(Credit title to Aretha Franklin may she rest in peace)
Often times, I have random conversations with my classmates on everything from local events to our favorite (insert category here). Whether they are in their teens or later 40s/50s, we all find something that we have in common that takes us on a trip “back down memory lane” (in my Minnie Riperton voice–may she rest in peace).
I am the type of person that is not a huge fan of change; and, I often wish that things could go back to being simple–or, at least my definition of it. If we could still be in the days when $20 dollars filled a grocery cart; gas was less than $1.50 per gallon; the holidays really used to feel like the holidays. . . but, still make the amount of money we make now: LIFE WOULD BE AMAZING!
The days of sitting on the porch with your grandma/grandpa hearing of their childhood and what life was like for them back then, snapping beans, and shucking corn for canning, are what memories are made of. Days before cell phones, when kids used to be more active, riding bikes, and playing video games at that one neighbor’s house because their child had all the latest game systems and games, or maybe they had a trampoline.
Times were so simplistic to me then because we did not have cell phones or social media. We had friends, we made fun, and we were creative. I could just be speaking from an “old age” place but I truly feel like the children today are missing out and do not care because they have technology to keep their minds idle.
I bought double-dutch ropes for my job recently, and the teenagers I work with do not know how to ‘jump in’ to a single jump rope. As a child, I learned to ‘jump in’ with one rope as well as double dutch, I could hula hoop, climb a tree, jump out of swings, hop fences…all the things that made my childhood full of adventure. While I find it entertaining to see my teens try to do some of these things, I also think to myself, “This is really sad; they are truly missing out!”
Times have changed and a lot has changed with it, I know we are not supposed to live in the past but I think I am trapped there (lol). Sometimes it’s a scent that triggers a memory from the past, sometimes it’s a word, or just me daydreaming. Either way, I miss it from time to time.