What is nostalgia? One definition I found (Wikipedia) says:
"The term nostalgia describes a sentimental longing for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations."Or, you could say, it is Yearning for the past.
As we age, we find ourselves slipping into nostalgia more and more. I recently thought about encyclopedias. Some years ago, I was part of a conversation that turned to encyclopedias. Remember encyclopedias?
Door to door salesmen (in those days, mainly "men") and supermarkets sold them. Now, you can't even give them away, even to a library book sale. Our local library will not accept them as sales donations.
As a 20-something participant in the conversation listened in amazement, the others in the conversations (mostly people in their 50's) talked about parents scrimping and saving so we could have a set of encyclopedias in our homes. By the time they were paid off, (even before that!) they were obsolete. Then, our parents would have to buy yearbook supplements so they would be up to date. Until the next year. And then they would have to buy another yearbook.
The 20-something mused "And now we have the Internet."
It isn't just encyclopedias that are items of nostalgia now. Nostalgia includes steel soda cans that had to be opened using church keys (those keys, not to be confused with keys to houses of worship, still exist, but the steel beverage cans don't - at least, here in the United States), candy or bubble gum cigarettes. Additionally: glasses whose lenses were glass (thank heavens we have moved past those), telephone party lines, rotary phones, Sand H Green Stamps, and other items of my childhood. I'm sure, depending on when and where you grew up, you can name totally different items.
My son is fascinated with these items. On Mothers Day he helped clean out our garage and came up with some steel beer cans from a collection we created in our 20's. Yes, we let him keep a couple.
As we grow older, these itme exist only in our memories, in a haze of nostalgia and yearning for the past. Or, we spend tremendous amounts of money to own them.
This makes me think of my spouse's late 107 year old aunt and all the changes she witnessed in her life. She was buried earlier this week, and I hope to blog a tribute to her next week.
What items of your childhood do you yearn for?
I have a 1910-11 Encyclopedia Britannica printed on this parchment paper with the most beautiful maps that fold out. One of my sons has already laid claim to it. A teacher gave it to me back in the 1950's.
ReplyDeleteHow wonderful. My parents had a two volume Websters dictionary from 1918 that had all kinds of maps in it. It fascinated me. Sadly, I have no idea what ever happened to it. Your son is a lucky man.
DeleteYes, nostalgia. Rotary phones, black and white TV, percolator coffee pots that you used on the stove. transistor radios -- I had one called a Toot-a-Loop, you could wear it around your wrist like a huge bracelet. There was a toy called Clackers or Click Clacks, two balls on a string that you bounced together to make a sound -- very dangerous toy, as it turned out. Vinyl records (though I hear they're making a comeback).
ReplyDeleteI remember Click Clacks. I think I was already past toys. I remember a wooden stick with a plastic string and a ball at the end of it (not those wooden paddles I think they still sell). I should try to find it online.
DeleteAlana,
ReplyDeleteBelieve it or not, they still have candy/bubble gum cigerettes in stores. We saw some just the other day at Big Lots (discount retail store) which made us smile. I figures sure to goodness that these had disappeared. I remember buy Spam that had the keys. There were other things to that used keys when I was small but it Spam continued to use that opening method into the 80s. I like the pop off lids much better. DH's parents bought us a set of encylopedias in the mid-to-late 90s for Christmas one year. Resource material such as this was the only way we learned anything and now thanks to the Internet life is easier in that regard. I'd be lost without Google or Wikipedia. Thanks for sharing!
Cathy, speaking of the candy/bubble gum cigarettes, I even remember having pen cigarettes. They looked just like filter cigarettes but if you pulled the white part out of the "filter", yo found a pen. The ink was various colors. Oh, I could write lots of posts on this topic.
DeleteMakes me think of that list that some college professor puts out every fall. It's the list of things that the incoming college freshmen never knew. Just think, this coming year's incoming freshmen were newborns at 9/11. (My niece graduates soon. She was three months old on 9/11.)
ReplyDeleteI know that list; I think it is Beloit College. Last year's included "The U.S. has always been in Afghanistan"...it's really sobering.
DeleteHubby is always thinking of terms/sayings that no longer have real meaning like dialing a phone. He remembers having a yard sale and his six year old grandson saw the vinyl records and told him those were the biggest CDs he'd ever seen. LOL!
ReplyDeleteDB McNicol
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