Before the novelty wore off...

nos·tal´·gi·a - 1. A bittersweet longing for things, persons, or situations of the past.

What is really gone forever is the feeling of just how new things were when they first appeared on the scene. Maybe you're old enough to remember some of these things which are common now, but were once strange and new.

• lite beer
• t-shirts as outerwear (often enhanced by iron-on transfers)
• Pringles (they're all shaped exactly the same?)
• running shoes (they were nothing like the Keds or hi-tops we had already)
• running suits (heck, running and jogging were new, so why not new clothes to go with them?)
• beltless sanitary napkins (the kind you didn't need a garter belt for)
• soft bubble gum
• squeeze margarine
• digital watches (first LED, then LCD)
• the Sony Walkman (and compact discs)
• electronic calculators (if you entered 1134 and turned it upside down, it spelled a bad word)
• flexible magnets
• nachos
• senior citizen discounts (and vans to take them to the store to get those discounts)
• digital alarm clocks
• yogurt (waxed paper cartons of Dannon first appeared in our school lunchroom around 1977, and yogurt was pretty weird!)
• exercise and fitness
• touch tone phones (did you learn to play tunes on them?)
• video games
• cassette tapes
• International Coffees
• zip codes
• navy blue mailboxes (they replaced the red-white-and-blue ones)
• lollipop style pay phone booths (instead of Superman's preferred fitting room)
• synthetic knits (doubleknit, Qiana, etc.)
• learning the metric system
• typewriters that used cartridges instead of ribbons on spools
• carbonless carbon paper (used in forms and duplicate checks)
• two-liter bottles
• milk in plastic gallon jugs (instead of the unwieldy house-shaped waxed cardboard kind with the small plastic handle on top which served as a wrist-breaking, ineffectual fulcrum for pouring)
• roll-on deodorant, and later solid deodorant sticks (this was way before clear gel anti-perspirant)
• Nutra-Sweet instead of saccharin
• cable TV (and how it seemed like it would take forever to get it where you lived)
• advertisements for doctors and dentists (they didn't used to advertise in the paper and on TV)
• glue sticks (soo much better than jars of paste)
• erasers that actually left the paper cleaner when you were done
• disposable cameras
• quartz watches (i.e. ones that took batteries instead of winding)
• personal computers, and with them so many other things:
  • the computer mouse
  • high-density diskettes (or for that matter, double-sided diskettes, or three-and-a-half-inch diskettes)
  • printers that printed on paper you didn't have to tear apart
  • color monitors
  • speakers (on a computer?!)
  • CD drives
• cordless telephones
• phones in airplanes
• ten-speed bicycles (with ram handlebars, of course)
• highlighter pens
• lip balm that didn't hurt to apply (sorry, Chapstick)
• urethane wheels for things like roller skates and skateboards
• cruise control in cars (lending the invaluable expression "on cruise control" to the language)
• bucket seats instead of bench seats in the front of cars
• childproof medicine containers
• tamper-proof packaging (remember the Tylenol poisonings?)
• key cards in normal civilian life
• all sorts of medicine becoming over-the-counter, like
  • allergy medications (Sudafed et al.)
  • cough medicines (Dimetapp, Robitussin)
  • Monistat and other treatments for yeast infections (you used to have to make an appointment, get a culture, get the results, and get a prescription to fill for a seven-day course of treatment, and that was an improvement on getting painted with purple gentian)
• home pregnancy test kits
• use of Ms. as a common, general form of address (you mean you wouldn't know whether she were married or not?)

Please let me know what I've missed.

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