When we begin to wax nostalgic, thinking about all of the things we miss from the old days–either a generation passed, or just a few years ago–I like to remind my self of what I do not miss.

(Watch for the companion blog–“What I Miss About Times Gone By”)

• Carbon paper; and typewriters for that matter

• Smoke-filled rooms, restaurants and theaters

• Pay phones

• Parking on the side of the road and changing a tire (even though it happened only every couple of years or so)

• Arranging toilet paper…

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When a young friend saw a photo of a 1957 Studebaker Golden Hawk on the wall near my desk, she asked if that was the car Abraham Lincoln used to drive.

She was kidding, of course. She knows that driver’s licenses weren’t being issued in the mid-19^th Century. But as far as she’s concerned, the car I so admire belongs in the same dustbin of history as the Civil War and, for that matter, most anything that occurred before, say Lady Gaga and Justin Whatisname.

Is she wrong to think I’m so traumatized by modern times that I need to hide in “fuddyduddydom” by clinging to reminders of my youth?

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