Here's some things I didn't want to forget about
How many of these do you remember?
THINGS AT HOME
LPs on the stereo (and my mom's 8 track tapes); 45's - Every Sunday my mom played country music, I used to know every Conway Twitty & Loretta Lynn song ever made
Party lines on the telephone, you could listen in on anyone's phone calls and I remember when I wanted to make a call I would tell them I had an emergency so they would get off the phone so I could use it, which was pretty dumb because they in turn just listened in to my calls only to find out that I really did not have an emergency - there was about 4 of us sharing the party line, some people liked to be on the phone way too much!
Phones then went to separate lines and you only had to dial the last 4 digits of a telephone number if they were in the same prefix as you - then we could just dial 7 numbers if they were in the same area code
Doing laundry outside in the yard on the wringer washing machine
Taking a bath from a tub of water heated on the wood stove
Peeling pulp was our summer job every year
My mom & dad taking all the neighborhood kids to the drive-in theater by Mahnomen in the back of the pickup truck with a camper on it - the all night theaters were the best!
Snakes in the old water well that we used to pump water from
When the microwave first came out
Using the "out house", a catalog was really something special
The extra long cord on the telephone was a great invention before cordless phones came out
Getting up to change the TV channel, used to love waking up my brother and telling him to shut the TV off after I already did it - he would turn it back on instead and I would laugh
Hauling wood for the wood stove in the middle of the living room
The "slop pail" under the sink
The change from black & white to color TV - we only had 3 channels, sometimes 4 if channel 13 would come in
Bag phone (I had one of the first car phones in the area, it wasn't considered a cell phone because it didn't go anywhere except in your car)
$1 gas (and we complained)
Green Stamps - everyone saved them for "free stuff"
Stacking hay on the 4th of July, it was just another work day
It was a ruckus when all the states changed to two letter abbreviations (Minn went to MN) for standardization
The excitement of getting a roll of film developed - we had to wait to develop the film from your camera, unless you had a polaroid which was almost instant
PLACES AROUND THE REZ
Lorsung's Hardware & Kraker's Grocery in Ogema
Chife's Store in White Earth
Warren Store east of White Earth (especially their candy display)
The creamery in Waubun
Gillie's Bar in Waubun
Swify the Swapper on McCraney Lake, later became The Sportsman's Bar (Durand's)
Woolworths Department Store (actually in Detroit Lakes)
THINGS AT WORK
Typing letters with my "red ink" supervisor (it was an electric typewriter though)
My excitement because minimum wage went up so I got an automatic pay increase - $3.35/hour!
Learning the computer via DOS - the DOS Menu was the greatest invention (I actually think it lead us to Windows) - the whole office shared one pc we shared in the finance department
Using floppy disks to start a computer program because computers didn't have hard drives
My first connection to the Internet - the Spiegel catalog was about all the shopping there was - and it was a dial up connection
The first fax machines (they had thermal paper that came on a roll, the pages would curl up and the ink faded after a period of time)
Planning, construction, and grand opening of the first opening of Shooting Star Casino on Fri, Nov 22, 1991 in the temporary facility (which later became the Bingo Hall) - Gaming World, International was the management company - the main facility later opened in May, 1992 - administrative offices were in a remodeled home in the residential section of town
FBI investigation resulting in felony charges of three Tribal Council members
Grand Opening of the new IHS Clinic in 1995 (they moved from a building they shared with the Tribal Council at the time, later became the Tribal Health Offices) - I vaguely remember the old, old clinic located in the building on the hill, many of our parents were born there
Planning, construction, and grand Opening of the new Tribal Offices in 2008
The purchase of the old Gilfillan Center in Bemidji which the Tribe transformed into the Oshki Manidoo (New Spirit) Center (opened Jul 9, 2008)
THINGS AT SCHOOL
Doing research in the library
The set of encyclopedias (encyclopedia salesmen went door-to-door)
The library index card file - it was a complicated system we had to learn in class
Everything was hand written
Smoking in the bathroom, teachers had their own smoking lounge, so no one thought much about smelling smoke somewhere
SOME OTHER MEMORABLE THINGS
Smoking section in airplanes, restaurants, even the hospital rooms - ashtrays were available at every desk in the office
Visiting Hawaii (I'm going back one day) *Update: Went back in February 2021 (in the middle of the COVID pandemic)
Taking the kids to Disney Land and Cancun, later trips with the grandkids to Disney again!
Visiting the Mall of American on Aug 15, 1992 (Ann was 10 and Bud was just turning 6 - they loved Camp Snoopy - it was 4 days after the MOA opened and we went without a hotel room booked in advance, almost ended up sleeping in the car)
Super Bowl XXVI - Jan 26, 1992 in the Minneapolis Metrodome (I still have the souvenir seat cushion with unopened football cards - sat behind Donald Trump)
Reading a map - Internet, cell phone and gps were not even thought of