Deja Vu
July 1, 2024
Déjà vu
A few years ago, when my wife and I were very young and newly-married, one of the high points of the week was the trek to the grocery store. Our weekly food budget was usually between fifteen and twenty dollars. There was a bit of adventurousness in this because we were still learning what each other liked to eat. Gayle was making a lot of casseroles, and there were the occasional hot dogs, but we both wanted to spread our culinary wings.
Food, of course, wasn't the only challenge. We were also playing house; i.e., trying to figure out in our tiny third-floor apartment where to put the furniture, TV, desk, lamps, throw rugs. "What about curtains?" she might ask. "Curtains?" I might reply. "We need towels," she might say. "I'm sure we do," I might answer. There was even a time when she ironed the bed sheets.
Anyway, one thing we never forgot at the checkout lane was to pick up a copy of Family Circle magazine (sometimes Woman's Day). They were great magazines full of all the stuff we didn't know about housekeeping and cooking: How to slice onions; how to hang a curtain rod; how to fold fitted sheets (one of life's great mysteries still); even car maintenance like when to rotate your tires, change the oil, and how to do a good wax job.
We learned a lot from those staples and continued to buy them for a good many years. Something odd began to happen, however. As we continued to buy those magazines it began to seem as though there were more and more articles about things we'd already read, sometimes years before. Another article on the perfect Thanksgiving dinner? Been there, done that. Yet another article on the perfect Christmas wreath. Wasn't interested then, not interested now.
We finally stopped buying those magazines.
For some reason all of that came to mind recently as I was watching the news just before Memorial Day. There they were: estimates of how many cars would be on the road; crowd reports from the airports; the best days to travel (or not).
Which reminded me further of how the same reports would be broadcast before the Fourth of July and how, by October, we'd begin to receive the early shopping reports for Christmas, along with stunning little missives on the favorite Halloween candies and how to keep your littles safe when they go trick-or-treating. Later in the year we'll see another report about how New York City is preparing the big ball drop for New Year's Eve. You missed all that? Wait until next year.
Or course there's nothing fake about any of that. Somebody will broadcast the actual number to call for the Butterball Turkey Hot Line. And, yes, it's good to be reminded that, after the first snowfall, driving might be a bit hazardous.
Eventually, the answer became obvious. Those print and broadcast editors weren't simply recycling old ideas in order to fill space. What they were doing was reaching out to the next generation, a cadre that was probably as dumb as we were when we were just starting out, or that group that needs to be reminded of everything so they don't explode.
That's why, whenever we read or watch yet another report on how and when to use sunscreen, why you shouldn't leave your children in the car on a hot day, that it's not good to be outside when there's lightning, how to remove ticks, that tax time is approaching and here's what you should do, or when your child should get that first cellphone – one of us will quietly mumble – "Ah, Family Circle."
G.K Wuori ©2024
Photoillustration by the author