Listen, my ancients, and you shall hear of modern developments quite queer: the peculiar habits of everyone raised, as or by Baby Boomers, and you’ll be amazed.
Here’s one: They all wear the same kind of pants, made out of the blue stuff that we used to fancy for working on farms and cleaning latrines; they wear them for everything and call them all “jeans.”
Your class had some beauties, say seven or eight. The rest of the girls dreamed of blooming late. Every teen girl’s a knockout now, thanks to the fake-up of contacts, not eating, and fabulous make-up.
Yes, you had equivalents to cool handsome dudes, but “bad boys” did not always appeal to girls’ moods. And though you’d be one who’d remember quite fully, you simply cannot recall one single bully.
Back in the day if you needed a drink of water you simply would go to the sink. But now this dehydrated generation drinks water by bottles for lubrication.
Where once you found radios super high tech, today’s average kid has Ipod round her neck. Where you once wasted time finding telephone booths, all teenagers now have their personal Bluetooths.
When they go off to college, just like you before, they tend to leave parents home minding the store. But when these kids party and drink and carouse, their billpayers (unlike yours) don’t say “straighten up — or else!”
In your day, the coeds all came back by 10 p.m. and their dorms did not include men. Now enlightenment rules that all genders may roam everywhere through the night, and not even come home.
Your whole student body ate in the dining room: one meat, veggie, starch — there was simply no whining room. But now there’s unlimited choice for each teen of Epicurean food and gourmet cuisine.
New dorms have their suites and luxurious quarters, private bathrooms, computer setups and porters. For all of these reasons, and so many more — no wonder the cost of it’s gone through the floor.
Religion in your time was part of the fixture, but it’s often gone now from the modern day picture. You sang in the choir, and you learned to love Bach and never in your darkest times predicted rock.
Today there is music that rants and raves, in multiple pitches and numerous staves. But mostly it screams and it shouts and it whacks away at all customs (except of course, sex.)
Mention their morals and here too there’s difference in action and attitude and surely good sense about doing certain things with the greatest avidity, and calling it freedom instead of stupidity.
But times are a-changing — the picture’s not pretty: Your thoughts turn from wonderment into pity. For years you’d watch graduates as they raked in the dollars, but now there are smudges on all those white collars.
Till lately they’d buy homes as big as a box so huge that they’d rattle inside there like rocks. These days you must feel for their sudden affright as mortgages limp away, lost in the night.
They still fly in airplanes the size of a house, but all can be brought down by birds or a mouse. Their summers are hotter, their winters a mess, they’re living much longer but enjoying it less.
You try not to go the “I told you so” route. You sympathize, offer assistance to boot, and, you know, it is true that life’s always been tough. We’ve all lived and we’ve learned. But not fast enough.
Now Easter’s a good time to clear up the weather. The important fact is, we’re all in this together.
Maude McDaniel is a Cumberland freelance writer. Her column appears on alternate Sundays in the Times-News.
Maude McDaniel - Living
On returning to college (for a 58th reunion)
- Maude McDaniel - Living
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Ordinary things can be the most amazing
When you live in this world — not that I have any experience in any other one yet — you come across absolutely amazing things that don’t amaze you.
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Rusty takes over with his doggy wisdom
They say the world is going to the dogs.
If only! -
There are eggs, and there are Easter eggs
Today, I want to talk about — eggs. Good subject for Easter, right? But have you ever wondered how eggs, well, happen? How do they form so perfectly, with the shell always on the outside and the stuff so flawlessly contained inside.
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The signs of old age never seem to stop
Well, I’ve satisfied your intense curiosity about chopsticks, and playing cards, and such, which means I can get back to my favorite topic these days — how to know when you’re getting old.
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A sense of humor makes life easier
This may not be a secret — but I love laughing.
As far as I am concerned, a sense of humor transforms life from something that has to be gotten through grudgingly, just because you happened to be born and have no other choice, into an opportunity for joy, if only for a moment here and there. -
You’ve heard it before, but things are worse
Hey, I’ve been pretty good-natured lately, and it’s a strain on me. Considering my age (very old) and the state of the world (very bad), you must be amazed at my self-control in the last few months. I don’t remember saying anything good about the music or the electronics or the morals of our culture in recent columns — but I have carefully tried not to bash them. Well, not too much.
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History of chopsticks and related subjects
Now there are some big questions in life, like where did we come from, and even bigger questions in life, like where are we going? Today, however, I prefer to talk about chopsticks.
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Wondering? Here’s how cards began
Just in the last few years, I have become quite the cardplayer .My father would be amazed, because he would not allow me or my brothers to play cards (with the regular cardfaces) when we were growing up. We were, however, allowed to play other games that had cards of their own, like Touring and Flinch.
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By now, we should know all the answers
Here I had expected that, by the time I reached this advanced age, I would know all the answers there were to know, or maybe even more. But apparently it was not to be, for, lo and behold, I seem to have still more questions lining up, like all those thousands of blackbirds on the lines in front of the M&T Bank on Industrial Boulevard.
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Here are a few laughs to start the new year
Nothing’s better to start out a new year with than jokes! Even if they are other people’s jokes. And some of these are not so much laugh out loud, as just wry observations on the world. But then that’s what the best humor is often about!
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Ordinary things can be the most amazing
