Remember the good old days?

Recently, during a major power outage, I was sitting on the couch reading by candle light when I began thinking back. Looking around at all the items in the house rendered useless by the lightining storm, I began realizing things are a quite a bit different these days. I don't know if the all the changes to our lives in the past 30 years were worth it.

Grocery stores. vs Supermarkets
I remember when going to the grocery store wasn't such a big ordeal. They weren't super markets back then. Instead of a huge mega store that takes hours to get through, we just had a small 8 row store with shelves you could see over. There were only a dozen or so types of cereal and about six kinds of soda. The only diet drinks were Tab and fresca. The cashier was always friendly and you always had the same one. A well dressed kid would neatly place your groceries in heavy brown paper bags and without having to ask, carry them out to the car.

Cars were much simpler too. No airbags, passive retraints, anti-lock brakes and traction control. Back then, you really had to know how to drive. There was none of this driving 80mph in the rain while talking on a cell phone and drinking coffee. I would venture to say people were better drivers because of it. With modern cars people take stupid risks and rely on all the safety gadgets to break their fall. So it seems to be a zero sum game in regards to traffic wrecks and injuries.

Remember when eating out at a restaurant was a treat instead of a daily "necessity"? I fondly recall getting to go out for a pizza on a Saturday night. Back then, getting to eat pizza was something special, a reward for a week of work. Now people turn their nose up at pizza and consider it every day maintenence food.

Television was 3 channels, possibly a couple more if you clicked over to UHF. TV watching was a planned family event and the parents picked a favorite show or two and everyone sat down and watched without bitching. There was none of this channel surfing crap. You had to get up and walk across the room to change the station. The pickings were slim anyway so if the show sucked you just turned the TV off.

There were no DVD's VCR's or anything like that. If you wanted to watch a movie you had to go the theater to see the one or two choices that stayed up for a couple of weeks. If you were lucky dad might have an old slide projector where you could look at old pictures on the living room wall.

Saturday nights 30 years ago were quite a bit different. Most people only had one TV so they watched together or not at all. Board games were a favorite past time. Scrabble, monopoly, and card games with friends and family were common diversions.

Cooking and food preperation took a lot longer in those days. Microwaves were a scarce luxury that most people couldn't afford. Even then, there were no quick an easy meals save for a sandwich and chips. TV dinners came in metal trays, required almost an hour in the oven and were not that convenient. People had to plan ahead for their food consumption and hours each day went into meal planning and preperation. I would venture to say people have put on weight in recent years due to easy to prepare microwave items and the myriad of snack foods that were just not available in the past.

In the past, houses had maybe one or two rotary telephones. Answering machines were a rare and expensive luxury that were usually relgated to businesses. If you were not home, the phone call was missed, end of story. How did people ever survive without pagers, cell phones, Email, and texting? I'll tell you one thing, people had to be a helluva lot more indepenent back in those days because sometimes there was no way to call for help.You just had to deal with the situation yourself. Granted, strangers were friendlier and more helpful in the past, often times helping with changing a tire or giving directions. These days, pretty much everyone has a cell phone and people are much more wary of "helpful" strangers.

Kids toys were something else thirty years ago. Children had blocks, dolls and trucks and used these items along with their imagination. Tinker toys, lincoln logs, erector sets required planning and critical thinking and were great mind builders for young kids. These days, video games and prefabricated toys take much of the thinking and learning out of child play.

I'm not saying that modern advances are not without merit but once in a while we may want to step back, turn off all the annoying appliances, machines and cell phones that surround us and get back to basics.