The Good ‘Ole days
While going to garage sales with my mom we found a toy Annabelle just couldn’t let go of. It was a Fisher Price telephone that is a remake of a 50s toy. Although I too am too young to have known the original toy, I wasn’t sure Annabelle even knew what a phone was. Although she will be a year in about two weeks, the only phone I’ve ever seen her play with was my iPhone. Not actually the rotary-dial phone this toy portrayed.
It made me think of all things Annabelle might not ever experience, except for maybe in a museum. Would she ever hear the scratch of a new needle hitting the vinyl on an old record player or hear the clicking between each tune on an 8-track player? Even cassette tapes are considered out-of-date these days and CDs are on the fast track of being yesterdays news. Will she grow up with an MP3 player or will she have something completely different? It seems to funny to think of future technology when I can barely keep up with what is already out today.
My mom had been cleaning through the basement and found all of our childhood records. “Masters of the Universe” and “Care Bears” stood out in the stack, along with the “Monstermash” and the ones McDonald’s used to give away. And I wonder if Annabelle will ever be able to do the “graveyard smash” like we did.
It is kind of nice to have “retro” items back “in” today. With Care Bears and Rainbow Brite back on the shelves, Annabelle and I have a shared love of toys. Although the news ones are slightly different from the characters I grew to love, it’s still fun to see her smile at Strawberry Shortcake and I find myself smiling myself.
However, simpler days seem few and far between these days. Sometimes I really miss the quieter times of my childhood and wish my daughter could play summer hide-n-seek outside in the dark with six of her very best neighborhood friends. Those are memories I’ll never forget and she’ll probably never have. It’s sad to think in such a short time (I’m 26-years-old) things could change so much. To think playing our game of hide-n-seek with a six-house boundary late at night was dangerous was absurd back then. I would never let Annabelle do it today.
In the fast-pace technology world, I can’t even imagine the things Annabelle will experience, but I vow to keep our record player playing and keep around that one boom box to play old cassette tapes on. Maybe one day she can do the “mash” too!
