Archive for December 2021
Nostalgia to Now
By Tom Morrow
When you reach that momentous eighth set of 10-year periods you figure it’s okay to doze off in front of the TV set. Speaking of which, do you remember when it took at least two to three minutes for the TV to warm up. How many of you sat watching the test pattern before the day’s programming began? Or watched the Air Force fly-bys as the “Star Spangled Banner” was played to end the day’s programming.
In Middle-West America, Dad always left the keys to the family car in the ignition and some family homes were never locked. Everything America seemed to change after President John F. Kennedy was assassinated and we went to war in Vietnam.
Where I grew up, nobody owned a purebred dog.
A quarter was a decent weekly allowance and Mom wore nylons that came in two pieces. You got your windshield cleaned, oil checked, and gas pumped, without asking … all for free every time you filled up. If you bought premium (also known as “Ethel”) you got your floor boards swept out with a small whisk broom. If your tires needed a check, you didn’t pay for any pumped air. And sometime you got trading stamps.
Laundry detergent had free glasses, dishes or towels included inside the box.
At school, being sent to the principal’s office was nothing compared to the fate that awaited you at home. Teachers kept kids back a grade if they were failing.
We played softball with no adults around to help with the rules of the game.
Most of us kids were in fear for our lives, but it wasn’t because of drive-by shootings, drugs, or gangs. It was for fear of getting polio or the Russians dropping “the bomb.”
Decisions were made by going “eeny-meeny-miney-moe.’ Consumables from the drug store came without safety caps and hermetic seals because no one had yet tried to poison a perfect stranger.
Home milk delivery was in glass bottles with cardboard stoppers, newsreels were shown before the movie, and telephone numbers had a word prefix…(Blackburn 5-2857).
Didn’t it feel good to recall those days?
A Skilled Conversationalist . . .
. . . is someone who’s learned
how to keep
their foot out of their mouth.
The Californication . . .
. . .of what was once amiable Arizona is brutally more and more visible.
Since moving here just short of five years ago, traffic is noticeably heavier at all hours, passersby don’t give a friendly salute like they used to, AND
there’s dog shit wherever I go biking in the morning — on both sides of the sidewalks, along the canal, under the power lines, everywhere.
Welcome to Calizona! ! !
Selling His Collection . . .
. . . of books amassed over several decades as a journalist
hasn’t been a problem for an old colleague
despite the fact that many of them are minus several pages, even a few chapters.
He’s just listed them as “Limited Editions.”
They’re Here . . .
It probably can do quantum physics in several languages, too, and doesn’t have to eat or sleep.
I Bought an Air Canada . . .
. . . Phoenix-Toronto roundtrip ticket Jan. 30, 2020 — almost two years ago.

As the world knows, all Air Canada flights were cancelled when COVID-19 landed. After much shrugging-it-off and Canadian government haggling, I received an email last April (that I printed out) telling me I was going to get a refund for what I paid for the ticket, which was more than $1,000. I received my travel insurance refund many months ago.
I’ve called Air Canada several times and finally got to a person yesterday. She wasn’t in customer service but was delightfully helpful and patient and, after getting my ticket number and case number and ticket purchase date and some other stuff, got a third person on the line and tennis-talked with them and me.
I was finally told, “You’re still in the system. You’ll be getting an email when you’re refund is processed.”