There were no YouTube tutorials to teach me how to drive a tractor. I had to learn the old-fashioned way — Dad yelling at me every time I popped the clutch, bucking him off the sputtering Farmall. Or maybe it was Dad who was sputtering.

The main reason for the lack of video tutorials back in those prehistoric days was that YouTube hadn’t been invented yet. As a farm kid, you were just supposed to know.

But if, like me, a kid wasn’t born with that innate knowledge, we learned by watching others. Our technological operating system was “monkey see, monkey do.”

Dad taught me everything I needed to know about operating farm machinery. Or would have if I had paid attention. He must have aged 10 or 12 years as I ground gears, shredded brakes, slashed serpentine patterns through straight cornfields and slid into ditches.

It was to prevent severe frustrations such as these that YouTube was invented. Dads got tired of being bobbled off hay wagons by kids daydreaming that the old John Deere was a green racecar.

So when I saw the headlines “Seven Classic Skills Boomers Can Do Without Thinking that Millennials Need YouTube Tutorials For” and “11 Life Skills Boomers Absolutely Had to Master but Gen Z Will Never Even Need To Learn,” I was thrilled to learn that I have skills. Cool.

Lachlan Brown began the first article with sewing a button. “Ask a boomer how to reattach a shirt button, and they’ll grab a needle and thread before you’ve even finished your sentence.”

Arianna Jeret began her list in the latter article with the old fogey ability to read paper maps.

I think what’s even more remarkable is that there are at least three boomers out there who also know how to refold the road map once the route’s been plotted. Paper road maps are the fitted sheets of the glove box.

We read maps, memorized directions, knew landmarks, trusted our senses of direction — and didn’t mind a little adventure when we forgot a turn.

Which is another skill boomers have — the ability to suffer boredom by amusing ourselves without any screens or electronics.

No, kids, I am not making that up. We didn’t have the Madden NFL 26 video game. Not even Madden 1.

If we wanted to play football, we had to grab a real live football, round up a bunch of cousins and neighbors, run outside to the nearest big yard or empty field, and start slamming each other to the ground. Sometimes, we didn’t wait for a kid to have the ball in his hands before we drove him into the mud.

Other skills we boast are the ability to write in secret code (cursive), balance a checkbook (we didn’t have an app for that — or for anything else), cook a meal without recipes or measuring cups (my specialty is Glop, which is whatever cans, boxes or sauces I find in the kitchen that look like they might work together) and memorizing phone numbers and addresses (no cellphones to do it for us).

Patience is a skill that life taught us boomers. Today, people take photos of EVERYTHING on their phones — because unlike my day, phones now fit in pockets, take pictures and connect you to libraries’ worth of worthless information.

Our cameras used film, which severely limited the number of photos we could shoot. Then we had to wait a week for the film to be developed and sent back to us. Sometimes, we’d find a roll of film from a year ago, maybe two, by which time you couldn’t remember what was on it. It was a glorious week of anticipation for the thrill of finding out what was on it.

We also can write formal letters — with pen, paper and entire words spelled out. We do not LOL or JK or SMH. BTW, IDK why millennials and others do that. IMO, you’re grownups so use your words, people.

See, we boomers don’t need no stinkin’ instructional videos. If the internet fails, we are humanity’s hope.

Uh-oh.

Send Cole complete sentences at burton.w.cole@gmail.com. TTYL.