The Good Ol’ Days

I was in one of those moods recently and I was thinking about all the things I miss from when I was younger. Fortunately I never had any looks so that was not on the list, plus I have found a secret most guys don’t know - there is nothing a little foundation and mascara can’t hide. It’s a joke ok plus do you honestly think my wife would trust me with make-up? I borrowed some lipstick from her once to make a fake laceration on my head for a video, so she complained for a month that I had ‘smooshed’ the angled end and it would not retract in the tube. Needless to say, now all the make-up in the house goes in the lock-box with the alcohol cleaning pads, Nyquil and the catsup bottle.

Anyway, I had bought some ‘Ding Dongs’ for packed lunches and I noticed that they come in a sort of white cellophane sealed pouch now. I can’t explain it but both Ding Dongs and Hershey’s miniatures used to come ‘foil wrapped’ and I liked them better that way. It’s kind of the same with Coca Cola when it came in real bottles as a kid. There was no such thing as diet drinks so most of us were smart enough to know that a ‘soda pop’ was supposed to be a treat, not a replacement for your total bodily fluids. Now I drink diet soda all the time through an I.V. but it is never as good as those ice cold ‘glass bottled’ Cokes on a hot summer day.

I miss my snowy analog TV reception because even if the picture was not always perfect, I could make out the audio and storyline. Now with digital TV, every time the wind blows, or there is a little rain, my television repeatedly sputters, blanks out, and pixelates like a patient on a hospital drama. After a few minutes of looking at a frozen picture of some actor with their eyes half closed, I turn the channel and watch that show until it blanks out too and I finally close MY eyes ‘all the way’. Also it is sad that the National Anthem at the end of the broadcast day is gone. Remember when the TV stations actually understood EVERYONE was in bed (or should be) and actually STOPPED broadcasting each day. Now the TV stations simply fill up the overnight hours with an endless parade of infomercials hawking anything that insomniacs might respond to with an open mind and checkbook .

Of course I miss most when it was ok to take knives to ‘show and tell’ at school or carry a nail file on an airplane. Now for an overnight plane trip if I can’t find a tiny tube of toothpaste, I simply have to squeeze a green gob of the stuff into a hankie and put it in a plastic bag. I let the airport screeners think what they want, but they NEVER ask me what’s in the hankie. Hmmm, maybe if I was a terrorist I could try that same angle but with a loaded diaper? No, that’s probably not a good idea because even the most hardened air marshal would never take a ‘Stink Bomb’ seriously. See, even being evil was so much easier when I was over-ripened ‘diaper baby’. Who says CHANGE is necessary - I miss the good ol’ days!