Sweet

The Internet 

Remember when you would have a discussion with someone and a question would come up that neither of you knew the answer to?  You would banter back and forth about who played so and so in a movie or what team Dale Murphy retired with, and odds are one of you would say that you needed to look it up but if it wasn’t too important you would just go on about your normal life and forget about it.  Taking the time to look for a book at the library or flip through the pages of an encyclopedia wasn’t always easy and that was just the way things were, and we were happy.  Speaking of encyclopedias, remember those?  One day I will show my daughters encyclopedias and explain to them that these were Google before Google was born.  This was were you found answers to questions and if what you were looking for didn’t fit in one of those books you would have to get into your car and drive to a library.  Libraries were whole buildings full of books that you could go to and learn stuff (at this point I will contemplate breaking down catalog cards and the DeweyDecimal system but realize that I have already blown their minds enough).

It is pretty amazing to see how much things can change in a relatively short amount of time.  There is no longer any tolerance for not knowing something because the internet lives in your pocket or in the computer in your house somewhere.  There is no more wondering what movie or show you recognize that actress from or having to find a newspaper to see when a movie is playing (funny, one day I will probably have to explain what a newspaper was too).  The internet is super sweet.  They may have been amazing to us as kids but my parent’s stories about when Coke only cost a nickel kind of pale in comparison to the stories we will tell our children about giant phones attached to buildings that you would have to put money in to use.   Sure there is a lot about the internet that isn’t perfect but something that puts the 1989 Heisman trophy winner, a recipe for buffalo chicken dip, and adorable cat videos right at your fingertips is pretty sweet.  Even sweet enough to tolerate the new Facebook.  if you have small kids, what do you think will blow them away the most when you tell them about how their parents grew up in the olden days?

Weak

Grandparent Names 

I promise I am not trying to make fun of  baby boomers any particular generation, but do you remember when we called our grandparents grandma or grandpa or some close variation of those terms?  As a parent of young children with lots of friends in the same boat I have made an observation that there are fewer and fewer grandmas and more and more Nanas and Mimis and Yayas etc.  I don’t want to come off critical but it is kind of a funny observation.  Our parent’s generation is incredibly youthful and all of the new grandparent terms fit them well.  I wonder though, is this just something I see in my circle of friends or are we going to have to change the words to that “over the river and through the woods” song.  If you have kids, what do they call their grandparents?  This may not really be something that is weak but I have already kind of trapped myself into this format so there you go.