By Mike Sandrolini
Ever-changing technology has forever impacted the way we live, certainly making life more convenient and instantaneous, as well as life-changing and life-saving.
As wonderful as technology is, however, there are many things I miss about the good old days. So bear with me, those of you who may be reading this and are in your 50s or younger. I’m having one of those “OK boomer” moments …
I miss …
- Having “The End” at the end of every movie.
- Not having your life come to a standstill, or be thrown into crisis mode, if your laptop crashes or you lose your smartphone.
- Having one long front seat in a vehicle (rather than bucket seats) so your significant other could sit right next to you.
- Franco-American spaghetti and meatballs. And Spaghetti-Os.
- Putting air in the tires for free.
- The WHA (World Hockey Association), the USFL (United States Football League) and the ABA (American Basketball Association—the league that had the red, white and blue ball and made the three-pointer popular.)
I miss …
- American Motors Corporation, which in the 1970s introduced such vehicles as the AMC Pacer and the AMC Gremlin. Time Magazine once ranked the AMC Pacer as one of the 50 worst cars of all time. I respectfully disagree!
- Having rear-wheel drive on vehicles, which would enable you to fish-tail and do donuts in the snow.
- Old TV antennas that sat on top of the TV or were placed on the roof of a house. Seems to me they had much better range than today’s digital antennas.
- Opening bottles of soda pop with a bottle opener, or opening beverage cans with a can opener.
- Cereals such as Quisp, Quake, King Vitaman, Kix, Crispy Critters, Kaboom, Puffa Puffa Rice, Super Sugar Crisp, Sugar Smacks, Alpha-Bits, Honey Comb, Franken Berry and Boo-Berry. It was the golden age of cereal, when nobody cared how many grams of sugar someone consumed.
- Racing home after school to watch the ABC-TV series Dark Shadows. Collinwood’s resident vampire, Barnabas Collins, opening his coffin and putting the bite on someone in the middle of the afternoon gave me the creeps.
- Watching the Lawrence Welk Show after having dinner with family at my grandmother’s house—not for the show’s entertainment value, but for the comedy it provided me and my cousins. We used to get under Grandma’s skin by poking fun at her favorite crooner, Joe Feeney, an Irish tenor, whenever he started singing.
I miss …
- When TV stations signed off for the night and played the national anthem prior to signing off.
- A milkman delivering milk to your front door.
- Large, heavy phone books.
- “Animal Stories” with your charming and delightful old Uncle Lar and his sidekick, Little Snot-nosed Tommy, when WLS-AM Chicago was a Top 40 station.
- The days when Spam was better known for being a brand of canned, precooked meat instead of unwelcome or undesired email.
- When gas station attendants pumped the gasoline for you (regular or Ethyl), cleaned your windshield and checked the oil at stations such as Texaco, Standard, Sinclair, Sunoco, Union 76 and Esso (all of which no longer exist).
- The Ray Rayner Show, with Clutch Cargo, Bugs Bunny and Diver Dan.
- Creature Features, which got me hooked on horror movies.
I miss …
- Public telephone booths. There was something about going into a phone booth (except if you’re claustrophobic), dropping in a few coins and making a call.
- Being able to switch the headlights on your vehicle to high beams by pressing a switch on the floor with your left foot.
- Bumpers on cars that could actually take a hit at 3 mph without cracking or shattering.
- When manual water faucets and paper towels were the norm in public restrooms.
- The days when there were no speed bumps on roads.
I miss …
- Watching cartoons before movies at theaters, instead of having to sit through a seemingly endless parade of movie trailers and advertisements.
- Station wagons.
- Hard-copy tickets. I can’t stand having my phone scanned to get into entertainment or professional sporting events.
- Family Classics with Frazier Thomas.
- Drive-in theaters.
- Paul Harvey’s news and comment. Good day!
Mike Sandrolini is a local news coordinator with the O’Rourke Media Group.
