“Insert or swipe?” I ask the cashier.
“Insert,” he answers, and I obediently shove my American Express into the slot. I could have swiped, signed, and returned to my car in the time it takes for the machine to release my chipped credit card, but the system is new and secure and excruciatingly slow.
As we wait for the card to be read, I reminisce about how, in the olden days, credit cards used to be swiped manually. I turn to Gwen and tell her about the carbon copies, imprinting the numbers onto the paper with a satisfying click-swoosh of the machine. The cashier chimes in, lending credibility to another one of Mom’s “when I was your age” stories.
I have many of those stories, and every time I tell one, I feel like it is my generation’s equivalent of “I walked barefoot, twenty miles to and from school every day, uphill. Both ways.”
While they may be cliché, they are true. I am a child of the eighties, and the rate at which technology has advanced since then is astounding. When I tell my kids about the way things used to be, it probably sounds as alien to them as the uphill barefoot scenario sounded to me.
Their generation has never known:
Styrofoam fast food containers
Ashtrays – I used to have a pretty glass bowl that was actually an ashtray. One of the kids asked what the little notches were on the rim of the bowl; they had no idea such items existed.
Perforated edges of printer paper, with all the holes in it
Car windows that roll down manually – Gwen vaguely remembers my old Nissan Sentra, with the odd levers that she had to crank to move the window up and down.
Cassette and VCR tapes – For Mother’s Day 2003 or 2004, Matt had a CD player installed in my minivan. Gwen remembers the old Barney tapes, but James has no recollection of this ancient form of media.
Riding backwards in the back of a station wagon with no seatbelt
Twisting a spiral phone cord around their fingers – I still have the telephone my grandmother gave me when I graduated high school. I used it for three years in college, until the school installed a fancy voicemail system and we had to use university-issued phones.
A roll of film
Signing their name in cursive – Gwen learned it; James didn’t. Sometime between her third grade year and his, Someone Important decided that teaching cursive was not necessary.
*****
The four of us like to play a board game called Wits and Wagers. Each answer is a number, and players wager a guess on that number. Everyone’s answer is shown in numerical order, and then players bet on where the correct answer falls. Some questions are tough for all of us (In feet, how long was the largest whale ever recorded?) and some give Matt and me the advantage (What year did MTV debut?).
1981 is the answer, and we both got it. When it came time to bet on the right year, both kids wisely put their chips on our answers.
We know MTV. Our kids know You Tube.
We know Reagan’s assassination attempt. Our kids know the Paris bombings.
We know Blockbuster’s. Our kids know Netflix.
As Gwen prepares to head to college in the fall, I wonder how different her experience will be from mine. The admissions process has changed, even from when I was an admissions counselor eighteen years ago. Everything is online, from the application to roommate selection to placement exams. But many things will be the same.
She will have a roommate or two, and those young women could becomes friends for life.
She will take notes in class, although she will use a laptop instead of a spiral notebook.
She will do her own laundry, although she can use a flex card to pay instead of scrounging for quarters.
She will explore new interests, and hopefully remember that the legal drinking age is still 21.
She will meet friends in the dining hall for lunch. And when she does, she’ll use her student ID card to pay for the meal. Whether she will insert it or swipe it remains to be seen.
I enjoyed your little walk down memory lane, and I’m sure if I put some thought into it, I could add some items that you wouldn’t be familiar with. It’s pretty mind blowing what our children have never seen. Even my sons who are quite a bit older than your children would have no idea what many of the things you mention are.
It is mind blowing, isn’t it? So much has changed so quickly.
I too am an 80’s child, and I force some of the things I loved onto my kids all the time. They have played old school Nintendo I picked up from a flea market, and they have watched Shera and Thundercats. My mom still has a cordless phone, and even I forget how to use it on occasion. It is an age of technology, and so much has changed since the 80’s.
It really has changed! Fortunately hair styles and fashion has changed too.
Another child of the 80s here and wow did you send me back! Ashtrays! I can’t even think when I last saw one. I’m always amazed at the things my daughter has never experienced, but I try to make sure she knows about them. I think it’s important to know what the world used to be like.
Great post. Thanks for the memories!
My pleasure, Lisa!
I often think that this generation must be missing out on so much, but then, I realize that generations before us must think the same.
I often wonder what my Dad, at 90, makes of all the changes he’s seen in his lifetime. But then he loves some of them, especially the internet!
