Saving simple

[Chris_McVeigh]

Do you remember the first time you saw a computer?

I mean a real one, not the cool lego one pictured above.

Do you remember? Or have they just always been there?

What was your initial reaction?

I’m pretty sure I just dated myself a little but bear with me a minute.

It was 1987.

I owned more Banana combs then shoes. Loved wear my hair in a side pony and the bigger the bangs the better.

I loved wearing leg warmers and mixing and matching my slouch socks.
Stirrup pants were all the rage and I desperately wanted pixie boots but settled for a pair of kangaroo high tops.

I read “tiger beat” and “Bop”.
I saw “Back to the Future” In the theaters.

I blasted my music from my old boom box (even though only one side ever worked). I made my own mix tapes by “catching” sings off the radio and used a pencil to rewind my cassette tapes because it was faster.

Life was simple.

I remember the day we walked into the schools brand new computer lab and rows of Macintosh computers.

I wasn’t impressed.

Actually if I remember correctly I thought it was the most useless piece of equipment ever.
I would have laid bets that this “hunk of junk” would be a colossal flop.

Our computer classes consisted of learning how to cut, copy & paste.
Impressive eh.
Fast forward to my senior year in high school.
Out family owned our own personal computer but if memory serves me correctly we weren’t even connected to the internet.

Think “glorified typewriter” with a black screen and orange lettering.
Somehow I made it thru college without the internet.
And yes, it’s possible.
I lived in the college library.

It wasn’t until 1998 that we had the internet in our house.

Such a foreign concept now when almost every single device in our household can access the net and really you don’t even have to be home to access the net.

I miss those days.

The simplicity of it all.

Sometimes it’s the simple things that become our treasured memories.
Sometime it takes unearthing them to remember.

A few weeks after nana past away my aunt and uncle dropped off a rather large cardboard box filled with what at first appeared to be odds and ends.

I had requested her knitting needles and was very excited when I pulled them out of the box.

I wanted them because they reminded me of the summer she taught me how to knit.

Anyways, Deep at the bottom was a small wicker sewing box filled with all the letters that I had written to her over the years. I didn’t know she even kept them to be honest with you.

Words scratched in pencil on loose leaf sheets. It’s almost comical what I thought was important enough to share with her.

Words expressing gratitude for presents and visits.
Gushing over all the celebrities that I thought were “cute” and vented over how annoying my little sister was being.

Simple stuff.

Kid stuff.

But to her they were treasured memories.

In some ways they are mine too.

In a world where Email has replaced a simple handwritten letter and Texting is slowly starting to replaced in person conversations.

We have deceived ourselves into believing this way is simpler.

It pales in comparison to a bundle of handwritten letters almost 30 years old.

Wouldn’t you agree?

Those letter sauce become almost a reminder to slow down.
Enjoy life.
Seek adventure and to stay true to who I am.
Enjoy the sunshine and real conversations.
To live life.

Looking at those letters had me wonder how long it has been since I received a real piece of mail.
Not flyers or bills but a letter.

When was the last time I wrote a letter? Chances are you can’t remember your last letter either….