Antique Is A State of Mind

Today is the day my good friend Cindy, the one I've known since kindergarten days, becomes a certified antique.

I read somewhere that for something to be classified as an antique it has to be at least 50 years old. Today is Cindy's 50th birthday, bless her heart. And as the card I sent to her today said, I'm running right behind her, so I hope she continues to lead the way.

FIFTY.

It's a scary thought.

As you all know, I consider myself to be in my EXTREEEEMELY late 30's. My mind is still there. My body may be 49, but my mind...my mind is still as young as I want it to be. My children would say that I average around two years of age at times, and they'd be right. But most of the time my mind is around 35. That's a nice, median age.

Of course, it's hard to be a grandmother at 35. People tend to think of grandmas as women twice that age. And there are times when I feel like I'm 100. When I realize what Cindy and I have lived through during this lifetime of ours, it's really quite amazing.

For instance: My daughter had to read To Kill A Mockingbird for a class at school. I bought the movie for her to watch after she finished reading the book so that she could compare the two. As we started the DVD, she said, "You mean the WHOLE THING is in BLACK AND WHITE???"

Heavy sigh.

LIFE used to be in black and white when I was a child. Father Knows Best, Leave It To Beaver, The Andy Griffith Show, The Donna Reed Show, even The Wizard of Oz was totally in black and white when we watched it on our television growing up. The first color television we had was when I was in 6th grade, and even then not all programming was in color.

I won't go into all of the innumerable inventions, innovations, and upgrades in detail, but here are just a few of the things the child of the sixties never saw coming:

1. Computers, and all that entails. From the Texas Instruments desktop on. My first computer was a 386. Brings back memories, eh?
2. The Internet. Wow.
3. Cell phones. And to think I used to be outraged when pay phone calls went up to a quarter from a dime.
4. The demise of the record player. MP3? iPod? CD? Who knew?
5. Air conditioning in schools. We were lucky enough to have one window unit in our home. We used quilts to keep the cold air in the one room serviced by this appliance, and considered it a luxury. Nowadays air conditioning is commonplace in homes, schools, businesses, cars, and anywhere else there are hot temperatures.
6. High postage rates and high prices in general. I used to mail letters to Grandma with a 5-cent stamp. Gas was $.299 a gallon. (It's important to remember the extra "9" at the end as well.)
7. No dress codes in school. When I told my daughter I had to wear dresses to school every day of my gradeschool life, she didn't believe me! Except on gym days, of course. Then I was allowed to wear shorts...UNDER my dress.
8. The inabilty of children to ride a bike or walk wherever they want to go. The world was mine in the sixties. I could go anywhere on my trusty bike. Not so with my children. Fear has replaced the freedom I had as a child.
9. Divorce. My parents always fought, but I knew they'd never divorce. It just wasn't done. And the women who were divorced had a certain unsavory stigma about them. It was undeserved, but it was still there.
10. The absence of prejudice. As we were watching the movie mentioned above, my son said, "Mom, why did everyone who was white hate everyone who was black?" My generation remembers living through race riots, discrimination and hatred. My son will not have that burden. Dr. King, your dream is alive and well.
11. Foul language. Oh, it was there, but only people who were very angry, extremely impolite, or from the "wrong side of the tracks" used it. I can remember not wanting to tell someone what the name of a Broadway musical was because it used a "bad" word. The name? Damn Yankees. Today I have to screen the music my kids want to listen to because of commonplace obscene language and indecent connotations.
12. S_x, bodily functions and physical attributes as a norm in daily conversation, on television, radio, and in the movies. (Obviously edited to keep the deranged away.) You've heard the stories about married couples sleeping in twin beds and couples having to keep at least one foot on the ground in bedroom kissing scenes? All true. Intimacy was left to the imagination, as so little is today.

As I said, these are only a few. I'm sure that if you're my age you can think of many more.

In the past fifty years, so much has changed. Technology and prices have skyrocketed, and morals and fidelity have taken a nosedive. Wars are on the increase, drive-by shootings are a normal occurrence, and AIDS has taken uncountable lives. With all that has happened in these past fifty years, I can only echo the question first posed in Revelation 6:10. How long?

How long must we continue this downward spiral? How long must we wait for the Lord to return? How long will He put up with our sin without wiping us off the face of this decrepit earth?

For me, for this almost-certifiable antique, it can't come soon enough.

Revelation 6:10
They called out in a loud voice, "How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?" (NIV)