Do you have days when you are suddenly aware of how much has changed in our daily lives, and how nostalgia for past things envelops you?
I had a sudden flash the other day of being a little kid sitting on the brick fence at home, waiting for the postman to come by.
I probably drove the postie mad with questions starting with ‘why’ or some such nonsense. I do remember the excitement of checking the mailbox and finding a card addressed to me, often a birthday card, with a 10 shilling note in it or some such coinage. Email does not inspire excitement let alone random gifts.
I dare start this next sentence with “those were the days”, but they are and were part of my memory.
Naughty nibble
I loved it when the bread and milk was delivered to our house; sometimes the bread was still warm and I would naughtily nibble at the end and pull out a bit of the warm dough, probably incurring wrath later on from my mother. Buying supermarket bread and milk just does not cut it.
And what about having a bank book? A real grown-up person’s book, usually blue with pages of columns to have your transaction entered in and then stamped. I remember holding one of those and feeling so adult as I queued at the bank to have my meagre savings entered into it.
There were no concerns about scammers in those days, the fear of watching your money magically disappear into the ether, though, of course, you did have to look after your passbook. Seeing my accounts online does not give me the same satisfaction.
Our payslips, when we did transition to work, came with real money inside, notes and coins, a physical manifestation of the hard-working week.
Pennies and pounds
There was little chance to overspend as most of us did not have credit cards, so the pennies and the pounds really did take care of themselves as the saying goes.
And what about going to town? Everybody knew that meant going into the city, the only city within your state and the only place with decent shops and a level of decadence that the lonely suburbs did not provide. I remember having to learn the major streets crisscrossing Melbourne, being afraid of getting lost and then being very proud of finally knowing my way around.
The same thing happened when I finally got my driver’s licence and had to navigate the roads. Thank God there was Melways, or the equivalent to hone our mapping skills and to add again a sense of achievement as we managed to get where we wanted to go. A sense of geography and spatial awareness came with mastering the maps. Google maps, though frightfully convenient, do not give the same frisson of challenge. It’s a bit like cheating.
And what about going to the pictures? Even using that phrase dates me dreadfully. We would line up to see the latest Disney film, content to have a small tub of ice-cream or maybe a bag of lollies, bought beforehand at the local milk bar. Today a bucket of popcorn and a litre of Coke is de rigeur.
And here is the news
Now I mindlessly trawl through Netflix and rarely find anything to watch despite thousands of options.
And lastly comes the news. We had to wait until 6.30 or maybe seven o’clock if your parents were ABC fans, to hear and see on the television what was happening around the world, and most of it was not instant news relayed via satellite.
It was often old news, mostly parochial in nature, ending with a smile-inducing cat rescue from a tree. Now, we are bombarded with information and tragedy 24/7, such that most of us want to turn it off and remain in blissful ignorance, reverting to a childlike view of the world.
Where is that childhood brick fence to sit on as I swing my thin legs?
Ah, nostalgia, isn’t it grand?
What do you miss about the good old days? Why not share your thoughts in the comments section below?
Also read: Why I’m grateful to be a baby boomer
