Generational differences continue to grow with my age

When our television isn't locked into the few regular dramas and comedies we watch, it sits on the Discovery Channel or Turner Classic Movie channel. I love old movies, the cornier the better, and would rather watch "The Egg and I" than "Avatar" any day.

Movies aren't supposed to give you migraines ...

We were watching one of my favorites the other night, the Marx Brothers movie "Horse Feathers." Some of the humor was dated, some just plain silly, but overall, we got a good laugh out of it. In fact, we were laughing so hard at one point that Buzz dragged himself out of his room and away from his latest video game Pokemon capture to see what had us tickled.

He took one look at the black and white movie, rolled his eyes, and left again. Unless I can promise flying Technicolor monkeys are part of the script, I have a hard time getting any of my kids to sit down and watch a black and white movie -- the sole exception being Mel Brooks' "Young Frankenstein."

He left, we kept laughing as Harpo pulled a steaming cup of coffee -- with saucer and spoon -- out of his baggy pants, and pretty soon, Buzz came creeping back in. By the time the football game rolled around -- and I swear it was the model for the football scene in the movie "M*A*S*H," he was laughing as hard as we were.

"That was pretty good," he said. "It's too bad they couldn't afford color back then."

I left the explanations of developing technology to his wannabe film student dad. All I asked him was, "Would color have made it any funnier?"

After a long pause, he shook his baffled little head and left before his Dad could get from the invention of the Daguerreotype camera to the innovation of Surround Sound.

Every now and then, I get one of those emails lists designed to make me feel even older than my kids already do. You know the one, like the Beloit College List for graduates, which tells us what we all grew up knowing means nothing to those fresh-faced youngsters entering college this month. Here's an excerpt:

For the 2010 high school graduate,

* John McEnroe has never played professional tennis.

* Clint Eastwood is better known as a sensitive director than as Dirty Harry.

* Colorful lapel ribbons have always been worn to indicate support for a cause.

* Korean cars have always been a staple on American highways.

* Fergie is a pop singer, not a princess.

* Unless they found one in their grandparents' closet, they have never seen a carousel of Kodachrome slides.

That's just a few. You can find the rest at www.dfwstangs.net/forums/showthread.php?....

There's enough of an age gap between my husband and me -- 12 years -- that he has his own list of things forgotten. Our kids have never watched a black and white television unless it was hooked up to one parent or another in the hospital room, monitoring vital signs.

Come to think of it, even that had color ...

I can remember Dad bringing home our first color television. Terry can remember his dad bringing home the first television in the neighborhood -- period.

Buzz has a $5 calculator that weighs about two ounces and does everything but his taxes.

I recall one of the calculus students when I was in high school bringing in his Texas Instruments calculator and having to get permission to use it. It weighed six pounds, cost $200 and performed five functions -- adding, subtracting, dividing, multiplying, and making all your friends turn green with envy. Kind of like the iPod apps...

On the rare occasions we take the boys out to eat, even in Tullahoma, we have a wide range of choices, from Southern home cooking to Mexican, Chinese, Japanese, Italian, seafood -- even French. You name it, you can find it. I'm still waiting for Thai, but when I get a craving, it gives me the excuse to run up to the 'Boro.

When I was his age, we had the choice of Shoney's, Burger King and the Jiffy Dip. I can remember the day McDonald's opened with a vivid clarity that's usually reserved for things like your first kiss, the birth of a child, and life after death experiences.

When Terry's folks ate out, it usually meant at Grandma's house on the picnic table in the back yard.

We've come a long way, or so I'm told, but I belong to the group that believes there is no such thing as true progress. For new thing we learn, there is something we've lost.

Sometimes that's a good thing. Because we learned about polio vaccines, we've lost the iron lung industry.

But sometimes, I wonder. We've learned how to create a vivid, colorful three-dimensional world with aliens and such, and we've forgotten the subtle skill required to create a masterpiece in black and white, when the story matters more than the medium.

Every now and then, I drag the kids and torture them by forcing them to watch a black and white movie such as "Casablanca," "Harvey," or "It Happened One Night." They gripe and grumble, but they usually end up riveted and watch the whole thing. Technology may have moved from shadows to full spectrum, but good storytelling is timeless.

Even if it's just the sight of a bedraggled, mute clown pulling a lit candle from his pocket -- burning at both ends.