What has changed for the worse since you were younger?--Al

-- Al Schroeder (al.schreoder@nashville.com), July 16, 2000

Answers

Definitely, my bod.

Peaches and cream complexion has flown the coop. Tight abs have disolved into a flabby tummy. Wrinkles are appearing on my forehead and around my eyes. My hands are starting to look more and more like my mother's!

I'm for Pete's sake, I'm only 32!

-- Katie (missmermaid@hotmail.com), July 17, 2000.

You are right Al, you can't go home again, just where it once was. Frequently when out on errands taking me through town I will drive through my old neighborhood some of the buildings are the same, with vastly different tenants and some are the modern monstrosities you speak of perpetrated by insensitive someone whether owner or architect. The old nabe movie house three blocks from home has been torn down for lofts. One look in the mirror tells me that I am the worse for wear, hell I can tell that by my feeling. Things that are worse, courtesy, consideration for the feelings of others, respect, speaking so fast that the B.S. flies over your head. Fruit and vegetables that are grown to be good shippers - - - and that is about all - - - tasteless and tough, skins like leather. The sense of leisurely ease that pervaded town on Sunday - - - replaced by cars zipping along over speed limit. There is more, but someone else will take up the gauntlet.

-- Denver doug (ionoi@webtv.net), July 17, 2000.

Well, yes, my body too. But more on the concrete level..."concrete" funny term. Concrete. I used to spend summers with my cousin in her family's lovely home out in the country, where horses were boarded next door and where we walked down the road in the middle of the street because no cars ever came. We walked dirt roads to the store. Now the place is a bloody strip mall and I can't even find the house. I miss the days when there was "open spaces." Even in the town where we have lived for the past 27 years, we have lost open space and have acquired very expensive ticky tacky (remember Malvine Reynolds?).

Manners have changed for the worse since I was younger. Grammar is all but dead, a fact which we can find on the Internet every single day (thank goodness for Journals, which really seem to be preserving the art of the written language!)

San Francisco has changed since I was a kid. The views are still there, the feel of "my" city is gone. Fisherman's Wharf has become Disneyland. I hate it.

But the upside is...when I was a kid we had never heard of computers. Would I go back? I don't think so.

-- Bev Sykes (basykes@dcn.davis.ca.us), July 17, 2000.

It seems that childcare has definatly become something commercialized. Sure I had babysitters as a kid, but my neice and nephew go to day care even when their mother has the day off, and now day cares have buses that take kids to and from those karate lessons, dance lessons, etc. that kids have. My Mom worked, but she was always at those lessons watching and I sure as hell didn't go to day care on her day off. As a teacher dealing with sick, vomiting kids still sent to school, I wonder if it was always this way for some, or if it's just getting worse over time...

-- AJ (joijoijoi@hotmail.com), July 17, 2000.

Holidays......Holidays have gotten worse. The commercialization. The selling of Christmas. I go to the store to buy Thanksgiving supplies, and Christmas supplies are in the next aisle. The television commercials push expensive toys, and parents get mean and crazy trying to find the latest "thing". Fights break out in the toy section of Wal Mart, for Pete's sake.

"e-toys" and "toy smart" have my credit card number. I've uploaded, downloaded, installed more memory and bought the periferals for the latest gizmo. And that's just for the kids......

It's July - oh my goodness! I better start my Chirstmas shopping! (NOT).

-- Planet Earth (imagine@industrial-ideas.com), July 18, 2000.