Memories
Today I was standing on line in a grocery store waiting patiently for the woman ahead of me to finish her transaction. As she was paying, I noticed that she was scribbling in a checkbook. Checks?! People still use those things? People still accept those things? I don’t know which surprised me more. I guess if I dig way back in my memories, I can vaguely recall images of my mother handing a check to the person at the register, but dang, that was a long time ago.
I stopped myself. What was I thinking? I was born and raised in an age where people carried cash and regularly engaged in paper transactions. I remember when “happy meal” and “value meal” were new to our lexicon of common phrases, I remember when they didn’t exist. I remember when a Walkman played tapes and when a basic Discman would cost at least $130. My mom used to go to our local AAA to get directions when we were going on a road trip. I remember when VCRs were nearly a basic necessity and personal computers were not. I remember when it would’ve been shocking to find a movie ticket with a price in the double digits and gas at more than $1.93/gallon was unheard of. I remember when rich people had cellphones the size of my head and a teenager was happy to be allowed to use their parents’ land line.
Give me some more time to recall life and I’m sure I could go on for pages like this. Science fiction from the mid and early 1900s predicted that we’d have personal robots, regular space travel, and tons of other crazy advances. Most of those stories ended up having little success as prophecies and predictions, but our society has still gone through a level of change that is pretty much on par with what they predicted back then. Think of all the things that were common during your childhood that are obsolete now. Your children will grow up having never had first hand experience with those things unless they decide at some point in their lifetimes to mess with vintage. Vintage. Our childhoods are vintage. It’s funny, as you live through these changes, they don’t seem very monumental, but when you take a step back and compare this moment to one 20 years ago, there has been a world of change. A world of change.
