Remember When...? A Short Trip Down Memory Lane

This is a little trip down memory lane. I'm old enough now to look back, and remember the "good old days" with a sort of fond nostalgia.

What's weird is that I used to hate it when my parents did it...remember when...this and that and the other thing was cheaper, better, more honest, more polite? All the time the comparisons were negative, it seemed to me, between now (which must have sucked in my parents' opinions) and back then, which they made sound like the Golden Age or something.

When I was a teen, I just wanted to scream at them: "THIS IS NOW! DEAL WITH IT!"

It's really funny how having a few years on me changes my perspective considerably. Now, I want to share with you a few things I remember that I'll bet your teenage kids DON'T!

Remember when...

• Pay phones used to actually WORK?
• Coffee came free with your meal in a restaurant?
• TV was actually free
• Black and White TV became COLOR TV?
• Secretaries TYPED business letters on a TYPEWRITER?
• Pencil and paper were calculator tools?
• People hung their wash out on the clothesline, usually on a Monday?
• Cigarettes were 50 cents a pack?
• Gasoline was 35 cents per gallon?
• Lucy was "expecting" and not "pregnant" on the "I Love Lucy" show, because the censors wouldn't allow the word "pregnant" on the air?
• Wives believed their husbands, because they COULD?
• You could get an ice cream cone for a nickel? Yes, that's right, five little cents got you into ice cream on a hot summer day.
• You could smoke in bars?
• You could neck with your date at the drive-in movies?
• The good guys always won?
• Ron Howard was "Opie" on the "Andy of Mayberry" TV show? This is before "Happy Days", even. And yes, I really am that old. Dirt was new when I was a kid.
• National parks were free to enter?
• We all laughed to "Laugh-In"?
• Mr. Ed was a talking horse and not a talking head?
• "Text" meant a paragraph in a book or letter?
• There was no speed limit in Texas?
• You could actually recognize someone's handwriting?
• There were NO ATMS? (Yikes! I wonder what we did without them?)
• People got dressed up to go to church?

I was quite ill for (what seemed to me) to be a long time. It really reminded me that I'm mortal, as are we all. And it got me to thinking about time, about my own life and all the life surrounding me, human and otherwise, and how limited our spans of life are.

It also got me thinking about the past.

Time passes, and things change. A LOT changes over time! It seems when I remember the past, I do tend to remember the GOOD things. Nostalgia casts a rosy glow over all the "remember whens...?"

It also seems that we forget so much. Maybe that's good. It probably ISN'T good to dwell in the past and forget to live in the Now.

Ah, still, there is something about those years when I was young that I can't help recalling with a certain fondness. Some things are so good in retrospect; we didn't treasure them enough while they were current and in the Now. Reminiscing gives us a chance to cherish our memories and happily re-live precious moments.

I feel that when my clock has run down and my time is done, all those years and all that living with will be done with; gone and forgotten. It's a bittersweet feeling, because after all, the world moves on, and by leaving this world, I will be making room for someone new, and new era beginning.