A Time Long Gone By

Obviously, if you know me, you know I have no children of my own. However, I find a great many things troubling with the youth of today. They most certainly don't get "it." "It" being any number of things. For instance, they will never understand the art and beauty behind the mixed tape. With all that they have, there are so...SO many things the ipod generation will miss out on. The mixed tape is not ANYTHING like a playlist you can slap together with three mouse clicks on itunes...that is, if you even bother to do it yourself and not just let Genius do it. Mixed tapes took thought. Planning. Commitment.  Which songs do you include? Which do you leave out? What order should they go in? Start out with the best song? Close with it? Build to the highlight in the middle and then wind down from there?

Then came the business of handling the play/record combo button pushing just right.....with enough down time between songs, but not too much dead time. Finally realizing the pause button would keep you from hearing the play key snap back when you stopped the recording to switch songs.  If you were recording from the radio, and the DJ stomped all over the opening or closing of a song with inane chit-chat, I'm 90% certain that burning down the radio station would have been a viable and reasonable response.

Trying to hit the 30 minute mark without cutting off the last song or ending with a bunch of wasted tape? An absolute exercise in futility if there ever was one....but a valiant and never ending quest.

Ahhhhh the good old days...when men didn't use hair products, women were the only ones who dared to/could pull off skinny jeans, mixed tapes meant love and vampires didn't sparkle.