Tampa, Florida has changed drastically since 1974. It's a bit dizzying, driving down streets that were once familiar and no longer are. Only the names are the same. And, speaking of names, there are all the streets that didn't even exist when we lived there.
Oh, for the good old days.
But wait. There is no such thing as the 'good old days". Never has been.
If you are in your 20's and 30's, just wait. In about 20 or so years that nostalgia mosquito is going to bite you. One day you'll find yourself frustrated with technology that your 10 year old child uses effortlessly. Or you'll suddenly realize that TV shows (if they even have TV in 20 years) just aren't made the way they used to be.
That "my childhood is a museum" feeling that I used to get talking to my soon to be 30 year old son will be your feeling, too.
"Those days" weren't ideal. Not everything was great. Not everything has gone downhill.
So exactly what it is about the "good old days" that I don't miss?
1. Coke-bottle eyeglasses. If you wear glasses and have poor vision (like me) I am thankful daily for ultra light lenses that don't leave permanent sores on your nose and your ears. And I'm grateful they aren't made from glass. I remember the pair I broke minutes before a job interview, back in Tampa.
2. Typewriters.
And anything connected to them: carbon paper. Correcttype. Onionskin.
Typing was a complex process: inserting paper into a roller, rolling it into position, setting the margins, typing. When you heard a bell, you knew you were about five spaces from the end. Time to hyphenate, then return the carriage to where it started, and start typing your next sentence.
Nope. Don't miss it. Give me a computer, spellcheck, and cut/paste any day.
3. Old fashioned medicine. I'm probably going to get an earful about this and I totally agree our current medical system in the United States is dystunctional. But I have a medical condition, easily treated today for many people with diet, exercise and medication. My grandmother died from the same condition in 1937 because there was no treatment. That condition, by the way, is high blood pressure.
I may also have died in childbirth without modern medicine, which is a story for another day.
Modern medicine has a lot of problems, no doubt about it. But enough of us are walking around right now who may not be on this earth if we hadn't expanded on the medical knowledge of the 1950's.
4. Long distance phone service. In my childhood, a long distance call (which included, if you lived in New York City, calling another borough) was an expensive proposition. If you wanted to call another country, what a process that was.
Now, we keep in touch with people from all over the world with ease. That includes reading each other's blogs.
It's true that our modern world has lots of frustration to it, especially if you have ever been hacked, or had your identity stolen, or other things that a person of the 1970's would have stared at you if you had gone back in time and complained about it.
But nostalgia? It has its place. But let's be real - our modern age has a lot to recommend.
Do you feel nostalgic for your childhood or teenage years? What don't you miss about it?
Day 12 of the Ultimate Blog Challenge #blogboost
I had forgotten what a hassle typing was. Things I don't miss: clothes that absolutely had to be ironed. Nylon stockings with a seam up the back that was supposed to stay "straight". The idea that there were things you weren't supposed to do during "those days," such swimming. Unhomogenized milk with icky clumps of cream floating in it.
ReplyDeleteMy first real job, in 1984, introduced me to word processing. The machines were horrible in comparison to what we have now, but compared to my typewriter ... what a difference.
ReplyDeleteI would have died 15 years ago if not for modern medicine. We have a horrible system, but it has its moments.
I went to college in Albany, NY. I remember having to wait until evening, when the rates went down, to call my parents on Long Island.
At two different times I went back to the city in which I was born with my parents (once with my mother and once with my father). This was about 20 years ago. They explored the area, showed me the apartment they lived in when I was born, and my mother even took me to the hospital. And they talked about how much the place had changed. (I was born in July. My father was sent to Vietnam in November. And my mother moved to the city I grew up in, so I lived there until I was only a few months old.)
ReplyDeleteI remember the first time I printed out a paper on a laser printer as opposed to the dot matrix we had. It looked so printed. (This was when I was in college.) I do love how computers have evolved.