Young people have no idea …

How to drive with a clutch. (I love my 6 spd on the weekends)

 

They have no idea of the ramifications of soil compaction on the flora of residential turf.

 

Stacy Harrison I still love you. (And Phillip Doyle for the game-winning 47-yarder.)

We had a ton of mom’s family over for a cookout the day of that game and I was the only Alabama fan in the house. You would have thought not-quite-15-year-old Dixiehack had just won the lottery the way I celebrated after enduring an entire day of Big Orange shit talk from my kin. My all time favorite football memory.

 

Somewhere I found a national map, probably during one of the family road trips with a relative around 13 or 14. At the bottom, it listed every state’s tourism bureau. I called all the ones with 800 numbers (talk about old) and asked them to send me state maps. Most did.

c. 2000 I had one of those big regional map books to find my way to and through far-flung suburbs. I must’ve had that for at least 10 years, maybe even after I got a GPS.

Some kids loved reading books, I loved reading maps.

The local bank where I grew up found itself as part of Bank of America after a few mergers/acquisitions. BoA recently vacated its old headquarters, which at the end only had four or five staffers and very few customers other than my mom. It was surreal seeing how empty it was. Whenever I walked into that building as a kid, usually on Saturday, it was packed. Every teller window was open and there were at least three or four people in each line. It was probably the first place where I saw an old-school electronic headline ticker c. 1990. Folks needed something to read while waiting to cash their checks. I assume it was populated by some feed from AP or UPI.

 

With all this discussion about maps, we have to add The Thomas Guide. Great maps, but never made sense that directions would jump from page 19 to page 134 and back to page 64.

 

My Mom would come home with an armful of travel books from AAA the day before every vacation. It was like a whole library in the front seat.

 

I asked a chamber of commerce for a paper map about four years ago and they did not have a one.

 

And one of those trip planner things with the route highlighted

 

Haha yes! And for trips that required a plane ride, forget it. She was on the phone w/AAA for like an entire week beforehand. She knew their number off the top of her head! #CrossThreading

 

My girlfriend's mom worked for AAA for a long time, and she did those Triptiks. It was a labor intensive. From what I've heard they had maps and lists of hotels, but also lists of construction zones, etc., so they could tell you where to avoid. She worked second shift because they couldn't meet the demand during the day. Now they enter it into a computer and it's done in three minutes.

 

Those TripTiks were awesome. IIRC they had big red circles around construction areas.
And, TBH, I got a paper check a couple of weeks ago and had to think about what I needed to do for a deposit (endorse it, do I still have a bank ID card to verify my account?)

 

If you have a bank with a mobile app, it's insanely easy. Endorse it, take two pics and upload them, and you're good.