I never thought I'd miss elevator music

Is it possible to find good ol' elevator music anymore?  It seems like my past several rides have been shared with a little TV screen instead of bad music.   I  prefer the bad music.  At least there was a chance you might have a short conversation with a fellow rider.  Now everyone is so engrossed in the screen that I'm afraid to make idle chit-chat for fear of interrupting.  I admit that it was just idle chit-chat.  But at least it was human contact.  In fact, I've learned some interesting things in elevators.  One elevator in Chicago held three out of four riders with summer homes in Michigan.  Once I was told for the fourth time that I had the look of a Kennedy. (Which I'd always taken as a compliment until I saw pictures in a special article on the Kennedys in Newsweek Magazine. Oh well.)  In elevators, I've collected names of new perfumes, told dapper gentlemen that I liked their bow ties and learned how to say some numbers in Arabic.  All of which I find much more interesting than the weather on the little TV screen. 

Instead of absorbing myself in the screen on my last elevator ride, I started thinking about all of the other things I'm missing due to modern technology.  I'm sure there are plenty of modern things that I use everyday and never think about how much I appreciate them.  But they're here now and maybe I'll be mourning them in 20 years when they're gone.  Here are a few of the things that I wish were still around.

-The smell of bacon coming from open windows on summer mornings, instead of sealed up houses full of air conditioning.
-Wondering who's calling, instead of deciding if I want to answer.
-Kids with grass stains from real grass playgrounds.
-Not paying extra for the guy to pump my gas.
-Small, messy bookstores, instead of huge bookstores or worse yet, no bookstores at all.
-Wool sweaters that got stinky when they got wet, instead of fleece.  (Do cheerleaders still wear wool?)
-The anticipation of checking the real mailbox when I get home.
-Kids carrying their books to school, girls held to their chests and boys to their sides, instead of wheeling their backpacks. 
-Hearing people's conversations in their cars at red lights because they had their windows down.
-Dressing up for flights.
-Bird songs outside my window, instead of the neighbor's air conditioner.
-Photo albums, instead of computer screens.
-Seeing how people so precisely fold their newspapers to read them in public places. Does anyone read the newspaper anymore?
-Learning something about strangers at a bus stop based on the titles of their books, instead of their titleless Readers, Nooks and iPads.
-Square ice cubes from real ice cube trays, instead of automatic ice makers.
-Passing houses on the sidewalk and hearing plates and silverware clank in the kitchen.  Strange, but it's one of my favorites, and I'm afraid air conditioners have robbed that one, too.
-Brown lunch bags with potato chip grease stains, instead of colorful, nylon insulated bags.
-Chalkboards. Green ones with yellow chalk and black ones with white chalk.
-The swishing of brooms and scraping of rakes, instead of noisy leaf blowers.
-Ladies with curlers in their hair.

I guess I shouldn't have shrugged my shoulders when my parents used to talk about the good old days. Eventually we all mourn them.  But they must be good enough to appreciate while we have them, or we wouldn't miss them when they're gone.  So I thought I might suggest that on your next elevator ride you could pass the time thinking about what you miss about the good old days and what you appreciate about the present days.  Unless, of course, you find the weather more interesting.