Nostalgia, for me, is generally a feeling mixed between fondness and curiosity. Fondness for something no longer there, for an experience I can no longer achieve with 100% accuracy, and curiosity for why I am nostalgic for this experience and what the hell my elders were thinking when they gave me the item or took me to this place.
I thought I might go through some items that bring me a bit of nostalgia and perhaps do for you, as well. Many of these are experiences we have all shared growing up, some more than others. The rest may very well only be memories I share with those growing up with me or as a family unit. Without further ado, let’s get into some old-timey things that will make you feel even more aged, er, seasoned…
This thing brings back memories of going to grandma’s and sleeping in the spare bedroom, where she kept all of her porcelain 1980s clown sculptures. I can see and feel it now. I drape the baby blue blanket over myself and bundle up like a burrito. The wool is harsh and kind of prickly, and if one thing caught fire near it, I would most likely have burst into flames. But I felt safe not thinking about this and instead thinking about how the blanket hid the clowns from my view.
Whoever the inventor of this godforsaken nightmare of a blister-providing shoe should have their feet cut off and jelly shoes as replacements. I saw jelly shoes in Fred Meyer the other day and almost cried for my 5-year-old self and every other 5-year-old forced into thinking the shoes were cute. 30 minutes after wearing these to another thing I was forced to go to with my grandma (church), my feet were coming off of my body, screaming at me, as a 5-year-old, for causing so much pain on them. 2 weeks later, I was still popping blisters. But for some reason, that PVC had such an attractive berry smell…
Something so few own or even use any longer. The dining table was where our meals were eaten unless it was a special occasion when something pulled our family to the TV, and we were allowed to eat on our TV trays. We had semi-assigned seats, where it was just silently acknowledged that we all didn’t change our spot, ever. Otherwise, a huge sibling fight might occur. I even marked mine with a fork, placing my initials on the wood—very small—and what I believed to be unnoticeable until my mom called me out on it. Honestly, I liked my seat because I was able to peek over at the TV if it was on, and I didn't want to talk about homework I was absolutely not going to do. Having a designated spot in the house for all of your activities is something I miss, and at one point, I regretfully chose to stop making it part of my life. Which brings me to…
Not just any TV dinner. Those really crappy ones with the penguin on the front that had the little “mystic brownie” for dessert. These were a real treat in my household, where my dad cooked all our dinners homemade after working all day (my mom could not cook to save her own life). Sometimes, as a child, all I wanted was something really awful and filled with poison to fill my belly with, and probably cause my dad some sort of feeling of failure. I remember my dad guiltily putting them in the oven for my brother and me, and both of us waiting for them to be ready. Peeling off that plastic and smelling that delicious, yellow-tinted macaroni and "cheese," as well as the freezer-burnt single serving of sweet corn, made my mouth water. I feel like buying one now, just to see if I have the same reaction. What a wild idea…if my taste buds really have not changed that much, even with science claiming the opposite.
Chocolate cigs are available in some states, but it’s hard recreating what it felt like to pretend to smoke a cigarette for a 6-year-old and then eat that cigarette, which, to me, was an experience I can only define as "practice at being a degenerate adult." The chocolate was not great; it was usually some form of milk chocolate that seemed like it was probably 10 years old and very stale. Pale, whitish, dusty, chalk-like substance on the chocolate after you unwrapped that thin, white paper. Big League Chew is "the only gum in the form of strips," and I never really got into this, but I remember the boys in school having pockets of it and just shoving their mouths full of this stuff, to the point of looking like a squirrel hoarding saliva, a pink or purple tumor (depending on flavor) the size of their mouth, chewing so loud you could hear them in the back of the class. Unable to blow a bubble, let alone try to swallow the gum they weren't supposed to have on them. Just like the pros.
The ultimate sign of luxury and telling your friends, just with an object, that your family is now eating Kid Cuisines for the next two months and using the Kenwood wool blankets if they're cold because it's…fancy and not at all because you now can’t afford groceries or heat. We were the only family with one of these bad boys. BIG bad boys. So big it took three of my dad’s friends and some other contraption just to get it into our house. Projection TVs were awesome because a lightbulb never "went out" on it; you just replaced or fixed the tubes, and if your brother accidentally threw a Wii remote at the screen, it would just put a slight hole in the screen. Only noticeable when looked at in just the right light.
My dad still does not know this ever occurred. And this is why those Wii remotes had wrist ties on them.
Last but not least...
There are some colors of carpet that just bring back such specific memories. A faded, blue-nearly-grey carpet, heavily used with a couple of stains. It reminds me of our own carpet at home and all the Elmer's Glue that was stuck to it, which my mom was never able to get out. The green shag carpet with a little orange tint reminds me of the smell of my grandma's house. Musty and old. Just like her personality. Lids for all the expensive Tupperware sets. Spaghetti on the floor, which you tried to pick up and eat but ended up with a handful of dog hair and shag carpet instead. Ah, memories.
Honorable mentions that I did not feel the need to write about, and instead will allow your own nostalgia to fill in the blanks: handshake buzzer, Squeezeits, Green Apple Bath & Body Works body spray and cigarette smell, secret paper notes, Nickelodeon VHS tapes, Lite-Brite, cars with multi-CD changers, awful boxed art sets for kids, Giga Pet, Yak Pak, Flubber, fake cellphones.
Hannah One Cup can be found at carpet stores, feeling the textures and staring at the colors like fine works of art. Wishing for these simpler times, but glad she is now able to choose her own frozen dinner and drink whiskey. Simultaneously, if she wanted. Sometimes, she likes being a passenger in the back seat of a car, to feel like it did when she had less to worry about and only had to think about what the next stop was going to be.
