Did
you know, I said to my fellow car travellers, that there are two
types of plankton: phyto and zoo? Or that the commute to work,
according to psychology studies, affects a woman's mental health more
than it does a man?
I'm
always doing that: throwing in unrelated scraps of information
gleaned from other sources, not to impress but to see if they kindle
the same curiosity as they have in me. They don't usually, because
what should the response be? A polite hmm interesting...or why? and
other questions you may or may not have an answer for. As a
conversational topic, they're a bit of a non-starter. As are most
things I tend to spend time ruminating on.
Like
the realisation that came many months ago that younger generations
won't get to know or know of certain experiences. The experiences
that I was able to have even though they were on the way out,
already being done away with. Not then rare but harder to find and
now, some if not most, very much extinct. Like what?
Slam-door
trains, where in motion with the windows down a pleasant breeze wafts
through the carriage, and where to alight you had to release the
catch on the outside and sometimes required help from a guard or
fellow passenger; jumping on and off an old Routemaster, the
conductor with his ticketing machine manning the platform as you ran
alongside and hopped on, before ringing the bell to let the driver
know it was safe to increase his speed; travelling on the back seat
of a car without a seatbelt, even lying stretched out, and feeling
every jolt and jog of the road; the squeaky ribbon-sound of cassette
and VHS tapes as you continually rewound or fast-forwarded to the
beginning or to your favourite place; black and white television with
their flickering chalky grey images; and being without a mobile phone
or any device with no fear of missing out.
And
I haven't mentioned food, the meals that were still around and the
ready-made products that came in but have since left: Findus Crispy
Pancakes; Lean Cuisine; a roast dinner for one inside a Yorkshire
pudding; fried Spam and opening its tin with the key; and pub-served
scampi and chips with a wedge of lemon and a bit of salad garish. I
won't start on confectionery because we'll be here all day and those
around still aren't made the same anyway. Tastes change and recipes
alter.
There's
a reason most of these disappeared into a fog as thick and as
billowing as that of a steam engine: a moving with the times, a new
law, a new competitor etc. I haven't said any of those I've
mentioned, nor neglected to, were necessarily good for you, they were
just part of the fabric of life or became part of it for the period
they were there. And looking back now, as we all do at some point,
then seems more freeing somehow. The avalanche of choice and new
technology (along with workers rights and feminism) had begun but it
wasn't as it is now. And everything that we still have was in a
different form, more rudimentary, more primitive even. Just as if you
compared my decades of growing with my parents' during the 1950s, 60s
and 70s. Every subsequent generation has a lot to be thankful for, or
not as the case may be, but like that cliché: only time will tell.
Perhaps
that's why vinyl has never really gone away. Because there's
something about carefully positioning the needle and the unavoidable
scratch, as well as something hypnotic about watching a record turn.
I think, these days, it takes less time i.e. at an earlier stage to
catch yourself thinking: it was good then.
In
other moments I find myself considering what else might go, what else
might go that I enjoy, no, not enjoy, appreciate: the smell of wood
smoke on the wind because burning wood will be banned; the revving of
engines because electric and driver-less cars have a even quieter
character than their modern fuel-guzzling counterparts; and picking
and squeezing (for ripeness) fruit and vegetables because lately that
activity has been viewed with suspicion, or maybe it's just my
execution of it.
And
what else...? so that decades on, myself or someone else, will turn
to you and say: Did you know...? Do you remember...?
Picture credit: Time Smoking a Picture, William Hogarth (source: WikiArt).
All posts published this year were penned during the last.
