Nostalgia and Progress

VS.




Today I mowed the yard; well, the front yard at least. Don’t get me wrong, I’m no slacker, I just didn’t feel like doing the back yard. But I had a reason. You see, we have two huge trees in our back yard and they are dropping leaves faster than the military drops troops in another country. And yes, the leaves have taken over. I would have to search for and remove every stick and “decorative rock” that our seller so obligingly left for us to deal with, and I just didn’t feel like doing that at the moment. Plus, I was late for something important … Date Night with my Precious wife.

Yesterday I started the front yard but was unable to finish. I wanted some music for my no-thanks-to-Adam garden toiling, however we are one of the few families I know of that doesn’t have at least one iPod™ amongst the ranks. A CD player will skip too much with all the inevitable lawnmower wrangling, and a tape player … well, who has a tape player anymore?!

We do.

Yes, we are one of the few families with a perfectly functional cassette tape player. I may have a nice Apple PowerBook™, but it’s mostly for my job as a writer/editor. It was a gutsy move, and it is paying off finally. I can actually deal with printing companies on their level and I am officially a Mac™ fanatic. Don’t get me started. It’s one of the few non-spiritual things I could actually preach about.

In the recesses of my mind (and some would say I am quite mentally recessed) I remembered that we had a tape player in one of the multitude of boxes still awaiting their final resting place. We just moved into this house two weeks ago and are still going through our stuff. I searched and searched, pining for a way to get a music fix whilst struggling with Adam’s curse. Finally, I happened upon our walkman—a mechanical beast so thick that if you squashed it, I’m sure it would be the size of my 15” laptop. And, yes, I do marvel at the iPod™ Nano and Video iPod™. They are simple works of genius. The American Dream in the palm of your hand: on-demand whatever in an elegant package.

I found a large crate (that was probably used for shipping lobsters at one time) filled to capacity with my old tapes. Another two shoeboxes rounded out my stash. New batteries were handy and earbuds were already in. I was good to go. My first choice: “Hey Doc!” by Mike Warnke, from the early- to mid-‘90’s, a comedian and liar. But aren’t we all? Only his lies were funnier than mine.

Major nostalgia. My progress, on the other hand, wasn’t major. The mower ran out of gas before I got one line cut all the way around the perimeter. Thirty minutes of walkman searching for ten minutes of mowing; pretty lame. But at least I found a little something to remind me of simpler times … times when I had to mow the lawn or I’d be grounded.

Speaking of simpler times, the thing I was running late for was Date Night with my wife, the only angel in slippers that I have ever met. We love our times together and look forward to them with great anticipation. Making her wait while I tried to finish the lawn was bad enough, making her wait while I dabbled in the nostalgic music-seeking was just plain dumb. I am such a guy.

We are stepping into a new and unplanned season of our lives and I can’t imagine doing it without her. I am going to write and edit, she will work at Starbucks™, and we will look into one or two other avenues to provide for our family. At the moment, none involves harming our new rabbit, Latte, but that’s not out of the question. By the way, Thanksgiving’s at our house this year. Don’t ask if you don’t want to know.