Thursday, November 18, 2010

The Good Old Days

Every once in a while I'll be watching an old movie, or having a conversation about the good old days and I'll suddenly remember something from my childhood/teen years/early 20s that I loved so much, but have since forgotten.  Some of them are things I just took for granted, and some are things that have been replaced with "bigger and better" in the world of technology and television.  Here are some of the things I really miss from the days when life was about having fun and being fancy free:

MTV's Singled Out
 How awesome was this show?!  Jenny McCarthy and that guy who looked like the older
brother from Boy Meets World matching up 20-something singles by way of game show. 
It was raunchy, dirty and funny.  I loved it.

Sleeping In
Ah, the days before having children who think sunrise is the perfect time to wake up.

Impulsive Road Trips
It's Friday afternoon and you're off the next Monday.  You're bored. 
Friend says, "Hey, let's go to Atlanta."  You say, "Okay!"  Good times.

 
Writing notes
You remember....spending an entire class period doodling little designs and writing your
friend's name out in multiple colors and shapes, then writing the note in alternating ink colors. 
After that, of course you had to fold it in some strange, awesome way.


Snail mail
Before the e-mail/chat/facebook era.  They usually started out, "Dear Jess."  I have a storage bin full of letters from friends who lived in different states.  We all used to write each other at least once a month before internet killed the postal service.  Sometimes I really hate the internet (until I remember if it weren't for internet I couldn't blog with you fine people, and then I get over it).

Summer vacation
No school, no work, no getting up early.  Nothing but fun, sleeping in, swimming and general laziness. 
Also, watching The Price is Right all morning because there's nothing else on tv.


Watching a movie for the 100th time and suddenly getting a
 grown-up joke or understanding what's really going on.
Above is one of the best examples.  I watched this movie a gazillion times as a child,
 and then one day when I was about 14, I realized what he was doing. 
I screamed, turned off the movie and didn't watch it again until I was 17.

Believing in Santa Claus
My sister and I every year would try to stay awake all night so we could meet him. 
We always fell asleep though.  I think Mom was slipping us NyQuil....

Slumber Parties
Makeovers, "light as a feather, stiff as a board,"  movie marathons, giggling, all-around fun.  (P.S.  I'm pretty
 sure the kid at the bottom right and the kid at the top left of the picture are boys.  This concerns me a little...)

Being in a band
I was in a band with four of my best friends from my church youth group when I was 15-16.  We practiced
 more than anything (we only actually played in front of people ten or eleven times), but we had a blast. 


What are some of the things you really miss? 

5 comments:

  1. Jess! What a great list!!! I love and can relate to all of these things. Singled out! Holy cow, I totally forgot about that show.

    And I swear to you I was just talking about folding notes and how I can't remember how to do it anymore over the weekend.

    I completely agree with the movie thing too. You watch an old movie and you're like "OMG I never got that before!"

    Great post!

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  2. Hahah I miss all of these things. Especially sleepovers, damn they were so fun! x

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  3. OMG I used to love getting notes from my friends in school. I am pretty sure I still have some of them!! ALso since I have no kids yet, I totally still sleep in on weekends! Loved sleepovers and summer vacation. I totally used to watch the Price is Right too!!!

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  4. Ahhhh....the good old days. lol...I was an expert in note writing in H.S. and I could fold them up like nobody's business.
    I also miss Saturday Morning cartoons. I'd get up super early on Saturdays to watch them.
    http://thebookworm07.blogspot.com/

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  5. I remember thinking in high school that Singled Out was the most brilliant show ever created. How could these relationships fail? They were custom created!

    Impulsive road trips = my life for two years in college. I put 48,000 miles on my car in 18 months. More than once we did weekend turnarounds to Salt Lake City from Phoenix. Sleep as soon as we got home from work- wake up at midnight, drive 9 hours to Salt Lake/ Provo, spend all day Saturday there (usually stopping to annoy somebody at NAU in Flagstaff along the way) and then turn around and drive home on Sunday. Awesome.

    My mom used to let me watch the most ridiculous movies and listen to the worst music. Janet Jackson was the first album I ever bought with my own money. I was, like, 10. It wasn't until I was about 15 that I realized what "smooth and shiny" against her lips meant... awkward.

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