I was thinking about music this morning, when it occurred to me that you no longer see on regular television advertisements for ‘party mixes’. You know, those ‘dance CDs’ that have all the greats? A recent conversation with a friend, who is an associate professor at a university in Michigan and teaches freshman, showed me some of the differences in kids these days. These thoughts have made me think about the differences between what we liked in the 90s and what we like now, late 2008.

‘Kids these days’ spend a lot of time on facebook, like when they should be paying attention to a lecture. I suppose they do this instead of sleeping. A few years ago, it was noted that kids these days no longer listen to albums, rather they pick their favorite songs and assign them to playlists. Today, my friend noticed, that kids don’t even listen to songs, instead they pick out parts of the song they enjoy stylistically and mesh one part with another.

I grew up in the 80s and 90s. I suppose that makes me a part of Generation X. My mother is a baby boomer, although she was born a bit later, she is the product of parents who were directly affected by World War II. My step-father fit certain stereotypes of the 70s, the time when he was in college. There is a fabulous picture of him and his three friends, all with long hair, looking like the party kids of those days. When I grew up bell-bottoms were not fashionable, they were shunned. When I was younger, we french-rolled our jeans to make them even tighter and more tapered. We even drew our socks over our jeans. We wore loafers, and we did this goofy knot on the end so we never had to tie them. Correction, others did that as I could never figure out the magic of the knot. We had a pogo ball, and the commercial was even shot at our local John Ball Park Zoo. French-rolls and pogo balls fell away to Red Hot Chile Peppers and Nirvana while I was in high school. My friends and I loved watching movies, and quick favorites were Sleepless in Seattle and The American President. The summer I graduated high school, a favorite blockbuster was Twister. Today, we have more superheroes in Hancock and The Dark Knight.

I wonder what other changes there are that I can’t see. So, we no longer have party mixes, pogo balls, and music and movies are forever changing. Bell-bottoms are back, although we don’t dare call them that. But, please let me have my flared pants because boot-cut just won’t do.