We both grew up in the Bronx, 2 miles and some 20 plus years apart.
We can reminisce about a major shopping area in the Bronx off Fordham Road and the Grand Concourse, shopping at the same stores, going to the same movie houses and even eating at the same restaurants. We read the same magazines (including Life and Look). We used pay phones (how many of you, my readers, remember pay phones?) We drank the same brand of soda (in 7 oz green bottles). We remember the same shows, although it is true that she heard a lot of them on radio and I watched them on television.
We even remember when TV had steady schedules and seasons that always began the same week each year. We played potsy on the sidewalks. (I'll stop now before I bore my younger readers.)
There were many differences (popular music, fashions, hair styles, to name three) in our young lives but we have so much in common that we've had several nice chats about our respective childhoods.
Now think of someone 26 years younger than me. Or, put it this way. My sister in law is 12 years younger than me and there is so much we don't have in common (not that she grew up in my neighborhood, but just in general).
And the 38 years between me and my son? It's sometimes like trying to build a bridge across the Grand Canyon.
Never mind how I accessed the Internet in my childhood (one of his questions when he was growing up) or if I played video games during a teacher's strike in 1968.
Let's see some of the things I've had to explain to him while he grew up (he's in his late 20's now):
Record players. Rotary phones. Carbon paper. Mimeograph machines. Telegrams. The Space Race. Communism. The Soviet Union. Hollerith cards (OK, I am being technical here, but my son did dream of majoring in computer science at one time in his life.)
I've had some surprises in my career as a parent but having my childhood and young adulthood considered a musty museum piece was a big surprise.
I will, however, have my revenge.
Just wait until he has kids.
I became good friends with the woman who sat at the desk next to me. I got the empty desk in the art dept. and it turned out we grew up in the same city, had university art degrees, read, cooked, gardened. We went on vacation together for years — even after I was married. She was a joy to know and a great role model.
ReplyDeleteMy mother was 27 when I was born, I was 30 when my older daughter was born. My mother was raised in the Bronx and would probably find a lot in common with you (she lived off Davidson Avenue). My father grew up in Brooklyn. My daughters grew up in the same house as I did, went to the same schools I attended, so in some ways they have more in common with me than I have with my mother and father. But then I think about it and realize, as you point out, the huge leaps in technology ...I remember back in high school, my film and film making teacher was so excited over the gift he got for Father's Day, it was so very expensive, but so wonderful. He'd be able to watch movies any time he wanted to! It was a Betamax,
ReplyDeleteI once had a student say to me that didn't I play on my phone in class, too. I had to explain that cell phones weren't around when I was her age. She could not comprehend.
ReplyDeleteHi Alana, Interesting throwback here. I'm a retired high school business ed teacher. When I first started teaching I taught a class of keyboarding and we were using manual machines. That's right ... not even electric. That picture of the typewriter in your financial advisor's office makes me wonder if you learned keyboarding on a manual?
ReplyDeleteI'm 34 and I tell my 5 year old daughter that back in my day we didn't have Ipads, we played outside all the time. I would like to type up something on a typewrite.
ReplyDeleteFrom another museum piece - I do remember all the things you mentioned in your post. And a few more that made me uncomfortable. My husband and I visited a Washington DC museum years and years ago - and our first computer was on display. That was a startling discovery. We didn't think the computer was that old and yet here it was - THAT is how fast technology becomes museum pieces.
ReplyDeleteThank you, all, for commenting. John's Island, yes, I did learn to type on a manual typewriter. In fact, I owned one (given to me used, by an aunt) all through junior high/high school/college. It was a Royal.
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