March 2011 - Mark Kaplowitz

31 March 2011

Remember Wearing Fanny Packs?

Remember wearing fanny packs? I do. Fanny packs were manufactured pouches of canvas or leather that buckled around the waist and let people live out their fantasy of being marsupials. My fanny pack was turquoise and yellow, and it ensured that my wallet was accessible and that girls were not. My mother wrote my name in it with black magic marker...

Fashion Comments: 0

28 March 2011

Remember Napster?

Remember Napster? I do. Napster was a peer-to-peer file sharing program that was popular around the turn of the millennium, and enabled people to download music that would otherwise have to be purchased with their parents’ hard-earned money. To get around the troublesome copyright laws, Napster employed the ancient legal doctrine of “they can’t catch you all.” I used Napster...

Technology Comments: 0

25 March 2011

Remember When Containers Were Easy To Open?

Remember when containers were easy to open? I do. Sometime in the 1980s it was decided that the biggest threat to human existence was not disease or environmental disaster or crime or drugs or famine or political instability, but that a stranger would go into supermarkets, unscrew the tops of containers of juice and medicine, add harmful substances, screw the top...

Safety Comments: 0

23 March 2011

Remember When Drinking Was a Novelty?

Remember when drinking was a novelty? I do. For every person who has decided to let alcohol be a part of their lives, there was that magical time when drinking was a new experience. Maybe it was when they chugged a beer in twenty seconds at a New Year’s Eve party and basked in the accolades until upstaged by a...

Health and Fitness Comments: 0

21 March 2011

Remember When People Passed Notes in Class?

Remember when people passed notes in class? I do. In third grade I conspired with some classmates to make another classmate believe he was being stalked by a ghost. I wrote notes in a squiggly lettering that said things like “Your parents don’t love you” and “Courdoroy pants are in your future.” We would leave the notes on his chair...

School Comments: 0

18 March 2011

Remember When You Could Go To the Supermarket Without Being Offered Something You Didn’t Want?

Remember when you could go to the supermarket without being offered to enter a contest, or asked to make a donation, or join a mailing list, or solicited with anything other than the items you went there to buy? I do. My childhood memories of going to the supermarket are sepia-toned. Mostly I remember buying a lot of cereal, and begging...

Commerce and Marketing Comments: 0

17 March 2011

Remember When URLs Did Not Change?

Remember when a website’s URL never changed? I do. Actually, I don’t. URLs change all the time, and this one is going to change to “schlabadoo.com” later tonight, March 17, 2011, just as soon as I finish scrubbing the chicken burger grease off the grill pan. If you need to reprogram your reader or something, just drop the “wordpress” and...

URL Changes Comments: 0

16 March 2011

Remember When You Weren’t Offered A Rewards Card at Every Store?

Remember when you weren’t offered a rewards card at every store you went to? I do. In the beginning supermarkets offered discounts through coupons, which required clipping and a fair amount of chutzpah at the check out line. Then one day, a supermarket executive says, “Hey, if we’re going to offer discounts, we may as well track our customers’ purchases...

Commerce and Marketing Comments: 0

14 March 2011

Remember When Memory Was Not the Hottest Topic Around?

Remember when memory was not the hottest topic around? I do. A few months ago I saw a segment on 60 Minutes about people who remember the details of every day of their lives, such as what they had for dinner and whether it was a night to put out the regular garbage or the paper garbage. And yesterday I read...

Current Events Comments: 0

11 March 2011

Remember Your First Answering Machine?

Remember your first answering machine? I do. In the days when I was still watching new episodes of Thundercats, if someone called and no one was home, or if someone was home but was in the shower and did not hear the phone ring, or if they did hear it ring but were afraid of getting electrocuted by picking up the phone...