Reason # 4,679 that I love Deekoo

[mesila]

He didn't grow up in a house where there was a lot of TV watching - almost zero, and none while he was in his teens.

Looking through this list of discontinued food products I ran into, I realized with a heavy sigh how much of my brain is literally littered with stupid jingles associated with these products. Whereas being homeschooled by parents

Comments

Oh the dialogues that start in my head after reading your post!

[hurricanecarol]

All so true...my parents lived by the TV Guide and the programming guide in the Sunday paper. We only had one television for most of my formative years, but so very, very much revolved around it. We would actually circle the programs we wanted to watch during the upcoming week. My Dad had football and Rowan and Martin's laugh-in and the Smothers Brothers and Bonanza - those times were sacred...never mind that he frequently fell asleep watching them...the channel could not be changed. And when I was little, time was marked by what was on the set, (the milkman came during Captain Kangaroo, for example).

But while the programming was important, the ads and jingles left their mark as well. I am absolutely certain that "Plop, plop, fizz, fizz, oh what a relief it is" is displacing some very important piece of information that I might otherwise remember if that space was not occupied by that inane song.

And looking at the list of discontinued foods gives me pangs of nostalgia too - which when you come right down to it, it really fucking sick. The link to my memory of going to the movies as a child, is inexorably all twisted around the memory of Brach's Non-pariels, which were my favorite. Now that I know they are gone forever, I wonder if my memory of going to the movies with my parents will become extinct too. And the memory of Sara Lee Orange Cake is hopelessly stuck to almost every neuron that can still recall family meals.

So I now not only wonder what it would be like to grow up without television ads, I wonder what it would be like to grow up in a culture without brand names...

Thanks for this very thought-provoking piece.

'Twas the least I could do...

[mesila]

Thanks for this very thought-provoking piece.

You're most welcome. Your "soggy fliers and tears" post should be magneted to my refrigerator or something, it's just so resonant and so good to remember.