By Ashley Wicker
I don’t know why, but lately everywhere I look I see so many things becoming popular that are from “back in the day.” Yes, we all know as each day goes by, we’re getting just a bit older. We don’t feel it – but as I look back three or six months at a time, I notice subtle changes.
When I was growing up, my parents still owned a telephone that had a long swirly cord attached, and you had to sit in the kitchen to be on the phone. As time went on, I remember going to friends’ houses after school, and they had wireless home phones they could take into their rooms.
I would go home and beg my parents to please get a wireless home phone. It took a lot of begging, but we finally got one. Now, I see that fewer and fewer people have home phones at all, and I personally miss them.
Then came the camera. As a child, my mom would purchase film for her camera. We’d take pictures, and once the film was full we’d take it to the store and fill out an envelope with our information to pick up our pictures in a couple of days.
Then, digital cameras with an SM card came around. You could retake pictures as many times as you wanted and then choose which ones you wanted to print.
Now – in 2022 – most of us don’t even own cameras since we have them on our phones. And most people don’t even print pictures nowadays – they just save them to hard drives, social media and the cloud. I’ve personally lost so many pictures when my phone has suddenly stopped working.
One of my son’s favorite gifts lately was a Fujifilm Instax, which is a digital camera that prints out pictures from itself. It made me think – everything really does come full circle: fashion, music and even electronics. And it gave me yet another reason to take care of myself, try to stay healthy and (hopefully!) live a long life – the more years that go by, the greater the chance that my old favorite things will come back in style. Seeing my son’s camera, I’m really considering getting a Polaroid camera so I can be part of the cool kids again!
Ashley Wicker is a community and broker liaison at Reid Health Alliance Medicare. Born and raised in Fayette County, she’s a devoted mother who enjoys the outdoors, cooking and the arts.
Like this article? Feel free to respond to Outreach@HealthAlliance.org. Thanks for reading!