Wednesday, July 05, 2006

Stream of conciousnessing

The flow of time they tell me, is constant. Unchanging and unflinching like the gaze of God himself, time carries us through life. But my how the perception of time changes. When you are young, time passes excruciatingly slowly and an afternoon sometimes takes a week to get through. Conversely, as you get older and the quantity of time you (ostensibly) have here diminishes, the more quickly it slips through your fingers. A kind of cruel cosmic irony, that.

Time leaves its mark everywhere: on your face, on the map, in the shops and even in the garden.

One nice thing about getting older is the increased instances of nostalgia. This is similar to wistful memories of camp when you were young. But this is not true nostalgia. No, nostalgia is sweet and rich like a chocolate covered cherry.

My first car got 6 miles to the gallon. Of course gas was only 29 cents a gallon.

Children all over the world were sent outside to play. WITHOUT SUNSCREEN. Yes, sunscreen didn't even exist as a word. If you wanted to block the sun (because you had mangled your nose and lips by repeatedly frying them in the sun) you would use a white ointment called zinc oxide.

If someone said bottled water, you thought Sparkletts.

I remember the first soda I had in a plastic bottle. I was suspect about drinking carbonation from plastic. Prior to that, soda only came in glass or cans. And the cans had a tab that you pulled off and discarded prior to drinking. They were a constant source of cuts to the hands and feet.

Amyl nitrate was sold behind the bar.

What would life be like without remote controls, computers, cell phones, Cd's, airbags, porcelain veneers, liposuction, the space shuttle and rap music? You know what, it wasn't half bad.

Now I sound really old.

23 comments:

Lemuel said...

Welcome to my [geezer] world, Torn. It's nice to have such a friend here. Perhaps you think you sound old, but I assure you your heart is still young and strong.

Kevin said...

You know, back in my day, we had to walk to school, in 10 foot drifts of snow, uphill, both ways ...

:)

But there are certain things I loved --- like waking up eraly on Saturday mornings to watch cartoons before anyone else was up. (Back when they had good shows on like Super Friends and Laff-O-Lympics.)

Jack said...

Hi Torn,

Life Was without them, life would still Be without them.

As for feeling old Torn. You're not. We supposedly made so much progress in the last 20 years, it seems the new technology can not last long before, it is/needs to be, replaced.

Sounds familiar?!

Fast, just too fast!?

Enjoy Life my young friend!

Have fun!

J

x

St. Dickeybird said...

God's gaze is unchanging? What, is he stoned, mentally challenged, or something?
I was suspicious of plastic soda bottles, too.

Rye said...

Ah Tornwordo - you always make my day just that little bit more interesting.

Jason said...

You just reminded me of the pop cans that had two ovals on the top, one bigger than the other. You had to push them both in. Anyone else remember those?

Adam said...

The Space Shuttle is so lame. I'm glad we're moving back to rockets.

Soda in plastic bottles definately taste different from soda in a can. Since I don't drink American Champagne (Coke) all that often but when I do want it I usually seek out original recipe formulas made with real sugar cane, bottled in glass in the original serving size.

I just realized its that time of year in Texas when they put orgiginal recipe Dr. Pepper in the glass bottles in the supermarkets. YUM!!

S said...

How many years ago was the price of gas only 29 cents?

I'm starting to miss the days when gas was 60 cents.

r said...

Jason. I remember those. They didn't seem to catch on... they weren't around too long.

I had a big pop top chain attached to three of the four walls in my room.

Along with the 62 pictures of Shawn Cassidy that I had pulled out of Tiger Beat.

r said...

wait, what's Amyl Nitrate?

Jane said...

I remember the two "buttons" on the pop cans, too.

I must be older than Rebekah - my room was plastered with DAVID Cassidy posters. My parents must have loved me lots to let me do that to the wallpaper.

CoffeeDog said...

I am old too! And yes we lived dangerously back then.

Anonymous said...

I am older than any of you and I remember when they said RCA is coming out with a Color TV. I asked myself I wonder what color it is going to be? I was only a child give me a break. Time goes faster the older you get. When you turn 100 time must be flying by at the speed of light.

madamerouge said...

Life before Heiress Pillton was definitely better.

A Bear in the Woods said...

Beautiful post, as always. Youknow, I actually don't believe in the existence of time, except as a theoretical construct to measure the rate of change. To me reality takes place outside of chronos time.

dirk.mancuso said...

I had forgotten about the old pop top soda cans. And the cut feet.

Life was a lot simpler back then.

Sighhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.kijkel

GayProf said...

Oh, these kids today -- with their clothes and their hair. They don't know what life was really like...

I must know -- What was your first car? Perhaps it is in your archive, but that would require, you know, work.

dpaste said...

You are old. But so am I. Although we didn't have Sparkletts where I grew up. We did have fizzies, though.

Spider said...

Amyl nitrate behind the bar... now it is "video head cleaner" at the dirty video store... times they are a changing!

Anonymous said...

I watched Captain Kangaroo with bunny rabbit and Mr. Greenjeans and Grandfather clock and with a cartoon called Tom Terrific and Manfred the Wonderdog, with his nemesis, Crabby Appleton: rotten to the core. Those were the days my friend.

The Wisdom of Wislon said...

I felt old when a 20 year old friend was listening to me, bless her, I usually say I feel young and have to keep reminding my other half- we're young but that girlie did make me think hang on, I am 10 years older.

Love your take on things.

You can't help the rose tinted view of the past

Patricia said...

i'm really irks me when blogger won't let me comment in a timely manner.

now, of course, all the witty, original comments have been made and all i can do is mutter a pathetic

me too

*sigh*

epicurist said...

Speaking of nostalgia and pop, do you remember the pop cans with the 2 pop-in buttons, that you pushed in?