Twenty years. In some ways it seems longer, in others it seems like
just yesterday I was that carefree student finishing my high school
years as the greatest decade wrapped up.
One of the reasons it doesn’t seem that long is because my job requires
me to be at current high school events, from ballgames to other
functions. When you constantly see high school students going about
their business, you sometimes lose track of what year it is.
The students, and especially the student-athletes, I cover keep me
young at heart. Believe me, I know the body is no longer young and a
recent picture of myself from my senior year I posted on my Facebook
page generated a few good-natured laughs.
When I was a senior in high school, I didn’t have a home computer. In
fact, we didn’t even have access to the television channels other than
the basic ones you received via an antennae until after I was out of
high school. This, of course, caused me to miss out on one of the
greatest inventions of the 1980s in MTV.
During my high school years, I didn’t know what an e-mail was. I didn’t
call my friends on a phone small enough to put in my pocket. I didn’t
use that same small phone to text them a message about after school
activities or what we would do during the weekend.
In 1989, the vehicle I drove had a cassette player in it, not a place for a CD.
Back then, no one read a newspaper on a computer. People still enjoyed
their paper the way it was meant to be enjoyed — by holding it in their
hands, turning the page and going through it section by section. (The
sports section was and always will be first for me.)
Candidates for statewide and national office didn’t rely on websites to
help get the word out about their campaigns. Door to door campaigning,
at least by candidates on the local level, was still a common practice.
During summer vacations when I was in high school, I actually remember
getting letters in the mail from some friends who lived out of our free
calling area. Can you imagine that happening now? What student today
would dare put a letter in an envelope, put a stamp on it and mail it?
It would be completely unheard of.
I’m not one who is going to try and convince you that everything was
better in 1989 for that is simply not the case. I don’t think I could
get by without e-mail today and the way we put the newspaper together
is certainly a lot easier and takes less time.
Yet, I admit to still longing for the final days of the decade of big
hair, Izod shirts, Pacman, Magnum, P.I. and moonwalking. Why? Because
that was my time and my decade and it will always hold a special place
for me. Yes, some things are better today, but nothing will take the
place of yesteryear, at least not in my mind and in my heart.
Chris Bridges is the editor of the Barrow Journal. You can reach him at cbridges@barrowjournal.com.
