Since I've been blogging again this month, I've also been catching up on my RSS feeds and reading hundreds of posts ranging from fellow dad bloggers to healthy cooking blogs to awesome author blogs. One of the blogs I follow is Backpacking Dad, whose November posts have been labeled NaBloPoMo. So, I look it up and it turns out, my idea to write a blog post every day this month instead of writing a novel isn't an original idea. Who knew!?! I guess I should've checked into that first.
Anywho, as I was reading [okay, skimming at times] the dozens of blog posts I've let fester for the past couple of months, I was doing so on my iPod touch. I swiped through post after post and started thinking about how convenient it is not to have to turn pages, especially newspaper pages that often bend and fold and tear the wrong way, especially if it's really windy in your living room.
While I don't miss the sensation of reading a crinkling newspaper with ink-stained fingers (apologies to crazybastard66...I still love the articles--if that's any consolation) I worry that Mini-Me, the Wubster, and SheForWhomItsRidiculousIHaven'tComeUpWithAName will miss them.
Mini-Me and I were reading a library book the other night in which the main character reads the funnies while eating breakfast. Growing up, I read the funnies while eating breakfast. I loved Calvin and Hobbes, Bloom County, Fox Trot, Family Circus (only when one of the kids was blaming that ghost, NotMe, for breaking a lamp or when Billy traipsed all over the place), and so many more. I still get a sick feeling in my gut when I think about those moments when I discovered Prince Valiant was the only comic left on the page to read.
We don't subscribe to the paper and I doubt this blog post will make us change that just so my kids can stick silly putty on Beetle Bailey and Garfield. I know there are experiences my parents had as kids that I didn't. I'm no worse off for that...am I? My kids will survive a Funnies-less life, right?
Other things my kids may never know:a land line, a record player, a TV show you can't pause. They may never learn to memorize the phone numbers of their friends and family...heck, I've only got four or five rattling around in my brain these days (Mom, dad, sis...sorry, but yours didn't make that list...how sad is that!?!) Should I go above and beyond as a father to fill these gaps, or is it time to move on?
We'll figure it out as time and technology march on. Maybe there'll be an iPad app that'll teach them about our antiquities. In the meantime, you can rest comfortably tonight knowing that I've not completely turned my back on the wonders of yesteryear. Thanks to the awesomeness that is Hub, Mini-Me knows all about Adam West as Batman.
POW!
Interesting or creepy?
ReplyDeleteThis morning when I was leaving for work I found a trial copy of the local newspaper on my driveway.
True story!
S still reads the paper everyday...I'll grab the funny pages for you and the kiddos. :)
ReplyDeleteThere is some sadness associated with the thought of our children never experiencing some of the things that shaped our lives. But then, I'll never miss the party line! :)
I grew up with a rotary phone. I'd have play dates at my house with other neighborhood kids my age, and they would ask to use the phone, I'd direct them to the phone in the kitchen.. and they'd look at me all crazy. I thought everyone had those. haha!
ReplyDelete