Window shopping. A foreign concept in the perception of a 20-year-old budding digital designer to whom things like drive-ins and garage parties and typewriters and floppy discs belong to another era.
Accosted by the retail-activated bombardment that accompanies the trappings of a mall, a flashback reminded going window shopping in the main street with the family on the odd Saturday afternoon. It was a thing to park the car and walk a block or two viewing and debating the merchandise on display in attractively dressed-up shop windows. That was before the slamming of roller shutters at the end of a trading day started coming down to keep burglars out and one still felt safe strolling about the centre of town on a lazy weekend.
Going to watch King Kong at the drive-in, having to manually roll down the window of a vehicle not fitted with air-conditioning, packing padkos (snack hampers for the road) long before the arrival of one-stop convenience stores along the highway, stores keeping limited shopping hours and no ready-made meals to buy. Unthinkable. But there's more. Encyclopaedias being the only reference material for school projects, getting your fingers snatched in an old-school typewriter, saving stuff on floppy drives, tablets only being associated with medicine prescribed by doctors who still made house calls, games played on big-box television sets, collect calls from phone booths on street corners, going through a central exchange to be connected via a telephone link, playing records on the turntable in the corner of the living area and dark rooms processes bringing black and white photos to life.
Our lives have become synonymous with express check-out. Measures, methods, systems, policies, tools, tricks and hacks make us go even faster. We embrace computers in varying sizes, the internet and its cloud formations, live streaming of events, cell phones, tracking devices, take-out deliveries via speed dial and hair colour in a box.
Some things have stayed the same and my son can relate to commodities and concepts that have stood the test of time, although in certain instances in not quite the same format. Air travel. German-inspired driving technology. Stunt shows at the circus. Rollerblades and skateboards. Hard copy books from brick-and-mortar stores and libraries, where relevant. Correction fluid and sticky tape. The Rubik’s Cube. Barbie, Ken and Tarzan. Bean bags. That single brand of chewing gum and individually wrapped chocolate in shocking pink packaging. Microwave popcorn and soda to liven up the movie marathon on his laptop. Paper umbrellas in cocktail glasses. Hamburgers and chips. Outdated roadhouses that somehow re-emerged as modern-day drive-throughs. Blue jeans and sneakers.
Noteworthy is that ice cream cake isn't what it used to be and the vintage kombi that passes through the neighbourhood on summer afternoons, tempting kids with cones as it plays its familiar tune, don’t get me all excited anymore like in my young days.
I remember the world as a different place back then. Trust was a big thing. Incidents of crime were few and far between. Adults took up their responsibilities. Some children were seen and not heard, yet still not hurt. They were not allowed to play adult games or had easy access to lethal substances. Families mostly stuck together. Invitations were extended or meetings scheduled long in advance and got honoured. Phone calls didn’t go unreturned for no reason. And a handshake sealed a deal.
Change is what we're certain of.
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