Go Away so I Can Miss You--Too Soon for Gen X Nostalgia

by Christina Brooke

I was shocked. SHOCKED, I tell you, to learn the number of years it has been since I was a senior at high school.

The truth came home to roost when I was invited to my school reunion this year.

Really? Was it that many years since I'd darkened those hallowed halls wearing a deconstructed nun's habit and panama hat?

Surely not. Surely it was only yesterday that I was doing try-hard headbanging to Smells Like Teen Spirit and envying Kate Moss's waifish drug-chic look. Only slightly longer since I begged my mother for a fluorescent t-shirt (she agreed to socks) and danced around my friend's bedroom to WHAM!

But there you go, time has not stood still since I drank my first free Black Russian at City Rowers on Ladies' Night Tuesday. My theory is that years don't age you. Children do. Still, I mustn't have been feeling terribly old despite my 2.0 children because that number on the reunion invitation really smacked me right between the eyes.

You have probably gathered by now that I belong to the generation known as 'X'. Apparently, our day in the sun is long gone. So far in the past, in fact, that the latest craze is for Gen X nostalgia.

Oh, dear. Someone pass me a Cosmopolitan, will you? I need to go and lie down.

What were the weird crazes when you were a child/teenager? What fad did you take part in that you'd rather forget? Is there anything you didn't do that you wish you had?

Those were the days...

by Donna Mac Means

An article recently sent me down a nostalgic path. Thought you might enjoy taking a stroll with me.

It appears vintage typewriters are making

a comeback. "Type-ins" are being held at bars and bookstores with speed and accuracy contests - or just to type out an old fashioned snail mail personal letter (remember those?)

Now I'm a real fan of computer word processing. I can't imagine writing a novel without that fabulous cut and paste option - or the ability to search. I'm a real fan of "find and replace." But I understand the charm of vintage typewriters. I grew up with them, after all.

My mother was a secretary like many young women in the early 1940s. And like many of those women, she was asked to leave her position when she married. That skill though, to

read copy and process with the pounding of mechanical keys, never left. It must have been ingrained on the system like muscle memory. One never loses the ability to ride a bike or type on a keyboard, apparently.

One of my earliest memories is the sound of my mother hammering away on an old black Royal - a typewriter must like the one in that picture. My father, employed as a manager with

International

Paper, had made a detailed study of printing presses and put all that knowledge into a manuscript. After we kids had been sent up to bed, my mother would haul out the old black Royal and hammer away, translating my father's handwriting into printed pages. There's a rhythm in the keys striking paper, the ding of the warning bell when one has reached the right hand margin, and the glide of the carriage as it slides to the left. I would fall asleep to that reassuring music.

We had a manual machine where the press of each key, signified by a round disk with a letter inside - now the stuff of jewerly) enabled a metallic arm to strike the page with one letter. Sometimes, if the timing wasn't just right, two keys would jam and you'd have t0

physically separate them. Pushing those keys down required a certain kind of strength. The ribbons were messy and left black and red smudges on your fingers when you had to change the ribbon.

Much to my joy, my high school had electric typewriters. These were faster versions of my manual one back home that just allowed me to make mistakes that much faster. These versions still had the carriage you "threw" back right after the warning bell. Even now when forced to use a typewriter, I reach automatically for that carriage lever to send the carriage back. Fortunately, white-out had been invented, but lining the carriage back up to type over mistakes was difficult. My mother had insisted that I take that typing course as she believed every girl should know how to type - just in case she had to earn a living. A woman's employment options were limited, even in the 1970s.

One thing about those old machines - there was no distracting email. When you typed - you typed and you thought about what you were doing because correcting an error was a pain in the butt. Even with white-out one had to line up the carriage to place the replacement

stroke in precisely the same spot as the original error. Somewhere along the line I learned the trick of a vellum window envelope. You slip the envelope - the kind with glassine over the window - not these new cost efficient windowless models - between the paper and the striking rod. You typed the correction and could see if things lined up correctly. When you had it just right you could pull out the envelope and retype the correction. There you go - an

archaic trick of the trade.

I worked years later at Proctor and Gamble as a clerk, not a secretary. Still I was given my own typewriter to use. It was a Selectric. Those long skinny rods that struck the page with each letter had been replaced with a letter-encrusted golf ball! The carriage no longer moved, just the golf ball. When you'd reach the end of a line, you pushed a button to send the ball back to the beginning. I'm afraid that signaled the end to the magic. No swat in mid-air required. No orchestrated swing of the tiny rods. No need to strengthen the fingers for the work of pushing mechanical keys. Just a hyperactive metal ball that jumped sporatically across the page.

Now I type away on a laptop keyboard. It's relatively silent - except for the voices in my head...but that's another post. While preparing this post, I noticed that one can download an app to make the computer sound like an old typewriter. I wonder if they can do something to simulate the feel of throwing the carriage return...

How about you? Have you ever typed on an old manual typewriter? Do you have an old electric typewriter tucked away in a closet? I do. Any collectors? Type in your comments and we can all share in the nostalgia.

Nostalgia

by Jo Robertson

I've decided that new and improved isn’t always better. Even though many improvements can make life easier and alleviate our work load, sometimes I just miss the "old way."

Here are some of the things I miss on occasion.

I miss hanging clothes out on the line, the whole ritual of shaking out the damp article, smelling the sweet cleanliness and, wooden clothespin in my hand or mouth, stretching the clothes tight on a rope.

I miss not having to decide among a gazillion shows to watch on Sunday night. Knowing that Ed Sullivan was THE thing to see and millions of people across the country were watching it at the same time as me. No Tivo decision-making!

I miss backyards without fences where you could wave to your neighbor every morning. Robert Frost says “Fences make good neighbors," but I don't think that's true.

I miss the neighborhood store (ours was the Cavalier Store in Hopewell, Virginia) where you could stop for a sweet treat or a grocery item, and everyone knew your name (Come to think of it, I miss Cheers too!). And you didn’t have to worry about some pervert snatching you up four or five blocks from your home.

I miss hand cranking the ice cream freezer on a hot summer night where every kid got a turn at making the ice cream.

I miss letter writing. Or maybe getting letters is what I really miss.

I miss eight or nine people piling in a car and going to the drive-in movie where the cost was per car instead of per person. And you brought your own chairs to sit out on the gravel and your own treats in a Styrofoam cooler.

I miss drug store counters where you could get a coke float for fifteen cents and sit on a high bar stool watching the lady make it.

What about you? Anything you miss that's gone by the wayside? Or anything you're grateful you no longer have to do?