8/02/2004 01:39:00 PM by Rob

Lordy, Lordy, look who's forty?

First of all, please tell me you're surprised at THIS?

Anyway, what was I gonna say? I forgot. Some guys walked into my hole to ask me something right after I typed the word "Anyway", and I lost my train of thought.

But I'm entitled. I'm old, or I'll officially be old tomorrow.

Forty years ago, two teenaged parents brought me into the world, and five years after that, I got hooked on the Cubs while watching a Kenny Holtzman no-hitter on a decrepit B&W Zenith that my parents only had because my Grandpa didn't want it anymore after he bought his fancy-assed color set. In those days, it didn't occur to people to have MORE than ONE TV. (Then, you'd need more than one antenna).

Somehow, I lived in a house without air conditioning, and only one fan, which of course my parents used, and they wondered why I wanted to sleep in THEIR bed until I was, like 13. We had no air conditioning in the car, either. No FM radio, no CD player, no DVD screens built in the back of the headrests.

No microwaves, no cell phones, hell, no dial tones. Everything was dial-click-click-click dial-click-click-click-click-click....in those days, to call someone in town, you just had to dial 5 digits: ie; to call us at 634-4702, just dial 4-4702.

No bottled water everywhere, either. Nobody took something to drink with them in the car, except Dad would have his thermos of coffee he drank on his way to work to wake up. RELAX...three-quarters of the time, he wasn't driving. He carpooled to work, since most of us only had one car. So if we needed something on the days he had to drive, tough titties. You did without.

Mom didn't work, hell, nobody's mom worked. Cartoons were only available on Saturday mornings, Sunday mornings, and you could watch old reruns of Speed Racer and the Stooges after school (of course, in the summers, all home games were on Channel 9, so fuck Speed Racer.) Landing on the moon was a HUGE deal, until we got sick of it a couple of years later.

Tennis shoes were either Keds, PF Flyers, or when you got older, Converse All-Stars. Of course, most of us only got the one pair of shoes, and Mom would always opt for the leather shoes, so I don't think I got to wear tennis shoes to school until fifth grade. Or t-shirts, either. No shorts, ever. In fact, I was forced to wear Jc Penney Super Denims (endorsed by Super Dennis, the robot who spent his whole life on his knees) in all sorts of odd colors until I was old enough to resist my mom's attempts to pull them on me forcibly. I mean, let's go through my fifth grade arsenal of pantwear:

1 pr. Super Denims, navy blue, 16 husky
1 pr. Super Denims, cranberry, 16 husky
1 pr. Super Denims, forest green, 16 husky
1 pr. Super Denims, brown, 16 husky
1 pr. Cub Scout issued trousers, blue, 18 husky (ran small) - for den meeting Tuesdays

Kids today, who bitch if they have to sit in the back seat more than 20 minutes, even though they have their own personal headphones, DVD screen, and bottled water.

Of course, there are the old-timers like Stew, who doubtless will regale me about how he had to walk to school 7 miles uphill, both ways, while his family would share one pork chop for dinner during the Depression, and that he would only get to take one car ride a year, and that being in the open seat of a Nash Rambler during the bitter Thanksgiving cold...who will think that my four pair of Super Denims was a pretty sweet deal.

Wonder what my kids will gripe to their kids about? Hopefully they will lecture them about the times when the Cubs didn't win the division every year.

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