Grappling With Nostalgia

Cheeeeeers Chuckleheads, and Happy Friday!!

Recently the International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced that it is dropping wrestling from its list of sporting events effective with the 2020 Olympic Games.

I was shocked.  After all, wrestling is one of the most purest forms of sport ever, and I feel it is a sport that embodies the “Olympic spirit”, but evidently the IOC feels that while that may be true, it doesn't draw enough ticket sales or TV ratings.

I’m not a big wrestling fan myself, but I am a bit of traditionalist and one who can be very sentimental at times, and this news led me to think of things and people that I have experienced in my forty eight years that have gone to the wayside or been kicked to the curb.

So my friends…What follows is a list of people (excluding family, which is a given) and things that I miss from days gone by.

Rotary Phones…

Ah, the clickity clack sound of the rotary dialing.  I miss those big, black, ten pound, wall huggin’ phones.  I still remember the one we had at 1508 S. Limestone when I was 4 or 5 years old.

I remember one day standing on a chair and being handed the phone so I could talk to my sister Anne who was an army nurse in Vietnam.  It was mind altering hearing her from so far away.  The call was made even cooler by the fact that we had to say “over” when we finished our sentences.

I remember Anne telling me that she was sending my brother Marty and I piñatas.  We got them weeks later, but there was no candy inside. Darn clever those yellow devils, but I still do miss that phone.

Bunting…

Do some of you not know what a bunt is?  I’m sure you don’t, because today nobody in Major League Baseball knows how to lay down a good bunt.  When I played Little League, I received a trophy because I was so damn good at it.  The pitcher throws the ball and you either square around and bunt it where you want it to go, or drag it down the baseline at the last minute.

These days when the manly major leaguers go to bunt, they look like a female softball player takin’ a slap swing at the ball.  Pathetic!!

Phil Hartman…

I am not one who even comes close to being a person who suffers from celebrity worship syndrome, but Phil Hartman is one celeb that I did, and still do, adore.  Hartman was so damn talented in so many areas.  He was an actor, graphics guy, and just naturally funny.

You may know him from NewsRadio, or from SNL as the Anal Retentive Chef, but he always killed me when he played Bill Clinton.  That bastard had me at, “Warlords.”  Sadly, his drug addicted wife murdered him in 1998.  To this day I miss him, his talent, and the decades of laugh giving he had left in him.

Radio…

When I speak of radio, I specifically mean AM and short wave radio.  When I was a kid I would go to bed in Springfield, Ohio with an AM transistor radio and it was so cool, because at night I could pick up stations from NYC, Chicago, St. Louis, and hold on…Canada!! I thought that was so cool. Shortwave was the same thing only HUGE.  I could listen to stations all over the world!!

I still can, but it’s not a challenge.  I can just Google any radio station and click on to listen.  Back in the day it was work, I had to carefully get the tuner knob just right.  It was an accomplishment, and I miss that.

Yes, I just turned 48 recently, and I am not going through one of those “back in my day” things.  I love technology.  I love being able to talk to people I would otherwise never know. I love doing the IWS Radio show, but…

Just as wrestling was and is one of the roots of Olympic competition, the things that I have mentioned are part of my root system as a person, and I need to hold on to them if only in memory, and I hope that you too, take time to acknowledge things from your past that no matter how trivial, bring a smile to your face or make you reflect.

Cheers!!

Matt-Man
mattmaniws@ymail.com
@mattman_iws