It has come to my attention that there are things that my children and the children of future generations will never know, experience, or understand.
Dialing “0” for the operator. I actually tried this the other night to see if it still works. Apparently it does. (I think I woke her up.) Don’t know why anyone would use it now, but it’s good to know that it’s there if I need it. My children, however, have no idea what it’s for. Actually, I’m not sure if I have any idea what it’s for anymore.
Riding in cars without seat belts. Nowadays, children are not only strapped into seat belts, but they are rendered immobile by straps, and harnesses, and restraints that Houdini himself couldn’t wrestle out of. We grew up without seat belts of any kind. I remember babies on laps, laying on the back window of the car like a cat, riding in the bed of the pick up truck, and playing cards on the floor in the back seat. We survived…miraculously!
Saturday morning cartoons. Just Saturday morning. Not the 24/7 cartoons on a million different channels that the kids of today know. If we wanted to watch cartoons, we had to wait an entire week and get up early. If you slept in, you missed them and you had to wait another whole week! Oh my, the travesty!
Televisions without remote controls. I remember when the first remote control came out and it had a 10 foot long cable that plugged into the TV. But it only worked if you had a new TV. If you had a 13 channel dial TV, then forget about it, you still had to get your lazy butt off the couch and go change the channel yourself. And that’s if you were lucky enough to have all 13 channels. Some people only had the basic 3 local channels and then you didn’t even bother changing the channel because there was nothing good on anyway.
Fast food restaurants where the food was pre-made, kept lukewarm under glowing orange heat lamps, and it was not made to order! If you didn’t like pickles on your burger, you picked them off! There was no substitutions and there was no such thing as extra tomato, ketchup only, no onions, or sauce on the side.
Rotary dial telephones. It took longer to dial the phone than to have a conversation once someone answered. And there was no such thing as call display. Either you answered or you didn’t, and if you didn’t, then you had no idea who was calling. Disturbing, I know!
Car windows that you had to roll up by hand. No buttons to push, just good old-fashioned muscle power required, clockwise or counter-clockwise.
Encyclopedias. The books. Many people had the entire collection displayed in their homes in a wooden bookcase. I can remember many, many school projects copied directly from the encyclopedia pages, and by copied I mean by hand. Like, written out. In handwriting. Handwriting!
And granola bars didn’t always come in a box.
This is adapted from a recipe submitted by my cousin, Juliana, to our family cookbook that we published this summer for our family reunion. These bars can be individually wrapped and frozen and tossed into lunch boxes as needed.
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup butter
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 2 tablespoons liquid honey
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 egg
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1-1/2 cups quick oats
- 1-1/2 cups crisp rice cereal
- 1 cup chopped nuts (optional)
- 1-1/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (divided)
Directions
Preheat oven to 350 F.
In the bowl of your stand mixer, cream butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy. Add honey, vanilla, and egg. Mix well. Add flour, cinnamon, baking powder and salt and mix well. Stir in oats, rice cereal, nuts, and 1 cup of chocolate chips.
Line a 9"x13" baking pan with parchment paper. Press the mixture into the pan and smooth the top as much as possible, carefully pressing all the way to the sides and into the corners.
Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until the top is lightly browned. Remove from the oven and cool on a wire rack before cutting into 1" x 4-1/2" bars. This is done by cutting the pan in half lengthwise, then cutting each half into 13 individual 1" bars.
In a microwave safe bowl, melt 1/4 cup of chocolate chips in the microwave for 30 seconds. Stir gently and microwave for an additional 30 seconds if required. Once chips have melted completely, drizzle melted chocolate over the cut granola bars and let it set.
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