Family Man Librarian

I’ve been thinking for a while now about writing down some of the things I knew or experienced when I was younger in comparison to what my kids experience or will experience.

Here is what I could think of (there are lots more that could be added):

Kiwi fruit — I can remember when we had never seen or heard of kiwi fruit. Sometime in the 1970s I remember my mother ordered a box of kiwi fruit, probably from California. It was somewhat of an “event” to open the box and have a taste of this new kind of fruit. My kids have never known a time without this delicious and healthy fruit.

Gas costing less than $1 a gallon — Yes, I can remember when we thought it was outrageous when gas prices rose above $1 per gallon. Those were the days. Recently gas prices have hovered around the $3 range, and higher.

Doors left unlocked — Throughout the entire time I was growing up, my parents never locked the doors to our house, at least to my knowledge. This included times when we went somewhere on a trip and were gone for days. We thought nothing of it. The same was true of car doors. Oftentimes, we left the keys in the car AND the doors unlocked. I wouldn’t dream of doing such things nowadays. ‘Course a lot of that had to do with the area where we grew up, which was in a small, rural farming community. Even so, I know that those of my family who still live there definitely do not practice leaving their doors unlocked any more.

TV — Except for a one brief section of time (funny enough, this was during the Watergate hearings–I remember that because I thought, how boring can TV get?!), we were raised without a TV. My children take TV for granted. Our equivalent, as I think I’ve mentioned before, was Super 8 mm movies rented from nearby public libraries.

Small electronics and gadgets — My father was a traveling salesman and he had a lot of office-type stuff in a room in the basement of our house. One of the things he had was a portable calculator with a neat green LED display. I thought that was incredibly cool, that you could use a calculator without it having to be plugged in! The thing was probably at least eight inches long and four or five inches wide, and perhaps an inch and a half thick at least. But it was portable! Hi tech. Then there was an automated answering machine. The unit was huge, I recall. Again, though, we thought we were pretty hi tech. All of this pales in comparison to all of the electronic gadgets we use these days. There was no such thing as cell phones, VCRs, DVDs, or CDs, either.

Music players — My parents had a pretty large collection of records, as well as 8 track tapes. It’s highly unlikely that my kids will ever see one of these things.

Contact lenses — When I was little, noone had ever heard of or seen contact lenses. If your eyesight was poor, you wore glasses or went without and squinted a lot.

Personal computers — Personal computers just didn’t exist until the early to mid 1980s. I can well recall the first time I ever saw one, an Apple Macintosh II. I also remember the excitement of seeing the first personal computer with a GUI and a mouse, which was also an Apple Mac. My, how things have changed in this area!

Cell phones — The only thing approaching a cell phone that we ever had when I was growing up was a CB radio. Like 8 track tapes and records, I doubt my kids will ever know what CB radios are, although I know they are still used in places.

Pet rocks and mood rings — Need I say more?

“Big box” stores — I grew up in the pre-”big box” store era. There was no such thing as Wal-Mart, let alone Super Wal-Mart. Meijers wasn’t even dreamt of, let alone other types of big box retailers popular these days, like Borders, Home Depot, Lowe’s, and the like. All of our groceries were bought at small, local, regular grocery stores. When we needed tools or stuff like that, we went to the local hardware stores (there were two of them in our little town). The dizzying array of choices for things to buy; the one-stop-shopping places that enable you to get everything from groceries to clothes to toys, all under one roof; these things didn’t exist.

Microwave ovens — We managed to live for years without a microwave, believe it or not The day my father brought home a microwave oven as a gift for my mother was a memorable one. I think he got it for her on Valentine’s Day. If so, that was the only time I ever remember him giving my mother a present on Valentine’s Day.

Sears Tower — I remember a day when the Sears Tower didn’t exist.

Seat belts and child safety seats — As a family, we traveled many thousands of miles by car when I was growing up.  Nine people in a station wagon.  And we didn’t use seat belts, nor did we have anything like the child safety seats that are so prevalent these days.  Angels must have been pretty busy watching over us!  I find it hard to imagine driving around these days, with my own four kids, and not using seat belts and safety seats.