A Trip Down Memory Lane (Part 1)

I Remember …

I stumbled across something recently that I immediately connected with. I jotted down a bunch of the things mentioned in the article, but can’t recall where I saw it. It may have been on Facebook or Reddit. At any rate, I thought this was something that might jar your memory, too!

Instant Win Bottle Caps

I used to drink a lot of pop. Back in the days before plastic bottles were a thing you used to have a bottle opener on your key ring so you could open them up. Pepsi, Coke, Faygo, and just about every other soda company would run contests. You would open your drink and immediately look under the cap to see if you won something. Sometimes it was a gaming system or a bike or cash prize. Most of the time it was a free pop.

Pepsi ran some “cap” contest where you had to spell “Pepsi Spirit” to win cash. Trying to find an “R” was a challenge!!

Today, any kind of “cap” contest involves a code that you have to enter to see if you win. Who has time for that?!

News only being on at 6 and 11

In my opinion, there isn’t enough news to warrant having it on as much as it is. Where I live, there is news at 4am, 5am, 6am, 7am, 4pm, 5pm, 6pm, 7pm (usually National News), 10pm and 11pm. Then the 11pm newscast is repeated at some point during the overnight.

Recently, a news crew was at the local children’s museum where Sam had taken Ella and AJ. They asked if they could shoot some footage of her playing. Sam agreed, but had to decline doing any on camera stuff because she was chasing the kids around and it was close to lunchtime. At any rate, that night we watched the 4pm, 5pm, and 6pm news hoping to see the story. It never aired that night.

In watching those three news casts it was the same stories and same news clips over and over again. It was a rehash of the hour before with very little new information. Why do they feel we need so much news? It is SO depressing. There are very few “feel good” stories on there.

I miss the days where there was a 6pm and 11pm newscast.

Buying New Music

This is going to show my age. There was a time when you bought new music that you had to hope it was good. All you knew was the single that was released to radio. In many cases, you would go to the record store and pick up the 45 of that song and then pick up the album when it came out a few weeks later.

There was no way to preview songs on an album prior to buying them. Today, you can hear clips of every cut and decide whether you want to buy it. Not true for me and my generation.

I’m not saying that there were not albums that were good from beginning to end – there were! However, there were plenty of times where you bought the album and were disappointed that the only good song was the one they were playing on the radio!

Another downside to albums was that you’d have favorite songs that were never released to radio stations. That always bugged me. As a former radio guy, I completely understand how and why songs get on the radio now, but had no clue back then.

Phones – Corded

In reality, I could probably do an entire blog on phones, but I won’t.

Today, we carry our phones around in our pockets and we are accessible any time. But back in the day, phones were screwed to the wall of the kitchen or planted on a table near a couch. And they were plugged into the wall – very immobile.

I saw phones go from the dial phone (like above) to the push button:

Eventually, they went cordless and you could walk around with them from room to room.

I used to remember patterns for friends phone numbers. Looking at the phone above, I can still see the pattern for my best friends number. I remember spending hours on the phone with friends growing up.

The thing about phones that was in the initial article was the fact that as a kid, whenever you called your friends at home, you would often have to talk to their parents before they came to the phone. Sometimes this was awkward. If I was calling a female friend, I was almost always intimidated if their dad answered the phone. I can remember one time hearing, “That Keith boy is on the phone for you…”

Being accessible

This kind of goes along with the above sub-topic.

Today, with the cell phone technology, we can be reached by phone, text, e-mail or on social media. I truly miss not being accessible to work outside of work hours.

I have mentioned this before, and I know I am not alone. I have three or four apps on my phone exclusive to work. Why? “So we can communicate with you, if necessary.”

My home life should be my home life. I don’t want to be reading work emails at home when I am not working. If it is truly important, like you need me to cover a different site or something like that – call me, or better yet, text me. Otherwise, work can wait till I get there.

I have my work email on my phone. I don’t look at it when I am not there. I shouldn’t have to. If a meeting is cancelled – text me so I don’t come in. If there is something that I need to know beforehand that cannot wait – text me. My time away from work should be just that – away from work.

More to come …