A baseball cap sends a mixed message

Lee A. Dean screendoor@sbcglobal.net

I see dozens of advertisements every day while on the internet and ignore most of them. But recently I saw an ad for a baseball cap with a thought-provoking and nostalgic message emblazoned above the bill.

This cap declares, “I miss the America I grew up in.” At first blush, I agreed with the sentiment. My coming-of-age years were not always idyllic, but they were certainly positive ones. I can watch today’s news for three minutes and be convinced we’re all hurtling toward Hades on a finely waxed toboggan. And yet the more I started to analyze the sentiment, the less I came to agree with it.

An honest comparison of the years 1955 to 1975 with today reveals there are indeed some things I miss about those years, but plenty that I don’t.

Let’s start with navigational aids. In the America I grew up in, we needed verbal directions, foldout maps, or a road atlas to find our destination. If texting while driving is stupid, how about reading a map while driving? Now, GPS tells us where to go, all without the trouble of squinting to read that tiny print on a map. Advantage, now.

Back then, as kids we rode our bicycles everywhere without fear. As a five-year-old, I walked from my house on the east side of Kalamazoo to Roosevelt School. Today, I would be very reluctant to let a small child walk to school without adult supervision unless that school was on the same block. The region of America I grew up in had three television stations. If you had an antenna with a rotor, you could perhaps triple that number. Today, we have thousands of choices from terrestrial, satellite, cable, or streaming sources. Ironically, my favorite TV shows today are the ones I used to watch on those three channels. Why do I need to tune into either of today’s late night Jimmys when I can dial up Pluto TV and watch Johnny? Mr. Carson will always be the king.

Remember when weddings were news? I typed up plenty of them in my first daily newspaper job. There was the photo of the bride, complete with descriptions of the gown. Other newsworthy items include Eagle Scouts, honor rolls and extensive coverage of high school sports teams. Today, the only question that’s relevant is, “what’s a daily newspaper?”

The music of the ‘60s and ‘70s is vastly superior to today’s unmelodic piffle. But today, thanks to music subscription services, all the good old songs are available to me and I can literally call the tune. I used to have 200 albums in an old apple crate. Now I have 200,000 albums on my smartphone.

The cars in the America I grew up in were classics in appearance and names. We drove Cougars, Mustangs, and Wildcats. But today’s cars are vastly superior in performance and safety. Buying a new part costs far more than it used to, but the parts last longer. I haven’t needed to buy a starter for a vehicle in years.

The America I grew up in had no laser eye surgery, heart transplants, joint replacements, MRI machines or heart valve replacements. Medical advancements such as these extend life and enhance its quality.

The America I grew up in didn’t have microwave ovens. ‘Nuff said.

When I was a kid people could buy cigarettes from vending machines. Then they would smoke those cigarettes on airplanes, in restaurants, at ballgames and even in the hospital. Today, the air is blessedly free of nicotine pollution in public places.

When I went to high school, we never worried about school shootings. We had a few pickup trucks with gun racks in our parking lot, but these guys all either took hunter safety courses or learned how to handle weapons from their fathers. Any differences were settled with fists under the willow tree at the bottom of the hill.

The closest thing we had to the Internet was an encyclopedia. “Look it up,” my folks would say, and so I would dive into our Funk and Wagnalls volumes. Today, we have massive amounts of information at our fingertips, which has often made life easier. As someone with oafish hands and weak eyes, how-to videos have been a godsend when tackling home improvement projects. Thank you, YouTube University.

In the early years of the America I grew up in, you could find colored drinking fountains, segregated public accommodations, real estate redlining, and other evidence of institutional racism. We still have a fair distance to travel on the path of racial reconciliation. But no one, other than the worst kinds of slobbering white supremacists, would ever want to go back to the days when fire hoses and dogs were used against people marching for the right to vote.

Here’s my response to that online advertisement: I’ll keep my positive memories of the past, my embrace of the present, and my hopes for the best possible future. You can keep the hat.