Having so much fun the old-fashioned way in 1986
- col-teri-stein
- July 25, 2024
- 930
I recently uncovered a diary I wrote on my computer in 1986. I wanted to use my computer every day, so I decided to quit writing by hand and type everything into my new and exciting word-processing program. Home computers were pretty much a novelty at the time. We had to drive to a computer store in Canton to get diskettes, aka floppy disks.
Besides, you couldn’t do much with computers back then. There was no online shopping, no email, no messaging and no social media.
According to my research, it was 1992 before dial-up internet was available. When you wanted to connect to the WWW, you did it over your home phone. You could always tell when someone was on their computer because their phone rang busy all night.
This old diary had been printed out in dot matrix on perforated pages you had to tear apart. I had punched in some notebook-sized holes and stuck them in a recycled binder. It’s kind of hard to read, so I’ll have to redo it someday, but for now it’s been interesting to see how I lived life at 29 years of age.
My first entry included: “The radioactive fallout for the nuclear reactor that exploded in the USSR reached us this week. The level is not supposed to be dangerous, but I hope it will help my garden. Maybe the plants will grow to monster size, but probably only happens in the movies.”
This was obviously the Chernobyl disaster, which occurred April 26, 1986.
There was a lot of fun stuff to write about.
Sometime around mid-August 1986, we took my youngest brother and a nephew to Sea World in Aurora, Ohio. Remember that? It was so much fun. We camped near the park for the entire weekend. Shortly after we arrived, I showed off my gourmet cooking skills.
“We had Hamburger Helper Stroganoff, which Scott and Mitch raved about and insisted we have again on the next camping trip.”
On Saturday we went to the park and saw all the fun attractions, like the seal and otter show, the whale and dolphin show, the Japanese Village, aquarium and tide pool, and Capt. Kids World. Our favorite was the Penguin Encounter.
“You step on a conveyor belt that moves you along in front of the penguin exhibit, and they are standing there watching the people ride by. The people and the penguins are staring at one another. It was just like the commercials on TV where the penguins are all lined up looking at the people and saying, ‘I just love this new Sea World People Encounter. Look at their funny hair and clothes.’”
Those were the days, and it was so close to home.
Our activity level in 1986 was much higher than it is now. I’m getting tired just reading about some of our exploits.
Here is one day in late October 1986, when I got all busy with house cleaning. And then we went to Canton to eat out for Joe’s birthday. He turned the big 3-0. And then we went shopping at the mall, and I bought three new shirts.
There were no cellphones, so people just showed up places without warning. On our way home, we decided to stop at one of my brothers’ homes and see how “work was progressing” on the replacement of his vehicle’s transmission.
Why we were so determined to find this out, I don’t know, maybe a lack of cable television in our neighborhood. We got three channels at the time on the old antenna.
“Stayed about an hour, then went to Gram’s for a short visit. After we got home, we had a nutritious supper of birthday cake and ice cream.”
This was years before I had to do the food rotation diet only to find out I needed to follow the no chocolate, no dairy, no sugar, no nitrates, no gluten, no fun diet.
“It was a 9-inch layer cake and only cost $7, and it was decorated with mounds of frosting and pretty blue roses.”
I ended this wonderful day by doing laundry. Ugh.
Today, if I get laundry done — and that’s all I do — the day has been a rousing success.
Some things never change though. On Sunday, May 18, 1986, we were apparently in a drought, and I wrote:
“After we started getting some much-needed rain, Joe discovered that the spouting was clogged up and he got drenched trying to unclog it.”
This scenario of spouting drenching has repeated itself a few times over the years, even though Joe is diligent about keeping them cleaned out.
Sometimes things change a lot. Another entry at the end of May 1986 was an example.
“Saturday, Joe and I went out to breakfast at Buehler’s — 99 cent special, eggs, toast and hash browns — and got groceries.” Wish I’d saved the grocery receipt for that trip.
It’d be great to turn back the clock and relive some of these better memories. It’s not going to happen, but if it did, probably that radioactive fallout was worse than predicted.