Nostalgia

“Goonies never say die!”

I am nostalgic for…

1.1 Weekend breakfast: pancakes, salted butter, maple syrup, bacon, morning paper, newsprint on my fingertips, conversation.

1.2 Speaking of newspapers…newspapers: with local news and commentary and not just superficial newswire feeds. Sunday comics with new Calvin & Hobbes strips.

1.3 Marx Brothers movies: witty dialogue merged with slapstick comedy and musical talent. When acting was more than just good looks and special effects.

1.4 NES: insert the cartridge, push the power button, and start playing. No logins, menus to navigate, ads to watch, updates to download: just playing.

1.5 Comic books: When you could walk in with $5 and walk out with 5 comics. 4-color process newsprint, no variant covers, no thought of ‘collectability’.

1.6 Saturday morning cartoons: 4+ hours straight of cartoons, commercials about GI Joes and Transformers, eating sugary cereals while in pajamas.

1.7 Star Wars: When there was only the original trilogy, before the George Lucas alterations.

1.8 Originals: Not a remake, prequal, reboot…the OG…good story as opposed to marketing push to get a new generation hooked on an overpriced theme park.

1.9 Unplugged: Not just music, but actually being unplugged and not constantly scrolling social feeds. F*#! the noise.

2.0 Mixed Tapes: Curated playlists not from AI but listening for songs on the radio, record them, or dub from another tape to make, and trade them with friends.

2.1 Debate: The ability to actually discuss a topic with a person having a different viewpoint, instead of immediately descending into name-calling or complete meltdown. Being adults and not toddlers for a change.

2.2 Buttons: no touch screens, just physical buttons. Want to change the radio station? Adjust the temperature? There’s a button for that, not a nested menu on a touchsreen the size of my first TV obstructing my view on the dash.

2.3 Gear Shifters: Physical gear shifters that follow the age-old established interface convention of P-R-N-D that provides physical feedback and located in a conventional, visible location. It should not take reading the manual to figure out how to shift a gear. Automotive engineers…stop being stupid.

2.4 Manual Operation: Why do I need a power lift gate? What fundamentally am I gaining from the few seconds I don’t spend manually opening it? Am I squandering those seconds somewhere else in my day where there is no net gain? Minivans are the worse, the power sliding doors take a lifetime to open and close. The manual version opened as fast or slow as your muscle power allowed. Manual operation means I never have to worry about replacing some electronic component. It just works, all the time.

2.5 Neon Colors: Everyone is too serious, everything is an existential threat, crisis, end of humanity, drama-filled panic attack. We could all use some whimsical neon in our life and just keep calm and carry on. I find this is easier to do the older I get because I’ve heard this broken record now for over 40 years and yet…life moves on.

*Several of these seem to relate to cars. Guess I’m never upgrading. Frame up restoration is a thing.

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