Three aspects of modern life that would have amazed my 8-year-old self

This isn't me in the late 70s, but given the tube socks and the somewhat confused expression, it could have been.
 

I was born in 1969, making me a relatively early Gen Xer. The world in which I grew up in the 1970s and 80s was a very analog one. Everything was bigger and clunkier. It was just a different time.

If you took 1978 Scott and transported him into the world of 2025, here are three things he would immediately notice:

(1) Cars are quieter and less smelly

When I was little, cars ran on regular leaded gasoline. That gas produced a certain kind of exhaust, the smell of which was different from the smell most cars emit today. It was heavier, more industrial, and more (I guess) "gas-like." Cars were also generally louder, even the ones with good mufflers. You could hear a car coming from a greater distance than you can today. Right away, 8-year-old Scott would be impressed by your low-noise, low-exhaust cars of the future.

(2) There aren't as many cords and wires everywhere

The first place I ever remember seeing a wireless television remote was, I believe, my Uncle Still and Aunt Jean's house in North Carolina. We visited there in 1976, and they had this space-age clicker that changed the channel with no physical connection to the TV. I couldn't understand how it worked, though I'm sure it was primitive compared with the remotes of today. We didn't have a remote of any kind in our house at the time, and even the ones we got when cable TV came along four years later had these long, gray cords that cluttered up living rooms and basements across America. The wireless revolution has made us forget how most things needed cords to operate back then.

(3) Smoking? Not nearly the thing it once was

I've written about this before. Many (even most) adults you knew were smokers back when I was a kid. Both of my parents smoked. So did Terry's parents. Heck, we made our moms and dads ashtrays in art class as presents. People smoked in most public places, including malls and grocery stores. You just kind of got used to the smell, though I certainly never liked it...and to this day I've never even tried it. 1978 Scott would wonder where all the clouds of cigarette smoke and  the cig vending machines had gone in 2025. And as someone who was anti-smoking from a very early age, he would love it.

BLOG RERUN: Things I miss and don't miss about growing up in the 70s and 80s

NOTE: This post originally ran here on the blog 11 years ago today (August 12, 2013, for the calendar-challenged). I bring it back now because I still miss and don't miss these things.

Things I Miss

Fantasy Island

There have been some good shows on TV in the past 50 years, but none have matched the awesomeness that was Fantasy Island. Saturday nights at 10, as I recall. ABC aired it right after The Love Boat, and I have to believe they dominated the ratings. Mr. Rourke ruled the island with an iron fist ("Smiles, everyone, smiles...NOW."), but it was Tattoo who got the girls. Something about that little guy was apparently irresistible. 

The Sony Walkman

I could walk around and listen to music outside. OUTSIDE. Without carrying a 14-pound boom box. I could go running and listen to music. Or cycling. Or whatever it was we did back then (I can't quite remember how we filled our days, to be honest.) Of course, the music was on cassette. And you had to fast-forward and rewind to get to different songs. And that fast-forwarding and rewinding drained the life from your double-A batteries. But it was revolutionary, don't you understand?

This version of Michael Jackson

I miss that guy.

Things I Don't Miss

People smoking...everywhere

Good Lord, it was terrible. You kids have no idea how good you have it in this department. People just lit up all over the place...in their homes, in their cars, in their offices, in church, etc. OK, maybe not in church. As far as I know. I mean, I didn't go to church in the 70s. The point is, the world smelled like cigarettes. Which is to say the world was disgusting and it stank. The fact that there are still people who smoke amazes me. I just assumed we all collectively came to our senses round about 1997 and that everyone was going to quit. What did I miss?

Four channels of TV

After the iPod and the Keurig coffee maker, I say cable/streaming television is Western Civilization's greatest contribution to the universe over the past several decades. When I was growing up in Cleveland, you had channels 3 (NBC), 5 (ABC), 8 (CBS), and 43 (independent). And at some point there was channel 61, too. And that was it. The reception was bad during storms AND YOU HAD TO GET UP TO CHANGE THE CHANNEL. Who does that? Not us now. Which is why we're all fat. But still...

Rubik's Cube

There wasn't anything intrinsically wrong with Rubik's Cube, other than the fact that I could never solve it. Ever. Even bought a book explaining how to solve it and couldn't understand it. Yet there were people appearing on "That's Incredible" who, given a randomly configured Rubik's Cube, could solve the thing in, like, 12 seconds. Maybe less, I don't remember. All I know is that I was bitter about it then and I'm bitter about it now. DARN YOU AND YOUR DEMONIC INVENTION, ERNO RUBIK!

What I'm willing and not willing to do to live a healthy lifestyle

I like to read books about longevity and health. Dr. Michael Roizen is my favorite author in the space, though there are many others – Drs. Joel Fuhrman and Neil Barnard come to mind – who are also go-to sources for this type of information.

