Heart and Mind

"I Remember When..." / The Popcorn Chapter

"Why do you have so many double titles?" you may ask. Heck, I sometimes have triple titles on Heart and Mind. It's because I usually start out talking about a general concept and then talk specifically about an example of the aforementioned concept. So the essay becomes about both. They both need to share the billing, because some people may remember "that one time he wrote about how we've all turned into people who say 'I remember when...' " And others may remember, "Didn't he once started ranting about popcorn?" Or, of course, most people won't remember at all. But if someone did remember, no one would ever know that the blog entry "I Remember When," was actually the one that was also about Popcorn. And vice-versa. I've had trouble tracking down my own stuff because of this reason! So, I'm sticking to the double tiles, like this one has. Let's begin....

So, I'm about to turn thirty-five. That will make be "over the hill" of the thirties, which means I'm heading downhill towards the official mark of being "over the hill," which is 40. It goes by quickly, indeed. It seems like just yesterday, although it was about a year ago, that I was musing on Heart and Mind about the thoughts in my head related to anticipation of birthday thirty-four. Thirty-four? Ha! That's old, just about done. These years go by like a great meal at a restaurant. Over before you know it...

Angela from TrippySwell recently said in one of her blog notes, "I feel old." I liked it. I could relate. And to those of my regular blog readers who are about my age (and that's a good percentage of you guys), we are getting old. That probably sounds melodramatic to people who are much older than we are, because it's not like we're exactly elderly. But we are certainly not young.

Am I depressing anyone? It should be depressing. It doesn't really depress me. I'm OK with it most of the time.

But it is a fact, and it's a fact I recognize all the time, but not for the reasons you might think. It's not because I look older and my physical appearance is showing unflattering signs of aging. It's not because I am uncool and not down with youthful culture. It's none of those things.

The biggest reminder of my not-so-young-anymore status is my propensity to reflect on how much shit has happened in my lifetime, and about how much antiquated stuff is part of my firsthand experience.

I could start a million stories by saying, "When I was growing up...." or "I actually remember when...." or "Back then..." And then I can finish those lines by talking about how stuff used to be. Just like all the people in older generations used to do to me. They were sometimes called "war stories." "Steven, did you know that I can remember before there was television and we used to listen to shows on the radio instead?"

Well, of course, in my generation, we never lived without TVs. But I most certainly did live with black and white TVs. And with TVs that went from 2 to 13, with a knob and a letter "U" where the 1 should have been. And TVs that showed disco programing, since I actually can remember when disco (and the "Disco Sucks" rally cry) was current and not some relic of the past. And, of course, I remember when MTV was brand new, and turning on the TV with this new funny box and thinking, "What the heck is this? A radio station on TV that also shows pictures of the music?"

Folk, this shit is for real. If any of this kind of thing rings a bell with you, you should know that there are people who you are working with RIGHT NOW who would be so blown away by what we're saying because these other ADULTS that we're possibly sitting at work with know of no existence without cable or MTV. I've become the old lady who told me that they used to listen to prime-time shows on the radio.

I have firsthand knowledge of lots of stuff that is so long gone that it is the equivalent of the civil war: it seems so long ago that today it is only academic.

I think I'm going to have a lot of blog entries this year about this stuff. Maybe I'll call them the "I Remember" series.

I invariably have and will continue to hit the big ones in the course of my other conversations (cell phones, email, iPods, etc. replacing the stuff that things that were there "when I was growing up"). But there are a lot of other, smaller, lesser important ones to talk about, too. Like popcorn.

Yup. Popcorn. I had some tonight. First time in years. It got me thinking, popcorn is a pretty overrated snack. It's kind of boring and falls into that, "You eat it because it's there (or because you're in a movie theatre)" category. But I remember when popcorn at home was sort of a big deal. Well, not quite "call the neighbors and send a press release" big, but it was kind of a bigger deal, certainly bigger than potato chips or other salty snacks. You didn't have popcorn at your house that often because you either needed to eat Jiffy Pop (which required use of the stove) or you needed to have a popcorn popper, which not everyone did. And even if you did have one, you weren't breaking it out every day. Of course, this is all a symptom of the larger story, which is that it was a pre-microwave-oven world. And I could talk about that for another 6000 words, but lets focus on the popcorn.

Not only would you have to get the popcorn popper out, but you had to melt butter if you wanted to go that route (and who didn't?). And melting butter was more of a pain back then because...yup...pre-microwave!

Post-microwave, they came out with what is still the norm today: the frieken' bags with the pre-buttered-flavor baked in that you just throw in the microwave for 45 seconds. So easy, so convenient, and with less fat than chips.

You guys may not remember this, but there was a HUGE popcorn boom for a while. When those microwavable bagged kernels came out, people when NUTS for them, DESPITE THE FACT THAT POPCORN STILL IS NOT THAT GREAT OF A SNACK. Now, if they could market kernels that popped into pints of Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream of something, then you could see the appeal! But popcorn was such a pain-in-the-ass turned easy that people freaked out and started eating tons of bagged popcorn.

Every office in America at 3:30 smelled like butter, because bored workers would want something to munch to pass the time. College students lined up at microwaves in dorms across America to pop the stuff so they could have something to eat while watching TV. And every home had a few bags of popcorn as a staple item in the house. You may not remember it, but it happened!

Why? Because popcorn was a neat little treat (even if not all that exciting) that you could only have at home once in a while, but now you could have it in 45 seconds with no cleanup, no fuss, no muss. And people loved it. It was like they were beating the system.

These days, no one cares anymore, because we all are used to easy popcorn and that has cleared our heads enough to make us realize that, frankly, popcorn is kind of a lame snack.

posted by Steve @ 11:17 PM