Opinion: Sunshine drive-in, square parking speaks to Springfield's history

There must be a message here someplace. I think if I’ve known people at the beginning of their careers and after retirement, it means I’m getting old.

What other ways are there to know if you are getting old?

As a matter of fact, there are others. You know you are getting old if you remember when gasoline cost less than 50 cents a gallon and service stations actually offered service. An attendant in uniform and neat little leather bow tie met you at the pump, filled the car with gas, cleaned the windshield, checked the oil and air in the tires, and swept out the car with a whisk broom.

You are getting old if you remember when your newspaper was delivered by a teenager on a bicycle and while you were asleep milk was delivered directly to your front porch by a delivery man wearing a white uniform.

You are getting up there in years if you think of your refrigerator as an icebox because your family once had a box containing a large block of ice delivered to the home by an iceman. The food remained fresh until the ice melted, which meant it was time for the iceman to return.

If you have a really good memory, you remember the adventure of emptying the pan filled to the brim with melted water from under the icebox. If you remember this experience, you may have a special fondness for your electric refrigerator.

Other aging clues may include remembering when Pepsi-Cola was a bigger bargain than Coca-Cola. Older folks may remember when a nickel Pepsi came in 12-ounce bottles and Coke, also at a nickel, came in six-ounce bottles. That sweet inequality didn’t last long.

If you were around prior to the genderization of the language, you remember when a female server in a restaurant was a waitress; a male, a waiter. Likewise, a female airline attendant was a stewardess, a male, a steward. If you remember those times, you may also remember that these terms properly identified all concerned and no one had reason to be insulted.

It may be that your birthday cake is overloaded with candles if you remember when the restored cars you covet at antique car shows were new state-of-the-art models.

You really feel your age when you learn that the car that was too expensive for you when it was new is now far out of your price range as an antique.

If you once had an eight-track stereo in your car, you remember you were on the cutting edge of audio sound technology. Back then, recorded music in the car was unheard of. Now you are getting old if you remember having owned one.

Before some unnamed wordsmith created the term, political correctness may have meant that you voted correctly, the political candidates you voted for being elected. Sounds reasonable to me. If it sounds reasonable to you, you may be getting old.

Longtime Springfieldians would say you are getting old if you remember the drive-in movie theater on East Sunshine at the very edge of town, the site of the ultramodern office complex Corporate Center, which now is far from the edge of town.

According to Springfield residents, you know you are getting old if you remember those pre-Battlefield Mall days when you could park on the public square downtown and shop in the big stores surrounding the square.

The final local aging test would be if you can remember traveling from Springfield to someplace on old Route 66. A golden memory, indeed.

If you can remember these things, good for you.

Joe McAdoo is former chairman of the communication department at Drury University.