> When you grow up, there are certain milestones you can foresee that mark your passage to maturity. You start driving. You get to vote. You move out of the house. You get married. You get a permanent job. You have kids. You buy a house. You have grandchildren. There are less obvious ones, too, like suddenly discovering that it is socially acceptable to call adults you've just met by their first names.



I had one of those moments with you... at the RinkUnion in Manchester, when I was asked to drive the rental van and realized I wasn't the youngest one in the crowd this time, I was the oldest.

It still freaks me out sometimes to think that I am pretty much the oldest person here, with the notable exception of Howard.

Mou"I certainly feel 12 years old most of the time"sie

Oh. And I DID grow up in the 70's and 80's. My parents were divorced before it was commonplace -- certainly the only couple any of their friends knew who'd done it. My father and stepmother were the first people I knew who owned a microwave. My mother never even had one until after I'd graduated from high school. My stepmother bought a computer that used the tv as a monitor -- an Atari -- and the games we could play on it were just like the arcade versions! of Frogger and Pacman. I actually remember, however, my uncle having a Pong game when I was even younger than that, and how amazing it seemed to us. I also remember Egg McMuffins being Mcdonald's new product. I remember when cable tv was new, and not in every household -- and when MTV debuted. Madonna was a new artist when I was in high school. I could go on and on, if I hadn't already. And I certainly don't think of it as the good old days. The only thing I pine for from that time, ironically enough (though it may just be the normal progression), is the stronger sense of propriety, discretion, modesty we had then -- and which we, as teenagers,of course rallied against. I want to tell half the young women I see to put some more clothes on and respect themselves and that acting out sexually doesn't make them powerful. I guess that's why you have kids... so you CAN tell somebody that.