‘When I was young...’: The annoying things we feel nostalgic for

Remember the days of the humble street directory, when you had to pull out a physical map and direct yourself to a location without the help of an iPhone?

Every car had one.

“In 100 metres, turn left at Abernathy Drive,” my car’s navigation system announced, just as we sailed past Abernathy Drive.

“That’s a little bit annoying,” I said – or words to that effect – to my daughter and her friends in the back seat.

Then, when the navigation system tried to take me down a one-way street after “rerouting”, I said: “Well, we wouldn’t have to reroute at all if the silly old thing had taken us the right way in the first place, would we, girls?”, or something along those lines, I really can’t remember.

Anyway, after not swearing at the sat nav system at all, I then regaled them with a tale that began with those words teenagers love the world over: “You know, when I was young …”

How did we navigate these, while driving?

Oh yes, they just ripped those Airpods from their ears when they heard that, let me tell you.

“You know, when I was young,” I said, “we actually had to use our own navigation skills by using a street directory.

“That’s right, we had to learn how to read maps, and use co-ordinates to work out the best route to go ourselves, and you know what?

“I think it would be really great if you girls had to learn those skills as well, it could come in handy, what do you think?”

My daughter answered from the back seat: “I think we are not Magellan, Mum.” And she’s right, we are not.

And while life has gotten a lot easier in so many marvellous ways, sometimes I do long for something a bit more hands-on, don’t you?

A bit more human. A bit more roll-up-the-sleeves? A bit more fighting over the Morgans/Gregorys/Melways/UBD/Refidex, depending on which state of Australia you were lost in.

Aaah, the street directory, every car once had one, and every family had its designated navigator, a thankless task that involved a lot of arguing and a lot of “Well, if you think you can do a better job, Kevin, why don’t you pull over and do it yourself?”

Frances Whiting at home. Picture: Mark Cranitch

Aah the street directory, you’d open it up and then perform the following monologue from your passenger seat. “Okay, Victoria Street, right, here we go … page 34, A7.

“Right, here it is, just along here … dammit! It’s in the fold. It’s in the fold! Wait a minute, wait a minute I’ve got it, we go down here to the end of the street, we turn left into Holsworth Drive and nooooo, I have to go to page 47.

“Who makes these things? This doesn’t make any sense at all.

“Oh really? Well I tell you what, Susan, here it is, you do it, no really, look I’ve shut the page, you can start over, and see how far that gets us.”

It’s easy to feel nostalgic for the past, isn’t it? Until you start remembering how it actually was, and suddenly Google Maps doesn’t seem so bad.

At least, when it does reroute you/try to take you down a one-way street/direct you to a potato field (this has actually happened to me), it is one of the only times in your life you can truly say, “This is not my fault.”

Originally published as ‘When I was young...’: The annoying things we feel nostalgic for