Ah, the Good Old Days!

  

 

 

Lend an ear, my young friend, while I sit in my recliner and recall the good old days that I miss so much. A time when all the men wore fedoras (including plague doctors) and the women vacuumed up pearls from the living room carpet. I ask you, where did all that elegance go? 

 

We may not have had the latest technology, but we could communicate just fine through improvised “phones” made from rusted tin cans and lengths of barbed wire. We may not have had bikes to ride, but we did have unicycles made of junkyard tires, that we’d tie together to make one treacherous “vehicle” careening through town. We didn’t follow dangerous internet trends like the Tide Pod Challenge. No, we came up with MUCH MORE dangerous ideas, all by ourselves! Life in those bygone days was pretty rough and tumble, but you know what? We survived! Except for those of us who didn’t.

 

Instead of modern fancy-schmancy colleges, we all attended Ye Olde Schoole of Harde Knockes, learning to construct catapults with which to hurl projectiles over castle walls, in anticipation of lucrative careers as knights. We were so proud, clanking down the street in our shiny suits of chain mail! Can you imagine going through the TSA checkpoint at Newark Airport wearing those today? You would be laughed at for sure. Then probably arrested.

 

My grandchildren are not allowed to hitchhike on the turnpike. They are forbidden to throw lawn darts at one another while jumping on a trampoline. Nor do their overprotective parents permit 2 AM swims in the old abandoned quarry. What a shame. Those poor kids will never experience the thrill of being picked up by a psychopath in a windowless van, the exhilaration of surviving a catastrophic backyard fall while bleeding from dart wounds, and the joy of almost (but not quite) drowning in 30 feet of frigid, inky-black water.  

 

I cherish the memories of my band of buddies roaming freely through our neighborhood, those jolly games of pickup baseball, and the informal mastodon hunts.  We used our bats instead of spears, and believe you me, those prehistoric beasts stayed clobbered! We’d play until it was time for our late-night quarry swim, and no one ever came looking for us. With households averaging 40 kids, only the most doting parent could keep track of everyone. In the interest of simplicity, we were all named Gorg. 

 

Now, in 2026, I am a stranger in a strange land. My skills as a rower on a Viking longship are no longer marketable, and it seems no one wants to hear me play “Babylonian Rhapsody” on my Mespotamian lyre anymore. I’m just whiling away the centuries, waiting for my final journey to Elysium Fields. Or New Jerusalem. Or the Happy Hunting Ground. One of those places.

 

Thanks for listening, kiddo. 

 

Say, how about we go grab some rotten meat that has been heavily spiced to cover the smell? 

Gorg’s treat!

 

Not hungry?

 

That’s OK. More for me.

image by Echonn on Pixabay