That’s awesome! My parents do too. I wonder what changes await as we get older? I’m not ready for a flying car or a robot maid. Well, maybe a robot maid…
It’s amazing how much has changed! I used to love riding in the back of the station wagon 🙂
Me too! I always wanted my parents to buy one.
It totally counts. Also, is it weird that I didn’t actually know that cursive writing isn’t taught any longer? I wonder why? Maybe because we type more now?? Huh. Also I miss the phone cord twisting. I used to sit on the floor for hours twisting that cord.
So did I! I kinda miss it. Now I walk around while I’m talking, picking up all my kids’ crap.
My daughter loves to call me old and to ask me what life was life during the sixties. I remind her that I was born in ’69 so all I can tell her about is Woodstock and the Moon landing. 😉
What really trips my kids out is when I talk about smoking and non smoking sections. They have a hard time believing such a thing ever existed.
School has definitely indoctrinated them to believe that smoking is bad (not complaining) and it just throws them sometimes to see people do it.
I agree with you, Josh. I was pleased that my kids didn’t know what the ashtray was; it’s such a foreign concept for them.
Remember in college when everyone with long-distance boyfriends waited until after 10 to call so that the rates would be cheaper? And highlighting all of your calls on the three page phone bill?
For a good laugh, show your kids a floppy disc. I was cleaning out the desk last month…
I don’t think I have a floppy disk anywhere! But I do remember highlighting the phone bill. It was my roommate Allysa’s job – she used five different colors and then added it all up. I was the only local roomie, so I didn’t need a color. And she used to call her boyfriend late at night, whispering to him in the kitchen as I fell asleep. I had forgotten about that!
Ah… SUCH a great read, Dana! You brought me BACK. 🙂 I just loved reminiscing on those days of ‘old’…
And I really do hope they get that new system to work FASTER with our chip credit cards.
I love that you still have that phone, and that you guys knew the answer to the MTV debut’s year.
I hate that they don’t teach cursive anymore. Why? Oh so many things should be honored that aren’t anymore… that is surely one of them.
I agree, Chris!
“Mom the battery on the remote is dead! Oh no!”
“When I was your age I had to get off my ass and turn the knob on the tv to change the channel and if it rained I had to get your uncle to hold the antenna just so, so that we would get good reception”
“What’s a knob? Like a door knob? On a tv? And what’s an antenna? Like on a bug? You’re weird.”
Kids these days….
Ha! Our first television remote had a big wheel, and it clicked from one number to the next like a rotary phone. If you had to go from channel 2 to channel 50, you turned it all the way to 50 and waited a good minute while the remote clicked from 2 to 3 to 4…
This so resonated with me as someone who works for a university. I am reminded everyday how things have changed since way back then. Especially the part with paying for meals with IDs. I mean, my campus ID as an employee affords me entry way into everything and without it, I am denied everything. When did that all change???
Thanks for sharing. I enjoyed it.
Frances
Glad you enjoyed it, Frances. I remember holding onto my room key for dear life – that was my prize possession. Now kids don’t have actual keys, but if they lose that ID…no room, no food. That’s a lot of pressure!
What’s amazing to me is that my kids have experienced some things (printer paper with holes in it, styrofoam fast food containers to name a couple) that your kids have not. That just shows how fast things change! Best of luck to Gwen as she heads off to college. Such an exciting time!
Thanks Mo! You’re right – so much change so quickly.
Hunter doesn’t know how to sign his name either…it’s getting embarrassing. He’s at the age now where he’s being asked to sign! The good news is whoever made the decision about cursive ( now of his friends no how to either) must have been fired. Audrey knows how to write cursive.
I watch the Goldberg s with the kids, set in the 1980s. It’s so fun to see their reactions to the way things used to be….
I like that show too! So Hunter and James will be the only adults who don’t know cursive? Jeez. I think I need to teach him his signature, if nothing else.
This sent me on a train of nostalgia. Even the sound of film rolling is the sound of so many memories of trips and other moments.
I remember dropping off rolls of film to be developed every week or so when Gwen was a baby. By the time James was born, we had a digital camera. It made me smile when Gwen took a photography class in high school and I had to show her how to load a roll of film.
No more cursive! Gah! Now I really feel old. And I remember the days of wrapping the phone cord around a chair several times to try to straighten it. It never worked! It amazes me how many things Zoe might have that were never thoughts in my high school and college days: laptops, cell phones, the Internet. Wow.
I know! Technology has changed things drastically.
I was just explaining to my kids about blockbuster
I don’t even know that they care
Cursive handwriting…I just write a post about that ….
it’s really sad that it’s not being taught anymore
🙄
It really is!
