I don’t think I’m unique among old peeps when it comes to having no idea what happened to the world I used to know.

OK, there’s some hyperbole in that statement. Obviously, in a rational sense, I know exactly what happened. The low-tech, mechanical, person-to-person world of my Glory Days got first overtaken, and then got completely extincted by a high-tech, digital, essentially impersonal world. In-person interactions — banking, shopping, even dating — are now done almost exclusively online. Even conversation seems to become obsolete. Think I’m exaggerating? Go to any restaurant and see how many folks at the same table are actually holding conversations, versus those who are chatting between texts — if chatting at all.

But beyond the technological, one huge change is the national naivete of my youth has been replaced by fear. It seems Americans are afraid of almost everything, no matter how implausible or remote. But one fear that is based in reality is our fear of lawsuits. The average college freshman might not be sure if FDR is a new party drug or if Michelangelo is a pasta dish, but they know for sure that if they got their feelings hurt by something you said or made them read, they can sue you out of your BVD’s.

Of course, it’s not just among college students, or any students — every Tom, Dick and Raheen who can’t find his fidooly with both hands knows if anything goes wrong with ANYTHING, they’ll hire some ambulance chaser (on a contingency basis, of course). Then, once the forensic dust settles and the shyster takes his or her third, they’ll never again have to work a day in their life. As a result, all our institutions have doubled their insurance and doubled-down on their defenses, creating a society run for the most part by and for lunatics.

A plain old, simple-minded Dope who pretty much trusts everyone doesn’t stand a chance anymore.

How’s about this? I know I was born in a hospital — the one that’s currently the NCCC admin building, in fact — but I was socialized in snack bars and lunch counters. They were the social hub of My Home Town and you couldn’t throw half a brick in any direction without hitting one. All the drugstores had one; so did Woolworths and the bowling alley. Then were small diners and cafes up and down the town — at one time we had two 24-hour ones, Tyson’s and Ethel’s (later DJ’s). A cup of coffee was maybe two-bits; the floor show was free.

While each lunch counter had a different ambiance due to its workers and customers, they all had two things in common. One was a bright blue Bromo-Seltzer dispenser conspicuously displayed on a back shelf. Back in the days when grease was king, smoking was good for you and the word “acid reflux” had not yet hit the light of day. Indigestion and heartburn were as common as shined shoes and oily hair tonics. So the Bromo display was not for show.

And along with gut rot were some industrial-strength hangovers. As a result, all the lunch counters kept a bottle of aspirin on hand but out of sight. I can’t tell you how many times I heard some poor soul who looked like he just survived the Ham and Eggs Fire cry out for aspirin, like a drowning man would for a life ring.

But both the Bromo dispenser and the aspirin have vanished from the American landscape. And why is that? Fear of lawsuits, of course. Someone’s guts burst into flames after woofin down a bowl of chili, or someone else feels like he just got through 15 rounds with Muhammad Ali, it’s tough noogs all around.

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We didn’t need no stinkin’ badges

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Having been in the Ed Biz for 40 years, I try to monitor the changes in education. Notice I said “I try,” because at this point, it’s all beyond me.

Fr’instance, I saw in the Enterprise an article about Tupper Lake hiring a school safety officer. From the job title alone, I couldn’t figure out what his specific job duties are. In the article, it mentioned traffic control and pretty much listening to kids — things no one can disagree with. But beyond that, is he expected to break up fights, chase graffiti artists to ground, solve cases of vandalism and other cop-like duties?

In my school days, the suggestion for a school safety officer would’ve been met with a chorus of catcalls and Bronx cheers. Why? Because when it came to policing and punishing misbehaviors, we had a whole bunch of SSOs. They weren’t labeled that. Instead, we called them teachers, and woe betide the scofflaw or wiseass who — to use a then-popular but now quaint term — got too big for his britches.

Oh yeah, and as for traffic safety? Another quaint notion: We had patrol boys, kids in maybe seventh grade who, with their bright white Sam Brown belts and hand-held stop signs, directed kids to and fro on crosswalks and actually were expected to stop traffic. It was a big honor to be selected a patrol boy. It was also poor judgment to put tykes in charge of such a thing. But perhaps due to divine protection, I never remember a patrol boy getting flattened while on duty, and likewise, I don’t remember any of their charges getting nailed either.

Something that’s a big issue today but was no issue when I was a kid is drugs. And it wasn’t an issue for the simple reason we didn’t have any. Matter of fact, the most daring drug taking I heard about was having an aspirin and Coke. It was supposedly a high that rivaled mainlining China White — at least according to its devotees. I never tried it and always thought it proved the power of the combination gullibility and ignorance. But if today those was the worst drugs kids had access to, we’d be overjoyed.

As a result of the drug problems we face today, schools have all sorts of presentations and interventions, and very strict policies about what students can and cannot bring into school without express permission. I’ve heard that even aspirin is on that list. It’s certainly a commendable effort, and I hope it works, but once again, as I said from the start, this is all taking place in an arena I know nothing about.

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A red-blooded American boy

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One interesting Seide note: Also strictly banned in school are knives. In my Gilded Youth, the idea of a red-blooded American boy going anywhere WITHOUT a jackknife was as absurd as him walking around butt-nekkid. A pocket knife was not only a necessity, it was a rite of passage — with your first one you were on your way to certified manhood.

Or at least that’s how I saw it. My mother, on the other hand, was not convinced. In fact, once I started asking for a knife (at age six, as I recall) she positively forbade me to have one. And since I suffered a serious cash flow problem, there was no way I could run her blockade. And thus, it was my Uncle Irving to the rescue.

Uncle Irving was my favorite relative. He was a sweet guy with a goofy sense of humor and a heart of gold. He also could fix anything, so he understood the necessity of carrying a knife. As for a little kid having one, he understood that perfectly, too, since in many ways he was a big kid. Anyhow, on the great occasion of state of my seventh birthday, and away from my mother’s gimlet eye, he gave me my first knife.

I remember it perfectly. It was from a freebie from a Purina promotion, and had a red and white checkerboard with the brand name on the handle. The blade and handle were the perfect size for me and it was solidly made. It was also fiendishly sharp.

As I said, once I asked for a pocket knife, my mother put an ad hoc ban on them. Of course, she was only concerned for my welfare, which she “explained” in one short sentence, i.e., “You’ll cut yourself.” Of course, I told her I wouldn’t, but that fell on deaf ears, blind eyes and a totally unsympathetic heart.

While I’d heard the cliche “honesty is the best policy,” I was smart enough to know that in this case it wasn’t. Thus I relied on another cliche: “What they don’t know can’t hurt ’em.” And so, I made sure my mother didn’t know that, her ban be damned, I had a knife.

The “what they don’t know, can’t hurt ’em” cliche was — in this case, at least — perfectly true. No harm befell my mother. But the same couldn’t be said for me. Within my first hour as a knife owner, I was whittling a stick when suddenly, I whittled my thumb as well, slicing off a dime-size chunk atop my knuckle.

Oh, the bleeding! Oh, the pain! And maybe worst of all, the humiliation, having disobedience and stupidity exposed to all the world, including She Who Must Be Obeyed and our saintly family doctor, Dr. Bellaire.

Eventually, the pain and humiliation faded, and an unstated though uneasy truce was declared between my mother and me.

But best of all, my lightheartedness and legendary joie de vivre returned.

Which, I might add, is more than I can say for my jacknife.