Change. It’s unavoidable. Most of us are honest enough to admit that we don’t like change, especially when that change alters habits and practices we’ve done for years. When change happens, we resist it, even challenge it. Such is the case for all of us who spent some of our best years in the 80s – that’s the 1980s for some of you smarty pants who jokingly tease that it must have been the 1880s.
How many of these things do you remember?
When I got my driver’s license in 1983, two things were true. First, seat belts were only attachments in the car, dangling from the side posts or peeking out from the seat cushions. Usage was not mandatory. New York was the first state to make their usage mandatory in 1985, and Ohio followed suit in 1986. Even so, I don’t remember it being enforced. When I got a speeding ticket in 1986 (that’s another story), the OHSP officer never said a thing about me not having on my seat belt. He just asked why I was in a hurry. Though I had a good reason and he understood, he wasn’t so understanding as to just give me a warning.
Second, in the 80s, it was nearly a rite of passage to pass your driver’s license exam, drop off whoever took you, and immediately go on your first solo drive, usually to friends’ homes to show them your shiny new driver’s license. And, amazingly, parents would allow their kids to jump right into the car with this newly minted driver. Before long, the car was filled with other teens, the music was blaring, windows were rolled down, and kids were hanging out the windows like a dog on a summer’s day. No seat belts, either! That has definitely changed with most parents clamping down on the solo drive for a while.
Some changes have been made that have a direct effect on our overall health. In the 80s, people smoked in public, filling the air with noxious fumes and forcing others to endure the secondhand smoke. Those who wanted to get a suntan would use foil sun reflectors and baby oil, baking themselves to a golden brown like a chicken spinning in the supermarket rotisserie. Since nobody had heard of BPA or chemical leeching, they thought nothing of microwaving plastic, using containers that once held processed lunch meats or anything else deemed microwaveable. And baby powder was sprinkled on every portion of the body, used for its absorbency and pleasant smell.
Right now, most of us cringe to think of what we did – and we survived, living to tell about it! There are other things we did that have become taboos that, in the opinion of this writer, maybe weren’t all that tragic. But this is a different day!
We rode bikes, roller skated and skateboarded without helmets. We watched the Road Runner drop a grand piano on the head of Wile E. Coyotte from the top of a mountain. We drank copious amounts of pop during the summer – from an aluminum can! We played with lawn darts, not the junky plastic toy jarts that are available today. And, horror of all horrors, we drank directly from the garden hose! Gasp! It only took one moment of stupidity to figure out that on a hot summer day, let the water run for a little bit first. If you understand why, chances are you learned the hard way as well. But it was a lesson you never forgot.
Prince Otto Eduard Leopold von Bismarck, Duke of Lauenburg, German aristocrat and statesman, Prime Minister of Prussia, and the First Chancellor of Germany is credited with saying: “There is a providence that protects idiots, drunkards, children, and the United States of America.”1 The phrase has been reduced to simply say, “God watches over babes and fools.” All I know is that the Lord really watched over this babe and fool during the 80s!
Psalms 116:6-8 says, “The LORD preserveth the simple: I was brought low, and he helped me. (7) Return unto thy rest, O my soul; for the LORD hath dealt bountifully with thee. (8) For thou hast delivered my soul from death, mine eyes from tears, and my feet from falling.” Preserveth: to guard, watch, and protect. Simple: the naïve, enticed, deceived, gullible, foollish. I can think of several things I did in the 80s that would qualify me for most of the definitions of simple! And I am so thankful that the Lord preserved me!
Regardless of what era you may have survived and when you may have been living the dumbest moments of your life, aren’t you thankful for God’s preservation? Looking back on that time with fear and wonder, how can we not echo the truth of Psalm 116:9. May the words express the truth and reality of our life today.
“I will walk before the LORD in the land of the living.”
1https://barrypopik.com/blog/there_is_a_providence_that_protects_idiots_drunkards_children_and_the_unite
Images are taken from https://pixabay.com/, https://www.pexels.com/, or https://unsplash.com/images or created in Windows Copilot. According to the websites, they are Royalty Free and free to be used for our purposes.