Of course, there's a difference between reading about healthy living and, you know, actually following through on it. If you were to ask people who know me well, they would say I am generally a fairly healthy individual. But I'm more acutely aware of the areas in which I fall short than those in which I'm compliant with the latest recommendations around diet, exercise, stress management, etc.

And now in my early (rapidly approaching middle) 50s, I am largely at peace with it all.

At some point, you have to decide what you're willing to sacrifice in the name of better health and what less-than-healthy indulgences you want to maintain in your life. And connected with that, you have to be ready to accept the consequences of those less-than-healthy choices.

I don't mean to suggest that healthy = boring/difficult/burdensome, by the way. That's not necessarily the case.

But the fact is, many of us naturally prefer the bag of chips over the carrot sticks, and sitting on the couch over getting out and walking.

Over the past 15 years, I've had four what I would call "significant" weight losses of 20 or more pounds each. The biggest of those came in 2016, when I started around 217 and got down as low as 166, which in retrospect was way too low for me.

Yet, if you go by the BMI charts – and believe me, I'm well aware of the limitations of BMI as a measurement of overall health – 166 pounds for someone my height is within 10 pounds of being "overweight." So what's the answer?

As I type this, I'm approaching significant weight loss #5. I've dropped about 17 pounds since the first of September through my method of choice, Weight Watchers. It's a system that works well for me whenever I make up my mind to follow it.

I also benefit from the gender biology of weight loss, in which men generally have an easier time dropping pounds than women do. You ladies get screwed in a lot of ways, and this is one of them.

Last Saturday when I weighed in at the local Weight Watchers studio, the scale read 187.2. My official WW goal weight, as prescribed by my primary care doctor a decade ago, is 185. Once I get there, I'll switch to maintenance mode and try to stay around that number for...well, for the rest of my life.

Because you see, when you're someone who has had a number of successful weight losses, it also means you're someone who each time has put the pounds back on. I have never in my adult life been able to maintain a healthy weight for more than a year at a time. So my next big challenge is learning how to keep myself where I should be in terms of overall body mass.

I'm willing to make the mental and physical sacrifices necessary to do that. In fact, here is a complete list of the things I'm willing to do to live as a healthy person:

• Cardio: I power walk (usually just over 12 minutes/mile) five days a week, generally covering a total of 12 miles every seven days. I'm very consistent with this, and it's largely because I love getting out and moving.
• Eat leafy greens, beans, nuts, fruits and veggies: These are all staples of my daily diet, as they should be.
• Don't smoke: Not a problem. True story - I've never even tried it. Not even once. I have never inhaled smoke from anything and have no desire to try it.
• Keep my weight down: See above.

Those are admirable, but they do not cover all of the bases, health-wise. There are other habits we should be forming if we want to live longer, happier lives, at least from a physical standpoint. Here are the things I should be doing that I'm not:

• Strength training: The truth is, I hate lifting weights. I just despise it. I know I should be doing it, I know it has amazing benefits. Yet I can't seem to get myself to do it with any regularity. It's the one thing on my "bad" list that I hope to change. Maybe it will be my 2023 resolution.
• Meditation: I don't "feel" like I'm stressed, but the recommendation is that we should all be doing something to manage stress in our lives. Deep breathing is another popular technique. I don't make the time to do any of it.
• Getting enough sleep: I rarely sleep more than 7 hours, and most of the time it's more like 6 to 6 1/2 for me. I feel OK, though, or at least I think I feel OK, since there may be a higher level of "OK" of which I'm not even aware that I would experience if I just went to bed earlier. But as well as I sleep, I just don't love it as much as a lot of people do. I would rather be up and doing stuff. If there was a way to live without sleeping, I would jump on it. As it is, I should be getting more shuteye.
• Inserting even more healthy foods into my diet: I love fish, but I rarely eat it. Too much trouble buying and cooking it. I also don't do a good job with the "healthy gut" foods like yogurt, kimchi, etc., nor do I drink nearly enough water.
• Having a social life: I hang out mostly with Terry and my son Jack, the two people with whom I live. You're supposed to have a wider social circle than that, and men in particular tend not to be very good about building and maintaining friendships. I don't know, there doesn't seem to be enough time, though I know the reality is that I could make time if I really wanted.

I could go on, but the point is, I miss the mark on more items health-wise than I hit. That doesn't bother me as much as it used to. I'm doing what I can manage, and if that means a few years off the end of an otherwise healthy and happy life, so be it.

Or at least that's what I say now. Check back with me in another decade or two.

I am, and long have been, an incurable goody two shoes

I want to start by assuring you happy potheads out there that it is pure coincidence I'm writing this post on 4/20. You will see why that's relevant in a minute...

