Don't Worry Baby - Your Time is Going to Come

I'm not someone who subscribes to the traditional 75 or 100-year-old definition of antique. I think the title applies to anything or anybody with age and class.  With that in mind, last year I wrote an article presenting 30 sure-fire indications to let you know if you have graduated to antique status:

• When you always make it a point to go before go.
•  If Walter Cronkite is still your favorite anchorman.
•  When opposing headlights begin to look like laser beams.

 If you remember taking turns with your siblings holding that wiggly vacuum tube so that "The Shadow" and  "I Love a Mystery" would come in clearly on the radio.

For a while, I though my mission had been accomplished.  People seemed to understand all this business about getting older.  I was wrong.  Lately, I've heard mere saplings describe themselves as "old" and one young lady even referred to herself as "antique." This will not do.  Those who have earned no rank should wear no medals. Therefore, Antique Talk hopes to eliminate further confusion by submitting one more list.  Here are 30 sure-fire indications that you are not even close to reaching antique status:

1. If you've never suffered the uncomfortable feeling of wearing a polyester leisure suit.

2. You've never played tennis with a wooden racket or baseball with a wooden bat.

3. You have never dialed a rotary phone, have no idea what party lines are or stepped inside a glass-enclosed phone booth.

4. If the best bubble gum you have ever chewed did not come from within the wrappings of Topps Baseball, Lost in Space, Monkee, Beatle, Davey Crocket or some other type of trading card.

5. Concerning cars, males and completely liberated women, you are not intimate with changing both tires and the oil.

6. The word Vietnam does not bring some degree of pain to mind.

7. You have no strong feelings about Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter or Spiro Agnew.

8. You think Alex Trebeck is the only one who ever hosted Jeopardy.

9. If you've never feared nuclear war or received instructions to cower under your school desk during "bomb drills."

10. You consider the Beatles "one of those old bands," and you have never even heard of Glenn Miller.

11. If you have never eaten at a McDonalds with colossal twin golden arches towering over a white-tiled building.

12. If you think you already know it all.

13. If you have never been served a TV dinner, watched black and white television or had to fool with the dials and an antennae to stop your set from flickering.

14. If you have never done each of the following: typed a letter on a manual typewriter, used a reel-to-reel tape recorder and played 45-rpm records and 8-track tapes.

15. If, at one time in your life, the mention of "flying saucers" has not brought on feelings of either anxiety or exhilaration.

16. If you've never been to a drive-in movie.

17. You have never drunk milk from a glass bottle when no one was looking.

18. If you have never regularly prayed at school.

19. If you have never worn PF Flyers, Keds or canvas Converse All Star sneakers.

20. If you don't know that Virginia Graham, Merv Griffin and Mike Douglas all were employed in same occupation as Sally Jesse Raphael and Jerry Springer-and that they did it with more class.

21. If you've never employed a slide rule.

22. If you think line dancing is synonymous with country western dancing and Garth Brooks is real country western singer.

23. If you have never dreamed of growing up and becoming an astronaut.

24. If the phrases "put a tiger in your tank" and "candy coated popcorn, peanuts and a prize," mean nothing to you.

25. If you have never clothes-pinned a baseball card between your bicycle spokes to make it "vroom" like a motorcycle.

26. If you have never thought of computers as being the size of a room or at least a large closet.

27. If you have never operated a stick shift, hung felt dice from your mirror, or cruised around Friday nights with friends in a convertible.

28. If the phrase "ping pong balls" doesn't conjure up images of Captain Kangaroo or the first word you learned to spell wasn't M I C K E Y  M O U S E or forcing down spinach didn't once make you feel strong as Popeye.

29. If you never wore pants with patches on the knees that your mother either sewed or ironed on.

30. If your parents aren't constantly lecturing you about "watching money" and how terrible it was during the days of the Great Depression.