Tevye had a conversation with Cherub this morning during which he tried to explain the Berlin Wall to her (not sure how far they got!). It got me thinking about how many things that were a constant during my childhood and young adulthood are nothing but history to my daughters, ranging from the state of the world to domestic items. For example:
- the Iron Curtain
- the Cold War
- Apartheid
- Margaret Thatcher
- miners' strikes
- coal fires
- typewriters
- leaf tea
- manual chokes in cars
- refundable deposits on pop bottles
- petrol pump attendants
- black and white TVs
- record players
- telegrams
- inkwells in school desks
- British Rail
I am beginning to feel like an old fossil!
What have I missed?
Posts
6 comments:
Electronics with vacuum tubes, reel to reel tape players (I have The Beatles Revolver on reel to reel somewhere), elevator operators...
Oh, how funny! My daughter Emily (age 21) and I were having a very similar conversation last night.
How about Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia? Rotary phones. Elvis.
We also discussed the fact that there are so many things that she has always known that were brand new to our generation, such as space flight,the internet, and video games.
Trimline phones (that's from my inner Hyacinth Bucket!), typewriters, paper maps, the card catalog at the library.
Are we fossils?
We still use leaf tea, it's Yorkshire Tea for hard water. Tea leaves then go on the garden, either in the compost box or I fill the pot with water and empty it out over the rose bushes.
A few tea leaves down the sink will absorb any grease that may have gone down the plug hole.
In our family the unfamiliar to our two adult offspring was the sight of an open fire.
At least both of us can lay and light a coal fire. I shared a house we had no central heating, just a boiler that stayed alight all winter. Whoever came in from work first lit the coal fire.
Public telephone booths!! At least where I live, we don't have them anymore! Also, ditto on the paper card catalogue at the library. I really miss both these things. (or I did when I was still able-bodied enough to go out and about, but the point remains the same).
Wanted to add that here, I know several folks who drive stick shift (manual) cars.
Hah - Ewok has got as far as 1947... so three of his four biological grandparents are alive. Both kids are AMAZED at how old that makes them!
I mean sheesh...
but for your list - I remember (again Ewok) having to explain what a floppy disc was to someone who pointed out their computer did NOT have a place for it. Video cassettes & players - or "fat dvds" according to one small friend.
Post a Comment