Quite often I see people post "Never have I ever" or "Give yourself 1 point for everything you haven't done" memes on Facebook. These are generally lists of dangerous, illegal, or what are considered to be just plain "bad" activities.

I'm not sure whether to be proud or embarrassed by this, but I always score really high on those lists. While I've written before about some of the stupid stuff my friends and I did as pre-teens, if I'm being honest, I rarely did much of anything morally questionable after that.

Never once in my life have I:

• Smoked anything, whether it was a cigarette, a cigar, a joint, or anything similar. Like, literally, I've never actually performed the act of smoking (and I can't imagine doing it).
• Taken any illegal drugs. No pills, no injections, nothing snorted, and as noted, nothing smoked.
• Been arrested.
• Skipped school.

Not that it's "bad," but I never went clubbing, either. And as far as drinking, yes, I've been drunk, but nowadays I average maybe one drink every month or two, and it's usually a very tame light beer.

Now that I think about it, I'm proud of all of this. Not because I'm " better" than anyone else (I'm most certainly not), but because, for the most part since my teen years, I've always stuck to just being me, and not what anyone else wants me to be or thinks I should be.

I know a lot of people who tell stories about their younger years and the things they used to do, and I think it gives them a certain perspective on life that I lack. I could never write novels, for example, because I can't relate to a significant part of some people's lives and therefore could never convincingly write about them.

Part of the reason for all of this, of course, was that I got myself a good woman early on, and she pretty well kept me in line. But also, like I said, none of that is really "me." It would have felt disingenuous for me to indulge in any of it.

Still, I wonder if I should spend some time now sowing my wild oats. There's nothing more attractive than an obnoxiously drunk 51-year-old being pulled out of a bar and thrown into jail for disorderly conduct, right?

Yeah, on second thought...

I live in a little bubble where it's easy to forget there are still people who smoke

Like many people of my generation, I grew up in a house where both parents smoked. That was just kind of the way it was. Many teachers smoked, store clerks smoked, and even your little league coaches smoked. It seemed like most adults smoked.

There was never actually a time, though, when "most" U.S. adults smoked. The peak year for American smoking, according to several sources, was 1965, when a reported 45% of Americans 18 or older were regular smokers. That figure has since fallen to about 14% as of 2019.

By all accounts, that's a good thing. Smoking remains "the leading cause of preventable disease, disability, and death in the United States," says the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Common sense tells you it's simply not a good thing to do to your body.

(I do, however, still love the quote from Ricky Romano, a neighborhood kid with whom I grew up who seemingly smoked from the time he was in early elementary school. When my friend Kevin said to him, "Hey, Rick, smoking causes cancer," Rick calmly replied, "Ice cubes cause cancer.")

Still, 14% of U.S. adults is a lot of people, something along the lines of 34 million individuals. And the thing is, I rarely see any of them actually doing it.

I work for a non-smoking company, so there aren't people standing outside of our buildings puffing away (though a few do congregate across the street to light up). No one in my family smokes, thankfully. And with most indoor public spaces now designated as no smoking areas, it's not like it used to be in the 70s when housewives would smoke while pushing their carts up and down the aisles of grocery stores.

The effect is that, when I see someone smoking or smell it as a car passes by, it takes me by surprise for a split second. There's a part of me that wonders every time, "Wait, what's going on?" Then my brain flashes back to 1981 and I realize what's happening. "Oh, he's smoking. That's right! That's still a thing!"

The point, I guess, is it's amazing how different the world is today, and how insulated our individual existences can be that we forget people still engage in an activity we associate with the distant past.

This is one of the few times that I'm mostly grateful for my sheltered life.

Worrying about my health is making me unhealthy

Had he not passed away suddenly in the fall of 1999, my father would have turned 84 years old today.

I'm only being honest when I say I would have been shocked had my dad made it to 84.

For one thing, he smoked for decades. I hated that. I've always hated smoking. I think it's filthy, disgusting and stupid. It's one of the relatively few things that I'm unequivocally against.

Smoking and Cleveland-born Steelers fans. They both rank low on my list.

There were a few years in the early 80s when my dad smoked only pipes, and I could live with that. It wasn't really any healthier than cigarettes, but it definitely smelled better. I loved to open his tobacco pouch and take a whiff.

But he went back to cigarettes sometime later, and I'm sure the little cancer sticks were instrumental in the heart attack that eventually killed him.

He also had a good-sized belly. As far back as I can remember, my dad had that belly. Which isn't a surprise when you consider what he regularly ate (fried meats, straight buttermilk, etc.)

Simply put, he was the product of a time and place where people didn't pay much attention to the dangers of such things, either because they didn't know or they didn't care.

None of this paints a very pretty picture of my dad, but he really was a great guy. And an excellent father. I wouldn't trade the 30 years I had with him for anything.

