Nostalgia Goggles

“Back in the day.” This was a phrase the older generation used to let us know how different times had become. An all encompassing method to show either disdain for the new normal or a non cynical approval of it. As time stops for no one, it is now time for the millennials to coin it, but before you zoomers and alphas push our other foot into the grave, let’s set a scene. For those who grew up in the early to mid 90’s when we reminisce it’s literally the same shared fever dream of sour candy, explorative bike riding, stolen bike recovery missions, everlasting summers and a plethora of vibrant colors. By vibrant, I mean that sometimes I would wake up and see the light beams shining through the blinds of me and my brothers window creating a shimmer on anything it touched. The fishbowl on the dresser, the plastic container for the moldable goop material we bought from k-mart a couple days prior, and especially the gaming console sitting right under the tv, all had halo’s around them. It didn’t hurt that it looked as if a can of paint had exploded in our room, spelling out wacky signs, splashing our clothes and shoes.

The color palette

Gadzooks! A popular store now defunct store in the 90’s had one of the most vibrant signs in the mall…or at least that was what I remembered. After looking back through the history of the store it was just a simple red neon sign. That might have just been that child like wonder but there were in fact many places which were pastel hell’s. Bowling alleys, skating rings, and even a Taco Bell or two, which if you live in a small enough town you might still have one or all of those. The colors weren’t just resigned to carpeted walls and fast food interior design. These colors were everywhere; on walls, toys, trapper keepers, notebooks pencil boxes, TV show intros and clothing. “Turn the volume down on that shirt,” a telltale sign that your shirt was brighter than your future.

The Fear

Sure, we had a few anthologies series to make our skin crawl, more slashers than you could count, haunted dolls, zombies, even alien clowns. Those were all pretty spooky but there was nothing more scary but for the most part were fiction. The real horror was the fear that you would get snatched off the street, never to be seen again. Maybe in an episode of one of those anthology series.

“Don’t talk to strangers, don’t meet people on the internet and never get into a stranger’s car.” Seems silly now given that you can’t function socially in society today without doing at least two of those things. Before cell phones and tracking devices the only way for anyone to find you was a combination of you being where you said you were going to be and the dad whistle. The dad whistle was a noise so distinct and alarming that you could recognize it from a block over. You had approximately 5 minutes to respond because if you had to have multiple whistles then trouble wouldn’t be too far behind.

On the flip side of that, getting snatched up was a genuine fear. The adults made it seem like every stranger, every van, every piece of free candy was a trap. Although that wasn’t always the case, unfortunately there were a few times someone with ill intent actually kidnapped someone. So if you weren’t able to be tracked by a cell phone, an air tag or the dad whistle we had Indent-a-kid. It was founded in the mid 80’s and was essentially a small id card with your picture, fingerprint, parent’s or guardian’s name, and address. There was also that badass eagle on the top of it, which made it feel official. It was supposed to help you out if you ever got lost somewhere or worst case you drop it running away from a stranger with candy and now they can use their van to find your house.

You know what was worse than free candy? Free drugs. D.A.R.E (Drug abuse resistance education). We were made to believe that every day would be a constant struggle of denying free drugs from strangers in trenchcoats. All it took was one time and it was over for you, at least according to the after school specials. The war on drugs was a real problem which put a lot of people in jail for things that are a common place nowadays. With that said let’s go into some real fear.

This one will be a little more specific to a certain demographic and may not be as humorous as other topics. That being going to jail. In every form of media, the worst thing to happen to you even in comedies was being sent to jail. For some of us however that was a legitimate fear as sometimes all you had to do was be somewhere and look similar to someone. It didn’t help that a certain politician decided to dub us “super predators.” Good thing we had our Indent-A-Kid’s on us…sometimes.

The Food

Speaking of drugs, if sugar was any indication of how addiction worked then there was some validity to those after school specials. I’m sure that if dentist used the same method for candy, there would have been far less silver tooth kids running around. I am also fairly certain, maybe around 65% sure that the reason why most millennials still look young was because of all the weird candy we ate. There had to have been some kind of preservatives in all that stuff. I don’t even think you can buy most of it anymore or at the very least they had been rebranded. There was a soda that was so bad it was linked to harming male reproductive organs but that turned out to be a rumor, but it was still banned in a few countries.

Many of the fast food restaurants were also a bit different. There was a time where you could go into a pizza hut, grab a table, order your pie, listen to music on a jukebox and even play a few arcade games. They even went the extra mile and had a program where if you read enough books in school you could get a free personal pan pizza. If you had siblings growing up you know how big a flex that was. There was something special about a random song playing, the button clicking on arcade sticks, the stringy cheese and pepperoni’s crisped to perfection and a parmesan cheese shaker for you to coat the slice in like snow. Then you could wash it down with the aforementioned banned soda.

It wasn’t just Pizza hut who had family friendly areas, but McDonald’s and burger king both had play places; outside areas where you fought against static and swam in ball pits if you didn’t mind the feet smell. They were cool and all but Pizza hut had the Friday night vibe. That being said many of the restaurants had different recipes back then. I’m not sure if it is a supply chain issue or the fact that more of them popped up but things differently taste a bit differently. After the first Toy Story movie the french fry recipe for burger king changed. Chick Fila also used to cook their filets well done by default. I remember that specifically because one of my favorite parts about eating those sandwiches was the combination of the crunch and the pickle.

There are also many food chains which no longer exist anymore. You might have seen a red lobster commercial here or there but back in the day there was a commercial for just about every establishment and they were all bangers.

The Music

Some literal genius’s(no sarcasm) had a brilliant idea which would shape the the way everyone across the country ingested music. Mostly it gave us a clue as to what the musician’s looked like and seeing certain artists for the first time was eye opening. Music Television played music videos all day with a few VJ’s or video jockeys sprinkled in to give us some insight into the line up. It was mostly rock and pop for a while but by the time I was able to control the remote rap had made its way into the programming. There were a few other channels which popped up, but BET introduced us to a lot more rap and r&b which would have otherwise just been caught on the radio.

Speaking of the radio, there was a time where you couldn’t just stream your favorite song from a small device…somewhat. The steaming was the radio and the device was a cassette tape you had to find, clean and sit by the radio until the song came on. Once it did, you had to make sure you synced it at the right time otherwise you would get some of the dj talking about an upcoming comedy show somewhere. If you had cooler older cousins or neighbors, they might have even let you borrow a walkman to listen to said tapes and whatever they were listening to at the time.

So we had crazy toys, crazy fears, crazy candy, crazy looking artists and even crazier methods to listen to music. It’s easy to look back on those times and think that it was the best time to be alive, we were kids and the world seemed so large but intimate. We hadn’t lost the ability to see those vibrant colors in everything. The summers were endless and the only thing we had to worry about was what was getting good grades, not because we wanted to better ourselves or anything more so for a night out at Pizza Hut.