AH Yes, the Good Ol' Days....Sounds Like They Sucked

There's a Twitter thread going around now asking "What’s something ubiquitous about the past, like the early 1990s, that stands out as something hard to convey to young folks today? My choice is the ubiquity of smoking."

Having lived throughout and remember the 1990s, here's a few replies I can personally attest to.

Another one: the idea of The News. Morning paper, evening broadcast (and you knew if you were an ABC, NBC, or CBS family), maybe NPR in between.

 

Knowing your friends phone numbers.

 

Agreeing to meet someone somewhere at a specific time and place, and having no way to contact them if they or you were late or lost.

 

Also, making a mixtape of songs off the radio. I don't think any young person today could wrap their heads around the process we had to go through of waiting around all day for the song to play and trying to hit record on the boom box at the exact right time.

 

Operator: will you accept a collect call from Me: mompracticeisovercomepickmeup

 

We just arranged to meet people places and then successfully met at that place without having the ability to contact them directly, which now feels like launching a moon landing mission without any instruments.

 

If you missed an episode of your favorite show...you most likely would NEVER be able to watch that episode.

 

Encyclopedias. The day my dad could afford to buy us a set of encyclopedias was the proudest I ever saw him. I was just happy to be able to look stuff up outside of library hours.