Vintage

Even though my students no longer look incredulous when I (only half in jest) say that I was already in university when they were born, I still don't get it. Really, I mean. The 80s are as far off now as the 50s were when I was in elementary school. The 50s were Happy Days and sockhops for us, a theme-park of a decade. And the 40s were a fable, some far-off place where our parents were born but left as children to come to the New World and be modern. Even the 1970s seems like the recent past to me, though more and more the catchphrases are seeming odd. When I felt last week that I just never had fun anymore, and grocery shopping by myself qualified as a "day out," I suddenly realized that this is what women meant in the 1970s by taking time to "find yourself." Except no one says that anymore. Ron brought this "vintage" tricycle home from his mum's a few weeks ago. They bought it new for him.