After all the yard work (and an nice cool shower), Sweetie and I headed out to have a nice, relaxing dinner. As we were eating, "Let's Do The Time Warp" came on the music system. The two of us were quietly singing along and laughing at each other when we realized that we had an audience. The young guy who was our waiter was kind of smiling at our antics, and when we told him what we were doing it came out that he'd never seen The Rocky Horror Picture Show. He seemed amazed to learn that big-name actors like Tim Curry, Susan Sarandon, and Barry Bostwick were in the movie and, since he professed to be a movie buff, we made him promise that he'd rent it and watch it--if only so that he'd recognize the inevitable references that come up in other TV shows and movies.
It set me to thinking, though. Rocky Horror came out in 1975, and although I correctly assumed our waiter hadn't been born yet, it wasn't until later that it dawned on me just how long ago that was. 30 years! Our waiter was maybe 21 and was probably born right about the time I was graduating from college. Now, you might think that you know where this is headed. You might think that this realization made me feel old--and it did, sort of; but mostly what it did was make me feel a little bit sorry for our waiter because of all the things I've lived through that, for better or worse, he never had the opportunity to live through.
I mean, I was a kid in the '60s. That means that I can still remember how subtly different the blue of the sky was before it became nearly impossible to find a place where the air wasn't polluted. It means I can remember a time when cashiers didn't break down in tears at the thought of having to ring up something that didn't have its own labeled button. Bar codes? Just a glimmer in Isaac Asimov's eye (introduced by the grocery industry in 1973, by the way). Scratchy vinyl records on Mom's musty-smelling monaural record player. Steel-wheeled roller skates that you clamped on to your tennis shoes with a key. Saturday morning cartoons that were on from 6am until at least noon--and not the crappy 30-minute ads for action figures or video games like the kids have now. Video games? Hell, we didn't even have Pong until I was in high school. Better than that, the bookmobile would come to our neighborhood during the summer, and I'd load up on Hardy Boys mysteries and novels about dirt track racing.
I used to think I'd miss being young, and while there's a bit of regret when I see some lucious young thing strutting around in her Daisy Dukes, I realize now that I'm mostly just grateful for all the cool stuff I experienced. Stuff that is gone forever and which future generations will miss out on (even though they probably don't think of it as missing out).
It set me to thinking, though. Rocky Horror came out in 1975, and although I correctly assumed our waiter hadn't been born yet, it wasn't until later that it dawned on me just how long ago that was. 30 years! Our waiter was maybe 21 and was probably born right about the time I was graduating from college. Now, you might think that you know where this is headed. You might think that this realization made me feel old--and it did, sort of; but mostly what it did was make me feel a little bit sorry for our waiter because of all the things I've lived through that, for better or worse, he never had the opportunity to live through.
I mean, I was a kid in the '60s. That means that I can still remember how subtly different the blue of the sky was before it became nearly impossible to find a place where the air wasn't polluted. It means I can remember a time when cashiers didn't break down in tears at the thought of having to ring up something that didn't have its own labeled button. Bar codes? Just a glimmer in Isaac Asimov's eye (introduced by the grocery industry in 1973, by the way). Scratchy vinyl records on Mom's musty-smelling monaural record player. Steel-wheeled roller skates that you clamped on to your tennis shoes with a key. Saturday morning cartoons that were on from 6am until at least noon--and not the crappy 30-minute ads for action figures or video games like the kids have now. Video games? Hell, we didn't even have Pong until I was in high school. Better than that, the bookmobile would come to our neighborhood during the summer, and I'd load up on Hardy Boys mysteries and novels about dirt track racing.
I used to think I'd miss being young, and while there's a bit of regret when I see some lucious young thing strutting around in her Daisy Dukes, I realize now that I'm mostly just grateful for all the cool stuff I experienced. Stuff that is gone forever and which future generations will miss out on (even though they probably don't think of it as missing out).
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