Ah the 'Simple' Things in Life

I don't by any stretch of the imagination presume that I am of the 'older generation'. I was around when cell phones came into popular use and have had one for years. I've been using the internet since grade school, and computer classes were standard at all grade levels.

On the flip side, I don't feel as though I have been raised in such a technology world that I haven't been exposed to the more simple things in life. I've had drinks from the hose and played night games in our neighborhood streets, I've used paper phone books and maps and know the purpose of an index and glossary.

But something happened this weekend that made me, 20 years old, feel like I was in a whole different generation.

I was tending a family in my wards kids, making sure they got to their games and birthday parties while their parents were out of town. I was taking their 8th grader to her lacrosse game along with her 9th grade friend and her friends 3rd grade brother (I tell you their grades to show that these kids have been around for a little while at least). As we were driving home from the game, it was pretty toasty in my car, the AC hadn't cooled all the way yet and the youngest wanted the window down, so I told him to go ahead and roll it down.

He didn't know how.

Now my car doesn't have automatic windows and locks so the inside of the door looks like this:
 



None of the kids in my car at that time had any idea what that little mechanism was. Once I showed them the incredible simplicity, they were enthralled! They thought it was the coolest thing ever.

From my perspective, I see this as a little old school, but not retro by any means. Am I that dated?

Anyway, they had a great time being the power in my not-powered windows, rolling them up and down the whole way home. Then as we pulled into the drive way and I am about to turn off the car, the youngest quickly exclaims that I need to wait to shut the car off so he can roll up the window. I just have to smile at this point.

The beauty of manual windows is that they are manual all the time. Not just when the car is on.

And again, coolest thing ever.

This just makes me wonder, where do kids these days think the expressions like 'roll down the window' come from? So many things must make no sense to them, but I feel as though I have done my small part in educating a little about the simple things in life.