Old-Fashioned Things

Have you ever said, "I was born in the wrong era"? I've said it myself. I don't know if I really mean it, though. True, today's world has a lot of problems, but we tend to romanticize times past. In the "good old days," women were (even more) objectified, women and minorities had (even less) equal rights, and depending on the era, you were (even more) likely to die from an illness that can be treated now with antibiotics or an outpatient procedure. Yeah, no thanks. People will look at the price of something — gasoline, say — and talk about how much cheaper it used to be. "I can remember when a candy bar was only a quarter." Yeah, me too, but I got paid $3.35 an hour. When our grandparents bought their house for $12,000 and a car for $1,300, their paychecks were about $60 a week. I know. I've seen my mom's old pay stubs from 1960. Still, romanticizing the past can be a lot of fun. From our modern perspective, we can enjoy the pleas...

My co-owner and dear hubby spotted an interesting listing on eBay: Civil war confederate documents. Signed by Jefferson Davis and LP Walker Description: "Was dug from the ground on property in Woodbridge VA" One of the best arguments I've seen for continuing to teach cursive writing to schoolchildren is that without it, they won't be able to read historical documents. Surely, that must be the case here — the sad degradation of literacy — because this item is currently bid up to $305 with two days left. In particular, it pays to read dates. Perhaps today's Civil War buffs have lost the ability to translate years into long form. Are they not teaching that in school these days? Maybe not, since my college-age kids don't know Roman numerals. If a book is copyrighted MCMXLVII, they will have no clue that it was printed in 1947. And our current year, in long form? Two thousand nineteen. That's an easy one. How about One thousand nine hund...