Once upon a time, Weird Al Yankovic wrote a song called “The Good Old Days.”
Weird Al, naturally, sang about weird things in that song, specifically about pulling the wings off of flies and shaving the head of his high school romance. But in a roundabout way, the song is a reminder of childhood, of the things we used to do as kids that we'll never be able to do as adults.
I got to thinking about the lost things of childhood on Monday by reading—of all things—a news piece about the U.S. Post Office agreeing to raise first-class letter rates (yet again!) to 41 cents.
In case you missed it, the new rate will go into effect May 14. The good news is the post office also agreed to drop the cost of a 2-ounce letter by 7 cents, and it'll also sell a “forever stamp” that will lock in current rates regardless of any future rate increases.
Makes me think about e-mailing birthday cards from now on.
The price of postage got me thinking about how much things have changed since I was born in 1979.
I remember when a stamp cost 25 cents, when a gallon of gas cost 99 cents, when there was no such thing as Starbucks, Vanilla Coke, DVDs or the Internet.
I'm sure the older generations can tell stories that will blow the minds of us young-uns—yes, we know you used to walk eight miles each day to school through knee-deep snow; enough already!—I'm already thinking about the stories I'll tell my own children and grandchildren, and about the everyday things they'll find quaint and amusing.
Picture this: It's the year 2075. I'm 96 years old and sitting in my levitating rocking chair across from the holographic television. One great-grandson on my left knee and one great-granddaughter on my right (medical science has advanced to the point that knee replacement surgery costs $10 and can be done in less than an hour).
Here are the some of the stories I'd tell…
“Dax 375, my boy (hey, if kids today can be named Apple or Puma, I'm guessing kids in the year 2075 will have numbers attached to their names), I remember when the Seattle Seahawks went to their very first Super Bowl.
Of course, now that football and all other contact sports have been banished to the outer solar system because they've been deemed too violent, you don't know what the Super Bowl is.
“Oprah 4202, you and your friends don't know what music is. In my days, we had bands like Coldplay and Fall Out Boy. The junk you listen to these days would've had my generation running for the hills. Music of the devil, I tell you!
“And while we're at, that stuff you call dancing ain't dancing! When your great-grandma and I were first married, kids did something called a ‘freak dance' where they'd grind their pelvises against each other in a sexually suggestive manner. Tame compared with what's going on now. Boy, what I wouldn't give for those days!
“How you kids live on that powdered food I'll never know. Fifty years ago you could go to something called a restaurant and order a real steak. That was before all the livestock and farms were destroyed to make room for cities.
Hey, can one of you turn up the air conditioning? I can't believe it's 92 degrees in January. I sure wish my generation would've done something about global warming.
“Did you see the news today? It looks like we've lost 50 more soldiers in that war with Canada. When I was a young man we were friends with the Canadians.
That was before we started mucking around in other countries and trying to spread democracy. Before we knew it, we thought the Canadians were a bunch of terrorists just because they'd legalized marijuana and given their citizens universal health care!”
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