I’m not saying I’m old.

I’m saying I remember when pistachios were red, televisions signed off for the night, and Saturday morning was the only time cartoons belonged to children.

None of these memories feels ancient until you mention one around a younger person. Then comes the confused stare.

“You had to wait until Saturday to watch cartoons?”

Yes, sweetheart. We suffered.

Here are 69 memories proving I have reached a certain age.

Food, Candy, and Childhood Treats

1. Pistachios were dyed red, leaving your fingers stained long after the nuts disappeared.
2. Cracker Jack boxes contained real toys, not a QR code or puzzle printed on the package.
3. Cinnamon-flavored Jolly Ranchers were hot, sweet, and capable of gluing your teeth together.
4. Peaches had fuzz.
5. Candy bars cost 35 cents. A dollar made you feel wealthy.
6. Grapes had seeds. Eating them required effort and a disposal plan.
7. Sample-size cereal boxes arrived in the mail or newspaper.
8. Trick-or-treaters received homemade candy apples and popcorn balls.
9. Bubble-gum cigarettes released a puff of powdered “smoke.”
10. Little Debbie snacks tasted less like wax.
11. Pink medicine lived in the refrigerator and tasted like bubble-gum-flavored chalk.
12. Eating sweet grass and honeysuckle flowers seemed normal.
13. Fruit tasted sweeter, or at least every person of a certain age swears it did.
14. Bread became moldy within five days instead of lasting for weeks.
15. Orange and grape juice came from frozen concentrate.
16. Cereal boxes contained toys. The real contest was reaching into the box first.
17. Pizza and Chinese food were the main delivery choices.

Stores, Restaurants, and Shopping

18. Store aisles had little coupon dispensers beside the products.
19. Credit cards were copied onto carbon paper with a loud sliding machine.
20. Grocery-store meat displays had fake grass beneath the packages.
21. Kmart had a café.
22. Gas cost 99 cents or less per gallon.
23. Service Merchandise let you choose products from a catalog or showroom before they appeared from a mysterious back room.
24. Walmart sold live goldfish. You went in for socks and left responsible for another living creature.
25. Walmart had its own diner.
26. Tiny Avon lipstick samples appeared in purses and bathroom drawers everywhere.
27. Fingerhut accepted catalog orders through the mail.
28. Columbia House offered ten cassettes for a penny.
29. Department stores offered layaway.
30. Some grocery-store products sat in barrels.
31. Walmart stayed open 24 hours a day.
32. Wendy’s restaurants had sunrooms filled with glass, sunlight, and hanging plants.
33. Movie theaters offered student discounts.

Television and Entertainment

34. Television stations stopped broadcasting late at night.
35. Stations played the national anthem before signing off.
36. The Sears Christmas Wish Book arrived every year.
37. Cartoons aired only on Saturday mornings.
38. Television sets had knobs and around 13 channels.
39. Some homes received only three television channels.
40. Touching a television screen created a strange static sensation.
41. Clay-animated holiday specials returned every year.
42. Local news announced school closings across the bottom of the screen.
43. Calling the movie theater gave you a recorded list of showtimes.
44. Driving past the theater sign also counted as checking the showtimes.
45. Magazines contained perfume samples capable of stinking up an entire room.

Phones, Banking, and Everyday Communication

46. You waited until you got home to hear messages on the answering machine.
47. Friends and dates called your house and spoke with your parents first.
48. Phone conversations happened in the kitchen because the phone was attached to the wall.
49. Homes had separate residential and business phone books.
50. Checking your bank balance meant driving to an ATM.

Music, Cars, and Road Trips

51. Writing down song lyrics required playing, pausing, rewinding, and guessing.
52. Road trips were planned and highlighted on a paper atlas.
53. Car radios had push-button dials.
54. Cars had built-in cigarette lighters with glowing orange coils.

School and the Library

55. Teachers smoked inside the teachers’ lounge.
56. Some teachers smoked at their desks beside their lesson plans and grade books.
57. School shootings felt rare or unheard of.
58. Libraries used physical card catalogs filled with typed index cards.

Health, Medicine, and Safety

59. Food recalls happened far less often, or at least we heard far less about them.
60. People got chickenpox because no vaccine existed yet.
61. Airplanes allowed smoking and had ashtrays built into the armrests.
62. Smoking in a car with children was legal and common.
63. People smoked in hospitals.

Home Décor We Would Rather Forget

64. Toilet seats wore plush carpet covers.
65. Bathrooms often had matching fuzzy rugs, tank covers, and toilet-seat covers in questionable colors.

Childhood Freedom and Outdoor Life

66. Metal roller skates strapped onto your shoes with a key.
67. Groups of children rode bikes around the neighborhood without tracking apps or scheduled playdates.
68. Lightning bugs filled summer evenings.
69. Dog poop turned white after sitting outside for several days.

Have I Reached a Certain Age?

Yes.

And I’m grateful for every year represented by this list.

We grew up waiting. We waited for Saturday morning cartoons, songs on the radio, school closings on television, photographs to be developed, and phone calls after arriving home.

Life was not always better. It was different. Some parts were sweeter. Some were stranger. Some were far less safe. Yet each memory holds a small piece of who we were.

How many of these 69 things do you remember, and what belongs on the next list?

PS - One last thing came to mind: The smell of tinsel when it started to burn on a Christmas tree bulb