I sometimes find myself thinking about the gadgets my children are growing up with. About the fact that they will never remember a time when there weren’t multiple computers in our house. That they have no idea what the Encyclopedia Britannica is but will instead do their research by typing a word or phrase into Google.
Rotary phones have never existed for them. Neither have 8 track tape players.
Which just happened to be what I received for my 16th birthday, complete with Boston’s “Don’t Look Back” tape which I wore slap out over the next several months. Alternating that with the Bay City Rollers and the Stone Brothers, of course.
Today Katie was doing a report for social studies and she said she needed my help on something.
“Mommy, what is that thing that they used to play on those things with the big thing coming out of the top of it.
(The fact that I understood exactly what she was asking me is a source of endless frustration to her daddy as he wishes we would all be a little more descriptive in our questions. My brother in law suffers the same thing with my sister.)
“You mean a gramophone?”
“No, I mean that black disc thing they played on it.”
“You mean a record?”
“Yeah, that’s it.”
And it made me just a little sad that she’ll probably never hear the hiss of a record player as it plays her favorite Barry Manilow album for the fifteenth time that day.
That she won’t hold a record jacket in her hand and admire Peter Frampton’s curly locks ( I was partial to the “LIVE” albums)
I’m pretty sure they mostly came from the Columbia Record Club 12 for 1 penny sale.
or try to figure out how those boys from Kiss walk in those crazy platform shoes.
(That one was by brother’s)
Call me crazy, but I think these kids are missing something with their little ipod screens, don’t you?
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Oh wow! Didn’t you leave out Rod Stewart and Elton John? I seem to remember an evening or two spent with them as well;0) Oh, and the Stone Brothers……remember how dreamy we thought they were??? Good times….good times. And I think you are right…for all the advantages our children have…..I think they might be getting cheated just a little bit. xoxo
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Of course they’re being cheated! When I was Katie’s age, I could ride my bike miles away from my house and listen to the wind whistle through my ears. (I wasn’t in fear of being kidnapped because I knew the houses to look for with the sign in the window that told me the house was safe. My mother wasn’t afraid because she told me what time I had to be home by or I was gonna GET IT.)
We had about eight channels on the TV and if you didn’t sit down and watch the special then it was a full year you had to wait before you’d see it again.
When I was five, I spent endless hours playing in my backyard forest whacking a branch against a tree pretending I was the woodcutter/father of Hansel and Gretel.
Summertime! Oh, the summertime! All the neighborhood kids would get together in the early evening hours and play: kickball, kick the can, hide and seek or s-p-u-d! We’d ride bikes and not come home until your parents stood out in the front yard and shouted your name, signaling you to come home. Three hours of joy, playing with friends…engaged in physical activity and socializing with many.
Finally, connecting to what you wrote about: the hours of endless fun listening to records. My Mary Poppins album, a bunch of Let’s Pretend. Rocking out to umpty-ump 45’s of the Go-Gos and the Rolling Stones (bought for a buck at Memco, the precursor to Wal-Mart.) Dancing to Ballet Memories over and over, imagining I was Maria Tallchief onstage…
The children of today are much more sophisticated, and I sometimes envy them for their experiences. Yet I don’t think they get the joy of downtime and of entertaining themselves like we did ‘way back in the day. Thanks for this entry, it really brings back many happy memories!! = ) -
Now you are making me think of the Sodus Point circa 1951 black and white tv we had, round screen, 9 inch diameter. It seems programs came on at 2 pm and they signed off at 10 pm. We saw Kukla, Fran, and Ollie. Bet you don’t have a follower that remembers that, but, it might get a Tennesee comment, we shall see.
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Even I can remember Kukla, Fran and Ollie. I think I was about 3 or 4 years old the last time I saw that.
I didn’t know how I would do when I cancelled my DSL line or how Michael would do. It’s been about 3 months and I don’t miss it at all. Cell phones don’t work here on the back side of the mountain and we don’t miss them either. And, it’s amazing the things that Michael can find to do outside to entertain himself. All the trails around the place now have plaques with names, and there is an awesome “fort” in the edge of the woods, excellent for deer hunting or just hunting bad guys with your airsoft rifle.
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My Favorite Barry Manilow album of all time. My girlfriend Marsha and I could recite that album word for word back in the day!!!
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