Uphill, both ways

As a child, my father walked five miles to and from school every day of his life. In the snow. Uphill both ways. I know this because he told me. Many times.

Whatever hardships I faced as a youngster could never compare to his chain-gang-like days of yore.  Likewise, nothing my children will experience will ever match or exceed (in my mind) the travails of my youth.

I walked home from school, sometimes.  But the elevation changes were fairly modest.  And there was never any snow.  

My kids will likely never walk to school and probably only see the inside of a school bus on field trips.  Or in some transportation museum.

These thoughts crossed my mind following Luke's last soccer game.  After yelling at him for the better part of the hour to hustle, be more aggressive, help out his goalie, scoot back, etc. I watched as each child received what basically amounted to a gift basket from the designated Snack Mom of the week.  These baskets typically feature a couple of snacks, a drink, page of stickers, commemorative Stanley, and the like.

I exaggerate.  Barely.

Of course, being a member of Generation Participation Trophy, they receive these parting gifts win or lose.  Now on this particular night they happened to win, so I didn't rip Luke's from his arms and make him cry by telling him he didn't deserve it.  But it caused me to hearken back to my schoolboy days.

First of all, it was BYOS  -- bring your own snacks, in my day.  That normally consisted of a pack of Big League Chew or M&Ms.  If we won, we got to ride in the open bed of a pickup truck driven by our chain-smoking coach to the Sonic where coach would buy us a small milkshake or slush.  Second-hand smoke from an unfiltered Marlboro mixed with mosquito truck spray.  If you've not experienced that, have you even lived?

Guess what we got if we lost.  A big, fat hunk of nothing.  Other than a few disappointing glances from my mother.

This all got me thinking, what will my uphill both ways be to my kids?

Perhaps it will be having to listen to the radio with no control over what song it will play.  Or putting a quarter in the jukebox hoping to hear Def Leppard only to find out Bart already put in twenty bucks because he and Leigh Ann just got back together yet again, so you'll be listening Lady in Red for the rest of the night.

Not being able to pause, or rewind, or fast forward through whatever you're watching on TV.  Having to go to the bathroom or make snack runs only during commercial breaks.  Or worse yet, sitting through an entire commercial break.

Up until a few weeks ago, the extent of my kids' knowledge about commercials were the ads they skip after five seconds on YouTube.  I forget what it was we were watching, but a commercial came on.  After a few seconds, I hear, "Daddy.  Skip ad."

And I realize they almost never have to sit through a single commercial.  So we had to have "the talk."  No, not that talk.  Pretty sure I'll keep pushing that one down the road to some nebulous faraway day.  

I had to explain to them about commercials and advertising and how TV and radio stations make money.  And that daddy used to work in radio and if it weren't for commercials he wouldn't have had a job.  And about how Clear Channel and Sirius have destroyed local radio which is why you hear the same twelve songs over and over on many stations, and.... well, I could tell I was losing their interest at this point.

Perhaps my uphill both ways story will be how we used to have to use a big, heavy book to look up someone's phone number, then carefully dial the number on a rotary dial phone, which would take like forty-five seconds.  And God forbid you misdial a number and have to go back and start the long, arduous process all over.  

Although we did get the now-extinct pleasure of slamming down the phone and hanging up on someone, which today has devolved into an unsatisfying click which no one knows if it's accidental, on purpose, coverage just dropped or what.  It's not the same.

Or maybe it will be how we used bar soap, shared with other family members, to clean our nether regions.  Yep, that’s probably the one.

Pay phones .  55 mile per hour speed limits.  Texting on a flip phone with no qwerty keyboard.  Getting paddled at school and whipped with a belt at home.  My choices are pretty much endless.  

And don't get me started on dial-up internet.  EEEEEE-AAAAAAHHHHHH-SHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

So yeah, enjoy it kid.  Because while the proliferation of natural disasters, shrinking middle class, and resurgence of fascism may seem (air quotes) "hard," just be thankful you never had to use a pair of pliers to twist the TV knob from channel 13 all the way down to 2 on the ol' carpal tunnel special Zenith.

Or learn to program a VCR and then subsequently have to program it every single time your parents wanted to record a show up until and beyond the day you moved out of the house.

Or worst of all, had to try and correct a mistake on a manual typewriter.  I can already see how that conversation would go:

"What's a typewriter, Daddy?"

"Uh, it's like a keyboard that clicked and dinged.  And didn't have internet access."

"Like they used back in the 1900's."

Sigh.

"Yes.  In the 1900's.  Back when kids regularly scalded their legs on metal slides and jumped on trampolines with no net.  And got 12 cassettes for a penny from Columbia house hoping they would have no legal recourse against a 10-year-old when you didn't purchase four more of your choice at full price.  And made rad mixtapes."

"Daddy, what are you talking about?"

"The good old days, Junior.  When you had to go to an arcade to play video games, the news was a thirty-minute program that came on twice a day, roundabouts only existed in the mind of some deranged engineer, and daddy still had hopes and dreams, and spare time."

"Uh, Daddy, can we watch Barbie?"

"Sure.  What's it on?"

"Disney Plus."

Sigh.  

Sometimes I miss when TVs weren't so smart.