Thursday 13 - Things my children will never know

As I was providing Megan with a healthy snack the other day of baby carrots a thought occurred to me. My children know things and have experienced things that I never did as a child. They also will never know or experience things that I did or in quite the same way that I did. For instance, baby carrots. Maybe if baby carrots would have been available when I was a child I would have liked carrots and would not be cursed with a lifetime of glasses and/or contacts.

13 things that are different now than when I was a kid:
1- the telephone is not hooked to the wall. I remember the first cordless phone our family got. It was soooo cool. I liked having it in my room, even for just a little while, it made me feel like I had my own phone.

2- coke in glass bottles. I still remember the very tall glass coke bottles that my parents used to drink. They would collect them in those cardboard carriers and take them to be recycled.

3- Speaking of coke bottles, the term coke bottle glasses is also a thing of the past. Not only would my children not know what I am talking about, but glasses are much nicer these days and they can do wonders for those of us who would have had coke bottle glasses back then.

4- 8 track tapes - We used to have an 8 track tape player. We had a great selection of music too. From the Muppet's to the Oakridge Boys from ABBA to Crystal Gale, we were pretty cool rocking out to these fine tunes.

5- Record players - Gone are the days of scratched records and scratched records and scratched records and scratched records and scratched records, sorry my record was stuck. My parents were big John Denver fans. One day my Dad brought home a new John Denver record and while the kids were dancing around to it one of us jumped a little too excitedly. The record skipped and then left a scratch on my dad's brand new John Denver record.

6- Electric Company. This was very fine entertainment for a young child. Do you still remember the theme song? "Heeeyyy yooouuu guuuuyyyss!" Although this is apparently now available on DVD, so I guess our children still can experience this show for themselves.

7- Riding in a car with no seat belts. Those were the days. Little did we know that our lives were in great peril. I was too busy sleeping on the floor of the car or curled up in the back window watching the road as we drove on and on to realize that my life was in danger.

8- Video games- Yes I know that some of these games are still around or have made a comeback, but it's not quite the same. We spent hours playing Frogger and watching the frog splat on the road when it got run over. Then there was Pac Man. And don't forget Space Invaders and Asteroids.

9- Alf. Need I say more?

10- Commercials. Gone are the days of taking a break from TV watching during the commercials. With cool gadgets like Tiv0 and DVR commercials are a thing of the past. But look at what their missing.




11- My children will probably never have the opportunity to ride in a station wagon. Poor things.

12- Speaking of riding in cars, my children will never have to worry about spending long boring hours in the car with nothing to do. They don't even have to use their imagination or play silly games like the alphabet game. No, they can watch TV not only at home but, on their cell phone and even in the car. Which leads me to....

13- My children will never know life before ip0ds, play stations, teh internets (thank you Father Al), cell phones, DVD's, high definition TV, etc. etc. I still remember our first microwave, our first computer and our first VCR. We've come a long way!