But there's a part of that is determined not to follow in my father's footsteps.

As I've mentioned here before, I worry quite a bit about my lifestyle. Am I eating right? Am I exercising enough? Is my weight acceptable? How about my cholesterol?

Actually, the fact that I "worry" so much about those things is a bit of a problem. Increasingly, it seems, medical researchers are finding a direct link between the way we manage stress and the length and quality of our existence.

I have quite a bit of stress in my life. Or at least I see it as stress, which is essentially the same thing. I've gotten better in recent years at dealing with it, but I still have a long way to go.

More than once, I've considered taking a tai chi class at our local community center. I could attend eight two-hour classes for just $39, which seems like a good deal. I hear great things about tai chi in terms of its physical, mental, spiritual, and stress-relieving benefits.

But I've never taken the class. Every time a new session starts, I come up with some excuse not to give it a try. "I don't have time," I'll say, or, "The morning runs I do are enough to keep me healthy."

Still, something tells me I'll be needing some outside help in the stress management department. No amount of planning or to-do lists is going to teach me how better to deal with the curveballs that life inevitably throws at each of us.

The thing is, I don't often ask for help in anything. Not for the typical male reasons of pride or anything. It's usually just because asking for help takes time, and I have this illusion that I have no extra time whatsoever.

And it really is just that - an illusion. When people say they don't have time to exercise, you'll often hear personal trainers and doctors reply, "Well, do you have time for clogged arteries and chronic disease? Because that's where you're headed if you don't make time to take care of yourself."

The same holds true for stress. I'm afraid that if I don't make time to learn how to deal with it, it will very quickly catch up with me. And I don't want to think of what that's going to mean.

Of course, this all raises the question of just how long you want to live. Some people justify their unhealthy habits by saying they don't want to get to 95 years old anyway if it means life in a nursing home where you're unable to take care of yourself.

Others will tell you it doesn't need to be that way. That eating well and taking care of yourself will make even the last years of your life happy and relatively healthy.

Whatever the answer, I don't really have a "goal age" in mind. I just want to be around long enough to raise my children, be active with my grandchildren, and maybe see a Cleveland sports team finally win a championship.

I know, I know. I'm getting greedy with that last one.

Things I miss and don't miss from growing up in the 70s and 80s

Things I Miss

Fantasy Island

There have been some good shows on TV in the past 30 years, but none have matched the awesomeness that was Fantasy Island. Saturday nights at 10, as I recall. ABC aired it right after The Love Boat, and I have to believe they dominated the ratings. Mr. Rourke ruled the island with an iron fist ("Smiles everyone, smiles...NOW."), but it was Tattoo who got the girls. Something about that Hispanic dwarf was apparently irresistible. 

The Sony Walkman

I could walk around and listen to music outside. OUTSIDE. Without carrying around a 14-pound boom box. I could go running and listen to music. Or cycling. Or whatever it was we did back then (I can't quite remember how we filled our days, to be honest.) Of course, the music was on cassette. And you had to fast-forward and rewind to get to different songs. And that fast-forwarding and rewinding drained the life from your double-A batteries. But it was revolutionary, darn it! Don't you understand?

This version of Michael Jackson

The one who was still African-American. And wore one glove. And could dance in a way no one had danced before. And, for that matter, was still alive. I miss that guy.

Things I Don't Miss

People smoking...everywhere

Good Lord, it was terrible. You kids have no idea how good you have it in this department. People just lit up all over the place...in their homes, in their cars, in their offices, in church, etc. OK, maybe not in church. As far as I know. I mean, I didn't go to church in the 70s. The point is, the world smelled like cigarettes. Which is to say the world was disgusting and it stank. The fact that there are still people who smoke amazes me. I just assumed we all collectively came to our senses round about 1997 and that everyone was going to quit. What did I miss?

Four channels of TV

After the iPod and the Keurig coffee maker, I say cable television is Western Civilization's greatest contribution to the universe over the past 40 years. When I was growing up in Cleveland, you had channels 3 (NBC), 5 (ABC), 8 (CBS), and 43 (independent). And at some point there was channel 61, too. And that was it. The reception was bad during storms AND YOU HAD TO GET UP TO CHANGE THE CHANNEL. Who does that? Not us now. Which is why we're all fat. But still...

Rubik's Cube

There wasn't anything intrinsically wrong with Rubik's Cubes, other than the fact that I could never solve one. Ever. Even bought a book explaining how to solve it and couldn't understand it. Yet there were people appearing on "That's Incredible" who, given a randomly configured Rubik's Cube, could solve the thing in, like, 12 seconds. Maybe less, I don't remember. All I know is that I was bitter about it then and I'm bitter about it now. DARN YOU AND YOUR DEMONIC INVENTION, ERNO RUBIK!