Rose Madeline Mula Writes: It's a Wackadoodle World

Blickensderfer Manufacturing Company Groyen&Richtmann, Köln, 1910-1917; From Wikimedia Commons

They have all but disappeared — Ann, Rose, Jane, Robert, Joseph, William… and so many others. Not people, but the good, solid names of yesteryear. Names that inspired songwriters (Danny Boy, Sweet Caroline, Mary’s a Grand Old Name, Oh Johnny…). I seriously doubt that we’ll ever hear a musical tribute to Dweezil, Moon Unit, Zion Mixolydian, or Zillion Heir — which are just a few of the absurd names celebrities have recently saddled their children with in their determination to guarantee their offspring will stand out from the crowd (and probably hate their parents for life).

Especially disturbing is the name Tesla’s Elon Musk and his wife burdened their son with — X Æ A-Xii, which is even more bizarre than it looks here. The AE are supposed to be combined, but my keyboard can’t handle that. Neither can my brain. I’m sure it’s a formula for something significant, but how do you pronounce it? Isn’t this child abuse? Even daddy’s billions won’t help little what’s-his-name live that down.

Among other things that have disappeared, along with traditional names, are virgin brides. Actually virgins — period. And brides in general. It seems that fewer and fewer couples are opting for marriage these days as “living in sin” apparently is either no longer considered to be a sin or nobody cares. And the few marriages that do take place often feature the couple’s children as ring bearers and flower girls. In the dark ages, a popular inscription in the autograph books we all owned was “First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes (fill in a name) with a baby carriage.” Not any more. Not in that order.

Some items that were ubiquitous back in the day which today’s kids never heard of are fountain pens, ink (the liquid kind—not a cartridge), and school desks with ink wells. All gone.

Ash trays, too, have disappeared. Who would have predicted that? Every home had them — on floor stands, coffee tables, end tables, and even dining tables. Every thoughtful hostess (including me) provided pretty little individual ash trays as part of each place setting so guests could enjoy a relaxing smoke while dining. What were we thinking?!

Also gone are secretaries, now that computers have made learning to type almost mandatory for all, along with typewriters. In case you’re too young to remember, a typewriter was a clunky machine with a roller into which you fed a sheet of paper, two spools through which you threaded a narrow inked ribbon, and a keyboard. Every time you struck a key a lever with the corresponding letter would fly up, hit the ribbon and transfer that letter to the paper on the roller. If you hit the wrong key in that pre-word processing era, you couldn’t simply back space to erase it. You had to coat the incorrect letter with glop called Bic Wite-Out, let it dry and then type the correct letter over it. It fooled no one. The mistake was obvious. And since Xerox machines and printers had yet to grace the typical office, to make copies we had to use carbon paper/tissue stacks. I’ll spare you the description of how that worked. It’s much too painful to remember.

I was also happy to see the last of suitcases without wheels. No wonder they called it LUGgage. And it’s such a relief to women to no longer have to deal with girdles, garter belts, and nylon stockings with seams up the back that were impossible to keep straight.

Unfortunately, gone also are women’s bathing suits that — unlike today’s bikinis — actually covered more than the bare essentials. By the way, have you noticed that as women’s bikinis shrink, men’s bathing trunks get longer and baggier?

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Rose Madeline Mula Writes: It's a Wackadoodle World

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