I don't own a basketball pump anymore. My Grandnephew's Christmas soccer ball was delivered this morning uninflected. I know I already bought him a customized wooden box(we done he call it a "jewelry box) and a gold plated chain with his team number 3, but he sent me his Christmas wish list to forward to Mom. It included a soccer ball, and Mom said she would not be buying that for him.
So, as my role as the silly, fun uncle, I bought it. It's my sworn duty to spoil him. But I realize that some of the staple goods of childhood are no longer to be found in the Luxurious Pimplebutt Estate. No skate key, no transistor AM radio, no airplane glue, no stack of Mad Magazines.
I know that technology has rendered all my childhood accoutrement useless. The sidesaddle baskets on bicycles have been supplanted by bullet-proof backpacks. The transistor radio is now an iPod. The skate key morphed into Wheelies.
I pined for the future as a kid. Hopes of flying cars and the George Jetson lifestyle beckoned. But here we are, on the cusp of a new year and a new decade and I find myself missing 1964 more every day.