I am a child of the 60’s, no surprise there with the recycled denim bags and macrame bracelets I post about on here. But I am also an engineer of the new millennium, building and fixing systems that will be broadcasting you the evening news long after I have hung up my keyboard and grabbed my fishing pole.
I spend a lot of my working life chatting with my colleague Claude, learning the ins and outs of man-machine mix, accepting his advice when it makes sense, pushing back when I think he is hallucinating. But I also like to spend my off time with a sharp needle and a repurposed pair of pants. I gives me balance, even if the Millennials roll their eyes and bring up Amazon on their phones.
Along the way to ‘progress’ I still think there have been some great ideas and ‘things’ that has been lost, discarded or relegated to a dusty shelf someplace. Here in no particular order, is my list of things I miss from the time when Bread was a nickel (was it ever?):
- McDonalds Pizza
- Elwe Yost’s ‘Passport to Adventure’
- The ‘Bread Man’ who came once a week from who knows where, delivering bread and cheese right to our front door.
- In the same vein, the mailman, same time every day and the mystery of whether the flag was up or down.
- Pickup games after school. Could be baseball / scrub, road hockey, whatever but like a homing pigeon we would all just seem to arrive at the same place and time with homemade hockey sticks, baseball mitts, even once a croquet ball when the softball had ended up in the ‘drink’.
- Undernet, does that even exist anymore? Playing Trivial Pursuit (FOMS!), hanging out and chatting or maybe working on ASCII art.
- Delphi Forums, is that even around anymore? I met my wife on CanBB almost 30 years ago now and here we are married still after 22 years (my wife is VERY patient…)
- Stargazing. I suppose you can still stargaze but it is not like it was with all the city lights. Fond memories of Comets Hale-Bopp and Kohoutek.
- Shakey’s Pizza – so much better than any Dominos or Pizza Pizza offering.
- Fred Latremouille and Terry David Mulligan. Back in the day DJ’s were DJ’s and really knew their stuff. Today I have a hard time with a GenX DJ waxing poetic about Pink Floyd from 20 plus years before they were born (Stick that in yer Google, buddy!).
- Jack Cullen. Legendary DJ in Vancouver who played mostly big band music. My Dad was a big fan and i have fond memories of listening together.
- Cranial silence. There is always so much going on these days it is hard to get a moment of peace and quiet. Some much blather and dissonance, and people wonder why I retreat to my office or the backyard with Miss Frieda?
- Board games. Trivial Pursuit was always a fave, or Monopoly. Cards on Friday night were big too – whist, euchre in the army with the odd hand of poker tossed in.
- more to come…
The next list will be the things I don’t miss from the 60’s and 70’s… I promise!
Mark