Steak boards and clocks spin round and round...

Things That I Miss - Episode 1

Now that I'm about to turn 42, I find that I've hit an age where I'm reminiscing a lot about days gone by. In my life time, I've seen some incredibly significant changes in the world. I'm sure our parents would say their lives saw some huge changes as well, but I might argue that my generation has experienced more drastic changes in the way people live their lives, at least in a one generation time period.  I'm not necessarily talking specifically when things were invented, but more when they became popular, accessible or affordable enough that more people had these things than didn't.

Example 1: Home Computers. These started when I was in grade school. They made life slightly easier...you could type things and see them pop up instantly on your monochromatic monitor. Do your household books, play a few crappy games, do school reports and look like a real keener with your dot-matrix printed assignments. You had to be careful, though, ripping off the sides of those pages. But this was like having a sports car on a tiny, deserted island covered in soft sand...not too damn useful, but then...

Example 2: The internet. All of the information in the world (accurate or not) instantly within reach by the simple act of a typing your query into a search engine bar. Any book, newspaper, magazine, album, song, movie, tv show, all accessible without leaving your home. That is huge. I love it, but I also hate it.  It's made life too easy. You no longer have to go anywhere to get virtually anything, picking up the phone is a dying art (I'm looking at you text-a-holics), and the casual "pop by" someone's house for a visit has all but disappeared. (Yes I understand the irony that without the internet, this blog would not exist, but if you look back two sentences, I did say that I also loved it.)

The world has changed too drastically for my liking and things have gotten far too convenient.

I like going places to see things, get things, do things.

This preamble has obviously been for a reason, and that is to introduce what may become an ongoing list of Things That I Miss, which may have nothing directly to do with what I was just on about, but they harken back to a simpler time when people were doing things and going places because there was no other option.

So without further ado, here is the first thing (and in no particular order) that I will say that I truly miss: Gas-Station Give-Aways.

 

Remember when every fill-up meant you got a prize?!?!  That, friends, was living.  We lived a block away from a Beaver Gas station and they loved give-aways. Glassware was a very common incentive used to get you to choose their fuel over the competition's. Highball glasses, juice glasses, beer glasses doled out one at a time with every fill up. We just had to get the complete sets, which wasn't too hard back then as my parents drove gas-guzzling station wagons and pick-up trucks, and dammit, we DROVE places to get stuff, and to SEE things, and DO things. That took gas, that emptied tanks, that earned us free stuff!

 

One summer they gave away round, wooden steak boards with an accompanying steak knife. Yes, it was a gentler time back then when a gas station attendant had no trouble handing a knife to a customer even before they had paid. I'll bet we ended up with a dozen of those food frisbees. We used the knives, but we never actually used the boards for the purpose that they had been designed for. They just sat in Dad's basement workshop in their individual plastic bags. Then one day, years after 'earning' them, Len (my father) had a "Eureka!" moment. My Dad used to love to tinker around in his workshop, especially after he had retired, making things out of wood (rocking horses, walking canes, banana hooks, etc.) But this idea was truly inspired. He'd turn those 12" diameter steak boards into Lazy Susan's for people's kitchen/dining room tables! He went to the hardware store and bought the little mechanism to attach to the bottom of the boards that, when set down on the table could then spin around and around. He then cut some rounded wooden guard rails he attached on top of bits of dowel all around the top side so that anything taking the ride wouldn't slide off.  No more pesky reaching across the table for the salt and pepper for our family! Just give it a little spin, et voila! When he showed me the first one he had finished, all I could think about was the opening scene in "Temple of Doom" with the diamond and the antidote. I could now recreate that moment in my very own dining room!  It was great.

 

Anyhow, I miss gas station giveaways...and I really miss my Dad.

 

All for now,

 

G'night.

 

(P.S. Please feel free to comment below on stuff you miss, or anything else...I've changed the comments section settings so that anyone can type a comment without having to be a member, so it's wide open and ready to go.)

 

Ron.