Imagining old people as young in old-time Phoenix


OK, admit it, there's a thought that's crossed your mind at some time when you've looked at an elderly person and you wondered if they were ever young? It might have been when you were wondering how someone could get so old and cranky, or how someone could be so wonderfully wise, but it can be difficult to imagine old people as young, which of course they were. Everyone who is old was young at one time, and everyone who is young, God willing, will be old someday.

As a person who's interested in old photos, I enjoy seeing people of all ages, and as a time-traveler in my imagination I try to get a feel for what their life was like, young and old. And I do something kind of unusual sometimes - sometimes I look at someone and imagine them many years in the future. I especially do this when I see young parents. I'll see if I can explain, time-travel with me.

I have coffee every morning at my local McDonald's and the regular crowd that shuffles in, mostly from the retirement community next door, makes me wonder what their life was like back in the day. But then I see the young parents, who usually arrive a little later, getting a happy meal or taking the kids to the play area, and I turn it backwards. I imagine that it's several decades later, and I'm looking at a picture of the kid's parents, back when they were young, waaaaay back in January of 2020 (which is when I'm writing this).

It's just an ordinary morning, but I'm seeing a snapshot that would be precious in twenty or thirty years. A young adult might look at that photo and wonder what life was like that then. Everything is so commonplace to our eyes, and in the future it will be so wonderful, amazing, and maybe even puzzling.

The people are holding little rectangular boxes, looking at them, tapping on them, and even talking on them. Apparently they were called Smart Phones. And some of them are holding green pieces of paper, which they're handing to a person who is standing behind a counter.



And look at those prices! That's ridiculous! Those were the days!

I can hardly believe this! Dad has a beard! And he's smiling! And he has his arm around mom! What are those things that she has in her ears? They're not earrings, I think they were called "ear buds", to listen to music?

How incredible to think of old people as young! And what a world they lived in, everything seemed simpler. I wonder what a Big Mac was?
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