ESSAY
When we were our children's age....
by Seth Rogovoy(WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass., Jan 12, 1999)-- My wife and I haven't even turned 40, yet we kept our two grade school-age children enraptured for quite a while on a recent evening with tales of how different the world was when we were their age. This is what we told them.
Back in the dark ages -- otherwise known as the 1960s -- life was a lot simpler. If someone called and you weren't there to answer the telephone, you were none the wiser. There were no answering machines. If you had to make a call, you dialed the number while standing by the phone, holding the handset which was attached to the phone by a short, coiled cord. No touch-tone, no cordless, no wandering around the house looking for a quiet place to talk away from the children.
Less than 40 years ago, there was nothing digital. No CDs, no home computers, no E-mail, no fax machines. There weren't even digital clocks. Not only weren't there any CDs -- there weren't even any cassette tapes. I can even remember life before eight-tracks. A few eccentric audiophiles had reel-to-reel tape machines, but otherwise, music came packaged on long-playing records and single 45s. I've got a few hundred of those in storage, for when all CD players succumb to the Y2K bug.
Instead of satellite dishes and cable TV every house had enormous antennae on the roofs to pull in all three channels in black and white. Everyone watched the same shows. There were no remote controls.
Forget about microwave ovens -- there weren't even toaster ovens. There were toasters, and there were ovens, and you had to clean both of them by hand.
There were no washable markers, which is why the media of choice for budding artists were pretty much limited to crayons and watercolor paints.
There was no polar fleece or Thinsulate or Velcro, just wooly sweaters and thick, cottony coats and hats. There were no Post-It notes. There was U.P.S., but no FedEx -- not even Federal Express. The only catalog came from Sears, and there were no Wal-Marts, Kmarts or marts of any sort, for that matter. There were shopping centers, but no strip malls or shopping malls.
There was no such thing as self-service gas stations, nor could you get milk and bread with your gas. There were drive-in movies, but no drive-through banks or fast-food joints. Coffee was a powdery substance that came in a can and got over-boiled in a percolator: the only people who ever saw an actual coffee bean lived in Colombia or Brazil. There were no coffee grinders, or filter-drips or French presses. No one asked for decaf: you either had regular or Sanka, which came in small, foil envelopes. Tea meant Lipton or Salada in bags: there was no herbal tea and no loose tea leaves.
Yogurt was a sweet, sugary novelty when I was a kid, back before anyone had ever tasted such exotic foodstuffs as feta cheese and pita bread. Bagels were only available in New York. Bread was white, period, a wonder to behold. There was no one-percent or two-percent milk, just plain milk and skim milk, the latter which was an exotic beverage only drunk by teen-age girls on diets.
Somehow we all got along without smoke alarms and radon detectors, liquid soap and rice cakes. Tamari was soy sauce, and vinegar was red or white, and not ever balsamic. Cooking oil was Crisco, not canola. Shampoo, like tea, was never herbal, and was usually a green gel in a tube.
"It doesn't sound like you had very much fun," said our daughter, horrified at the thought of life without bank machines and boom boxes, plastic sleds and video cameras.
We reassured her that in fact, back in the olden days, life was lots of fun. We had Etch-a-Sketch and Legos, electric typewriters and zippers, ChapStick and Band-Aids. We had Barbie dolls and movies and cartoons, hot dogs on buns, Jello and pudding. We had bubble gum and Doublemint, Tootsie Rolls and Halloween. The snow was deeper and the cars were bigger. And yes, way back in the 1960s, we even had Bob Dylan. The kids can't wait to see him in concert the next time he comes around. Some things never change.
[This column originally appeared in the Berkshire Eagle on Jan. 17, 1999. Copyright Seth Rogovoy 1999. All rights reserved.]
Seth Rogovoy
rogovoy@berkshire.net
music news, interviews, reviews, et al.
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