Steam was rising as Vincent and I squabbled, but not because the disagreement itself was heated.
Rather, the verbal jousting was because the now-7-year-old lad, a tad over 4 at the time, quibbled to bits with me over the ingredients for a late-night snack during a sleepover at our house.
I suggested popping corn the old-fashioned way. Always game for an activity, not to mention popcorn, he readily agreed. He headed to the cupboard to snag the microwave popcorn, while I headed to the cabinet to retrieve my old-fashioned, hand-crank popper.
I told him to put the Pop Secret back, because we were going to step back in time. He looked puzzled as I intoned The Judds' song, “Grandpa, tell me ’bout the good old days … ” I suppose even somebody who knew the song would have been puzzled at my tune-challenged rendition, so I'll give you a break and give you the REAL McCoy:
Back to popcornpalooza: Vincent watched intently as I poured oil and salt into the pan but looked even more confused when I poured in the kernels.
“What are those?” he said.
“That's popcorn,” I replied.
“They look like nuts,” he responded.
“They're popcorn kernels,” I persisted.
“Well, they look like nuts,” he insisted.
“Kernels.”
“Nuts.”
Oh, nuts: You try to win that circularly cacophonous collision of world views.
But like I said, the argument itself wasn’t steamy, but the steam soon hissed from the lid as I turned the crank and the kernels built pressure toward bursting. That’s about the time it dawned on me that he was puzzled because he never had even seen real kernels . His only popcorn experiences had been with pre-packaged microwave corn or the big buckets I buy at theaters. (It wasn’t all that long ago that popping for the large bucket earned free refills, but that bubble seems to have burst with real estate and everything else monetary these days, reducing my stock in theater corn faster than my 4019(k).)
Well, that night, Vincent was able to time-travel to see how grandpa did it in the good old days.
When I die, I think I'll leave him that old popper so he can show off someday, when one of his own grandkids approaches him and says, “Grandpa, tell me ’bout the good old days …”
He, too, will be able to demonstrate that there is a kernel of truth about the good old days.
Similarly, not long ago, I was rummaging through a closet and ran across another relic: an old record player. I resolved to take Vincent, then 6, Jack, 4, and Luke, 2, on a spin down memory lane, back B.C.D, as in Before CD’s.
It would be a slow spin, because the only albums I have in those musty old boxes are the big 33-and-a-third rpms.
But Vincent and Jack surprised me, and spoiled my surprise, when I cockily pulled out a big, black disc and trumpeted, “I bet you don’t know what THIS is.”
“It’s a record,” Jack said nonchalantly.
“How do you know?” I said, as deflated as a beach ball that had landed on a piece of sharp coral.
Vincent chimed in that their pre-school teacher played platters on a little record player.
Sigh, so records aren’t yet a foreign concept to that generation, but I bet eight-track players would be. Unfortunately, I don’t have one of them; never did.
We still had fun with that old player, as I carefully put the platter on the turntable and set it spinning. I demonstrated how to put the needle down, ever so gently.
The lesson was lost on Vincent, though, when he asked how to change songs, and I said I would move the needle. He tried himself, scratching it across the record in the antiquated “seek” mode we take for granted these days.
Gently, I took his hand and said, “GENTLY, because the needle will scratch the record.”
It’s sad that one generation’s advances wipe out previous ones’ fond memories. Well, not in EVERY case. I can’t say as I miss outhouses all that much. My experience with them was limited, but I do recall how uncomfortable they were on a cold winter’s night. Even if you didn’t have to sit down, it wasn’t much fun bundling up to trek out into the snow to commune with nature. And I’ve grown accustomed to other comforts, in addition to Charmin Plus (with ALOE!), such as air conditioning, automatic transmissions, multi-CD changers, cell phones and texting. Well, scratch the texting like the needle on an old record. I have gone textual only a couple of times because I just can’t get a handle on it.
On the other hand, it’s sad that some day, kids won’t know the fall-off-the-fork, melt-in-your-mouth texture of a slow-cooked roast. Or even the days before computers, when we relied on directions to get from point A to point B. Everything is point and click these days.
For instance, one of Vincent’s delights is our trips to the hobby shop, where he toy trains transfix him. Occasionally, he’ll con me into buying a train book or snag a free catalog that he will pore over until it falls apart.
One day, he was bugging his mom to go to the hobby shop. Apparently, he assumed she didn’t know how to get there, even though they have to drive past the shop to get to our house.
“Just call Papa Mike,” he said. “Ask him for the address, and you can Mapquest it.”
I guess that puts a whole new, modern spin on the saying that the pleasure isn’t in the destination, but in the journey.
If only we could Mapquest our lives as easily, eh?
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