Someone asked me the other day, "What was your favorite fast food when you were growing up?"
"We didn't have fast food when I was growing up," I told him.
"All the food was slow."
"C'mon, seriously. Where did you eat?"
"It was a place called 'home,'" I explained.
Mum cooked every day. When Dad got home from work, we sat down together at the dining room table. And if I didn't like what she put on my plate, I was allowed to sit there until I did like it.
By this time, the lad was laughing so hard I was afraid he was going to suffer serious internal damage.
So I didn't tell him the part about how I had to ask permission to leave the table.
But here are some other things I would have told him about my childhood—if I'd figured his system could handle it:
Most parents never owned their own house, never wore jeans, never set foot on a golf course, never traveled out of the country, and never had a credit card.
My parents never drove me to school. I walked. I had a bicycle that weighed probably 50 pounds and only had one speed: slow.
We didn't have a television in our house until I was 10. It was, of course, black and white. The station went off the air at 10 PM after playing the national anthem, and came back on around 6 AM—usually with a locally produced news and farm show featuring local people.
Pizzas were not delivered to our home.
But milk was.
All newspapers were delivered by boys, and all boys delivered newspapers. My brother had a paper route seven days a week. He had to get up at 6 AM every morning.
Film stars kissed with their mouths shut. At least, they did in the films we were allowed to watch. Movie ratings didn't exist because they weren't needed—films were made so the whole family could watch together.
If you grew up in a generation before there was fast food, you may want to share some of these memories with your children or grandchildren.
Just don't blame me if they bust a gut laughing.
Growing up isn't what it used to be, is it?
We walked to school. We ate what was put in front of us. We watched three channels—if we were lucky. We drank milk that appeared on our doorstep by magic. We read newspapers that were thrown onto our porches by kids who got up before dawn.
And somehow, we survived.
More than survived. We remember those days fondly—the slower pace, the family dinners, the simpler expectations.
Not because everything was better. It wasn't. We had our own problems, our own struggles, our own things we got wrong.
But there was something about sitting down together every night. Something about knowing your neighbors. Something about a world that moved slowly enough that you could actually see it passing.
The young ones laugh when we tell them.
That's okay.
We laughed at our grandparents too.
And someday, they'll be telling their grandchildren about the ancient days of smartphones and streaming and food that arrived at your door in thirty minutes.
And those grandchildren will laugh too.
That's how it works. That's how it's always worked.
Every generation gets to be old-fashioned eventually.
We just got there first.