High School reunions can be a competitive sport. At early reunions, classmates compete with each other about jobs and income; at the 25th, its house and children. After that they brag about their grandchildren and vacation homes, while regarding with envy or glee, classmates waistlines, hairlines and wrinkle lines.
'Tis said there are three ages of women; youth, middle and, and "you haven't changed a bit". But change is the name of the game, consider 1950 before the pill and population explotion, which, inexplicable, went hand-in-hand, so to speak.
We were before television, polio shots, and Frisbees. Before frozen food, Xerox, Kinsey, credit cards and ballpoint pens. For us, time-sharing meant togetherness not condominiyms; a chip meant a piece of wood, and harware meant hardware and software wasn't a word. We were before pantyhose, drip-dry clothes, icemakers, fireplace inserts adn microwave ovens. Before Hawaii and Alaska were states. Before men wore long hair and earrings and women wore tuxedos. We were before Leonard Bernstein, yogurt, diet pop, Ann Landers, hair dryers, the 40 hour work week, and the minimum wage. We got married first, then lived together.
Closets were for clothes, not for coming our of, and a book about two young women living together in Europe could be called "Our hearts were young and gay". In those days bunnies were little rabbits and rabbits were not Volkswagens. We were before Grandma Moses, Star WArs, Doonesbury, The Beatles, Rugolf the Red-nosed Reindeer and Snoopy. Before K-Mart, shopping malls, the white wine craze, disposable diapers, E.T., the Susan B. Anthony dollar and herpes.
When we were in high school, Cheerios, instant coffee and McDonald's were never heard of. We thought fast food was what you ate during lent.
We were before Gorgeous Gearge, Johnny Carson, J.D. Salinger and Trivial Pursuit. Before FM raidio, electric typewriters, word processors, Mazak, electronic music, tape recorders, disco dancing and break dancing.
In our day, cigarette smoking was fashionable, grass was mowed, coke was something you drank and pot was something you cooked in. We were befroe day care centers, computer dating and dual careers, the term "making out" referred to how you did on your exam.
In our time there were five and ten cent stores where you could buy things for five and ten cents. For just one nickel you could ride the bus or make a phone call or buy a coke, or buy enought stamps to mail one letter or two postcards. If anyone in those days had asked us to explain Ms., NATO, UFO, SS, JFK, ERO, IUD, OR AIDS, we would have said alphabet soup.