Nostalgia

Responding to a post on this blog, I began yearning for days gone by....

I remember, around 1985, I hooked up an already-antiquated version of Pac Man to the black-and-white TV I inherited from my grandmother. The herky-jerky motion was really hard on the eyes and the brain. After an hour, I closed my eyes, turned away from the TV and looked at an open book: ALL the letters on the page started moving in all directions, in the same herky-jerky fashion!

You see, in MY day, we didn't HAVE eyewear, or even much common sense. We had to bust Coke bottles and grind the bottoms to the proper shape with whatever grit we could dig out of the back yard, and use twist-ties to attach them to our faces. And we were HAPPY about it!

In college, I remember talking to a friend and the subject turned to 'what is the worst thing you could ever imagine happening to you.' I started thinking about things like getting drenched in gasoline and set afire, but then my friend said:

"The worst thing that I could ever imagine happening to me is standing in the supermarket checkout line, getting to the cashier, and not having enough money to pay for the groceries."

My jaw hit the floor. Damn, I miss those complacent pre-Sept. 11th days of old!