📖 “Back When Green Stamps Were Gold”

By Mark Morgan

Back in the 1980s, when hair was big and patience was bigger, we didn’t scroll—we waited. If you wanted instant answers, you asked your neighbor, not your phone. And nine times out of ten, your neighbor was wrong—but at least they said it with confidence.

If life moved any slower, we’d have needed jumper cables to start Monday. Still, we were happy. As my uncle used to say, “The slower you live, the longer your coffee stays hot.”

We had S&H Green Stamps, the world’s most saliva-powered currency. Folks licked enough of those to qualify for government benefits. Mama saved stamps like some folks save confessions—one page at a time, just in case heaven needed proof she’d been thrifty. She’d say, “A penny saved is a stamp earned.”

And if you wanted something fancy, you circled it in the Sears catalog, that 700-page dream machine. Every page was a window into a life we couldn’t afford but planned to someday. Daddy said, “Son, if daydreams paid interest, we’d be millionaires by Wednesday.”

Reader’s Digest sat on every coffee table beside a dish of hard candy that could chip a tooth or patch a radiator. Folks quoted it like scripture and believed every word. My friend once said, “If it’s in Reader’s Digest, it’s halfway to the Ten Commandments.”

Every doctor’s office had a stack of ‘em , right next to the fake ficus. You’d sit there reading “Laughter Is the Best Medicine,” trying not to laugh because the nurse might call your name right in the middle of a good joke.

The TV Guide was our daily roadmap to happiness . Couldn’t eat supper until you knew what channel Dukes of Hazzard came on. Losing it caused more chaos than a tornado warning. Someone always hollered, “Find the TV Guide!” like they were launching a rescue mission. Mama guarded that book like it was classified. She’d swat you with it if you changed the channel.

If you wanted to find a phone number, you grabbed the phone book — that heavy yellow brick of power and paper cuts. Folks judged you by how many names you had listed. If you were unlisted, you were either mysterious or behind on your bills.

But the real search engine of the day wasn’t in a book — it was the party line. Pick up the receiver, and you might hear half the county talking about the other half. You could learn who was getting married, divorced, or just needed to borrow a cup of sugar and a little attention.

If the phone rang, everybody dove for it like it was a prize turkey. That’s because half the town shared the same party line. It wasn’t called “party” for nothing—you could have half a dozen eavesdroppers before the first hello.

That was the golden age — when answers came from books, news came from neighbors, and gossip came free with every phone call.

Of course, technology moved faster than common sense. When somebody got a cordless phone, they strutted around like they owned NASA. You’d see folks standing in their yard, yelling, “Can you hear me now?” ten years before that commercial was ever born.

And when you needed to know something, you didn’t Google—you went to the encyclopedia, a 24-volume monument to heavy lifting and partial knowledge. Our set was missing Volume M, so I grew up thinking “marriage” was something that started with “maybe” and ended in “no idea.”

We didn’t have social media back then, just social lives—and they worked fine without a “like” button. Folks showed approval by bringing over a pie, not clicking a thumb. That was the golden age — when answers came from books, news came from neighbors, and gossip came free with every phone call.

Back then, truth didn’t need Wi-Fi, humor didn’t need filters, and love didn’t need emojis. We may not have known everything, but at least we remembered what mattered.

Or, might’ve said if he’d lived in the age of VCRs and perm spray:“Progress is fine, so long as it doesn’t outsmart its own common sense.”

No Wi-Fi, no search bar, no spellcheck. Just a town full of self-proclaimed experts who didn’t need Google to get the story — they just needed five minutes, a cup of coffee, and someone willing to listen.