She’ll probably just scan her phone.
When I was in college I had a mobile the size of my boot. And it had a range of about five meters.
My first mobile phone came with a bag like a purse!
That perforated paper! And how painfully slow it was to print something.
I find it crazy that kids now will never know what it means to wait to see a photo. As it is, Eve is obsessed at looking at photos on phones and whenever someone pulls out their phone she immediately asks to see the photos. She even knows how to scroll!
But, there are some things that will never change. I’m sure my college experience was vastly different from my parents’ in many ways, but some of them — like the friendships I formed while there — are just the same.
Beautiful post, Dana.
Thanks, Bev. I hope the most important things will never change.
ooh, you triggered so many great memories of ash trays, printer paper, MTV and phone cords! And, making prank calls and not getting caught! And getting calligraphy pens to make our cursive look even more fancy!
Best of luck to Gwen! I’m sure she’ll have an amazing experience in college!
Thanks, Roshni. Speaking of calligraphy – I took a course in college my senior year, and it was HARD. Much harder than just make my own curly q’s.
To this day, though, I take notes with a spiral bound notebook! I did that at BlogU, in fact!! You might not remember, but I still have those scrawled notes.
I swear I still see Styrofoam fast food containers?? Maybe not.
When I went to college, which was ten years after you, there was still no Facebook yet! I had no idea what my roommate looked like until I met her! I had no smartphone and no computer. So different now!! My sister is a millennial, at only three years younger than me, and she DID have Facebook in college!
Some places use Styrofoam for doggie bags – I hate it because our town recycling doesn’t take styrofoam.
And so much can change in just three years, right?
Too funny! I am a little bit older than you and my kids rode in the back of my Volvo wagon facing backwards with seat belts. I wouldn’t do that today as people tend to drive too fast and are way more distracted. And that cursive thing? That really stinks that schools don’t teach it any more.
It does stink – how can you sign your name quickly without cursive?
Awww Christopher does know how to sign his name in cursive. He’s got Christopher but he didn’t practice Johnson so he kind of pieces it together and it takes him a long time and he’d prefer to write Chris and just be done with it.
As for Gwen, they don’t have to stand in line and register for classes? That was a pain in the butt. So you really had to be one of those first people in line to get your schedule just so (without 8:00 classes).
I worked at The Fresh Market in high school. They accepted credit cards with the carbon copy thing. We’d do that, write all that stuff down and then go in the office to make a phone call to the credit card company to get the amount approved. Now we get impatient standing behind someone writing a check. Being behind someone with a credit card was a pain!
I’m not sure how they register for classes, but for the first semester they do it online with their advisors. And every once in awhile I’m behind someone using a check at the grocery store. Seriously? Soooo slow.
Now here’s one for ya. My mom was taking a computer course while earning her BA. I remember going to the campus for “Open House” day and visiting the computer lab. Oh my. The computer was HUGE. Dana, it was the size of a school bus. Huge wheels were churning and I was fascinated as it spat out a computer card. I got to keep the card? Really? Wow. What a souvenir. As I now text with my college son who is thousands of miles away on another continent I am so grateful that technology has advanced.
So am I, Kelly! It makes the prospect of sending my baby off to college a little easier. Much better than the arranged Sunday evening phone calls home that everyone used to make!
I remember my dad’s first computer, circa 1981. Huge, with a 4 inch screen. I thought it was so cool!
My husband and I tell the kids the fascinating stories of pre-iPad days and watch their eyes widen in horror! I sometimes think if my mom suddenly were alive, after passing away in 1993, what she would think of this world. The speed of technology in the past decade is truly mind-blowing. I look forward to what college will look like for Miles and Vaughn in 12 years!!!
Great post and such an exciting time for you and your family 🙂
You totally just brought me back and seriously wonder what will be even more different by the time my own girls are not heir way to college in the next 10 years or so. Crazy how so much has changed, but still the experience of going to college and making friends remains the same. Beautifully written, Dana and definitely left me will all sorts of feels though about the so-called rite of passage experience of going off to college for the first time.
Who knows what else will change in the years before your girls go to college? I hope we old people can keep up. 😉
Love this post, I”m forever telling the kids about the CRAZY non- technology olden days.
I can picture their eye rolls in my head right now!
I just bought wits and wagers..we love it!!! I thought the box was lying when they said it’s America’s oldest game or something like that. We will have to have a family game night when i get closer to you!
Fun times ahead:)
Yes we will! And we just got a fire pit/table, so we can play around that!