then and now
Written for English 312: Topics in Creative Writing after researching in the UW-Green Bay Archives.
When I was in high school, most of my friends had very protective parents. One friend’s mom in particular coached her track and field team to keep an eye on her and would constantly text her throughout the day. My friend hated it but insisted it was just because her mom loved her a lot. I remember feeling confused by that because my mom and I got along better than most teenage girls and their moms and my mom would go days without texting me. As long as she knew who I was with and when I’d be home, I was pretty free to do whatever I wanted. That’s not to say I abused that freedom; I was very afraid of getting in trouble and breaking my mom’s trust, so I tended to stay home or go to work instead of attending cornfield parties on the weekends.
Mom very much wanted me to have the young life she never got to have. She had me young and was forced to grow up immediately following her high school graduation. Because of that, she was always signing me up for summer camps and school trips and encouraging me to participate in school clubs. I think this was her way of living vicariously through me, which was totally fine with me. High school was fun for me because of it. So, it would only make sense that, when my uncle moved to California for a new job, my mom suggested I go visit him for a week. He wanted the whole family to come visit, but my mom argued that it would be too expensive to buy plane tickets for a family of six. Which is fair. I was fifteen and had a part-time job waiting tables at a local restaurant, so I spent a few months saving for my plane ticket. Mom was so insistent that I go on this trip but simultaneously was making me pay my way. She claims it helped me grow as a person. I claim it was a mild form of child neglect. But eventually I saved enough and, in the summer of 2016, following my freshman year of high school, I flew across the country to California.
Oh, alone. I should probably mention that. The first time I stepped on a plane to fly (ever) I was completely by myself. (Child neglect? Still up for debate.)
The airport in Madison, Wisconsin, was the closest airport to us so my mom and siblings drove me there the day of my flight. Madison’s airport is just a small, regional airport so it was relatively easy to navigate for a beginner flier. After leaving my mom at the airport entrance, I found the security line. Because I was a minor, I didn’t have to go through the long security line where they make you take your shoes off. I guess the TSA doesn’t think a fifteen-year-old girl is going to try to blow up the plane. I often wonder what flying was like before the attacks of September 11, 2001. I was eight months old when that fateful day came, so a post-9/11 world is all I have memory of.
On September 11, 1914, eighty-seven years before the Twin Towers fell, Norman Brokaw and his wife embarked on a cross-country road trip for their honeymoon. The only challenges the newlyweds faced on their travels were simply faults of the technology of their time, like multiple tire blowouts and slow-moving cars. There was no fear of terrorist attacks; no one was going to stop them to check their luggage or make them carry small bottles of shampoo. It was, as the older generations love to say, a different time.
But I often wonder if it really was as good as they claim it to be. Yes, it might be a pain in the ass to fly in the modern age, but it took me only less than a day to fly to San Francisco, with one layover on the way. It took Norman and his wife nearly three weeks just to drive from Wisconsin to California. I didn’t have to carry a literal roadmap (as much as my grandpa insists that I need one) because it was 2016 and I had a smartphone because… duh. I didn’t have to document every minute of my trip into a log because I have photos to remember everything by.
Older people love to claim that kids these days have it so easy. I would love to live in their delusion sometimes. Norman Brokaw purchased his Buick, the vehicle in which they would be traveling, for 1,200 dollars; I recently took out a loan for a car for almost 20,000 dollars which I will be paying off for the next five years. Norman graduated college, married his sweetheart, and embarked on their honeymoon weeks later. I know a married couple that still have roommates because they can’t afford to live on their own. It’s seventy degrees in November and we’re all supposed to pretend like we’re okay with it. A part of me wants to side with my grandparents’ generation; life would have been so much better living in a time where you had no regard for the future of the planet or fear of your bodily autonomy being ripped from you (mostly because you had none to begin with, but I digress). If I could live in my own bubble in which I didn’t care about minorities being killed every day or wonder if I’d be able to marry whoever I wanted to, I would think life is pretty easy too.
When I arrived in California, we split our time between San Francisco and Los Angeles. I was there for a week, and I got to see and do a lot of things. I felt bad reading Norman’s log of his honeymoon road trip; most of their time was spent actually getting to their destination. He and his wife faced some problems along the way. The tires on the car blew out several times, but they could rely on complete strangers to help them repair the tires. I can concede and agree that there is one change between then and now that I wish would have remained: stranger friendliness. In Norman’s time, you could get a flat tire and a stranger would gladly help you repair it. You might strike up a conversation and go get lunch and become good friends. When I was in the airport, the only strangers I trusted to help me were airport personnel. Granted, I was a child and Norman was a grown adult, but I was terrified of something bad happening to me and didn’t trust anyone. I kept my headphones on the entire time and didn’t speak to anyone unless absolutely necessary. Today, there are a lot more ways to help someone in need, even from across the world, but I think we’ve become more hesitant to aid immediately because of all the stories of people being hurt or scammed. Trust is a hard thing to keep, especially when society has been burned so many times before.
I can’t say unilaterally that we have it better today, or vice versa. Some people hate technology and would gladly go back to a time when things were simpler. Some argue that smartphones have taken over and there’s no face-to-face connection like there used to be. What I can say is that, in 1914, only a single group of people would have been able to enjoy life so much — women didn’t even have the right to vote yet. So while people might have been nicer and the aesthetic of the early-1900s might be appealing, I think I’d prefer living in a time with airport security and bad plane food if it means human rights for all.
