Retro Ramblings
Hypercolor: The Shirt That Exposed All My Sweaty Secrets
My Hypercolor shirt changed colors, all right—mostly under the arms and across my stomach, creating a heat‑sensitive map of every place I wished people wouldn’t look. …
Teenager
Retro Ramblings
Today’s Shopping Centers Can’t Compare to Yesterday’s Malls
Indoor malls were climate‑controlled wonderlands where you could wander for hours, eat questionable food court pizza, and feel like life was happening all in one glowing, tiled universe. …
Retro Ramblings
Friday Night at the Rink
On Friday nights the skating rink felt like the center of the universe, all neon lights, loud music, and kids wobbling through freedom on four wheels. It was chaos, it was magic, and it was ours. …
Retro Ramblings
Columbia House Was the First Subscription Service That Played Me Like a Fiddle
“Back then I thought Columbia House was the greatest deal ever made. Twelve CDs for a penny felt like I’d beaten the system, right up until they mailed me albums I never ordered and billed me like an adult. …
Retro Ramblings
Nostalgia From a Five Dollar Chalupa
Paying over five dollars for a single Chalupa made me realize how far Taco Bell has drifted from the cheap, late‑night hangout it was in the nineties, when a few crumpled dollars could fuel an entire night. …
Retro Ramblings
The Pizza Hut Street Basketball Made Me Look Like a Doofus
Every March, when the brackets come out, I don’t think about buzzer‑beaters or star players. I think about that wild neon Pizza Hut street ball from 1993, the one I was sure would turn me into a basketball legend. …
Retro Ramblings
Ringing in the New Year With MTV ’92: A New Year’s Special
In those years before I had a driver’s license, before I could pile into a friend’s car, blast the radio, and roam around town on New Year’s Eve like we …
Front Porch Philosophy
The Andy Griffith Christmas Episode
When I think about Christmas on television, there are plenty of specials and sitcom episodes that come to mind. But none of them hold the same place in my heart …
Retro Ramblings
Freedom From Want
There’s a painting you’ve probably seen before by Norman Rockwell called “Freedom From Want.” It’s the one with the big family gathered around the table, Grandma setting down a turkey …
Retro Ramblings
The Death of Superman
The Death of Superman wasn’t just a comic book storyline for some of us, it was a cultural earthquake that turned me, a wide-eyed 14-year-old, into a full-blown comic collector …