

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argue with your spouse


To "argue" implies that both parties had an equal right to speak. I'm not sure why she would open her mouth

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/thread

For local stuff We typically subscribed to a couple of newspapers, if you lived in a small town it would be the local paper, and maybe the paper of the closest larger city. The papers had extensive advertising, anything you wanted to buy local was advertised in the paper. Everyone received the Sears, J.C. Penny, etc. catologs, you ordered by mail or called in the order on your landline telephone. If you had some type of hobby or special interest there was always a magazine devoted to it no matter how odd it might have been, the magazines would have ads for businesses that specialized in products related to your hobby, you wrote or called to order.

Think about this, there was a time prior to about 1970 when there was no FedEx, UPS, or other package carriers, you had U.S. mail, Greyhound, Trailways, and freight carriers to handle packages. There was no overnight express mail service, if you had to get some type of business information to someone in a hurry you could fax it, or send a telegram or telex.

Long distance phone calls were expensive, billed by the minute, even in a business setting unless it was really important you sent a letter, as a individual you called long distance if someone died, otherwise you wrote letters to friends and family.

I always loved getting Birthday cards in the mail and at school. Now it’s just a HBD on Facebook.

I had 127 HBD posts on my newsfeed the other day.. I didn’t give one single Thanks because it’s dumb as frick

We used to have these things called black books, was a little pocket sized notebook you wrote phone numbers in, players had a black book full of females, I wasn’t a player. So you’d pick a number out of the book and call them from your home phone, probably in the kitchen with a 100’ cord on it, then your buddy’s mom would answer and you’d say, “Is Ricky there?” And then she would put the found down and you’d hear, “RICKYYYYYYY!! TELEPHOOOOOONE!!”

Or

You’d ride your bike to their house, knock on the door, their mom would answer the door, and you’d say, “can Ricky come out and play?” And she’d either say, “RICKYYYYY!!” or “no, Ricky’s punished”